BigRedX

Again are you sure? From what I can see from the various live videos of the Simple Minds playing the song the repeating D is a sequenced synth part. The bass guitar plays something else that appears to follow the guitar part.

It's only a piano piece in that the cues for the start and the end of each of the three movements are the closing and opening the piano keyboard lid. The ensemble "playing" it can be a as big or small as the conductor wants.

Are you sure? Every note is stopped and it's a relatively fast tempo. I can't get beyond the end of the first verse before my left hand seizes up.

When I got my Helix Floor, the only other option was the newly released LT. I knew at the time that if I went for the lesser-spec'd option there would come a point when I would regret it as I'd be missing a feature that was only available from the top of the range model. As it is the scribble strips have proved invaluable especially for easily identifying snapshots, as have the multitude of additional inputs and outputs which allow me to set up my rig(s) with no compromises. One feature I have found very useful, and which I don't know if it exists on the other Helix versions, is that the selected snapshot is memorised when you save. This allows me to always have the main sound for a song on snapshot 1, but if I use a different sound for the intro (saved onto one of the other snapshot positions) it will be selected automatically when I select the patch for the song.

Yes. I've have the Helix Floor and any of the 6 inputs (guitar in, line in and the 4 FX returns) can be used as individual inputs if the routing is set up correctly in the patch. I use it to allow bass (via the guitar in) and stereo synth (via FX return 1+2 mixed to mono) to be both routed simultaneously to the left output that feeds a DI to the PA and my FRFR cab for on-stage monitoring.

Very nice. Except the join between the painted body and the wood neck that just looks weird.

I went for the Helix Floor. The LT had just come out when I was looking to get mine, but I decided that the extras on the full version were worth it and if I get the LT at some point sooner rather than later I'd need one of the missing features. And the "scribble-strips" are an essential part of my set up and I also use the additional inputs for running synths as well as bass in one of my bands. I use my Helix direct into a powered FRFR cab, but on the whole I don't use any of the amp or cab sims, preferring instead just to have a decent EQ in the signal path, when I do it is either a clean guitar amp for my Bass VI or one that is picked specifically for its overdrive sound and used as an effect. I decided not to go for the rack and separate pedal, because firstly getting a Helix was part of my down-sizing and I don't have an amp or cabs to sit the rack unit on. Secondly having struggled with finding a gig-proof Cat5 cable to connect my BassPod and Floorboard together in my previous rig I was very reluctant to have any home/office grade components in my new set up. Besides I mostly play on proper stages so I don't have to worry about audience inflicted damage. If I was playing cover in pubs, then I might reconsider, but I'd probably also be using a conventional bass rig so I'd have somewhere to stand the rack version. Finally the Helix Floor has a proper internal PSU and connects to the mains using a standard IEC main lead rather than a nasty wall-wart PSU.

Because back then there was nothing especially important about any of these instruments. If you had something that played well but you didn't like the way it sounded or looked then it got modified until it did sound and look the way you wanted it to.

This whole thread highlights the fact that tablets and phones are still not fully functional computing devices when it come to doing anything that isn't Social Media, simple web browsing and email. IME WeTransfer is a fantastic service - I use it multiple times a day for my work from my desktop computer - but the app is a nasty kludge that don't appear to work properly. The first time I used it it took 3 attempts to persuade the WeTransfer email link to open in the app, and then later in the day when I needed to access the files again it simply wouldn't let me, sending me in a never-ending loop between the web page that didn't work on the tablet and a link to download the app that I already had. The same with DropBox. Works fine on my desktop computer - I use it for sharing files with my clients who prefer it over WeTransfer - but terribly convoluted on the iPad and only seems to work some of the time, and doesn't appear to have all the functionality of the desktop version when it comes to managing the files on DropBox. Don't get me wrong, the phone and tablet are great devices in some respects, but they are mostly for passively consuming media rather than actively interacting with it. I've put off making this post until I was able to do it on my desktop computer which has a decent sized screen and a proper keyboard, rather than struggling to type it on my iPad.

IME it is very hit or miss whether the link will require you to sign in to Google or not.

Two gigs on Saturday with In Isolation. First opening day two of In The Black Midwinter festival in Sheffield. Playing at 2.00 in the afternoon wasn't that great as there were only about 20 people in the audience and most of them were either staff or from the next 2 or 3 bands on the bill. However it served as an excellent warm up to the evening gig at the Lending Room in Leeds supporting Rome Burns on their album launch. Played a blinder - even the unexpected Christmas Cover went down well. A great end to our mini tour and 2019. Big things happening next year which I am not allowed to mention yet...

And inaccessible to anyone without a Google account.

I'd love to switch (along with the rest of my band) to IEM, but IME if you are not running your own PA you simply don't know what the monitoring facilities will be like at every venue. While most will be digital with multiple sends you can't guarantee it. With digital desks, I've seen bands we've shared the bill with interface their IEM with varying degrees of success. However not every venue is so well equipped. We've just done some dates with B-Movie and the one support we couldn't do in Leeds, the PA was reportedly controlled from a 16 channel analogue desk with one monitor send. I have no idea what we would have done if we'd turned up there with no backline and IEM...

I don't know what kinds of gigs your band plays, but remember that computer plugs and cables are not even remotely as robust as your typical jack or XLR lead.

If you want it to look boutique get a 5-year old to draw you something and then burn it on with a soldering iron. Ideally everything in the signal path should be shielded to avoid interference pickup.

If that's your pedal board and the DI is being placed at the end of it, unless every single pedal is true bypass it won't make a scrap of difference to the DI whether the bass is active or passive.

Fair enough, but to me the setup sounded intriguing enough for me to at least want to meet the other members. I've used JMB once. I was very specific about what I was looking for both musically and in terms of organisation and ambitions, and the one band who answered my ad were as a consequence exactly what I was looking for. I'm still with them now.

The other thing to realise is that on nearly every set of bass guitar strings the highest tension string is the D. Then as you move higher or lower from this, the tension reduces with each string. The result is that the B string is by far to lowest tension string in a 5-string set and for anyone without the lightest of light touches when playing it is very noticeable. For me 130 is the thinnest low B I would consider and usually I would want a 135 minimum to go with the feel of a standard 40-100 4-string set.

I assume you must all be playing covers in pubs with vocal only PA systems then? Having spent most of my gigging life playing in "originals" bands, full PA support has very much been the norm except for a handful of tiny venues. My switch to FRFR came as a result of a succession of gigs where I'd been asked to turn down my bass rig on stage so far, that despite the fact than I was stood right in front of it, I could hear the bass guitar louder from the guitarist's monitor wedge on the other side of the stage. It was at this point that I had to admit that the rig was 100% for show and nothing after the BassPod was contributing in any way towards what audience were hearing, and often nothing to what I was hearing either. And a lot of the time when my rig was expected to provide a decent volume for the audience to hear the bass guitar, it was so loud on stage I was having trouble hearing the rest of the band! For the last few gigs I haven't even bothered with the FRFR, relying solely on the PA monitors to hear the bass. It has made no difference to the on-stage sound at all, and I'll only be taking it to the next two gigs because they are at venues I haven't played at before and I don't know how good the supplied foldback will be.

Exactly. Which is why I have stopped using them and rely on other methods to get the bass sound I want.

I would suspect that the majority of bassists using FRFR cabs over a "traditional" bass rig are using them, like I do, solely for on-stage monitoring where being able to hear what you are playing is far more important than having a "awesome tone" - that's being handled by the FoH system. Since I switch to an FRFR system I've only once had to use it without the benefit of PA support and that's when I was using my Bass VI so the additional HF support and projection was useful.

But in order for anyone else to get the benefit of this "magic" the cabs need to be mic'd up rather than the bass DI'd.

I had Yodel deliver parcels for me twice to an address with the same number and street name but in a completely different part of Nottingham - NG1 as opposed to NG7. If the address had been hand written and the 7 looked like a 1, then I could have forgiven them, but the labels were printed and it was very clearly a 7. Besides the second part of the postcode is completely different.

TBH very little of this matters if the electronic music fan has some decent musical ideas that you can turn into great songs, any serious recording will be done at least in part in a proper studio, and the singer might just be the person required to make the band stick out.

For both bands it's by consensus. However I always think that the flow of the set should be dictated as far as possible by the songs rather than any practical considerations. If two songs are hard to sing/play back to back then you just need to practice some more IMO. Similarly starting with something easy to "warm up". Do your warming up somewhere off stage and come on ready to give it your all with your second-best song (the best one should be saved for the end) rather than compromising the set so you can have an easier time.