Wolverinebass

The way it was set up was that the strings were a bit high and so I went about setting it to my liking. Once I got the action set up, I noticed a rattle. Basically, the neck had a slight backbow so after a quarter turn of each truss rod and lowering of the bridge pickup all was good and the buzzing on the 1st to 4th frets stopped. I can't get it as insane low as my buzzard, but it's good enough and still probably lower than most people will play.

I got myself a fireglo last summer. Have been waiting to find a good project to use for it. So, I decided I was going to use it in a progressive metal project I'd joined. Turns out it's in C# standard. I used it with my trusty Tech21 Dug pedal. Brilliant. Just totally killed. It's far from being my go to bass, but it's really good and I love it. Admittedly, the neck had a back now when I got it (new I hasten to add) and one of the feet on the case got broken in transit, but I still think it's a great sounding bass.

I actually meant whammy like the Digitech Bass Whammy.

Has anyone used the whammy on this? Is it any good for bass?

My point was that the turnover you'd need to justify that would be immense. I should say as well Chris, I run my own studio part time. I know plenty of people who do it professionally as well. Virtually none of them have an 1176 compressor or Neve console. Virtually none of them have a Neumann U87 either. Why? Because the difference is negligible as compared to mics which are half or even a third of the price. As long as your gear isn't crap and more crucially, you know how to get the best out of it, the term "professional" has very little meaning in terms of gear. The idea of having to have massive amounts of expensive gear to run a recording studio is dead and has been for about a decade.

What studio is that? Abbey Road?!! That is proper insane. Waves plugins - £30, Heil PR40 mic - £350. Job done. Spending that amount of cash, you'd better earn more money than God from your studio. As someone who uses analogue emulation plugins and has also used neve pre-amps, the difference isn't that much sonically.

Don't get any of them. They're all underpowered unless you're playing a coffee shop jazz gig.

Stuff getting a 5 string. It's why I make rule about what tuning I play in. Anything lower than C# standard is a "no." That tuning is easily obtainable with the drop pedal or with 105-45 DR DDT set. One of my producer mates is mixing a band that are tuned in drop E. It's just pointless and how I pity their bass player. Why they even need one with the guitars tuned that low is another question though. Ultimately, I play basses that for the most part aren't cheap. I'm not messing with the nut. Would you recut the nut on a Wal so you could play in C? Er, no.

I've got a Digitech Drop pedal. If you're using it on bass, don't use it to detune more than 2 semitones. I'm doing a project that's in C# standard. That's just on the cusp of too floppy strings, but also crucially if you use the pedal for the 3 semitones, the bottom goes weird and sounds plastic. So what I do for that is tune the bass down a semitone then drop the pedal by 2. Sounds fine. Either that or I use DR DDT strings. Not cheap at 30 odd quid a set, but it's personal taste.

For those of you who use this function, the crossover function on this. How is it displayed? Frequency? It's not in any of the manuals and I'm not getting one of these if it's displayed as a percentage or something weird.

Really?! Game on! 😎 I should probably check out the helix stuff more....

What version of helix is that? Just the rack? LT? Tiny floor stomp thing? Or all of the above?

That looks like a Shine Bass that cost £500. Ha!

Wouldn't you be totally miffed if you'd paid 4 grand for this stuff when it came out?!! Having played a full beans one of these, you won't be disappointed. Neither will your chiropractor as the power amps can only be lifted off the ground with a crane. The power handling of the cabs is surprisingly low and they're heavy, but that's neither here nor there as this stuff is quality.

Well, with 55 hours of footage to play and 140 hours of audio I'm expecting Peter Jackson to make a trilogy of films which come to 92 hours long and have a "goodbye" scene at the end that goes on for at least an hour. I can't stand Jackson for this and he does it in almost every film he directs. Everything is dragged out and milked more than the death of Madge Bishop in Neighbours. This film will no doubt make the interminably long outro of "Hey Jude" feel like it only lasts ten seconds as the film version will probably last 36 hours. On the other hand at least they didn't get Ron "I only make feel-good films" Howard.

More bargaining Lozz. Shocking!! Net zero accumulation is not the same as zero MasterCard obliteration I fear.

Well, yeah. I can laugh at this stuff now as was the point of my post. If I couldn't laugh about stuff like this then I think I'd go mad. If I had said I started drinking when I was 10 (which is true) then maybe my post wouldn't have had such an amusing undertone. However, I'm all good at the moment and wondering if I'll get through the challenge. 😜 Stay strong kids. The new Darkglass amp will be superceded in 18 months by V3 and then they'll be cheaper.

Maybe Chris. But Ashdown just seem to have so much wasted potential. I'm just exasperated with it. For every decent/great ABM, small valve head or Rootmaster there are at least 3 little giants, superflys, mibass, b-social or Dr. Green pedals. Some of those were great ideas, but weren't that well implemented. Which is the tragedy in this case. I mean, I played the Geezer head and thought it was rubbish. You could have got the same sound with a mild fuzz pedal which obviously wouldn't cost £1100 either. I'd like them to do well, but they seem confused about what they're doing. I certainly don't get it.

Personally, I'd imagine that the alpha would suit you better.

Even then pretty much a third of it is pants.

I very much doubt it. Not after such a shambolic pitch.

Midi has been around for nearly 40 years. It just annoys me when they proclaim "midi functionality" when it'll be nothing more than turning the distortion on and off. Maybe possibly even changing the cab IR, but I doubt it. Come on!! A manual with no implementation chart isn't indicative of something that's worth considering as it suggests a lack of functionality. If that thing had proper midi presets I'd get it. It doesn't, so therefore it's not as good as my trusty Tech21 PSA1.1. If I can't change the distortion, eq and fx settings of the preamp and outboard gear with one foot controller button press then it's just not flexible enough. Just my take on it. Quite a few of the things I do these days need that level of flexibility. A couple don't. If I didn't have it for some of the more involved projects I'd be stuffed with some of the effect chains I'm using. Darkglass are making great stuff. This is a bit of an omission.

Personally, I'd be going alpha omega ultra. The B7 is too fizzy for me. In theory the X7 should be better than the dug pedal because of the two filters, but the distortion sounds wrong to me in a way I can't quite describe. The alpha just sounds better to me.

U2 haven't done that since Achtung Baby. Everything from Zooropa has been a 30/30/20/20 split.

You know, this post reminded me of something hilarious. I was actually a chronic alcoholic until just over 10 years ago when I had that moment where I realised that maybe drinking 2 bottles of vodka a day wasn't conducive to continued life or sanity. I still wake up with the itch every single day. However, about a year after I stopped one of my friends asked me if I was still not drinking. I replied that I was still sober. She then said that she knew how I felt. I enquired as to what was going on in her life that would be such a problem. She then said "Yeah, it must be awful. It was so difficult for me when I gave up meat." Now some would be offended at that, comparing someone's trendy vegetarianism (which she soon after stopped) to in effect what is a horrific addiction and illness, but I had to go to the toilet as I was laughing so hard I thought I might be sick. This gear challenge for some people is difficult. I understand that. However in the grand scheme of things there are much more important things in life to worry about. Ooooh, look!! A new Darkglass amp!! 😲