BigRedX

The reason you get lots of presets and user programmable memories on modelling amps, is because they are essentially a free extra once you've put in the processing power to do all the other stuff.

[quote name='fiatcoupe432' timestamp='1501488924' post='3344897'] So what do I need if I wanted to record drums with 4/5 mics? [/quote] A really good sounding and decent sized room with a variety of movable acoustic treatments to record the drums in.

A Rickenbacker isn't a Fender... What a surprise!

[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1501234785' post='3343446'] Side question here - but are these for playing bass through? I splashed out on some long coveted wireless Senn R185, about £300 at the time. They had very slight but noticeable latency compared to wired phones, was gutted to have to return them.. [/quote] Nearly all wireless headphones use Bluetooth for the data transmission, and unfortunately low latency is simply not part of the specification.

Over the last 15 or so years I have bought and sold somewhere in the region of £25k worth of items on eBay. I've had a couple of problems but nothing so bad that it would make me stop using the site for either buying or selling. I do think it helps if your buying and selling interests fall outside of the mainstream. Certainly when you sell, the people interested in your items tend to be more serious if it's something a bit more unusual than a Fender-alike bass.

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1501169476' post='3343043'] Bigger maybe. Better? Not sure about that at all. [/quote] From my personal experience of selling on Basschat and on eBay, I'd much rather sell on eBay. The immeasurably bigger audience far outweighs any other problems I have encountered.

[url=http://www.acguitars.co.uk/acg-eq01-filter-pre-amp/]ACG EQ01[/url]. Personally I wouldn't bother with anything else unless you were to get an ACG bass with the DFM pre-amp fitted.

eBay

The last time I bought a bass I had tried in the shop first I had sold it again within 6 months. I don't think I've ever moved on a bass quite so quickly. Also there is no such thing as a good set up. Only a set up that suits you. Everyone is different and will want slightly different things from a set up.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1501095624' post='3342516'] Not if they are set at neutral - beyond that they can cut and boost. Are passive tone controls effects? This could be taken to the nth degree. The pick up design and state, the electronic component condition (eg capacitors), height of pick ups, volume control, strength and position of plucking etc all change the sound - they could all be classed as effects. I view effects as outboard devices changing the signal significantly such as a distortion/drive, chorus, delay, flanger, phaser etc etc. The idea that onboard EQ is an effect, to me, is a non standard viewpoint. Unless you're talking external EQ unit and even then I wonder. [/quote] Firstly where is the neutral point of an EQ circuit? It's certainly not the one with all the knobs in the centre position. Every component in the signal path will be affecting (effecting) that signal to some degree. Just listen to the difference between a guitar our bass with the pickup connected directly to the output socket and the same instrument with a passive volume and tone control wired in, even if they are both set to maximum. Even simple passive EQ circuits have the potential to change the signal significantly. If they didn't there would be little point in having them.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1501091671' post='3342468'] Sorry to muscle in on Blue's debate here but I fundamentally disagree. On board EQ is just a more efficient and comprehensive version of a single tone control. Think hi fi rather than Dansette (60s/70s teens will particularly get this analogy). Talking of effects and distortion effect, I have played a Cliff and the Shadows song from the very early 60s which has distortion on the bass in a gig and got virtually the same effect playing my classic Stingray hard, with the treble turned up against full bass on the guitar's EQ, through my MarkBass set up with no pedals!! I was well impressed as was the band. The remainder of the set was thumpy but defined (like a 60s recorded P bass) played over the neck joint - moving bridge wards occassionally for extra definition. [/quote] EQ alters the sound that has been captured by the pickup(s). Therefore it is an effect.

As I said in another thread on the subject of poor sound at gigs, I don't go very many "big" gigs and at all of the recent ones I've attended with one exception the sound has been excellent and appropriately balanced. Strangely enough the one band that had a very poor sound were the middle band in a 3 band gig and both the band playing before and the headliners had a great sound, so they (or their sound engineer) must have wanted it to sound that way. If I was to attend another big gig with poor sound I would make a point of mentioning it on the band's Facebook page, and probably also find out who was doing the PA and let them know too. Maybe this current trend in crap sound is being perpetuated because no-one is complaining directly to the bands or the PA companies. If enough of us do so maybe they might take some notice?

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1501010104' post='3341792'] I disagree. Blue [/quote] EQ is an effect. Therefore they are the same.

Maybe we should start letting the bands, venues, and the PA hire companies know that we don't think much of their FoH sound.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1501000310' post='3341680'] Are you pehaps talking about your sound or effects? [/quote] They are the same thing IMO.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1501000220' post='3341677'] The sign of a good song is one that can be alerted a lot and still be enjoyable. [/quote] You don't even need to play the same bass line as on the original.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1500995498' post='3341595'] Develop your sound. Make it a good one then use it on everything. No really, everything. Make those songs yours. James Jamerson, Duck Dunn and Nathan East have played on a thousand hit records (I'm grabbing that number out of the air but it's closer than a few hundred) and probably several thousand that weren't hits, over the last 60 years and between them they have used 3 tones. That's one each for all those different songs they played for so many different singers on so many records and over so many the decades. If someone wants to play 20 songs on a cover band gig and use 20 different sounds, that's OK. Totally unnecessary, but OK. IMO you'll be a better bass player if you sound like you. That's what the pro's do. [/quote] Would you give the same advice to the guitarist?

What are your guitarists doing with regards to matching the guitar sounds on the songs you are playing?

Looks great! Have you sorted out a suitable case for it yet?

Actually they are acoustic treatment tiles. The amount of sound proofing they will provide (especially at low frequencies) will be minimal.

[quote name='Freddy Le Cragg' timestamp='1500547778' post='3338593'] Ed Tudor Pole was in a season 2 episode as well. [/quote] He's a proper actor though.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1500030879' post='3335224'] Own amusement primarily as I'm sans band at the minute. Having said that I've never been one to be satisfied with "demo quality", whatever that even is nowadays... Eventually I'd like to be releasing my own material, so that's always in the background. I know I don't have the best interface, so I've been eyeing the Audient ID4 too... [/quote] If it's for you own amusement then I'd look at getting a better keyboard than your current Akai and its mini keys. Alternatively get a bigger or second monitor (your Mac will support 2), especially if you are considering moving to Logic, where you almost never have too much screen real-estate - I currently run 3 x 23" monitors and even then I could sometimes do with more space! For doing anything more, here is a cautionary tale... I've always been a home recordist. My first band in the late 70s was a recording project only. A band that had to borrow its bass guitar and had only one (10 Watt) amp and no drum kit, there was no way that we could gig, but we could fake the lack of conventional instruments on tape, so we stuck to experimenting with recording at home and got pretty good at it. Come the 80s and I joined a synth band and we had 4 track cassette recorder fed from an HH 12:2 mixing desk and a handful of guitar effects pedals. We made some fairly decent recordings with this set up, but I couldn't help but think that the need for over-dubbing to get all the instruments and vocals recorded with only 4 tracks was holding us back in terms of sound quality and production. Something that was seemingly confirmed when we booked a proper studio with racks of outboard gear to make our last recording. Then in 1990 two things happened. I inherited enough money for me to go out a buy pretty much all the gear I needed for a decent home studio set up. An 8-track cassette based recorder, 12:8:2 mixing desk, a decent sampler and synth and some outboard. At the same time I bought a house that had a suitable room for a dedicated home studio. After that I pretty much spent all my disposable income for the next decade on the studio. Over the decade I must have spent at least £30k on the room and equipment to go in it. By the end I had moved over to a Mac-based recording system with a MotU interface, 40 channel digital desk, huge Tannoy monitors, racks of onboard gear and synths. The quality of my recordings definitely improved, but no matter what I did and how much money I spent on new gear, they never really came close to sounding as good as those by my favourite bands. Also everything took much longer when time was no longer a constraint. Over the decade with various line-ups of my band I produced 3 demos, a 3-track self released CD EP, and was half way through recording a full-length album when the band split. Not a brilliant work-rate when you consider than my first band completed 5 albums worth of material in under 4 years. When I joined The Terrortones, recording at home was out of the question, because I had neither the Mics or the sound proofing to record acoustic drums, so we used a series of local studios to record our initial demos and then our debut single. One thing that struck me straight away was how quickly the engineer in each studio was able to get a great sounding track together, sometimes with significantly less equipment than I had at home. It was at that point I realised that the limiting factor in my studio wasn't the gear, but was me. I had reached the point where no matter how much more time I spent working on a track or what hot new piece of kit I went ought and bought, my recordings were never going to sound very much better. In retrospect, the band I was in during the 90s would have been much better served if I had saved up the money and spent it on a month in a good studio with a reasonably well-known producer overseeing it all (easily achievable within a £30k budget). At the end of it, if nothing else, we would have had a great sounding album with a name producer attached to it, instead of a handful of good sounding "demos" and the rest of the tracks in various states on unfinishedness. To the OP I'm not saying that you won't end up being a great recording engineer/producer, but the chances are you'll never be capable of achieving the results you hear on your favourite recordings. With what you currently have in your home studio you have the potential to produce results that are technically far in excess of what was possible when some of the greatest recordings in the history of rock music were made. It is my experience that a good engineer is far more important than the gear. Over the last 5 years I've sold nearly all my studio gear. I've down-sized to a Mac Pro a basic Focusrite interface and a hifi amp and speakers. I'm getting back into synth-based music so at some point I'll be buying a decent keyboard. I think I'm pretty good at writing and arranging music, but if I end up making music at home that I think is worth releasing to the public I'll be taking it to a proper studio for mixing. I hope that helps and is not too discouraging.

Justin's simply not trying hard enough with his custom Warwick. Where's the ridiculous shape? The graphics that look as though they were done by a 5 year old? Amateur...

The video looks completely fake to me. As though he's just miming along to something that has been played on a different bass.

The 5-string I tried in The Bass Cellar in Denmark street was truly horrible...