BigRedX

There a plenty of popular songs that use either standard preset sounds or very slight modifications of them. The above is prime example. The other really well-known one is Van Halen's "Jump" with IIRC is the first preset on the OBXa. There was a pointing the late 80s and 90s where artists were desperate to get any new synth so they could go through all the preset sounds and get the best ones on their recordings before anyone else did.

IME any sticker that isn't going to damage the finish in some way is going to come off at the most inopportune moment.

Any standard notation application that supports Postscript or EPS output and then edit/assemble the results in the desired manner using Adobe Illustrator or any other vector graphic program. Technically on a Mac it should be possible with any notation app using the "Print To PDF" function, but I suspect that some will produce a flat composite bitmap image rather than editable vector graphics. IIRC you already use Logic. Have you check what sort of output you get when you print to PDF from the notation window?

Says the person with some sort of mutant rabbit inlay on the bass in their avatar... 😉 Unfortunately since the Prince connection, Gus have become a victim of their own success, in that from what I can gather Simon is spending so much time making variations on purple guitars that he's not needed or had time to update the website. IMO they are one of the best guitars or basses made out of any kind of material, but due to the wooden core for the body and neck and the aluminium tube(s) they are no lighter than any normal wooden instrument of a similar body size.

Hurtsfall have just done two decent paying gigs where be played 8 and 6 songs respectively (that's 40 and 30 minutes on stage). We have 10 songs in total that we can currently play although the two weren't included in either set might be a bit rusty!

Also if your playing your own songs, I've found that audience members who've enjoyed your band also like to have a set list after you have finished playing.

My Helix is my set list. For one band I have the presets for each song in the order we are going to play them, and simply select the next Preset to know what the next song is since each Preset is named for the song it is for. For my other band we have the songs in the correct order on the computer that provides the drums and second synth player. I have a footswitch that runs a macro to close the current song and load the next one in the list. This in turn sends the appropriate MIDI program change message to the Helix which displays the name of the song.

Maybe, but by then Duran Duran were less popular, so the Aria is the bass he's best known for. Remember also that he's playing a Rickenbacker in the Planet Earth video...

In order for "boutique" instruments to become an investment that need the Wal effect as follows: 1. The majority of examples need to be basically the same with just minor cosmetic variations. 2. There need to be a couple (at least) of big name users who have a distinctive sound. 3. Demand needs to exceed supply.

It's television. None of it is real.

Thee is no such thing a "A SET UP". There is your preferred setup which will be slightly (or even very) different for every single one of us here, so other than making sure the action isn't ridiculously high or low and the intonation is set correctly for that action there is little a shop/distributor/manufacturer can do in this regard. IME trying in a shop is fairly pointless as you will never be able to tell what the instrument sounds like through your exact rig in a band context, which is probably the most important factor after how it looks. Also how many of you here try a bass out on a strap in the shop before purchasing? Unless you only play sitting down how it hangs on your preferred length of strap can make a massive difference to the playability.

If you are going to have to play octave/unison riffs along with the guitars and they require lots of open strings then you'll probably need to match the tuning. Otherwise tune to what you like. You may find you come up with something more interesting that way.

Ideally I'd have my preferred luthier (Simon at Gus Guitars) build all of mine to my specifications. Failing that, because my tastes are decidedly not mainstream, I'll buy on line from any place that can offer the best combination of price, service and availability.

And how much does it look like a Reverend bass in real life?

And once you can play it at the right speed try playing it slower (about 75-80% of the correct speed) and see if you can still keep the timing as tight.

Not so much changed as broadened, in that I still like most of what I liked previously but there is always new music to discover. However I do find that I go through phases of being less interested in music I used to like a lot. Currently I'm nowhere near as enthusiastic about 90s house and trip hop as I was at the time. We'd be pretty boring (and especially as musicians) if we never changed our musical tastes.

But an Alembic is not an ACG. IMO once you step outside of the Fender and Fender copy (and I include high-end as well as cheap copies in that description) market, you're not simply buying a musical instrument for playing bass lines - there's a whole other range of factors at play some of which might seem completely irrational to the average bassist who is completely happy with their factory made mass-produced bass.

It's the Eastwood copy based on one of Peter Hook's Shergold Marathon six string basses. Having had a go on an original Shergold back in the early 80s as far as I can remember it's pretty accurate too.

The most I have spent so far on a bass was just under £3k on a Sei Offset Flamboyant 5-string fretless, custom made for me about 15 years ago. On the other hand the cheapest bass I have ever bought was £60 including the hard case and free strap (in 1981), which in terms of disposable income at the time was a lot more of a struggle financially - I had to live VERY frugally for the next month. So really it's down to what you can afford at the time and how important certain features are to you. Right now I could do with a second Eastwood Hooky so I have a decent backup bass for gigs, but the price is now over £1400 and I have other things I need to spend my money on first. Ideally I'd get Simon Farmer at Gus to make me a Bass VI, but last time I enquired the price for one made to my spec was around the £6.5k mark, so that's unlikely to happen any time soon, but if I had the disposable cash I'd be ordering two today. Does that answer your question?

Gotoh, Graphtec, Hipshot and Schaller all make machine heads worth considering. Which you chose will depend on features are important to you. Gotoh used to be the most versatile because they offered a service where you could assemble a set of machine heads from all the various options they had. This unfortunately no longer appears to be available, so you have to make do with the preset options instead.

AsI mentioned earlier in the thread, one of my bands has been playing our cover of "I Believe In Father Christmas" and this year we've released it as a single. The video has just been released too:

And here's the video:

Hurtsfall played on Sunday in Sheffield on the final day of the "In The Black Midwint2r" festival. We were on first in the evening after a short break from the afternoon bands, which mean that we got a proper sound check which definitely helped with getting the mix right. Second outing for our new and improved backing control which allows me to run everything from a foot pedal which is used to start each song and then run a macro which closes the current song and loads the next one in the set. Now I'm satisfied that it works as intended we'll probably shift the computer to a less obtrusive place on stage for subsequent gigs. Also I've now got all my Helix Preset and Snapshot changes controlled by the backing track which means I can concentrate on playing without needing to worry about hitting the correct footswitch at the correct time in order to change sounds, which has resulted in a significant improvement in my on-stage performance. There was a proper photographer in attendance so there should be some decent photos up later on, but in the mean time here's something taken by an audience member...

Here's mine for Hurtsfall from Sunday night's gig at the "In The Black Midwint2r" festival: Apologies for the crap low-light phone photo. Eastwood Hooky into Line6 Helix and then straight into the PA via an EMO passive DI box. For this that are interested, the foot switch to the left controls the sequencer - middle pedal for stop/pause and right hand pedal to run a macro which closes the current song and opens the next one in the set list. The yellow cable going into the Helix is MIDI to select the correct Preset for each song (on load) and also send Snapshot commands mid-song to change the sounds without me needing to worry about hitting the correct switch as well as playing the right notes. I've used this twice now anomy live performance has improved considerably.

One other suggestion: have you tried ALL the USB ports on your computer? They will not be all the same and different ports may well be on different buses internally and sharing the bus with various other "hidden" USB peripherals such as the wifi and bluetooth as well as the more obvious ones like your keyboard and mouse. Also depending on where they are on the casing the earthing may be different. So reconnect your speakers direct to the interface and then try each USB socket on the computer in turn to see if it makes any difference to the noises. Edit: I've just looked at the computer in question on the HP web site and there appear to be 6 USB ports and since 4 of the them are UCB3 and 2 are USB2 there should be at least 2 separate USB busses, but try them all anyway. Does anyone know if there is a Windows equivalent for the System Profiler on Mac OSX? This is a very handy tool as it will let you see exactly what devices are on each USB bus and which physical ports are connected to which bus. The other thing you could try after this is if you have a POWERED USB hub to see if running the interface from this makes any difference. USB can be quite "eccentric". I fixed a USB problem with my Novation controller keyboard not working reliably simply by using a different USB socket on the computer.