BigRedX

Al's problem is that he wants definite empirical answers to his questions, but they don't exist because the sound of a cab depends on lots of different things of which the cone size of the driver(s) is just one, and as Bill Fitzmaurice has just shown there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between driver size and frequency response. And ultimately it may not even matter. @Al Krow what exactly are your cabs for in a live situation? If the bass is going through the PA your choice of cabs is pretty much irrelevant because their contribution to the FoH sound will be negligible.

Neither. Songwriting is what impresses me the most. Write a decent song and don't obsess over how to play it.

And what about pro-quality 3rd party plugins under linux?

AFAICS from the manual there is no MIDI program mapping and only 100 memory locations, so MIDI programs above 100 on the controlling device won't have a matching program on the Elektron, and if you want to the same drive sound on two different ES-8 patches you'll have to copy them on the Elektron.

Onto the second page and no-one has mentioned "American Edit" by Dean Gray yet?

Yes. I've owned a Hondo Alien - short scale with minimalist body a few cm wider than the neck, a Born To Rock F4B - a neck plus an aluminium tube outline of the body and an Atlansia Solitaire 1 string bass which is just a 36" long square section of wood with a string running along the length, and can't recall any of them causing me any problems to play. Back in the early 80s when I tried one of the original Steinberger Basses the lack of headstock was more disconcerting than the lack of body when it came to play it. However I did forget to add point 7... 7. Some method of attaching a strap.

All a bass needs is the following: 1. A neck 2. Some method of tuning each string 3. Some method of intonating each string 4. Some method of spacing the strings apart at the end witness points 5. A pickup 6. Some method of connecting the pickup to the rest of your signal chain Everything else is personal preference.

I'm looking at a similar solution for a custom Bass VI that I am spec'ing out, and even though I'm going to be going for a much wider string spacing than the Revelation, I don't think that splitting the pickups is going to do it for me. For a start what would I do about the "G" string? For some songs it would definitely be part of the bass sound and others part of the guitar chords. Sometimes it would need to swap over in the middle of the song depending on what I am playing. I've decided that it will be far simpler to go for two outputs and 3-way switching on each pickup (1/off/2) and then tone shaping/filtering further along the signal chain to achieve what I want to do. It helps that my rig these days consists of a Helix and an FRFR so I don't need to worry about separate amps etc.

Is it just me or is the Issuu interface really terrible? The pages are so small that the text is unreadable even at full-screen on a typical laptop or tablet, without zooming in and then having to scroll around. They massive area reserved for ads at the bottom of the screen doesn't help when there is already plenty of dead space at the sides. Also what's with the stupid page turning animation? It's not a real magazine. It's time that ePublishers stopped pretending they are producing physical product and started designing to the strengths of the medium they are using for their delivery. It also doesn't help that there are several factual errors in the descriptions of the basses I am familiar with, plus I wonder if the author actually asked for permission to reproduce any of the photographs?

The mono mixes will always sound better, they were the ones that had the most time spent on them. The stereo versions were generally dashed off in an afternoon afterwards. Besides there won't be that much to make stereo from a four track recording where all the bounces were to a single track.

No if your on-satge speaker is an FRFR, then you should send the same signal to both this and the PA.

And Thomas Dolby on Keyboards. Check out the Radio Science Orchestra, for Theremin-y goodness.

The Buggles version is all about the production, which is very much of its time. The Bruce Woolley one is just a simple guitar based pop song with less to date it. BTW the Dollar track linked to above was also co-written by Bruce Woolley.

I knew about the Bruce Wooley version mainly because he went to the same school as me.

IIRC the Corn Dolly was the venue for the second ever gig I went to - Bedford Prog Rockers "Spring Offensive" some time in early 1977.

Unless I am making up a large number (20+) of custom cables to very specific lengths and with various combinations of connectors at each end, it is far more cost effective to get OBBM to do it.

That doesn't look the slightest bit stable.

Very much this. The only bass-specific amp I have in any of my patches is there because I like the drive sound on it, so it's there as a glorified distortion pedal. For my Bass VI patches I'm using the Roland Jazz Chorus Combo model.

IIRC everything except the Lightwave pickup system and the body of the machine heads was custom made. The luthier was an (ex?) dental technician and therefore had the expertise to custom cast the various parts he needed.

IME all these small stands are fine for guitars with symmetrical body ends when used in a child- and pet-free home. I certainly wouldn't trust them on stage for any instrument, especially a bass guitar which has a much higher centre of gravity and makes most of these small stands too unstable. A heavy duty "A-frame" stand would probably be OK but I suspect that it would fit in a gig bag.

Like these?

Bass Surgery?

It is not the 1950s any more. The reason combos were originally designed with the controls on the top was because the manufacturers expected them to be placed at the front of the stage and musicians would be stood behind them when playing (the control labels were originally positioned with this set up in mind so on very old amps they are "upside down"). No-one in even the most retro-influenced bands actually does this. Nowadays, combos whether they are for the guitar or bass go on tilt-back stands, or some other means of aiming the speakers at the musicians' ears rather than their ankles. Doing so means that the controls are now very difficult to get at.

Top-mounted controls have no place on any new amp for either bass or guitar. Back to the drawing board Blackstar.

Actually I played it less. I was only able to buy the Overwater because I had recently started a much better paid job (which came with a much higher level of commitment to my "career"). I certainly didn't put in the hours playing it that I had done for the guitars, basses and synthesisers I had owned before. I also had just bought my first DAW so much of my music time was spent with that rather than just the bass.