Woodinblack

Sorry, I am not taking it personally, I just hate really vague labelling! Personally I think the TC450 is an odd label, but at least it is clear what it means.

There are times in life when there are just other priorities, I almost completely gave up playing in my early 30s, I effectively started again mid 40s. I just didn't want to do anything at all and there was way too many other things that I wanted to do. Personally, if I was in your position, I would sell some of the expensive stuff and take that holiday. Keep a bass, stick it out of the way so you don't feel like you are missing out and go off and enjoy time with the kids while they are still nice human children. Some time later, the bass will still be there and for most people, there comes a time when the itch comes back again.

That is because it is almost impossible to get it to do 180hp for a sustained time. However, if you stick a big distortion pedal on your bass and turn everything up flat out, or put a keyboard through your amp, you can easily make it match that output power for a sustained time. So as analogies go, it kind of sucks! On the back? I would have thought it would be obvious that you should write what you mean, ie: "Maximum 300W". or "Average 40W" - anything else makes no sense. Who cares when they look at the back of an electrical item what the average or idle current is? All you care about is that the source you are plugging it into can provide the power necessary. When you buy a cooker hob it doesn't give you the power rating with only one hob on does it? that makes no sense at all. I bought a psu for a PC the other day. It was specified as a 300W power supply. Should I now take it back because it is only using 40? If I look on the back of a TC RH450, here it says above the plug 85W @ 1/8 of max output. That is clear and unambiguous. Proper labelling. If it said just 85W it would be a lie.

Why not? it was very rewarding and I got just what I wanted! ok, took a while, but well worth it.

You cannot quote an RMS output figure (which isn’t a bass) at the same time as quoting a duty cycle or an idle power, that is just inaccurate in fact I would say just writing 30W on the back was an actual lie with no qualification.

No, that doesnt work. A watt is a unit of energy, so 30w at 120v is no difference to 30w at 1 v, just that one needs 1/4 and one needs 30A. It is not possible to produce 300w out of something that you only put 30 in, so there is some confusion on what they mean on the labels - I am guessing it is 30w at idle, but it can't be 30w at full sustained output.

As the Sub'N'Up and the mini are the same price, are they internally the same thing? I realise that there is a knob missing on the mini, but ultimately do they do the same thing apart from that?

You can buy iceman or fireman bodies on eBay if you do a search, sometimes you might have to look at the American site to get it. The other thing is that the iceman or fireman body can look a little odd without the iceman headstock (the fireman headstock is for some reason not reversed). Or you could make one yourself, pretty easy really, looks like this (although that is full scale!)

In our group the singer / sax is definitely the showman, he interacts with the audience, dances round, goes into the audience when saxing to interact. And he gets the most attention as he should, he loves it and he does it well. He is an OK singer, but that is all he needs to be - I would rather the showman who can sing than a fantastic singer that can't show. So in our group, me and him are at the front as I also do vocals (although I don't move round too much), the guitarist doesn't generally look up. I often get people talking to me after the show, most people know I play the bass

So went home and sacked the singer then?

Yes, probably but it is interesting none the less. Some good stuff to think about - I don't really want to have anything too heavy and by the same token, I don't really want to carry the amp around (although we do currently), thats what I meant about the behringers being an upgrade, currently we have passive behringer speakers and they are not great! The monitors are even worse, but that really isn't an issue for me, as I have in ears so have no issue with monitoring.

Something that blocks out the internet

In a way, the options have changed. There aren't really any clubs any more around here, and given that there is really nowhere else to play apart from the occasional coffee shop if you are a quiet acoustic act, there isn't much choice.

That is the way I take it - it is rare there is much of a difference (although the guitarist often comments) so I take whatever I feel like taking along really, whatever I feel like playing or whatever image I have. The drummers dad (who is in his late 80s) comes to a lot of our gigs. After he had seen about 20, with various different basses (probably about 10), I took my chequered iceman to a gig and he came up after the gig and said 'Have you got a new bass?'

Quite a few around here

Of course not, that would be stupid, cob tuesday is is a one off day, like shrove Tuesday or ash wednesday

OK, I lied about the metal. We are a loud (too loud) pub band, Rock, Pop, Ska, and as little blues as I can manage to get away with. We also do a few outside truck gigs, and a spot outside a pub in a marquee occasionally, but fundamentally pubs, small and medium sized. But too loud. Currently we have a set of behringer speakers and a Poweramp, these belong to the drummer. We put the vocals, sax, a bit of the guitar, and a very small amount of keys for a couple of songs and occasionally when outside, various parts of the drum kit through it. It can sound mostly ok, but it is often muffled and quite poor. My last group we had a pair of Behringer eurolive 215D powered speakers on sticks, and I am sure that was a bit of a better sound, although that was just vocals, with very occasionaly the drums. My bass never went through the PA in either group. We have long wanted to change this, but frankly I am probably for bad reasons, the only one who would buy one. I have thought about doing so in the past, but the thing is a minefield and frankly I haven't got much space (even though the singer would probably look after them). So i have gone round this in circles, looking at some more 215Ds, then things like it like the Mackies, or the cheaper JBL and then getting to confused and giving in. I don't want to spend a fortune even if I do get some. Every time you find something there are a ton of people saying 'oh don't get these, these ones only £500 are much better' etc. Genuinely if I did go for it I would want to pay about £500 or so (new or SH), and if I did go above that, it would never be above £1k. Just recently I noticed people with those column PAs, and there are a lot of adverts coming through for them. They all seem to show them with singer songwriter people, people with acoustic guitars and the like. Are they any good for a rock band?

OK, so you could split the bass out, feed the treble through the 6 effects and mix them back together at the end?

Doesn't that mean there is only one path through, so you can't split a signal and put different parts of it through different effects?

the guy in the video - Glen Delaune I don't think its that much of a risky prediction!

As an aside to whether Al is going to be buying the Helix (which he obviously is), I don't recall ever seeing anyone playing that type of music (ie, non acoustic fingerpicking) with a thumb pick before like that. Seems to work well for him!

I would say, play the bass. At some time later, if there is something about the sound that is wrong, or something about the feel that is wrong, start looking as to what can be causing that and what you can do about it. If there isn't anything about it that you don't like, don't even think about it again, just carrying on playing it.

And now he (Juszkiewicz, not Mr Trump), has gone: https://www.musicradar.com/news/ceo-henry-juszkiewicz-ousted-as-gibson-guitar-co-saved-from-bankruptcy He said: “I will continue to aid Gibson for at least a couple more years, and my mission, really, is to pass on the knowledge and the tools to allow the next generation of management to really excel and bring the brand to a whole new level,” I am sure they are glad for that!

Wow - do they just throw the pickups at the body and see where they stick? 😲