Mornats

So good I had to share this. Music Room in Bristol is having a sale and they an Overwater Aspiration Elite for £349 instead of £799 (this model, but not at the price on the website: [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/01013850/details.html"]http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/01013850/details.html[/url]) and an Overwater Contemporary Jazz 4 string in blue for £280 or so (normally £580). Incidentally this is where I bought my Contemporary J4 from at full price 18 months ago.... Someone's gonna get an absolute bargain...

Are the new pics here yet? Are the new pics here yet? Are the new pics here yet? Are the new pics here yet?

If you're looking at the AmpLion stuff a Prime Plugins email just dropped into my inbox with money off Audiffex stuff! [url="http://primeplugins.com/audiffex.html"]http://primeplugins.com/audiffex.html[/url]

Personally I'd top out at 16GB RAM and grab an SSD. I use a Crucial M4 and it's been rock solid for almost a year now. I did have an OCZ Vertex 2E which died on me (they sometimes don't recover from hibernation) but that was a problem with the type of controller than the Vertex SSDs used. So I totally understand your concerns on that front! However changing from a HDD to an SSD is the single biggest upgrade in speed you can make to your system. So much more than adding more RAM in my opinion. I went from 4GB to 8GB of RAM and didn't notice any speed difference in recording and mixing. When I chucked in that SSD I noticed that a 45 second wait to load in an EZDrummer kit was now a 7 second slight pause. So I now have all of my sampled instruments on an SSD and I can fly through them until I find the right one and I can even change drum kits on the fly as the track's playing and they don't take long to catch up. I also use my PC for gaming and have my CPU overclocked by 20%. I have an Akasa CPU cooler, one like this: [url="http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-intel-performance-3x-heat-pipe-mini-itx-low-profile-height-multimedia-cpu-cooler-s775-1155-115"]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-intel-performance-3x-heat-pipe-mini-itx-low-profile-height-multimedia-cpu-cooler-s775-1155-115[/url] and they're superb. If it's too loud, rip the fan off and chuck on a silent one. I have these and they're good: [url="http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm-akasa-viper-fan-high-performance-s-flow-blade-pwm-fan-inc-rubber-mounting-pins"]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm-akasa-viper-fan-high-performance-s-flow-blade-pwm-fan-inc-rubber-mounting-pins[/url] Look into whether your motherboard has plenty of fan controllers or invest in a PCI one as you only want those fans ramping up in speed if they need to. By the way, I notice a temperature difference in my living room when mine's running at full tilt. I kid you not, it took me a while to work out why some nights there was a chill in the air and other nights it was toasty. The difference was my PC being on and running a game with the fans at full RPM.

If I were starting out again I'd look at getting one of these as the audio interface: [url="http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface--90034"]http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface--90034[/url] their pre-amps are rated highly and the guy from Focusrite told me they have the same pre-amps as their high-end gear. So that's £120 out of your budget and you still need a midi keyboard. I'd recommend one with 49 keys or more. I use the M-Audio Keyrig 49 but I tried Pinball's Alesis QX49 and thought it had a better feel to the keys. Not semi-weighted but they felt better than my M-Audio's: [url="http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/alesis-qx49-usb-midi-controller-49-note--82748"]http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/alesis-qx49-usb-midi-controller-49-note--82748[/url] and the extra controls for synths and your DAW could come in very handy. But that blows your budget a bit. And I've just read that 25 keys would be enough for you (I thought that too actually, then got the 49 key one and I'm eyeing up 61 key keyboards now!). [url="http://www.dv247.com/search/2977/0/ProductPrice/Ascending/-/1/"]http://www.dv247.com/search/2977/0/ProductPrice/Ascending/-/1/[/url] - I can't recommend any in particular from that list but you're looking at ones that will just fit in your budget. Of course you can go second hand too

Just in case there was any doubt, here's another +1 for the H1. Picks up bass very well as you'll hear from the recordings from others above.

A beetle being screwed, that'll be a song about Heather Mills yeah?

Ah crap, I was too late to vote! Well, I voted anyway but Paul had already won But now that we have a new pic I can start composing for the next one! Yay! Well done everyone, that was a nice crazy, fun theme. If only I hadn't moved house I would have joined in.

[quote name='barkin' timestamp='1349626876' post='1828421'] Out of curiosity more than anything, I emailed Alan Entwistle about his JBX pickups, and asked how they compare with the ones fitted to the Classic J Tanglewater. He replied that his JBX is definitely hotter than the Overwater ones, which he produces to Overwater spec. For a tenner, I might just give one a go. [/quote] Hey Barkin, did you ever fit that Entwistle JBX pickup to your Classic J? I've recently bought one from here and find that the J and P pups have different volumes. I've adjusted the heights a bit and they're a closer match but I'd still have to adjust the volume a bit if I swap between full P and full J. For £23 for a P and a J pup from Alan Entwistle, they're worth a bash. I was thinking of some Wizard pickups but I'm looking at around £90 for those.

I've got both the Contemporary J and Classic J (the Tanglewood ones) and the Contemporary J is almost an inch taller than the Classic. It's a big bass and barely fits in my Rok-sac gig bag. I asked Overwater if their rebranded Hiscox case would fit the Contemporary J and they said it wouldn't fit in so it's strange that they recommend the Hiscox cases.

Good idea. We could have a Bristol-ish based one and a more South West Devon/Cornwall based one too.

My bass tutor highly recommends it so I gave in a bought. Best practice tool ever And yeah, by 5 string BC is still available and looking for a new home I'll sort out making the donation to basschat before putting it up for sale though.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll scout out the venues in advance and see what they recommend for amplification. I should be ok to cart my Ashdown Touring combo to them if needed

iRealb is great. It's £7 on Android but you get all of the backing tracks thrown in (the app's £5.50 on iOS but you pay extra for all of the backing tracks so the Android one is better value). It may not look much from the screenshots but it's great in practice. It gives you chord charts that you can follow, transpose to different keys easily and will play a backing track in various styles too. Great for practicing to and for following song chords when playing live. http://www.irealb.com. You can download loads of song structures from their website from within the app too. I use ClefTutor to help with my sight reading.It's just a little quiz on musical notes. Really helpful so far. Jam Tracks from Ninebuzz is ok too. Costs a couple of quid but it's ok to jam along to. Not a patch on iRealB though, despite looking more polished. Chordbot sounds good, I'll look that one up!

Hey folks, We should be doing some open-mic nights soon (well, we've done one already but hope to do more!) and have a question about gear. A fair few of the open-mic nights are acoustic only. We have our singer Amy, Pinball on guitar and myself on bass. I plan to use my passive Overwater Classic J and either my Ashdown 220 Touring, my Laney 15 watt RB1 (if it'll be loud enough) or just go through the PA. So, the question! Are open-mic nights generally ok with an electric bass at acoustic sessions? Or will I have to look at getting an acoustic or semi-acoustic bass? I'd prefer to stick with the electric but I don't want to rule us out of the acoustic only gigs.

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1363636150' post='2015134'] You need some black frets [/quote] Maple fretboard and chrome hardware so a way to go but it's a start lol

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1363614348' post='2014735'] Depends on the bass. BTW most "black" basses aren't. IMO for a bass to be properly considered black, the only allowable non-black items are: frets, fret markers and strings [/quote] My black bass has Rotosound black strings

I've just moved home this week but when I get broadband installed I'll give them a good ol' listen. I should hopefully have time to enter the next one too yay.

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1361123872' post='1981411'] [font=Arial][size=2]If you pick up a guitar and 10 minutes later the salesman is trying to wrench it back out of your hands, it really doesn't matter what it says on the headstock it's probably a keeper[/size][/font] [/quote] Yep, definitely that's how I ended up with my Overwater. 45 mins after picking it up and I just gave the guy the asking price!

Ohh yeah, actually that sounded like I was knocking Squiers there! I've played more great Squiers than great Fenders. I've never played a Mexican one that didn't feel a bit meh and I've played rubbish through to superb American ones. All Squiers have been good to brilliant. But anyway... my main point was why aren't DV247 stocking Fenders anymore? Seems a bit strange!

[quote name='KiOgon' timestamp='1361109923' post='1981129'] With that attitude why bother even looking at them [/quote] Because good ones are good in my experience and worth seeking out too. But I've tried several American Standard Jazz basses that went from superb (best bass I've played) to feeling worse than a Squier when playing it. It's too much of a pain to keep sending basses back to an online store until they send one that came of the factory as it should have. Unless of course you're saying that Fender QC is so shoddy that I shouldn't even bother with the brand hehe.

Cheers, I've found them elsewhere, it's just unusual that DV don't have any listed on their website any more. (Not that I'd order a Fender unseen due to their shoddy QC of course.)

I was having a pre-GAS peek at some Fenders on DV247 (I quite fancy a Modern Player Tele Bass after playing one at Christmas, or maybe an Overwater Classic J, hmmm, so yeah, pre-GAS look!). But they've got none on their site at the moment, just some Squiers. Anyone know what's up?