JapanAxe

Are we right in thinking that this wasn’t explained to you before you joined? What reason(s) have the band given for not wanting your bass in the mix? Is the position likely to change, either over time or if you play different (larger? smaller?) shows? And do you think the experience will be worthwhile to you in terms of fee and/or satisfaction?

Mrs Axe was decorating one time and had a paint roller tray of white emulsion on the landing floor. I said, ‘The cat will walk right through that.’ Seconds later, the cat scooted up the stairs and walked through the paint tray, panicked, and ran round the house leaving white footprints everywhere. The cat was called Marshall but my nickname for him was Fat Boy Dim as he was all 3 of those things. Without fail he would time his use of the litter tray to coincide with us sitting down to our evening meal. More than once he stood in the litter tray and crapped out of it onto the floor. But no, no Valentine’s Day gig.

Thanks for the good wishes. We have recently started rehearsing with an excellent guitarist, with yours truly on bass.

And that’s exactly why my maple-board Precision was my choice for last Saturday’s theatre gig. The lighting changes drastically throughout the set and I need to be playing the notes that I mean to play, especially up the dusty end.

Late-notice stand-in with Dire Streets at Axminster Guildhall, having spent a day and a half getting back up to speed with a 2-hour set that I hadn’t played in a year (although I had done some more gigs with them on rhythm guitar). Excellent venue with great lighting and PA and a good-sounding room, plus nice green room with refreshments. Not a capacity crowd so the seats were set out to leave room for dancing in front of the stage, which plenty of people made good use of - more during Sultans of Swing than Private Investigations it’s fair to say! Got a compliment from the sound guy on my bass sound: '73 Precision > Origin Effects Cali76 Compact > Origin Effects Bassrig '64 Black Panel > DI to PA. I had been suffering some IEM angst over my Sennheiser XSW setup but it worked brilliantly last night. In the close-up pic I must be playing the solo run from after the last verse of Telegraph Road, as none of the other songs take me so high up the fretboard!

Strangely, for sight reading I have taught myself to find higher fret positions without looking; but on a rock or pop gig I really want to see where I’m putting my fingers. One of my Precisions has hard-to-see side dots that I make more visible with white paint from a Posca pen. The dots last maybe two gigs!

I don’t think you’ll save much weight downsizing from the Super Twin. The cloth front version only weighs 17kg plus as you know it has wheels on it. But I’d suggest the Two 10 (13kg - cloth front, no tweeter) as long as you don’t give it more than 500W.

I would have to say there are things I haven't thought of replacing yet.

That’s not a phrase you read on here every day!

I’m pretty sorted with my Focusrite Scarlett & Reaper setup, but what makes me want to bang my head on the desk is MIDI. I’m no technophobe, it’s just a weird blind spot that means MIDI never seems to want to do what I want it to do - changing patches is about my limit. You have my sympathy.

😆

I’m kinda happiest with just one (Precision) and a passive tone control, but I do also enjoy the modern sound of my NG2.

Thanks Dan. You’re not wrong about the option paralysis! I’ve put mine back to stock for the time being. The D-Roc is passive so no buffering to be had. It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world if I just left it that way, but modders gonna mod…

Well I swapped the bridge and middle pickups over (no de-soldering)... I like the soloed neck pickup, very Precision, not least because it sits in the same place in terms of the speaking length of the string. Not so keen on the bridge/neck ('Jazz') setting, again no surprises because I don't really enjoy Jazz basses. Consequently I'm thinking of having the following 4 options: bridge, bridge/middle (parallel), bridge/middle (series), neck. If I can re-purpose the existing 4-way rotary to achieve this, that's a win. I'll still need to re-wire the neck pickup from parallel to series, but that's not hard.

Now that's useful to know!

Thanks for that Matt, really useful. And yes it was the V-Town Guitars video that I watched. That lobster fella also did a load of stuff to a Dingwall but tbh it's hard to work out what's going on in his vid! Yes I'd worked that out about the series/parallel wiring of the pickups, all the conductors are easy to access and switch around. In the stock arrangement where the neck pickup is wired parallel, it is never soloed. It's not like this bass needs more treble, it's pretty spanky to start with - hence the idea of a bigger value tone cap.

Good call, I’m in a Dingwall owners group.

I can recognise when modes are being used, eg today I have been playing ‘Coz I Luv You’ by Slade, which leans heavily on the Phrygian. But I never bothered learning them by rote. To me their most useful aspect is modal interchange, where chords are ‘borrowed’ from other modes - it’s used a lot in rock, particularly using chords from the parallel minor (Aeolian mode).

Yes it’s entirely possible that any difference in sound between pickup combinations will be tiny - the more options , the less difference between them. At least the swap in positions is easy and quickly reversible, so that’s where I’ll start.

I've had my D-Roc around 18 months now and its green sparkle finish has made it the obvious candidate for the Glam covers project that I'm involved with. I've been happy with the sounds available from the 3 pickups but I can't help thinking it might be nice to have other options. Here's the thing: The NG2 has 2 pickups and 4 sounds - bridge, bridge/middle (parallel), middle, and a 'fat sound' (bridge/middle, series). The NG3 has 3 pickups and 4 sounds - bridge, bridge/middle*, bridge/neck*, neck. (*It's not clear to me whether these are series or parallel connections.) The D-Roc has 3 pickups and 4 sounds - bridge, bridge/middle (parallel), middle, and a 'fat sound' (bridge/middle parallel, in series with neck); so an extra pickup but no extra sounds. Also you can't solo the neck pickup. I'm not the only one to have thought along these lines, as there are 6-way switches available at Fret Nation and Bass Direct. Unfortunately they are too big to fit within the D-Roc's shallow body. I started looking into this a bit further. The FD-3n pickups are humbuckers. The D-Roc's bridge and middle pickups each have series-wound coils, whereas the neck pickup has parallel-wound coils. Consequently, just wiring them up in different configurations might not give the expected results. I found a YouTube video of a guy who simply swapped the positions of his D-Roc's neck and middle pickups, without disturbing any solder joints or other electrical connections. This gives him: bridge, bridge/neck (parallel), neck, and a 'fat'; sound (bridge/neck parallel, in series with middle). It seems he never got round to posting a video demo of the sounds, but as this is completely reversible I intend to try it. If I like the new sounds then my plan would be to wire the neck pickup for series coils and install a Schaller 4-pole 5-way rotary which I could wire up to give (for example): bridge, bridge/middle (parallel), bridge/middle (series) [fat], bridge/neck (parallel), neck. While I'm in there I might fit a 100nF tone cap. If I don't like the new sounds I can just put it back to how it was. Has anyone else been down this rabbit hole? I never had this with my Precisions! Obviously I will report on my findings...

I have options: (1) DIY Ampeg B15 clone into BF One 10; (2) Two Notes Torpedo CAB into my studio monitors; or (3) Origin Effects Cali76 Compact & ‘64 Black Panel into studio monitors. I can report that none of the above sound terrible!

I once had a sound guy mic up my BF Super Twin (in addition to taking a DI feed) because he liked the sound so much.

The saw wave synth thing makes sense as you're adding a load of harmonics - kinda like distortion, only different.

By way of an update I have replaced the Radial DI with a Fender Micro DI (or Mooer clone, I have both). It has a switchable 4x12 simulator which I use on a case-by-case basis depending on what sounds best with the particular bass I’m using at the time. Only the compressor in the photo above. What effects are you planning to use? I can’t see modulation or dynamics effects being a problem but I have had issues with drives into cab sims on skinny-string guitar.