BigRedX

For 90s/00s indie, something that makes you look as though you are about to set off on a long-distance trek across the moors, when in reality all you are doing is going down to the pub.

Well I've just come home with a full-fat Helix floor unit. Initial observations: 1. It's big and heavy, but looks well built. Good to see an actual built-in PSU rather than a wall-wart and flimsy lead that will become disconnected (or damaged) at the most inconvenient moment. Made like a proper professional piece of equipment. 2. No manual... WTF. I know that it's essentially all in the software that will hopefully be continually up-dated over the coming years, but still it would be nice to have something more than a double-sided "cheat sheet" to get me started. I've just paid over £1k for this and would expect some serious bath time/bedtime reading to go with it. I like manuals and I still need to refer to my BassPod manuals when I need to access the less well-used functions. Maybe the Helix is just so intuitive I won't need a manual. We'll see... 3. There's a BFO allen key and a rubbery nodule. What are they for? This is where a manual might have come in useful. 4. There's also a USB stick. I'll find out what that's for shortly, but if it's got anything essential on it, then I feel sorry for those users whose computing needs are met by a Tablet or Smart Phone, as they won't be able to do anything with it. Anyway, I'm about to go in. I might be some time...

The finish on a maple fingerboard isn't that hard wearing. It tends to last reasonably well on a fretted instrument only because very little actually comes in contact the board itself. The string stop at the frets and only part of the finger will touch it. Keep and play one for long enough and eventually you'll start to see finger wear patterns on the most commonly used notes. However as soon as you remove the frets it's a different story. Unless you plan to use super smooth flat wound strings, they will tear through the finish in no time, and even flat wound strings will eat into the finish on a fretless board quicker than one with frets on it.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1509575999' post='3400098'] Please, someone explain to me what your getting when you buy a new Harley Benton Jazz Bass for $135.00. They look cool, but again what are you getting? Blue [/quote] You are getting a copy of a tried and tested design made in a country where labour is cheap, but with a decent degree of quality control. These days there's nothing magical about having the Fender logo on the headstock. There's no R&D cost for the factory producing the copy. Besides one of the main features of all the original Fender instruments was that they were capable of being made by relatively unskilled labour using technology that was cheaply available at the end of the 1940s. Manufacturing technology has improved massively since then and now if anything it is even easier than it was back when the first Fender instruments were being made. TBH any company that isn't capable of making a decent version of Jazz bass nowadays probably shouldn't be making musical instruments in the first place.

So long as you want a decent number (100+) and don't need your print the same day as you supply the artwork, I've not yet found a printers who can beat [url=https://www.flexpress.co.uk]FlexPress[/url] for price and quality even after delivery costs have been factored in. And IME the likes of Vistaprint and Instant print don't even come close. In order to get the best prices you do need to supply a print-ready PDF otherwise you'll be paying extra for them to sort it out.

[quote name='jposega' timestamp='1509536515' post='3399662'] Unless Apple gets their s*** together and gives us back USB3.0 connections, I will never buy a new MacBook again. [/quote] USB3 is old tech. You won't be seeing it on any new Apple products.

I'm sure that there still is crap new gear being made and sold, but these days you'd have to specifically search it out, and even then it will still be better than what those of us who started out in the 70s and earlier had to put up with. I've been playing since the early 70s, but I didn't own a decent guitar or bass until the 90s. Before that I used a modified acoustic guitar, a solid electric I made myself at school, a very badly abused Burns Sonic Bass and a 12-string Baldwin semi-acoustic with a twisted neck. I did have some decent synths, but then in the 80s the crap ones cost about the same as the useful ones so as long as knew what you needed, you could get something decent.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1509538208' post='3399697'] A Burns Sonic bass was my first real instrument, it cost me £15 which I borrowed from my sister and paid her back a £1 a week for fifteen weeks. [/quote] I still have my Burns Sonic Bass: It was already pretty heavily modified when I bought it 1981. A previous owner had stripped off the red finish, and had also added two more controls and a second jack socket to the scratch plate that weren't connected to the other electronic on the bass. The original bridge had just about given up and was held together by wire wrapped around it and the machine heads slipped as you tried to tune up to pitch, something the shop had disguised by tuning it down a tone where they were relative stable. Still this bass lasted me all through the 80s (when I wasn't playing synth or guitar) and recordings made with it nearly got the band I was playing in signed to CBS Records!

My first guitar was a horrible 1960s catalogue bought steel-strung acoustic that my parents got for reasons only best known to themselves. It had the typically high action of cheap guitars of the time, and even after I had found out enough to know to shave about half an inch off the bottom of the bridge to make it playable, I discovered that it sounded terrible. After pestering my parents for the whole of the summer, they relented and bought me a Kimbara acoustic guitar for my 14th birthday (the only real concession they ever made to my musical aspirations) I still own this guitar although these days it rarely gets played: As you can see it has undergone some modifications from it's original condition. The year after I got it, I sold all my model railway stuff and with the proceeds took a trip to Leicester where I was able to buy a second hand Carlsbro Wasp 10 Watt amp and a piezo pickup for my guitar. Unfortunately my £35 wouldn't stretch as far as a used "Woolies Special" electric guitar as well as the amp so I had to settle for the pickup stuck to the bridge of the Kimbara. However I now had amplification, and it was bigger and louder than the amps my school friends had - which just goes to show what terrible amps were around at the time for those of us on a very limited budget. Unfortunately a piezo pickup on an acoustic guitar didn't really make it sound like the guitars on the records I was buying, so after lots of trawling around the local music shops I added a cheap Schaller magnetic pickup. This was supposed to be fitted to the end of the fingerboard, but I didn't like how it sounded in that position, so I glued it to the soundboard next to the bridge and drilled a hole in the top to take the cable. At the same time I moved the piezo pickup to the inside of the body under the bridge and connected both pickups to a stereo jack. The output connected to a box with 2 foot switches in it, one which allowed me select the pickup and other which chose whether I was connected to the bright or normal input of my amp. However I still wasn't able to make it sound much like Slade or The Sweet, until I discovered distortion. After trying out a pedal that a school friend had made I saved up for the bits and added my own (Practical Electronics) fuzz box between the pickup selector and the amp and I was finally able to get something similar to the sounds on the records I was listening to. And that set up was what I used until I built my own solid electric guitar in the woodwork shop during my last year at school at the end of the 70s. I didn't own a bass until 1981, when as a student, I finally had some disposable income of my own and was able to buy a second hand Burns Sonic Bass complete with the original hard case for £60 (with a Fender-branded strap thrown in the seal the deal!)

[url=http://www.emosystems.co.uk/Products/Passive_Direct_Injection_Boxes.html]EMO[/url]

If you want to stick with Trace Elliot have a look at stand-alone GP12 pre-amp because that has a built-in bi-amp output with a variable crossover frequency. You can run that into any powers amps you want and control everything from a single point.

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1509475117' post='3399289'] Not true for all makes of right-angle XLRs. [/quote] Probably not, but I'm pretty sure that all the Neutik ones I've bought over the years are capable of this.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1509497666' post='3399500'] or Jet Boy Jet Girl [/quote] +1

[quote name='bonzodog' timestamp='1509473298' post='3399267'] Thanks for the advice so far. I think I will set it up tonight and try it with one of my jack leads. The problem I suppose with a right angle XLR is there are knobs either side of the input so at least a jack can be swivelled around. [/quote] IIRC the better right-angle XLRs allow the body to be rotated to each of the four 90° positions when you assemble it.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1509462936' post='3399108'] That's correct [/quote] I have to admit, I'm a little bit disappointed that they aren't a local band...

I'm pretty certain I've seen this (or something very similar before) so I'm guessing this is off social media and not an advert you spotted in Nottingham?

I liked my Ashdown amp until it stopped working reliably and their customer support didn't want to know. That is enough for me never to want to have anything to do with their products ever again.

You can get right-angle XLR leads Neutrik make them in both [url=http://www.neutrik.co.uk/en-uk/xlr/rx-series/nc3frx]female[/url] and [url=http://www.neutrik.co.uk/en-uk/xlr/rx-series/nc3mrx]male[/url] versions.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1509447555' post='3398928'] They've put every option on it including being able to connect to the venues Wi-Fi and BRX Still isn't happy! To have the same kit in conventional equipment would cost many many thousands of pounds and fill a Luton van, Behringer have put it all in a box for less than £400 including a router which for me and many others has been fine, all they ask is you supply a pair of speakers to shame most P.A. systems in music venues a decade ago, I really can't fault them. [/quote] Because they've bodged it by fitting a sub-standard item (flakey WiFi router) in what looks like an otherwise perfect piece of kit. And not only that but it would probably only cost a few pounds more to get it right in the first place. Edit: And you shouldn't be connecting to the venue's WiFi. That's probably why it's going wrong. The Mixer and any controlling iPads/phone should be on their own completely separate (and ideally invisible) WiFi network.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1509446155' post='3398915'] No. But that's not what you said. There is an inbuilt Wifi unit AND an RJ45 connector. [/quote] OK, but what I thought I had implied was that either Behringer should fit a decent WiFi router in the first place, or dispense with it altogether and just have the RJ45 socket for either a direct computer connection or an external router. Out of interest what is the recommended external router for rock-solid WiFi connectivity in a professional set up?

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1509445063' post='3398889'] off to get some decent glue i treated myself to a large radiused sanding block recently so will give it a light cosmetic clean up while at it too [/quote] IIRC the fingerboard on the VMJ is ebanol rather than wood. Pick your sanding material carefully.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1509445859' post='3398908'] Err... they do have a RJ45 socket. [/quote] So there is a version available with no inbuilt WiFi and just the RJ45 connection?

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1509445194' post='3398892'] You can - but the inbuilt wifi is a bit cack. I think it's best used for testing at home etc... but the majority of people have issues with the inbuilt mixer... having said that, some people don't... There's plenty of people using these devices very successfully.. and there are a few options available to you. A cat5 cable straight to a computer to the device will work. A lot of people go with the Airport Express so you can airplay interval music to the XR device also. [/quote] It seems stupid, when the cost of a better router is insignificant compared with what it costs to build the mixer in the first place. That's Behringer for you. And why would you want to test with a set up you aren't going to use live? If the inbuilt router is so rubbish then it would make more sense to replace it with a RJ45 socket and for users to supply their own. That way Behringer could save even more money. Although IMO RJ45 connectors and Cat5 cables on the whole aren't sufficiently gig proof either.

It sounds a s though you have two separate and only slightly inter-related problems here. The nut should be glued in place to stop it from moving. The string tension should be sufficient to hold it in place most of the time, but anything that could potentially suck away some of the string vibration energy like the nut being loose and moving should be avoided. Secondly you need to wind the string right down to the bottom of the tuner post on the E and A strings to get the best possible break angle over the nut. This is why I don't like instruments with non-angled headstocks. Finally IMO the main reason for having a zero fret is to give a more even tone between the fretted and open strings. On a fretless bass ideally you would want the nut material to match that of the fingerboard. And as has been said the nut slots should be just above the surface of the fingerboard for the best action on a fretless.

I don't think I've bought anything for playing music during 2017. Not even a pick or a set of strings.