AustinArto

Schoolboy Crush, A Love Of Your Own and Your Love Is A Miracle would be my faves.

I'd you can afford it and don't mind having a massive pedal get the Lovetone Meatball in the classifieds, or go for a clone of it (Robot Factory Meatwad, 3Leaf Groove Regulator). Regarding the Manta, I've found the envelope follower really difficult to dial in. I mean *really* difficult. Like, I never got it dialed in, ever! Mine's on a shelf in my dining room at the moment.

Mine's fine too but it does look cheap, not surprised it's been problematic for some. The knobs feel flimsy too and the selector which you'd expect to be a rotary swich or encoder is just a pot for no obvious reason - that's the crappiest thing about it. On the plus side it's got some amazing sounds in there.

I really like mine, it covers a lot of ground that I've never been able to do with other pedals, but I'd agree with the business about tracking octaves - it seems to like to stick with the first one you played.

All octavers do this. You can improve performance by giving them a simpler signal (roll the treble off, raise the action to remove mechanical noise), maybe a louder signal, don't pick too hard, use your front pickup and pick over that rather than the bridge pickup, etc. They always track better with flats too - we recorded one tune using an OC-2 where the only bass I could actually play it on was strung with flats. Oh and avoid dead spots, of course.

I'd just put B-Real in all of them.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1454265394' post='2968049'] The old "I Just Don't like It Comment" is a little thin to me. If an artist or a song doesn't resonate or connect with me, I'm going to be equipped to explain why.[/quote] I think it's a fair enough response. But then I have to because that's all anybody ever says about my music... Who's got time to critique every recording they don't like?

I think she just needs to turn the heating up, or put some clothes on maybe.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1454195876' post='2967500']Now here's where I'll catch grief, it would surprise me if the younger bands even consider this master relevant no less be interested in learning anything from him.[/quote] Now you're straying into 'Get off my lawn' territory. As someone with your rock pedigree should know, the kids are alright.

Bubinga5, I think you will really like these guys: https://www.soundcloud.com/children-of-zeus

[quote name='GrammeFriday' timestamp='1453895924' post='2963895'] TC Shaker vibrato. A real revelation for me. Vibrato seems a much less commonly used modulation effect for bass than chorus or flange, but I'm finding it works at least as well if not better for the stuff I do - it gives me the warble that I want without any of the watery or whooshy stuff getting in the way. And it kills on fretless! [/quote] Yeah I've got the Shaker Mini, I set it up with quite a fast rate, no ramp and have the footswitch acting momentary, so I can just hold it down for short wibbles. I use it like a keyboard aftertouch effect it works great and takes up almost no space on my board.

LEVELZ at Leeds Hi Fi on the 11th is the earliest one booked in so far.

No, but I can get chorus-ish sounds from a couple of my pedals that suit what I do better than an actual chorus effect. I use a detuned harmoniser on my H9 usually but I'm getting some useful sounds from PWM and LFO on the pitch of the oscillators on my Future Impact now too.

Yeah I'm always looking for new stuff, and I think there's more good new stuff around now than there's ever been, now it's so easy to self-produce and self-release. It's just harder to find. :/

Premier has such a cool sound, love his stuff. KRS-1 Attacks is a great bit of turntablism. Terminator X was a big favourite when I was a kid, never realised how good Jazzy Jeff was until a few years back either that guy's got skills!

I did get my Future Impact in 2015 and it's really quite impressive. I had a Deep Impact before and it blows it out of the water. The DI did some cheesy synth sounds and had better-than-average tracking. The better-than-average tracking is back but the synth sounds are MASSIVE. And pair it with a computer-based editor and you can do so much with it. And so far, every patch I've made in the comfort of my own home has actually worked in rehearsal. I think this is down to how good the oscillators sound - they are genuinely nice. It's a great unit.

Apart from local bands it was Public Enemy last summer. I bought a house in August that needs a LOT of work, I can't afford to go out. :/

Wait til you get wrist problems. For me there's a buzz just from the syncopation with the band, but not from the instrument itself I don't think.

I'm a bit of a word nerd so if the lyrics are bad I can't listen to it. There's a local guy who's a great performer with a great voice but if you hear what he's actually singing it's really weak! Tune still has to give me the head nods though.

I think the main thing is to identify your weaknesses and make sure you spend your practise time working on them. Of course it's nice to just kick back and have fun with the instrument sometimes but long-term it's more rewarding to see progress on stuff that you always felt was a weak point.

It's really difficult to nail it fingerstyle that's what I tried to do for years. A pick sounds too sharp but I used to have some regular picks that were covered in felt (not standard felt picks!) and they were great for that sort of thing, gave a much more finger-like attack but made patterns like that much more natural to play.

I think the main requirement for making a living from playing is to be willing to play anything for money. Chops aren't that important as a bass player at 99% of gigs. Experience will gradually make you more successful.

Speaking of French bands (dodgy link) I recently found out the bassline on that DANCE track by Justice was patched together from samples. Must've been painstaking, and it sounds amazing. God knows how many bass players were involved!

I take a Zoom H2 to every rehearsal and it's probably the best thing I ever bought. I take the rehearsal recordings home, stick them on my Mac, chop out any interesting parts worth working on and share them with the band on Google Drive. Handles bass perfectly well have to set it up a fair distance from our drummer though even on the lowest input gain setting. Don't really have any big distortion problems I just notice he clips it a bit with his hi-hats.