aniki

Here’s a little of what I was alluding to in my previous post: https://www.vice.com/en/article/people-booking-pirate-recording-studios-for-parties/

My experience of Pirate echoes many of those already stated. Was a user from the beginning and rarely had a single booking without some kind of issue. To be fair to Pirate, the vast majority of problems were just down to people being tw@s! Unfortunately Pirate didn't account for this in their business model. Problems I experienced: Other bands not finishing soon enough to be out of the room at the end of their session (me paying for their time to pack their sh!t up) Other bands leaving trash randomly lying around the room Other users blatantly smoking cigarettes or vapes or dope inside the building (probably the cause of multiple fire alarms) Multiple fire alarms disrupting sessions with similar lack of protocol for investigation as above Arriving at a session to find all the equipment stacked up in a corner of the room Arriving at a session to find some of the equipment broken, missing or not as expected (paid for when booking) Difficulty trying to talk to a human when something goes wrong People and their mates gathering outside studios making lots of noise and generally being antisocial Problems I 'had heard' about which may or may not be true: People renting large rooms and holding all night parties for their mates People renting rooms to play music and take drugs People renting rooms to take hookers to People renting rooms to take hookers to AND take drugs AND leave dead hooker in room A couple of years ago Pirate contacted all registered users asking for them to upload scans of their passports. At this point the party was over for me. They didn't get my details and I started using another studio. No regrets to be honest. Like a lot of things; it was great while it was, then people came along and screwed it up for everyone...

I really expected more from the Venture range. The PFs had nice tone but for me still lacked that mystery special sauce that I only get with heavy amps. My old SVT200 absolutely decimated the PF800 I owned briefly for volume! As such, won’t be throwing any more money at this tech until there’s a fundamental change.

I don't have a thread for the board I'm afraid. It's evolved a bit since that photo: It probably looks way more complicated than it is; considering most of the time I'm just playing clean bass! Basically all the pedals at the back stay on. Everything is controlled via the six switches at the front. - The clean signal enters via a patch bay into the tuner and then compressor (always on). The clean signal then goes through a looper with which I can add 'phaser / reverb' and / or delay. This signal then goes to the ABYbaby which splits the signal into two. The switches select either output or both. Output B goes straight to another patchbay through to my clean amp. Output A goes to another looper. This has distortion / noise gate on the first loop and flanger on the second. Again, I can combine dirty with clean, dirty and flanger with clean etc. The output from the looper then goes to another patchbay output to my dirty amp. - A lot of the time I'm playing guitar type parts with the clean channel and the phaser. When things get heavy, I use unaffected clean channel combined with distorted dirty channel for ultimate planetary destruction...

Different tools for different jobs to be honest. I rely on my bass for the majority of my tone. However, the orange has a smoother, warmer sound as it has a tube preamp. Although I brighten it up a bit with different preamp tubes and using full-range drivers in my cabs. The hd150 has an ultra clean solid state preamp so naturally sounds brighter. Depending on which band I’m playing with and where, will determine which amp I use. If I’m using both, the MM does the clean channel and Orange does the dirty.

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Yup. Either the Orange AD200 or Musicman HD150. As 'backups' I have an Orange OB1 and Ampeg SVT200. Why? Never played a class D amp that didn't sound like dog poo...

I used to like the 810 due to having drivers up closer to your ears. My back of course no longer likes this solution! Nowadays I prefer 15's to anything. I run either two 15's stacked vertically or if with the 'two amp band', 4x 15's. They're all neo's so simple to move around. The cabs are fairly efficient and I use tube heads so volume is never an issue (except being too loud) Tonally I get everything from my basses rather than pedals and don't find 15's lacking in any way...

I wish I could understand why tube watts sound so much louder than class D watts as it would have saved me a lot of time and money over the years. But I don't. Maybe it is all in compression and transients and whatever... I toyed with some class D when they first became available in pro audio circles but just couldn't get what I wanted. Quickly went back to tubes or conventional transformer amps for the next decade or so. I've posted this on here before but as it's relevant I'll repeat; I usually use one of two tube amps. a 150 watt or a 200 watt. Either amp will easily over-power loud drums and guitars and cause my rehearsal room to reverberate to the point where it feels like it'll disintegrate. They sound loud yes, but they have 'grunt' / 'slam' etc. and it's 'effortless'. Some time last year I bought a 750 watt class D amp on a whim. It obviously had high wattage; it could easily push the speaker cone to maximum excursion. BUT, and it's a big but, it sounded like pure shite however it was EQ'd and had absolutely zero 'grunt'. (Through the same speaker I might add). Once the rest of the band started playing, the only way I could be heard was boosting mids and treble but there was no actual 'bass'. This has been my experience every time I play a gig and am offered the use of another bands rig. If it's something I've not tried before I always give it a quick bash but more often than not revert to a trusty OB1 or Hartke! I must admit that some sound better than others so they can't all be using the same tech... Maybe in another 20 years someone will have figured it all out but until then its tube power all the way for me.

I placed one order with BAX just before xmas. They sent me a broken item (that was clearly broken when it was packed) that was probably a customer return. I photographed it and sent it back the next day. Took 6 weeks and a tone of hassle / phone calls / emails / claims to get the refund. I have since bought many items at a higher price from other retailers and will NEVER USE BAX again. It's not like they're a supplier of niche items; I only used them as they were 'cheaper'. They were due to be struck off the company register any day now due to non-disclosure of accounts. Apparently they have raised an 'objection' which probably just means they're trying to buy a bit more time to scam people for a bit longer!

I didn’t; a crime was committed, the police were involved and he was subsequently removed from here anyway.

I bought a bass from a seller on here about 18 months ago; he had lots of great feedback and a lot of successful transactions. He insisted on a bank transfer as 'there had been a lot of scammers active lately'. I did a bank transfer (reluctantly) and it turned out the seller was knowingly selling me a stolen item. Took me about 12 months to resolve and whole ton of aggro. As such, I will never use bank transfer for anything of a value I'm not prepared to lose.

Appreciate this isn’t my thread but just a quick update on my Bax experience. My item (guitar stand) turned up. A day late, but before xmas so all good? No. The outer packaging was pristine however the box inside, containing my stand was shabby and torn. Unsurprisingly one of the stand legs was completely snapped off and rattling around in the box. I’d bet good money on this being something someone else had already returned! Bax were quick to approve my return and send me a shipping label but something in this condition should never have been sent. They could have at least checked it before shipping. Luckily gear4music came to the rescue and I got a fully intact stand delivered today.

Coincidentally, BAX have just failed to deliver my latest order on time. Ordered on Tuesday; web page said order now for delivery on Thursday. Received invoice later that day stating Thursday delivery day. As of today (Thursday) have had no shipping advice. I phoned them and they said it was down to Parcelforce being behind and was nothing to do with them. Well, I'm sorry BAX, it's everything to do with you if you make promises you can't keep. Cuts a little deeper also because I had exactly the same nonsense the last time I ordered from them. I seem to recall an older purchase going smoothly but after this they're dead to me. I phoned them to try and sort it out to no avail; even though the parcel is still at their warehouse, their 'system' prevents them from cancelling my order and issuing an immediate refund. I have to wait until delivery is attempted and then refuse and wait for a refund. Probably about a two week turnaround! I told them their system was BS and totally NOT customer focused which made me feel about 10% better. But yeah, no more BAX business from me. Ironically I had a bass shipped from Australia (the same day as my BAX order) which is already in the UK and due for delivery tomorrow....