BigRedX

Any reason why the XLR socket is on a wonk? It looks like a mistake. Also there appears to be no cable holder on the 9V in socket. That's unfortunate accident waiting to happen on stage.

Thanks. Every day is a school day! When you "literally go flipping nuts" are you expected to remain in key?

IME no amount of "good set up" will produce a decent sounding and feeling B-string from a bass that is incapable of producing it.

Do you know what piece this fragment of notation is actually from? I doubt it is from anything serious of the sort described above.

Neck and neck joint construction play a major role in getting a good sounding low B string (along with matching the correct string to the bass and your playing style). It's unsurprising to me that the higher quality basses have the best sounding and feeling low B strings. I've yet to come across any 5-string bass that retails at under £1k that is any good in this respect.

I tried boiling string once. It took ages, left a stain on the pot I used and one of the strings broke when I tried to fit it back on the bass. The rest sounded just as crap as before within a couple of days.

Surely the simplest thing would be to modify the existing BBOT bridge to be slot loading? A couple of hours work with a junior hacksaw and some files should do the job.

We all need to eat a peck of dirt before we die.

Since both the bands I play in at the moment use computer-driven backing, this is the next thing I am considering. Not only will the main song patch be selected on song load, but all the mid-song snap-shot changes will be automated as well. All I need to do as a bit of programming and add a standard MIDI lead between the interface than the Helix. I used to do this with another band back in the 90s when the technology was a lot less reliable and user friendly. In fact we automated the patch changes for the whole band - synths, samplers, guitar and bass effects, electronic drums as well as the digital FoH mixer we used. We did have our own FoH sound engineer who would adjust the mix on the fly as necessary, but being able to set up the basic levels, EQs, effects and routings automatically at the start of each song was a massive time saver.

If you can be organised any of Helix-based units should be fine. I have the full Helix Floor with each song assigned to an individual patch and then up to 4 snap-shots for each song for all the various effects changes (I could have 8 snap-shots on both banks of foot switches, but I don't find the upper bank very user friendly for getting the right switch at the right time mid-song. Using the Set List function, I have all the patches in the order that I need them, so that the up switch selects the patch (and snap-shots) for the next song (along with the song name in the display), so I don't even have to have a printed set list on stage any more. Of course that won't work if you are in a band who change the set order on the fly...

Yes. However there is no single bass that does everything I need so my perfect basses are: My two Gus G3-5s (one main and one spare for gigs) and my Eastwood copy of the Shergold Marathon 6-string bass (I may even get a second one so I have a spare for gigs). Unless I find myself playing in a band that needs some fretless bass sounds I can't (at the moment) see myself buying another bass again.

It's is also worth considering that the plug-ins that come included with the more expensive DAWs tend to be optimised for the DAW in question then therefore have a lower processor and memory footprint. 3rd party plug-ins are written with maximising compatibility for as many DAWs and operating systems first and foremost, and can work out more expensive in the long term in terms of hardware requirements as well as the upfront additional cost.

These awards tend to be for people who are singers/songwriters/producers rather than "traditional" musicians. I'd far rather someone like PinkPantheress wins this than Coldplay, whose "songwriting" is distinctly lowest common denominator stuff and everything that makes them interesting has been done by Eno.

Unfortunately it appears that DaytonaRik has turned into his dad. He'll be telling us pesky kids to get off his lawn next...

@lowdown Thanks that makes sense. However for a score that contains the instruction "literally go flipping nuts" I doubt many people would be sight reading it and the notation is there to help the players track where they are in a piece when they play it from memory, rather than to read from scratch.

I take it you spent some time in Nottingham? Were you in a band there? I was at school with Rob Birch and Nick Hallam. I saw Pinski Zoo lots of times during their weekly Friday Night residency at The Hearty Goodfellow. Anyone could get a support with them provided that they came to a gig and stayed to the end of the set. For many of us it was the only opportunity to get a "weekend" gig if you weren't playing rock covers.

I once had the misfortune to be in the rehearsal room next door to the one occupied by Six By Seven. They were so loud that it was impossible for us to practice while they were playing. I also saw them on their local gig for the tour they had been practicing for. The opening number was massively impressive, unfortunately they decided to follow this with one where one of the guitarists swapped guitars for one that didn't appear to be working. After several minutes of mucking about they finally managed to get a sound out of it, but by then all that initial momentum was lost (and the replacement guitar sounded exactly the same as the previous one). IIRC I left before the end of the gig. I'd never heard of Doggen , and after looking him up know why. Another musician who had to move away from Nottingham to be successful.

@lowdown for someone with only rudimentary knowledge of musical notation can you explain why that bar is a problem?

Nottingham: Stereo MCs (posh boys from Ruddington) Tindersticks (an amalgamation of two far more interesting bands) Both bands had to move away from Nottingham and all but deny any connection with the place before they became successful. There's also been a series of one-hit wonders, novelty acts and minor indie bands none of whom are worth a mention. Nottingham has always been a weird place when it comes to mainstream success as a musician/band. The late 70s/early 80s produced plenty of contenders who should have been massive but managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Anyone remember Medium Medium (signed to Cherry Red), 23 Jewels (had a single of the week in NME), 1,000,000 Fuzz-tone Guitars, The Howdy Boys, None So Blind (their debut single was produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics) or Pinski Zoo?

While Reaper is cheap (it's essentially free unless you really want to pay the £60 licence fee) you don't get a lot of bundled plug-ins for effects or instruments with it. I don't know how much the fully featured Windows DAWs are these days, but Logic Pro X on the Mac is £199, and by the time you've shelled out for a few virtual instruments to make up for what is missing in Reaper, you will have probably exceeded this without factoring in the cost of Reaper itself. A decent drum plug-in will be over £100 on its own. Regarding audio interfaces have a look at the various offerings from Focusrite. If money is no object look at RME.

Best practice is not to sent phantom power to anything that doesn't need it.

Start by looking for the minimum and ideal hardware requirements for your DAW of choice on their website. Then think about what you want to do with your DAW. Is it just going to be digital multitrack recorder and mixer or will you be using lots of virtual instruments (synths, samplers, drum machines etc.)? Then think about what else you want this computer for. More memory is better, but past 16GB you only really need more if you intend to run lots of sample-based virtual instruments, in which case you might want lots more. So start with 16GB and leave yourself with at least a couple of free slots, and the capability to be able to install at least 64GB RAM. Ideally you want a separate SSD/HD for recording your audio onto. It's always best practice not to record and playback multi-track audio from the system drive. I take it the small drive is for the OS and programs and bigger one for data? Graphics doesn't really matter for music use. All good DAWs de-prioritise screen redraw if they start to run out of steam. However you may want to run more than one display, so make sure your graphics card is capable of driving at least 2x24" screens. A good dedicated audio interface will always be better than whatever is built-in to the motherboard. It will have far better quality AD/DA convertors and ideally at least a couple of good mic pre-amps. If you want to record more than two tracks of audio at once you will almost definitely need a separate interface. HTH

AFAIK it doesn't work with colour laser prints because the toner is different. That said I have never tried it because the work Omnichrom machine was essentially replaced by a very expensive colour copier that connected directly to the computer network by an even more expensive RIP/interface at some point in about 1993/4.

To the OP: what percentage of your gigs is your rig completely responsible for what the the audience hears, and what percentage is it mostly the PA?

Guitars only need to have curvy shapes if they are intended to be played sitting down. And even then it only needs to be on the lower half of the body like the Ovation Breadwinner or any of the Klein-inspired ergonomic designs. All my important playing (in front of an audience) is done standing up so the shape of the instrument really doesn't matter so long as it does not adversely affect the balance on the strap or access to the areas of the fretboard that I need. It certainly doesn't need to be "curvy".