BigRedX

Since all my old photos in this thread were on Photobucket, here's a more recent one of me that you'll actually be able to see:

IME scale length on its own has little effect on the sound and feel of low B. It is all down to the construction of the bass and the right choice of strings. If I was in the OP's position I would first try another set of strings, maybe one with a taper-wound B string. Remember that strings that work with one bass will not necessarily be the best choice for another. All my basses are fitted with different strings because each has a set that suits that particular bass the best. If the problem persists look first at the neck joint. With the strings fitted but not tuned to pitch very slightly loosen the neck bolts - about half a turn is normally sufficient. Then tune the bass to pitch and leave for a few hours to settle. Then tighten the neck bolts up again. What this does is to use the tension of the strings to pull the neck tightly into the neck pocket which makes the joint as strong as possible. If you are still getting dead spot problems then try a Fat Finger as suggested although be aware that this works by moving the position of the dead spot to somewhere where it is hopefully less obvious rather than removing it.

But it was way better than the finishes that followed - that partially see-through white that looked as though they'd run out of rattle can and couldn't be bothered to get another one to complete the job, or sh!t brown.

The break angle over the nut needs to be sufficient to hold the string in place whilst not reducing the compliance of the string. If you look at the first photo in the OP you'll see that the G and D strings pass under a string retainer and therefore their break angle is fixed by the position of the string retainer. Since this is obviously a sufficient angle, it follows that ideally the E and A strings should have the same break angle. That means the A string should probably have one more turn around the post and the E one less.

It was an auction so it would have probably reached a realistic price by the end. If it does re-appear with a significantly higher start price that might actually put some bidders off. I tried to buy a Shaftesbury-badged guitar version back in about 1976, but I couldn't persuade my parents to lend me the rest of the money I needed. IIRC although it was second hand, it was in immaculate condition and the shop only wanted £45 for it!

Unfortunately that interface has had to compromised in order to maintain the overall playability.

Fret sensing seems to be the preferred method at the moment. Alternatively have a look at the Roland V-Bass system which is based around modelling to process the audio output of the individual strings.

I used them quite a bit in the days when Alan at ACG was stocking them. They're nothing like Elixirs so if you are after something similar you may be disappointed. Since they have become less easy to find in the UK I've stopped using them and now favour Warwick Black Label for my basses that would have had SIT string before.

I've just been looking at getting a ticket to see Cabaret Voltaire at Rock City next year. The face value ticket price is £35.00 On top of that is £5.88 booking fee and a £1.50 E-Ticket charge bringing the total price up to £42.38, and this is from Rock City's own web site. If you want to buy them from any of the other ticket sites it's even more expensive. It used to be possible to bypass these fees by going in person to the Rock City box office. I'm in town for a client meeting tomorrow so I'll go and have a look to see if this is still the case. IMO if there is no way of avoiding these additional charges then they should not be additional and be part of the actual face value ticket price. And if they can be avoided by buying in person rather than on-line then this information should be made available at the time of purchase. I suspect that there is some creative accounting reason why they are additional.

@Misdee I'm obviously not going to change your mind, but I'm not at all convinced by the alternatives you put forward. Apart from JJ Burnel who had an interesting sound (if you could get past the thuggery and misogyny for which there was no excuse even back in 1977) they were just bass players in their bands and if they weren't also the singer, fairly anonymous. Sting is far more interesting as a songwriter than he is as a bass player. The only remarkable thing about him as a bass player is that most of the early Police songs were played on fretless bass, although if you hadn't seen them live you were unlikely to know that. I suspect that you and me were listening to completely different bands back in the early 80s, but IME if you weren't plodding away at 1/8 root notes or slapping, then you were trying to be Mick Karn or Peter Hook. Maybe it's because what Hooky did was easy and within the reach of almost anyone who picked up a bass that you don't like it? However you can't deny that he changed perceptions of how his choice of instrument could fit into a band and song arrangement. There's not many musicians playing any instrument who can say that.

Looks like the version with the full Moog circuitry.

Yes they did. Called the Decade 6. It only has an 18 fret neck though which limits the upper register.

One other thing that I have just remembered. What are you going to do in sections where there are no drums in the arrangement? Unless you all as a band have an impeccable sense of rhythm and tempo, you will need some sort of guide to get you through these sections. Of course if you are using IEMs then it will be easy. You can program a click which is just sent to the IEMs. Otherwise you will need to have something that is obvious enough for you to play to but subtle enough that it doesn't ruin it for the audience. You'll also need something like this for any intros without drums. No mater how good you think your timing is. I can guarantee that any more than 2 bars without drums and you will have drifted out of sync with the drum machine. You can't start playing and hope that when you start the drum machine the band will still be playing at the same programmed tempo as the drum machine.

My parent's house that they lived in from 1968 to 1980 had every single type of socket distributed throughout the rooms. Often it would provide challenging if you wanted to move an electrical appliance to a different room as it may not have the correct type of socket in the room and if it did it might be on the opposite wall to where you wanted to plug your device in. My bedroom had 15, 13 and 5amp sockets on different walls as well as a hard-wired connection to an electric radiator, and later another hardwire connection to the storage heater (on a different wall). I was well used to changing plugs on my electrical appliances before I was 10.

In the end it's all subjective so who cares? Make your own best bass lines playlist and enjoy it.

That's great thank you for your help. However as someone who works in graphic design producing items like user manuals, one of the main reasons why they are now only available as on-line PDFs is so they can be updated quickly and easily to reflect changes in the specification of the product through firmware and software updates. The block diagram in question has a date of 2015, and is obviously completely out of date. Without the extra help that I am getting on this forum, that would make me question the integrity of the product in question.

Many of which were highly "influenced" by various post-punk songs.

I hope that program makers also remember that some of the most memorable bass lines ever weren't written or played by bass guitarists - cf I Feel Love or Der Mussolini.

I just don't like external PSUs. I don't think that they are robust enough for gigging use when used separately. They are OK on pedal boards and in racks where everything is wired up once and then not touched again and are clamped and cable-tied in place so nothing can move in transit. The failures I have seen have all be on the low voltage side, usually the cable becomes worn and fails. The cabling and connectors when exposed and not hidden away in a rack or pedal board are fragile especially compared with an IEC mains cable. Also the low voltage barrel connectors don't lock in place, so if they are not part of some permanent installation it's too easy for them to become disconnected mid-gig. The Strymon Zuma looks great but it's too big and I don't plan to need to run any other effects so pretty much overkill for my requirements. I have a One-Spot adaptor somewhere. It used to be part of my previous rack set up. The only thing that worries me is that it was the only point of failure ever in that rack, because the wall-wart part doesn't fit as snugly into a 13amp socket as a typical UK plug and had worked loose in transit, and then bass vibrations through the rack caused it work further loose mid gig causing both my wireless receiver and Thumpinator which were at opposite ends of the signal path within the rack to fail mid song. At the time it wasn't obvious what the problem was so it was quicker to bypass my rig entirely and go direct into the PA. The One-Spot was replaced with a Thomann multi-way adaptor that connected to the mains via a standard UK 13amp plug and cable before the next gig. The reason I'm going for the FI and not one of the other filter pedals is that it appears to be able to do the one thing I have been missing from my setup which is the apply a filter effect to the input audio signal but control the cut-off envelope modulation via MIDI note information. So basically all I'm doing is providing an audio signal and MIDI control is doing all the filter shaping. Other than the VCF I don't intend to use any of the synth facilities at all. There are just two things that worry me: 1. The computer editor shows a full ADSR envelope for the filter, but I can't see it anywhere in the block diagram on page 99 of the manual, just a selection of the AD and AR envelopes. 2. There doesn't appear to be a controllable VCA after the VCF. On a normal synth there is always an envelope controlled VCA at the very end of the signal path. This is because you have more sound shaping options if the volume envelope and the cut off frequency envelope are separate. In fact there doesn't appear to be any envelope controlled VCA in the input signal path. This might be a major problem for the sorts of sounds I want to produce. Ultimately I think I'm going to have to buy one and send it back for a refund if I can't get it to do what I want.

I think if you weren't interested in music in 1979, then you probably won't appreciate just how ground breaking Peter Hook's bass playing was when Unknown Pleasures was released. By the early 80s most bass players who weren't playing fretless or slap were influence by his playing. He may only have one style and be a self-avowed non-musician but he's been massively influential for a whole generation of musicians. Mick Karn was had similar traits - single style, non musician - and is IMO equally influential, but he doesn't get anything like the same stick as Hooky.

Thank you. I've tried to glean as much information from the manual as possible but something it's not always clear especially without the actual device in front of me, so there are a few things I wanted to get confirmed before I decide whether or not to buy one. To that end I have a couple of final questions before I add it to my Christmas list: 1. Will the editor work with the latest versions of Mac OS? Compatibility is currently listed as OSX 10.6 and higher which worries me that it will get left behind in the next year or so. For what I want to do I suspect that without the computer editor I'll be completely stuck. Is an Apple Silicon native version being worked on? 2. As it appears that no PSU is applied with the device, can someone recommend a suitable small and reliable PSU to use with it? My only other pedal is the Helix Floor which has its own mains supply so I don't need or want anything big and complex with multiple outputs. Something simple with a mains plug at one end and a 9v plug of the correct polarity (that cannot be changed by mistake) at the other would be exactly what I want.

I've played in bands with non-human percussion for most of my musical career from when my first band bought one of the original Boss Dr Rhythms in 1981 to today where our drums are supplied by a MacBook running Logic. There are definite advantages. My current 3-piece band without a drummer or backline are able to travel to gigs with everyone, our gear, and merch plus our roadie/merch seller in a single estate car. We can be set up on stage ready to sound/line check in less than 15 minutes from load in. We have a small on-stage footprint which often gets us good support gigs where there is no room on stage for a conventional band's gear. How appropriate it is may depend on the genre of the music. I play in a goth/post-punk band and there are plenty of other bands on the scene using programmed drums as opposed to having a drummer and drum kit on stage. I probably wouldn't want to be using programmed drums with a more traditional rock band and almost definitely not with a covers band. There are however a number of things that you need to consider before deciding if it's going to be suitable for you. The main one is: how good is your drum programming? IME a replacing a drummer with a drum machine isn't about the quality of the sounds, it's about the quality of the programming. Crap programming will never make even the most authentic of drum sounds sound like they have been played by a drummer, whereas good programming can do wonders for less than realistic sounds. I've had over 40 years practice programming drums so I'm reasonably good it now. Also my current band has an overall electronic sound, so trying to be just like a human drummer isn't always important when it comes to writing rhythm parts. So if you've got your drum programming sorted out how are you going to do it live? Back in the 80s when I started using drum machines none of them had sufficient memory to hold a set's worth of drum patterns and songs. We got away with the simple Dr Rhythm with some creative programming to fit enough single patterns for 10-12 songs into the memory and the fact that we also had a human percussionist. The Roland 808 we had in my next band had enough memory (just) to hold all the patterns required for a single song, but only had a single song memory that had to be programmed in real time, so we recorded all the rhythm tracks onto cassette and used that when we gigged. Remember that for a typical song you are probably going to at least one pattern for each of the intro, verse, chorus, middle 8 and end and one or more fills for each, That's a minimum of 10 patterns for each song. I'm sure that modern drum machines are much better with memory than they were back when I was using them, all my programmed drums have been done on a computer since the mid 90s, but if you intend to use it live, check that you can fit everything in it. I used to own a Yamaha drum machine that claimed to hold up to 99 patterns and 99 songs, but the reality was that the memory allocation was dynamic, and complex/busy patterns with fast hi-hats in them ate up the memory. If I was lucky and used simple patterns I could probably get three songs in the drum machine at any one time. And now you've got all the drums for your whole set programmed how are you going to preform it? If it turns out that your choice of drum machine doesn't have sufficient memory to hold all the patterns required for all the songs you want to play, then you'll have no option but to record it and use that. Recording them will also allow you put some extra studio processing on the sounds which may well be an advantage. From the audience's PoV they won't notice whether the drums are being played back from a recording or performed "live" by a drum machine or computer, so it really down to what is most practical for you. Which ever method you choose make sure that you have a backup. The other important thing to consider is how you go from one song to the next. IMO unless you are a hardcore electronic band the technology being used to replace live musicians should be as invisible as possible. If you are using an actual drum machine selecting the program for the next song should be as simple as possible, ideally a single button press, or a turn of a dial. Anything that requires menu diving and peering at tiny LCD screens on stage is a non-starter in my view. If you use a continuous recording for the drums have some easy way of being able to pause it between songs to allow for guitarists to tune up and if the singer rambles on too long. One other thing is that now you have a machine of some sort doing your drums there will be a temptation to start adding other things to the backing track just because you can. If possible don't! My current band have made a conscious decision that apart from the drums the only other things that go on the backing are sound effects, traditional style sequencer parts and the occasional bass for when I am playing melody lines on my Bass VI. Our philosophy is that if there is an important melody in the song then we play it live. I see more a few bands with so much on the backing that it is impossible to tell what the live musicians are actually playing. Big sounding synth/keys parts are my number one complaint. If the synth line is an essential part of the song, have someone on stage doing it, rather than a bassist who is only doubling up the synth bass or a guitarist playing fuzzy power chords which add little to the arrangement. My previous band used to try and replicate the complete studio arrangement on the backing which had a tendency to make us sound cluttered, so being in charge of backing playback, I would gradually turn down the volume of any parts that I thought weren't adding anything to the live sound until they were either off or someone asked why they could hear it any more. Finally, monitoring. Without an actual drummer hitting things behind you, you are entirely dependant upon being able to hear the programmed drums for staying in time. Also as has been said the drum machine doesn't make mistakes, so you need to be as perfect with arrangements as the drum machine is or at least be able to tell where in the song it is so you can get back in sync. Even the sound of the sticks hitting pads on electronic kit will produce enough sound for you to be able to keep in time even if you can't hear the actual drum sounds. With a drum machine if you can't hear it clearly you can't play in time to it. Sorry for the long post, but there are lots of things to think about especially if you have never used programmed drums before. I'm sure there's lots of important points I've left out because I've been doing this for so long. Ask and I'll do my best to fill in any gaps.

This bit from the manual looks as though it will do what I want: Looking at the screen shot of the editor page it looks as though I can turn off the volume of the synth section without affecting the volume to the audio input through the VCF. Can @Quatschmacher confirm? Also can I use one of those DIN to USB MIDI leads to access the editor software? Or do I need a proper MIDI interface? The low profile MIDI and jack plugs look as though they will allow me to fit the device in the space on my Helix. The only sticking point is the PSU. Does that mean that no PSU is supplied with the device? The Helix provides phantom power via its Mic input but I don't think there's sufficient current even when dropped to 9v. At the moment my Helix is my pedalboard. So I don't have any external PSUs and IME they are most common source of failure (usually on the low voltage cable and connector side) when used in gigging situations. The whole point of looking at the FI VIP is that it won't make my on-stage pedal footprint any bigger.

Having been taken to task on a couple of other threads about synth bass pedals, I'm have a serious look at the Future Impact. It looks as though the VIP version might be small enough to fit in the 150mm x 95mm space on the top of my Helix Floor between the page right button, the expression pedal the volume control and the top set of foot switches. However the location of the input and output sockets, the MIDI in socket and the power in socket might scupper this plan as they all need to feed past the Helix output volume and phone volume knobs. can anyone provide measurement for the locations of these? Also the web page doesn't provide any information about the PSU supplied. Is it a wall wart or does it have a separate 13amp plug? It looks as thought it is possible to trigger the filter using MIDI note information without also feeding the MIDI synth into it. Can someone confirm this is the case? What I want to do is to just process my bass via the filter but have the ADSR which controls the filter respond to MIDI note information for attack and release rather than the envelope of the input signal. Can I do this?

Using pitch detection to drive a synth engine is almost always going to be a complete non-starter for bass guitarists. The laws of physics just won't allow it. The very best detection systems require at least one and a half wave cycles of clean waveform to detect the pitch, which means every note below open D is going to have noticeable latency. And remember this is the best case scenario. Any imperfections in your playing technique or signal processing before the pitch detection is going to make that detection time longer which is going to result in more latency, glitches and pitch instability. That's why to me it makes more sense to dispense with pitch detection and to instead apply Filter and VCA processing to the actual signal instead. Of course in order to do this properly your are going to need full ADSR control over both the filter and volume which will mean attack and release threshold controls and side chaining so that the clean signal can be used for the triggers and an signal with whatever effects you want to run before the filter can be processed. Also you'll limit cross mod to amplitude only and you won't be able to do oscillator sync which limits how close you are going to get to some synth sounds.