Greg Edwards69

Redonizm were back at Starr Sports, Canvey Island again. A decent night again and playing for an appreciative crowd. More importantly, after testing a new subwoofer (EV ELX200-12SP) it’s clear we need to spend some time in a large rehearsal room with the full PA to dial everything in just right. Whilst I think the sub did its job, it probably wasn’t the ideal room to try it out in as the ceiling is quite low and excites everything around low G on the bass, keys and acoustic guitar, even with low cuts and eq. Standing out front I noticed my bass tone was quite boomy and lacked definition compared to my frfr.

On the other hand, the new Xvive U4 IEM a couple of us are using performed really well, if a little shrill sounding. But probably the best IEM sound I’ve ever had. FYI, we tried this out at our previous gig a couple of weeks ago at Birchanger social club (that I completely forgot to to a write up about), but we had a few interference issues with the one of the lead vocalists mic and one of the guitarists mics. In retrospect, we should have spent some more time researching and determining the most appropriate channels for each device, but live and learn! Anyway, we worked this out since and it performed very well last night with not interference issues whatsoever.

If we can spend some quality time with the gear in a rehearsal space, and get everyone onboard with this IEM system, I’m now confident we can leave all the backline and home and just use PA.

16 hours ago, Skin Lewis said:

I bought a bass from BD a couple of years ago, went in person to try some out, came away with what I wanted. Had to chase them up for an invoice though. Since then I've bought a few sets of strings online with no problems. I like to give my business to small companies rather than box sellers, so a couple of weeks ago I ordered some Hipshot tuners from BD, paid in full of course. I heard nothing for over a week, tried calling for 2 days with no reply, emailed them with no response, emailed again and finally got an answer saying they were out of stock, 10 weeks lead time, and was refunded. The same day, I received their weekly update email, which stated they had new stock of Hipshot tuners. I looked at the website, saw the ones I had ordered still for sale with no mention of actual availability. Poor service in this day and age. Thomann to the rescue.

I've notice the same thing with their hipshot stock. The one's I want (chrome shiny ultratlite xtender clover OR Y-shaped and matching ultralite licenced never seem to be in stock.

Phone adverse as well. But as I have a stammer, I have an excuse! . To be honest though, I really should push myself to use the phone more often.

3 hours ago, Smanth said:

And yes, the power supply cable on my rig is ... iffy!  I'm trying to locate a 90 degree adapter so it has a lower profile and then secure it in place more robustly

2 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

I got mine on ebay, I can't have leads coming out of the back of something straight, as that is where the people are at a gig, and some of them insist on getting pretty close.

Same here. The power socket on my Headrush speaker is in exactly the right place to damage a straight IEC plug when used in tilt-back monitor orientation. I found an appropriately angled 90 degree lead on Amazon to rectify this oversight. I believe the particular seller sold them in both left and right versions. Up and down 90 degree adaptors are also available

Amazon.co.uk : right angle IEXC

I've had several over the years, Zoom BFX708, Boss GT6B, Zoom B9.1ut, Korg AX3B, Korg Pandora PX4D, a couple of Zoom MS60B's, Line 6 M5 and now only using my Helix LT (I also have Nux Mighty Plug if that counts.

I've gone back and forth between multifx units and stomp boxes over the years, or building hybrid setups with both, and nothing has come as close to perfection (for me) as the Helix. It has the models I wanted (including the Pearce pre-amp), the routing options I required that can be changed at the press of a button and the global eq which is worth the admission price alone IMHO.

On 16/04/2023 at 17:24, tayste_2000 said:

Absolutely pains me to say a Zoom MS60b

 

I’m going to change to a 70cdr because I keep running out of dsp.

 

But after years of avoiding Zoom it’s an incredible box.

 

Really really annoys my snobbery

Do what I did and use two of them! I had two on my old pedal board for processing both signals from Attitude bass, and sold them both when got my Helix. I kinda wish I had kept one now

I had a bolt-on 5 string Thumb. My first 'high end' bass. I bought it circa year 2000 from the old Bass Centre in Wapping along with a Warwick CCL combo amp.

IIRC, it was ovankol body and neck, with wenge fingerboard. The former of which required regular waxing, and the latter feeding with lemon oil to stop it drying out.

The tone was fantastic and was my main bass for a number of years. I've never heard another bass with that kind of growly piano tone... and that B string was perfect.

But as others have mentioned regarding ergonomics, the neck dive and first fret reach got to me (I'm only 5'7" so the nut felt like it was in the next post code). Repetitive lines in the first few frets would make my left hand cramp up, and I ended up in pain for a couple of days after every gig due to the neck dive. It ended up living in a gig bag for a number of years before I finally sold it.

However. I have since heard that Warwick basses made around that time had chunkier necks and were more prone to neck dive - mine was huge D shaped bassball bat of a neck. I quite liked it actually, other than the dive. Apparently more recent models within the last 10 years have slimmer profile necks again and balance better. But I would still recommend trying one with a strap, just to make sure the reach is okay.

1 hour ago, greavesbass said:

With one major difference from todays manufacturing. They were built using old growth wood which has now all gone. Instruments today are built from fast growth material, necessary of course to keep up with demand. Maybe I'm being unduly romantic with this..but pretty sure I can here the difference.

Yamaha released the Attitude LTD3 with artificially aged wood using their A.R.E. and I.R.A techniques.  Along with a revised neck joint, spine joint and pickup change this somehow more than doubled the price compared to the previous 2 versions. Considering I paid £899 for my already excellent LTD2 (end of line clearance - I believe the usual price was around £1600) there's no way I'm gonna fork out around £4k for a LTD3, and I doubt many people (if any) would even hear the difference in the construction techniques.

On 13/04/2023 at 00:14, Woodinblack said:

 

Sadly it is a random thing where sometimes they will have these things, and sometimes they won't. The stock changes every wednesday or thursday, one week it is angle grinders and flip flops, then next week it is lawn mowers and car mats. Then one week it will be different types of mains adapters.

I do however get all my rechargable batteries for my gigging stuff there, they last longer than all the others.

Unfortunately, our closest cheap supermarket is Aldi which as everyone knows, runs a similar business model. As such, we don't venture to Lidl very often. I'll make a point of popping in there more often if I'm close by in future to see of they have these in stock.

4 hours ago, dudewheresmybass said:

I've also got one of these Lidl leads.

Great idea, and our local one seems to have them in stock permanently 

Interesting. We have two Lidl’s in Southend, I’ll have to make time to pay them both a visit.

I need one or two of these in my life.  Commenting so I'll get a notification if they reappear in Lidl.

PS, searching for similar on google, amazon and ebay without much luck.

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

THere could be some element of that, but currently, the things (that we are discussing here) haven't got more expensive to make due to a lack of cheap goods or cheap debt, they have just got a more expensive price because they are making more profit. Not refering to musicman and fender and the like, the reason they seem bad is down to our economic choices tanking our exchange rate, but elsewhere.

I do believe that the era of cheap goods and debt is coming to an end, but we haven't got their yet. And when we do, our era of expensive housing is really going to bite us.

Just keep your fingers crossed that you or your loved ones will never need to move into a residential care home. Now that is all about profit!

3 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Lastly, do you know what sort of compressor you want? Compressor sustainer (feedback) or compressor limiter (feedforward). Robert Keeley did a great video on this that I can't seem to find at the moment (I'm at work). FWIW, I find the latter more useful for transparency and taming peaks and levelling bass. The former has more of an "effect", which is great in its own right.

Found it, via the Keeley website

Bass Compression with Robert Keeley - YouTube

I believe the Keeley Bassist pedal is also based upon the compressor limiter/levelling amplifier circuit design, so it's ideal for levelling and smoothing things out transparently.

Whilst Ovnilab is a great resource, it hasn't been updated for a number of years now so it doesn't include more recent and readily available pedals. Also, because he was burned once by TC Electronics, he refused to review anymore of their pedals, which is a shame, because I only hear great things about the Spectra Comp and Hyper Gravity pedals.

Also worth checking out are the Darkglass Hyper Luminal, and MXR M87

Lastly, do you know what sort of compressor you want? Compressor sustainer (feedback) or compressor limiter (feedforward). Robert Keeley did a great video on this that I can't seem to find at the moment (I'm at work). FWIW, I find the latter more useful for transparency and taming peaks and levelling bass. The former has more of an "effect", which is great in its own right.

33 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I've always found the notion that it's OK to use your amp with whatever tat the venue have knocking about masquerading as a cab, very un-nerving. About 10 years ago my band played a festival where we were specifically told that we needed to bring amps but would have to use the venue supplied cabs - supposedly in order to minimise change over times. For me that meant specifically making up some Speakon to jack leads just in case the cabs supplied were jack only (I've never used jack leads for bass cabs) and it's just as well that I did because the cabs turned to need them. The cabs were terrible with very poor sensitivity compared to mine and were either inaudible or noticeably distorting, even though we weren't a band that played loud on stage. In the end I turned up as far as I dared and played "blind" hoping that it sounded OK FoH, and that the cabs and my amp would still be functioning afterwards. The experience left me vowing to never do that again, and in the future I would either use my full rig or expect an amp to also be supplied.

Same here. I've had mixed experiences with using supplied backline. From crappy combos meant to fill the room, to cabs with no top end whatsover to amazing backline on stage only to find they want to take a DI directly off my pedalboard before it even reached the amp. As I mention above, all of us using a helix with FRFR has made us much more consistent, whether we're in the PA or not, or using the FRFRs or not (we've yet to come across a gig where we have to use the supplied backline and not be in the PA) Indeed, we had an outdoor small festival gig last summer. Whilst they had average supplied backline on offer, we simply asked for a monitor each instead. The sound was great and the setup, soundcheck and pack down afterwards was super quick. Even the sound guys commented on how easy it was to manage.

33 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I suppose it depends on the sorts of gigs you do and whether your rig is expected to provide the bass guitar FoH as well as on stage. Since I ditched my conventional rig for a Helix and FRFR I've only had to do 2 gigs where the bass wasn't also in the PA. Although it coped perfectly well at these and improved dispersion of the FRFR meant that I wasn't as loud on stage I had been with my previous rig under similar circumstance.

Going direct from the Helix and having my own FRFR has made us much more consistent.  My headrush speaker is about as powerful as my old markbass rig, so it can handle vocal only in the PA situations just fine. And with the global EQ I think it sounds better and more controlled too. I no longer fear dodgy acoustics, one-loud-note syndrome, or filling stage with low end rumble.

PS, I wish the Barefaced FR800 still existed too. I'd have one in a heartbeat.

16 hours ago, Boodang said:

 To me the whole thing smacks of 'how to make a bass as cheap as possible ''.

Is that kinda the founding ethos of Fender guitars, though? They were designed to be mass produced as quickly and cheaply as possible by unskilled labour. They were workhorse instruments, made for the masses with replaceable parts (indeed, part of the reason behind the bolt on neck).  It's only more recent times that people are convinced vintage fender instruments have some kind of mystical mojo. At the time, they were just mass produced instruments.

It depends.  Mass produced don't necessarily mean it's largely produced my automated machines.

I recall an Anderton's video some time ago. Lee explained that's whilst a CNC machine doesn't know where it is in the world - so a factory knocking out Squier bodies in Indonesia can use the same plans as USA fender, the main contributing factor to cost is the amount of work done by humans. The more work that is done by hand, the higher the cost.  They're still mass produced, but using a more human workflow.

51 minutes ago, IanA said:

Global eq adjustments are ok if you only use one instrument… if you play multiple instruments eg acoustic guitar bass and electric guitar then you are probably better off using an eq block instead.

This is why I only use the global eq for environmental issues - compensating for 'lumpy acoustics' in different venues. Problematic frequencies would generally be the same for any instrument plugged into the same rig in the same venue.

Global EQ shouldn't really be used for tone shaping at all.

Just now, javi_bassist said:

 

I didn't know you could do that!

It's easy to do on the larger floor units, but I believe it can also be done on the stomp units by using the send output at the end of your signal path to FOH and the main output to your on stage speaker

I use both. I have a low/high cut per patch, with the low cut set to around 50hz which is the roll-off frequency of my FRFR speaker and our PA speakers (we don't have a sub ... yet) and the high cut around 4khz that bring it into typical bass cab territory.

The Global EQ is set to only affect my on stage FRFR and not the PA, so I can compensate for immediate environmental issues - such as 'one loud note' syndrome* which plagues certain venues but isn't noticed out front, and to prevent low end build up. I've been known to run the global eq low cut as high as 80-100hz in some places to tame the low end rumble.

Honestly, I think the global eq and routing is worth the admission price alone. It's one of the main things that made me buy a Helix, so much easier to control nuisance frequencies on cramped stages than a traditional bass amp

*Whilst I'm able to identify the frequency of several notes, I highly recommend keeping a Hertz chart on your phone to identify offending frequencies. An RTA can be helpful too if you struggle deciding whether it's fundamental from the harmonic.  This is one area that I think could be improved for us bassists. I'd love to see something like Bergantino's 'variable feedback filter' implemented into the global eq. This is more intuitive 'note-based' system that sweeps through notes names from E1 - G3 rather than having to recognise frequencies.

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

I assume the active HPF that they are running in the effects loop of their amp currently is for filtering out unwanted sub bass, to get a tighter bass response and have the amp and speaker work more efficiently, whereas he passive HPF that they are asking about here and plan to place first in their signal chain is primarily for tone shaping purposes?

 

Sort of like an extra, but working in reverse and being more flexible, and possibly switchable too, external (reverse) tone pot.

 

I use two in my Helix - see my post above. One is at the end of the signal chain in every preset - this is set around 50hz to tighten up the low end and protect my frfr and PA speakers (we don't use a sub... yet). I have another hpf in the global eq that only affects my frfr speaker on stage, this one is variable depending on the venue to control any boom and rumble on stage without affecting the PA.

Ah, I didn't actually look at the details, my bad! But yes, that is rather shallow to be useful for bass guitar. The low cut control in my Helix is 12db/oct. I frequently stack two of them (one fixed frequency per preset and one variable frequency in the global eq) to get a more drastic cut.

Google just found this for me. Could be useful?

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1198318131/passive-high-pass-filter-0hp-herzlich?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_uk_en_gb_a-books_movies_and_music-other&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAjwoIqhBhAGEiwArXT7KwA1I8anBKDNbMbsbuJiP--C7IVI4GhhYYxTm84oBzNRCrKI_A2OABoCFmIQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12603393578_128415434828_508814164559_pla-314262775587_c__1198318131engb_102858184&utm_custom2=12603393578&gclid=CjwKCAjwoIqhBhAGEiwArXT7KwA1I8anBKDNbMbsbuJiP--C7IVI4GhhYYxTm84oBzNRCrKI_A2OABoCFmIQAvD_BwE

Redonizm were back at the Haystack, Canvey Island on Saturday. Previous readers will be relieved to know that it didn't end up in a mass brawl this time, and patrons were well behaved. A full pub with a great crowd who were up for a proper party - singing and dancing the whole way through.

I had a particularly full on day and was broken by the end of the night. My wife had booked matinee tickets for the "back to the future" musical as a birthday present without realising we had a gig that evening. One of the guitarists kindly picked up my gear and change of clothes the evening before, and we managed to high tail it back to Canvey after the show in plenty of time (Adelphi theatre to Canvey in about 1hr 20mins!) to set up and soundcheck.