BigRedX

Thanks! All sorted now. Now I know what to do it's easy, but IMO Line6 really don't make it very intuitive. I just searched for Helix software and downloaded the latest version. There's nothing on the page to tell you that you need the Line 6 Updater application as well. That should be at the top of the Helix (and any other product that requires it) downloads page, so newbie like me know what to do. I didn't need to back anything up because I've not made any changes to any of the programs yet. I thought I'd make sure that the software was up to date first.

As you have revealed the results would you care to "disclose my thoughts on the “tonewood” subject" now?

Just been able to find the time do to some serious Helix programming, but I thought I run the updates first as I'm still on 2.21 which is what mine came with. So I go to the Helix site and download the latest version - 2.53 - but it's a .hxf file and my Mac doesn't know what to do with it. I thought the updaters were stand-alone programs? Have I got the right file? If so what should I do with it? If not what should I be downloading? Why is the process so unintuitive?

The 745 is lighter than the 735 too.

Two and a half grand for a Strat? With the wrong headstock and a missing vibrato spring cover. PRS are having a laugh.

Unfortunately the retailer had gone out of business quite a while before the mixer started playing up. I'm just glad I hadn't paid the full list price of £7k. In the end I think it lasted for about 15 years before it packed in altogether, but it had been developing various niggles on top of the incomplete software for about 3 years before that. My analog mixer it was bought to replace is still going strong after almost 30 years.

I hate to be a party pooper, but even though you are not selling the track you are still on dodgy ground having this track available on Bandcamp. Part of the terms and conditions you agreed to when uploading your recordings to Bandcamp (you did read all the terms and conditions didn't you?) is that you own all the relevant rights to the recordings. So unless you have obtained the appropriate PRS/MCPS licence for these covers you are in breach of your Bandcamp agreement.

Having sprayed stuff with rattle cans before, I would get anything new I wanted doing sprayed professionally. By the time I'd organised a suitable dust-free space to do the spraying in, bought the paint and ancillary equipment like masks/ventilators etc. and spent the time spraying and sanding many times before I got I even close to a finish that I would be happy with, I might as well have paid for a proper professional job. Martin Sims has done the finish on 2 of my basses, and I wouldn't hesitate to use him again.

But unless your instrument is made from non-traditional materials (not wood) or has a generally unusual design, those "options" such as fancy woods and electronics are the USP. Otherwise again we might as well all be buying and playing Squiers.

I doubt I'll ever buy another TASCAM product again. My very expensive digital mixer never got most the promised software updates, so many of the functions remained inoperative. When it started behaving erratically TASCAM wanted an inordinate amount of money to just look at it while simultaneously saying that they would be unlikely to be able to fix it. They wouldn't even give me a hint as to where the memory backup battery might be located so I could have a go at eking a few more years of life out of it. Getting a full set of schematics was completely out of the question - even though I was prepared to pay for them.

The only reason to be using flats is because you prefer the sound of them over round wounds for the music that you are playing. I've used flats on some of my basses in the past, but none of my current basses or the music I am playing with them would suit flat wound strings right now.

With regard to many well known UK bass brands being absent from the show, I imagine that having a stand there isn't cheap. As a graphic designer I've been involved with creating show stands for other specialist markets and judging by the amount of money some exhibitors are prepared to spend just on the graphical elements, it has got to be expensive. Would either the organisers or one of the exhibitors care to let us know how much a stand cost and what you got in terms of floor space etc for that price? And of course if you already have a full order book and a waiting time for new instruments that is measured in years rather than months, why would you want to be at the show? You are going to loose several days when you could be working preparing for and being at the show, and what do you take to show? Do you even have demonstration instruments when you are completely busy with work for paying customers? As a customer I would not be very happy if I found out that my supposedly brand new bass had been thrashed to death over the weekend by hundreds of slap-happy bassists... I also know from several friends who have worked for the bigger musical instrument companies that events like this can be very hard work. You are constantly watching the instruments to make sure they don't get damaged and no-one wants to buy anything without getting a "special show discount". Maybe for a lot of the more established luthiers too much cost and additional work for too little extra reward?

Is there really a lot of interest in flats these days? Maybe on here from a vocal minority, but Basschat only really represents a small number of bassists in the UK and the flats users are a tiny percentage of that. If flats were seriously coming back into popularity you'd be able to buy them form your local music store off the shelf without need to get them on special order and we'd probably even start seeing some mainstream brands fitting them as standard to their basses. But we're not; and for now flats will remain a speciality string for those of us who show a bit more interest in our gear than the average bassist for whom a bass and amp with a recognised brand name will be sufficient.

All it really shows is that when it comes to developing bass amplification, Marshall haven't been able to keep up with the competition.

If, like most luthiers your USP is making unique hand-crafted instruments with meticulous attention to detail, why would you want to dilute that with a budget line? Like it or not if you are a one-man operation making something that doesn't owe a large part of its inspiration to the designs of Leo Fender and you want to do it absolutely right, then you are going to find it difficult to come in under £3000 these days. Otherwise you are basically saying that the instrument doesn't matter and then we'd all be fine playing £200 Squiers.

Everything I've ever ordered from them has taken exactly a week from the day I ordered it.

Thanks for the clarification. The fact that the necks are bolt-on opens up an interesting second test. Would it be possible for you to swap the necks and do the recordings again? That way we could see if the slight change in sound moves with the neck, remains with body or if you end up with 2 brand new tonal variations. The problem still remains with the sample size (as it does with all similar tests). Until someone has the time and money to do this properly, at best all we are every going to be able to say is that one bass sounds different to another, and we are never going to be able to say EXACTLY what is causing those differences in sound. Which of course we all know already!

I'd say for most musicians, most of the time the Luminlayr system will be fine. However it's not without it's own set of problems. Firstly it's nowhere near as bright as an LED or fibre system and secondly if you lose the recharging torch they aren't going to be any use at all, and you can guarantee you won't realise you've lost the torch (or left it at home) until 5 minutes before your are due to go on stage for an important gig.

It would probably be fair to say that just about every instrument on a pop/rock recording (and the vocals) has had compression applied to it, whether it be an actual compressor, something in the signal path with valves in it being driven hard, or tape saturation; or a combination of all three.

One would hope that the original recordings were made at 24bit 44.1kHz. However Soundcloud streaming (which is how we are listening to them) is at best 128BR MP3 which IMO is too low resolution to allow any meaningful analysis of the recordings.

Yes there's a difference, but to my ears it is so slight that its pretty much irrelevant although, it is a bit more pronounced on the slap sounds. And in the context of a band mix (which is where it really counts) I doubt anyone would be able to tell the two apart on any of the playing styles. And then there is the problem with the methodology of your test. 1. There are just two many variables in the construction of solid electric instruments. Every bit of wood is different. Even if the woods used in both instruments are the same species for each part, there will be differences between them, and that's before we even think about the differences in where and how they are joined. And what about the electronic components? Unless you are specifying very close tolerance items there will be at best a ±10% tolerance for every single component in the signal chain. How similar are the pickups in terms of resistance? Did you even measure them? 2. Then there's a sample size. I'm sorry but two instruments simply isn't enough. If you had 100 identical instruments (or as close as possible given point 1), 50 with Rosewood boards and 50 with ebony boards and you got constant difference between the two types and the overlap in between each type was negligible (i.e. the darkest of the brighter sounding wood was still brighter than the brightest of the darker sounding wood) then I might be able to start taking this tone wood stuff seriously when it comes to solid electric instruments. 3. And finally there is tester's bias. I'm sure you didn't mean to do it, but unless you were blindfolded and didn't know which bass was which, there will have been some variation in your playing style as you unconsciously tried to bring out the sonic characteristics you were expecting form each bass. And all this is why I think that trying to isolate the sonic characteristics imparted to a solid electric instrument by a single component is a fools errand. There are two many other variables that can't be ignored. And then you need to address the sample size of the tested instruments and get a consistency of result, for any of this to have any proper meaning. To me each instrument is the sum of all its various parts and you can break it down and sign a single characteristic to a single one of any of those parts. I treat each bass (or guitar) as a whole. And either as a whole it works or doesn't for me. And TBH from my PoV unless there is something very wrong with the instrument it will be possible to get a good usable sound out of it with a slight modification of my playing technique and EQ and effects settings that will result in a suitable bass sound for whatever song I am playing. BTW I didn't vote, because there wasn't an option for I could tell a difference between the examples but it didn't matter which was which, and I'd pick the bass that looked the best to me.

Well according to this thread which was the one I was thinking of, so long as the OP doesn't need to trigger more than one sound simultaneously, then the JamMan should be exactly what he needs. However I should point out that while this is fine for one-shot or freeform background sounds, anything that needs to have more than its start point synchronised with the live band will require a proper backing with a click track for the drummer.

Well the 1bn they might have raised from the shares might keep them going for the next year. I think unless there is some breakthrough working out a way for streaming to be profitable without alienating their customers as well as their content providers, then a lot of people are going to lose their money.

Perhaps the real reason that rock music is becoming less relevant these days is because it is turning into classical music.

Do you have a source for that? It is my understanding that Spotify has still to turn a profit and is only kept going by investment hoping that one day it might actually be worth something close to that figure. Personally ATM I can't see how that is possible. The infrastructure and bandwidth costs alone to support Spotify's user base must be huge, and I suspect that the vast majority of them are using the free service. The ads on the free service are poorly targeted, most of the ones I get are from Spotify trying to persuade me to upgrade to their paid service and all of the others are for music I have absolutely no interest in; and since I'm mostly using Spotify's own genre playlists, you would think that ads for music would reflect the genre being streamed? I see little point in paying for Spotify when their catalogue is so incomplete. Roughly one third of the tracks I have on CD or records are unavailable on Spotify and while I'm not exactly mainstream, my tastes aren't THAT obscure. AFAIK none of the streaming services actually make any money. Soundcloud was just about viable until they were told that they would have to pay royalties to the owners of their content. Since then they've stubbled from one financial crisis to another. Even YouTube only survives because it is being propped up by Google's more lucrative services. No one but Spotify's management and their anxious investors can believe that Spotify is worth anything close to the figure being quoted. Maybe if someone actually works out how to make music streaming services turn a profit then perhaps one of them could be worth that much. But until then dream on.