Dood

Oh, nearly forgot to mention, the NG2's aggressive tone is great for low tuning, even if you don't go specifcally for a "Nolly" tone. Coincidentally, my own pickup choices aren't a million miles away from Nolly's to gain the same results. Bite when needed but enough "punch" in the low end without becoming pillowy and unstable.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but, my advice is to not concentrate on the lows or sub frequencies any lower than a good B (i.e. don't boost 30hz willy-nilly). In fact, on stage, it clears the mix up if they aren't there (or are carefully controlled if they need to be). Yes, it is true that most on-stage speaker systems can't handle the fundamentals anyway, so why put them through the stress of trying. The funny thing about frequencies is what we believe to be there when they are not - and to take advantage of that. Case in point, We have all enjoyed monsterously chunky guitar riffs that sound deeper than satan's codpiece - but, when solo'd in the mix, the low end is often shaved off 100hz or higher purposely. For us bassists tuning low (I've tuned to E0, my 7 string is currently tuned to F#) , I have had no issues with using standard backline taking in to consideration the above. TL/DR:- Know that there is more weight - or 'girth' as folk like to call it in the 80-160hz region for bass guitar - for obvious reasons and that's where I start carving my bass tone. You don't need a 24dB/Oct High Pass Filter on the lows if you are careful, but it can help. Start at 30hz and work up until the beef tightens up a bit. Next, there's a balance between what your bass needs to sound full and what the mix dictates. I wouldn't want a wimpy bass tone, but, we can't all fight for the same area of the frequency spectrum in the mix (and this is also where the decision is made about who gets the the higher crossover point, or sitting forward in the mix - the guitarists shaving away their lows to make way for a fatter bass tone, or, the guitars taking the lion's share and the bass is relegated to unison lines and a more underpinning role. Think Karnivool versus Alterbridge as examples. Back to bass again - and, remember the mids! I'd use band-pass distortion to add energy and life to the midrange to cut through where needed and, as I have said a million times before, I am a huge fan of parallel compression, more specifically upward compression to create a big 'bed' of sound that kinda acts like the smoothing compressive qualities of distorted guitars. (to help them blend) - If you have access to Parallax by Neural DSP, it uses a well known studio method for bass that entails compressing the low frequencies and treating the higher (driven) frequencies separately. Coincidentally a video from either Produce Like A Pro (Warren Huart) or one of the online academies came up on my feed again discussing this very method recently. - You can either go in hard on the QC with this or leave it to front of house. Funnily, even though Billy Sheehan doesn't tune low, his method of splitting the bass signal in to 3 isn't far off this idea, but many other bassists have split their signal between different amps for example to straddle the low end support and still being able to be heard in the mix. Duff McKagan has recorded using both a bass amp and plugging in to a guitar amp for the mid range and top end bite. Dug Pinnick's tone is another option. There's lots of low end in there, but his more aggressive top end (easily attainable with the Tech21 DP pedal) will help your pitch clarity come through. I'm also thinking about awesome bands like Vola or Gojira for their bass tones here too. Anyway, as you have one, the great thing about the QC is that you can do this virtually with almost limitless amp combinations! Finally, I suppose another /TLDR is that a down-tuned instrument sounds down-tuned. Doesn't it? Drop D on a bass just has a different tone. It still sounds drop tuned on an iPhone speaker, and given the amount of people who can't tell there's nothing below 100hz coming out of one of those... /sorry if this is a ramble, I'm half asleep still..

Oh-Ar? In all of these years being on BassWorld and BassChat, I've never seen that! 🤣 Blimey! I'm losing my edge! I shall seek out this public messaging function! Thank you!

I'm still confused by folk mistaking the status updates section for private messaging.

I could tell you what is on my desk right now, but then I might get in to a bit of trouble. I can tell you that a couple of months ago I was involved with prototype testing of a super nice 'signature model' device for a really rather well known bassist. I provided consultancy and product evaluation with cups of tea, to tweak the features to make them just right. It's important that products have a feature set that meets the needs of a wide range of players. This week I have shot an in-depth brand product feature video to go with its release... which is imminent... #BestJobInTheWorld

I've grabbed the free Waves offer:- https://www.waves.com/plugins/magma-stressbox but I ahven't had the activation email yet. I grabbed Waves IDX last year for free, that is a pretty stunning plug-in, it's up there with Korneff's El Juan, another plugin I managed to snag free and use on pretty much everything. Hmm, I think I got Clarity VX free too... I use Clarity or Izotope's RX Essentials on all of my videos for super clean lav recording.

I actually clean forgot i grabbed it! I haven't even ran the plugin yet lol!

Free plugin from UAD (if you haven't already grabbed their freebie promotions previously) https://www.uaudio.com/products/pick-one-free-plug-in I have the 1176, LA2a, PolySynth, Pultec Passive, Verve Analog Machines and Century Channel Strip all for free over the last year or so! Nice!

It wouldn't be the first time I'd been called analytical, and maybe that's not always a helpful skill - though I evaluate people quite quickly on their ability to have a balanced and nuanced discussion and oft wonder why they are quick to dismiss without substance to back it up.

"Opinions are like *r53holes...." etc etc

I scrolled over a post by Neural Amp Modeller's creator Steve 'Ack' Atkinson earlier and he'd had some links to how Neural Modelling has been able to capture compression and tremelo effects previously. He congratulated the NDSP team for being able to package the technology - it's exciting times if but mind boggling! I used to think that stem splitting would be near impossible but it's getting better with every new update. Exciting times indeed! I've loaded the OS update and, when I have some time free from recording and editing a top secret video for a new product release, I'll be putting QC through its paces!

Or should I say OOH-Ooooh-Ooooh! 🐵🍌🐵🍌🐒

Ooooooooh!

Not necessarily talking about old strings, but I have certainly warmed to a bass because of the effect the strings had on the overall tone. Case in point, one of my students has a very nice bass and as we were chatting away, I complimented him on how great it sounded that day. Rich, resonant and full of harmonic overtones. It turns out, he'd taken the strings off the bass that I had sold him a little while ago (my preferred string) and put those on this bass!!

Taking torrification out of the equation for a moment, yes—there are a number of factors at play. The quality of the timber has already been mentioned. A piece of maple for a neck on a £100 guitar won’t even be in the same ballpark as that used by a top-tier brand like Shuker. Not all truss rods are created equal, and some have been found to be prone to failure in cheaper instruments. Poorly cut channels and ill-fitting rods can mean the truss rod is already operating outside its effective range. How is the neck wood cut? Is it quarter-sawn, for example? Is the neck laminated, and if so, what laminates are being used? This includes the fretboard. I’d describe this as a cross-grain laminate, since the fretboard grain runs perpendicular to the neck laminates, offering additional resistance to twisting and lateral movement. Is the fretboard a thin veneer, like on my cranky old P Bass (a “ball-bat” neck I’ve adjusted once, and it’s rock solid), or a thick cap? What timber has been used? How much of the neck length, up to the end of the fretboard is attached to the body? On a standard P Bass, it’s from around the 16th fret onwards. Some neck-through basses join the body at the 24th fret. On a 35" scale-plus instrument, that’s a longer length of neck for forces to act upon. We know from school physics it’s easier to bend a longer piece of material than a shorter one. I’ll leave the exact term for that to the physicists—Beam Theory, maybe? I also read about a guitar tech who highlighted issues caused by fret installation itself, which could effectively add uneven backbow to an otherwise relaxed board. I’m sure there are plenty more reasons why necks move around, but these are the ones that came to mind while having a cuppa!

THIS may have been the application.

IIRC, and this would need checking, the module was set to a mono block rather than dual with an active crossover. I believe the active cabinet still used a passive crossover as per the BBII. (Hence you'd be able to take the module out completely. (With caveats). Thus, the presets installed were for 'colour' settings as well as the expected HPF type protection possibly. I don't recall reading about any other DSP such as compression or Limiting. I used to have a copy of the editor app somewhere, but not of the preset files.

Same.

Hypex made the modules and yes, they are still very much in business, so possibly an email to them might help too.

Before my life as a professional musician I used to work in IT. I also really liked advertising that I'd much rather have been doing music than being there, so I had a BassChat business card in my ID card holder. Imagine my embarrasment on the occasion we're all stood in a lift and my "i-have-no-social-filter-and-dont-know-when-to-shut-up" colleague spotted said business card, the letter B obscured by my lanyard..

Oooh!

YES! I always loved this theme - and the theme to The Bill. As a young'un I couldn't quite figure out what I was drawn to... but looking back, as a bit of a fan of prog, it was the 7/4 time signature of the main section! Oh and I nearly forgot the tone key change and then almost immediately back again later in the piece.

Absolutely brilliant in every way! What a fantastic idea and wonderful results! congratulations!

SynthMaster 2 by KV331 is free on IOS currently: https://www.kv331audio.com/synthmasterios.aspx - There appears to be a desktop version too but I've not tried that yet.