BigRedX

TBH there was so little to choose between the 4 versions that for a stand-alone single release any of them would have done the job admirably and picking one in that case would have been almost entirely subjective. It was only because we wanted our original mix of the song to stand up along side the dance remix that we eventually chose the one that had a slightly higher average loudness. We'd all heard the master that our synth player had done before this competition but neither myself or our singer correctly identified it when listening to all 4 versions. I was expecting our master to sound slightly weedy compared with the ones that we had paid for but this was not the case at all. It was one of those situations when you can't help but wonder if a professional could be doing a better job, and in this case the answer turned out to be that what we were doing was equally as good. The single will be available to download and stream on Friday 25th April and on CD at our gigs.

Depends... My interest in "funk" begins and ends with the post-punk/industrial crossover bands of the early 80s, so artists like early ACR, The Contortions, Medium Medium and 23 Skidoo. However I could see the technique being used in slap bass lines for the thumbed part.

It will turn up fairly frequently in any riff-based music. I've used the technique in songs I have written in the post-punk, goth, pschobilly, and dance-rock/pop genres.

Lots of riffs are essentially played on one string with alternating fretted and open notes with many of the fretted notes at the 12th fret and higher. I'm sure they could be played without using any open strings but you'll need to work twice as hard at plucking over multiple strings and muting the pedal note string and it will be much harder to maintain the rhythmic feel especially if the riff uses hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Here you go!

I think that the rigidity of construction that normally goes hand in hand with a high-mass design is more likely to have an effect on tone than the actual increase in weight over the BBOT.

I've got an RCF745 and TBH it's been complete overkill for what I need most of the time. In the 7 years that I have owned it, I've needed it twice to supply bass to the audience when the PA has been vocals only and in this respect it has preformed far better than my previous traditional bass rigs. However, the rest of the time, for rehearsals and smaller gigs with PA support, I could have definitely got away with something smaller, lighter and cheaper. I personally wouldn't go for the Headrest as IMO it's overpriced for what it is. Have a look at the FRFR thread in the amps section for other options. I think you get better VfM when looking at PA type cabs. It will depend what you want from a personal monitor. For me all I need is to be able to hear that I am in time and in tune with the rest of the band. I don't need "heft" or a perfect representation of my bass tone on stage in order to play well, I'm happy to assume that that is being taken care of FoH by the PA for the audience who are far more important.

It would depend on what I needed to play and how many of the songs were challenging to play in E or Eb without being able to use open strings.

After all the recommendations I thought that you might be interested in the final outcome. Based on feedback here and from another forum we chose two different people to do masters for us one of whom supplied us with two versions with differing amounts of compression. So along with our original master, we had 4 different versions to consider. Our synth player per got one of his kids to randomly rename the tracks so that only they knew which was which and then sent them out as versions A to D. Listening to each in turn I thought they were all, good which little to choose between the four. Version C had a bit more "air" and separation of the instruments but the other three sounded very similar. I then stuck all four masters in Logic and used the solo function to switch between them on the fly. At this point it was noticeable that Version A sounded a bit "louder" than the others, although none sounded excessively compressed. It's always tempting to just pick the loudest and most impressive sounding one, but in this case our mix has to also stand up next to a dance-floor friendly remix that we have had done, and the "louder" version did this better than the others. So that will be the one that goes on the single. It was also the one that we all picked as our first or second choice. And the winner is... The version done by our synth player which I believe was created using Ozone. The single will be out on April 25th to coincide with our gig at WGW.

I got the impression that Simms were moving away from instrument production when Enfield finished. Also unless I am mistaken, all the graphite parts for Enfield basses were made by Gus Guitars who use a completely different construction method to Status.

Apart from the Boss Waza-Air system all of the consumer wireless (Bluetooth) headphones will have too much latency to be of any use for practicing.

The reason it makes so little difference is that the overall weight of the bridge and body combined, and because they are attached to each other we need to consider the combined weight, hardly changes. I did the maths last time this was brought up and even though a typical high-mass bridge is almost 3 times heavier than the BBOT, the combined weight of the bridge and body is less than a 5% difference.

IMO anything with the "Original" shape. The various Jazz copies not so much.

Too many different models for them to become collectable just by brand. The signature models and the all-graphite ones will probably start to appreciate in value. The rest of them not so much and confusion over models and construction methods may well keep the price of the more desirable ones down. (All IMO)

You were robbed. Worth about the same as what it would have cost new from Woolies back in the day - about £19.95

But you'd have to stack them on top of each other for best dispersion.

Out of interest did it come with a case or gig bag?

That's even longer than the Knuckle Quake Bass (now Kalium) with a 39.5" scale. They might be able to make strings for this if Newtone can't.

IMO most people after "authentic sounds" are listening with their eyes rather than their ears. Studios can get away with lots of impressive LOOKING vintage gear so long as client bookings can be measured in weeks and they have an excellent tech on hand to keep all the equipment running in a usable condition. Unfortunately IME a lot of what is turning up in these places as "authentic" and "vintage" is the sort of crap that back in the day was only being bought because we couldn't afford the instruments and effects units we really wanted.

But are they worth anything if they don't work? I can see a few examples ending up in museum display cabinets a bit like those ancient stringed instruments that no longer have the structural integrity to be strung to a playable pitch. Studios don't want stuff that isn't reliable, and I certainly don't want to be wasting my money in studio where one of its USPs decides to expire half way through a session. I grew up using most of these instruments in 80s and I'm glad I can do it all on my computer now. The cheap stuff wasn't very versatile or robust, and the expensive stuff was far more unreliable than its price tag warranted. It wasn't until digital synthesisers and samplers were starting to be made in significant numbers that reliability picked up to a usable point.

Most keytars are only suitable for miming on TotP and in videos. I used to own a Yamaha KX5 which needed extensive modification in order for it to perform reliably on stage. I believe most of the world's supply of these instruments is owned by Howard Jones who cannibalises them to keep a couple working for his personal use.

I can't ever see myself going back to a traditional bass rig. For the sorts of gigs I have been playing the past 20 years, on the small stages it was mostly too loud and by the time I'd turned down to the point where the FoH was happy it wasn't messing up the PA sound I could hear myself better from the guitarist's wedge on the other side of the stage than I could from my rig immediately behind me. For the bigger stages, the moment I wasn't stood directly in front of my rig it became a big heavy and expensive stage prop that took up too much room in the band van and was cumbersome to get into venues and on to stage. For the few gigs I did where the bass didn't go through the PA I had to be so loud on stage that I could barely hear the rest of the band in order to project properly into the rest of the venue. IME "heft" is mostly myth and if I had been loud enough to properly experience it, I would most likely be even more deaf than I am. These days I go straight from the Helix into the PA. I have an FRFR cab for those few occasions when I need additional on-stage monitoring or FoH projection, and the superior dispersal characteristics mean that I only have to be marginally louder on stage than I would normally be comfortable with in order to get the right mix FoH. It also means that for my current band we get the whole band plus all our gear and merch plus our roadie/merch seller in a single estate car, which makes more gigs economically viable than before.

Anything that wasn't made in massive numbers is already seriously overpriced. Also many of the classic instruments from the 70s and 80s are full of discontinued components with an ever-increasing chance of terminal failure. It depends whether the market considers that a nice-looking example of a non-functioning instrument is actually worth anything.

Sei's in particular are far too personal to the person they were originally made for them the become collectable just for the name IMO. Shuker makes too many different designs many of which are copies of other brands. For luthier-made instruments to become collectable in themselves you need a situation like Wal where there are a limited number of designs, which are not over-personalised to the person they were originally made for, and a couple of well-respected players with distinctive sounds to start using them exclusively. And then for the supply of new instruments to become limited. I can't think of any others that fit those criteria at the moment.

The split P-bass pickup is a humbucker.