Russ

In order to break through in the world of musical instruments, amps, etc, you need visible players using your gear - whether that's bass players in touring bands, YouTubers or whomever. And, as far as their bass gear goes, I can't say I've seen anyone using them. Marco Mendoza is probably their highest profile endorser on the bass side of things, and you still mostly see him playing through SVTs provided as backline. Although, to be fair, he was playing through the Blackstar stuff on the SatchVai tour recently. Blackstar's artist relations people are usually really good about getting gear into the hands of guitarists - both big names and grassroots ones. A good friend of mine was in an unsigned band who were bubbling under for some time and Blackstar sorted them out with free gear and promotion. Plus they provide an excellent backline service for touring bands. I've not seen any of this extended to the Unity range, which they seem to be treating the same way they treat their practice amps and lower-end guitar gear. It's sad, really - the gear sounds great, but it almost feels like they don't believe in it enough to push it hard, or to keep it updated. Also, regarding the Ashdown comparison, back in the day Trace Elliot produced some excellent guitar gear - it wasn't hugely popular, but it was very well thought of by those that owned it. And their acoustic guitar amps are still sought after today, attracting silly money on the secondhand market.

Since you're round the corner from them in MK, is there any news from Blackstar about whether there's updates coming to the Unity range? As I mentioned in my little "review" earlier in this thread, there's lots to like but a load of little niggles (no mute/standby switch, fragile toggles, effect controls being on the back, only being able to get the full 700W out of the U700 head into 2.67ohms) - these all seem like relatively simple things for them to address. As I mentioned, I have a Unity combo that I use at home every day and I love it for practising. I'd be far more inclined to invest in the bigger rig if they could address these relatively small issues with it. Oh, and ditch the cloth grilles. I bought a bass amp, not a scratching post!

It's like when you watch those "isolated bass" videos on Youtube - the tone is often pretty unpleasant when solo'd, but perfect when heard in its proper context. I got to hear that first hand the last time the band and I did some recording earlier this year - I laid down some fretless, and once it was in the mix with heavy guitars and a drummer who's not shy with his double-kick pedal, it became a bit hard to hear. Just sorta rumbled under everything. So the engineer and I sat down, we tweaked the compression (I use a fair bit of compression anyway), added some overdrive and did a little EQ'ing and frequency slotting, and, all of a sudden, there it was, a big, warm, supportive-yet-audible fretless tone. Soloed it doesn't sound great, but it works when combined with everything else.

There's some really interesting tonal interactions you can get with a combination of a fretless, a compressor and some overdrive - with the right balance, you get a tone that is creamy and warm, but cuts through everything and sits perfectly in a mix without overwhelming everything else. You're playing the effects as much as you're playing the bass at that point, but it's worth it.

That's a bit nice, that. Guessing the scratchplate was a custom addition?

Is it one of their new Jazzus "The Man" basses? Would love to give one of those a try. I've gone through these phases - had a stint where I went back to J-style basses for a while, then played only 4-string with a pick for a while because I was rediscovering 1980s goth, but I'm firmly back in my 6-string fretted/fretless comfort zone now.

Cheers Douglas. It's trial and error at this point, but I'll do another one at some point and see if I can do better. The tuning's not that low - it's drop-C# (drop-D down a half-step) with the low and high strings on my 6 both tuned to B. I wanted the bass on the video to just be a little louder than the bass on the recording, but maybe it should have been a little louder still!

Always been a fan of Moo. They do some interesting ones that the likes of Vistaprint, etc don't do.

My first time doing a proper playthrough vid - this is me playing my band, Earthbound AD's new single, Ashes Of Paradise. Some six-string fretless metal action for you all. The video/audio sync does seem to drift a little as the video goes on though, which is weird. The audio is right, the bass recording is right, but the video doesn't quite match the sound, so I need to work out why that is. But I think it's a reasonable first attempt.

I had a ATK405 about 15 years back. The 400-series were a bit different from the 300-series, and it wasn't just down to the extra pickup - they were a little downsized (the body and headstock were noticeably smaller), and the one I had was quite a reasonable weight. In terms of tone, it sounded great, and it recorded particularly well, and really benefitted from the presence of that neck pickup. They're missing a trick not offering the ATK electronics in any of their other basses - I know there was an Ergodyne model a while back that had the big ATK humbucker in it, but that's the only time they've done it. I think a BTB with the ATK405 pickups would be a monster instrument.

Thought I might take a look at the Headrush Flex Prime - you don't hear a lot about Headrush gear from bass players, so I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with them? Was thinking of taking one for an "audition". They seem to have a decent range of bass-specific amps, FX, etc (Ampeg, GK, Hartke, Peavey and Trace Elliot amps and cabs, various bass-specific effects like the Darkglass B3K, etc) and lots of other nice features, including the ReValver built in, so you can do amp modelling directly on the pedal.

I've tried the SGT-DI pedal, and it definitely sounds the part, but not a Venture head. I've actually been avoiding them a bit, because I didn't want to end up really liking it and eventually being disappointed when it conks out. They do seem to be working out to be more reliable than Ampeg's previous Class D stuff though.

It's got the SGT circuit, with SVT and B-15 voicings. Supposedly sounds quite authentic - it has no valves, but that's not a big problem these days. I've not had the chance to try it firsthand yet though.

Yes. And I have done. And it's extended further than just being in a band with people. In British terms, I'm pretty centre-left - I've voted Labour, and, on a couple of occasions, Lib Dem and Green all my adult life. In the US, that makes me practically a communist! I was in a band when we first came here with a couple of guys who were massively enthusiastic about Tr**p, so I quit. No ifs, no buts. It's a fundamental incompatibility. My current band are all more or less on my wavelength though. Three of us are immigrants, for a start! I also put my foot down and insisted we turn down gig offers from a venue not too far from here that permitted a nazi/skinhead band to play there a few years back (think Skrewdriver, that sort of thing) - it's quite a well known venue and lots of bands, including touring acts, play there, but I'm not going to endorse them, or assist them in making money by taking a gig there. I was a kid living in Blackheath when the Battle Of Lewisham took place in 1977 less than a mile from us - I f**king hate fascists. The rest of the band guys didn't quite understand why I got so incensed about it, but I think I explained myself adequately. The guy who ran the venue back then apparently still owns it, but has stepped down from all booking responsibilities, so I'm wondering whether to reconsider. My instincts tell me not to. It's tarnished in my eyes.

Have you had many returns? Curious because their predecessors, the Portaflex series and the SVT-7, were plagued by reliability issues, and I'm really hoping the Ventures have moved past that.

It'd be nice to be able to easily copy and paste patches if you have some basic settings you use on everything (for me, it's a preamp and compressor) and using a desktop app would seem like the obvious place to implement that functionality.

That's pretty much where I'm coming from with it. Nice bit of kit, but not right for me. If I spent more time recording on my computer and tweaking sounds for recording purposes, and wanting to do it on a physical unit rather than using plugins, I'd probably get a lot more out of it. It's interesting though, I was reading the FB Darkglass Anagram group, looking for answers about my expression pedal issue, and a lot of people have been complaining that there's been something wrong with this current batch that have just been sent out to dealers. Darkglass are denying it, but there does seem to be issues - the noise thing is one, the DI output being inconsistent and noisy is another, and lots of complaints about the performance of the compressors and various other things. Wouldn't be surprised if the current batch end up being recalled.

I saw that. But I'm not going to be using MIDI with it. The only use for MIDI that I could foresee myself using is for an external controller, and that's one more thing to pack and bring to a gig, one more cable, and one more thing to have to set up. Trying to avoid that.

So I've come to the conclusion that the Anagram is not for me. It's good, but I'm a little underwhelmed by the range of effects and I foresee issues with its usability in a live situation. Anyone know how to do a factory reset so I can send it back?

I’m in the US right now (sadly) - I got mine from Sweetwater. Although I’ve been burned in that sort of situation before so I feel your pain!

Been playing with it a bit more. Found some quite nice sounds on it, but still having a few issues. My Zoom expression pedal doesn't seem to work with it - I've got it plugged into the FX return, like you're supposed to, and it's not being recognised. It's a standard expression pedal with a TRS cable - any ideas?

So it's here. First impressions - smaller than I thought it'd be. Solid construction. Nice packaging and cool carry case. Not many default presets to play with. Not sure I like the Darkglass Suite software - maybe I haven't got to grips with it yet, but I haven't found a way to just visually build patches by dragging and dropping blocks. Honestly, a little underwhelmed so far. But I'll persevere.

So you can't do it all directly on the Anagram? That's disappointing. I thought you could just connect up, say, a pedal to a send, then the output of the pedal to a return, and capture it that way, all directly on the Anagram itself. Here's a question... if you set up a patch with an amp and IR, is it possible to route a signal with them to the XLR out, and a signal without them to the 1/4" output jack, so you can go into an amp without the amp emulation?

Foderas rank among the best-playing basses I've ever put my hands on. The necks, the setup... absolutely sublime. They practically play themselves. But you're right. They're tame-sounding. They're very clear and detailed, but are lacking in heft, for want of a better word. The lows and low mids just aren't thick enough to work in a heavy-sounding band. I'm sure they'll make you one with thicker-sounding pickups, but I've yet to play one.

I'm going to audition one. Sweetwater got them back in stock, so I snagged one. If I like it, I keep it and sell some other stuff, if I don't, I send it back. Does it have instructions about how to do neural captures?