fretmeister

they don’t open on Sunday so I suspect Mark is just doing a bit today at home. Its not like they have live stock update systems like larger shops.

No. Proper ones.

Interesting! Where did you get them from?

I love EMG J pickups. Wonderful things.

I’ve had a Mk1 and a Mk3 and although the 1 neck is a little smaller it’s still massive compared to my Sandberg! The Mk3 I had was also 12 lb so it had to go. Amazing sound though.

The Woofer tone control should also be a push pull pot to cut more treble.

Yup. Me too. Sandberg TT4, couple of Ibby Mezzos, Ibby EHB, are all very comfortable. My precision feels very antiquated by comparison. I still love it but I do want a Sandberg version!

£250 + vat per hour for a good IP lawyer. £1000 + vat on account to begin to look at it. Sometimes it's just cheaper to do the deal. Especially when the OP knows it wasn't his own photograph.

Basically - the copyright starts the very instant the photo is taken and either belongs to the photographer or their employer or the person that commissioned the photo in the first place. The long and short of it is - if you didn't take the photograph then you take a risk that a claim will be made. No one really gives a crap about a funny photo being shared on facebook but if it's an image of a famous person then the risk is higher, and higher again if it is being used in a way to promote something that has nothing to do with the subject of the famous person. Don't use photos of famous people / images from TV & film / that sort of thing in your own promotions unless you have contacted the owner of the picture and asked / paid. Or take the risk - up to you! But using Noddy Holder with the equally famous "Chriiiiiiiiiiistmas" bit and doing that on Christmas Eve is like waving a giant "Please come after me" banner.

I wouldn't gig these days without Public Liability insurance. All you need is for 1 falling speaker cab to injure someone to the extent they cannot work again and you will lose your house covering that person's life time loss of earnings. Even if it's something more minor, it gets very expensive very quickly. You will get responses of "I don't care - I couldn't pay it anyway, I haven't got anything to take and I rent my house" etc Those people seemingly forgetting that the injured person actually made the effort to come out and see the band play. And not to mention not giving a crap about hurting someone is a really crappy attitude to have. The cheapest way of getting it is usually membership of the MU, or as an attachment to your equipment insurance. I'm covered by my equipment insurance and I'm also a member of Equity so I've got it there as well. Even if it is the venues fault and not the band's, the venue will try and make it the band's fault and the venue will definitely be insured and the insurers will have a well experienced legal team doing their best to shift the liability from the venue to you. Even if it is only a percentage. So have a look at your equipment insurance first - you may find that you already have it. But if not as them what it costs to add it. Then talk to the MU - there's other advantages of membership too - like if a venue fails to pay you, they will do the claim to get the money.

Thank you. I'll listen to that later on some good speakers.

What do those big Delanos sound like? I haven't been a fan of their pickups in the past.

Depends entirely on how the clamp works. Flats work fine on the EHB Ibanez basses - I use Ti flats on mine for that. The biggest problem is round core strings because the wrap wire can come undone and effectively disassemble the string. DR and Newtone give instructions how to avoid that - and basically it means putting a strong bend in the string beyond the playing area to give the string something to grip on internally. On DR strings you can feel a little square bit under the wrap close to where the silk starts - that is where they've put a square or hex core section in so the wrap wire doesn't come undone.

I'd like - for example - a bass to only have 1 weight on the product page and not 2 very different ones. I'd also like them to get the scale length correct on all the basses. That sort of thing. Ugly website I can cope with. Incorrect product info I can't.

They do that a lot. And they also have links that go to the wrong place quite often, and then within the text describing something there will be contradictions because someone has cut and pasted and not checked the info properly.

That does seem like a great idea. But get the 900 Microtubes. On the various Darkglass groups on facebook the reliability of the 500 models seems to be a lot worse than the 900 versions.

That's exactly what I'm finding. Most of my other basses have EMGs and the pickups are very close to the strings so the output is massive at full volume. The Aguilars sound lovely but much lower in output. They barely get the lights on my compressor moving at all.

But then again... there's some lovely sounds! That is going straight on my GAS list!

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.