Woodinblack

Absolutely no issues. The danger you can get from a capacitor that hasn't been discharged is related to large electrolytic capacitors (the big ones that look like cylinders) on high voltage circuits, such as power supplies or valve amps (or old fashioned CRTs - they hurt like hell when you touched those). A bass contains no voltages that can hurt you in any way, even an active one.

Yep, which is nothing like what I was describing above. I am talking about someone (specifically a guitarist) coming in and doing a near perfect cover of a song they knew without prior practicing of that piece to the point that a paying non drunk crowd would be happy with the performance. My first gig with my current band was 28 songs that I hadn't played with them before with a 3 hour practice, and two evenings working the songs our and writing them down but I did know a lot of the songs that had tricky bits and I would say my performance on the gig was acceptable, not faultless.

Well, yes, blues is winging it at the best of times. I guess it depends on your definition. If have known very good guitarists who know the song to get it right the first time, so truly, wing it. But the thing is, it takes a lot of practice to be able to do something without practice!

Almost ccertainly if you are getting a tone control acting as a volume control, it means that your capacitor is broken / shorted and you need a new one. They are only a few pence. Take it off, try it, the pot should do nothing (if it does your wiring is duff). Put a new capacitor on there.

Does it have toneprints - maybe reset them to standard toneprints in case there is something bad in there?

I have too, I have known guitarists who thought they could just wing it. A few notable ones have been correct, most of them have been very wrong!

Yes, the one you missed on the marketplace is the one I have! Would be nice, if they could come up with something like they have for spark it would be a killer product, I suspect it is not the market they are interested in, but as positive grid listened tto feedback and made a smaller, battery powered spark, they should do.

I just got mine yesterday, and spent some serious time with them last night. I also have a spark amp, so this is a mini review for people like me on the shelf. So with the case (and I can't imagine using them without the case) it is a very neat package, zips up and keeps everything together and out of the way. If you don't have the case, seriously, get the case - cant believe at the price they go for they sell without it. The sender itself is obviously one of the boss WL10/20 type senders, and is very handy and easy to use if you don't have an Ibanez SR. If you have an Ibanez SR, you need some kind of extension which kind of takes away from the self containedness of it, but still works ok. The headphones themselves are very well made and look quality, although there are quite a few small knobs and buttons to break, another good reason for the case. Cant comment on the battery life, I played for about 3 hours yesterday with what had come through the post without charging them. Sound wise they are very clear and the sound is good - so much so I used it for comparing all my basses, and I am sure it showed more detail than anything else. They are easy to pair with your phone or whatever (once you read the instructions on line as it isn't immediately obvious how to do it). The big advantage is that it is easy to use it without any software, which is pretty good as the software is kind of the let down a bit. As mentioned up there, there is a tuner in the app, which is frankly not very good at all - I used it a few times and then reached for my polytune clip, it can barely work out what your E is on, and your B (or is an F or a D?) well, it will let you know if it is on! It has the directional thing mentioned, its an interesting gimmick and I can see it being good on a guitar but I really don't know what it is trying to do, If I am on stage with my amp and I starting turning round, it doesn't really go quiet in one ear when it is away from the bass as bass is fairly directionaless and normally pretty loud. But it is there and if people like it it then it is good and it is certianly fairly clever - I guess that is where a lot of the money goes. It has a drum machine that is basic but functional. I used it from the app - the manual says I can use it with the little switches on the side by some combination, I didn't try that. The software is functional, that is about what you can say. It lets you set a basic profile, an EQ and a series of effects in a way that is not immediately obvious. The advantage there is you can put them in the 6 patches that you can then change from the buttons on the side of the headphones so you can truly use it in a portable way. This is the weak point of this compared to the spark. In the software for that you have a set of 4 presets, and if you select those you can change amp type, alter the values on that amp, pick effects and the order of them visually, switch them on and off. You also have the supurb song selection packs, where not only do you have jam packs that you can jam along to, you can pick any song from your library and play it, and the software will work out the chords and structure for you and move along with the song, an excelent learning aid. There is nothing like that in the Waza airs. This portability has to be the strong point of this, you can take it anywhere - it would be ideal if you want to go and pick up a bass (but don't forget your extension leads if it is an ibanez). All in all for this you are paying for sound quaility and portability. And quality. If you are an experienced these are about as good as you can get for playing. If you are a beginner or intermediate, or aren't moving around much you would be far better off with the spark which loses on the portability (although they now make a battery one) and a bit of quality in exchange for much better software, eaiser to use and select effects, and auto tabbing of any song you want to select. As well as having a speaker for non quiet practice. I am glad I got them, but they are expensive. I can see where the money goes although it is dissapointing they are so much more than the guitar ones when it is almost certainly the same hardware, it would have been nice if they had spent some of the money on some better software in the app, but you are largely paying for a total absense of wires, where the spark you need a headphone lead. Although if you have an SR, you need a guitar extension lead, so not entirely lead free

Gonna need a wide strap with that!

Yep, I went to a demo of Ben from Crimson doing it. I think he just likes setting stuff on fire really.

Hey, this is supposed to be family friendly, we will have no looking at members side-on here thanyouverymuch!

I have had that, a guitarist that would just 'forget' that we were doing various songs because he didn't want to do them in the first place, or didn't like them. Which is fine if you say up front - there are several songs that at least one of us dislikes in the band, and some only survive because one of us really likes them. If you have 28 songs to gig what is tthe issue, go out and gig them! I have too - what is the point of that, they might as well go home and listen to the record! Most of our songs start close but after a while they tend to drift our own way. In fact, if note for note is required, what is the point of band practice - if everyone has it note for note it should be perfect anyway

Thanks for posting this, I was trying to remember who did the pickguards anyway and had forgotten. However, this seems like a very good idea

You just click someone name. Is that what you mean?

I don't think it matters - once you have written down 'prepare to be unprepared' on any sort of medium that someone else can read you have already labeled yourself

I really have no clue what you are talking about there, sorry. I think playing should always be fun. I just don't find it fun if the other people can't play what we are trying to play. I don't find it fun doing the same thing over and over again because someone else cant be bothered to learn it, or is not skilled enough to wing it. Agreed - I have already said that, and as you said, if you can jam the song, then that is fine, noone is having to wait for you to do something. Indeed - although I am not sure that there is much to chat through, I think they want different things from the band, and those things are probably incompatible. But talking is a good start, rather than just getting annoyed. Not sure what the argument is here, I don't think we are actually disagreeing anywhere here apart from maybe our idea of what learning a song is - I rarely do note for note, as long as the general idea is there.

Then why are you playing music? If you don't want to play, then there is no point playing at home, granted, but why is there a point playing anywhere? I think you are mixing things up, such as learning a song and being able to play something. When I play, the only thing that frustrates me is when the guitarist (and it is always the guitarist or keyboard player) hasn't worked out the song at all, and expects us to just hang around while they learn it. Maybe it is fun for you having to play the start of the same song 20 times while they work out what they are supposed to be playing, but I don't see any fun in that at all for me. They don't have to play like the record, or any specific version if they have their own idea how it should be played - I doubt we play anything like the record, if they are good enough to either wing it and get it close enough or do their own interpretation of it, that is fine, as long as we don't have to spend time repeating and repeating - I have been in those groups, they never go anyway, and they are never fun.

People have different approaches to bands, some people very professional, some people casual and it causes a lot of friction when people have a different approach to them. The goal is to find as many people who are as close to your idea of how to do things as possible for a long lived band. It isn't a question that you are right and they are wrong, it just that the approached don't work well together.

Thats where I am. I occasionally watch the end episode which is generally the most interesting thing on TV that day, but generally speaking don't pay much attention, but I know people who love it and travel round the world to go to it who are going to be thrilled that it is in the UK, wherever it is, so I can only see it as a good thing. The way the country and government are going, we are sure going to need something positive next year, so bring it on!

Well that is a surprise that noone could have predicted isn't it. Oh.. hang on..

I suspect its the opposite of the olympics, it costs far less to host but the money brings tourism and investment, then can still use the hall for things afterwards. I think the olympics is just a fortune to host then you find you have no use for any of the stadiums or halls you made, and have to think of some use for them. And at least unlike the olympics it doesn't go on for ever

I assume he just bought it because he liked it - if he was endorsing he wouldn't have a 2 generation back rack mount amp.

I would say an Ashdown ABM 500 RC Evo II 575W Chrome Face. Like this:

Well, the winning city gets a couple of thousand extra quite well off tourists visiting, so it really does matter to them.

Yep. Well, that is if that is what you want - there are a lot of diagrams depending on what you want. Obviously if you want volume / blend / tone you would do it a different way, or volume / volume tone etc. Yes but from EMGs point of view, they pennies at most, so it is just easier to put them all in.