Had Enough, almost went full Basil.

[Chiliwailer]

Almost had a Basil Fawlty type moment while recording, though just about spared beating my Jazz Bass...

 

 

Best not take it out on the bass when other factors are at play too, just took me a bit to realise 😂

 

Edited Sunday at 13:39 by Chiliwailer

[Mrbigstuff]

1 hour ago, Chiliwailer said:

Almost had a Basil Fawlty type moment while recording, though just about spared beating my Jazz Bass...

 

 

Best not take it out on the bass when other factors are at play too, just took me a bit to realise 😂

 

Bad sound or playing?

[Chiliwailer]

13 minutes ago, Mrbigstuff said:

Bad sound or playing?

Sorry, I should elaborate - I was getting a terrible hum, really standing out on a quiet part of the track. But wasn’t get it so much on my Ray, I put it down to single coil issues and home electrics,  but then realised the culprit was in the chain and the different setting I use for each bass didn’t come into my mind at the time, doh 🙄

 

Ended up using the Ray anyway, but good to know as it’s been nearly a year since I gave my Jazz a good work out. 

[Mrbigstuff]

27 minutes ago, Chiliwailer said:

Sorry, I should elaborate - I was getting a terrible hum, really standing out on a quiet part of the track. But wasn’t get it so much on my Ray, I put it down to single coil issues and home electrics,  but then realised the culprit was in the chain and the different setting I use for each bass didn’t come into my mind at the time, doh 🙄

 

Ended up using the Ray anyway, but good to know as it’s been nearly a year since I gave my Jazz a good work out. 

Different basses hum worse than others. I had an 80’s Tokai which had it really bad even when going straight into a DI.

[Lozz196]

I’ve told you once, now you’re going to get a thrashing!

 

Classic Fawlty moment, certainly had my fair share of them.

[Elfrasho]

I always worried about these things until the isolated tracks of famous tunes started to get released online. They're a bit of an eye opener and it made me rethink what's actually important about recording!

 

Saying that, I'd never send a track to a studio if I'm doing a sesh if it's full of noise from my home setup, but if im on location doing recordings and theres some noise, I wouldn't go nuts about it.

Edited Sunday at 15:35 by Elfrasho

[Chiliwailer]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

I’ve told you once, now you’re going to get a thrashing!

 

Classic Fawlty moment, certainly had my fair share of them.

Yep, classic Fawlty with a mix of classic Homer afterwards, a nice big doh! 

[Chiliwailer]

1 hour ago, Mrbigstuff said:

Different basses hum worse than others. I had an 80’s Tokai which had it really bad even when going straight into a DI.

Really glad that it’s not the bass after all, I was already stumped with what to replace it with while I was in Basil mode… 

[crazycloud]

Good thing it wasn't a Warwick...

[HeadlessBassist]

I had a similar issue at a theatre on Saturday. The in-house lighting guy had put one of those automated turning and tilting round LED multi colour lights right next to where I was playing. Every time I moved to the right, my Jazz Elite's preamp started whining & hissing like crazy! I thought it was unusual at the time, as that bass is usually as quiet as a comatose mouse. I've attached a picture here - you can see it through the legs of my Fender Stool. 

 

[Mrbigstuff]

8 hours ago, HeadlessBassist said:

I had a similar issue at a theatre on Saturday. The in-house lighting guy had put one of those automated turning and tilting round LED multi colour lights right next to where I was playing. Every time I moved to the right, my Jazz Elite's preamp started whining & hissing like crazy! I thought it was unusual at the time, as that bass is usually as quiet as a comatose mouse. I've attached a picture here - you can see it through the legs of my Fender Stool. 

 

I think you’ve been mis-sold a jazz elite 😉

[tauzero]

Years ago, I was doing some recording straight into the studio desk. My Antoniotsai active bass was picking up lots of interference and the engineer offered the use of a Precision that could have been used at Agincourt, the neck was so bowed (and it had one string too few). Fortunately I also had a passive Peavey Zephyr with me and that proved interference-proof.

 

When I thought about it afterwards, it did occur to me that I could just have gone into the studio away from the racks and racks of electronic gear and used a DI box.

[jd56hawk]

On 07/09/2025 at 08:42, Chiliwailer said:

Almost had a Basil Fawlty type moment while recording, though just about spared beating my Jazz Bass...

 

 

Best not take it out on the bass when other factors are at play too, just took me a bit to realise 😂

 

Just watched all twelve episodes this past weekend...can't even count how many times I've rewatched Fawlty Towers.

Still funny.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I used to be plagued with miscellaneous hum when recording bass or guitar until I discovered the benefits of shielding with anti-slug copper tape. I think I have shielded most/all of my basses now and seen massive improvements in bringing down the ambient noise levels. I believe this really should be a process carried out in the factory — particularly with something expensive like the Ric 4003 which was very succeptible to hum before shielding.

[Chiliwailer]

7 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I used to be plagued with miscellaneous hum when recording bass or guitar until I discovered the benefits of shielding with anti-slug copper tape. I think I have shielded most/all of my basses now and seen massive improvements in bringing down the ambient noise levels. I believe this really should be a process carried out in the factory — particularly with something expensive like the Ric 4003 which was very succeptible to hum before shielding.

This is what was doing my nut in - the bass is shielded really well, and for a while my thoughts run away with me.
 

Someone had added a series/parallel switch to the bass, and I never use it, so I put it back to stock just in case there was an issue with how it was done, even though it looked fine… but no, noise still there. 
 

Then my brain kicked in, and when checking the chain I used the blend knob on my compressor, and yep, no naughty noise when the blend was dry (or when taking it out the chain), but it came in when going wet. I guess the comp was amplifying the fact the pups are single coil, and picking up interference from the room’s electrics perhaps.
 

Recorded the part where the noise was previously an issue, and the bass sounded fine (until I decided my Stingray was actually better for the track after all 😂). 

Edited 14 hours ago by Chiliwailer

[fretmeister]

*Laughs in EMG*

 

(Sorry. Had to do it!)

 

 

[Chiliwailer]

39 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

*Laughs in EMG*

 

(Sorry. Had to do it!)

 

 

Harsh, but very fair 😊

[martthebass]

Once had a Lakland DJ5, mainly used for home use, it had awful hum so I took it back to the dealer.  He played with it all day, couldn't find a problem with it so I took it back and said I'd give it another go.  Turned out to be a particular light fitting in my bedroom..........d'oh.

[Geek99]

17 hours ago, jd56hawk said:

Just watched all twelve episodes this past weekend...can't even count how many times I've rewatched Fawlty Towers.

Still funny.

I watched it in German once, they really didn’t capture all the jokes 

[NancyJohnson]

Many years ago I owned a Gibson Grabber G3, although you wouldn't really know I'd owned one, there's just one photo of me using it at a gig in Twickenham (incidentally just minutes before being approached by an A&R guy from Polydor).

 

I would certainly say I had several almost-Fawlty moments with it.  I'd settled on the G3 being my primary workhorse as my other bass at the time was a Travis Bean, which based on my general on-stage acrobatics was waaaay too heavy.  Honestly no idea where the G3 came from, I bought it obviously, but beyond that, nada.

 

When I was playing at home, it was fine.  When we were rehearsing, fine.  Soundcheck, fine.  Come gig-time, it always seemed to be a crackly cutting out mess.  We were recording in Surbiton - on Polydor's ££ - and when the tape was rolling it did the same.  It just seemed to know when it was required to behave and just played up.  In a studio in Fulham I actually lobbed it across the room, then used the owner's Jazz bass.  Never did get to the bottom of the issue.  I wonder where it is now?