JPJ

I’m about to change the strings on my Boosey Hawkes excelsior for the first time in my ownership. I have a new set of light Spirocores sitting here ready to go on, and I’ve watched videos on YouTube from the likes of Geoff Chalmers on the ‘how to’ but before I dive in, I thought I’d ask the Basschat massive whether you have any cunning tips, do’s/don’ts etc? Also, how long do new double bass strings take to stretch and settle? I have a gig on Sunday so I’ll hold off changing strings until after then, but it would be good to know the general rule of thumb on this.

Just wanted to give a HUGE shout out to @bremen for undertaking this re-housing job for me and for doing it to such a professional level with an unbelieveable 1-day turn around. I must also say that as a result of @bremen’s amazing generosity, our local food bank is now able to offer support to one more family this week. The world needs more people like him and he is an absolute credit to the Basschat community. As to the pedal, I have a cunning plan for finishing the pedal with a custom graphic. Stand-by for further on this once I’ve got to grips with GIMP (the software!)

Re thinking this. When you use X-Air Edit on PC (I use it on an old Microsoft Surface Go), when connecting to the X-Air mixer you get the option to transfer settings from the PC to the Mixer or Mixer to PC, so I am guessing you could build a scene file offline then upload this to the mixer the next time you connect. I say guessing because I haven’t tested this. I know that this doesn’t work with the iPad app as this goes straight into demo mode when opened with the iPad not connected to the mixer.

Ooh I like that! Would be great for when we add a middle 8 of Kashmir into another song. But at that price for 16 bars in one song, I think I’ll continue playing it an octave higher 😂

Looks like one of the small ABY boxes may be the way to go then. I see Mooer do a nice little unit. That said, I’d be careful there @itu it looks like you are close to letting the cat out of the bag (………..I’ll get my coat) 😂

Yes you can do this, but only whilst connected to the desk. The Behringer apps will only run in demo mode unless actually connected to an XR18. Not sure about Mixing Station - that may have offline functionality?

With that budget you are firmly in second-hand Overwater territory. For a workhorse, a 35” scale J series should tick all of your boxes, but if you want something more modern sounding, keep a look out for a Progress series, beloved by pro studio and pit musicians. Good thing about going down this route is you are getting a premium quality hand made UK bass where someone else has already borne the painful cost of depreciation. Buy well and you might even make money should you choose to sell in future. Add to that a business that’s still run by the original owner and who is always just a phone call away for support if needed, what’s not to like? As you might have guessed, I’m an Overwater fanboi who currently owns three of these beautiful instruments, one of which (my J series) has literally done hundreds of gigs as my workhorse go-to bass.

I did think of this, but space is of a premium on my little board hence the original enquiry.

So my little pedal board is great and because I regularly double on electric bass, acoustic bass, upright, EUB, and all combinations in between I have the EBS Stanley Clarke at the heart, and a SushiboxFX Finally valve DI at the end. For electric gigs, I’m thinking of adding my Sansamp back onto my board, but it seems daft to daisy chain two preamps when one will only ever get used with electric bass or to run the Sansamp in the loop of the Stanley Clarke (which is what I used to do). Is there any reason why I can’t connect the two preamps to the Finally DI with a simple Y cable. I realise I’ll have to be careful balancing the output volumes of the two preamps, but other than this, is there a technical reason why this will not work?

Both! 😂

Being located approximately 300 miles north of Wapping, i used to pore over the Bass Centre adverts in magazines envious of the outrageous amount of desirable bass gear on display. Don’t get me wrong, we were reasonably well served with bass gear up here in the north with Newcastle having several good musical instrument shops such as Rock City, Kitchens, McKays (secondhand emporium), and JG Windows (which only closed down in the last 12 months 😔), alongside the original Overwater works “Chris & Andy’s” and many secondhand shops that would have an occasional bass treasure in stock. Back in 1982 I bought my Ibanez RS940TV from the aforementioned J G Windows convinced that a fretless bass would attract the female of the species faster than a bottle of high strength pheromone 😂 (it didn’t). Good news is that i still own her today, and even though she never leaves the house these days (far too much sentimental value), she’s still got the best neck of any bass Ive owned (and there’s been a few 😬). Note to self, must take a better photo of the old girl.

No, you’re not expecting too much. I can get my NXT4 passive pretty close to my Boosey Hawkes Excelsior (ply) db. The secret to the nasal quality of piezo’s is in the upper mids. I’m using the TC Electronics Impulse pedal with the 3Sigma German bass IR, then from the Impulse I go to the marvellous EBS Stanley Clarke preamp pedal. IMHO you’ll never get the NS to sound exactly like a db, as you cannot get the airy breathy top end and squash that nasal honk but you can get close.

So with my main band now being all on in-ears, we’re thinking about adding an ambient mic or two to ‘warm up’ the in-ear mix as it can be a little sterile and isolating. Question to the Basschat PA guys & girls, are you using ambient mics and if so, what are you using and how do you set them up (position, eq etc)?

We played our first gig of 2025 at a regular haunt of ours, the Old Fox in Felling, Gateshead. This pub has a reputation for live music and it has a knowledgable music loving crowd so it’s always a pleasure to play. We were a fiddle player down which required revisiting a few old tunes and I made more mistakes last night than I have in all last years gigs - at times it felt like I was playing using someone else’s left hand. I also managed to bust the zip on my jeans, but fortunately my trusty Overwater spared my blushes 😅 Rig-wise, I used my Ashdown Neo 400w 1x15 combo which blows me away every time I use it, and my normal pedal board signal chain of Shute GLXD16 wireless, EBS Stanley Clarke pre, SushiboxFX Finally DI, and MicroThumpinator.

On my board, i used to run my minimal effects through the fx loop but since i added the Sushiboxfx Finally v2 valve DI at the end of my signal chain, I have what fx i use after the preamp. With the EBS you have the option of running your fx in either serial or parallel through the loop. Parallel works reallly well if you want to maintain a solid bass tone whilst adding some dirt on top.