Al Krow

Aria Pro II - had been hanging around the house not being used for over a decade, previously owned by Mrs Krow who'd had a brief flirtation with bass a long while back. Into a TC BG250 115 (stock photo). Began my love affair with PJ basses long before I knew what a PJ bass was...

The other point to be aware of is that Ableton Live 10 Lite is bundled with some Focusrite products eg their Scarlett range, and is not time limited.

Just been trying to get myself up to speed on what the various bass options for Maruszczyk basses are but couldn't easily find a side by side comparison of what was available; so I took the liberty of cutting and pasting from their website to pull something together for myself. Sharing this here in case it's of use / interest to other folk (and apologies if this has been done multiple times already!)

Tbf you typically have one with the other n'est-ce pas?

I just found the OFD did all its emulations well but none brilliantly so. Tool for the job eh? ...And seamlessly back on topic 😂

Yeh, yeh... Cut the guff, all we're really interested in is how old your mistress is 😂

Have listened to this all the way through twice now. Great album with very accomplished musicianship. The track I wanted to return to after listening through twice was 'Invincible', the fourth track in the album and for me the fulcrum around which the album hangs. Evocative lyrics and melody line, combined with driving rhythm taking you back to an age when men led short brutish and often futile lives as battle fodder: "Warrior struggling to remain consequential". At 6.48 it could have come to a natural end; but then they change-up the tempo with the same over-arching melodic theme and kept me gripped until the track finale at 12.40. If I ever come close to writing anything 1% as good, I'll retire happy.

If he'd been making the same point about only old duffers playing PJ basses in covers bands, I'd have to plead guilty as charged!

Yeah I've been on the receiving end of 'advice' that delay pedals and bass don't go together. Glad to be hearing a contrapoint to that view! Short delay to get slap back on certain tracks can work great IMO and whilst longer delay takes more skill to work in well, it's not something we should fear. In fact something to get innoculated over.

@mangotangoI had to look up what 'estimable' meant and you're being far too kind! I've started using picks over the last 12 months or so, to complement finger style. Took a little while to get used to, but it's definitely a fun / useful alternative. I find picks to be particularly useful when you need a very precise lock-in with drums eg Michael Jackson's - The Way You Make Me Feel, as well giving more 'bite' with drive as well as other pedals (filter and octavers in particular). A couple of songs work really well with a combination of plec and fingers in different sections and it's then a case of working out how best to get hold of the pick seamlessly mid song! 😎

Killed an hour or so heading up the M1 last night listening to this via Spotify. It really is very good and I'm looking forward to a second listen on the return trip. Loved the complexity of the drum rhythms - breathtaking!

For me the three best tracking and best sounding bass pedal synths for < £350, based on personal experience and fellow BC recommendations, are the Boss SY-1, the Panda FI and Source Audio C4. And if I was choosing a high-end bass synth pedal it would currently be one of these three. Only the SY-1 is poly and has this clever sustain feature (unless the C4 also has the latter?) The other two have presets but require midi / PC / phone editing to get the most out of. The FI doesn't have ARP, which we are both loving in the SY-1. New prices: SY-1 £175, C4 £249, FI £328

Key strengths of the SY-1. Here's my list: Ease of use (no PC editing required) Fantastic tracking at speed all the way down to a low B Some very usable sounds Creative fun including an excellent arpeggiator Polyphonic Separate sustain whilst overlaying your bass line Competitive price point compared to the leading competition Key downside: Lack of presets

Yup! I've auditioned 60+ pedals over the past couple of years. Have held onto 10 or so which are still on my board. For me, the SY-1 has gotta be the most hassle-free creative fun in a bass pedal of any that I've tried so far! Can't really give it too much more praise than that, can I?

Yup the only white models in the 3 series seem to be the 235, which is a shame. I'd have loved a white 735A.

Looks like the Akai may now be out of production though? ...and as Woody has just commented very expensive used - true of a bunch of other Akai pedals e.g. Deep Impact - they clearly have a cult following!

My tuppence worth would be: The 200 are not diagonal strung through whereas the 400 and upwards are. The offset B string saddles were a feature in the older 1 and 2 series 5 string basses, so they may have a bunch of left over stock? They don't look quite as good aesthetically as the higher end bridges IMO, so I guess it's part of the small incremental changes in design, build and finish as you head up the BB range.

Damn - I'm going to end up getting one of these myself, if I'm not careful, I can tell 😂 One of my bands just has bass, and one guitar so we could similarly do with filling out the sound, and this might just be the answer (another bit of expenditure I need to blame Woody for - haha!) The pitch shift is pretty good on HX the Stomp, but weirdly the octave up effect less so (more latency and certainly not as good as the Mosaic). Be interesting to see if I can get a decent Fishman Powerchord patch on the Stomp using several pitch shift effects combined. Ok that's a little project to keep me out of mischief...

So has the Q\Strip won a reprieve? Save you buying it back for a third time after you next sell it on 😀 Thread seems very relevant to me (so thanks to the OP for starting) when using Yammy PJ and previously finding that it was getting a little lost in the mix with my BF SC on a solo'd P setting, although that issue has completely disappeared with the more mid punchy Fearless F112 and its dedicated 5" mid-focused speaker. However, whilst my DG M900 amp isn't as fully sweepable in the mids as your Q\Strip, it does still give a fair bit of flexibility and I've got the low mids set at 250Hz following @Dood's recommendation on another thread a while back, and the high mid switch will now be set to 3kHz rather than it's current setting of 1.5kHz when I'm using my Yammy PJ with the BF SC, following Lozz's recommendation earlier in this thread. [Aside: speaking of DG M900s...I noted from another thread that you're loving the B7K sim on your Stomp and were thinking of getting a B7K pedal. The B7K = B3K in terms of drive circuit but it has a preamp & DI in addition. Well there is also a B3K circuit, preamp & DI all present on a DG M900 amp (and has a VMT drive on top). There's a DG M900 in the FS that has just been reduced from £650 to £500, whereas the B7K pedal by itself is nearly £300... just a thought!]

Really useful tip, thanks Lozz.

Just found the ad, it was actually almost two years back, in fact! Here's what some of the other sellers said about their Fishman Fissions... "When I got it I was in a three piece and it was specifically for the times in songs like american idiot where the guitar goes for a solo and you are left with a bit of a space that needs filling. This does that well. It gives you a sound of your bass plus one octave up, one fifth up and a forth below. Or with another switch the 5th and 4th are around the octave. It works very well for some songs (american idiot being one of those)." "It's a great thing if you put it at the front of your signal chain and want that Royal Blood kind of sound" "In a 3-piece? Need more bass oomph during guitar solos? The Fishman Fission Bass Powerchord can do the job for you. To the note you're playing you can add an octave above, a 4th below, or a 5th above. You can choose just one of these, or you can use two, or even all three of them. It really beefs up your sound so that the guitar player can go off on one without the whole sound seeming empty."

Ah yes, thanks Woody, I was trying to remember the Fishman. I recall having seen one in the FS around 12 months back and thinking that looks really interesting, at the time and the chap selling it describing it as a great way of replacing a rhythm guitar (or more precisely for a 3 man band) - which would seem to be just what Stew is after. It's a lot less than a Hog 2, but still not a budget option at around £240, though. I've not personally owned any Fishman gear, but it does seem to be highly regarded by fellow BC'ers.

True. Although I'd personally say it was so good Stew won't necessarily even need to run in parallel. Some sound clips of the Mosaic posted earlier this year, so Stew can hear it in action.

Well just before we all rush out and trade our Yammys for Sire V7s(!) here's a second clip of my BB 1025 in action a couple of week's back. It was actually recorded for Dave's benefit 'cos he was interested in finding out whether the Fearless F112 cab had as much / greater clarity than my BF SC in a band mix (the earlier clip from the same gig was posted on the 12" cab thread). Signal chain was very simple: purely passive BB1025 --> amp (DG M900 on clean) --> F112 cab. No pedals or compression in between. I'll let you be the judge (usual recommendation of listening through headphones) whether you think the BB 1025 cuts through or not. @lee650 - hey buddy, further to our chat about 1025 tone, this is the post with a clip of mine in action.