Greg Edwards69

We had to learn "It's All About You" by McFly for a wedding a number of years ago. Credit where credit's due, it's a cleverly crafted little pop number when you analyse it.

I used to use Dunlops many years, but I had one fail so switched to Schaller. The screw always worked its way loose over time. Possibly a combination of using the included screw and the resultant thread in the wood getting worn by replacing the screw. I realised last year when I bought a new bass that I have a designated strap for each instrument and I don't really need to take the straps off. So I bought a pack of rubber washer strap locks, replaced the original buttons and screws on each bass (didn't need to touch the new one) and installed straps and washers. 18 months later, they are still rock solid. Sometimes the simple solution is the best, for me anyway.

That's good to know. As another typical pub covers band (plus functions) we're using just a pair of DXR12 speakers, that I guess perform similarly to your QSC12's without a sub It's only fairly recently that we've been putting the guitars and bass through the PA, after years of me badgering the rest of the band about it. The PA actually belongs to one of the guitarist's dad, who is our unofficial seventh member. So his job has been fairly easy so far only having to mange vocals and telling us to turn up or down!. He's getting on a bit now and has had some illness so we've been running the sound ourselves with the DXR12's and a yamaha MGP16x mixer, with a fair bit of knowledge between us and getting decent results (my input is generally hpf everything apart from bass and bass drum!). He does also have a Behringer x-air mixer. But we really need to spend a fair amount of time with that in a large rehearsal room before going out with it, plus it'll be more flexible if we go in ears. I love the guy, but bless him, his knowledge it a little behind the times and I have to remind him to low pass certain channels to avoid feedback and rumble on the mics! If we can do this ourselves with an ipad it'll make life a lot easier and he can retire gracefully. If we can ditch the backline as well and go IEM using just the DXR12's as FOH without a sub, then even better. Then we only have to invest in a decent IEM system. The Behringer P2 will work in a pinch (afore mentioned guitarist has one and sounded great) but I'd rather go wireless. I need to do a test at our next soundcheck, and turn my frfr off once we've got everything mixed to see if it's supporting the FOH or not. This, I feel will be the turning point.

I've gone from one end to the other. For many years, my bass amp was used to fill the room, with only vocals and maybe bass drum going through the PA. I think a lot of bands start out like this and carry on without realising there's other ways. Sure it works for many gigs, but it's difficult to manage overall mix and volume, doesn't project that well and challenging to eq for both stage and room. As I've said in another thread recently , I never really "got" amp modelling, or pre/post DI an amp to FOH. You buy an amp and cab for the sound it makes - why would I want to model another amp through it? Furthermore, I had used a DI a number of times, but it never made perfect sense. If you take a pre DI it bypasses the amps preamp colour, if you take a post DI it get the eq you've dialled in for the stage. Neither is perfect. The only other option to replicate the sound of your carefully dialled in bass rig is to mic the bass cab, and maybe combine it with a DI. It becomes an unwieldly mess for the average pub band. The Helix was game changing. It was only when one of my guitarists turned up with a new helix and frfr speaker that everything made sense. The rest of the band followed suit in time. It is a joy to be able to dial in a great sounding tone and replicate it consistently through nearly every sound system, whether its headphone, studio monitors, frfr speaker, IEM or FOH PA. It gives you so much flexibility. So in answer to the original question. My bass rig used to be there for mine and the audiences benefit. Now it's just a stage monitor for me. I can't see myself going back either.

It's an option. They both took turns playing bass a rehearsal recently when I couldn't make it due to back issues. They said the bass sounded great through it. I need to hear it for myself. I'm just concerned it may not be enough if it needs to fill the room without FOH support - much like my baby headrush. The little headrush 108 is surprisingly competent with bass. I don't like too much sub bass in my sound and I always have the hpf engaged in the helix and tune it to the room. Sometimes up as far as 80hz if it's too boomy. The headrush 108 seems to behave better in a smaller rooms such as a rehearsal studio, probably because it inherently rolls the low frequencies off similarly to using a judicious hpf. It would likely be fine with great FOH support. I just don't know how much my bigger 112 is supporting the low end of our sub-less FOH system and whether switching to a smaller speaker will ultimately make any difference to the FOH sound. It would be great to replace both speakers with something inbetween. Although physics tend to indicate that the perfect trifecta of weight, volume and low end extension doesn't exist. TL:DR We need to do a "technical rehearsal"!

Indeed. I never really "got" the idea of pre/post DI from my amp head, when the amp and cab together are part of your sound. As such, I rarely put my bass through the PA and relied on it to fill the room. Likewise, I never really "got" amp and cab modelling when running a modeller through a conventional bass rig. Why invest money in a great sounding amp, only to try and simulate another one through it? Or why send a modelled bass amp to FOH whilst using a real one on stage? The helix was the lightbulb moment. Excuse the cliche, but it was game changing. I sincerely wish I had gone down this path years ago, even with just a preamp feeding an frfr speaker (heck even some of my old gear had primitive amp modelling - I just didn't "get it"). I just love how consistent my sound is, whatever the situation. It's worth the admission price for that alone.

Going back to question of a 10" frfr as a bass 'rig'. I read a QSC article last week that recommend what speaker of theirs to use for different scenarios and bands. It was interesting to see they recommend the K10.2 as the on stage bass monitor in almost every scenario with FOH support. https://www.qsc.com/resource-files/productresources/spk/k.2/q_spk_k.2_appguide_livebands.pdf This has gotten me thinking.... I have a headrush frfr-112 (1x12) and it's baby brother, the frfr-108 (1x8). The former is a heavy lump, but performs well, even without FOH support. The latter I bought for rehearals and home use, being a lot smaller. It handle bass suprisingly well. But as Phil Starr aludes to above. I'm not sure I have the confidence to rely on it in a gig situation, even running bass through the FOH. I'm likely being stupid, I know. The 2 guitarists have a DXR10 each, and we use DXR12 speakers for mains - no subs. Drumwise, we only stick the bass drum through the PA at the moment. As far as I can tell, it sounds pretty good out front with everything going through the DXR12 speaker. I note the QSC guide recommends 10" tops with a single 12" sub for the average pub rock band, so I'm guessing our 12" tops without a sub are performing similarly and adequately. I'm not sure how much depth my headrush speaker is providing in the mix without some significant testing. It's definitely got me thinking about downsizing. I've had a couple of back issues lately, so I could definitely do with something lighter than the 12" headrush. We do have a basic, wireless IEM system, but it's not very good (gear4music own brand, get's mushy and compressed with a full mix). I'm intrigued by the Behringer P2, but I'm not keen on being wired in. But it would be great if we could eschew the backline completely, and/or change the PA to a couple of 10inch tops and a compact sub.

For me it was a simple as having a good representation of what was coming out of my Helix in every situation. Whether it's home practice with headphones, frfr speaker at rehearsal or backline at a gig, or sending the signal from helix straight to FOH. If I've got a sound dialled in that sounds great through my frfr speaker (at gig volume, of course) then I know it's going to sound great in every other scenario.

True. I lost sight of the original question. Guilty as charged!

The Fishman Fission works very similarly and is worth looking up. Personally, I’ve got a patch set up in my helix that does something similar and sounds quite convincing in a band mix. I based it on this patch and tweaked it for my needs:

Andertons made a video especially for your predicament. Sound like Royal Blood without busting the bank.

I have a soft spot for zoom, I've used a number of their units over the years, going back to my bothers 9001 unit! However, I can't help but feel they've missed something with the design and features of this new B6, especially considering the price tag A cursory glance tells me that you're stuck with a single signal path, yes? It doesn't seem possible to split the signal with a clean and dirty path, or clean lows, dirty highs with a crossover. I'd love to be proven wrong here. Personally, I feel the DI modelling is a bit of a gimmick and rather redundant if you're using the amp modelling. If you don't use amps at all and prefer the sound of a DI, then I'm not sure you'd be buying a zoom multifx device anyway and would invest in a high quality DI box. Perhaps they sound better now with a new processor, but a quick look through the effects list PDF, it appears that a lot of the models and effects are the same algorithms they've been using for many years but in a new box and interface. They certainly seem mostly the same, with the same parameters as in my old MS60B. I think my Helix LT is safe for the time being. That said, I wish Line 6 would beef up the helix synth engine and make it competitive with the C4 and Future Impact et al.

Not necessarily, multiple compressors is quite a common studio technique. Gentle, stacked compressors can get more squish whilst sounding natural compared to a single heavily set compressor. Alternatively, it’s quite common to run a compressor into a limiter. One to squash and one to catch the peaks. That said, I think Javi_bassist may be over doing it, running heavy compression into the LA2A limiter. Don’t forget, the SVT amp block also compress as it simulates the natural tube compression that the real amp will do. I’d dial the Rochester back to around 4:1, maybe 6:1 if you like the squish, mind how you set the threshold and take care with the LA2A at the end. I’d also question whether this patch has been created at gig volume or bedroom volume. Compression can sound very different at high volume. A heavily compressed studio tone doesn’t necessarily translate that well in a live environment.

Following. I mentioned this in your BB2 for sale post, but I’m very, very interested is this combo, or maybe it’s less powerful 500w sibling. You mention it’s very clean sounding and deep. Would you say it’s transparent? Perhaps as transparent as the BB2 it’s replaced. I’m after a much lighter alternative to my headrush frfr-112. As I understand it, the BB2 is highly regarded as an frfr option for basses. If the GR AT combos perform similarly as transparent it will be on my shopping list. even my wife thinks I need to replace the headrush for something lighter, so the price doesn’t seem quite so painful!

apologies for double post. Browser fail

Indeed. This is one of the reasons that I bought the Helix. It's worth the admission fee for the global eq section alone IMO. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but it's a 3 band fully parametric eq that includes hpf and lpf (labelled as low/high cut). There's also a myriad of different eq block to use in presets, including a parametric that is the same as the global eq, graphic eq, shelving, tilting an a simple low/high cut block that I use in nearly every patch.. No longer do I fear dodgy room acoustics!

Indeed. This is one of the reasons that I bought the Helix. It's worth the admission fee for the global eq section alone IMO. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but it's a 3 band fully parametric eq that includes hpf and lpf (labelled as low/high cut). There's also a myriad of different eq block to use in presets, including a parametric that is the same as the global eq, graphic eq, shelving, tilting an a simple low/high cut block that I use in nearly every patch.. No longer do I fear dodgy room acoustics!

Thanks, but that wouldn’t work for me. I need global eq to compensate for room acoustics. However, Stoo kindly solved this for me, it appears that global eq doesn’t affect send outputs. One last question. Are the send outputs independent of the master volume? The manual show how you can hook up the stomp xl to both a bass amp via sends and mixer via master outputs, but I currently have my LT setup so the master volume only affects the 1/4” output and not the xlr. I’d like to do a similar thing with the stomp xl FWIW I note the manual mentions the master volume can be set to control both master output and/or headphones. But there’s no mention of the sends.

Aha. I missed that when I scanned through the manual. That is promising.

It depends where the global eq sits in the signal path. If the fx send it before global eq it may be possible. My main patch also revolves around a crossover split, so I think only the stomp xl is an option if the above is possible.

Damn. That's crucial to how I set my signal path up. I'll have to have a rethink. I did check the pdf manuals online and couldn't see anything confirming if it was possible. Perhaps I'll submit is as a request in ideascale.

Question. With the stomp and stomp xl, can you send the 2 outputs signals with different settings? E.g. left, to stage monitor with global eq, line level, and right output to FOH no global eq, instrument level. I do this with my helix LT via 1/4” and xlr, but I’m seriously considering downsizing.

If you can cut hold your own with a 1x12 bass cab and 500w amp, the QSC will perform similarly. It does depend somewhat on what the guitarist is using however. A single speaker bass amp will always struggle up against a large guitar cab with multiple speakers no matter how many watts each of you have. If they are using a single speaker combo then it should be no problem at all.

The stock pickup on my 2020 50s P is relatively quiet, but it’s not an issue for me as I run a helix as my live “rig”. However, it’s quite a lively and bright pickup as you would expect for a single coil. After a brief dalliance with flats (which I enjoyed, but just don’t work for me and my band’s mix - I have kept them for future use though) I’ve gone with a set of fender nickel plated steel strings. I usually play stainless strings, so these nickels bring the brittleness down to a pleasing level. I’ve lined the cavities with shielding tape that has considerable helped reduce the expected single coil noise. I have looked at alternative pickups, even though I don’t need to at the moment, and the Fralin Split 51 definitely appeals - the hum cancelling properties of the traditional split p design in a single coils form, albeit expensive. Only other mods I want to do is to get a gold anodised pickguard made, I think it’ll look the poodles plums against the white blonde and beautiful tinted maple neck. I also need to install a Hipshot xtender, however, fender have used a nonstandard tuner design, so there’s not a drop in Hipshot replacement. So I’ll likely install the ultra lite xtender and replace the other runners with ultralites too.