Jean-Luc Pickguard

My first impressions of listening to the 1212L were not good with my crate powerbock, but I guess thats because it can only put out 75W out of a single channel into a 4 Ohm cab and its also designed as a guitar amp. It was all fuzzy and unfocussed. I have gigged with the crate using the 8Ohm bridged output into my Ashdown MAG 210, but I guess I can't use it as a spare anymore with the 1212L. No problem really: the last powerblock on ebay went for more than the new price I paid, so I should be able to get my money back on it. Trying the 1212L with the MAG300 head it sounded very bright at home, I wasn't sure about how I would need to tweak the eq on the amp for the best sound live so for the gig I decided to use my Highway 1 jazz with John East J-retro to be able to do any eq adjustments on the bass. At the gig the schroeder sounded absolutely majestic. I had no problem getting the sound I wanted with the MAG's eq flat, just adjusting the J-retro. I mostly used a sound I found that I absolutely loved. It cut right through the mix, but also had warmth without any wooliness. It was almost like I have previously been playing with a duvet over the speakers when I used other cabs. I kept the tweeter control set to 12 o'clock, however as the knob protrudes a bit I pulled it off to minimise the risk of any damage occuring to the pot in the boot of the car. As the 1212L is smaller than the MAG210 I was able to fit the MAG head and my bits & bobs bags in the boot of my smallish car where the head would not fit in with the MAG210 cab, so thats an added bonus. All in all I'm glad to have joined the "Schroeder Club". Jorg does indeed make wonderful cabs. Now I just need to find the perfect head to go with it as the MAG sounds good, but I'd like something smaller, lighter and more powerful. Maybe a littlemark II?

At last count, 15: NS-Design CR5M upright Fender Highway 1 Jazz with j-retro Arctic White Epiphone Thunderbird Ashbory Stentor Student 3/4 DB '90 MIJ "Jamerson" '62 reissue Precision 81 "heavy ash" cherry sunburst precision Fretless 'parts' Precision Peavey Millennium 5 AC BXP Danelectro longhorn Squier vista musicmaster '71 Fender Musicmaster '86 Hohner B2A 'cricketbat' Dean Pace upright Homemade 1 string "plank" EUB

My 1212L was delivered this morning. I should have had it delivered to home as it was waiting for me when I got into the office. I can't wait to get it home and put it through its paces (quietly). First thing I noticed is the carpety felty covering is kind of blue which looks better than the black on my Ashdown MAGs also it is easier to carry than my MAG115 & 210 cabs, similar in weight, but it seems to look even smaller than I expected.

I have ordered a 1212L from SHXmusic - should be delivered tomorrow hopefully. I haven't had a chance to try one yet though, I just know I need something light that weill be loud enough and the Schroder seems to fit the bill from what I have heard. I will put it through its paces onstage on Sunday.

[quote name='Legion' post='59156' date='Sep 12 2007, 11:17 AM']Unfortunately with them being monster strings it pulled the neck a bit and put the action rather high, so I tried to correct it but seem to have been left with a buzz on only the open E string.J[/quote] Did you just adjust the action at the bridge? The reason the action went higher is because there was more tension pulling on the neck, so you should have tighened the truss rod first to set the relief correctly, then made any nesessary height adjustments at the bridge and nut if necessary.

I use TI flats and have no trouble with thru stringing even on the low "B" of a 5 string, however LaBella recommend not to with their strings. here: [url="http://www.juststrings.com/lab-0760m.html"]http://www.juststrings.com/lab-0760m.html[/url] However, despite that I have used a medium guage short scale set of LaBella Deep Talkin' flats on a thru-strung with no problems.

If you can manage to drink a couple of fliptop bottles of Grolsch you'll find a pair of straplocks that fit your existing strap buttons attached to the stoppers. That's all I use on my basses after an unfortuanate incident where a schaller one unscrewed itself causing a bass to hit the floor.

Anyone who thinks the sh1te whipes are blueprint for the the future of rock n roll should be given the opportunity to listen to Clatter. Some bands have guitar and no bass and some have bass and no guitar. I remember the 80s when drum machines heralded the death of the drummer. Lazy and stupid journalism just makes the journalist look lazy and stupid.

[quote name='Musky' post='57330' date='Sep 8 2007, 10:59 AM']Thinking about it, that night was a jam night rather than a O5B gig - I think your guitarist was missing. I love your regular set though, so different to most other covers bands. Any gigs coming up? Just took a look at your website and there weren't any listed.[/quote] Oh yes, It must have been one of Robin's jams at the Windsor, so it would have probably been the o5b rhythm section of myself & Mark with Sandy and a few other jammers I think I may have been playing the Dean pace upright that night. The whole band be at the Grove Tavern oposite South Wimbledon tube next Sunday 16th Sept for a charity fundraiser they're hosting. I'm not sure what time we're on, but there will probably be a several bands running all afternoon & evening. I'll put it on the o5b web site & myspace when find out the running order.

Samuel Pepys wrote about his Bass Viol in his diary.

The LEDs are a nice feature, but the cats eyes and silly little pickguard would make me keep my cash in my pocket (at least if I had any).

Not only do I use the open E & A strings very often, I tend to slip in a low D by flipping the hipshot D-tuner to go lower than the open E on a few songs. Teachers (not specifically music teachers) sometimes present opinion as fact without backing it up withthing resembling common sense. Sometimes its nice to play both the open A and the A at the 5th Fret of the E string within a line because of the different feel it lends at different points of the line/riff.

[quote name='Musky' post='57017' date='Sep 7 2007, 02:59 PM']Obviously 5 belivers! I've caught your band a few times (including that jam with a digeridoo player on Whole Lotta Love - classic ) Hats off to you sir. Very impressive.[/quote] Well, Thank you very much, not sure I remember that one. We must have been there with my mate Sandy - He's played didj with Rolf Harris as well as with Plant & Page, but he sometimes has trouble playing in different keys for some reason.

I like to keep it simple, I tend to use just a cheapo Behringer bass limiter pedal on the floor to tighten the sound up a tad. Its cheap & cheerful but sounds good to me. If it went kaput I probably wouldn't miss it too much before counting out my loose change to get another one.

It sounds like you may benefit from trying "economy of movement". Turn the amp up and let it do the grunt work. Hammering into the bass probably doesn't do your speed, tone or accuracy any favours. I play fingerstyle only these days, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about regarding pick playing, but I used to get bad cramps in my hand towards the end of the second set at every gig. I could play for much longer at home or at rehearsal without this happening. I cured it by playing with a lighter touch (as well as excercising the hand/fingers and using different strings). You'd think this would give a wimpy less agressive sound but this is not the case.

In response to a PM about this thread here is an example of a song recorded recently at the Boom Boom Club in Sutton when we opened for Stan Webb's Chicken Shack. It was recorded using the Zoom H4 with its built-in mics on a camera tripod pointing at the stage about halfway back next to the PA engineer on the left side. I'm playing the NS CR5M upright through my bassamp, two guitarists with amps and the drummer was not miked up. Only the vox went through the PA. Normally I'd run this through some mastering processors before distributing it but here it is unmastered as an example of the H4's raw sound quality. It was recorded on the H4 as a CD quality WAV and converted to MP3 just to shrink the file size. Our version of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl: [url="http://www.o5b.co.uk/mp3/o5b-cinnamongirl.mp3"]obviously 5 believers - Cinnamon Girl[/url]

[quote name='gilmour' post='55193' date='Sep 4 2007, 12:23 PM']Has anyone got any experience of using the Tascam MP3 bass trainer. I've had a look for reviews but can;t ind any som I'm assuming it's a pretty new piece of kit. I've read reviews on the CD version and they're all very positive, other than the fact that the seem to eat battteries. I'd assume that the MP3 version goes through a lot less batteries than the CD version - is this the case?[/quote] I use the guitar version, it is a little bit fussy about MP3 bitrates and the user interface isn't going to give the ipod any sleepless nights, also the 1Gb memory which cannot be added to is a bit of a downer, but it does allow me to charge it via a usb socket (or an old blackberry psu) and it allows you to get some headphone practice in at the drop of a hat (as long as your songs are already loaded). I don't use the guitar fx as I just want to make sure I know the notes and it sounds very good without any fx. I don't know how useful the bass version's fx will be, but I'm not going to upgrade mine. Regarding the batteries - It has a built in rechargable battery and comes with a PSU/charger but more usefully also charges from the PC/Mac via a USB cable

Leroy Hodges & Howard Grimes

I wouldn't use anything but the trusty zoom H4. Set it on a camera tripod and press the big button. Then connect to a PC via USB and drag the wav file across for editing. Nothing could be easier, well nothing I've found. The sound quality is good enough for a live demo CD.

[quote name='Hit&Run' post='54867' date='Sep 3 2007, 06:20 PM']Come on guys, someone must know something?[/quote] Apparently Not

Only fingers for me maybe I'd use a pick if we did a song that required the bass to go "dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga", but then again I'd probably just use my fingers I do use pick on geetar though.

Its crying out for a thin coat of off-white car spray, then let it collect natural mojo.

I bought a "stripped" musicmaster bass for £100 a few years ago for my daughter's birthday and promised we'd paint it any colour she liked as the alder used was not very well matched in colour & it wasn't very pretty. At a larger branch of halfords, she flicked through the colour books & chose a lilac used on some model of honda that I'd never heard of. The chap there mixed the paint & filled two cans (that was interesting for her to watch). I also bought some cans of white undercoat and clear lacquer. The paint job is nothing like a pro job as I did rush it a bit, but from a few feet away it looks fantastic and cost very little apart from a bit of hassle. One semi-unrelated tip: If the pickup on the musicmaster (either a 6 pole strat or mustang guitar pickup) is a bit noisy and/or weak sounding, the humbucking Cool Rails strat pickups for £30 from brandoni guitars fit perfectly and sound excellent, the black enclosed version looks exactly like the bass's stock pickup. The hot rails is similar but sounds a bit clanky to me.