BillyBass

Its a good catchy song and I can see why it charted but the lyrics are cringeworthy. The Cockney Rejects "The Greatest Cockney Rip Off" was a p*ss take of it.

Sham 69 "Hersham boys, Hersham boys, they call us the cockney cowboys" No Jimmy, they don't, they call you bumpkins because Hersham is in Surrey

I ended up buying a Spectradrive and I am very pleased with it, it is perfect for my needs. I haven't put it on my pedalboard, I just use it on its own. It fits on my music stand, next to my iPad or I can plug it into the fx return of my MarkBass for a change (I do like the tone). For £145, its a bargain. I downloaded a couple of toneprints for the compression and drive, but as I will be mainly using this for home practise, I'm not too fussed about this. I will play around with these later. I'm just pleased to have something to practise with without disturbing the neighbours.

A quick search on Wikipedia reveals this all to be true. He flogged Chinese bullets to the Afghan army, contrary to US law, got nicked and did 7 months house arrest. He now supports a charity called 'Guitars over guns' that donates musical equipment to disadvantaged kids, so maybe he is feeling a little guilty about his past.

An interface! Don't know much about these. Any recommendations, something small, that can sit on top of my amp or next to the pedal board would be nice.

Hi all, Apologies, I know the subject of headphone amps has come up a fair bit but I would like some input regarding my need for a practice set up at home. I need an Aux-in and a headphone out, I don't need it to be portable, it will be mainly used in one room. I don't need all the effects on the Zoom B1Four (but might use them if they are there) I just want the practice amp facility. it is very cheap, this is its attraction. Likewise with the Spectradrive, I have a compressor and dirt pedal already but the Preamp could come in handy and I'm sure I would use this into the FX return of my MarkBass sometimes. It would also fit on my board, just. Not as cheap as the Zoom but not outrageous. A concern I have about buying something for the headphone out, that isn't an actual headphone amp, is that the sound quality will be poor. What are BCers experiences of using either of these devices for the headphone-out and aux-in? Would there be a big leap up in sound quality with the Ashdown Tonepocket or PJB Bighead?

I read your posts above. You must have had a dud. I get no hiss but there is minor fan noise, I say minor as it is much quieter than my Trace Elliot Elf fan noise.

I have roto flats on my P bass too; it did sound good out of the Little Marcus and one10 yesterday, really smooth.

Ordinarily I wouldn't buy blind, but its lockdown. I was umming and arring between the Genzler Magellan 350, the Darkglass 500 and the Markbass. I thought I might end up wanting a bit more headroom than the Genzler would provide. The Darkglass does have built in dirt, but I would rather have that in pedal form, and the Darkglass Footswitch costs another £89, which makes it £260 more than the Markbass, not bad value if you want the Darkglass pedals, but I wasn't sure I did. Then there is the outstanding EQ section in the Markbass. I did read your previous posts about your rig, as you seem to be the only other bassist out there with the one10 and Little Marcus, so thanks for posting your opinions. My first impressions are good. I am only playing it at quiet volumes at home but I have had to dial the 65Hz and 180Hz knobs down a bit; the room is concrete floored with painted walls and not much in the way of soft furnishings. In a couple of days I'll take it out to my shed and turn the volume up a bit. And yes, my basses sound different with it, more so than with my Elf (I have mim Fenders; a P and a J ).

I just got one today: Its the 500 w version. My Elf has a fault and I have an appointment at GuitarGuitar in Camden Town on Tuesday to take it in to be repaired (such is lockdown!). So, not wanting to be headless for, I'm guessing three months, I bought The Little Marcus 500 watt ltd ed. The Eq points looked really sensible and generous, and Andertons had it on a deal. So why not!

I got one today, see the post below (I mucked upon the photo download hence the edit & repeat) I think I now have a very similar rig to @fretmeister

So your Beat Buddy will have already paid for itself by now then! Like @grandad above, you are not helping my GAS here. I've just received a TC Electronic Ditto X2 Jam looper. It seems to work well with the Beat Buddy. I have only just started to tinker with it but if you loop a chord sequence and then play the loop with the Beat Buddy on, it will alter its timing to fit in with the Beat Buddy. This could be a great pairing.

It works very well. Judging by Internet forums, it seems to be a common pairing; perfect for home but also small venues, coffee houses etc. A few people pair it with a second one10, I can see myself buying a Barefaced Two10 to stick underneath, when I need to fill a larger space with sound; I like the idea of a modular rig. @mcnach answered this so I won't repeat what he said. But yes, I have a P bass with flats and if I wasn't such a dinosaur I would post some recordings for you. I am hopeless with this sort of thing.

Have you got the standard one or the mini?

My experience with the Elf is as part of a practice rig on top of a Barefaced one10, not gigging. Most of the time I keep the gain at about 2 o'clock and it is clean. I rarely play anything but passive Fenders through it so perhaps makes a difference. I'll experiment a bit with it tomorrow. I don't often push the Elf but when I have done it has got quite warm. Not much in the way of heat sinks of course. The fan noise is a constant, even when using headphones or a tuner. And yes, I did check the links at the bottom of your page🙂. It's a great song and the bass just holds it all together.

The Elf only gets dirty with the gain almost full on. You can leave the gain slightly off this level and whack up the volume, you will have clean and very loud. P.S. nice bass playing on one in ten.

Wifey got me a beat buddy mini 2 for Christmas and I use it quite a lot for practice. The drum sets used are real and there is a bit of swing in them, not like a full on paralytic drummer but a lot more natural than a standard drum machine. If you are good with all that Midi computer stuff you might appreciate the more expensive model, which you can download different drum sets to, like 'John Bonham' for instance. I just wanted a drum machine in a pedal form and I have no idea what 'Midi syncing' is. I have just ordered the TC Electronic Ditto X2 jam looper. According to one long thread on the Singular Sound forum, this works with the Beat Buddy, without being Midi synced. Andertons will deliver this on Friday and I'll let you know how I get on. Apparently you can loop your bass or guitar in time with a Beat Buddy drum track without having to step on the pedal exactly at the right moment, the X2 jam looper can keep in time by itself, or with a little assistance from you.

That must be a custom order or a new product that Max hasn't put on his website yet (there is a 'D2' but no 'D3' on the site). Just received a Thumpinator this morning and it is as I expected, no pre amp or XLR out

Would be keen to hear that, thanks.

How do you find the Ashdown pre amp? There isn't much in the way of reviews online. I'm intrigued to hear how the valve drive sounds.

Welcome Manny, I also live in Barnet (born in Tottenham, went to school in Cheshunt) I got my first bass at the Soundgarden, just up from the tube station.

I called Ashdown and asked them about the pedals, this is what I was told: The compression in Macchiato is non adjustable, whether you are playing slap, fingers or with a pick, the compression is what it is. The three EQ controls do not adjust the compression. The sub sonic filter on it is a high pass filter, which is very useful and should be always on. High pass filters remove low frequencies that we can't hear but will cause speakers to flap about and possibly be damaged. It also stops the amp wasting good headroom on ultra low frequencies and gives you a bit more headroom to play with. The only reason the Macchiato has a high pass filter is because there was room in the unit for the circuitry. The Velvet compressor's control adjusts the threshold and ratio etc all in one control. The idea is you set the input according to the lights, then dial in the amount of compression you need and then adjust the output so it is the same as it would be without the pedal. The studio compressor allows you to tweak a lot more, like when you are in a studio! I'll wait until after lockdown before buying a compressor but I will say I was impressed by @Ashdown Engineering and their customer support

I ask because I had a similar issue when I started learning slap, quite recently. I'm not a big fan of slap bass music. RHCP I like, and one or two others come to mind but most of the music I listen to is finger or pick stuff. I just thought I should learn slap, as I'm learning the bass. I have three basses: a P, a J and an Ibby SDGR 500. The action on the Ibby is quite low, I generally set the action to be as low as possible without fret buzz happening (finger style), and this bass had a lot of fret buzz when being slapped, not so much the J which had a higher action. I wasn't sure whether the action just has to be higher if you are slapping rather than just using fingers or a pick?

Is the action on your bass quite low anyway? Is this something a minor tweak with an Allen key at the bridge would fix or would getting rid of the fret buzz bring the action too high?

I'm a member too; joined the day I bought my first bass. I did a bit of online research first and noted that there were some that didn't like his teaching style and the American teenager speak he uses: "Hey Groovehacker..." but I liked his free stuff on YouTube. I watched one free video from Talkingbass and the young American bloke with the cringeworthy sense of humour but thought I'd go with SBL and I'm glad I did. I did the technique accelerator course and it was a game changer for me too. I am now doing the Practice accelerator course, as well as the stuff the members get. I found the 'harmonic Layering' course absolutely fantastic, that was another game changer for me.