nilebodgers

I use my cordless 18v dewalt combi drill for jobs like this. Complete overkill to drill a 1.5mm hole in a guitar, but the chuck has no visible run-out so it is very precise. The small 2ah battery pack keeps the weight manageable for 1 hand unsupported operation.

Does it matter though? It's a standard P-bass footprint pickup, if you don't like it you could flog it and choose from loads of alternatives to replace it. I doubt you'd end up more than £30 out of pocket selling the DiMarzio.

On rosewood fretboards I use "Howard Feed-n-Wax" which is a beeswax/oil wood finish. I only apply occasionally (yearly maybe) and use sparingly if the board is looking a bit dry. I let it sit for a minute or so and then polish it off as much as I can. Makes the fretboard look very nice. I've read the dire warnings about letting oil penetrate into the fret slots, but I reckon it would need really slathering on heavily and leaving for hours for that to be a potential danger.

I like the bass on the Girlschool version. Quite a rocking song in the right hands. (Haven't got a clue about synth FX though.)

Nice colour!

The tuner doesn't fall much short of the current TC polytune for speed and accuracy IMO (in monophonic mode). It only falls down on the mechanics of having to press 2 pedals to activate, I pretty much always accidentally change patches doing that so I couldn't use it live.

Which patch is selected? Some of the stock ones are really noisy, especially the ones with distortion or FX (I think patch 40 is the basic SVT which would be a good starting point).

The series has been great. The only one I skipped was Suzi Quatro, she was copping a strop about them not playing her xmas single and I gave up on it. It might have got better, but not much of a sense of humour was being exhibited.

The irony of all this is the FOH engineer at a decent size gig would completely ignore a pedal compressor anyway. The channel strip compression facilities on any decent digital desk runs rings round any of these pedals.

Yes, you are right - he went too far with those settings and it has squashed it too much. I didn't watch the bit where he discussed the parameters used, but it sounds to me like the attack was set too fast so none of the transients come through.

LowFrequencyChat?

A lovely bit of old school analogue processing rendered redundant by modern digital mixing desks. 8 channels of compressors and gates in one unit. Those were the days!

Thaar she blows! Get the harpoon ready!

I was noodling around on my B1-4 this week and the octaver into a distortion patch came up with a pretty convincing sound for a modern pop/dance track cover. I wonder how much better a separate octaver would be? The B1-4 gets a bit warbly if you go too low or sustain the note too long.

LOL. IMO the time for gear that requires a risk assessment and a manual handling training course to move around is over.

I’ve got no problem with a certain amount of studio artifice, that’s part of the creative process IMO. No problem either with the fix ups, makes sense economically and this has always been done anyway. It’s a lot easier now with digital workstations than having to do manual dropins to fix a duff note or timing.

Over-quantising is annoying too when it squashes all the human element out of the music. The Rick Beato YouTube video on that topic is illuminating where he shows how it is done in protools. Having said that, I don’t mind a bit of really thumping dance music when I am in the mood and that is as artificial as it comes.

That’s the exaggerated version of the process used as an effect. I thought it sounded like a cool effect on Cher when I first heard that song. It sounds like a hack cliche now.

I’m old-school in my opinions. If a singer requires pitch correction then they should keep their mouth shut and seek other employment. I’ve got no problem with odd/quirky singing voices, but being in tune is non-negotiable.

It won’t. Any competently designed solid state amp should be able to light up like a Xmas tree and be soundly thrashed without skipping a beat provided it is operated into the rated load impedance. The speakers are a different story, if their thermal limit or physical cone excursion limit is exceeded then they are toast.

I've seen a few youtubers that wear specs trying to use the ring lights and the location has to be just right to avoid reflecting off the lenses which looks pants. OK if you use contacts or are not speccy though.

If you are a paid sideperson then some kind of expectation of the kind of instrument could be in order. If it’s a band of randoms then absolutely not. However, if the sound isn’t working then changing it in some way would be acceptable - the OP said as much. What that change is and how much it costs is no-one else’s business though.

Yes, I was wondering about a Helix Stomp or similar - that works out cheaper than discrete pedals and would allow switchable patches.