tauzero

An old friend of mine does open mics, and his wedding reception involved a number of open mic participants plus us (who assembled from assorted open mics ourselves). We do "Purple Rain", and the keyboardist takes over for the "oooh oooh oooh" outro vocals. Except this time, when an open mic lady came excitedly up and said "I know this", then launched into what I can only describe as caterwauling - in fact, I've never heard anything for which the word "caterwaul" was so accurately fitted. At one pub venue, we got the macho man thing - someone built like a brick outhouse standing straight in front of the singer as close as he could and scowling at him. Now I'm 175cm tall (that's three inches short of a fathom for those of you that can't cope with the 20th century) and I make the rest of the band look like hobbits, so you can imagine that on a floor-level stage area, that was a bit intimidating for him. Macho man subsequently went over to the table that the percussionist's other half was at and leant on it, scowling at her. Fortunately he got bundled out by the bar staff, so nothing untoward eventuated. Pub got crossed off the list of pubs that we would ever play at again.

It hasn't (yet) affected any gigs for me, but yesterday rehearsal got cancelled as two members couldn't make it due to lack of petrol. Mrs Zero's car needed filling up and she was going to do it Saturday morning, but after seeing all the issues, I offered to fill it up in the middle of the night at our local 24 hour Asda. Got there just as a tanker was leaving, which I thought was a good sign. When I got in, there were about 20 cars queueing for the four pumps (out of 12) that were working. Cars continued to arrive as I filled up, so there were still about 20 in the queue at 1 in the morning. At least I've got some fuel in my car, half a tank in one of the bikes, and I don't commute any more.

Nice detail using tort for the battery box cover.

Argument. CD sounds better.

Or a Studiodeck, in which case they've trebled the price.

I think it's transparent, but I'm not sure how good my ears are. I didn't A/B it with the BB2 but my impression is that it is a little cleaner sounding. I chose the 800 over the 500 because, although at the moment my requirements mean I don't need the extra power, I have the option of putting an extension cab on should things change in the future.

Just done my soak test on https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/193853851917 to see how well it holds up running a Stomp and the Raspberry Pi soft synth plus an Arduino-driven Stomp switch box and Line 6 G50 wireless for 2.5 hours. It all held up. However, I also ran a patch lead from wireless to Stomp so I could have a listen and make sure there's no nasty artefacts. There is a hum (not loud but definitely there) when using the PSU which disappears when I power everything else with the PSU and the Stomp with its own PSU. So this one, sadly, doesn't quite make the grade. I'm considering a 12V 5A or so power supply running to a number of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192169107342 which I'm currently using successfully in a couple of Pi projects and a couple of Arduino projects.

Unfortunately I missed the courier on Friday, as otherwise I'd have gigged this on Saturday. A quick check out shows it's rather loud in the house. Some experimenting is called for as there are a wide range of tone control options (never a good idea with me). There's also facilities to use the array of 24 LEDs as a VU meter (4 modes) or a tuner. Initial impression of the sound is very clean, with plenty of depth. There's a Deep and a Bright switch for that smiley face sound, and the Antoniotsai (which has Barts and a Delano Sonar preamp, set flat) sounded great on that with the amp tone controls somewhere round flat. And a few hours later, the Big Baby 2 was gone - a good cab and very lightweight, but not as lightweight as the GR. One minor point - the GR has the amp tucked in the back, balancing the speaker at the front, so the handle is in the middle for correct balance. The BB2 obviously has a speaker on the front panel but nothing to balance that on the rear, so the handle is asymmetric, closer to the front of the cab than the back. I didn't measure the distance from the front for each, but I suspect the GR's handle is a tiny bit further away from the front than the BB2's.

I use a Hotone bass amp with a Barefaced One10 as a monitor at rehearsals. It's fine. If you want cheaper, you could go a bit bigger and build the BC Lockdown Build 1x10.

I did. They didn't. Mrs Zero and I were in a prog covers band that never quite got to gigging. There were a few songs that I'd really have loved to have done live - Nights in white satin, Back street luv, Don't fear the reaper, Sylvia, I know what I like in your wardrobe.

"What song is it you wanna hear?"

Ashbory, Korg Volca bass (now replaced by a Squishbox/Fluidpatcher).

At a recent open mic night that I played at, there was a bassist with a Dingwall wonky fret 5er who later told me that he had a Markbass rig and something smaller for other gigs. Playing through my amp and cab, his tone was fine. However, his success rate at "right notes" was somewhere around 70-80%, and a charitable estimate of his success rate at "right timing" was 25-30%. If the intention for "right feel" was p1ssed, he was spot on. At another open mic night, the guest house bassist played on a few songs he was obviously unfamiliar with and hit various bum notes (having been a house band bassist myself, I can completely sympathise). However, his timing was spot on, and consequently they were a lot less intrusive than if they'd been mistimed too.

Perfect for a Steely Dan tribute band.

I was thinking about it, but a 6 hour round trip isn't that great a prospect.

I prefer natural, but the only bass I have which isn't natural finish is a three-tone sunburst Variax which I like the look of.

Did you tell them it was fretless or did they notice themselves? The covers band I'm with, that I told I played fretless when I started, noticed that I played fretless after a year.

And if they send me a phaser instead, do I get a tenner refund?

Don't tell me the log's in trouble again. What a waste of Tim.

If the two amps are 15m apart, there'll be a 50mS delay in the sound travelling each way. So you'll hear them 50mS late and they'll hear you 50mS late, and the result will be that you both slow down to get in time with the other one, which will never happen. It doesn't seem to serve any porpoise. Are you playing mullet rock?

Remember: the first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger Club.

I realise that descending to factual solutions is disapproved of, but I felt that desperate times call for desperate measures. So I messaged the seller. Me: Is it an Ergo instrument? Seller: Yes, it is. Case closed without having to play rock paper scissors lizard Spock.