uk_lefty

Already got my Pro Steels. Just need to get time to fit them, has been a difficult few weeks for bass-time

Saw them a few years back in Leeds. What a show! Met Jerry very briefly afterwards, shook his hand... The man has these massive muscular hands that just make you feel incredibly inferior. And I consider myself to have fairly big strong hands.

I've been playing with my drummer for two years. In practice we are constantly making eye contact to follow each other for fills and stuff but it doesn't always work. On gigs he will barely look at me. I played a dep with a different drummer though and found it far more difficult, the guy had better timing but didn't build up to a chorus or bridge or anything which is hard when you're playong unfamiliar material. The first band I was ever in had a drummer who is hands down the best all round musician I have ever known. He and I could drop out for odd beats and come back in and accent each others playing so easily. It was a band dominated by a guitarist playing huge guitar-w@nk solos so he and I needed to keep ourselves awake somehow!

We have a similar system in our band. We are all friends but if someone is doing something irritating, like a guitarist widdling a bit of the next song before we play it on a gig then a word is had. I've played bits that haven't worked and been told "better the first way you did it" and then you know, do it again and everyone will be seriously p!ssed off. A disapproving look is not enough, it needs to be said.

Times have indeed changed!

I agree with you to a large extent, but I am confident my bands approach is the right thing for us as a band.

Three. P, J and fretless 5. I plan to add a fretted 5 soon, but it could be a four with a d tuner. I would like to collect but don't have the space or the disposable income, sadly.

We will change the offending word to something else often. Seems best, these days with the culture of being easily offended by anything and everything and being able to spread that by social media we just don't want the hassle. Plus, we don't want to offend people either, we play for people to enjoy themselves and don't want to have anyone genuinely upset. Aware others will have very different views but we are a party band that want bookings, not an originals band making its own stamp on the world, so we need to be friendly and acceptable.

It's too much for me to handle but Bass Direct have a gorgeous six strong Warwick neck thru Streamer for £1600ish. Looks amazing.

I own the 500 but we have the 800 at our rehearsal space. It's incredibly loud but doesn't loose tonal quality. Pair either a 500 or 800 with the right cabs and you won't get remotely near half volume unless you want to deafen people.

From a brief play through my short verdict is: Hartke does "punch" whereas EHX does not. I think that comes through in the boost the Hartke gives and the Hartke Shape function. The Shape function is personal taste, I never move it anti clockwise from 12, for instance... The EHX compressor is a bit.... Well it just dulls the sound for me. More experiment needed, especially with the fretless. More to come later...

Just bought an EHX Battalion from Pinball. Very easy to deal with and posted quickly and well packaged. Thank you very much!

I know, not another "VXL v Batallion" thread I've been looking at downscaling my board. Currently I have a Boss LMB-3 Limiter Enhancer that only ever gets used on the enhance setting with my fretless... That's rare. I have a Hartke VXL and I briefly had an EHX Bass Soul Food. I play through an Ashdown RM500 head with onboard compressor and footswitchable drive and sub octave. So I wanted to reduce pedals. I made an early decision that the Soul Food wasn't giving me anything that the rest of the set up wasn't already doing. I've now got the issue of the Compressor on the LMB-3 which I never use. So that's more dead space. I always liked the Hartke. For over a year it was "always on" but this year and gigging season it's not been used much at all. I figured the Batallion could do a job to replace three pedals: Soul Food, LMB-3 and the Hartke. I want a DI pedal with good onboard EQ, the Batallion fixes that. I wanted a more gnarly distortion than my amp drive, and I also sometimes use provided backline so having it on the DI pedal helps. The Hartke "harmonics" function provides a nice light drive, whereas the EHX provides a more sculptable but more on your face distortion. I have not yet used the Batallion with the band or with all my basses, but I'll add to this thread as I go. Both are great pedals and can be picked up at good value, but YouTube demos don't always tell us what we need to hear, so I'll try to go in to detail here if anyone is thinking of buying either.

Exactly! Whoever is playing won't be rubbish.

Don't show her this one, then; she may decide it's the one for you..! I wouldn't mind it to be honest. My rock and soul covers band however....

My wife has watched three of my last four gigs and told me I need a new bass!! I already have three basses... But she says mine look rubbish and Pete the guitarist has a shiny red guitar, get one like Pete's... Well, I'm not going to correct her on that one. I'm now showing her guitars online and asking "that one?" And more often than not getting approval. I just have to hide my offence at her saying my Kramer and my MIJ Precison look rubbish.

My singer is a pub landlord and he runs a music festival at the end of summer every year. We headline it and the last two years it's been the absolute highlight. It's a friendly crowd and that helps, everyone knows their local landlord but they also know he's a damn good singer. The entire village and most of the few villages around are there, there's a fancy dress theme and there's a LOT of beer and BBQ consumed. It's a great gig to play because the energy is there with everyone singing along and dancing. It's not the biggest or best paid, but it is the most fun.

Thanks everyone. Going to get some D'addario pro steels today and see how it goes...

IMO Dave Ellefson can do whatever he likes.

Thanks. I am listening to all this. DR's and D'addarios keep coming up, so far they're the ones I'll explore.

And what is your advice?

Lefty premium, looking at about £2,800 for a bass that was around half that just five years ago. Second hand with lefties is pot luck whether you will sell at a decent price or not, very limited market. Looks like a blue one is going for £900 on fleabay... If it were any other colour I may have gone for it at £900 but not a penny more. And not a blue one.

I have a heavily modified fender jazz with Bartolini pickups. I have been using Ernie Ball slinky bass strings for some zingy brightness but they've been gigged a bit too much and need replacing... Nothing wrong with the Ernie's but fancying a change. I tried GHS Bass Boomers a while back and was not at all impressed. Neither do I think Fender or Rotos are up to the task. Any recommendations for a bright sounding string? I like a bit of grit in the sound but lots of brightness and zingyness would be a great compliment to my p bass which wears tapewounds. Thanking you

Saw that on his Facebook page. From my discussions with him he seems incredibly reasonable pricewise too... That colour and all round look is fantastic