BigRedX

If you have the time and patience, I would do something similar to the TB photo you posted on a removable panel that would allow you to spend some time playing the bass with all the options available. You'll probably find quite quickly that there is one that you really like and maybe another one or two that would be useful occasionally. Which of all those options you favourites will be will depend on what sounds you like, what sort of music you play, and how the other instruments in your band sound. There is no guaranteed solution, but I would say that pickup combinations that sound great on your own at home don't aways cut it in a band situation, and often the simple selections work the best. Once you have decided which combinations are actually useful, put them on a single switch and print a new panel for it.

Firstly I need to say that I'm primarily a synth player rather than a traditional keyboard player, so most of this is based on observation of other players. With boogie-woogie in particular there is a lot of left-hand movement, and generally a lot of separation between the left and right hand parts. I suspect that you find very quickly that a 61 note keyboard is too small for this and if you are able to bring the left and right hand parts an octave closer together without them overlapping it won't sound right. Also if your are playing from written notation you'll be constantly be transposing one or the other hand on the fly. IME if you want to play proper piano parts you will at minimum need a sustain pedal. Thankfully you won't need a Leslie Cab. Any decent keyboard which comes with organ sounds should include options for Leslie off, slow and fast. The important thing is to be able to change this from the performance controls as it plays a big part in the sound of 70s rock organ.

While those other luthiers will be able to make you a very nice instrument, none of them (with the possible exception of an ACG with the appropriate pickups and filter pre-amp) will get you close to the sounds of a Wal. Once you step outside of the Precision and Jazz bass market, one luthier/manufacture's basses are not a substitute for another's, and if you think they are you would probably be best off with a Squier.

If you are planning on playing piano parts especially boogie-woogie, you will want more than 61 keys. At least 76 or ideally 88. You'll want velocity sensitivity for piano emulations - the harder you hit the keys the louder the notes sound, like a real piano. For organ parts you'll need to be able turn it off. I'm assuming touch sensitivity means "after-touch" this allows extra expression in synth sounds by pressing down harder on keys you are already holding down. Not needed for Piano or Organ emulations. Weighted and semi-weighted keys will react more like traditional piano keys. Organs tend to have unweighted keys. What suits you best is something you'll only discover after you have been playing a while. Unweighted keys with velocity sensitive sounds (like piano) will make you work harder at your piano technique as they tend to do everything at full velocity. If you watch piano players and (rock) organists you'll notice that the playing styles for each is totally different due to the nature of the sounds each instrument produces. If you want to emulate a real piano you will need a sustain pedal. You might also want something that supports the soft pedal function and a pedal to go with it. Finally remember that a big part of the traditional rock organ sound is that of the Leslie Cabinet and the speed controls for it. You won't get a convincing emulation without being able to change the speed on the fly. You will also want a volume pedal.

Do you have a DAW? MIDI files will load onto a suitable track in your DAW and then transmit the system exclusive patch data to your synth. You may need to adjust the playback speed to get a reliable transfer. If you don't have a DAW there are detailed instructions in the "How To Load Instruction" link on the page you linked to. Be aware as it doesn't seem to be mentioned on the page, but loading these sounds will over-write what you already have on your synth so if you want to keep any of them you'll need to make a backup first. Ultimately you might be better off with a MIDI librarian application. What OS are you using?

It is really the vendor's duty to sort you out with a proper UK legal PSU. Since it appears to be Harley Benton that's Thomann and they should really know better. While it might be quicker to just go out and buy a replacement PSU, it means that you are out of pocket buying something that should have been supplied in the first place, and it also means that Thomann are less likely to start supplying the correct electrical items for sale to the UK.

The thing about second prices for Wals is that you can have the bass the moment that you had over the money. Right now, due to the backlog, you can't order a new Wal, and even if you could you'd be looking at a wait time of 4 years for yours to be completed. However, since the basses at The Gallery are currently unsold, it would suggest that they have been priced too high. A true indication of what a Wal bass is worth would be to look at what second hand example have actually sold for over the last year.

Here are the gigs we have booked so far for the first half of 2024: Tuesday 13th February at The Chapel above The Angel Microbrewery in Nottingham Supporting Murdah Srvc, with Laura Dickinson and NMG We're on at around 9.00pm Friday 16th February, HRH Goth 2 at the O2 Academy, Leicester with Fleisch, The Danse Society, Exilia, PLAY/DEAD and Nox Pulso We're on at 7.00pm Saturday 27th April at The Whitby Brewery, Whitby with In Isolation and Chaos Bleak This is part of the April WGW events and is on in the afternoon Hurtsfall are on first at 2.00pm Saturday 8th July BlaqkhOlesun Alternative Music Festival at The Alhambra, Morecambe Line up and running order still to be finalised Saturday 13th July Leodis Requiem at Wharf Chambers, Leeds Line up and running order still to be finalised

Hurtsfall have two gigs coming up next week. First we are supporting Murdah Srvc at the Chapel (above the Angel Microbrewery) in Nottingham on Tuesday 13th February. Were on at around 9.00. Then on the Friday 16th February HRH Goth 2 is finally going ahead with a change of venue from Sheffield to O2 Academy Leicester on account of O2 Sheffield still being closed due to RAAC concrete problems. This has resulted in a changed but expanded line-up on both days, which for us has both advantages and disadvantages. The overall line up on the day that we will playing is now a lot stronger, so hopefully that will result in a bigger audience; however, we will be playing further down the bill and much earlier (7.00pm) than we would have been had the event gone ahead last year. The full line-up for Friday 16th February hen we are playing is: Fleisch 11.00pm The Danse Society 9.30pm Exilia 8.10pm Hurtsfall 7.00pm PLAY/DEAD 5.55pm Nox Pulso 5.00pm

Both my bands play originals and gig as and when suitable slots are available. Most of the time this means supporting someone reasonably well known, so we don't have any regular schedule. I've had no gigs in January but have 3 in February. So far for 2024 I have 10 gigs booked and will probably finish the year having done at least 20. At the moment the majority of these are "festival" slots - luckily all indoors because IME the UK weather isn't conducive to outdoor festivals. Last time a band I was in did a series of festivals in one year it rained at all of them apart from the one where we played indoors when there was a heatwave... Neither band has an agent but both will are on the radar of well-known promotors on the Goth/Post-Punk scene. The singer in one band and the drummer in the other are the main gig getters. We don't do it for the gig money alone but will expect to sell a decent amount of T-shirts and CDs when we play. Having said that several of the gigs already booked are paying a significant amount. I like gigging. 10 years ago I was in an originals band that gigged almost every weekend, and could have probably been out ever Friday and Saturday night had the money and logistics been right. At the moment I'd be happy with 2-4 a month split between the two bands. Both bands are currently also working on writing and recording songs for our next albums, so there is plenty for us to be doing when there are no actual gigs coming up.

They all come off which gives me the chance to properly clean the fingerboard and the section of the body under the strings.

That's nasty. My understanding of Trading Standards regulations regarding electrical equipment sold in/to the UK is that if an adaptor is required, it can no longer be of the simple plug-in variety like yours, but must be attached to the Euro plug by some method other than just the electrical connections. Normally for a Euro plug on a lead there is a special UK style plug which clamps over the Euro plug and is held in place by one or more screws. If it is not possible to supply a suitable adaptor, then a PSU with an integral UK mains plug needs to be supplied. I would complain to the vendor citing UK Trading Standards. If enough people complain they might just get the message and start supplying regulation standard plugs as standard. While it may not be contributing to your hum problem this adaptor is another potential point of failure on your gigging equipment. However I have come across similar issues with equipment powered by PSUs with no earth connection on the PSU. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for good old trial and error. Start by removing everything from the pedal board and disconnecting them from the PSU. Then try one pedal at a time. If each one individually produces no hum, then start adding devices one at a time in the order they will be in your final signal chain. I suspect the hum will re-appear when you add you first digital device. Good luck!

@Linus27 Thanks for that photo. Does the UK adapter fit over the pins of the Euro Power supply or does it plug in? If it's the later then they are breaking UK trading standards as any electrical equipment supplied for to the UK must come either with leads with UK plugs or adapters that fit over the Euro-style plug and cannot be removed without undoing screws. Plug-in adapters are no longer allowed, and in that case the PSU should be replaced with one with a built-in UK plug.

Time for new strings?

I used to own this: Manne Mandobass. 26.5" scale, tuned the same as the lowest 4 strings on a guitar. Used a couple of times in the studio to produce faux 8-string bass parts by double-tracking with the normal bass part. However I would throw in the occasional non-octave note just to keep things musically interesting. However it didn't really offer anything that I couldn't do just as well on a standard guitar, so it got sold when I had my big instrument clear out some years ago.

Thanks! However these days I need 5-string basses for one band and Bass VIs for the other, so unfortunately this doesn't have enough strings for me.

I see you have a thin lead going to the PSU distribution. What is on the other end of that? A "wall-wart"? A transformer block with a mains lead? Captive or on an IEC socket? Might be worth taking a photo of this including the UK adaptor so we can advise further.

Since image is very important to me, and by the time they have passed through my Helix all my basses sound near to identical, so long as I find them playable the aesthetics come first and foremost. I'm not a bedroom/studio only player, and when we gig my band do gig, we don't play on a darkened stage or behind a curtain so how my instruments look matters. I once bought a competitively priced, very ordinary, electric guitar thinking that since I was only going to be using for writing it didn't matter that looked dull and boring; within a couple of years I found myself needing to play guitar live in my band at which point it was replaced with something far more exciting looking (and also considerably more expensive). I would love it for interesting-looking guitars and basses to be priced at Squier/Epiphone/Yamaha Pacifica levels, but that's simply not the case. Currently my least expensive bass - a Burns Barracuda - cost me about £600 and that's just my back-up Bass VI. All my other guitars and basses cost me between £1k and £2k.

That's good news. Personally I'd ditch the adaptor as it's probably putting unwanted stain on the laptop headphones socket and either buy or make a couple of suitable length 3.5mm TRS to dual 1/4" jack leads.

IME you get a completely different level of service from a delivery company when you are a business regularly sending out items, to that of a private individual waiting for their delivery.

I don't so how sending the audio via USB is going to be any lower latency than using the headphone out sockets of your laptop. If you are getting noticeable latency in your current set then the problem lies elsewhere. I'd be looking at the USB bus architecture. Does Windows have a utility like the Mac that shows you how your devices are connected, and which bus each device is on? Remember that separate USB sockets do not necessarily mean separate USB buses. Also with a laptop there are plenty of built-in devices which will share the same buses as the USB sockets and be stealing valuable band width; such as keyboard, trackpad, the built-in WiFi and Bluetooth adaptors, Webcam, any card readers etc. I would start by disabling all of these except the keyboard and track pad and see if that improves the latency. Even on my Mac where the OS is designed to give audio and MIDI priority over non-timing critical events, I still have to have WiFi and Bluetooth turned off otherwise the computer is constantly polling its surroundings for devices to connect to. At a gig that is potentially every audience member's mobile phone! IMO the form factor of the M Audio AIR | Hub looks horrible. I'm sure it would be fine in the studio where it's hardly ever moved, but at a gig it will be a lump that you'll need to find room for. What sort of stand are you planning to put all of these equipment on? Because you will need a stand. You'll also need to use the external PSU as I doubt the USB sockets on your laptop will be able to provide enough power for everything connected. That's another lead, mains and mains socket that you'll require. The problem I have found with small devices is that they tend to get pulled about by the cables attached to them, and can be a definite problem if not all the cables attach on the same panel as in this case.I'd look for something a bit heavier that has all the connections made on the same face.

Thought one of the features of the woodwind family of instruments is that the fingering is the same on all of them, so players can switch between instruments. Also why they are transposing instruments on musical scores.

Here as promised are a couple of photos of my computer set up. Firstly everything packed down into the 3U rack case and K&M mixer stand: The label on the rack top is indicate the front as it only fits properly one way round, and this allows a quicker pack away on dark stage or back-stage areas. And then set up ready to use. I use the mixer stand "back-to-front" so that the front of the case is pointing slightly upwards which makes everything easier to see and get to. Only the top and front panels need to be removed as all the connections are made via the patch panel at the front. The interface is a Focusrite Scarlet 18i20 which in terms of audio ins and outs is complete overkill for what I need, but it scores on very important feature in that it is properly rack mountable and only occupies 1U of space. I previously had a "half rack" Saffire interface, but there was no way of fixing it securely in a 1U space, so it was sold and replaced with this. It also provides a single MIDI In and Out. Hidden inside the rack is mains distribution for the interface and MacBook, and an ART DTI box which provides transformer isolated outputs from the interface so there is no chance of earth loop hum or damage to the interface by being presented with phantom power or anything else unwanted from the PA. The MacBook connects to the PSU and 2 USB leads which are the only connections that do not lock or have been permanently hot-glued into place, since I occasionally need the computer out for non-musical functions. The rest of the time it lives in this case. With the laptop closed there's a piece of foam that fits over the top and the flight case lid holds it all in place. Connections on the patch panel from left to right are: XLR inputs 3 & 4 for the audio interface. I puts these in just in case they might been needed. They haven't so far. XLR outputs 1 & 2 from the audio interface via the ART DTI Box. These provide a balanced line to the PA without needing additional DI boxes. Jack outputs 1 & 2 from the audio interface via the ART DTI Box. Occasionally we are presented with a PA engineer who insists on using their own DI boxes. The we use these outputs. XLR output 3 from the audio interface. This is for the drummer's click track that I use with one of the bands. It goes to Behringer headphone amp. The next two XLRs are for MIDI in and MIDI out and connect to the corresponding sockets on the interface. I'm not a fan of DIN connectors for live use, and where ever possible they are replaced by XLRs in my equipment. The MIDI out connects via a special lead (with 2 spares) to my Helix to send patch changes as the backing plays, so I don't have to worry about being in the right place at the right time to hit a pedal. The USB socket (a necessary evil and with multiple spare leads) is for Elgato Stream Deck Pedal which I use for the remote control of the backing. This allows me to stop/start backing playback, and automatically load the next song in the set. Finally there is a Powercon input socket that connects to the mains and provides power for the contents of the rack. It might look like it's over-engineered, but I've only ever had one problem with this setup in the 6 or so years I've been using it which was on a very "bouncy" stage where the one connector that I didn't think would need hot gluing in place - the mains input to the Focusrite which is on a standard IEC mains lead - became disconnected mid song causing the backing to stop playing. Since this happened with the band that has a drummer we simply played through to the end of the song, after which I reached into the back of the rack, pushed the lead back into place and we carried on. I doubt anyone in the audience even noticed that the backing track had cut out half-way through. On returning home after the gig this last cable was also hot glued into place. HTH.

Personally I'd try and avoid using a USB Hub in a gig situation as it has too many points of potential failure (all those extra USB connectors) and go for an audio interface that also has MIDI connections on it. Connect your MIDI devices using MIDI DIN leads with metal bodied DIN plugs, and just have one short USB lead to connect the interface to the computer. Don't use a jack adaptor for the headphone it will put extra strain on the headphones socket on the interface which is probably only held in place by the solder connections to the PSB inside rather than actually attached to the case. Either get some headphones with the correct plug on them or replace the existing one with the right plug to plug directly into the headphones socket on the interface. I do quite a lot of gigs with bands who use computers, and almost always they turn up with a bag full of leads and other devices, have to try and fit it all on a table or chair from the venue because they don't have a suitable stand for it (or even worse stick it all on the stage floor) and spend ages connecting everything up. My set up comes in a 3U 19" rack case which goes on a K&M mixer stand. The top and front panels come of the case and all the connections are made via a patch panel on the front. It takes just a few minutes to set up. I know of at least one other band who having seen what I do now have something similar to use at gigs. When I get time I'll post some photos of it, so you can see how I have tackled these problems.

The problem with Ethercon cables is that they will only plug into Ethercon sockets, so if the equipment you want to connect doesn't already have Ethercon Sockets you can't use them. I've still found that the weak point of all ruggedised ethernet cables is the cable itself which needs to be treated much more carefully than your typical mic or instrument lead, and while they are more durable than the standard office ethernet cable they still don't last particularly long (1 year as opposed to 1 month IME).