radiophonic

Sometimes you just have to let it slide for a while. I don't think the time of year helps either. We've been battling laryngitis (singer and guitarist), seemingly random shift patterns (other band member) and injury (my wife - broken leg) this year and it just makes rehearsal either impossible or a whole load of stress. As for finding time to sit down and practice in between work, kids and sickness - forget it. I can barely stay awake past 9pm at the moment. I actually sat down and listened to music by other people on Saturday, for the first time in months. Nothing remotely like what I play either. That alone made me feel more like playing. The I stuck some recent practice tapes on the iPod and made a mental list of everything I want to change. I am now ever so slightly motivated to pick my bass up. Assuming I can stay awake long enough.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1486737947' post='3234255'] problem is all those guys have their own sound engineers who know what they should sound like, the rest of us have to use an in house sound man who has no idea (and probably doesn't care) what we want to sound like [/quote] All of those guys had 'that' sound from day1 and definitely didn't have their own sound guy. Most of the gigs Squire and Cornick played for at least their first couple of LPs probably wouldn't even have them through the desk half the time.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1486564049' post='3232809'] Build it & they will come! [/quote] ... If they know about it. Promotion is key, I think. The odd things is, that in the mid 80s that's exactly what we used to do. Book gig, photocopy up a load of flyers, wander round the music pubs at chucking out time the weekend before, get busy with the wallpaper paste in the bit of town where everybody else flyposted. Bingo, an audience would be present. CCTV, heavy policing of city centres, late bar licences, fragmented music scene, regulation of live music in pubs, NYNs etc have all acted against this approach. All very regulated. All very dull. I'm still torn between the local and the in-grotty bit of town approach.

I live in a small town in the Midlands. There are loads of pubs that seem like they are basically empty during the week. The only live music night in our town is the Folk Club (which is run by a bunch of characters straight out of The League of Gentlemen - traditional music for traditional people / what is this electricity of which you speak? / Judas! etc). I was thinking of trying to get something more lively going. Maybe a band with an open mic support. Anyone done it and care to talk me out of it? PA etc wouldn't be an issue, it's more the promotion that I'm not sure about. I've played a few of these things and they can be great or terrible. A few things that I've already thought of are: 1. Location - If its in our (small) town, expecting people to come from very far out is probably an error. Promotion will have to be locally targeted. 2. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people who can/would play an open mic, but getting bands might be more difficult. There will of course be a metal band. 3. Early in the week is a waste of time - the best ones I've been to have been a Sunday night but with an early-ish start. 4. People go to the pub to drink and talk. A band is only a bonus if you can still do both of these things whilst the music is playing. 5. Most of the pub clientele in my town (except Wetherspoons) is older. Young people either have kids and cant go out or save their money for the weekend and hit the city. This probably rules out experimental weirdness, even if I'd be quite happy listening to it. 6. I won't be able to pay the notorious 300 quid a night for two hours of classic rock. Our band would play, obviously. We know other bands who might and none of us are used to raking it in, but what's the best way to monetise it? It would need to be self sustaining. 7 Approaching someone in one of the grubbier bits of Nottingham might be better - but raises similar issues of niche promotion, willingness to travel, night of the week etc. Any other thoughts / experiences?

I've not waded through the whole thread, but the pickup height issue is certainly something I'll be playing with in the near future. I play f/less so the front pickup is usually backed off to maximise the mwah, but I find it sounds a bit puny. I've never been a fan of the 'both pickups on full' scooped sound (I can imagine it working in trio with a horn/reed player though) and I really want that cutting rear pickup sound with some low end support. Playing style must more into it too - I'm a finger style player and I tend to inadvertantly anchor on the front pickup, which is probably costing me some definition.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1486461835' post='3231909'] It sounds like it's not a volume thing that you are having problems, more of a "fatness" thing. Have you tried to make the jazz bass "bloom" more, via something like a compressor or overdrive (when I say overdrive, I don't mean distortion, I mean more like the soft drive you'd get from tubes - it thickens the sound before hitting that audible distortion)? [/quote] I do use a compressor and it does help. I'm thinking fattening with OD without distortion is really just a mix of EQ and compression anyway, so I think we're talking about the same thing.

[quote name='Jorduan' timestamp='1486458465' post='3231854'] There's a lot of food for thought here from everyone, again this is massively appreciated on my end. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the more "fuzzy" overdriven sound and I'm also more than aware of the modern habit metal bands seem to have of over-scooping everything (guitar and bass included). It seems very cliche typing this out, but even in a single band environment, not every song is going to have the same sonic dynamic requirements, let alone for varying parts of individual songs! As a rule of thumb though, for my sound I seek a powerful bass, with an almost throaty overdrive, all the while maintaining the low pump and thwack for each time I hit the strings. The only real way to test which piece of equipment is best suited for this is to put it through the paces all full pelt with the rest of the band! [/quote] This. However. It's worth noting that within the live music, gear buying public, metal is huge. It seems to be the one genre actually played live by young people and that's always been true. Every where I've lived since the 80s has had a metal scene, even if it's got nothing else. There is a demand for that sound. I do not play metal, but three members of my band including me) have a background in 90s hardcore and thrash, so we occasionally use those elements - albeit tempered by another 25 years of other music - and I have exactly the issue described. Huge scooped bass distortion just gets totally lost in huge scooped guitar distortion, even with a blend control. I'm looking for something gritty but solid and to date, the Darkglass gear hasn't really convinced me. The caveat here is that all the demos online are showcases and don't give you an idea of the sound in a band context*. Given the price of the pedals, I'm not willing to take a punt and am scouring the s/h market for likely alternatives. Perhaps they are as good as people say, but 300 clams is a lot to take on trust. *Cannibal Corpse notwithstanding.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1486422719' post='3231737'] Definitely a two-bass situation then! I keep re-reading the first post but I think I'm missing something- you don't want to make the basses sound more similar to each other, right? I'd still just turn up the Jazz until it matches perceived volume rather than considering how the desk is set. Perhaps a little compression in the right place may also help. As for the main question though, there is no difference between onboard or outboard preamps, bar practicality and any features you may find on individual units. I've never had an issue with cable capacitance beyond coily cables, so whatever length of cable there is bewteen a passive bass and outboard preamp should be negligible IMO. Personally I find that a graphic EQ is far more flexible than most pres for sculpting a signal, so that could be a consideration too. [/quote] I don't want to radically alter the sound of the Jazz, but a bit of a boost at the frequency extremes to even out the differences a bit would be helpful. I like what the Jazz can do on it's own, but the contrast with a stingray is pretty stark, especially when swapping mid set or even mid song. The ideal solution would be a different (and active) fretless (probably another stingray in fact), but I need to sell the Jazz and in the meantime I have gigs to play. It sounds like a s/h eq pedal would do the job as a short term fix and then I could sell it on. I just missed an MXR in the classifieds alas, but I'll try lugging my bass down to PMT at the weekend and see what they have.

[quote name='Kev' timestamp='1486412738' post='3231616'] What I do wish to know is what will happen with the pound when Article 50 is triggered, as that will be around the time these will start shipping. Preorder at this price to avoid risk of £=Euro, or hang on for a better currency rate once the uncertainty is over? [/quote] Markets hate risk. The pound will tank, at least in the short term. I've no skin the the DG game, but generally, if I think I'm going to need it and it's made outside the UK, I'm buying it asap. I'm scraping together enough for an octaver and some sort of preamp right now. Just kicking myself I didn't get another fretted bass last year.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1486413477' post='3231623'] Can I ask why you're swapping basses? If you want the different sound then it will sit differently. That's part of the point! [/quote] The Jazz is fretless.

Just to clarify for the third time. The outputs of the two basses measure the same at the desk. This isn't about aggregate volume collapsed across all frequencies, it's about the envelope. Turning down the Stingray isn't the answer. I could back off the bass and the treble on the Stingray, but then it wouldn't sound the way I want it. Just middier. I just want to tweak the frequency output of the Jazz - a bit of active boost at the frequency extremes. If a pedal will do this effectively, then a pedal is the answer. I can the sell the pedal when/if I manage to sell the Jazz.

[quote name='rmorris' timestamp='1486390348' post='3231325'] I guess the idea is to not alter it too much ? The on board preamp option arguably has the advantage of buffering the pickups close to the pickups themselves, as opposed to after a couple of meters of cable. [/quote] Your final point is the one I was flailing towards really. I do get some noise from the pickups though, unless they are both wide open (the peril of single coils I guess) so I may be introducing more problems. I'd like to keep as much of the Jazz tone intact as I can, but I'm aware that there is a sense of drop out when I swap basses - In one section I swap mid-song during an acoustic break, so it's pretty obvious. Just a little more oomph to the frequency extremes without going overboard is what I'm after. The first pedal on my board is buffered (LS2) and the impedance of the active and passive inputs on the amp are identical so I'm not losing anything by routing a passive bass to the active input, provided the gain structure is ok. I was thinking: Jazz -> Preamp (always on) --> LS2* Return A Stingray -> LS2 Return B LS2 Output --> ... Amp * in A<->B<->Bypass mode, so I still have a killswitch Cheaper than a preamp mod to the bass right?

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1486387427' post='3231294'] Would a clean boost pedal work ? Could place it before the pre amp pedal. [/quote] I can already boost the output using an LS-2 - collapsed across all frequencies, the levels [i]are [/i]matched (measure at the desk), but subjectively there's still something missing.

I have an ongoing battle to boost the sound of my Jazz bass to something like the same as my Stingray without sacrificing its Jazz-ness. Even if I match them for volume at the desk, the Jazz sounds subjectively quieter (not a surprise given the respective EQ curves). A lot of articles talk about the Supercharged Jazz tone obtained by using an on-board active pre-amp/pickups, but could I obtain something similar using a pedal. No modding of the bass required (good), easier to sell on if I change my mind (also good). The downside it would seem to me is that you can't recover lost information i.e. If a pickup hasn't detected a sound in the first place it can't be amplified. So my question is; Is there any inherent advantage (leaving aside practicalities) of an onboard pre-amp over a pedal? I'm thinking about something like the MXR or similar - just active tone shaping, no overdrive etc.

I'm not sure it's as simple as a single parameter. Other fretboard dimensions will interact to influence the overall feel of the neck. Fender use (I think) a 9.5" radius on their modern instruments, but if you play a Jazz the neck is narrow at the nut so the amount of curvature feels less than you would expect - at least at the bottom of the neck. I swap between a Jazz (1 1/2, 9.5") and a Stingray (1 5/8, 11.5"??) and TBH, the radius change just isn't something I particularly notice. Certainly its less obvious than the offset of the neck (position of Fret 1 vs. wrist angle) and nut width.

Couple of pics of my '90 Trans Teal Stingray. I bought it new in June 1990 from Carlsbro Music in Norwich and it's been my #1 gigging bass ever since. Frets could do with a redress, but otherwise consistently awesome. It's a bit greener in real life. [attachment=237450:IMG_0558.JPG] [attachment=237449:IMG_0559.JPG]

[quote name='Mudpup' timestamp='1486235689' post='3230290'] I was lucky, i found mine in a sale at Dawsons for £699 at Christmas. I noticed they had tipped over the £900 mark now - must be the dollar pricing being a bit wobbly causing some increases. [/quote] For sure, I'd say. There's no way I'm paying that for a MIM Fender though. I'll look and wait. Remains to be seen what the effect of TRump will be on both the Dollar and MIM goods generally.

[quote name='Mudpup' timestamp='1486229896' post='3230222'] I have a 97 Stingray and also had a 2001 Ray - the necks on those two were quite different so i guess it depends what your one is like. The earlier one feels a bit chunkier front to back but is really nicely worn in at the edges so feels cuddly and the newer one felt more like a "normal" Precision width - flatter and shallower than the earlier one but with sharper edges to the neck. I also had a Jazz and a USA Sterling with the skinnier profiles. I found i cramped up with both these so i know i get on better with a wider neck. The Nate is the best of both worlds imho. Its not as deep front to back as the Sterling but not as spindly as the Jazz. I can switch easily between the chunkier Ray to the Nate without really noticing even though the Nate is a bit narrower and the edges feel lovely. I tried a standard MIM when i bought the Nate and massively preferred the feel of the Nate. Might be the different radius contributing to it as well - i'm not sure what the Ray radius is. It could well be what you're looking for.... [/quote] Mine's a '90 - v.early 6-bolt with the chrome battery cover (Trans Teal, Maple board). It's 1 5/8" at the nut, but the fretboard feels pretty flat - certainly flatter than a 9 1/2" radius. I've had it from new and for me it's perfect. A jazz just feels too skinny and the offset body positions the neck too far to the left - I have a Fretless and I'm finding 1st fret puts my wrist in the wrong place. A stock Precision is just too chunky for my tastes. They have one in PMT in Nottingham and if I ever get a moment to myself I'll give it a try. The prices seem to have jumped though.

Can someone tell me about the necks profile on these? I'm a Stingray player and I'm looking for a backup/alternative with that kind of neck. Jazz = Too Narrow and offset, Precision / G+L = Too Fat. Is this in the Goldilocks zone I wonder?

I think the prices for boutique [i]dirt [/i]pedals (I'll include anything smaller than people like MXR/TC, I guess) has become silly. I woouldn't pay new prices for Darkglass or similar. A B7K costs more than my Hartke head. Beyond setting the eq points and including a blend (why did [i]that[/i] take so long), it can't be rocket science (not disparaging anyone, but this isn't new tech - just better implementation aided by the availability of simulation software, surely). I sometimes wonder how much of the USP is down to really cool graphics on the cases. Hell, I don't even need another dirt pedal and I'm tempted by the Fuzzrocious gear! OTOH, historically, a good boring compressor has always been pricier than a dirt pedal and the move towards multiband does represent a step change in tech, but you can still be in that market at way less than 200 quid. There may be better squeezes than the Boss BCX1, but it does everything I need. It just comes in a boring case, with no fancy paintwork. The MXR Phase 90 is [i]still[/i] a great phaser (boost notwithstanding - actually I find that useful) for < 100 quid. Just my 2c.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1486083229' post='3229190'] I that case I would suggest that you go and have a look at JT Soar and First Love studios, have a chat with the engineers and see which of them has the right attitude, vibe and is sympathetic to what you want to do. [/quote] Cheers. The interwebz don't reveal too much about either gear-wise (mics in particular). JT Soar looks fairly basic, but this could be entirely wrong. First Love a little less so and his CV looks pretty good too. 'Creative live recording' sounds about right to me. I'll talk it over. Any idea what kind of ballpark rates we'd be talking. Don't want to waste the guy's time after all.

I'm coming to the conclusion that total control is the only solution. Our sound is an odd mix and we know how to mic ourselves up and get the right amount of separation, control feedback issues from an amplified acoustic violin and keep the bass from setting off the Cajon (the drummer is usually in front of me and is mic'd from behind). With very few exceptions, club sound engineers have no idea how to handle this kind of set up. I suspect they panic a bit and get defensive, but my sound is [i]meant[/i] to be toppy. I play a Stingray on purpose. I use harmonics as part of an arrangement, not as an optional extra. All the guy needs to do is listen to what comes out of the front of my amp and make it louder for the audience. How hard is that?

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1485966791' post='3228111'] Only just seen this thread... To the OP what is your band line-up in terms of instruments and how do you you want to record - all together in the same room or are you happy tracking the instruments one or two at a time? If you want to record a whole band in one go then you really need to be looking at JT Soar, as they are one of the few places in Nottingham that have a live room big enough. My band recorded our album [url="https://terrortones.bandcamp.com"]SnakeOil For Snakes[/url] there, mostly live with just vocal and theremin overdubs. The only other Nottingham studio that I know of with an equally big live room is First Love, but I haven't recorded there for several years now since the previous owner left so I don't know how good they are any more. If you are happy to track one or two instruments at a time there's plenty you can try. The most important thing (as with any studio these days) is that you get on with the engineer. The problem is that these kinds of places open and close with alarming rapidity so most of the ones I would like to recommend no longer exist. You could try Pyrex who I've used recently and have been competent and friendly. [b]AVOID[/b] Confetti. It's a great looking studio with a lot of excellent and impressive gear, but because it is attached to a teaching facility, most of the people engineering the session will be students so the quality is very variable. And IME the teachers aren't all that much better. I've had the misfortune to record there twice. After the disaster of the first session where almost nothing we did was usable and everything except the hi-hats and some bass guitar had to be either replaced with samples or re-recorded at home, I vowed never to use them again. However my band were asked to contribute a track to a compilation album and the record label who were paying for the studio time had struck a deal with Confetti so we had to record there. The engineers at the tracking session were inflexible about how they wanted to record the band so we were all in separate rooms on headphones. It shows in the "performance" which doesn't have the immediacy of our other recordings where we all played together in the same room at the same time. Also because the engineers were inexperienced we ran out of studio time before recording the vocals and trying to get back in for this an mixing was hard work. None of the mixes produced by Confetti were actually any good, so eventually we got them to give us the audio files and went to another studio to mix at our expense. Even then they somehow managed to loose some of the guitar overdubs, so the finished track didn't didn't sound as we had envisaged, but by then we'd run out of time and were holding up the production of the whole album. Like I said at the beginning. Avoid. [/quote] Well thanks for that last bit. Sounds like a big no no. I've had similar bad experiences, but not in Nottingham! Live would be ideal vibe-wise, provided the engineer was up to the job of balancing isolation and room sound. We're very much a live band but the prog tendencies of a couple of band members and having a couple of 'proper' musicians in the band means we'd need a fair amount of control due to the vagaries of guitar sound switching and people playing more than one instrument in the same song (violin + keys primarily). I'd imagined going live in one room as a group to get the basic dynamics right, keeping a bed track of percussion, bass and rhythm guitar and then building it up. The line-up is Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keys (emulating Organ and Harpsichord mostly, plus a few wind instruments), Violin and percussion (no drum kit though).

I've been pondering this one too. As an interim measure I put a set of Ernie Ball Cobalts on my Jazz and TBH, the last thing I'm noticing is a loss of HF zing. They seem to be very toppy strings to me. Enough to make me hod fire on using rounds anyway.