JPJ

First a confession, I’ve never been much of an effects user. But like many, I’ve been faffing around with recording during lockdown and realise that there is space in my life for a bit of chorus, octave, and maybe even a bit of filter squelch. So my question is am I better collecting a few individual pedals or is there a modern multi-effect pedal that will do this without a tonne of background hiss (my only experience of multi effects was an early Zoom 501)? I’m not thinking Helix expense but open to other ideas.

Hi Andy, I'm a bit of a novice in the double bass field but would a Headway EDB-2 not do everything you want?

For bass in GarageBand I just go straight into my iPad from my iRig HD2, select the Clean DI which is basically a clone of the Avalon U5, click the tone to 3 and away you go.

I'm not much of a reviewer, but I've had mine for about a year used exclusively as a headphone amp at the weekday 'home' in Holland. However, I brought it home to the UK with me when I retreated to lockdown two weeks ago, and I've been using it as an interface for recording into GarageBand (first time for me). First thing I'd say is this doesn't have the 'baked in' Ashdown sound. I has a good range of tones available from the bass + mids + treble eq's and it handles my five-string basses very well with no clipping on an enthusiastically strummed low B. Plugging your phone or music player in via the 3.5mm jack makes it an effective practice tool for those late night stadium gigs. I've not had chance to check the line out but everything else works as it should and I assume this will too. Recording into GarageBand via the micro-USB output, I'm getting a bit fat tone that growls like a growly thing with a little bit of added mids. The unit is well made, with a metal case and metal jack sockets for the instrument in, line in, line out, and headphone out. Looks like it will survive life on the road for a good few years.

What a cool setup! I’ve always loved the PJB stuff and will own another briefcase one day soon. Hope you don’t mind me saying but that photo has a whiff of Spinal Taps Stonehenge about it 😂

Guess it depends how you route your tuner. I much prefer a mute on the amp.

Looks good, but no mute? When will manufacturers learn this is essential on a gigging amp.

Well colour me shocked. My band was playing a multi-band event with backline provided yesterday. Early Facebook photos from the gig showed an Ashdown Mag combo was the house bass rig. Now I've never really learned (or tried in truth) to get along with any flavour of Ashdown, so knowing the sound guy and his rig, I threw the BG250 208 in the back of the car 'just in case'. On arrival, the previous band's bass player had used his own rig and the house Ashdown was no where to be seen - RESULT! In came the little TC. I stood the amp on my leads trunk to get a little more height, turned the master up to just below half, and went for it. Unbelievably she coped admirably without any complaints. This little thing continues to surprise and amaze me in a nice way.

Another vote for the TC BG250 208 from me. Granted I’ve upgraded mine to put the full 250W through the combos internal speakers (in truth a marginal improvement) but even in stock trim, these things are built for the coffee shop style and acoustic gigs. If I could ween our two guitards off their 100W Marshall’s I’d happily gig with it more regularly allowing the PA to do the heavy lifting.

Me too, one of the most comfortable ‘perching’ stools, and comfortable lower down for that acoustic gig too 😎

I’ve been using AmpliTube with an iRig HD2 on iPad as my weekday practice amp, as I’m away from home Mon-Fri every week. I’ve been struggling with getting enough volume out of it without distortion to play along to Spotify playlists. Tonight I finally decided to look for something else and a google search suggested the iPads built in Garage Band app. I can’t for the life of me think why, but I’ve never really used Garage Band before but after a quick look around I discovered a clone of the Avalon U5 comes built into the app so I decided to give that a try and wow, it sounds great! The combination of the Avalon clone and my Sire V7 sounds gorgeous to my old ears. Started me gassing for a U5 again.

I’ll throw in a vote for the Orange Bass Terror here, or the newer OB-1’s. Both a pretty much one trick ponies but it’s a hell of a trick and both cover that 70’s rock sound beautifully to my ears.

So finally the guys in the band are coming to the realisation that in-ears may be the future, and that our days lugging backline around may also be coming to an end. So thinking ahead, I’ve been considering my options for a good bass preamp. I could of course use my SWR Grand Prix, but that’s a piece of rack kit, and unless I can free up some space in the mixer rack, it would mean carrying another rack case. Im liking what I see and hear of the Mesa Boogie Subway preamp, do we have any users here on Basschat?

So I liked the look of these when they first came out and a fellow bassist in my locality speaks very highly of his, and when this one popped up cheap on eBay and local to me I thought why not. Having also recently divested myself of a bass there was space in the stable (which Mrs JPJ would have only filled with household appliances or fitness aids never to see the light of day again) so a cheeky ‘will you accept....’ message later secured this bass for the same money the outgoing bass generated. The bass came without strings (risky I know) but the guy had solid feedback and I collected the bass from his home so I thought it was a risk worth taking. Whacked on a set of strings I had in the house and fired her up. Only had a ten minute play through headphones but it sounded like a Thunderbird to me with plenty of grunt and growl. I’ll add more here once I’ve spent a bit more time with it but first impressions are extremely positive😎

I’ve been using the XR18 since it was first released, wonderful piece of kit and I love mine. Everything you’ve done seems sensible, and drums in a DCA is something I recommend to other XR users. The only thing I’ve found can be problematic is if like me you mix from the side of the stage whilst playing, quick adjustments are a little more tricky as the virtual faders don’t react as instantaneously as physical faders and this is why I’ve added an x-Touch to mine. There is a very useful user forum on the musictribe site I’d suggest you join if you haven’t already. Welcome to the family 😎