mcnach

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1368262276' post='2074972'] Ah, that'd be me! I don't think I'm a witch, as I weigh more than a duck, but I do have a pointy hat somewhere (unless the clothes moths have eaten that one too). The departing bassist, LawrenceH is also on here, though more of an occasional visitor to BC at the moment. Hey McNach, you and he could compare notes on the rest of us! [/quote] Awesome!!! That would come handy at times, for sure! (phew, good job I had nothing bad to say about the previous bassist! LawrenceH, it's an honour to follow your footsteps )

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1368244157' post='2074871'] So... what you're saying is - We have a traitor in our midst? Let the witch-hunt commence [/quote] Nah, he's too nice... definitely a bassist at heart

[quote name='voxpop' timestamp='1368209086' post='2074568'] Mine is unlined and I was worried at first. If you think about it when you play you can't see the lines as the finger board is facing away from you. Once you get over the fear of not seeing the lines it really is easy. Use your ears to hear the note , if you are out just move your finger a bit and you will hit the note. After a very short time you won't look back. [/quote] what the man said. It is a little confusing at first (first few days), but you adapt really quickly. The side dots are more than enough.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' timestamp='1368252340' post='2074883'] Having gone through most filters from a 70's MuTron through to a Chunk Systems 00 Funk with some MXR and Maxon in between I would say that the Aguilar Filter Twin is the best around. It is small, sounds great with any bass and has a real depth of one equally as good as a MuTron IMHO. I used it in the studio recently and you can hear what it sounds like below. [url="https://soundcloud.com/soular-funk/get-up"]https://soundcloud.c...lar-funk/get-up[/url] [/quote] That's a sweet sounding filter!

[quote name='Bolo' timestamp='1368225850' post='2074797'] After days of checking out utoob reviews I ordered a MXR m82 aswell. The source audio sounblox sounded good too but sports way more options than I'd consider usefull. [/quote] I agree, it is a little daunting at first, and it's big, much larger than the others. For that reason I did not really look into it seriously for some time. But once I did, I was very happy. It has a lot of different types of envelope... although most are just slight variations. I found one I really liked, and that's where it stays, I don't ever touch the central knob anymore. After that, it's simplicity itself. I have tried many envelope filter pedals, but some could get too wild, or were a bit loud, or too sensitive, or lose bottom end... the Soundblox is the easiest I have ever tried, does not get too thin or too fat (unless you want it to), and it's cured my envelope filter GAS. I ended up buying the PRO version just so that I could save presets... so I have two that I use which are just a slow and a fast attack version.

[quote name='Lobster fingers' timestamp='1368185349' post='2074162'] I am looking to get a new envelope pedal, I already have a BassBalls, but it doesn't do it for me. Ideally I want something that can provide a range of sounds, but isn't too complex or expensive. I am thinking about either the basic Soundblox bass envelope filter or an MXR M82. What do other Basschatters think about these pedals or is there another pedal I should consider? [/quote] Go for the Soundblox Bass Envelope Filter!!! In my opinion, it's the easiest to get good sounds out of, and very controllable. I owned the MXR too, but the Soundblox sounds a lot better, to me.

Well... I guess it wasn't all so bad, as I got offered the position by txt as I was going home from the second jam/audition thing... The New Urban Frontier have a new bass player! (and the guitarist is a really good bass player and a member of BC!)

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1368197354' post='2074383'] I prefer Musicman Sterlings to Stingrays. I'd say it depends on the persons preferances in all honesty [/quote] BUt that's just two different models, and the MM Sterling is actually a bit more expensive... or am I missing something? I have 3 Jazz basses. A Japanese Fender, a Korean Squier and a clone by Vintage. The Squier is probably the best of the three, and the Fender is the one I use the least!

[quote name='Mr Fretbuzz' timestamp='1368176510' post='2074017'] I would as I like the drummer but the trouble is he is best mates with the guitard and although they say the rest of us have a say, we haven't at the moment. They've picked the set list and band name without any input from me. Maybe I'll shoot off with the keyboards and singer and form a blues band :-) [/quote] from what you said so far, it looks like an excellent option!

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1368186313' post='2074183'] As in paranoid is a different word from paranoide (which I think you just made up). [/quote] I did not make it up. Paranoide is paranoid in Spanish. getting confused enough yet? I think this little detour was good to bump the thread, but it's detracting from the main point of it, which is the really cool new track of Clarky's band... I want more music, more, MORE!!! (what do you mean I have to wait till July to get the album???)

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1368174039' post='2073977'] Paraná is Spanish. It's a river in Argentina. An episode of the Jeremy Wade programme "River Monsters" was filmed there. You wouldn't want to go swimming in the Paraná! B.O.T - Great track mate. I look forward to hearing the rest of the album. [/quote] thanks for the geography lesson and parasol is an umbrella type of contraption to protect you from the Sun Parano is not Paraná, you realised that, right? Don't go swimming with a parasol in the Paraná, especially if feeling a little paranoide

[quote name='Mr Fretbuzz' timestamp='1368165828' post='2073906'] Bit of a bombshell though.... I get handed a set list with another 19 songs on it and a band name... All news to me. [/quote] Aren't you part of the band? Shouldn't you be asked? It does not sound like much of a band to me, what with the guitarist and 2 practices in 8 months... Grab the keyboard player and the drummer if is good and run for your lives into a new band!

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1368127727' post='2073652'] Oops I think you're right. I googled and discovered a 1998 film by Terry Gilliam in French based on F&LILV [url="http://fr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Parano"]http://fr.wikiquote....as_Vegas_Parano[/url] As the songwriters in my band tend to switch between Spanish and English (our songs include Aura Negra and Valiente) I just assumed it was Spanish [/quote] I only knew it wasn't Spanish because... I am Spanish. I guessed at the French bit, it just had that air to it I must listen to your band more. I really liked what I heard

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1368034782' post='2072373'] Here is a taster from our debut album 'Hearts for Judas', due out in July. This song is called 'Las Vegas Parano' (which for those googling translates as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in Spanish). It needs to be played loud! Has an additional BassChat connection in that the Spanish guitar was borrowed for the recording from our Nigel/silddx/xilldx. Hope you all enjoy it - we're immensely proud of this one [url="http://soundcloud.com/all-the-queens-ravens/las-vegas-parano"]http://soundcloud.co...as-vegas-parano[/url] PS, apologies for double posting but very few BCers seem to visit the Recording sub-forum where I initially posted this - and I am very excited by this! [/quote] And proud you should be! Loved it!!! That sounds great, I love the moody atmospheric feel to it. Really good! (although Parano is not Spanish... it might be French? Certainly not Spanish)

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1368093923' post='2073031'] It can be hard to find a space in the mix when you have bassy 4x12" equipped guitarists, no matter what size of bass rig you're using. Do SBK's guitarists gig with the 4x12"s, or are they the house kit in the rehearsal room? I suspect if they're gigging with smaller combos, the Markbass will more than do the job. [/quote] Yeah, those are the amps at the rehearsal place (Banana Row). Their own amps are smaller combos (single 12" and twin 10"/12"). We have just started to rehearse in this place, which takes a bit of adjusting to. This is a smaller room with much bigger amps. The first time here we played at lower volume, the drums were loudish in the mix, and everything could be heard nicely. I think yesterday the guys went a bit volume-happy... I had problems sometimes to hear the snare properly (yes, everybody used earplugs). It's my constant fight: keeping levels low. Not for the sake of volume itself, as I nearly always wear earplugs, but because I don't see the point rehearsing when people can't hear reasonably clearly what everybody else is playing. I have quit two bands because of this. The first one... it was terrible, and volume was used to compensate for lack of ability... so I would have quit anyway, but it was my first band in bass and I was too happy that somebody wanted me and I endured that for two months . The second one, I suggested bringing volume down to hear eachother better... we did, and two people went "true"! that was a lot better!", one (lead guitarist) did not say anything. Next rehearsal we went back to very loud. I tried to make them go not so loud remembering what it was like the previous time... but nothing happened. Lead guitarist this time had lots of trouble being heard, volume on his 50W 2x12" combo was maxed... but his mids were non existent. I was relatively new in the band so I did not want to rock the boat too much and I knew he was the "sensitive" one (as in sensitive to anything that could possibly be thought of a criticism, even slight), so I tried to nicely get him to try lowering the bass control, lowering a bit the gain (extremely distorted), and turn up the mids. He flatly refused and ignored me for the rest of the rehearsal. I decided to give next one a miss and think about it. Then I quit. I do not understand how people can supposedly like music, but then settle for loud mush with little musical content (sigh). Sorry, this should have gone on the "Rants" thread

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1368088443' post='2072938'] Getting guitarists to turn down the bass can be a pain. At my last rehearsal a guitarist said "I need more bass", I passed him my bass & said "Here, this is what you really need". Band mix is always different from the "at home" sound. I find my "home" sound is too nasal honk mid in the mix (which is rather weird as it's rather bassy at home). My setting is flat with the low mids rolled back to 10 o'clock & the VLE at @ 10 too. But I have some other stuff going on with my fx. The B&C drivers that MB use have a very long excursion. IIRC it's 3mm more than a Celestion (don't quote me on that though as it was @ 5 years ago that I read it). [/quote] They have to move more, to provide that amount of noise, I suppose. I'm amazed. Yeah, I understand the settings are different at home and at volume. The RH450 was only ever used live, so once I found the sound I wanted, it was easy to maintain it as it required only minor tweaks. Having the presets was very useful, so I had one preset for Jazz one for Stingray... and an extra one for whatever. I will just have to work on the MarkBass and figure how to get it to sound at volume the way I'd like it to. I'm sure it can do it, it's not too far off already. There is of course the danger that as I'm used to a particular sound, I was just trying to reproduce that sound. I don't know. Next time I'm launching into a "tame the bass from those guitar half stacks!" battle, for it did sound great with one guitar after I got him to turn down bass and up mids a bit. The Hartke was sold yesterday too (I had someone very interested after I lent it to him a few weeks ago), so my gf was happy that the overall bulk was reduced (I may have omitted any price references in case they distracted from the awesomeness of the MB )

[quote name='Matt P' timestamp='1368092654' post='2073016'] i got comments from the others, the best one being that the guitarist could finally hear me properly! (something he'd been complaining about for about a year) [/quote] That problem is usually created by the guitarist himself Glad that it's working out! The midget seems to have a strong midrange response from what I read, would you say so? I went for a Compact, but the Midget was tempting me too, partly because of that.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1368042908' post='2072538'] I really really hope it works out at practice then [/quote] Ok, you're officially off the hook now. This is one loud little amp!!! I used it last night for rehearsal, with three guitars (two on half-stacks 4x12), drummer and sax. Last night, for some reason, we were too loud, but this time I did not try to bring the volume down, I wanted to see how this coped. Master volume knob remained at around 11 o'clock (so presumable there's still a reasonable amount of oomph left), and I did not use an extension cab (I did not take one, I thought I would use the 4x10 they have there, but it turned out to be a 4ohm one, so it'll have to be another day). As a stage monitor when I get DI'd to the PA, this amp will clearly be enough. For small bar gigs, I am sure this can cope too. I can't believe the amount of air this thing can move! The only thing that's not perfect yet is... getting the sound right. At home it sounded fantastic. At rehearsal volume I did not get it right. But it took me a little while to get the right sound on my RH450 too. It was ok, but not quite right. I am sure I'll there over the next few practices, last night I did not want to spent too much time fiddling with it. Another contributing factor was that a couple of the guitar amps were too bassy. During a break I asked the rhythm guitarist to turn down his bass control, and turn up mids a bit. Then we played together with the drummer and the sound was a LOT better, so I'm sure part of the difficulty I had to find my sound was interference with the louder bassier guitars. Usually I'm vocal about these things, but because I wanted to focus on my amp I just let them be, and not turn the rehearsal into a knob twiddling session That speaker was moving a lot. Not sure if the orange cone just highlights it and most other speakers move as much, or maybe it's expected that this one moves more, as it's producing a very loud sound indeed in a small enclosure... Anyway... there's work to do, but it's a very nice amp and it's perfect for my intended use (and maybe a lot more!). So, once again, thanks to all that pointing me in this direction and/or encouraged me. I was interested in this amp from the start from reviews alone, and I was pleased to find the reviews were accurate.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1368030904' post='2072295'] Not on my F1 it doesn't! I had thought they were the same throughout the range. The manual shows the filter graphs, the VLE's 'just' a variable frequency HPF that shelves at about -20dB. I find a shade of VPF can often help tighten up a flabby sound, but a little goes a long way. [/quote] I haven't seen any graphs, the VLE sounded to me like it was doing a bit more than just shelving high frequencies... whatever it does (I still haven't looked at the manual ) it works very nicely. I have never liked controls like the VPF, but then I never had a VLE to play with in addition to it, so I guess a little experimentation is needed. It would be interesting to see on an oscilloscope screen how the two controls interact.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1368030141' post='2072285'] Nice one, glad you like after my extensive recommendations. That`s me off the hook then [/quote] I looked you up online, I have a map on my wall showing how to get to your house, I have your schedule for the next two weeks on my desk, and a tank full of petrol in my car. I would have driven to your door and told you exactly why I didn't like it, if it turned out I didn't. Although... don't relax just yet. Wait until I come back from practice tonight Thank you for your extensive recommendations, even if it ends up falling short of the loudness expectations, which quite frankly I doubt it will seeing that I could barely turn it up a fraction before it was too loud at home... it's likely to be a lot louder than the Hartke, smaller and lighter... that's success already. What I'm thinking is that I *really* like its sound. The RH450 did not make me smile like this one has. It's a bit premature as I have not yet tried it with the band etc, but I can see myself building up my "bigger rig" around the Markbass. Either this combo, or getting a separate head. I have a Barefaced Compact ordered. That cab as an extension to the combo is probably similar in volume and depth to my existing TC rig... We will see.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1368024315' post='2072180'] Good to hear you like it. The VPF ([s]Very Pants[/s] Variable Preshape Filter) scoops the mids & boosts the lows & highs. MB say it's designed for slap players. THe VLE (Vintage Loudspeaker Emulator) rolls the tops off & boosts a little around the 300hz area. I always seem to end up with the VLE around 9-10 o'clock (even if I start with it off). Here's what MB say about them... [color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]The VLE and VPF are useful EQ filters that help you adapt your sound for different styles of music.[/size][/font][/color] [color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]The [/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3][b]VLE [/b][/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]([/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3][b]Vintage Loudspeaker Emulator[/b][/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]) is a shelf EQ that cuts a wider and wider range of high frequencies as you turn it up. Markbass amps are very clear-sounding, and this filter has the effect of drawing you into the mix more, making your sound less present. It's kind of like an "old school" knob![/size][/font][/color] [color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]The [/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3][b]VPF [/b][/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]([/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3][b]Variable Preshape Filter[/b][/size][/font][/color][color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]) boosts lows and highs, and cuts mids. Some call this kind of effect a scoop, a smiley-shape EQ, or an enhance knob. It's very effective for slap bass, pick playing, and driving eighth-note rock.[/size][/font][/color] [color=#020202][font=Georgia, Arial, Verdana][size=3]These two filters can be combined for interesting effects. But remember that they are off when they are all the way counterclockwise--we suggest you start in that position and turn the filters up gradually, one at a time, to hear and understand what they do.[/size][/font][/color] [/quote] That makes a lot of sense. Ah, so the VLE does boost some low mids as well as rolling off the treble, I knew there was something else going on, but could not put my finger on it exactly. The Jazz bass had never sounded better I can't yet tell how loud/full it can sound, but it has a lovely tone. Let's see how it behaves in the band mix, but I am already smiling, and it's not because I discovered it has a blue led (bonus! )

Oooh, me likes, a lot! And... it does do "loud" (sorry, neighbours ). I remembered I had a small amp stand, one of these foldable contraptions that allow you to take a small guitar combo and put it on the floor angled towards your head... so I found it and it's perfect for the MarkBass as a monitor. The VPF seems to be some kind of "contour" control, as it's called in other amps, and just like I do with other amps, I will not touch the thing. However, the VLE is very nice! I was trying it with my Jazz on the bridge pickup, and adding a bit of this VLE just adds a bit of... thickness... to the sound. Some kind of treble rolloff, but something else is going on. Maybe I should read the manual I know I cannot judge an amp like this at home practice volumes, but it's really very nice and it makes me wonder whether there will be a TC RH450 for sale soon.

MarkBass CMD121 combo is in my possession. First impression was at low volume, ok but a little too coloured. Then I noticed all EQ knobs were at -16. Ah. OK, set them all at 0 then. It opened up much more nicely. Only low volume in the house... but it looks good, sounds good, and I finally got to try the curious VLE and VPF knobs, which I'll have to read about soon. The VPF I am not sure about (it seems to scoop out the mids?), but the VLE looks like something I'm more likely to use. It's subtle but very effective... Practice tonight. I'm taking this little thing with me, and one of my cabs to try. Exciting times.

The G30 is great, I love mine... but if toughness was your concern, I'd have imagined the Sony would have been a better contender! The G30 is all plastic and not particularly tough (although for the likes of myself, it's tough enough).