Osiris

Thank you, I'm not familiar with Alpher, I'm off to do some research 😃

Now that I could actually live with, it's a stunning piece or two of timber, I love the grain on it. Two reversed P pickups is perfect for my tonal tastes. Black hardware always looks classy and understated on natural finishes too, way more so than blingy gold, IMO. The only thing I'd change if it was mine would be to have the back of the neck and headstock finished in black. Anyone know who made it?

I'm forever in your debt. Thank you my good man. Chuck in a couple of fish fingers and it gets even better 😀

@drTStingray There's no anti Musicman agenda, we're just having a bit of fun. Puerile perhaps but nothing malicious 😀 But for the record, I personally don't like brown basses. That includes sunburst. I don't like brown shoes either, brown brogues in particular are awful. They look like Crocs. But not everything brown upsets me, I regularly eat my own substantial weight in Dairy milk and gravy is the food of the gods. Oh, and Newcastle brown ale. But toilet humour I can do. But that's just me and my misguided opinions!

Is that the prototype Musicman Bongo?

No. Just no.

It looks as though it's still damp to me. But yeah, tortoise shell scratch plates are another abomination that should be erased from existence. They really are offensive. Paired with a turdburst bass, two wrongs don't make a right, they make wrong squared.

Don't overthink this, it's meant to be a light hearted dig at a guy that a couple of us on here know who's quite vocal about how much he hates brown basses but won't accept that the one pictured, which is his, is actually brown. Which, of course, it is

Manchesturd?

Which is, of course, a slightly more palatable shade of brown than Autumnal dog egg. But only just.

What sort of sound are you trying to achieve? I use the stock cabinet models all the time and don't have any issue with them dulling the tone, I go straight into the PA without any backline with a parallel signal going to my in ear monitors. There's plenty of top end present.

How much??? That's almost Helix Stomp money. Much as I love Steve Harris's sound I can't see me getting the pedal if it's going to be that expensive.

Looks like the same casing as the dUg pedal, in which case you'll be surprised at just how small it is!

Does this help?

Cable envy!

The outputs on the Stomp are balanced, which means that they're noiseless. Compared to a standard instrument lead a balanced cable has an extra core that cancels out noise. Or something like that anyway, no doubt someone will be along shortly to explain that in a more detailed (and accurate) way! But it's the same arrangement as you'd get with a dedicated DI box or on the back of your amp, it's just that the Stomp has two 1/4 inch sockets instead of the more usual 3 pin XLR socket. But connector differences aside it's exactly the same thing. You can also adjust the output level to instrument or line if you go into the global settings menu should you need to.

With one of these.

I bought some different tips for my ZS10's, the ones that are cone shaped with 3 different sections, if you know what I mean? They probably have a name but I don't know what it is! I bought a load from eBay for around £3, IIRC, ages ago. Can't comment on how the Stomp drives play with other pedals as I use mine as a stand alone unit as it does everything I need in one box. I've never really been one to craddock around with boards and loads of pedals. The lovely @Al Krow uses a Stomp in amidst a huge pedal board so he should be able to answer that for you 😀

I've ditched my rig and gone down the IEM route, my rig is now a Stomp and a wireless IEM set up. If you get yourself some capable in ears - the obligatory ZS10's have 4 drivers each side, 2 of which are dedicated for low frequencies - you'll still get the weight of a rig, just at a much more comfortable volume, at least that's been my experience. And even if I say so myself, my rig that it replaced was a very capable set up! The quality of the models in the Stomp are virtually indistinguishable from whatever they're modelled on, the few models where I've used the physical version are so close I suspect few could tell them apart in a blind test. I've been through my fair share of drive pedals over the years and IMO the Stomp beats many of the analogue pedals that I've tried. No longer do we have to put up with fizzy, thin sounding Sims. The drives have the weight, colour and touch dynamics of the real thing. Add in the ability to use crossovers and clean blends, not just walk th drivers but with everything, and you have an infinitely configurable unit. The amp and cab models are excellent too, I've not had hands on experience with some of the amps that have been modelled but they do sound like a real rig to me. The SVT model has that low end sludge and top clank of the real thing. Last night I gigged using the Cali 400 model, the gain was set so that when playing normally the tone was clean and fat but digging in increased the saturation and gave that chewy, rich, compressed edge that valve amps give when pushed. All this at a volume that doesn't make your ears ring or put your back out when lugging your gear around.

Compression is widely misunderstood, it's not an effect in the sense of something like a delay or synth. It's more of a tool to knock the sharp edges off your signal than an obvious sonic gimmick. It's an area where a little understanding can go a long way. Of course, there are different types of compressor and different types of compression. Once you grasp the basics have a play with the different compressor models in the Stomp and see if there's a particular flavour of compression you like, for example an optical compressor feels different to a VCA circuit. Then you can choose the model you like best or flatters the acoustic tone. There's some basic compressor models in the Stomp that only have a couple of tweakable parameters, they're a good place to start even if they usually don't meet the approval of more expert users. But you can still get some usable sounds from them. When you're comfortable with all that, have a play with putting a crossover in and experiment with compressing highs and lows separately or having a blend of compressed and uncompressed signals. There's some real geeky stuff to try before you get your first compression anorak 😃

I can try! As I said in the above quote it's essential that you sink some time into getting at least an appreciation of what the various controls do, that way you'll know what to adjust and when. Compression isn't usually obvious and that's one of the biggest complaints from certain members of the anti-compressionist league. If you read any of the compression topics on here you'll see there a degree of misunderstanding and a few often repeated misconceptions about the whole subject. My advice is to ignore those and approach the subject with an open mind. And think as a sound engineer, not as a bassist! As you know a compressor reduces the dynamic range of your bass signal. The most obvious benefit of bass compression is to stop the lows swamping the higher frequencies. This allows the bass to sit better with other instruments by controlling its dynamic range. As to how to set it up, this is where you need an understanding of what the various controls do and how they impact the signal. Disclaimer, although I'm an advocate of compression on bass I am in no way an expert the subject, I can usually get the type of compression that I want from most units that I've used, including the Stomp, but a clued up sound engineer may well shudder at my ham fisted approach! Set the ratio (the amount of gain reduction aka squash) to around 4:1 which is a good generic setting for bass. Next adjust the threshold (the point where the reduction kicks in) until you can hear the squash working, then pull it back so it's not so obvious. You'll get better results listening to the effect on your sound by playing along with some other musicians (if they're patient) or a backing track. As for things like attack and release, they're personal preferences. I've never compressed an acoustic bass so there could well be some additional considerations that I'm unaware of. @51m0n did a superb overview of compression basics here. There's also the Ovnilab FAQ section. The above links may well be a bit of a cop out but they'll be more comprehensive and more informed than my limited understanding. I guess I still owe you a coffee 😀

I'm all for making life simpler and easier!

Cheers for that. I'm very much a P player, albeit with rounds instead of flats, I also play short scales which are inherently darker than regular sized basses, so that may also be a factor. The attack switch sounds too abrasive and clanky to me so I tend to leave it off or even cut, but as you say that could be tamed with an LPF after it. I'll give it a go. But I suspect a lot of my problem is down to the fact that I'm not keen on mid scoops, whether they be upper or lower mids, and especially with a driven bass sound where I advocate boosting the mids instead of cutting them. I could never get a drive sound that I liked out of the Darkglass amp either so it was always looking dubious as to whether the model would give me what I wanted anyway. For my tastes I have more luck with the various Tube Screamer based drives that give me the mid range fatness that I want.

Cheers, I'll give those settings a go with the B7K model. I actually prefer the Line 6 BDDI model to the real thing as it's easier to put the mids back in that the BDDI takes out.