BigRedX

One of the great things about playing post-punk influenced music. The bass is usually the melodic instrument and therefore can't be reduced to a muddy mess. And most of the sound engineers doing gigs in the genre seem to have realised this.

The actual mic capsule should be the same. However the gain structure for the signal path within the mic casing and the D-A convertor are unlikely to be as good or versatile as a decent audio interface.

But that's just as bad an assumption that the "digitally perfect sound" comes at the expense of anything. Why can't both the sound, the performance and the songwriting all be excellent?

But a number of manufacturers in the mid-price 5-string market think that by adding one inch to the overall scale length of the string it will overcome the other shortcomings of the instrument when it comes to getting a decent sounding and feeling low B string. It doesn't.

You already have an audio interface and anything by Presonus is likely to be far better than the A/D converter built into the Mic, so get the one you originally linked to. The only reason to have the USB version would be if you want to use both inputs on the Presonus interface for other sources and also record from the mic at the same time. Then you'll need to make an aggregate audio device in Audio MIDI setup on you Mac to be able to use both simultaneously.

You need to get the significantly more expensive Matribox II to get MIDI and then it's on non-standard connectors.

Some general observations from someone who has been playing 5-string basses since 1989... The most important feature IME is a stiff neck and excellent neck joint. This normally means through neck or set neck construction. That's not to say that there aren't any decent 5-string basses with bolt-on necks, but all the ones I have owned have been poor. Also IME 35" scale length doesn't make enough difference on its own. For scale length to trump overall construction you need to go to 36" or longer. Any luthier capable of making a decent 35" scale 5-string bass can also make an excellent one with a 34" scale length. However if you like the feel of the extra inch then go for it, but don't expect it to automatically make the B-string better because it won't.

Personally as a real musician, I don't want to hear mistakes that I have made, even if it's only me that can hear them. Live it doesn't matter. It's gone before anyone one has really noticed. On record over and over again no thank you.

How is reverse delay done in real time? Since it is virtually impossible to predict what note anyone is going to play next I assume it's all done with envelope shaping?

Where was this when I was learning to play bass? Why? Would you have wanted to use it to learn the bass lines? When I bought my first bass at the beginning of 1981 I wasn't even remotely interested in the Beatles. Also if I sounded like that I would probably want to get some different gear. In My Life has an interesting effect on it, but otherwise I think the overall tone on its own is pretty horrible.

I'd definitely consider adding the suspension unit (if your recording space doesn't have a solid floor you will pickup all sorts of mechanical noise without it), a pop shield (although you can make one yourself from a wire coat hanger and a pair of tights), and possibly a reflection filter (unless you have a large and/or heavily damped space to record in). With all of that you may also need a more robust microphone stand, or a second one for attaching the pop shield and reflection filter so they don't affect the mic.

And another Oxjam Beeston gig report... Hurtsfall played at the Malt Shovel at 5.00 in the afternoon. My previous experience of Oxjam was over 10 years ago with The Terrortones where it seemed poorly organised with the venue changing at the last minute, everything running late, and the promised backline not being present. Luckily on that occasion the bass player from In Isolation who played before us was happy to let me use his rig. Little did he know that I'd be taking his place in the band 6 years later! This time it was a complete contrast: everything was extremely well organised and running on time! We were sandwiched between two bands of very different styles to our goth/post punk sound, and for once I didn't spot anyone in the audience that we knew, so we were playing to an audience who were completely unfamiliar with our songs. Despite that we seemed to go down well and although there were people drifting in and out as we played, plenty stayed to the end of the set and we got some appreciative comments afterwards. Still strange to be back home before 6.30 in the evening. This is the only photo I've seen so far of our performance seemingly taken from the back of the pub:

Unfortunately the initial problem is shipping to a drop location rather than a real address. As to OP has discovered they have limits on the size and weight of parcels that they will accept. Having had a similar experience the first time I tried to send something one of these delivery locations, I will now no longer ship anything to a drop location unless it fits within the Post Office's Medium Parcel weight and dimensions. Anything bigger or heavier I contact the buyer, explain that their drop location won't accept the parcel and if they can't supply a proper postal address cancel the transaction.

As has been said bike boxes cut down to size make the best DIY shipping boxes. Most bicycle retailer are more than happy to give them away. They are made of thicker and tougher card than the typical musical instrument box and they generally come with a load of internal packing that can be used as padding and/or reinforcement.

I can say I've ever needed to fiddle with the EQ when using my of rig to get the right sound. maybe I've just been lucky with the venues I have played. I have played two places where the sound was appalling, but that was down to the the acoustics of the room and no amount of adjusting the EQ would have made any difference, so I left every as it was. Remember that poor room acoustics are a combination of both frequency domain and time domain problems and a frequency domain solution while making it sound better in one place is having zero effect (or even making it worse) elsewhere in the venue. If you could fix room acoustics with just EQ there would be no need for expensive acoustic treatment in recording studios, you could simply slap a 31-band graphic across the monitor outputs and you'd be sorted.

This. All the instruments I have bought from abroad have been ones that would have been virtually impossible to buy without importing them myself.

Only one of the many short scale basses I've owned has ever exhibited any neck dive and that was down to the body shape rather than the scale length. On the other hand none of them have been even vaguely Fender-like in design.

I've done it once. Not a bass from the US, but a guitar from Japan. It helped that I was flying business class and arrived at the airport late - the guitar went into the suit locker on the plane no questions asked as they were desperate to get me seated so the flight could leave. At the other end (Heathrow) I was perfectly prepared to go into the "Something To Declare" section, as the guitar wasn't worth much but was something that was almost impossible to get hold of in the UK (IIRC the VAT and duty would have been less than £50), but, it was late at night and the one customs officer on duty was busy unpacking the suitcase of a middle-eastern looking gent, and simply waved me through. That not to say you should try to avoid paying your import taxes and VAT, but if HMRC aren't interested who am I to argue?

At one point I had about 50 guitars and basses, a load of synths and other high tech sound generating devices, plus a well stocked home studio. The studio stuff was sold after I discovered that my engineering skills were the weak link in the recording process, and paying for studio time with a good producer/engineer generated far better results for a lot less outlay, plus what home recording/composing I need to do these days can be achieved completely on the computer. I was then ruthless with all my other instruments, because I couldn't see the point of owning stuff I wasn't using. All the synths and samplers have been replaced with a small controller keyboard and the plug-ins that come free with Logic Pro X. My guitar and bass count is now 9. That's two 5-string basses (main and backup) for one band, two bass VIs (main and backup) for the other band and 2 guitars for composing and recording. I have two more guitars and another bass VI that will get sold when I get around to listing them.

As has been discussed in the Earth Loop thread there should be a difference between signal ground (which should really be signal -ve) and electrical (screening) ground. Unfortunately standard two conductor guitar wiring doesn't allow for this.

I've always used creating music as a refuge when my personal life has been less than brilliant.

I find that the amount of music I listen to is inversely proportional to how active I am creating music myself. When I'm being creative I find I simply don't have time to listen to other people's music. I can't do it while I work because it's too distracting (TBH anything other than silence I find too distracting), unless I'm working on something that requires very little brain power like drawing clipping paths for Photoshop cut outs, but even then I won't put any music on unless I know I'm going to be doing something like this for several hours without a break. At the moment I'm being particularly creative musically, so the only chance I get to listen to other people's music is at gigs (where one of my bands is also playing) or in the car with my girlfriend where the choice of music has to be something we both like.

I've had three periods when I wasn't gigging, but I've always had other musical things to keep me occupied during those times. First at the end of the 80s when my synth band split up, I made "demos" of the last few songs that I had written and spent some time working on my guitar technique which stood me in good stead when after failing the audition as a bass player for a goth band pointed out I could also play the guitar as was promptly asked to join! Again in the early 2000s the demise of the band I'd been in for the previous 12 years coincided with discovering that my very first band had a bit of a cult following in the US, and we were asked if we would be interested in putting out a retrospective "best of" CD by Hyped To Death records from Chicago. This was a project that occupied the best part of 2 years, firstly sourcing a decent reel-to-reel tape machine and then digitising and restoring 5 hours worth of songs, editing that down to a representative 80 minutes (with the help of the other band members) and designing the packaging for the CD. By the time I had done all of that I was ready to join another band and play gigs again. During COVID I was massively busy with work (most of the companies I work for went mad with their on-line retail businesses and I was kept busy creating larger and more interesting looking mailing packaging for them) and didn't really have a lot of time for music. However both my bands were in the process of mixing their next releases which of course took much longer when everything was done separately and remote; and I also somehow found time to work on putting out some old recordings form two other bands (which still hasn't been finished).

Do you need to set the MIDI channels on the BCF and XR18? They should be on the same channel.

I suspect that one of them will be for neck LEDs. The other two might be coil taps? The controls are most likely volume, blend and bass/mid/treble.