Roland Rock

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1386152248' post='2296347'] And weighs 46lbs vs the compacts 27 ... [/quote] That Stevie is psychic! ;-)

Yes, the volume knob is that way too, on the bass with markers.

[quote name='darkandrew' timestamp='1386114263' post='2296143'] Cheers, I tried to Google "Warwick Bass Knobs" but all I got was pictures of Adam Clayton?! [/quote] Hahaha

I'm used to mine. As I look at the bass whilst playing it: - EQ Knobs: max is 11, midway is 6 and min is 1 - Pup blend: neck pup is 11, 50/50 is 6 and bridge pup is 1 No angles, just straight up, perpendicular to the neck.

Gorillaz vs Spacemonkeyz 2002 album Laika Come Home. It's so full of lovely dub grooves, and I love the bass, especially the really subby stuff, which I'm particularly into ATM http://youtu.be/Np-yQBK5GKk

Probably "Boys Keep Swinging" from my old Bowie band. Great groove, enjoyable (simple) backing vocals and I could really wig out (musically) towards the end,

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1386004944' post='2294539'] I dropped mine last week, albeit from a small height whilst sticking on my straplocks..... [size=4] [/size] Luckily the floor was carpeted, but still caused a mark on the headstock. Please don't all cheer at once! [size=4] [/size] [/quote] I like the irony that you dropped a bass whilst installing a device designed to prevent you from dropping the bass. Glad the damage was minimal

What's the bass? Sounds exciting!

Even though I play my W&T 95% of the time, if there was only one I could rescue from a burning building, it would be my 78P

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1385974149' post='2294124'] Not last night, but Saturday (just got round to writing this up). Long story short - some of the regulars at KevB's jam at the Greyhound had persuaded into playing at a charity night in a pub just outside Notttingham. The details were somewhat sketchy, but I was led to believe this would also be some sort of jam, put on as a celebration for a chap who'd just done a firewalk. I asked if they wanted me to learn anything in particular, but they just told me to turn up and 'do what you usually do'. Got there to find it was quite an event. There were 3 'proper' bands playing, plus me and some randoms from the Greyhound jam who were expected to get up and do a little set. No other bass players for this, so I was going to have to do about half an hour with this 'scratch' band! The pub was a strange mixture of happy families there for the charity firewalk, and iffy looking characters with neck tattoos. First up were a band of young teenagers, who were pretty good. During their set an old lady on a zimmer frame hobbled right up to the lead singer/guitarist, and stood glaring at him with her hands on her hips. Then she performed a series of emphatic and somewhat menacing gestures. The band played on like troupers. Then a woman's voice rang out from the back 'When's the reggae band on?' The kids left the stage to the sound of one person clapping. Me. I was up next with the 'scratch' band. We quickly ran out of songs I knew, so then we had to play songs I didn't know, with guitarist shouting out the chords at me as we went along. I just played root notes. Mostly the right ones at that! We left the stage to the sound of tumbleweeds blowing through the bar. I tried to take that as a compliment - at least we didn't get the zimmer frame treatment or heckling. What was really nice though was that the bass player from the reggae band came up to me afterwards, shook me by the hand and said some very kind words about my playing. So that cheered me up no end. The reggae band were on next. Unfortunately the sound was a bit off and the drummer was more of a rock drummer who didn't really have the groove. They went down well though. They were 'zimmered', but she seemed to be enjoying it this time. Finally there was a goth band who were excellent indeed. They all played really well, the sound was spot on and they all looked exceptionally cool. The crowd really loved them. So what I have learned from this is - all you have to do to get the crowd on your side is play really well, sound really great and look fantastic. Simples [/quote] Sounds like an interesting night! What was the pub, and what was the name of the reggae band? Congratulations on completing your own metaphorical firewalk; you need to put on a band night to celebrate!

Nice one Spoombung, it was a superb piece. Skol, I loved yours. The first 'movement' of your composition is probably my favourite of any piece of this entire competition so far. My vote actually went to The Boy this month, as it really grabbed me and captured the feeling of the image for me

Tung Oil is a funny one, it's usually quite thick, and the first several coats may need a bit of thinning in order to soak into the wood effectively, otherwise you may find that you're just sanding off all of the oil you've just put on! This can be done by diluting it with some white spirit, or even heating it in the microwave (warning, contents may be hot!) Even then, I've always found it to be a bit tacky and not the best finish. Also, I'm not a huge fan of wax when you will be adding friction or moisture. I'd go with the Tru Oil plan.

I often wonder this, whether it's a bass, amp for effect. If someone puts it up for sale, and you've seen it up several times that year, what's up with it? Is it a lemon? I found the manual to a markbass effect a while back, so thought I'd send it to the chap I'd sold it to, but it turns out it had had at least two new owners since! Using the feedback and for sale forums, I found out that I was one of a chain of at least six BC owners. Perfectly good pedal.

Jah Wobble's Memoirs of a Geezer is a very easy read and full of fun anecdotes. I also really enjoyed 'Beneath the Underdog' by Mingus. It's written in an almost dreamlike style in places, and he doesn't mind a bit of hyperbole, but that all goes to make it quite a unique read.

The chap in the neighbouring workshop to me has an old drumkit and bass, so we had a jam the other morning. Bloke from a nearby unit pops his head in the door: "Do you do requests?" "Yeah, go on" "Shut the f*** up" :-D

We've played there. It has a strong history of live music (notably an early platform for Madness) and that reputation makes it a popular destination for bands - a good one to have on their CV. If they have lots of bands on, the first one can be as early as 8:30, and it can be pretty dead (depending on how many fans each band has brought) but with your headline slot, I'm sure it will be very vibrant. Have a great gig :-)

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1385799515' post='2292239'] If someone wanted to use my rig, I'd say "do you know about gainstaging" ? If they said yes, I'd say "yes, go ahead please set it up for me" Yep, you've gotta ask, the only shared gigs I've done in the last few years had 15min slots to change drums and amps, the band had to have everything ready with an up ramp and a down ramp, so it's not been an issue for me. [/quote] What's gainstaging?? I need to be prepared in case I ever get asked! Edit: just googled it. Yes, of course I know how to do that, just never heard the term

Excellent. Will have to get the headphones out later. So he used your bass after all - looks great, and it bet the tone is lovely plucked right up at the neck like that

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1385725058' post='2291509'] Great question, there are differences some of which are down to the type of cab and some down to just differences due to the actual speaker in question. Now the physics isn't really helpful on the above. mainly because 'thump', 'tone' and 'tight' mean different things to each of us. I'm not a fan of metal but even my superficail listening tells me that metal bassists don't all sound the same, though big cabs seem to have the image needed There are differences which Lawrence has talked about, They are all in the bass region so no, they don't make any difference to mid or treble. Yes in hi-fi speakers some midrange sound can be reflected off the back panel of the cab and come out through the port though this isn't really relevant to bass cabs as it isn't going to be noticed unless you are miking up in a strange place. The main effect of the port is to give you extra output at the frequency around the ports tuning point, About 3dB or double the output which you can see clearly on Bill's graph, Most bass designers can't resist this 'free' extra bass so most modern style cabs are ported designs. Older cabs with walls of cheap drivers were filled with speakers that couldn't work in ported designs so tended to be sealed getting their extra bass from sheer muscle, a bit like American sports cars. The other advantage of porting is that sealed cabs always raise the resonant frequency of the speaker so the bass output starts to fall from a higher starting point in a sealed cab compared to a ported cab depending upon which drivers you use. (it's a bit complex here but this holds true for most commercial cabs IMO) There are disadvantages coming from the port though, below the resonant frequency of the cab the speaker unloads very quickly. The air in the port acts like a plug at high frequencies, like a tuned bass string at resonance and like a big open hole below resonance. This has lots of consequences because the cone flaps around under little control from anything. First of all it is likely to exceed its excursion limits and the power handling can be reduced to a tenth of its rated level as it starts to hammer against the back of the magnet. The bass output falls very rapidly in a ported cab (at 24 db/octave) so if the cab was tuned to 60Hz the bottom note of a 5 string might easily be 1/200th of the power of B an octave above. (you'd still hear plenty of harmonics, just not the fundamental tone) You also get problems with phase at these frequencies. If you are using a ported cab and want it ot go on working then you really need to cut all the bass below 40Hz or even higher with some designs With the sealed cab the bass falls off at half the rate of a reflex cab at 12 dB/octave though it will do this from a higher point because of the raised resonant frequency. Because the cab is sealed it acts on the back of the cone and reduces the excursion at low frequencies, this means you can often use a little bass boost safely to bring the level up to that of a ported cab. At some point the ported cabs more quickly falling output will cross over the slowly falling output of the sealed cab. Bill gives one example where it crosses over below any bass note we play but there could be any number of examples where it is higher than this. Sealed cabs can be designed easily to either give a big hump in frequency and a slightly woolly bass or a flat response or a really tight well damped bass simply by changing the size of the cab. This makes it easy to design in 'thump' or 'tight, fast bass'. You can do this with ported cabs too but I would say with less flexibility. The other factor is room resonance, you can easily get an extra 6dB or more of bass by the sound being reflected off the floors and walls, I find myself cutting the bass more often than boosting it when I play live so a slow bass roll off might be something between a curse and a blessing. It is hard for an engineer designing a speaker to turn down the advantages of the extra bass of a ported design and most sealed cabs have really cheap drivers in them so you aren't comparing like with like quite often. No-one I know of has taken the Barefaced approach of putting the best modern bass drivers into a well engineered lightweight sealed cab yet, though someone will correct me on that. I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with the idea though. [/quote] Great info thanks! I have the Barefaced 6x10 sealed cab, but not sure exactly what drivers are in there

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1385463157' post='2288472'] The 9.2 is the usual Genz Shuttle tone, which is tight, bright and clear. It will get much fuller if you engage the variable low boost which lowers the HPF...drop the hi mids to taste as well. [/quote] At last night's rehearsal, I played around a bit more with the high mids and ended up with a lovely tone. I'm loving the shuttle! (The band in the next room was making a right ruckus - a bunch of deviants known as Dick Venom and the Terrortones ;-) Popped in to say hello to BRX, the Warwick Star looks great!)

[quote name='woodyratm' timestamp='1385715924' post='2291364'] Xero worth the wait? I've got a Pitchfactor and VT Bass deluxe on the way (if the seller hasn't tried to con me.. annnnd once I pick up the VT from Houston. UPS screwed up ¬_¬ ) [/quote] Well worth the wait! It's quite an unwieldy beast and takes a bit of taming, but I'm loving the fat dub! Controlling the self oscillation will take a bit more practice! You've got some exciting stuff coming. Hope it gets to you soon :-)

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1385659850' post='2290848'] Is this what you're looking for in the bub sound? [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_nbYWMZRXU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_nbYWMZRXU[/url] ... but I may be wrong [/quote] That's very different to what I was thinking. I think we need more clarification :-)

I have a sealed 6x10. I wouldn't say that it changes the tone, rather the attack, or transient response. Punchy is a good description. Ported cabs have more bass response, but I happily play dub and reggae on mine, and believe me, it has as much low end as you could want, if required. I don't know why (I'm sure someone on here could explain) but a sealed cab seems to be an especially good match with a valve head.

[quote name='0175westwood29' timestamp='1385664272' post='2290929'] do you use the mastotron and xero at the same time? as they look very close? andy [/quote] Yes, they are deliberately close together as I need to activate both with one stomp. The fuzz into the EP-controlled LPF gives some really lovely synthy sweeps and wobbles. I also use the LPF solo, but it's pretty easy to turn on by itself, I just need to make sure I have narrow shoes on :-D

The Bill Laswell stuff that I know doesn't have the filter sweep that an envelope filter provides. I'd say it's more of a static low pass filter, with the cutoff frequency pretty low. The Moogerfooger MF101 of Iron Ether Xerograph might be worth a look. Or maybe you're referring to Bill Laswell stuff that I'm not familiar with - a link would help