Mottlefeeder

Lots of interesting comments, and just a little bit of negativity towards guitarists. Just to recap, a guitarist turns up at an open mic night with the words and chords he/she needs, and an indication of where the capo goes to get the song in the right vocal range. A bass player introduces himself and asks if he can join in. There is no way that the guitarist's notes for his/her benefit are wrong just because they do not help the bass player. Moving on, a couple of posts suggest mentally converting a song into Nashville notation, and then moving the playing pattern further up the neck. That's fine up to a point, but only if the chord progression makes it obvious what the key is. For example, one of the songs that I play has the chord sequence Verse: Dm /A7 /Dm /A7 /D7 /Gm /Dm /A7 /Dm /C7 / Chorus: F /C7 /F /F7 /Bb /Gm /F /C7 /F /A7 / If I was presented with that and I did not know the song at all, I would use 1 'If it starts and ends with the same chord, that is probably the 1 chord' (so check it out) 2 'If it has three major chords in it, they will probably be I, IV and V (so check it out) 3 'If it has minor chords they will probably be II, III and VI (so check it out) 4 Oh sh#t this is going to sound awful. Firsty, 1, 2 and 3 do not work on that song, so what key is it in, and secondly, what rules do you use to determine which chords are foreign to the key, and what the I chord is? David

Following on from [size=4]'[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I suck at figuring out songs by ear. Any advice guys?' I used to think that I was reasonably proficient at transposing on the fly - then I went to an open mic night with a different set of people with different songs,and I really struggled. I seem to be able to cope with akey change if I know the song, but not if I don't.[/font][/size] [size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]So how do you deal with a song that you do not know, where you are given the chords, but the guitarist plays it in a different key and you have about 20 seconds before he/she starts?[/font][/size] [size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]David[/font][/size]

[quote name='nicsim' timestamp='1467018927' post='3080408'] Just coming back to this thread. Interesting point Mottle - about tuning B E A D . I've been reading around on a few "name" bass players' gear and tunings and a few do that - including the late Paul Gray of Slipknot and Journey's Ross Valory. Is there a market for unwanted G strings? [/quote] People who slap and pop too hard are usually glad to take them. David

Amps where the components can be changed are often quite cheap to repair, and parts will be available for many years to come. More modern class D amps use modules, and will be much more difficult to repair when the manufacturer stops making those modules. In short, check the cost of repair before binning it. David

Have you seen the offerings on this site? http://www.playawayguitars.com/play_away_guitars_shop.php?itemID=547 David

If you don't want to pay £400 plus for a headless bass, you can buy a kit and build your own. Mine cost £150 form guitar warehouse and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. It's also cheap enough that I will take it out on a rainy day, while the owner of the ACG probably would not. David

Something elde to throw into the mix is the pick-up type on the bass you plan to use. Acoustic basses with Piezo pick-ups are pretty much immune to electrical interference, so you can use them with cheap gererators or invertors without getting a buzz or whine through the speakers. Magnetic pick-ups may give you problems with older amplifiers powered from those sources, but class D amps seem to have better filtering, and give fewer problems. David

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1465465512' post='3068424'] ... I've seen people busking with a regular Bass combo and the latter option complete with large trolley! [/quote] Been there, done that - My 300 W Hartke amp and 15 inch speaker fed from an invertor and a caravan battery. [URL=http://s285.photobucket.com/user/Mottlefeeder/media/IMG_0099_zps7398178f.jpg.html][IMG]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll54/Mottlefeeder/IMG_0099_zps7398178f.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Something that has not been covered is how long your busking session is likely to be. The type of amplifier and the type/size of battery can have a major effect on the volume available, the length of your set, and the feasibility of carrying/trolleying it back to your car. The PJ briefcase takes a 7Ah battery, which lasts about an hour at high volumes. For a lot less money, you could get a caravan battery and a 12v to 240 volt convertor, and run a medium powered mains rig all day. But it would be a lot less portable. David

If your answer to a shoulder problem is to drop your bass to the level that a waistband will provide significant support, is it not likely that your next problem will be in your left wrist, bending sharply to give you access to the frets? If the waist band is not providing support, but just pulling an out-of-balance bass up, then it will be adding to the pressure on your shoulder. David

I looked at these kits and decided to go to Guitar Warehouse instead. My build thread is here - http://www.finnbass.com/showthread.php?t=10950 - but you will have to join Finnbass to see it since the DIY section is off-limits to guests. I have had to do a bit of tweaking to get what I wanted, and I have fitted better strings, but the overall quality of neck joint etc, and completness of kit is very good. It includes all required allen keys, jack to jack lead, and even a length of solder. David

When I moved from a four to a five, it took me about three months to aclimatise. I started by relearning all the songs I knew in one key, then moved on to another key, and so on. Also bear in mind that the B string changes in character as you move around - much more so than the other strings. Above fret 9 or 10 the 'short-string effect' becomes noticeable so you cannot assume that you can learn a bass line and then just move it up the fretboard to change key - you need to play it where it sounds good. Finally, as a cheaper option, you could buy a set of 5 strings and try stringing a 4-string to be BEAD - that would give you a good idea as to whether you want to go to a 5, or could manage with the 4 without a G string. David

If your deep bass is going through the main PA,and deep bass is pretty much omni-directional, you should be able to filter out the bottom couple of octaves going through the monitors, so that you can still hear what you are playing, but you do not overload the speakers. David

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1462375994' post='3042522'] Most single band Para EQ's will sweep the full audible range, at least up to about 16hkz, anyway. The only difference in one focussed on mids would be a shorter range on the frequency pot. Any single band para will do, the only advantage you would gain with a shorter range would be finer tuning within that range, but aside from that, a parametric EQ which works on mids is a parametric EQ with the frequency knob set somewhere in the middle. Easy. [/quote] The electronics is easier/cheeper if you restrict the range of frequency covered. David

Your typical ABG will keep up with nylon stringed guitars, but as soon as someone starts strumming a steel stringed guitar, you will not be heard. You will need an amp, so have you checked whether the places you plan to play will allow you to use one? Assuming that you can use an amp your options look much better - an ABG that sounds like a cardboard box acoustically can still provide a good sound through an amp. Check out the Youtube clips of the Thomann Harley Benton acoustic basses. David

Looking at the grill design, there is a lot more aluminium than air in front of the speaker cone, so that will affect the tone. From memory, Bill Fitzmurice recommended aming for 40% metal maximum. David

I have been looking into this myself, and found this piezo bridge. No idea what the quality is like, but it is almost cheap enough to buy one just to try out. David http://www.chguitars.co.uk/bridges/bass-bridges/b41-four-string-bass-piezo-bridge.html

[quote name='stevebasshead' timestamp='1452698949' post='2952561'] Hi, I’m no whizz at home recording by any stretch, just a hobbyist but I’m getting by, so far. I’m looking for advice for a replacement USB audio interface. Having seen recent postings in the Beginner’s Guide sticky suggesting that a USB mixer/interface can negate latency issues compared to a USB interface alone I don’t know whether my needs would be better served by a 6 input USB interface or a small mixer that doubles as a USB interface. Apologies for the long post but it’ll probably help if I describe what I have at the moment, how I use it and why I want to replace it. My current interface is an old mk1 Zoom H4 recorder going via USB into a 2012 model i7 8GB laptop running Reaper. The Zoom has two inputs, I tend to run an instrument or a mic into one and a switched mic into the other and the Zoom is set to record in mono. When I have my singer in the vocal booth (ok, converted cupboard) I can speak to him via the switched mic but switch it off during a take. If I put the Zoom into stereo mode I can record two inputs at once but I lose the talkback facility. I take the headphone signal out from the Zoom into a Behringer 4-way headphone amp so the singer and I can have headphones for monitoring and talkback and there’s zero latency that way. That said, every take I record is a few milliseconds out of sync with whatever backing track is in Reaper and I have to nudge it into line which is a minor irritation but one I’d like to get rid of as well as a couple of other improvements. The singer hates singing without reverb but if I add it in Reaper during a take he can only hear it if I switch to monitoring from Reaper and that adds more latency than he can handle. So we’ve used one of the reverb FX’s in the Zoom which means I can avoid latency issues but then the reverb gets recorded. So that’s the setup. The Zoom is the limiting factor both for flexibility (and to an extent sound quality.) What I’m looking to do is to record my bands demos and for speed it’d be better to record us all at once playing as a band but the Zoom’s limited number of inputs prevents this. I would rather record them to individual tracks too so I can mix them after the fact, rather than set up a mix and record that to one stereo track in Reaper. So what I want, ideally, is to be able to[list] [*]record four sources simultaneously (each recording to an individual track in Reaper for later mixing). Typically Vox/Guitar/Bass/Drums (electronic kit via midi, triggering Superior Drummer in Reaper) and sometimes Vox/Guitar/Bass/Keyboard (sometimes midi, sometimes recording sounds direct) [*]add FX for monitoring only (i.e. reverb on vocals) not recording the FX [*]have zero (or inconsequential) latency monitoring [*]have four input sources, but ideally six budget permitting, so that I can use an input for talkback to the glorified cupboard/vocal booth, like I do with the Zoom now [*]record instruments during playback over my monitors instead of using headphones, without latency (but headphone monitoring would suffice if I’m expecting too much here!) [/list] My budget is around £200, I can’t justify much more for what I do. I’m torn between going for an interface (for example the Focusrite Scarlett 6i6) and trying to tweak my setup to minimize latency, or a USB mixer (for example the Allen & Heath ZED 10FX) so I’d get hardware monitoring/no latency and also adding the delay a the mixers inbuilt FX for the singer, just for monitoring. Presumably I can route it so it still records dry. I’m not set on those two bits of kit, just using them as examples of hardware I think will fit the bill. How’s my thinking so far, am I on the right lines? Any better options? Asking too much at this price point? All advice welcome with open ears [/quote] One area you have not commented on is the quality of recording that you want. A cheap mixer with a USB facility tacked on because it has become flavour of the month will not have the sound quality of the Focusrite gear. Whether you can hear the difference, or whether it matters, is down to you. In my case I had to move from a quality sound card which was not supported by Win8. I found that I could not tell the difference between that and a Tascam portable recorder, so that suited me. At that time, another user was selling a Behringer USB mixer because he could hear that it was not as good as some other gear he was used to. David

Hartke and Samson are sister companies, so they probably share design standards and parts lists. Some Sansom amplifiers have a common problem with the output protection relay going intermittent, so I would start by checking whether the signal is present just upstream of that relay. David

[quote name='Mottlefeeder' timestamp='1447082423' post='2904665'] If you are thinking U-bass, have a look at the Countryman Bass Uke - 3-Band EQ Built-in tuner Intonated bridge (bridge slot is straight across the body, but bridge is contoured from E to G) Aguila strings It is well made and sounds good - £150 [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Countryman_U_bass.html"]http://www.bassdirec...man_U_bass.html[/url] or [url="http://www.omegamusic.co.uk/collections/bass-ukuleles"]http://www.omegamusi...s/bass-ukuleles[/url] (currently sold out!) David [/quote] Just remembered I did a review - http://www.finnbass.com/showthread.php?t=10632 David

If you are thinking U-bass, have a look at the Countryman Bass Uke - 3-Band EQ Built-in tuner Intonated bridge (bridge slot is straight across the body, but bridge is contoured from E to G) Aguila strings It is well made and sounds good - £150 [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Countryman_U_bass.html"]http://www.bassdirec...man_U_bass.html[/url] or [url="http://www.omegamusic.co.uk/collections/bass-ukuleles"]http://www.omegamusi...s/bass-ukuleles[/url] (currently sold out!) David

A free alternative to check out is to tie a shoelace between the 'bridge-end' strap button and your trouser belt. If that stops your neck dive and doesn't affect your vocals, you could then make something easier to put on/take off. David

The effects-out and effects-return jack sockets are often used to connect the preamp-out of one piece if kit to the amp-in of a second piece of kit, so if you want to compare the eq of the head against the eq section of the combo for example, that would be the way to go (if you have those jack sockets). It would also allow you to connect one preamp to drive two amps if you had two speakers. If you want to compare two amplifiers, then you need access to the connection between the amp and the speaker in the combo. If you are not comfortable taking the back of,or taking the grill off and the speaker out, or whatever, then you cannot do that comparison. David

[url="http://s285.photobucket.com/user/Mottlefeeder/media/DSCF1422_zps6327e840.jpg.html"][/url] Countryman U-bass clone, 3/4 guitar fretless U-bass conversion, Ibanez EW205 David