BigRedX

In the days before electronic tuners the practice would be for the rest of the musicians to tune to whatever instrument was the hardest to retune. Normally the the studio piano. However many recordings would have their speed (and pitch) altered in order to get a better feel, usually being sped up, so it is very common for the final released version to somewhere between a quarter and a semitone off standard pitch.

There are a couple of reasons why these synths are so cheap. One will be that with parameter access they will be difficult to program without a computer editor. The other is due to their age things will be starting to go wrong with them. The Roland keyboards from this era are notorious for glue failures on the key weights causing them to become detached, rendering the keyboard useless, and although fixable it takes a lot of time and effort. There are also likely to be problems with the battery backup of the user memories. Unless you are happy with the factory presets or there is a readily available selection of free decent 3rd party sounds that are easily loaded in, I personally would steer clear of all the synths that you have suggested. Also from what I recall of these synths, the sounds will now be quite dated. Unfortunately any decent synth with MIDI with close to one control per parameter will be more than your £200 budget, If you are determined to go with one of the synths you have suggested approach with caution and make sure everything is working as it should be before parting with your cash.

The iLok problem only affects M2 and M3 Macs running Sonoma version 14.4, previous versions were fine. And now the 14.4.1 update has fixed it.

Your problem is your budget of under £200. What have you seen that fits into this? Otherwise I'd be recommending the Behringer Deepmind 12.

What do you want the synth to do? Produce it's own sounds or just act as a controller for the Doepfer system? If you need it to produce sounds, what sort? What sort of music do you play?

I'd dob them in to the relevant authority.

I suppose in my case the Helix already does the vast majority of things that I want and it does them very well. All the "improvements" I am after should be possible with the existing hardware and all I need to do is to persuade Line6 to implement them in a future firmware update.

And what exactly could a newer chipset improve?

Ideally what you want to do is to be able to change the order of the pedals to suit the sound(s) you want to create. Now if only there was a device that did this....

What you really need is an envelope filter with two inputs - one for the signal that is being processed and one for the "trigger" signal. That way you can put the filter wherever you want in the signal chain and split off the trigger signal from elsewhere. Are there any devices like this?

Given the size of some people's pedal boards, almost anything up to and including a 100W all-valve head would fit if the space wasn't already taken up with pedals!

You don't even need amp and cab models, after all an amp is just something with a baked in sound and limited range EQ, and the basic function of a real amp is get your line level signal to a volume where you and the audience can hear it. If you're going through an FRFR/PA/IEMs then the amp and cab models are something that IMO gets in the way of your ideal sound. The right EQ and drive models will get you there much better. And if you are determined to use amp and cab models try them all even the "guitar" ones. The worst that can happen is that you won't like the sound, and then you can try another one. It's not as though you run the risk of damaging anything. Also plenty of "vintage" bass amps are guitar amps with a different name and maybe the EQ frequencies slightly adjusted. Of the few Presets where I do use amp/cab models one model is a guitar combo that would never be suitable for bass at gig volume in real life, and other was chosen because the distortion sound fits exactly in the context of the track, an is essential being used a drive pedal rather than an "amp".

Did you send that second photo to Truetone in the course of your email conversation? If so I would search them out on social media and tell them how poor your think their product and subsequent customer service is. Maybe that will spur them into action.

I would take the original broken device back to the shop where you bought it and tell them you want a replacement or your money back under trading standard regulations as it's clearly not fit for purpose.

IME angled pickup rings are for carved top guitars. Flat fronted guitars should use non-angled rings

On the Helix/HX range here may be multiple modules that do the same basic thing, but IME I quickly found that there was one version that I preferred over the others, and that's the one that gets used in the vast majority of my Presets. Occasionally when I'm creating a new Preset I will have another look (listen) at the alternatives, but always end up going back to the variant I originally chose. The first thing I did when I got my Helix was to build up a default Preset that included all the effects I wanted to use with a sensible default settings applied to each. Then I saved it to a location where it wouldn't get accidentally overwritten and I make a copy every time I want to create a new Preset. Mine has actually been refined recently as firmware updates have introduced new models (although only the preamp which has replaced separate drive and EQ models has changed since my default Preset was originally created), and is currently just a compressor, pre-amp (for EQ and drive), chorus and delay. If a song requires a specific additional effect this just gets patched in when I create a new Preset for that song. It also helps if you use the HX Edit app which makes creating new Presets far easier than the front panel controls which in my case are only used for fine-tuning Presets and Snapshots in the rehearsal room.

You should never be using a shim to counteract neck. That's what the truss rod is there for. No you don't. The whole point of using a partial shim is that you can get away with something really small and thin (and probably invisible once the neck as been re-attached) that changes the angle at which the neck fits into the pocket which allows the saddles to be at a sensible height to get the right action. I once did a series of diagrams clearly illustrating this but they appear to have been lost when Photobucket started wanting payment for image hosting.

Unless you are going to mic up the cab, IMO there is little point in using an amp for recording.

It looks interesting? TBH for the size of venues that these bands are playing on-stage amplification will make zero contribution to what the audience hears, and depending on how the monitoring is configured somewhere between zero and very little to what the musicians hear, so they might as well do something interesting with how the backline is arranged. For all we know the cabs are stage props only.

As an aside from another thread on here about graphic design for boutique pedals does anyone know how many pedals of a particular type are produced for each batch?

Please show me photographic evidence of this. Also have all these instruments with alleged ski-jump in the neck pocket area had shims fitted? If so please show the shims too. Also how long has it taken from the fitting of the shim for ski-jump to become a problem.

IME it's only worth buying from abroad if the item in question is something that has no official UK importer/distributor.

Out of interest who "owns the copyright" on this? Whoever input the song parameters or the those who own the AI code?

Here's both of the Overwaters I used to own - the 1983 version on the left and slightly later one on the right: IIRC the 1983 model was the first 5-string that Overwater made and was based on their C-Bass design. This one used to be owned by the session bassist Michael Féat, and may possibly have been used on some very high-profile albums, although I can't find any direct evidence for what it was played on. They were both very good basses, but overall didn't suit me as well as my Gus G3s and therefore weren't getting much use. Both were moved on when I had my big clear out some years ago.

What you diagram fails to take into account is that the action of the strings on the whole length of the neck is far, far greater than that of the screws acting against two almost insignificant pivot points approximately 50mm apart. For ski-jump to be caused by the presence of a shim it would have to occur between the neck bolts, yet all the anecdotal evidence I have seen points to it happening elsewhere - somewhere between the centre point of the neck and the heel. So while ski-jump might possibly be a thing, it's not being caused by fitting a shim.