lozkerr

It's been a while, due to band members going on holiday followed by me getting covid, but I finally got a chance to use it in anger tonight. It works brilliantly. I could hear myself singing perfectly and could crank up the bass to a level where I never felt the slightest need to dig in. Nary a hint of fret buzz or string clatter all evening, and my playing was far better. I used one mic to capture the ambient sound, but next time I think I'll use two - a condenser mic aimed at the PA and an ambient mic to capture stage sound. The only downside, as @mcnach pointed out, is the amount of electric string involved. I think the next enhancement will be a dedicated cable bundle, but that just needs off-the-shelf cables and some lacing cord. I put a patch panel on the back of the flight case, so with colour-coded connections, setting up should only take a couple of minutes at most. I'll need to do a wee bit more experimenting, but at this stage it's looking like I can dispense with an IEM feed from the desk entirely. Feeling dead chuffed right now!

A video of someone's reaction An unboxing of the latest widget A load of ads for crap you don't need And gobshites pushing political opinions That's entertainment That's entertainment

5' 5" and playing a five-string Fender Jazz. Can get a little awkward down near the nut for extended periods of time, but I've never had any real problems. Apologies for the bass face.

As a relative newbie, I'm still playing catch-up, but I seem to be making headway: Pre-Basschat Ibanez GSR200 Eden EC8 Boss ME-50B multi-effects unit Post-Basschat MIA Fender Jazz Deluxe V Stagg EUB Steinberger Spirit V Cheap no-name five-string Artisan Eden Metro Eden WTX-264 Eden WTP600 Eden E300T 2 x 210 cabs, a 118 cab and a 112 cab Eden Glowplug Eden WTXI pre-amp pedal Plus a couple of keyboards, a PA, a lighting rig and a couple of guitars. And I still have everything apart from the Ibanez, which I gave to Girls Rock School a couple of weeks ago. There's no hope for me, is there?

Indeed. Whenever I change my strings, I boil the old set (in a dedicated pan @Rich - follow me for more domestic harmony tips 😉) and pop them in my gig bag to serve as emergency replacements. They only have to last until the end of the gig / jam / rehearsal if they're needed to replace a broken string.

Still no. They could have my cheap backup but not my main bass.

If it was someone I knew and trusted, I might lend my no-name Artisan. My main bass - no chance.

Oh yes. That one gets to me too. I've had this one on repeat for most of the day, to try to lighten the mood; it's nice and uplifting. Always make me think of driving on the open road as the sun comes up:

First one I bought was See You Later. Initially I wondered why I'd wasted my saved school dinner money, but when Side One finished with Memories of Green, I was absolutely blown away. I played that track over and over again, lying on my bedroom floor in the dark. His music has stayed with me ever since. RIP Vangelis.

Thanks! I'll pass that on 👍

Good tip, thanks! The XR18 belongs to one of our guitarists, so I'll pass that along 👍 What make of router do you use?

Say that last sentence to my face and I'll instantly rearrange yours, pal 🤬 Who the hell do you think you are? If you think that's funny, you've missed the mark by a wide margin. Get this, ya wee fud. With one exception, the encouragement, support and positive advice I've received on this subject have been from men. Which I would kinda expect, given the gender bias in the world of bass-playing. I've had some good ideas passed on and I'd like to think I've helped some other folk. I am very grateful for the suggestions that I've had. The exception, of course, is you. You like to make out that you know it all. You don't. Take your sexism and shove it where the sun don't shine.

Sigh. If the IEM feed from the desk gets messed up, I can kill it and still have monitoring. Also, I can use my IEMs in situations where only wedges are available. Clear now?

No. Bass and vocal mic go through the splitter mixer and out to the main desk. IEM feed comes back from the main desk to the splitter mixer. Ambient stage sound from separate mics goes straight into the splitter mixer, not via the main desk. What goes into my IEMs is the splitter mixer output only, made up of bass and vocal mic, ambient sound and the main desk IEM feed.

We used an XR18 at our previous gig and I agree - it's a great piece of gear. Unfortunately, clumsy fingers out front messed with the mix and the wi-fi then threw a strop, which meant I couldn't use my tablet app to fix it 🙄 If tha wants owt done proper...

Thank you for your input. If I'd turned down, I'd have lost everything else - bass, my mic, guitars, main vox and keys. Using this rig gives me control over what I need to hear, and if I get blasted with noise from the desk, I can kill just that feed and still carry on OK. If bleed-through is causing issues, that needs to be fixed at soundcheck, not half-way through the second set, which is when all this started. I don't know what happened out front and TBF I don't really care. What I do care about is my hearing, and after getting bombarded with noise three times on the trot, I'm not prepared to risk it again.

I've described it in detail in this thread:

I thought of that. Repatching would only take a few seconds - join the mic input and output cables and plug the bass DI into the pre-amp on my pedalboard. Just need to make sure there's enough slack in the cable when setting up. Then loosen the IEMs slightly to hear more ambient sound and the job's a good 'un.

I've found them pretty reliable so far. The curved sleeving at the earphone end fits nicely round my ears, making it easy to tuck the wires out of the way. They've only been used in anger a few times, so they might not last as long as pricier sets, but I can't fault the design or sound quality. They come with a few different tips, and the second set I tried seemed to fit the bill - they cut out all the ambient sound and stayed put even when I snagged the cable. Aye, it's easy to take the Old Town for granted and get irritated with the tourists gawping round in open-mouthed wonder. I think the sense of history hit me properly during lockdown - when I had to go to the supermarket, I found myself walking more slowly and noticing more things because of not having to dodge groups of tourists. Old ghost signs, tenement bell-pulls still bearing the names of long-departed residents, carvings on buildings, roads that once went somewhere and now didn't - all the things I'd hurried past hundreds of times and never noticed. It was creepy at the same time, though - seeing places like Princes Street and the Grassmarket completely deserted brought on a feeling of being a post-apocalyptic disaster movie. Though I was born here, I'd spent the majority of my life in England - Somerset, Bournemouth, Hertfordshire, London and Leeds. But I'd aye had a hankering to come back to Edinburgh. The flat I'm now in was a holiday let, which I rented for a couple of weeks, and during a chat with the owner, she mentioned they were selling up. My divorce settlement was just sitting in a bank account and I'd been wondering where to buy a place, so it was a no-brainer. The B-word result was another factor. Yes, I liked it so much I bought the property 😊

OK, as promised, here are some pics and details of what goes where. I was hoping to have picked up all the cables by now, but while staring blankly at the cables in Guitar Guitar it sank in that no high street shop is going to stock a lot of twelve-inch XLR cables, so I guess I'll have to get them online. No matter, it won't be used in anger for a couple of weeks yet. Are we sitting comfortably? Then let us begin. Here is the front. Top to bottom - Behringer MX882 splitter mixer, Furman power conditioner, Eden WTP600 amp in a Gator case. And yes, from a locking point of view, the case is upside down, but I had to assemble it on my dining table and didn't want to scratch the glass. And here is the rear. Correct - the back of the mixer is almost inaccessible, so I think a patch panel will be needed. This is a better picture of the back of the mixer, nicked from G4M's website. And here are the all-important connection details. All the sockets are labelled, so reading from right to left: Main input L: no connection. Main input R: no connection. Main output L: out to IEM belt pack or transmitter. Main output R: no connection. Channel 1 input: IEM feed from main desk. Channel 1 output: no connection. Channel 2 input: DI output from amp. Or pedalboard pre-amp. There's no EQ on this mixer. Channel 2 output: DI to bass on main desk. Channel 3 input: vocal mic. Channel 3 output: mic feed to main desk. Channel 4 input: condenser mic pointed at singers. Channel 5 input (jack socket): unpowered ambient mic or powered mic via its own PSU. Channel 5 output (jack socket): no connection. Channel 6 input (jack socket): unpowered ambient mic or powered mic via its own PSU. Channel 6 output (jack socket): no connection. Mains kettle lead from power conditioner. Each input channel has one of two modes - SPLITTER or MIXER. Set them all to MIXER, set the balance controls fully left and dial in the mix you want. The signals going to the main desk from bass and vocal mic aren't affected by your mix. And that's it!

First person to see will buy. Or else.

They seem to have recovered OK, thankfully. I used my IEMs during rehearsal last night too, commandeering the PA monitor feed, and it really cut down the studio noise. I think they'll be a permanent fixture from now on.

Quick update. I've put the gear together - tonight was the first chance I've had to spend any time on it - and guess what? It works! IT BLOODY WORKS! Granted, I had to pull my practice rig apart to get the right cables and drape the living room in a spider's web of electric string to test everything, so it looked a bit messy, but I can mix the levels in my IEMs independently of whatever's going to the main desk. I still have to test a few more things, and do the rounds of the local music shops to get some cables of the right length but I'll post some pics and a diagram of the signal path tomorrow, as @MacDaddyrequested. Whoop whoop!

I've bought some bits and bobs to make a personal IEM mixer after being blasted with noise at our last gig. It took ten days for the ringing to subside. No changes to the signal path though, so I'm technically still in, I think.