Frank Blank

Closest I ever got to a tattoo...

We must have had very similar youths.

Brian would disagree.

Ah, don’t forget the jazz piccolo genius Zebedee McManus. A great player rumoured to have legendary equipment in his trousers, very few people realised it was, in fact, a big ol’ spring.

I was lucky enough to attend many, many, Adam Ant gigs right from very early through to my last one on the Prince Charming tour. I’ve seen a couple of the more recent ones too. I was lucky enough to see Bow Wow Wow just the once at the Zig Zag Club on the 16th Nov 81 which makes me feel very old indeed.

I’m a big fan of the first three albums equally but I do love love the opening track of Tubeway Army’s first album. I used to have a bikers jacket with the Crass symbol on one sleeve and the Tubeway Army face on the other, thought I was thoroughly original man about town until I took a stroll up the Kings Road one afternoon and saw seven, yes seven biker jackets with Crass/Numan painted variants. I sulked off home and listened to Dirk Wears White Sox.

I had my flu vaccination recently, with all the covid measures I was in and out of building within a minute and a half, quicker than it ever has been before! I have no doubt I was lucky in this but despite it being an immense task to vaccinate (I doubt we'll make 70% of the population initially) I think it will happen.

In what sense?

It is certainly arriving in some places in the middle of next week. Everyone is tied up with logistics, until there is something to on site vaccinate people with there isn't a lot to say. No, see above. Yes. Or even from the NHS.

Welcome @DeadPixels

I'd get one despite that, this way at least you have a long time to delve into the vastness of it's possibilities, when we start gigging again you'll know it inside out.

Exactly what I used before I got the HX Stomp, I was perfectly happy with the Fishman PP tbh but, typically, I just wanted the vast array of bells and whistles that the Stomp gives.

God forbid, even uprighteyes! 😉

All opinions clearly welcome I see...

I am of the opinion (many may disagree) that the fretless tone (certainly the tone I was after) comes from the instrument, the amplification messes with that tone. Unlike most other folk I buy my basses based on their tone unplugged, even electric basses (I mostly play acoustic/piezo basses), and I was always dissatisfied with their amplified sound because I just wanted the tone of the unplugged instrument but louder. That’s why after the best part of forty years being dissatisfied with amps it took me all of two minutes to decide on a powered speaker. I plugged my RA Mouse into the QSC, played about five notes and got my wallet out, it was exactly what I’d been after for years. It kind of unlocks the genuine sound of the instrument. I found myself always battling the controls of a trad amp to find a tone that was essentially unavailable due to the colouring inherent in the amplifier. I think people struggle to find a tone they like because they have no idea of what the instrument sounds like either un-amplified or amplified without colour (i.e FRFR) so they are seeking an theoretical artificial sound without knowing how the bass sounds fundamentally. All the eq on a bass amp set to the mid-point isn’t the tone from which to build a sound because it’s already coloured so you are probably already working with a disparity between the tone of the instrument and the colour of the amp.

Welcome @Foureyes

A good question, in most interviews, and indeed his book, he just says he used ‘whatever amps were around’. He played Travis Bean and Kramer basses prior to his WAL phase.

Welcome @Bjam

No worries.

Well if you don’t get a chance to try one out before things improve let me know and you are welcome to try mine out. I’m taking it you have taken a look at this thread...

Don’t buy a trad amp/cab until you have tried an FRFR setup. I play a Rob Allen fretless, my first serious foray into fretless, a part of that decision was seeing that video of Nardis, another part was my forty year long love of Mick Karn! I used to play through an AER amp but nothing (imho) compares to a decent FRFR setup. I go through a HX Stomp into a QSC K12.2 and it’s superb but in all honesty it sounds delicious going straight into the QSC.

I love it, never going back to a trad rig. Quieter gigs it can be used as a monitor or backline but louder gigs it’s fine as a monitor, you don’t need anything else imho.

Excellent, looks very, very similar to mine. (QSC K12.2 / HX Stomp).