rushbo

HYPOCRITE ALERT - Up until recently I was happy to have my fluctuating, modest collection of pedals, stuck to a humble piece of MDF. After 35 years of playing in bands, I finally caved in and bought a pedalboard. This is is the musical equivalent of buying a bed after sleeping on a mattress on the floor, I guess. After a false start with a Pedaltrain that was lovely, but too big for my needs, I settled on a Warwick Rockboard, which was perfect and I highly recommend them. My sad collection of gizmos is powered by a Harley Benton Power Plant Junior, which does a great job, very quietly. If you're looking to power more than five pedals however, you're going to come unstuck, as it doesn't push much power out, but fortunately, it copes well with the stuff on my board. I even found room for the tin for my spare batteries, a plectrum holder and a clock. Like Flavor Flav, I always need to know what time it is... The BDI 21 is used as a drive pedal and works a treat. Although there's a tuner on the Zoom, I prefer the Pitchblack as it doubles as a killswitch. The revelation was the Rockboard - very sturdy, great design and the soft case it came with is really well made.

I know we're not dealing with a massive outlay of cash here, but... I've used a couple of other Grolsch type washers/grommets/straplocks (Fender and some no-brand Fleabay things) and they all seem to go brittle and crack. Admittedly, it takes about two years, but they do. I bought the non Grolsch versions as the colours matched my bass or strap in the way that the Grolsch versions didn't, but now I stick to Grolsch ones. I bought fifty about 10 years ago for a few quid and they're still going strong. The Grolsch washers just seem more supple and durable - but if you get a couple of years life out of £2.59 worth of straplocks, that's still a pretty good deal!

First: 10cc, Birmingham Odeon, Sept 1978 Last: BabyBird, Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, Nov 2019 Best: Blue Nile, Town Hall, Birmingham Sept 1990 or Posies, Garage, London, 1993? Worst: Black Crowes, Phoenix Festival, July 1993 Loudest: Flaming Lips, Goldwyns, Birmingham, date unknown Seen the most: 10cc, Posies, REM Most surprising: Divine Comedy, Wulfrun Hall Wolverhampton, March 2001 Next: John Shuttleworth (does he count?) tomorrow night. Wish: Nick Drake, Led Zeppelin, Game Theory/Loud Family

Anyone come across the Not Quite Dead? If I remember rightly, their bassist played a one string bass which I though was extremely cool. I must dig my old comics out of the loft...

That sounds like the B2. I had one of those and I found that the preset sounds could be a bit hit and miss, but with a bit of a tweak, they sounded great. The exception being the fuzz and overdrive patches, which always sounded a bit fizzy. The B3 (which I love) is a bit better. Maybe the B3n has more convincing drive sounds, or maybe I just need to try harder to dial in useable sounds. I love Zoom stuff, especially their multi fx- you can’t get better bang for your buck,.

Yes. This. I love “Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

It's your thread now, songofthewind... I hope you get your issues sorted out - mine was relatively straightforward by comparison.

I bought a cute little compression pedal from Grangur - an easy transaction and delivery speed that makes Amazon Prime look like a very slow thing indeed. Top stuff.

I bought a PedalTrain Novo 18 from John. Could it have been a better transaction? No. No it could not. Buy and sell with confidence. Rushbo x

How odd - if you go to popmatters.com, it's on the first page if you want to persevere.

I write for a US based music and culture based online magazine called PopMatters and the job of writing Neil’s obituary fell to me. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to write. https://www.popmatters.com/neil-peart-2020-tribute-2644669184.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

Don't beat yourself up...I am maybe one rung further up the ladder than you, but I still can't wire a plug without looking at a diagram...

Try GuitarGuitar - I just got one for for £7 https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/12011410194688--voodoo-lab-current-doubler-cable?gclid=Cj0KCQiA9dDwBRC9ARIsABbedBP0ZAmP6Y_M9zrZL6CKiuE1-RhUbhMNktQ-c74Bz1qX37UfWaTaonAaAiWpEALw_wcB

That’s the chap- brilliant news. Thanks to the Basschat hive mind from Rushbo and songofthewind.

Good to know- did you use the Y adapter?

Hi BassChat electricity experts. For years I've powered my Zoom B3 from its own dedicated power supply - ie, the plug it came with. I'm expanding my modest board and so I thought I'd get a powerbrick to power it, along with my Smoothound wireless receiver and a Korg tuner. Unfortunately, muggins here didn't read the small print and the Zoom requires 500mA and the brick (an otherwise lovely Harley Benton Powerplant Junior) only supplies 5 x 120mA. This means the Zoom powers on for a second, then goes off when I use the brick. It came with a Y adapter which combines two of the five outputs to a single one - with some trepidation, I tried using that and it seemed to work. I'm reticent to keep it on longer than 30 seconds in case I do irreparable damage to my beloved B3, so my question is... ...will I kill my Zoom B3, if I use the Y adapter from the Powerplant Junior to power it? Please help an electrical numptie...

Another vote for rubber washers here. I've tried a bunch of straplocks and they've all failed or been unsatisfactory to some extent - with the exception of those rubber grommets.

Merry Christmas?

Entwistle pickups are ace - they can make an OK bass sound great for a pocket-money price. As long as the neck is decent, with an action you can cope with and fret ends that don't lacerate your hands if you dare to do a glissando, £100 will buy you something more than adequate. Your options are wider if you're handy with a soldering iron, too. Westfield basses are worth a look - they crop up fairly regularly second hand for well under £100 and I think they're every bit as good as a Chinese Squier. With the money you save, you might consider upgrading the tuners and the pick-up, but they're good basses, straight from the factory. failing that, here's another vote for a Yamaha - their "entry level" instruments are really good.

This. Beautifully understated. The lyrics are incredibly poignant. Although Costello does an OK version (in my not-so-humble opinion), for me, the definitive version is by Robert Wyatt.

Magic Bus - The Who

That's the conclusion I came to. I just needed a little bit of colour on a handful of tunes and the Zoom B3 (or in your case the ME-50B) will be more than adequate for that. It's easy to vanish down a rabbit hole of chorus pedals, dirt boxes, compressors and self destruct buttons, when the only people that really care about those comparatively tiny nuances of tone are the ones holding the bass. Obviously, if you play in a glitchy, dub shoegaze combo, then that's a different deal, but your average weekend warrior could get by on a handful of judiciously chosen FX. That said, it's always fun to collect stuff and as I've mentioned on a previous post, those NASA Mission Control inspired creations must be brilliant fun to use -although I'd be constantly worrying that one wrong combination of pedal switchage would accidentally trigger The Rapture.

Finish it! Finish it now!