Al Krow

So the Big Baby T was the predecessor of the BB2 in my pic above. And yes I have a SC too ( @PJ-Bassist's old one as it happens!) so we essentially have identical cabs. Hmmm....😁

That is an impressive spot from a 15 month old post! I take it you're a bit of an 8 string and / or Greg Lake fan?

Oooh lovely bass! Slightly worrying the amount of taste we have in common on the home furnishing front: wooden floors, white doors and antique white basses with tort PGs. You sure our other halves aren't related? 😁

So here's the thing. This thread is supposed to be encouraging us to be making the most of the existing gear we have. Somewhat limited, I know, by our collective inability to use them with our bands, but nevertheless be great to hear what "extra" we're getting out of our existing gear. I'm happy to kick this off by saying that my pedals were a bit of a random and not much used collection this past 6 months. I've managed to organise them into two ready to use pedal boards with a multifx at the heart of each: Oh and by the way - newcomers are all very welcome to join this 'gear abstinence lite' challenge. The entry ticket is simply that you've have not bought any gear since the start date of March 25th (i.e. yesterday morning!)

In terms of design - all of the below, for me, have real elegance and it would literally boil down to personal preference. Other than the Yammy, each is verging on iconic i.e. you know "that's a Schecter" just from the outline of the headstock. If I had to chose one, it would be the Smith. It combines form (and that is before we look at the reverse of the headstock where the quality of the craftsmanship sets it apart) with function. Little touches such as having the 3 lighter guage strings on one side to balance the weight and tension of the two heavier bottom strings reflects the attention to detail that has gone into the design of the headstock as well as the rest of the bass.

Yes, I think I'm beginning to piece together your antipathy to the G string... 😁

Ahh, antique white. Well that's a very good start! 😎 And you're a West Midlander to boot. I may or may not have grown up around those very parts!

Haha, I think that's right but LAST NIGHT... It's been the 25th since 12.01 am this morning! I guess given the extreme economic disruption we could make an exception to allow for "genuine" confusion on this point...😄

Fair! I guess the key point is folk should simply be aware that he is teaching on 5 string bass and assumes you can read music (I'll mention both in the OP summary) - but that's the beauty of us sharing our collective experiences and thoughts. @OzMike - an excellent mini review of the ArtistWorks Jazz bass course, thank you!

I presume the two Sad bass preamp pedals do, however, nail, it? So if you want to experience the "Sad sound" you could get a chunk of the way there with one of those? But here's, the thing: I've always presumed that a bass' pups play a much more significant role in a bass' tone than its on board preamp?

With age comes wisdom Mr Black. And given that his courses are of sufficient quality to warrant being normally paid for, it would be churlish to exclude your and several other folks' recommendation, particularly if he's been big-hearted enough to make them available for free temporarily. Although for the sake of balance - worth sharing some separate feedback I've had from a couple of BC'ers on this particular course, particularly in relation to his use of 5 string basses to illustrate his points: "I found it hard to concentrate on what the guy was saying and kept losing interest. Also the fact that he was doing the classes on a 5 string meant there were gaps in being able to follow him. Not knocking the guy at all, but he isn't in the same league as Mark from Talking Bass when it comes to keeping you interested. Maybe it's just me." ... I guess it will be interesting, therefore, if any of us decide to go ahead and take paid for courses from Zoltan when they cease to be free.

I'm assuming you have a Helix? If so then his patches are available for download at http://drtonelab.com/

It does have both octave up and down. If you go to the Modulation section, there are 3 variable pitch shift effects (PitchSHFT, HPS, BaMn Pitch) you could try and one that just does octave down only (Ba Octave). Set the pitch shift interval to -12 for octave down and +12 for octave up, +5 for a fifth up etc. But I don't think that a Zoom multifx is going to get you there on a rich royal blood sound - for me one of things the Zoom effects don't do well is any form of pitch shifting including octave up, although octave down seems to be fine. If you create a patch with multiple intervals you're going to get a disappointing sonic mush. For me that's down to the fact you have a £75 multifx with corresponding chip processor power not a £350+ multifx and higher end processors that you have in the Helix.

Best get a Yammy BB then. They have passive aggression in their PJs down to a fine art.

Would the honourable gent like a PJ with a jazz neck, and plenty of knobs to twiddle on? Would you Sire?

One of the first things I checked for when I got my hands on it 😊

Haha, quite right! Glad that folk are finally reading the memo! 😉 As @hooky_lowdown said (I suspect not having read the memo 😁) there are a ton of threads dealing with useful free on line courses, which I am sure will welcome your suggestion about your freebie course (assuming it's not already slipped through the net earlier in the thread - lol)... This 'ere thread is aimed squarely at folk wanting to invest time and coin in structured quality online courses and to get a steer from fellow BC'ers who have taken them and found them worth the investment.

I do believe that Jon Willis (aka Dr Tone) is using a Yammy Attitude on many of his clips. Just wondering whether this Geddy Lee preset on Helix is going to render my recently acquired VT Bass DI somewhat otiose?

Congrats! You could do worse than start here and see if any of these take your fancy: http://drtonelab.com/

Good man - 2 to 3 hours a day!! Very impressed. I'm kinda running out of excuses for doing merely half of that. Time to pull my finger out!

Haha Dave! You're definitely not going to last until Christmas are you? 😁 Equally to the point, how come you're bored of your nail parlour Bergs quite so quickly? It took me a whole 4 years to get bored of mine but you've got there in 2 and a bit months flat! They've clearly been usurped for gigs by your JC and it's red companion back up to be so I'm not going to take any of that "yeh, but I still love 'em, they still have a special place in my heart" nonsense. Fact check: they've been unceremoniously dumped for a younger model. And just as equally to the point, I'm very jealous you still have gigs for the lady-in-red JC to be a back up to!

Can you remember what the cost and number of lessons /course duration were and broadly what it was looking to achieve?

Stay strong. We tempt each other merely to sort the chaff from the wheat! What pups did you go for and which bass will you be replacing the existing pups on / what's on there currently? PS A Sire is a poor man's audience-will-never-notice-anyway Sadowsky. They both look pretty bloody similar and both start with "S".

Haha - barely any foot-fetish switch things in the Krow household. Ok there may be the odd pedal lying around and three pedal boards but that's not a fetish. That's just normal 😂

It's not the first time you've bought an amp footswitch is it? In fact, you had a designer one made up for your Mesa. Definitely seems that you have more of an interest in these than is purely healthy 😂