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Special delivery arrived yesterday.

In the early to mid 80s I was the world's greatest fan of both Elvis Costello and of his band The Attractions. OK, so it wasn't easy to prove that using a Sinclair Spectrum and electronic calculator, but I'm pretty confident of the stats nonetheless. Can't remember which one as they all blurred into a haze of cider, smoke and tiny squares of paper, but one of the Saturday nights at Pilton Pop Festival (a village event near the towns of Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury) featured Elvis himself as the headliner. Say what you like, there is something special about living in the time of your heroes ascendant. When popular culture esteems your favourites and places them on public pedestals for your personal pleasure. Beats the hell out of seeing them years after their peak when it feels as if the world has moved on and left both you and them trying to catch the smoke of past glory in the net of nostalgia. That year I was pressed against the barrier just feet from the great man, drinking in every moment of his solo performance. It was the first time I heard Tramp The Dirt Down and the cheers of the crowd in sympathy with its sentiments, visibly moved him and me both. All good things come to an end and indeed EC, having performed his encores bowed for the final time in acknowledgement of the muddy masses on that magical Somerset evening, . I was ready to return to our little camp and find my mates so I could tell them, repeatedly and at enormous length just how good Elvis was, when he sang the opening line of another song, the curtains in front of which he'd performed flew back, the stage exploded with light and there, right there, in front of me was none other than The Attractions, featuring of course, my all time favourite bassist Mr Bruce Thomas himself. They crashed into a full set of material and I was utterly delirious. Higher than any lump of squidgy black or red leb could have made me. A couple of hours of my favourite songwriter, solo, was a near religious experience, but to have my favourite band then perform a surprise set as well, left me a barely coherent babbling fool. No gig has ever come close before or since.

Very kind of the staff at BassChat HQ to deliver in person...

They did the conveyancing on my flat in Chichester, I think?

"yes they bl00dy well are!" @Dad3353 / @Hellzero / @Deedee

And the superb bassist for Jefferson Airplane

Mine arrived! Just in time too as I was about to invade @ped’s house and confiscate his basses.

Isn’t that an oxymoron? 😉

Echoes (Floyd)

Just a reminder to anyone who likes my presets. Please follow me on the mobile app and you’ll receive instant notifications whenever I post new presets.

The Banana Splits were the original furry prog rockers of course - I think they were Vox endorsees back in the ‘60’s; confusingly the hippy lion bassist’s bass looked suspiciously like a guitar, but seen sporting some sort of Jazz bass in the recent movie spin off......

Once upon a time, a very long, long time ago... “Straplocks you shall have my young Padawan.” I'm not so young now, though, and may not have the longevity of The Master.

Hmm. The strap locks you are looking for, these are not.

Just found this on YouTube, love it 😊

I’d hazard that most pro bassists are using the same gear as the rest of us. There are few pro’s using F bass, Fodera, Ken Smiths et al. Firstly these luthiers have a relatively low out put and they’re very prohibitive cost wise to be playing in the sort of bars I’ve seen many ‘pro’ bands in. Yer man from Soundgarden uses Mexican made Fenders, I’ve seen touring bands with Squires, Fenders even some Ibanez but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a band use the high end basses we often see come up on bc for 3k+. The exception is Pat from Extreme who used Mouradian basses but he did work for him way back in the day! I guess Spector and a few other brands such as Fender Custom Shop etc are pro gear... I’m sure pro guys own some of these furniture basses and enjoy them at home!

Ah, well you are such a very long way from Ped and BassChat Control HQ Centre.

The Internet's not for you then I'm afraid. 😁

Myself and my mate have been doing live performance vids for some time - here’s a few from us - heres one I did with one of my bands - this one seems to get lots of love - @Happy Jack - this was in the darkest corner of a city centre bar. Two LED lights providing some help!

Hi guys! As promised here is the review of the new Harley Benton MB-4 in satin black. In the video you will find the review in Italian (unfortunately I do not speak English well) and from the minute 11:12 the sound test. From next week instead (like as usual) I will publish a series of ad hoc bass covers played with this bass so I invite you to subscribe to the channel to not miss the next updates ... enjoy! https://youtu.be/pIbHBJ5Woa4

Hi o/ OK I'll say more than that. I'm primarily a drummer, but don't that against me I've drummed since I was 14 (I'm 47 now), a little over 20 years ago (maybe as much as 25 years ago?) I picked up a bass to see if I could get my fingers around a bassline our bassist was having difficulty with when we were recording. (my playing ended up on that demo tape). Off the back of that a friend mine came to me and asked me to stand in as bassist for his band while they found a new one having sacked their previous player. I was still with them when they went into the studio to reocrd an album (Pyridine Piranha by Rooftop Farmers, it's on spotify etc.). I left and wanted to do more stuff as a drummer and largely left the bass alone. I gotmyself into a motorcycle accident a few years ago that's left me with a brain injury, which hampers a few things. Then covid happened, and lockdown (suprrise, right?). Rooftop Farmers decided it'd be cool to record more material (after a 20 year hiatus) so I'm picking up the bass again. I bought myself a new bass more suitable to seated practice and recording at home; a Steinberger Spirit. And then found myself here as I was looking for a few tips on it (which I found in a thread from a couple of years ago). Also I still stream drums on twitch and may add the bass to my routine. So, thats me. Hi o/

Phew. I told my missus they were unlikely to do another when she complained about me buying my 2nd One10 last time out. 😁

Not cheeky at all, but I'm not picking up from Pete, my understanding is there's an item heading towards him down the M4. I offered to be a leg in that journey. Of course given my great age and all round dopiness I may have the wrong end of a stick or two.

Waiting on a wood delivery. Normal service will resume as soon as....well, as soon as the wood arrives.

When I saw QOTSA, Josh Homme was playing his Ovation (Breadwinner?) Into some kind of low / high pass filter, with the bottom end going to an Ampeg 8x10 laying horizontally beneath two straight 4x12s. Couldn't see the amps, but Im assuming he had one driving the guitar pair, and one driving the 8x10. Further still, I once allowed a guitarist use my Trace SMX combo and cabinet (so the full 300w). That was monumental. I set the eq flat and just let him have at it. Bass amps have plenty of power through the frequency range that guitars produce. The EQ set points generally aren't right. It's probably best to find a cheap (s/h?) guitar preamp pedal or even multi fx and run that into the fx return of the bass amp, thereby bypassing its own internal preamp. Hopefully the master volume is after the FX loop and will still work... some do, done don't.

(It wasn’t, I tell ya.....) Before you accuse me - Bo Diddly / Eric Clapton

Just think of all the Grolsch you could've drunk while you're waiting.

Very eloquently put. I'm my defence I posted mine during a very long video linked pharmacology lecture during which it became apparent that the lecturer was extremely boring....🤣

If Warwick can get anywhere close to the business plan they will be producing very high quality basses at a very reasonable price. These have the potential to be very good value for money. . . . . and all you lot can whitter on about is the logo?!? Apparently Warwick sends someone over to the Chinese factory every couple of weeks to keep an eye on production and QC, but since Covid-19 haven't been able to. This might be having a knock on effect in the QC dept. Personally I'd rather not be supporting China's economic world domination, so I'll be sticking with my Japanese Metro.

Yes, I remember chatting to you on TB last week about this. I hope you’re enjoying it. Hopefully you’ll have no regrets; it’s a brilliant pedal. Source Audio have been pretty good to me, thanks. My shared presets netted me their inaugural “featured artist of the month” accolade back in July, for which I won a Collider.

The Blackface and Silverface Bassman and Bandmaster were almost identical, the main differences being the Bandmaster had a tremolo circuit, while the Bassman had a high cut switch on the bass instrument channel. One of the earliest true bass amps was the 1960 Ampeg B-15. The next true bass amp innovation that I recall was the 1968 Sunn 200S. The amp was nothing special, but the bass reflex (mis-labeled as a rear loaded folded horn) JBL 2x15 speaker was a major improvement over other contemporary offerings.

I was on the fence about trading my octave pedal and envelope filter to cover the cost of a C4 (or perhaps Spectrum) as I thought they're the things I'd mostly use it for rather than other synth sounds, then I heard what you'd done with this Upright sound and was definitely sold- my C4 arrived a few hours ago and within about 10 minutes I was trying some of your presets: Good work, I hope you get some sort of commission!

Ahoyhoy! Completely blemish free, low action, sounds great. Not weighed it because I'm not bothered but significantly lighter than my ash bodied precision. But most importantly, it feels absolutely fantastic! Going to ditch the strings for flats, but other than that I'm utterly blown away - it makes rival basses closer to 500 quid in price look like a sick joke. I don't know how Thomann do it, but I'm bloody glad they do!

I,ve always done it,you alter eq to taste or stick a pedal/multi fx/preamp and go through send /return and just use the power side of the amp. it will only work if you,ve got send /return but there might be other ways like just stick effects in front of amp.

After posting I watched one of Chad's other videos. In this one he goes into more detail on how he produced the sound The new polyphonic stuff is looking good. I was previous using the Legacy Octave patch in my synth patches but I'm updating that with the polyphonic modules as they give a better synthy tone. I've also changed my fuzz of choice to the Xenomorphic fuzz (again an idea taken from @bassfan) as you can change the wave shape which lends it's self nicely to creating synth patches. The only issue with the Polyphonic modules is the amount of DSP they need. I did have to move to Simple Pitch for one of my boards as there wasn't enough DSP for the Poly modules.

Having now had a listen +1 for Chad's presets - they're the best synth patches I've heard on Helix! Particularly liked his "Dirty" patch at 5.06 of the YT clip - tracking is excellent and for me that would be a very usable synth sound. Cheers @PatrickJ for sharing. If you want any hints or tips on dialling in synth sounds then @Quatschmacher is our resident guru and super helpful - he's got a couple of links to some basic intros to synths which you might find useful. He mostly works with "proper" synths (C4, FI) - I've not been able to persuade him to go Helix...yet.

Conversely, some non-pros definitely use pro gear. Guess they found it in a tip. Further research shows Tomsk wielding Ric, and I'm pretty sure I've seen them using a Ken Smith sixer, too.

Billy Don't Be A Hero - Paper Lace

Perhaps it would be simplest if we just BOUGHT the Dog & Duck ...

Went thru same last year when my old Sennheiser HD280's started to fall apart with age. Read lots of reviews and finally decided on Beyer Dynamic DT770 PRO. I found them to have a clearer or sharper bottom end without losing the depth of bass. It means i can hear the bass far more clearly than the old Senns which had a little bit more boom (i use that word very lightly as the Senns have been great headphones for many many years but it best describes what i'm talking about.) Overall sound quality is far superior to my old Senns. The DT770 PRO's are far lighter and more comfortable on my head. Headband is tighter but not uncomfortable. I use them mostly with my laptop but occasionally with Hifi separates. One other thing i found was a great bonus was the covering on the earpieces is far nicer on the ear if wearing for long periods. The Senns had "leather" type material whereas the BD's have a softer fabric material With a bit of searching you can get them at a decent price too (currently £109 on Idealo to £135 on Amazon) I went for the 80 ohm version. I bought them from Amazon as they have a better return if i don't like them or something not quite right with them. To be fair i can't fault them Dave

Not to take the thread on too much of a derail, I was listening to I should Coco the other week having not listened to it for 18 years or something. The bass playing and bass tones are really, really good!

the voting thread is up and rolling , or segwaying ( segue in my case )

It's looking great You are quite correct to use screws. Magnets will hold a wood cover, but not the weight and pull of a jack as well

Bargain saving at GAK:

A bit of advice I wish I could give to my younger self is to buy headphones with replaceable parts, especially the cable. Pretty much every pair of cans I've owned that has failed has been cable breakage. Similarly I've owned some Sennheiser HD580s, and is on its third cable now. Official cables are much more expensive, but last longer than the eBay knockoffs. I've tried re-soldering the contact points, but often you have to break the damn things apart to get at it, which kind of renders the exercise pointless.