radiophonic

[quote name='DiMarco' timestamp='1507822520' post='3388229'] Usually, for playing ease I first raise the signal one octave with the whammy. With a 24 fret neck however you can get away without that. Getting the Mel9 to sound good takes practice, it only has three volume levels on the output of notes it plays. Tracking is awesome. [/quote] That's interesting. I demoed the Mel 9 - for the cello and choir specifically - but couldn't get anything useful out of it. Pairing with an octaver might be a good solution (although the Sub N Up now gives me a lot of what I want on it's own). I wasn't aware of the 3 volume levels detail though. It did seem brutally monophonic on bass and I guess the stepped volume probably emphasised this. It was as if it really grabbbed the loudest note and just wouldn't let go until something louder came along.

^^ How about that for detail?! Tallies with my recollection of the Dual Showman head. I remember it being very loud.

Fender Performer Cab. 4 x 10. 150W Apparently. https://www.musicgoround.com/p/640363/used-fender-performer-cab-410-guitar-speaker-cabinet-4-x-10

Fender definitely built guitar cabs that shape in the late 80s - I played in band with a guy who paired one with a Fender Dual Showman head. I'm pretty sure it was a 4 x 12 though.

I've posted on the TC forum, but I figured somebody may have worked this out for themselves. The Toneprint manual is very out of date and doesn't include parameter descriptions for the Sub n Up (unless I've missed something). Consequently, there's a fair amount of guessing involved regarding functionality. A parameter called 'Mix', applied to modulation seems like it ought to be straightforward but it doesn't seem to behave as expected. In fact I'm not convinced it's doing anything much at all! I've set up a toneprint with some vibrato LFO parameters assigned to the Sub 2 knob, maxed out the Dry signal at 0dB and reassigned the Dry knob to handle 'Mix'. I'd assumed that this would allow me to gradually increase the amount of vibrato, whilst independently controlling it's rate and depth via the Sub 2 knob, but Mix seems to have no or negligible impact. Anyone know if this is a bug or if Mix does something non-obvious?

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1507627842' post='3386808'] He certainly did. I saw him with the Graham Bond Organisation in 1964(?) and he was playing one then as well as an upright. G. [/quote] Cool. Obviously, he's better than me anyway! I guess the move to an EB0 reflected the big rock sound Cream were going for.

I quite like the look of the Eastwood ones. Not sure if they are still made. Sort of a Mosrite clone. Fixed bridge, which seems sensible.

This wasn't just any old festival - it was the annual major music fundraiser event in Nottingham. 300 performers, from buskers up to full orchestra / 30 venues - record shops, bars, art galleries, restaurants. Some bands busked in the street in addition to playing regular sets. All supported by the council and a bunch of local charities. BUT... they physically closed all the streets (parked vans across the entrances) and the council let the parking enforcement intact so they were photographing vehicles during load in! Things like that do make the gig experience pretty trying. We played twice, so having loaded out we had nowhere to store the gear until the second load in. Promoter for stage #1 ran a really tight ship. Promoter for stage #2 didn't. I clocked him as an idiot immediately, but it was too late by then and it wasn't like we were going to let down a social justice charity and food bank just because one guy was useless. The PA people suffered the same load in issues as us, so it's not like bringing all our own gear - and we have everything except subs - would have helped. The music we play isn't really compatible with the pub circuit anyway, so events like this are worth doing to increase our reach a bit. Not singing in English seems to be a deal breaker for pub crowds. We go down well with more of an older / folkie crowd generally, although as I've said elsewhere our Black Metal fan drummer isn't exactly WOMAD material!

He's miming though. Did he use them for real?

I can definitely see the attraction in the 'practice' being the main event. You get together and you play. That's the event. I enjoy playing gigs but there's plenty about [i]gigging [/i]that's a total PITA. It's nothing to do with hard work, it's about tedium, getting messed around and dealing with idiots. Hours of hanging around for one. City parking restrictions near venues. Arrangements bearing no relation to what you agreed. Sitting around in bars not being able to drink because of the playing and the driving. Sound guys not following the rider even though they've had it for three months (no monitors??). I spent an hour of Sunday evening just sitting on my rig out in the street because the promoter had given us the wrong load-in time. Then he let the band before us significantly over-run and let them stand around chatting on the stage afterwards, preventing us setting up, so our set-time (in the printed and electronic listings - it was a festival) was completely wrong and very late. As the icing on the cake, just as we were due to kick off, he announced that some urban artists (his mates, I assume) would be doing a two song showcase before we played. This basically killed the audience who were there for a world-music type programme. Just playing and recording definitely feels attractive a lot of the time.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1507573052' post='3386451'] After failing originally to get on with my Squier VI I went back to my 1960s Burns Sonic short-scale bass and found it far more useful from both a sonic and playing PoV for two notes chords and drone string bass lines. If I just want very down-tuned guitar options the baritone guitar is far more versatile. [/quote] I do a lot of droney stuff on my Stingray and I can't really see me making use of a regular short scale bass. I was really looking to make use of the upper two strings, octave down. I'd considered a baritone, but I'd prefer not to lose the low E.

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1507574378' post='3386468'] Two of my friends, both very good acoustic fingerpickers, have played mine and had no problems doing their stuff on my VI. YMMV of course. I'd recommend having a go on one if you can. [/quote] That's the issue - I can't try one out here. PMT's selection of basses is wretched.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1507571853' post='3386432'] I have the Squier VM version, which I've been playing off an on for the past year and a bit. Despite now playing in two post-punk/goth influenced bands I still haven't been able to find a real use for it. If I want a bass guitar type of sound all my bass guitars even the other short scale ones sound better; if I want a low pitched guitar type sound my Harley Benton Baritone guitar is more comfortable to play. For me the biggest obstacle to getting something useable out of mine is the typical Fender narrow neck. All my standard guitars are noticeably wider at the nut, and that coupled with the thicker than guitar strings means that the string spacing is just too uncomfortable for me to get used to. I'd happily own another Bass VI type instrument if it had a 42+mm nut and some more substantial sounding pickups like a set of Burns Tri-Sonics. Unfortunately the Fender/Squier versions simply isn't the Bass VI for me. Mine will be on eBay shortly... Also being a guitarist I have no problem playing with a pick and IMO to get the best out of it you do need to be able to use a pick. However a guitar finger picking type technique works almost as well, and if you really can't get on with a pick you should try to master that as an alternative. [/quote] Its the string spacing that I'm most concerned about really. I'm a pretty good finger picker on guitar and that was the angle I was thinking of, but it'd more useful if I could swap between finger style bass and finger picked. I did dredge through YouTube and almost to a man they use a pick and treat it as a low tuned guitar rather than a bass with some interesting chord and drone options.

I'm really curious about one of these. Fender seem weakly committed to the idea - there is no 'Fender' model, only a Vintage Modified Squier although Pawn Shop models with the rear humbucker circulate s/h. My only concern is that I don't play with a pick and really never got on with them. This would mean some sort of weird finger picked / plucked hybrid. OTOH, I could lay finger picked guitar chords and I'm guessing the combination of a VI with an octaver might be quite interesting. Nowhere near me seems to stock them of course, so it'd be a risk or a long drive to demo one. Anyone tried them? |They are definitely a Bass, not a Baritone. Fender are adamant about it!

Along with every other band in Nottingham, we played (twice) the annual 'Hockley Hustle' Festival. 200 bands, 35 mostly ad-hoc venues spread across half a dozen streets in what passes for the groovy bit of Nottingham. Irrespective of our reception (which was good but rather polite on account of the world-music ghetto we get lumped into - despite the Black Metal leanings of our drummer and pretty much everything else about the actual music aside from it not being sung in English), the day really restored my faith in live original music. No empty rooms here. I saw packed houses for really confrontational and generally fairly weird bands and venues were even turning people away due to over-capacity... Although the BBC Introducing stage was backing the the safest and most generic cottage cheese indie of course. We played at 4 and again at 10.15, so I'm pretty exhausted, but it was clear that we are well rehearsed up at the moment and hit our weird groove right away and I no longer fear using a looper pedal live. Load in / out was hard work though, since all the roads around Hockley were closed for the duration and the streets were rammed with people / street performers. Another all-dayer next Saturday.

Very easy transaction and a good seller to deal with. Everything sorted over PM in a couple of days and now I have a Sub n Up.

I'm running a Boss FV30H in one of the loops on an LS2. The footprint is perfect and it's solid metal, but I'm losing some low end. It's OK during volume swells, but I sometimes need to use that loop with everything disabled, just to get the switching order right for the next port of the song. Then the missing low end becomes pretty apparent. I know it's passive / Hi-Z, but I'd expect an impedance mismatch to roll off the top end. So... 1. Is this the problem? 2. Can anyone recommend a low impedance low footprint alternative? Basically, exactly the same size would be ideal!

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1507202860' post='3383861'] This is one of the ways I mute on my 7 string. I'm also muting with my left hand fingers that aren't being used to fret notes. [/quote] Ditto. But on a 4 string. I didn't even realise I was doing it until recently. It's just automatic. Sometimes LH, sometimes RH Sometimes I float, sometimes I don't. I've never had a bass lesson in my life though, so I'm probably doing everything wrong.

Age 20 / 1987 Venue: Shipdham Beeches Hotel, Norfolk. Flat roofed function room in boiling heat. Bass: Westone Thunder 1A Amp: Marshall something with 2 x 15 cab, borrowed from the headliner. Set: Original material post-G'n'R metal type stuff. - although we did do Train Kept A Rollin', I think. The band was called Wiley Fox and we opened for another Norwich band called Witness. I was the least metal person present. A photograph of this event does survive, but fortunately I don't have a scanner.

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1507056887' post='3383103'] I'd thus recommend the HyperGravity (Or HyperGravity Mini) which brings three knobs to the party. I have both the SC and the HGm here and I really like them both, though I am messing with the HGm to decide what I want the controls to be mapped to. So far it's Threshold for the three bands and a wet/dry parallel mix knob. The third I might adjust the gain of the low and mid bands to add some extra rumble [/quote] Am I right that the spectra and vintage options on the HG voiced for guitar though? It's really only the toneprint that's any real use on Bass? If so, the min looks like a more sensible buy out of the two.

The lack of on the fly control is the one thing that puts me off the Spectracomp. That said, I will almost certainly get one and already would have done so if I hadn't spent insane quantities of cash on pedals this year. I use a Boss BC1X and I do make minor adjustments on the fly. I was sceptical about a digital pedal, but it's a big improvement on the old Boss analog comps I've tried, on bass at least. I've never tried a Cali and I am curious as to what extra it gives you for the price and footprint, but I have no significant issues with the Boss (apart from the nasty green sparkle colour). Not enough to actively seek a replacement anyway.

Checklist: 4 hour drive down due to accident on A52. We arrived just in time only to have... Set time shifted by an additional 2 hours due to folk ensemble who simply refused to stop playing. Inadequate PA system. One monitor between 5 people Massive crosswind stage R > L and no shelter. Several members of band decided to hang around after we played delaying exit time even further and guaranteeing we got stuck in exiting event traffic. I arrived home 3 hours later than promised, despite making it very clear that my deadline was non-negotiable due to family. One foot out of the door.

I like the small footprint of the Mooer, but I think I'm going to take the dood approach for now. Get a sound I want with the SnU and maybe port it to a mini at a later date. It wouldn't surprise me if TC were to bring out an updated version soon anyway, now the flashback and HoF have added MASH - I can see MASH control for bringing in modulation on the wet signal working, for example. The minis will surely get MASH at some point too.

Pretty sure they've made it as hard as possible! I think I've just scored a s/h full fat version anyway. Hopefully I can find enough space on the board.