bnt

The Onward is definitely a trip. It takes a bit of attention to make it sound musical. If I try and do a progression, I have to be careful to play clean, since it can detect a change you didn’t intend and then loop the silence! It always sounds interesting, especially with a suitable amount of Error glitchiness, which is why I want to tweak that on the fly with the expression pedal.

Looks like my Big Board is turning in to an ambient / looping kind of system, with a couple of recent additions and the return of some old favourites: Peterson StroboStomp Mini Orange Kongpressor Mosky Silver Horse "Klone", usually in Golden Horse mode (low gain boost / OD) MXR Bass Octave Deluxe. It has both Growl and Girth. T-Rex Diva Drive. Tube Screamer with a Mix control, basically. I pulled it out again the other night and it sounded better than I remembered. IK Multimedia TONEX ONE. Doesn't have a fixed role. For straight bass, all I would need is The Fridge (SVT amp/cab), but it's a Swiss Army Knife that can do all sorts. I might add a Preset that uses stereo delay and/or reverb, for example. All stereo from here on: Boss MD-200: all the modulations. Chase Bliss Onward: I talked about this in the Mystery Box thread. I need to put a right-angle plug on the expression pedal I have to control the Error levels. Mooer GL100 looper, just arrived a few days ago. Still learning how to use it. It includes a basic drum presets that work in time with your loops. It can hold & play back pre-made loops too, or will once the app for that arrives. One annoyance: it has a headphone out but no volume control for it. Not a problem live in to a DI, but for practice I have: t.mix MicroMix 2. Has Bluetooth playback for practicing. I'm fairly sure that I probably have "too many" pedals at this point, and my Small Board has a couple of new additions for another post.

I just got one of these Landlord "A Cheeky Pint" compressors to try it on my "small board" and so far I quite like it. It's not transparent like e.g. my Orange Kongpressor can be: the Tone control is boosting frequencies, but I like the result with the EQ at around 9-o'clock in "Half Pint" mode. On the "Full Pint" mode I think the EQ is a bit too aggressive and it loses a little low end, so I would only recommend the "Half Pint" mode for bass.

Right - the Sub-Atomic is a pedal version of that, a bit cheaper and not quite as flexible in routing, but with switches.

Running Free - Iron Maiden

Here Come The Bastards - Primus

Hair - The Cowsills (from the musical of the same name)

Flow My Tears - Stuart Hamm

Starman - David Bowie

I have looked at the BTB before - but I forgot to mention that I’m also keeping an eye on weight! (Picky, I know.)

There's obvious variation between basses, and we're not going to tell pros like John Myung, Will Lee or Tony Levin that they're wrong for sticking to 34" scales on their basses. In my case, I have been thinking about multiscale in some form for literally decades, mentally chasing a "piano string" low B that has eluded me. I've owned only one 5-string, and was never happy with its low B. The fundamental B just didn't "speak" and I knew I was hearing more overtones than fundamental. I even went High C, eventually, before getting rid of it and using 4-strings for over a decade now. I'm not a professional musician, however, and can't justify the expense of a Dingwall even if I liked they way they look, which I don't. Spector's recent NS Dimension MS 5 is more my style, and I may end up geting one. (Neck-through is another selling point for me.) I do want that 36" or 37" low B, but on a budget, and none of the current lower cost mutiscales offer that. I'm not in a rush to buy anything, but that's where my head is at. There are Steinway concert grand pianos where I work, and when I go to one and hit a low B ... that's what I want!

To me it’s about the relationship between length, string gauge, and tension. If you look at the tensions on a standard set of bass strings, the higher strings always have higher tension. If you want even tensions, what do you do? make the higher strings thinner? Then they will sound thinner. That might be OK depending on your preferences. make the lower strings fatter? That’s what some do e.g. D’Addario make a few “BT” balanced tension sets, but the only only that actually comes close (according to their tension numbers) is the EXL160BT set at 50-120. I have one of those sets but haven’t left it on, since it only makes sense to me for dropped tunings. Maybe if I had a proper P-Bass with a baseball bat neck. multi-scale. It seems a more natural solution to me if you look at how e.g. a piano is constructed. A harp is also multiscale.

Has anyone here tried one of these yet? According to Nate Navarro, the company saw his demo of the Lizard Queen with a separate blend pedal, and realized they needed to make a bass-specific version with blend.

The new Sub-Atomic from DSM&H looks interesting, I'm looking for a price. It looks like it's taking their Simplifier Bass Station concept but made the channels switchable. (Correction: it does still use parallel processing, with the LPF on the parallel path as on the Simplifiers.) I'm actually using my Simplifier clone with an A/B switch in the loops to give me two channels, so this already has me interested. PS: US price will be $259 (Sweetwater).

I mentioned here that I'm trying the ToneX One on my "small board", with A/B switching between that and the "SVT-style" preamp in my Simplifier clone. I was concerned about the presence of a second cab sim in the latter, which I want to keep on, so I'm technically getting dual cab sims when the ToneX is looped in, but it seems to be a non-issue. In case it ever does, though, I have the option of turning off the cab sim in the ToneX Editor. I'm also trying the JHS Colour Box (low gain) from ToneNet as the Stomp Box option. PS: I've learned that you can switch between A/B and Stomp modes without the Editor, as follows: engage Preset Browsing mode by holding the footswitch and pressing ALT. The three knobs show the A, B and S presets, with the active preset flashing. You can switch between all 3 by pressing the footswitch. (You could select any of the 20 presets for any slot, if you know its colour, by turning the respective knob.) To get to Stomp mode, select the 3rd S preset, then exit Preset Browsing mode with footswitch + ALT. Do the same - but select A or B - to get back to A/B mode.

DSM&H have the Simplifier Bass Station that has split FX loops, and I see they've just launched a new & improved version called the Bass Master which looks like it's a bit more flexible e.g. what used to be the Parallel FX loop can now be switched between that or the Preamp channel.

Ruby Baby - Donald Fagen

(Ask) Dr. Robert - The Beatles.

Bangarang - Skrillex

Installation is through updating the ToneX CS app and making sure ToneX Editor is selected as an installation option. It's a totally separate application, which is exactly what I thought they should do, so there's no more risk of double processing.

Thanks - I didn't see that NBD thread, obvs! The idea that you can't lower the pickup far enough is concerning, even if I'm thinking about replacing it. I'll be in the London area in May and will try to get out to Guildford for half a day to check it out.

French Kissin’ - Debbie Harry

I’ll just leave this here …

Andertons have released a video with both models. The short scale HNB3 still looks better to me, actually. One comment on the video says that the pickup rout is bigger than the pickup, so I wonder if it could take that Antek Mudbucker I have in a box ..?

6:00 - Dream Theater