BigRedX

Both of the basses that I currently use for gigs cost over £1k and both also have long wait times should I need to order a replacement. Think the last time I had a cheap easily replaced bass for gigs was back in the early 2000s when I had started dabbling with playing fretless. If I didn't use them at gigs there would IMO be absolutely no point in owning them. I just make sure that they are in their cases and somewhere reasonably secure when I'm not actually on-stage playing them. TBH when I first started off gigging and was using a second hand Burns Sonic bass that had cost me £60, having that lost or damaged would have been far worse as in those days I rarely had enough spare cash to buy replacement strings, and the loss of my bass would have stopped me from playing completely. That pretty much puts the current situation into perspective.

On a decent audio interface the preamps should essentially be transparent so it shouldn't matter.

Originals or covers? Originals: probably do it unless it involves travelling a long way and there are no other bands on the bill. You never know if any of the handful of people there are going to give you a much better opportunity off the back of what looks like a poor gig. Covers: depends on where it is and how useful a "practice" at a venue with little pressure is going to be.

Well I've listened to 4 tracks and from what I've heard IMO you would be better off without backing tracks and look someone to play keyboards and trigger samples in the manner of Jesus Jones or EMF (and maybe double on second guitar). I couldn't hear anything that is absolutely timing critical so as long as your drummer can keep to roughly the tempos of the recorded versions you'll be fine. IME because the band can hear every nuance of the recording there is a temptation to include everything from the studio that can't be done by the live musicians on the backing track. Both of my bands are particularly prone to this to various degrees. As the person in charge of the backing playback, I have started turning down the volume of any stem of that I think is cluttering up the mix live by 1dB each time we practice. If I manage to turn the track completely off before anyone else in the band notices and asks for it to be louder, then AFAIAC it's unnecessary for the live version and can be removed. I'm sure that there are loads of things on the recorded versions that are considered "essential", but if your are ruthless about which noises absolutely need to be included, it will make for a more dynamic sound when you play live.

What you use depends on how "bullet-proof" you need the backing playback to be. The problem with using a phone is that it's a phone and gets used for a load of other stuff. You'll need to remember to remember to put it into airplane mode when you use it play live as the last thing you want is for someone to call it. Also if it's a iPhone with a single socket to connect to the outside world you'll need a adapter so that it can be plugged into the mains as well being able to connect the audio to the PA. Personally I'm not a fan of consumer grade computer connectors like USB (in any of its varieties), Lightning or Ethernet as from experience they are simply not robust enough to withstand content gigging use. If you must use they types of cables/connectors, have a backup or two and as soon as the cable shows any sign of wear bin it and replace it. You'll also need a DI box to connect to the PA and suitable cables to go from the playback device to the DI box. Don't rely on the PA having enough DI boxes. Buy a good one of your own to use - ideally passive so you don't have to worry about batteries, PSUs or the (non-)availability of phantom power. Don't use cable plug adaptors, they are crap for gigging use. Make up cables with the right connectors on each end to do the job (and have spares). Both my bands use a laptop fitted into a flight case along with all the additional devices to connect to the outside world plus all the necessary PSUs. Everything apart from the two USB plugs and power connector that plug into the laptop is bolted, hot glued and cable-tied into place. All connections to the outside world are made with XLRs apart from backup jacks for the main audio output, the power in which is on a Powercon connectors and the foot switch which controls the laptop which has to be on USB. I have a gig tonight so I'll post photos with explanations of what everything does later today when I get it ready to load out.

Nice, except the natural headstock looks weird with the red body. Is it a bolt-on neck?

There's lots of different ways you can go about this and it all depends on three things: 1. Can your drummer play to a click? 2. Will you have your own sound engineer for all the gigs? 2. How important are the sounds on the backing? - i.e. if it failed could the rest of the band keep going and would it be massively noticeable to the typical audience member?

A Travis Bean TB2000 would be more appropriate.

I started learning the guitar on my 13th birthday, and joined/formed my first band about 18 months later. It was just 4 people with similar musical taste from the same class at school. One of us was pretty good on the guitar. I could string a chord sequence together and the other two could barely play, although one could sing and the other wrote lyrics. We spent the first hour of our first "rehearsal" wondering what to do now that we were all in the same room together. It never occurred to us that maybe we should start by trying to play covers, besides it was the mid 70s and the dominant musical force was prog rock which was way beyond our abilities. Finally I started playing some chords, and the decent musician improvised a "solo" over the top. The others joined in with weird noises and percussion and that was the beginning of my first band. Over the next 7 years we slowly developed our sound. As a band we didn't have a bass guitar until I bought one at the beginning of 1981. But we did make a record that got played on John Peel's radio show.

Probably a 1960 Gibson EB6. Although like most Bass VIs the neck will most likely be to narrow for me to actually use it.

I have a separate Preset (patch) on my Helix for every song that both of my bands do often several Snapshots within that Preset. On top of that all the Preset and Snapshot changes are being controlled by the computer that runs our back tracks and it also shows the running status of the backing track via the colour of the Tap Tempo LED. This means that I am probably make more use of the various functions than most on here, but I reckon I'm still only using 10% of what the Helix is capable of, as there are hundreds of amp, cab and effects sims that I simply have no use for. Should I sell it because I'm not using enough of the features? Of course not. Even if I found that I only needed one sound for everything both of by bands did, I'd still be using the Helix because it gives me "my sound" at the push of a button. Besides if I find myself in a different band then I might start exploring the functions I haven't used yet.

Anything digital should also have user programmable memories, MIDI with proper DIN sockets and not some propriety connector/interface that requires yet another device to convert it to proper MIDI, and program mapping so I don't have to reorder my patches to match my other MIDI devices. Anything less isn't worth the effort no matter how great it might sound.

But music has moved on since then. The sorts of parts that my bands have on their backing are simultaneously technically complex, repetitious and TBH rather boring to play (but don't sound boring as part of the overall song arrangement). Trying to find someone with the skills to play them accurately enough is pretty much impossible. It's much better to hand these parts off to a machine that won't complain or play them badly.

The problem with multiple-channel interfaces is that they generally rely on a dedicated "control panel" app to configure the routing and other functions and that no Linux versions of these apps exist. Therefore at the moment under Linux you only get 2 in, 2 out functionality and only if the device is "class compliant". However there is good news for owners of current Focusrite interfaces in that there is 3rd party development of a routing application happening with Focusrite's blessing and support.

There's two problems in this thread. Firstly "helpful" comments by people who have very obviously never played in a band that uses backing tracks in their life. I'm sorry but you really have nothing to add that will help the OP, all you are doing is showing off your ignorance. If you want to start another thread moaning about bands that use programmed or recorded backing as part of their live performance by all means knock yourselves out, but please don't clog up this thread with your prejudices. Secondly we are getting drip-fed morsels of information by the OP which mean the goalposts change with each new posts and assumptions that have had to be made to help find a solution to the OPs problem are rendered irrelevant by the next reply. So lets try and break down the problem piece by piece and try and find a solution that works for the OP. 1. How are your backing tracks created? Your first post suggested that you were producing them from scratch yourself, but subsequent posts seem to contradict this. 2. You mentioned that this cross-talk problem has only started to occur since moving to Logic. What were you using before? And why have you stopped using it? 3. What application are you using on your iPhone to play back the backing? And what file format is your backing track in? (If you are using MP3s I would try keeping it as a WAV or AIFF and see if that cures the problem). 4. Can you please post links to the cable or device you are using to split the stereo signal from the iPhone into two mono signals? The reason I suggested mixing down the backing separately to the click and then doing another bounce to combine them into a stereo file, is that is should completely eliminate any hidden routing issues that are causing the crosstalk problem. Especially if you do the final bounce within a brand new project file with no pre-configured routing. I've just done a trial bounce on one of my band's backing files within my copy of Logic panning the music hard left and the click hard right and I have total separation between the two which can both be heard in the headphones where there is no audible trace of the click on the music channel, and seen by looking at the waveform editor display where there is no visible sign of the music on the click side. Therefore AFAIAC the problem is not inherent in Logic itself, but is either user error when doing the stereo bounce, or occurring somewhere else in the process.

If this was my bass I'd re-do the electrics from scratch. I don't think that very taught wire from the bridge pickup is helping either.

It's actually worse than that because with an physical cab 7-13m metres away you'll get room ambiance which will add spatial information to the sound which the brain can use to try and compensate for the delay in sound waves reaching your ears. Also most of the time you can see that the speakers are some distance away which helps. With earbuds the delayed sound is piped dry and directly to your ears, with no real room ambiance or visual distance clues, which makes the delay far more obvious. There are solutions to the OPs problem but they don't use Bluetooth and are expensive. Have a look at the Boss Waza Air Bass Headphones.

You've already had your answer it's the Gibson Thunderbird. [/thread]

The only NYE gig I've ever done, the "live" entertainment ended before midnight and DJs took over for the actual transition into the new year. Stopping for the new year count down wouldn't have fitted with any of the three bands playing that night.

Not come across Emubands before. There's a couple of interesting "release-level" features only available in the subscription Plus and Pro packages. Has anyone signed up for one of these and then tried to revert to the Basic package after the first year? Was that possible? Or were you "encouraged" to keep the subscription package going?

Maybe because the current Gibson versions are massively over-priced and the more affordable Epiphone version is better looking and closer in spec to the original 1960s Thunderbird?

Are you sure that the problem is a bug in Logic and not some bus (mis-)routing that you haven't spotted? How are you generating the audio for your click track? Have you programmed it yourself or are you relying on the metronome in Logic? To rule out the problem being inherent in Logic itself I would do a mono bounce of the backing without the click and then one of just the click. Drop both audio files into a new Logic project, pan each to opposite sides of the stereo, check that there's no cross talk and do a new bounce to a stereo file. Check that there's no cross talk on the resulting file and you should be good. There's nothing wrong with using a backing track provided that you know what you are doing and have had sufficient rehearsal to work through both the technical problems and any issues that might impact on the "performance" (i.e. too much space between each song etc.) I've been working in bands that have used some form of automated backing whether it be drum machines and sequencers or tapes since 1982 and it can be done to the point where the audience is barely aware of it other than wondering how some of the sounds being produced are created. My current system is based around a MacBook running Logic with a decent quality audio interface. Everything in contained within a single 3U rack case with all connections to the outside world on a patch panel at the front. Everything inside the case is bolted/cable-tied/hot-glued into place so nothing important can become disconnected. We run 2 or 4 channels of backing plus a separate click for the drummer. The system is controlled by a USB foot-switch system which allows me to stop and start the backing, turn looped segments on and off, and automatically call up the next song using macro. It also provides MIDI patch change and CC commands for the multi-effects and synthesisers.

A quick reminder that Hurtsfall have our very first headlining gig coming up on Wednesday 22nd November at the Angel in Nottingham.

Hurtsfall have our first proper headlining gig at The Angel in Nottingham on Wednesday 22nd November. I'm also playing there with In Isolation on the Saturday supporting B-Movie. However the gig sold out well over a month ago so unless you already have tickets, you'll not be able to get in.

I've seen the guitar in question close-up at an exhibition of famous instruments. TBH I was rather glad it was in a sealed glass case because it is pretty disgusting. You could probably clone Rory from the sheer amount of human "gunk" coating the various pats (especially the bridge). I wouldn't feel safe playing it without wearing a full hazmat suit.