radiophonic

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1494916421' post='3299465'] Hooky. Mind you he said in interview that he might have reconsidered his strap length now that he suffers with his shoulder and neck. He was THE lowest of the low slung bassists of my era. It is an impressive look for the stage but I often wondered if he ever sat and practised at "normal" height when no one was looking. [/quote] Super low + 65(!) gauge G string. Eventually he wimped out and went for a 60. That's a very physical approach to playing. I've recently moved mine lower (belt buckle mid-bass) after years of using a fixed length strap that seemed perfect for me at sort of lower chest height. I was having problems with right hand wrist angle when playing fast with fingers. I'm short though and it's always going to involve a compromise.

This is just a familiarity issue. Your playing will adapt over time. I've played a stingray for years and resting on the pickup feels exactly right. However, when I switched to a jazz, the rear pickup felt too fact back and the front pickup felt too far forward and there seemed to be way too much space between the strings and the body. After about 6 months they just felt different rather than right and wrong... Then I played a Sandberg with a MM + P, the P pickup felt insanely far forward. It'll sort itself out.

Not heard of those, but the EGCs are awesome and both the guitars and basses are used by some pretty high profile players at the noisier end of the independent scene (Jesus Lizard, Shellac. Melvins). For those days when you are a bit reticent to gig your original Travis Bean!

I've still not had the chance to try it out in anger! Saturday night's gig got abandoned after the 'organisers' shifted our billing by an hour an a half with no warning and we just walked. Then I had a go in the house, but my strings are totally beyond redemption. So far I've only used it as a guitar pedal but it really isn't voiced for it.

Oxbow - Thin Black Duke. Worth the wait. I'd say.

I stick around if the other band(s) are worth hearing (if I've heard them before or based on soundcheck), but you do get paired with some utter dreck sometimes though, in which case I don't feel any need to subject myself to it. Plenty of bands have done a runner on us before, so I don't feel any obligation and the good ones are usually people we already know and sometimes share gear with. I always have to drive anyway, so there's no chance of hanging around and having a beer. Plus if it's a weeknight, I always have a 5.30 am start to look forward to, so hanging out for the sake of it, to hear something generic whilst sober is just masochism. As an additional gripe, promoters also tend to pair us up with singer songwriters on account of us being 'folk'* and they mostly send me to sleep. * I've taken to wearing a CRASS T-shirt on stage just to ram the point home that 'folk' doesn't equal solopistic, introspective whining over an acoustic guitar.

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1494233887' post='3294103'] I know it's a Humbucker, but i was asking if it was a Sandberg pup or a Delano to help guide the sound you want? [/quote] No idea about the pickups, I'm afraid. They didn't sound exaggeratedly HiFi to me, more like a good modern active but plenty of thump where you need it. The one for sale on here is a good deal for sure, but Surf Green and Rosewood is too far from the Black/Maple that I would ideally want. I notice they offer block inlays as an option too...

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1494232357' post='3294089'] Which pups did they have in? [/quote] It was a MM humbucker + P-bass. I play a Stingray primarily and while I agree that the Sandberg didn't sound [i]exactly [/i]like a Stingray, an active humbucker positioned that far back can't really avoid adding some cutting edge to the sound. If anything it lacked the the slightly brittle top end you get when you crank the treble on a 2 band MM and that's no bad thing IMO. My guess is that it would be a lot more compatible with drive pedals than a stingray - something I've had real issues with. I really liked it.

I went into PMT to demo a chorus pedal at the weekend and the guy handed me a fairly nondescript looking fender/musicman-ish bass that I wouldn't have looked at twice. It was a Sandberg (VM4 I think). It felt and sounded absolutely awesome. Everything about it was just right: P-meets-J neck - like a stingray but slightly shallower at the nut, very fast, super comfortable and with an insanely low action with zero buzz all the way up. Gap between the strings and body was just right too. I even slapped it - way more responsive than my Musicman. Quite a shock actually. The sound was pretty huge - in fact I didn't realise that the actives were disengaged when I was playing it. Big P-bass thump, plus a really convincing MM-ish edge. I know absolutely nothing about them other than this one cost about 1200 quid and that seemed like a huge bargain at that price. Made in Germany too, so not even a sweat shop special. Tempting.

Financed by offloading a couple of pedals on here last week. I tried this and the Boss in PMT and it was no contest. You have to crank the settings to get anything useful out of the Flanger, but the Chorus itself is lush. It should get an outing tonight, so we'll see how it sits in the mix. [attachment=244734:IMG_0690.JPG]

I've never given it a minute's thought in any band I've played in. If they don't like the way I play then that's tough, because that's the way I play. It would be a pretty dick move to sack someone for playing in the exact same way they that did when you offered them the gig. I don't do this for the ££ though. It's all about the creative situation and it's generally pretty clear to all parties when that isn't working. Aside from that, although I will always express my opinion, I do try to be polite about it, but as above, if I'm continually finding things I disagree with, them I'm probably in the wrong band anyway and already trawling the 'bass player wanted' ads.

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1493939263' post='3292083'] Sorry, the bass chorus deluxe as per OP. Thickens beautifully and leaves the bottom end alone, love it [/quote] Pity! I was hoping you were about to save me 60 quid.

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1493917932' post='3291872'] Fantastic pedal, IMO prob the best chorus on the market [/quote] The Analog?

As implied in Conan's post, you get significant phase cancellation when both pickups are wide open. That's one of the 'Jazz sounds'. The front pickup is way louder than both of them combined.

The last one was a self esteem issue in the end. The band were making me a worse player and I was really depressed about it. I'd not been in a good originals band in about 10 years and to some extent was content to slum it a bit and allow things to find their own level. I was also aware that my own chops had atrophied playing with a iffy drummer for a few years (really nice guy though and that band wasn't serious in any way). Anyway, I decided to join on the grounds that the material was interesting enough and the threat of a gig usually focuses everyone's attention pretty effectively. 8 months later, no gigs. Every practice was like pulling teeth. Singer/writer/leader considered himself cool and detached but definitely in charge. I just saw a guy with no sense of purpose or clearly defined musical goals. Also, 50 year old guys who still have the same musical straight-jacket they wore in the 80s is just depressing. If I ever tried anything novel he just stamped on it before I'd even had the chance to decide if it worked or not. Control freak. In the end though, it was the drummer - he was clearly used to his high professional status and just couldn't leave it at the door. He demanded respect. I demanded someone who could keep time and play the same beat every time he payed a song. Everything had to be turned into some complex intellectual problem to be solved, when all he needed to do was hit the drums evenly and consistently. If he'd just laughed and admitted he wasn't very good, we probably could have worked it out with simpler parts. My playing was suffering badly - having to react to his inconsistency - and I was learning nothing, so I bailed. We recorded a demo just before I left, but recording it was such a dispiriting experience, I've never played it. I wasn't there for the mixing and have no interest in hearing it. Looking back, I think the issue was that he and the singer were so used to being perceived as highly competent successful people, that they were scared to get up on stage and give over control to the randomness of playing live music. The piano player and the lead guitarist were really nice guys though and I feel a bit bad about it on their account. I'm not sure if they continued without me, but I've not seen any gigs advertised.

[quote name='GazWills' timestamp='1493840794' post='3291228'] I have, and love, the MXR analog chorus. Hi and Low cuts do a very similar job to the crossover... great pedal. [/quote] It's a bit hard to compare the specs using the manuals.The low cut on the AC only operates down to 70 Hz. Does this mean that the chorus circuit passes everything below 70Hz dry anyway, I wonder? I notice the AC is buffered too, rather than true bypass (although I'm not sure what this amounts to, these days. Buffering is generally pretty transparent compared to 80s pedals). I'll try and A/B them in PMT (kids notwithstanding). They'll have the Boss bass chorus too and probably an EHX one. Definitely not the TC Corona though, which is the other obvious one to compare.

I'm actually wondering if I might need something a bit more aggressive- like the MXR analog chorus. It's a tonne cheaper too. Seems to work well on bass without the crossover- plus 2/3 the price. At least they are easy to try in a shop.

Anyone got or tried one of these? I have double GAS for a decent chorus and a Pork Loin, but assuming my EHX Crayon doesn't sell on here, the overdrive can stay on hold for a while. The MXR Chorus claims to be a dual chorus / flanger, but none of the youtube demos go very far with the flanger options. Usually a flanger would have a feedback or resonance control, so do the main knobs on the MXR adjust any of the flanger parameters? Also, it has a crossover to take out the fundamentals. I can see how this would be useful, but AFAIK, this isn't adjustable right? Just on/off. Any ideas?

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1493399313' post='3288115'] With regard to the OPs phase 90, I can't remember the last time I heard a phaser used on bass anyway. Get rid and get something useful , I say! [/quote] A Phase 90 is my default when playing fretless! I have a TC Flashback that I use for exactly four notes in one song, but life's not the same without it.

Wretched. Low audience turnout. Bad acoustics. Bad sound all round. Monitoring was a mess (= unhappy singer), FOH had way too much Bass and Drums in it (I know, because I recorded it). Guitar and organ just seemed to vanish from the mix somehow. I wanted to be somewhere else for the middle third of it at least. Zero vibe and everyone really cheesed off. It was the kind of evening that makes me wonder whether playing original material is worth the effort at all. The only thing that saved my desperation was that the quite decent, upbeat and well rehearsed covers band who followed us got no applause either, so it wasn't [i]just[/i] us. Everyone had a s****y night.

We are 'Foreign Accent'. 4/5 of the band are Hungarian, so they literally have foreign accents, but it's more a about putting an accent on prog-folk. I think it works pretty well for us. Previously I was in a band called Miller 56, who were named after a massively influential psychology research paper (George Miller, 1956 -The magical number seven plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity to process information). It still sounds like bar band name, despite it's origins.