rushbo

OK...after a lot of trial and error, I've identified the source of my noise problem.... I use my Smooth Hound on a board with just my Zoom B3 - both with their own PSU's. If I use a patch lead to connect them (or a hard connector) I get massive noise, unless I use the active setting and whack on the noise reduction. If I use a long (20ft) lead to join the Smooth Hound to the Zoom, the signal is clear with no noise on any setting! I've tried it with the shortest lead I have - about 6ft - and I get a little noise. It seems the shorter the lead, the louder the noise. All my connectors are decent quality, so it's not them that are responsible for the noise. Am I doing something daft or do I have to use a 20ft cable as a patch lead to get a clean signal?

Bought a couple of bargainous sets of strings from Iain - posted quickly and great comms all the way. He's a gent. Buy and sell with confidence. Rushbo

It's a massively broad, intimidating back catalogue. I started with Sheik Yerbouti...a great combination of accessible Rock tunes and otherworldly weirdness. That's a good place to start, along with Overnite Sensation, One Size Fits All and Zoot Allures.

Blimey, if that caught fire, it would burn for days...

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1465726683' post='3070469'] I don't hear a lot of coherent musical criticism in Buddy's rants, more non-specific impotent rage. More targeted criticism would make it clear exactly what parts of the set needed work, but I don't think that's what he was going for. To me the tape sounded like an insecure individual attempting to establish a pecking order, and nothing to do with the quality of the performances. He's not whipping them into shape, but beating them down for his own satisfaction. If more people are more inclined to question that kind of behaviour now, I'm happy about that. [/quote] Exactly this. Very nicely put. Rich's rant says more about his state of mind than the performance of the band. If you have to rule by fear and intimidation then you need to look at yourself, your self esteem and your insecurities very seriously.

Superb. Thanks for sharing that.

A well done relic - ie with a sensible amount of realistic wear and not rotary sanded, set on fire or depth charged - can look superb. After all, it's just another finish option. And it's your choice. If you buy a second hand instrument with a few dings and scratches, do you immediately get them repaired as it's not "your" wear and tear? It's a cosmetic thing, pure and simple. To me, it's just the same as a sunburst, natural or coloured paintjob on an instrument. Make sure it's done convincingly (Limelights are a great example...) and enjoy your bass. If the way it looks makes you want to play it more, then that can only be a good thing.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1464253589' post='3057863'] [color=#0000ff]P.S.: I also like The Doors.[/color] [/quote] ...and for that reason, I'm out. As well as the fact I'm 52.

Dunlop 1mm for me - Textured at the "fat" end which makes them easy to grip. Just flexible enough to makes rapid up/down strokes even but tough enough to get a nice crisp attack. And they're black, which is the most Rock and Roll colour, right?

I resisted the Fender urge for twenty years, but the lure of a keenly priced "Cowpoke" Precision was too great. I've had a few since then. My P basses get the most love, but I gigged with my Mexi Jazz the other night and loved the sound...just a touch of bridge pick up and a little tone...sounded fabulous and perfect for the Dr Feelgood style R&B band I play in. I love the look of a P bass and the "no frills" design. If a bass had more than three knobs, it would confuse me and make my cry. The Rushbo verdict...P bass wins by nose.

Nothing says "The band van is full of illegal substances" than a guitar shaped like a ganja leaf.

"ALWAYS a conversational piece with friends and clients". I can believe that.

A poor idea, badly executed.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-precision-bass-mex/1166809460 I'm not convinced about this...firstly, the "strip down and varnish" job makes it look like a Bass shaped toffee apple, but the small diameter tuners and single ply scratchplate say "Chinese Squier" to me. Other than that, with a Seymour Duncan pup, £180 ain't bad if it's what it says it is. Any thoughts from my more learned colleagues?

That's Grandma's Chrismas pressie sorted.

I had a set of Schallers on my first "proper" bass. i was forever tightening the pesky thing up, until one day, at rehearsal, the bass crashed to the floor with the strap lock in pieces. I may just have had a rogue one, but it put me off those mechanical locks for life. i tried the Dunlop ones and found that they needed quite a bit of heft (!) to get them secure. Then, I went down the washer route...I tried some eBay specials...thick black washers branded as instrument specific strap locks. They were incredibly stiff and needed a real effort to get them over the pin. After a while they became hard, then brittle, then they cracked and were unusable. By far the most user friendly, cost effective and successful have been the Grolsch grommets. The pack I bought years ago are all nice and supple and they're easy to take off and put on whilst still offering plenty of security. All my basses have them on now. I'm a fan.

I swapped a handful of Grolsch washers ("Happy Shopper Straplocks") for a keyring 'n' plectrum combo with Mick. All was going swimmingly until he suggested that I had acquired the washers by drinking massive quantities of imported lager. The nerve! I wish I hadn't bothered now...I only agreed to the deal because I was smashed out of my mind on imported lager... ...but other than that, he's a lovely man. Buy, sell (and swap) with confidence.

With my hippy head on, I'd say, "yeah, help him out...he's a fellow traveller and he'll make you sound great!" With my slightly less hippy head on, I'd be inclined to say this: like you, he is being paid to provide a service. To perform that service he needs to get his equipment in and out of vans and venues. That is his job. To pull a face when you don't immediately spring to his aid seems rather petulant. If you play a bar and that bar gets really busy, does the landlord ever ask you to pop behind the bar and pull pints? No. It's not your job. If the sound guy doesn't think he can move his kit without assistance, he should bring along a helper, otherwise he will have to rely on the good will of people who are not getting paid to shift his stuff around. By all means, as an empathetic human being, help him out, but if someone who you are paying to work for you, demands that you provide unpaid assistance, then you are perfectly within your rights to refuse. I'm a friendly, helpful chap, and I wouldn't hesitate to help if I was asked politely, or was in a position to help. But when assumptions and demands are made then I'm afraid I wouldn't be quite so lovely.

Using the "Active " setting on the B3 helps massively, too.

I'm using the Zoom and Smooth Hound PSUs. The noise reduction tamed it considerably, but it caught me a bit by surprise. I'll play about with the power supplies... The adaptor was to swap polarity... The receiver takes a [i]centre-positive[/i] 9V supply so requires a polarity swap cable to use a centre-negative PSU. Chris kindly popped one in the post to me. I didn't use it in the end and went with the two separate PSUs.

I've had no luck at all with strap locks. I find them really fiddly. I bought a bag of 100 rubber Grolsch bottle washers about five years ago off eBay for a few quid and installed them on all my basses and guitars. Solid as a rock but easy to remove. And they're a lovely pink colour...

I've done two rehearsals and two gigs with mine over the last 10 days and I'm impressed. I'm using the batteries that Chris supplied at the moment, while I'm waiting for my rechargeables to arrive and it looks like there's loads of life left in them. Operation is faultless, with none of the dropouts that plagued my Line 6 G30. There's barely a difference in tone between the wireless and corded signals. It's ace. The only issue I had was using it in conjunction with my Zoom B3. Although Chris kindly sent out an adaptor so I could daisy chain it from my existing PSU, I decided to use the separate power supply for it. Both my Zoom and the Smooth Hound are on my minimal pedal board. When using the compression and fuzz/distortion settings, the signal was really noisy and I had to dial in quite a bit of noise reduction. Not a deal breaker and probably just the result of having two bits of digital kit side by side.

Very talented guy, but the groove has been processed right out of the tune. Quite a lot of that sounded a bit like a fight in a music shop.

Anth bought some tuners from me - great communication and speedy payment. All lovely. Buy and sell with confidence.