molan

I saw a pro pedal board recently (can't remember who it was now though) who had both a tuner and a compressor at both the start and end of his signal chain! Each compressor and tuner were different brands. Apparently he liked to swap the compressor position depending on the song and other effects used. Not entirely sure why there were two tuners as well - at first I thought maybe he wanted to retune if using particularly heavy tone shaping, like an octaver, but that seems a bit excessive so maybe it's just paranoia in case one failed, lol

Bass Collection Portrait is a decent bass. I hardly ever play fretless but I also wanted something just to noodle around on and chose one of these.

I really must dig my '63J out more often. It has a nice pale seafoam green finish and a gorgeous tort guard. Don't think I've played it this year

[quote name='PauBass' timestamp='1494431233' post='3295938'] In my case the packaging held it together well, whatever hit the box did not pierce the cardboard and it did it not get as far as the cab. The amount of packaging used, tons of bubble wrap, over 13 layers, even more on the corners, thick padded cover and the strong double-lined corrugated box did their job...well, up to a point. The parcel also had big stickers stating "Fragile". ParclHero are being a right pain, with stupid email replies, pretty much repeating the same over and over again. So far, they have failed to prove how my cab was packed and what aspect of the packaging was insufficient. I have so far receive a so called "report", just a few lines long, provided to them by UPS, in which they merely state my claim is rejected due to insufficient packaging, in there they quote a UPS policy and the International Safe Transit association test procedure for small parcel shipments. They do not provide any facts and information on how the parcel was packed. Just today I received a set of images, on which they are basing their claim rejection on, and there's not even a photograph of the bubble wrap, according to their images my cab was only packed with the padded cover and then the cardboard box! My contract is with ParcelHero and I did pack the item according to their criteria, at no point I was provided with any other packaging policy or packaging standards.There seem to be discrepancies between ParcelHero's packaging criteria and that of UPS. This was not for me to know as I wasn't informed of their existence. Yesterday I had a very productive meeting with an advisor from the Citizens Advice Bureau and the wheels are in motion, I will be following all the recommended steps they advice and go all the way to court if we need to. [/quote] I've had something similar from one supplier who more or less just kept saying 'not our problem' over & over again. We eventually claimed on our own policy rather than the courier because we just wanted to get it sorted. The photos without showing the full packaging sound like them trying to get out of their obligations. Hopefully they'll just give in rather than having the hassle of a court case

A relatively small and low(ish) option is the little MarkBass 210 Traveller in a 4ohm configuration. It's easy to carry, sits at a nice height standing vertically, sounds pretty loud with decent bottom end, draws the full power from your amp and is available at reasonable prices on the used market. It also doesn't look particularly flash (although the yellow speakers are fairly distinctive).

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1494405268' post='3295609'] Exactly! But we only know this if we check! I may check at the end of a song if there will be a natural pause before the start of the next one, but nine times out of ten the tuning will still be fine and I don't need to change anything. But at least I [b][i]know[/i][/b] that! [/quote] I guess experience has shown me that my basses don't move out of tune during a set so I don't need to check them. Plus I'd be able to hear them if they did I think. Recently had a rehearsal where I somehow tuned my E to D using a silent tuner. Must have knocked the tuner in my gig bag and wasn't really paying attention when tuning and tuned it to he nearest 'green' line on the headstock tuner. Didn't play it plugged in until the first song which just happened to start with open E and realised I was wildly out of tune 😂

Having unpacked quite a few cabs in my time I've been able to see how lots of different manufacturers ship things. The better ones tend to use some sort of synthetic (polystyrene type material) inner 'frame' which sits on the bottom and top of the cardboard box. This holds the cab securely in place and provides a lot more protection than something like bubble wrap to the more vulnerable areas like corners. It also holds the cab a few centimetres away from the outside of the box. This can mean that if a forklift pierces the cardboard it sometimes doesn't get as far as the cab. Might sound like this is an exaggeration but I've seen a lot of boxes arrive with a pierced side but the cab hasn't been touched. Porting is another area of weakness on some cabs and there are a few builders who insert foam pads in this area for extra protection. The depth of the ply in the picture doesn't look very thick so, as mentioned by someone else, this might be a weak spot with this cab. The other thing that does appear to help is to get that white tape with red 'fragile' all over it. Won't stop a really heavy handed courier but does provide some warning and the courier company have less of a chance to dispute that a decent warning wasn't clearly shown in the box hat the contents could be easily damaged. Making sure there are clear directions in which way to stack the box can help too. I sometimes just draw big arrows on the side My guess is that the courier may say the bubble wrap wasn't of sufficient strength to protect a 'heavy' object and that the box needed to be stronger. I'm not saying they are correct, just that it's the kind of thing I've heard before. To be fair I've not had problems with UPS before, they are usually one of the better couriers and the one we'd use to ship expensive stuff overseas.

Just re-checked and mobile formatting is still out of whack. I used three different browsers and three different devices and it was the same on each. I've been wracking my brains as to who the voice reminded me of in the quieter sections and then realised it was The Psychadelic Furs (who I used to like)

I'm another who tunes at soundcheck and then directly before each set. The initial check is just in case I've knocked a tuner putting the bass in and out of a case (sometimes happens with a G on a 4 in line peg head & using a gig bag). Before first set is to see if the room tempt has affected anything. Second set tune is just musician's paranoia Margin of being out of tune is usually tiny. Doesn't matter which bass or what it's made of, nothing ever seems to move much. We have two guitarists and they both do the same. One of them has a Strat that's slightly problematic and sometimes drifts flat but we soon spot it and he'll give it a quick re-tune. The other guitarist swaps between Strat & Les Paul regularly and never has tuning issues.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1494092480' post='3293234'] I had the RH450 for a year. Dunno why I stuck with it - it was (IMO) the aural equivalent of throwing wet toilet paper at a sheet of cardboard. (IMO, for those who missed it the first time) [/quote] I'm not sure it was that good 😂 I've owned both the RH450 and the Staccato and really disliked both of them (don't ask me why I bought the Staccato, guess I thought it might 'fix' all the problems with the RH450 I was having!). I'd say the RH450 was the single worst amp I've ever used in a live ggging situation. I spent quite a few hours setting up different presets at home but once on stage they all sounded like gutless mud. Complete tone sucker that I could not be a single decent sound from live. I was using very good quality Bag End speakers that generally made any ampmused with them sound good but not the RH or Staccato. I know the 'real' power rating of these was 235w and assumed there was sort of serious compression hard baked into the amp somewhere to boost the perceived volume to the claimed 450w level. Since then I've tried a 750 and found it to be a bit sterile and lacking a really good quality tone. To be fair it was being compared to an Aguilar DB750 and a Glockenklang Heart Rock so it was being seriously outclassed by those two. However I have heard a 750 being used live (into an Aguilar DB410) and it sounded quite punchy. Personally I'd be wary of using any of these three for a synth as I'm not sure they have the 'oomph' required for low end response or the clarity at the high end. Definitely worth trying one out at some serious, gig level, volume to see if they will handle a synth in a live setting.

Unless you already have the P I'd recommend looking for matched pair from one of the better manufacturers. There's quite a few out there that have vintage type specs - Aguilar, Nordstrand, Seymour Duncan etc. all make fine PJ sets.

I was once effectively hired and fired again within 15 minutes Saw a band ad looking for a new rhythm section to work with a husband & wife team who both sang and played guitar. Turned up with a drummer (we didn't know each other) and we gelled immediately. We seemed to be getting in well with the husband & wife too and they were even appreciative when we pointed out they had the rhythm and timing of a classic rock cover a bit wrong in the choruses. The husband called a fag break and went outside with the drummer whilst I stayed chatting with his wife. She told me that she could tell he really liked us and we were by far the best they'd tried and the only other people left to try came with a bit of a dodgy rep and also only came as a 'pair' and they'd heard the drummer was difficult to work with. Audition carried on and we played through some unrehearsed new stuff and it was all smiles and happy handshakes at the end. As we were packing away I spotted a Spurs scarf fall out of the husband's bag and I, casually, asked if he was a Spurs fan. He turned on me and asked, quite aggressively, what it was to do with me and whether I was an Arsenal fan. I replied that I had a season ticket at Arsenal and he glared at me like I'd just threatened to rob his mother. Then he turned to the drummer and, using quite a few swear words, asked if he was an f...ing Arsenal fan too. The drummer calmly replied that he was actually a season ticket holder at Chelsea The husband stomped off outside and got into his car waiting for his wife. She told us that we had no chance of getting the gig now (in a way that suggested we were somehow at fault) and she left us to pack away everything. We never heard from either of them again. . .

I liked it. Kind of thing I'd turn up if it came on the radio Your site formatting appears to be buggered at the moment though. On my, new, iPad the content is hanging off the side of the screen on both horizontal edges and it's not scrollable,so I can't get to that content or click on links Vertical content falls off the bottom of the page but that's quite common and scrolling works fine. Given the high volume of web traffic generated by mobile devices I'd try to get this fixed quickly. It's the kind of thing that can 'lose' people on site very quickly

Slightly off topic but I once worked as monitor engineer for Hawkwind - one of the most fun nights I can remember. Quite surreal having a long chat with Dave Brock about issues with rust on late 70's Merc SL's (which we both owned at the time), lol.

I've seen a few instruments with this sort of finish cracking (most recently an older Stingray) but none quite as pronounced as this. SF Green definitely not standard for this era but you can never tell with Fender who quite often did an odd custom finish or simply discovered an old body on a shelf and bolted newer necks and hardware on it. On balance it feels like a refin, possibly an old one, but tough to tell without seeing it up close and inside the neck and control cavity. If you're seriously interested then I'd ask for pics of these and any other dating info like the neck stamp and pot numbers etc.

Be careful of matching in a PJ configuration. A non hum-cancelling J could lead to nasty hum when in solo mode and you can get phasing issues as well. There's also often quite a few problems with non-matched pairs where the P is dominant and the J doesn't add much to the tone - in fact I've even had this with a matched pair! Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here

My Ritter R8 is under 6lbs. In fact I think my heaviest Ritter is 7.9lbs! Mind you, with these instruments you pay for such light weights. My NYC Sadowsky is really light as well. All the modern NYC's are light (and most of the older ones too) but again they aren't cheap.

RCF make some genuine quality gear, definitely one of the true 'pro' brands out there. I'd recommend them happily to anyone Edit - I should add that I don't have any experience of the plastic moulded cabs, only wooden ones.

As it happens some of my favourite ever cabs over the years have had a three driver arrangement with either 10", 8" or 6" mid drivers (the cabs with the 10" & 8" were both paired with 15" bass drivers whereas the 6" was with a 12"). If the most recent if these, the 12" with the 6" mid, actually fitted in the boot of my car then it would be sitting next to me right now My cab of choice these days is a lightweight, well built, 2x10" in a diagonal vertical design. It brings the upper 10" to a nice height which I'm sure helps my on-stage monitoring. I should add that I'm always in the FoH to a degree so don't need to be blasting volume out on stage. I'd love to try the new Alain Caron MarkBass combo which adds a 5" mid driver to the 12" main one but it's a bit heavier than my original AC combo - enough to put me off for now.

Only just spotted this thread and the comments about watches. Every member of our band owns, by complete, coincidence, a watch from the same manufacturer and at most gigs there's at least 3-4 of us wearing one or other of their watches (some of us have multiple watches from this brand). At a gig last year we were spotted wearing these and approached by the manufacturer to do some promotional work for them It hasn't appeared yet but hopefully will at some point later this year. So, for us, wearing a watch on a gig was not only a good thing but could earn us money and get additional publicity. It was never part of the band 'look' but definitely seems to have paid dividends - maybe we'll even get some free watches, lol

I've always found there are some cabs with long throws and some that have a closer field (no idea what the physics is with this though, lol). I currently have a couple of, very different, amp/cab setups that work just fine firing into the back of my legs. If I had to dump a cab across the stage, or 4 metres behind me, then I'd definitely get rid of it rather than trying to 'fight' against it.

I never understand how someone can play in a band where they consistently can't hear the self on stage. It's not really that complicated to set a band up so everyone can hear their own sound plus enough of the rest of the musicians that they can perform professionally. Using in-ears can make a real difference but I know a lot of people find them either uncomfortable or struggle because they can't 'feel' the input from the rest of the band. I find using decent quality cabs, putting a little time into setting up amp/bass and actually talking to other band members to get a sensible on-stage balance does the trick every time. One thing that might upset this would be to stick my cab on the other side of the stage and have it firing across the other band members and forcing them to have a stage dominated by over-loud bass response. If I needed to do that to hear my cab I'd be selling it very quickly and getting a decent new one that simply worked how it ought to