BigRedX

I used to own an Overwater Original fretless 5-string bass that was (probably) the first ever 5-string basses made by Overwater, and potentially one of the oldest 5-string (low B) basses in existence. Having been made in 1983, although I know there are older 5-string basses, I've not come across anyone owns or has owned an older one, so there can't be that many. Before me it was owned and used by Michael Féat who as well as being a member of Streetwalkers (featuring Roger Chapman ex-Family) was a prominent session bassist appearing on numerous well-known albums in the 80s and I was told that if there was any fretless bass on an album he played on there was a good chance it was played on that Overwater.

[quote name='oldslapper' timestamp='1503484855' post='3358570'] Musical answer... "everything" Band situation... "everyone else" [/quote] This

[quote name='lowregisterhead' timestamp='1503221695' post='3356483'] It can be a minefield, for dep and depee(?) alike. There's a story I heard many years ago about a drummer who was asked to dep on an originals gig in a pub up in central London for the paltry sum, even then, of £50. The band leader sent him a cassette tape of the songs (as I said, it was a few years back) but with a busy schedule, he only made time to listen to it in his car on the way to the gig. It was fairly straight forward stuff, so apart from one or two hiccups, he discharged his duties quite well, or so he thought. Afterwards, the band leader took him to task about these and other minor infractions. Feeling aggrieved at what he perceived to be nit-picking, when asked to explain himself, the drummer said "Well, I gave it the fifty quid listen, didn't I?!?"[/quote] IMO if he wasn't prepared to do a proper job for £50 then he shouldn't have taken the gig in the first place. If that had happened to my band I'd be naming ans shaming the drummer in question.

So how tiny exactly is that space? The ceiling looks very low too.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1503403973' post='3357911'] Does it matter, as long as it sounds as required..? [/quote] No of course not. But it always amuses me whenever musicians say that their amp is set flat. What it normally means is that they like the "baked-in" sound of that piece of gear when the tone controls are set to 12 o'clock for active circuits and maximum for passive tone tone stacks. Every piece of gear colours your sound in some way or another.

[quote name='Wolverinebass' timestamp='1503351257' post='3357581'] No dude, you need an amp or pre-amp that has midi recallable settings. Then it won't matter if you move the dials in transit as it won't make any difference when the patch is called up. Come to think of it, if Alex is reading this, do midi pots on your amp and you'd keep the analogue signal path but have the ability to save the settings. [/quote] This is what I have with my BassPod. When I do amp sharing gigs I always tell the other bassist(s) that they are welcome to fiddle with the controls on my BassPod if they need to, because whatever they do when I select the patch for our first song everything goes back to what I want without even needing to check any of the settings.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1503340020' post='3357415'] Bass - Amp (set flat) [/quote] How do you know it's set flat?

BassPod XT

How big is the room and how are you intending the ventilate it? Remember that conventional ventilation is very much at cross-purposes with sound insulation!

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1503062064' post='3355430'] Any pics of the rest of the stage set up ? [/quote] In the Talkbass thread - linked above. The rest of it isn't anywhere near as interesting, although AFAICS the drummer appears to play standing up behind a conventional kit.

I'm definitely no Fender expert, but the only P-J configuration basses I can recall seeing in the 70s were all customised jobs either by the owner or by a luthier. The first production bass with that configuration would have most likely been something in the early 80s and I suspect would have had "Jackson" or "Charvel" on the headstock rather than "Fender".

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1503052504' post='3355326'] Lots of big name professional artists performing original material use deps on every gig, they are called musicians! [/quote] That's not what I meant, and you know it. My definition of a Dep is a someone who replaces the usual musician for one maybe two gigs only.

Have you been using the Helix Edit software at all? If so is it any good, and does it offer a significant advantage over the Helix's built-in display? One of the things that is making me pause at the moment is that Line6 don't have the best reputation for keeping up with Mac OS X updates, and since my main computer (the one with all the big screens which is the main point of having a "proper" computer) is also the one I make my living on, updates are dictated by the needs of my graphics applications, and if I do get a lot of use out of the editing program, I don't want to suddenly find that it no longer works because I've had to update the OS to keep up with the latest versions of Adobe CC.

Have any originals bands used a Dep? Or have anyone here Depped with an originals band? How did it go? In my case as described [url=http://basschat.co.uk/topic/310399-should-i-cancel-gig-i-am-going-to-for-my-bands-gig/page__view__findpost__p__3354111]here[/url] it was OK but ultimately I don't think it did the band any favours, and in retrospect we probably shouldn't have played the gigs in the first place.

Buy a cab you like the sound of and get it recovered to match your amp.

Thanks for all the info. I suspect that as DSP gets even cheaper, more powerful and more efficient, at some point it will be practical to put enough of them into a multi-effects unit so that we won't have to rely on tricks to get around the problem of patch-switching latency.

Great looking rig even if only a tenth of it is for anything more than show. It's a pity then that the music the band makes is so depressingly ordinary.

[quote name='bigjimmyc' timestamp='1502991310' post='3354939'] Great input so far, cheers. In my head the noise comes from the floor. Is that correct? Either way, noise in the room can be absorbed (not reflected) at the walls and ceiling, or is that a fallacy? [/quote] You have got two different things here. One is isolating the the room so that outside noise doesn't get in (and also so noise generated inside doesn't get out). That is soundproofing. The other is treating the inside of the room for directional noise generated within the room itself. This is acoustic treatment. Outside noise comes from everywhere, and will get into your building through the least insulated part. Generally low frequency rumble is transmitted through materials so will appear to be coming through the floor. However simply uncoupling the floor inside will not be enough if you don't also uncouple the walls and ceiling. Hence the room within a room. Bass traps are designed to absorb standing waves generated by the speakers inside the room so that they don't reflect off the internal surfaces of the room. Generally you find them situated on the wall the speakers point at plus corners of the wall and even the ceiling. If you don't absorb these waves they reflect back off the walls and will create peaks and troughs at different frequencies at different point in the room as the reflected sound waves add and subtract from the direct waves. This means that you get a different frequency balance at different points in the room.

Bass traps have zero impact on noise coming in from outside. They are designed to solve acoustic problems with standing waves within the room itself. To prevent noise from outside, especially low frequency, you need to acoustically decouple the inside of the structure from its surroundings. That normally means a floating floor and a room within a room.

What is the gig you are going to see? And how much would you be getting paid for the gig you are supposed to be playing? Also from my reading of the OP it sound's like this is an originals band. IME getting Deps for an originals band is a lot harder than getting one for a covers band. For a start absolutely none of the songs are likely to be familiar to the Dep. Secondly there is also the question of image. I've been involved with using dips twice in The Terrortones and neither occasion was brilliant in terms of presenting the band properly. On the first occasion it was myself that needed to replaced. We had landed a very good support at the last minute, but I was already booked for a gig with my other (covers) band and they absolutely refused to allow me to use a Dep for them. Luckily we were able to find someone in time, and while he did a perfectly adequate job musically, from the videos I have seen of the gig, visually (and the Terrortones were a VERY visual band) he wasn't very good. He wasn't really dressed appropriately - we didn't expect him to go the full leather/PVC Psychobilly haircut look but he couldn't even do: "wear black, no trainers and obvious band or brand logos". On the second occasion we needed a drummer for a long distance gig. This time we had someone from another Rockabilly band so at least he had the look right. And musically he managed to get nearly all the tricky bits nailed. Unfortunately he managed to mess up the single twice (we played it again as an encore because we'd not done a particularly good job of it in the set) in two different and very noticeable ways. Neither gig went well enough for us to be asked back and one potentially lost us a lot of good support slots at decent venues. Also on both occasions we had seriously modify the set and drop all the newer songs in favour of ones we already had recordings of so that our Deps would be able to learn them. We were lucky in that we had a lot of songs recorded, but not every originals band unless they are well established is going to have that luxury.

Do you really need 2Ω capability? AFAICS it's main use is to run more than 2 cabs without needing special series/parallel leads making up and with high sensitivity cabs like Barefaced is this really necessary? OTOH an adjustable (or fixed at around 35Hz like the Microthumpinator) HPF is an absolute must.

What's all this 30GBP nonsense? Is there something wrong with the good old "£" sign?

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1502797969' post='3353586'] It's been done. Flopped. [/quote] Really? Do you have details? Aren't most lightweight powered PA cabs made form composite materials these days?

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1502782448' post='3353411'] I thought it was 7/8? [/quote] I think that's lost on the post-decimals

I hadn't considered latency when switching between patches, since my BassPod XT sounds instantaneous, so thought that was a thing of the past. I used to own a Peavey BassFex in the 90s which was a fantastic unit for features but the pause between switching from one patch to another made it completely unusable for mid-song switching as the whole unit went silent for about half a second when you elected the new patch. Good news that there's way around it. What I meant was latency when using external effects loops as the signal obviously need to be converted back to analog for the send and re-digitised on the return. The effect I'm intending to use it with is one that need to be in series rather than in parallel with the signal path going through the Helix, so any delay added by using the loop could well be noticeable.