Ed_S

I have pouches (think they’re neotech) on my straps which were originally intended to hold the packs from my Line6 G30 - and they still do - but now also work for ‘bug’ style systems by just extending the transmitter with a patch. I’ve got some that I made with inline sockets and also just some inline jack-to-jack connectors which are arguably just as good if not better. All you see is the patch coming out of the pouch on the strap - can be any system you like in there.

Decided to join in with the pedal riser idea and build a little essentials board. With a bit of judicious wiggling I've managed to get it all flush on three sides, but the DC plugs overhang just slightly at the top. Could be worse. The feet have been harvested from my old Markbass F1 which sadly expired recently. It can be powered from both a standard adapter and also a USB powerbank thanks to an ENGL PowerTap Portable which is the little block under the back edge. As long as the polarity is correct it'll take anything from 5-18v input and send 9v output. For the full wireless whatsit I was considering getting a pair of cheap UHF bugs from the Black Friday sales to go between board and amp. They claim less than 3ms latency, which added to my Fender Telepath on the input claiming 4ms, should still be perfectly acceptable. The yellow sticker is just 'if lost please call' info, but I'm old-school about putting my mobile number all over the Internet so blanked it, in case you were wondering what/why.

Couple of gigs.. Last Saturday was an all day festival with 7 bands playing various different styles of metal - mostly the more tuneful variety. I've been depping for the last year with the band that organises the day but wasn't expecting to play this one, so it was a surprise when they informed me that they'd eventually parted company with their bassist and asked me to cover. It was a long day from turning up at 10am to get everything ready for doors at 2pm, then generally meandering round smiling at people and drinking a lot of alcohol-free Guinness until our 8pm co-headline slot. An hour on stage went pretty fast, and the four new songs (two originals and two covers) were well enough planted in my head. No screw-ups, a pleased band, and home before midnight... though predictably knackered. Warwick RB Streamer LX 5 -> L6 G30 wireless -> [SFX m-Thumpinator -> Boss XS-1 -> Boss BC1-X -> T21 VT Bass v2 -> T21 Sansamp BDDI v2] -> Markbass Nano 2 -> Blackstar house cab (?) Last night was back to the same venue but a different room for a tribute to Ozzy that another local band had put on as a charity event. We'd tentatively agreed to be support, but the tentative bit didn't quite make it across so the posters were printed before we knew our singer would be out of the country at a conference. We're all for keeping our implied/inferred word, though, so we borrowed the two singers (and the keyboardist for one song) from the depping band, and they took a couple of songs each solo then a couple of songs together. The rule was that there were no repeats throughout the evening, which is totally reasonable, but once the headline and main support had taken their pick, we had to be a bit creative to come up with a set that wouldn't leave people scratching their heads. In the end, though, I think we got it right and played a half hour set which seemed genuinely well received as far as I could tell. No screw-ups, and because I was able to get my gear disco-loaded-out and driven away, I got to stay and enjoy the headline set with a few beers as well. Warwick RB Streamer LX 5 -> Fender Telepath wireless -> T21 Bass Fly Rig v2 -> Markbass Nano 2 -> Blackstar house cab (?) Sadly no photos have emerged of either gig just yet, but there were enough cameras out and about at both so I'm sure there'll be some eventually to prove it all happened. No time to let that spark an existential crisis, though, as it's off to a first open-mic with a side project tomorrow, and then last gig of the year with the dep band mid-December. I realise it's nothing compared to the schedules of some round these parts, but I've not played out so much since the enforced break of covid, and I'm enjoying it; my gear is all condensed down to the smallest, lightest and most efficient versions I can manage, the DI sound keeps getting general thumbs-ups from sound techs, and my main gigging pair of Streamer LX 5s are feeling comfortable.

Had a couple of rehearsals last week that involved a fair few of the same people in different configurations. There's my main band of 20+ years, and there's the band I've been depping with for a year or so - but one of the guitarists from the main band has been a full member of for a few years. After a patchy year (hence my involvement) they parted ways with their bassist just ahead of a co-headline slot at an all-dayer, and we'd agreed to play a set at a charity tribute gig before finding out that our singer would be out of the country at a conference. So they pinched me, and in return we pinched both their singers. The all-dayer was on Saturday and the charity gig is this Friday, so I'll see how that plays out and post a wash-up of both in the gigs thread at the weekend. The rehearsal with the main band had potential to be a bit weird as it was held at the other band's room and had the possibility of making our drummer and rhythm guitarist feel like visitors at their own show, but to be fair it was the only full rehearsal we'll be able to fit in so it had to happen irrespective, and a mixed bunch of people from two originals bands playing a set of covers with very little together-time beforehand was never gonna feel 'normal'. The first run-through had a few iffy bits, most of which were ironed out by the second time through. Third time was pretty decent to be fair. If that had been the show then I think people would have enjoyed it and we could have gone for a beer, so whilst we've all got our homework for this week there's now at least a hint of that comfy feeling that it can, and hopefully will, be alright on the night.

Heh, if you’d rather that some love your bass and others loathe it than everyone simply ignore it, I admit the Vampyre is certainly a strong choice. I’ve had/got both generations of RockBass Vamp 5, though, so I know what I’d be signing up for 🙂

I don't do xmas, but if I did... 1. A Peavey Super Festival 1200 reissue head 2. A Masterbuilt Warwick Vampyre 5 3. A Peavey Firebass head - the red and black one which I always loved the look of in Sound Control, but was never daft enough to actually buy due to the weight. 4. A gigbag where the side handle is placed such that, when it's loaded with stuff and you pick it up, it hangs level with the floor rather than being angled upwards. 5. A gigbag like #4 but mirrored so that when you have a pair of them, you can attach them together back-to-back and pick them up comfortably with both their handles.

All I'd say against the BTB as I remember it is that whilst not outright uncomfortable, and certainly not for the reason which forms the basis of this thread, I personally didn't find it an ergonomically optimal experience overall. The body is not insubstantial, the scale length is longer than average, the string spacing and neck dimensions aren't compact; I'm 6'4 and was a well covered early-twentysomething at the time I owned mine, and even with build and youth on my side I found them a bit of a lump to wield. I wonder whether the more mixed reactions are potentially explained by how people of different builds end up holding something which they aren't all finding similarly forgiving. I've owned a fair few SRs and can't imagine them presenting the same disparity of experience.

I had a couple of BTBs back in the day - a black 405QM was my main bass for a long time and I also had a blue 406QM. I never considered them to be uncomfortable in that way, and I've had various guitars over the years which I certainly did (an absolutely lovely-sounding PRS CE was the very worst offender and had to go back) so it's not that I just don't notice it as 'a thing'. It's possible that they've changed the shape of the BTB since I owned mine, but the photos of newer ones look very familiar.

Mine would be my pair of Rockbass Streamer LX 5s. The black one is a pre-2024-revamp model, came as very cheap and scuffed b-stock with a dead preamp, neck like a banana and frets hanging off the edges, but quite a light example at 3.8kg so well worth saving. Fixed it up and it's now a passive workhorse. The white one seems to be a 2024 with the new frets etc. but still came as cheap b-stock (maybe a demo unit for the new spec?) and whilst it needed setting up, it seems to be perfect. Average weight at 4.2kg, but looks smooth under stage lights. One of us needs to, and it'll never be me. The Ibanez SR Premiums have gone and the Warwick RBs are my main gigging pair. Have to also give a shout to my travel-light front-of-gigbag rig, which all arrived this year: Fender Telepath wireless -> Tech 21 Bass Fly Rig v2 -> TC BAM200 The BAM obviously has its limits, but it's so much more useful to me than the Elf I had; it's loud, it takes the Fly Rig well and its EQ actually does something. Worst... nothing's really coming to mind. I've not bought all that much, and I think it's all been alright.

Sonata Arctica on Sunday, and Battle Beast last night - both in Manchester. Sonata were still very good but I ended up drinking my way through their support bands. Last night was, however, exceptional. If you like cheerful metal and get the opportunity, definitely go and see Majestica, Dominum and Battle Beast.

Fair point. I guess my opening attempt might be to define it as playing the instrument and learning/remembering songs only by listening rather than using visual cues, be that written notes/notation or watching hand positions/signals of other players etc. Though I do visualise my own fretboard and finger positions to some extent while playing, so I can’t say there’s no visual element to the processing; just not the input. I wouldn’t go much further than that, as I don’t think the term necessarily tells you anything about what you do with the musical information you just took onboard.. only how you consumed it. Personally, I learn songs monolithically end-to-end rather than in sequenced chunks, so it can take me a good few listens if it’s a long and complex tune. Learning the lyrics helps me to remember the song long-term. On topic, in the rehearsal room it does mean that my least favourite question is “what did/do you play for that bit?”, as I genuinely have no idea. Play your bit, I’ll join in, you can watch and tell me!

Heh, I do appreciate it more now I understand that not everyone does it, but it comes with mixed blessings and curses when it's all you have to work with. The most obvious issue is that I'm stuffed if I can't hear myself properly on stage, but having to commit every song I play to memory, to the same extent, irrespective of whether I like it or not, does occasionally make me wish I could just read them on the gig and then not be humming them to myself for the rest of eternity.

Personally, I don't wait for the amp to fail before using a preamp to the desk; I work on the basis that consistency and reliability of the DI feed to the FoH is the most important thing, so I run a pedalboard with HPF/compression/preamp on it that gives me the whole sound I want to send that way every time. With that sorted, the amp on stage is really just for me so it only has to make the pedalboard loud and perhaps EQ it a little to suit the particular stage and monitoring situation. It does mean that I can't use the preamp as part of my wider tone - it's the whole thing - but working the way I do actually means that the amp (and its built-in DI) becomes my hot-spare backup in case the preamp goes down. Even better than that, it doesn't have to be the same amp every time.. or even mine.

First proper rehearsal (after the initial meet and jam session) with the new covers band went really well, and we've very easily agreed on a couple of simple rules of engagement; [1] we want to make the singer sound as good as possible, so we'll play it where he needs to sing it and if it ultimately doesn't suit then we won't waste time on it, and [2] nobody has to play anything they hate. Plan is to get an initial set together and do some open mics to see what response we get, but the main drive behind it is that we play what we like and have fun doing it. With that in mind we went down the initial list, booted the couple I just wasn't going to have anything to do with, swapped some others with better suited songs by the same band, added some to look at which are my influence and they'd never heard of before, self-assigned some homework which are their influence and I'd never heard of before, and even chopped up and reordered a tune on the spot to get rid of a keyboard solo and make 'our' version. We have a better list for next time and it feels like everyone is pulling in the same direction. It's been ages since I've had to explain my odd (so I'm told) musical ways to new people, so that was fun, but they had to understand that keys / notes / dots / tabs / chord charts / number systems are all meaningless to me - I play by ear, have no idea which notes I'm playing, 'know' a song if I can literally hear it in my head, really don't care which key you move it to.. etc. It felt like one of those initial dating conversations where you start to question whether it'd be easier to just stay single than go over all this again, but at least they know now!

We played the 7pm slot in a new all-day power metal festival at a large social club yesterday. 6th band out of 9 on the bill, but I got there for the first band at 2 and didn't leave until midnight so it was a long enough day to be feeling it this morning. It had the usual metal-crowd friendly atmosphere, though, and the other bands were all really good with enough in common but not so much to be samey, so it was nice to make a day of it. Being a social club in Sheffield, the Stones bitter was fresh and not too expensive. Of course it had to be absolutely bucketing it down so everything got a water-tightness test on the way in, but cabs were provided so that made things easier. Said cabs were a pair of Vanderkley 1x12s that I was told were good for a thousand watts so am assuming were MNT112s. I thought we did alright, but I personally made a bit of a balls-up to begin with. I have two Warwick RB Streamers that I use for gigging - the black one was b-stock with a dead preamp so is gutted and rewired passive, while the white one is factory-spec with its preamp intact. Correct settings for the black passive is everything on 10, whilst for white active it's Bal/B/T in the middle detents and just the volume up to 10. I've been playing the passive recently, so of course picked up the active and without thinking set the balance fully forward (not a massive problem) and bass / treble boosted to max. Was a very brief line-check so it didn't really hit me how wrong it sounded until we started. Half way through the first song I twigged and had to give the sound guy a minor episode by correcting the EQ and messing up his mix, but despite that, everyone I spoke to afterwards said we sounded good. One guy commented that the vocals became much clearer from the second song... mhmm..! Streamer LX 5 (active..) -> Telepath wireless -> Fly Rig v2 -> Markbass Nano 2 -> 2x Vanderkley MNT112 (?)