thisnameistaken

In his defense he never calls any of his constant slough of Ernie Ball endorsement videos 'reviews'. They might look a bit reviewy but he never actually says it.

[quote name='henry norton' post='852358' date='May 31 2010, 09:02 AM']The Squiers are really good, as are the Japanese Fenders and JV Squiers (ahh yessss). Your average punter (and probably most bass players) won't be able to tell the difference in sound between them and a US std. but there's definitely something about owning and playing a US Fender that you can't put down to wood, electronics etc. It's just a good experience owning a US instrument and I think being happier with it just on those grounds can make you a better player.[/quote] TBH I only ever had one USA Fender and it was the worst bass owning experience of my life, I'll never buy another one. YMMV.

I've never heard that one before. You shouldn't be playing double stops into an analogue octaver unless you want it to go mental anyway.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='852292' date='May 31 2010, 01:21 AM']The octabass is very much less glitchy on diads than the OC2,[/quote] WTF is a diad?

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' post='851606' date='May 30 2010, 08:24 AM']I wonder if you guys can explain the benefit of having an f/x loop on a filter pedal and how that might work with my existing set up? I run the Chunk Systems Agent 00 Funk and Brown Dog together and that gives some interesting synth type sounds but of course that fuzz only seems to work with Agent pedal as the Bass IQ and Subdecay Prometheus are before the Brown Dog in the chain as they should be.[/quote] The Chunk Systems combo is a different solution to the same issue - there's the "clean out" on the Brown Dog which feeds into the envelope in on the 00Funk, so you can put the heavy fuzz into the IN of the 00Funk but it's getting the envelope signal from the clean out - pre-fuzz - on the fuzz pedal. That's basically all an FX loop on a filter does. It lets you put a clean signal into the IN, so the filter gets all your dynamics to create the envelope with, and then you can put whatever heavy dynamics-destroying nonsense pedals you like in the FX loop and your filter will still quack away. If you ever get the opportunity, try running a Z.Vex Woolly Mammoth infront of an envelope filter. Any filter, it doesn't matter. Good luck getting the filter's envelope follower to do anything. The fuzz will compress your signal so much that there won't be any envelope left.

[quote name='Alpha-Dave' post='852216' date='May 30 2010, 11:17 PM']The Electro Harmonix HOG tracks down to the C on a B string, not sure how much of the hardware is shared by the POGs.[/quote] The EHX HOG/POG pedals aren't tracking anything, they're sampling/resampling your signal on the fly (hence the latency) which is why they seem to perform magic tricks with low frequencies that normal tracking pedals couldn't possibly do. As for traditional "octave dividers" the tech is old, there are no more gains to be made, and so the tracking is basically the same on every model. Someone who's selling a vintage Japanese 'black label' Boss OC-2 will tell you it tracks better than a regular OC-2 to justify the price, similarly someone selling an EBS Octabass will tell you it tracks better than any OC-2. They're all talking bollocks - they all track fairly well and that's the best you'll get. Tracking below the G on your E string is pretty pointless and probably not worth shooting for, it isn't a pitch you'll find much of a musical use for, or remotely portable amplification that can reproduce it. If you still want better tracking, keep the octaver you've got and string your bass with flatwounds. Seriously. The difference will amaze you. To me, the difference between one octaver and the next is the quality of the sound, not the quality of the tracking. Pick the one which sounds nicest and then do what you can to improve the tracking.

I don't like trebly sounds on bass, it sounds annoying really quickly. I tend to roll off all of the top, have a bit of a mid hump to add a bit of purry presence and a broad bottom to fill the sound out. I love the classic flatwound sound too, I always keep one bass strung with flats now. I don't use it for everything but it's nice to have, and it makes effects track better too.

I'm currently playing in a little 5-piece reggae-influenced... punk? band. Drums, bass, guitar, 3 vox, trombone, trumpet and occasionally organ (organ seems to be getting scarcer recently...). Just uploaded some rough demos we've been working on to the myspaz: [url="http://www.myspace.com/copaseticska"]http://www.myspace.com/copaseticska[/url] Could do with more confident brass takes really, not to mention in-tune vocals. Always work to do...

Boutrous, [i]Boutrous[/i] Ghali.

I started on bass, in 1990. I pick up a guitar maybe once a year, just to surprise people as to how bad I am at playing it.

[quote name='RhysP' post='849208' date='May 27 2010, 10:08 AM']Kenickie were a sh*t band[/quote] To be fair they were. I kept accidentally seeing them live (they would turn up on bills everywhere I went) and they were always terrible. Lauren Laverne is pretty fit these days though.

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='847586' date='May 25 2010, 03:29 PM']The deadspots only become apparent when using the OC-2, right? What notes are you playing- Whereabouts on the fretboard- up high? down low? Does the OC-2 have an octave down & 2 octaves down? and how do you blend them with the original signal. Just trying to get a feel for what makes the deadspots become suddenly obvious, and are the notes the same on every bass?[/quote] Typically it's that standard area on a bass guitar - somewhere between C# and E on the G string. Sometimes (on Fenders and Stingrays mostly) I've also found them around G# on the E string. Soloing the octave down voice you will find that the pedal gates your note very quickly after you play it - this is what makes it very obvious.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='847326' date='May 25 2010, 11:28 AM']In answer to your question, I've had nine graphite neck'd Status basses in my time & I've never had a deadspot problem on any of them. [/quote] Never had a deadspot or never had a deadspot "problem"? I've had basses which appeared fine on their own but the deadspots became obvious once I stuck an octaver between the bass and the amp.

[quote name='Doddy' post='847102' date='May 25 2010, 01:57 AM']I'm guessing that one of the most important things for a player like Wooten is the tour support. Hartke are obviously willing to supply him with amps all over the world,which makes life so much easier when you travel as much as Victor does.[/quote] Yeah actually I bet when you're an act like Victor Wooten - with let's be fair has a niche audience but with high expectations - I guess if you can have a company guarantee you the rig you want everywhere you go, that is going to be a big deal for you. I suppose it's hard to physically be Victor Wooten without having an endorsement with a multinational amp supplier.

I stuck on the Graceland album on Spotify the other day, there's some stuff on there that sounds great on double bass and also that's interesting enough to just jam around if you're not good enough yet to play the stuff Bakithi played on it. Also try some old '60s soul tunes, and '60s ska/rocksteady stuff.

I know I am becoming infamous for needling top-knacker bassists here... (here it comes)... but: Who here is convinced that Vic Wooten cannot find better amplification than Hartke? For the record my main head is a Hartke LH500 - I love having all that power and just a simple three-knob tone stack that makes nice noises. And my backup amp is a Hartke HA3500. So obviously I have no issues with Hartke gear (although I've never liked their speakers) but I find it curious that someone like Vic is endorsing Hartke. So is Hartke gear the best in the world, or is he bringing us some other message (sponsored by Hartke), or does he simply like the amount of money Hartke are pritt-sticking to his forehead each time he says "Yeah, but"? Yeah I know people have to make a living, but as much as I like my own Hartke gear and probably won't replace it, I find it difficult to imagine that Vic Wooten hasn't come across much better gear over the last ten years or so.

The FX loop is a huge bonus in a filter - it means you can add the heaviest fuzz known to man - ostensibly before the filter itself - and not lose any of your original envelope dynamic. One issue is that you lose the independent use of whatever pedal(s) you put in the loop, because if you switch off the Q-Tron you also bypass its effects loop. Incidentally my own Meatwad bypasses this issue with an extra pair of flicky switches which I asked for when I ordered it. But I don't think there is any other off-the-shelf filter which caters for this requirement.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='846811' date='May 24 2010, 07:55 PM']I disagree. I think if all basses could come with graphite necks, they'd receive much wider praise. Of course though, its cost that stops this being possible. Just imagine all the cheapo basses that could have benefited from a nice graphite neck! If not just for the tone, for the stability and dead-spot-destroying effect they give![/quote] Two responses to this: #1 Let's be fair it's cost versus benefit. If it was essential, carbon fibre would've replaced wood by now. As it stands, operations like Status Graphite while well-respected remain small businesses catering to a small market of specialists. And given how much quality pop music was recorded with wooden-necked basses (and how much of these recordings were subsequently sampled for electronic music) it's difficult to argue the case for advanced composite-necked bass guitars. #2 I've asked specifically in this thread about whether graphite necks can make dead spot problems completely go away, and this is the first response I've had. Dead spots are a big deal to me because I use a lot of effects and dead spots are quickly shown up by tracking effects like the ubiquitous Boss OC-2, rendering certain notes in certain positions useless. Do graphite necks eliminate this issue? Other graphite neck bass users seem less than keen to endorse this particular performance improvement.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='846790' date='May 24 2010, 07:36 PM']Disproportionate number of neck issues? Satin neck with rosewood board & painted headstock? Sounds like you need to call 01206 868150 for a quote! [/quote] Actually the first was a 1994 Fender "boner" 22-fret Jazz which twisted to **** the first summer I toured it (1995) and I swore from then on I would never buy another Fender that wasn't used (I've stuck to that rule). Next was an early Warwick Corvette Proline (serial 000014) where the 7-piece neck laminate was mostly hard maple with stringers of wenge (IIRC). The truss rod broke, so I sent it back to Warwick and they sent me back the bass with a new 7-piece neck of mostly wenge which worked much better, plus a new case and a T-shirt and some new wax and half a dozen sets of 100-40 roundwounds. Another truss rod that caused me major problems - but this time because the neck is too stiff - is my current Warwick '91 Thumb. The truss rod rattles with the changing seasons. I occasionally re-set it to shut it up (but without the truss rod change making any change to the neck itself which hasn't altered in the 8 yeasr I've owned it) but I am getting tired of doing so. I think I might drive it up to Ripon this summer to see if Jim Fleeting can fix it [i]permanently[/i] for me.

I haven't heard the tune in ages, but I remember whenever it has come up in rehearsals, I've played octaves on a couple of the notes. It just sounds right.

[quote name='redstriper' post='846989' date='May 24 2010, 10:42 PM']Try watching it after a few beers and it's suddenly one of the funniest videos you've ever seen! [/quote] TBH I found the guy quite good company anyway. Makes a change from the usual nerdy white bearded American types you get hawking bass gear on the internets.

TBH a single good gated fuzz pedal will get you close enough to most of the fuzzy Muse tones, if you have a suitable filter to put it through and maybe an octaver to knock everything down an octave for some songs. I've got two gated fuzzes - the Woolly Mammoth and the Brown Dog, and both are excellent for this sort of thing. Actually I should probably sell one of them...