fretmeister

On the Novation Bass Station 2 - why on earth did they make the lowest note a C? Surely they should have made it a A to match the low end of a piano?

I just did the Preamp mod to my EHB. Its very simple, just move 2 plugs to different positions. 1st gives a different “flat” setting that is a bit scooped with more presence. The other is a 6db boost when the preamp is on. I was in 2 minds about the 6db as often it’s just better to have the preamp be at unity with passive mode so I may well put that back unless I find I’m only using in active. I’ll report back when I’ve played more.

Definitely! I'm really learning the Character control too. I hadn't really done much with it. It makes such a massive change that I had pretty much just left it where it was rather than having to re-eq all the time. If only it had a compressor in it I could leave my board at home most of the time. @Tech21NYC When you update the VTBass 500 - put a good compressor in it! That would be very useful.

Had a very enjoyable 2 hours starting from scratch with my amp and both cabs. Bit of a faff powering down and swapping cabs, but great fun nonetheless. I had been running the VTBass 500 with the character at about 1 o clock, a bit of clean blend etc. Instead I went fully left on the character which is supposed to be SVT. No blend. for the One10 I set the mids at 1Khz and cut them to 9 o clock, bass boosted at a little over 2 o clock, treble at 3.30 ish. Bright switch in. Then had a good play until the sound was installed in my head and swapped to the Super Twin. The low end was stupid for that cab but when I cut the bass to about 10 o clock the lows were controlled and the sound of the 2 cabs was surprisingly similar. Tweaking the treble control on my bass got that even closer. Full up for the ST, and centred on the One10. The One10 has a higher range than the ST. I expect that the mids might have to go up a bit when in a big band mix but I won’t find that out until January now. The SVT setting has a massive low end that I hadn’t used before, but after tweaking the EQ for a while I think it might be my favourite for at least today!

I don't actually need any, but the ones I'd like to have a play with are: Source Audio Ultra Wave bass Source Audio C4 Strymon Zelzah Phaser Strymon Brigadier delay But that's about a grand there so it won't be happening any time soon!

I would love it if they did a normal fret medium scale EHB. 32 inch all the way instead of the 32-30 of the shortie fan fret. And ideally use EMG size pickups. Barts / Nord / Aguilar etc all do versions of their pickups that match both the Bart shape and the EMG shape, but EMG only do their own shape. There's no downside to EMG shape it just opens up the options a bit more. I have Aguilar DCB in my EHB but if I could have got EMG Soapbar J without routing it to bits (and it is a chambered bass so I have no idea where the chambers are) then I would have done. And I'd still have the option of all those other great pickups too.

I really need one of those safe cab switcher units so I can footswitch between the 2 cabs safely without blowing the amp. That would be excellent for A/B comparison. As expected I am really liking the cab although I am definitely missing the Mark Bass amp. After Xmas I'll have to start saving up I think. The Andrew Gouche model should be out then and that looks like a great option EQ wise. I'll have to try and find a shop that has both that and the Marcus models to compare them. Might have to open up the chest of unused pedals and see what I can sell to raise some money.

Done!

I buy more stuff when I'm not gigging too. Tone fiddling rather than playing I think. That Stingray 5 is lovely. Got a touch of the 'Nard Edwards about it, other than the extra string!

Did you ever manage to close your eyes again or did the wind change?

My new Barefaced One10 has been delivered. I've had a pair of them before but during the lockdown I got bored / lockdown psychosis and sold them and bought a Super Twin instead - you know, for the house I didn't own them before at the same time so I'm quite looking forward to trying them out with identical EQ settings to see how much of a difference there is. I do really like my Super Twin but I like it with different amplifiers to those I used with the pair of One10. I also use an external EQ (Boss EQ-200) with the Super Twin to make it sound a bit more old school. My only amp at the moment is a Tech21 VTbass 500. It's a lovely sounding amp but the EQ is quite limited, particularly in the mids. It's a 3 band EQ with a choice of 500hz or 1K for the mids. There is also a character knob. It sounds good on it's own, but with the EQ-200 I can get it sounding great, and thanks to Helix Bass patch guru Jon Willis I have an EQ curve designed to approximate the good old Ampeg 8x10. The amps I used all the time with the One10 stack last time were a Mark Bass Little Marcus Gold Line and a Darkglass MT900 - both sold in lockdown as well so now I'm wondering if I will miss those. I sold them partly to fund the Super Twin so I never really got the chance to use those amps in anger with it. I am wondering if another amp with more extensive EQ options will be a better choice for the Super Twin - 5 band or more. Might be heading back to Mark Bass, or maybe an Ashdown ABM with that 9 band EQ. I am also curious as to whether the VT500 will be a bit too old school with an old school cab, or will it be a perfect fit and won't need the external EQ to get the sound I want. Still - it will be fun finding out! And the logo - I had only seen the new Barefaced logo in photos and I wasn't really a fan. But for whatever reason it looks much better in the flesh. I expected to want to remove it, but it looks great. Here it is, next to it's big brother

Xmas live stream gig yesterday morning Went ok!

I’ve used the Ti Flats, DR Pure Blues, D’addario nickels and Newtone Platinums on my EHB. All good. The DR and the Newtones are round core so have to be a bit more careful, but all good so far.

I’ve got TI flats on my short scale fan fret and it’s great The low string retainer thingy will just about take a 140.

Room a lot of the time. That being said, sometimes I wish my amp had more EQ options.

Siri, tell the world I like pineapple on pizza without saying I'm a deviant with questionable taste.

There's another thread on the subject that you might find useful My view is embrace the space and alter the arrangement until it works. No pedals / tone changes will help if the arrangement is wrong for the instruments you have to work with.

The Tech21 VTBass 500 does a very nice Ampeg tone and it's plenty loud enough with the right cabs.

I've been thinking about this sort of set up. Are you running the Two10 at 12ohm or 4ohm? With the 8ohm One10 that is either 4.8ohm or 2.7ohm if my maths are right.

I stole this insult but I have used it.... Me: Hey Mr Singer, I have an idea - why not do the first verse in B, the 2nd in F, the third in C and the verses in D flat? Singer - How the hell am I supposed to remember that? Me: Just do what you did last time!

I had a Countryman but it had upgraded strings on it which were much better than the stock ones. Cannot for the life of me remember what they were called though!

No. I'd like one (I miss my original AO) but at the moment I play live in a Big Band only and for home playing and recording / writing I do everything with Helix or a selection of plugins. I only have 1 bass specific preamp pedal these days - the Tech21 Steve Harris model. That is the most versatile preamp pedal I've ever known and will do McCartney through to Lemmy. I suspect if I got the Photon it would be great fun at home for a while, then I'd start not bothering to plug it in and just going direct into my PC again... and then I'd look at it and think "there's £400 I'm not using, what else could I have if I sold it..." and that would be it. I'd love it if Neural did an AO plugin though. The Parallax gets very close but it's not quite the same.