Velarian

Following Peter's posts above (@WabiSabi), I went ahead and ordered one of his P-Base control plates, which arrived this morning. Peter was extremely responsive and helpful and there were no difficulties with any of that Brexit nonsense that might be associated with ordering stuff from the EU. It's a really nice quality part and it provides the finishing touch to my earlier bitsa project. 🙂

I have to declare a tier 1 fail. I'd always envisaged that when I failed, it would be for a significant and worthy cause e.g. a vintage p-bass. However, it's ended up being for an entirely frivolous and low-level reason. When I put together my bitsa p-bass over 3 years ago, I ended up with a hand-fashioned acrylic control plate as a temporary solution because I couldn't source a steel/chrome one. I always said I'd address that later if and when the right part came available. Well last week, a chap in the Netherlands posted on another thread saying he was making them and I couldn't let the opportunity pass. So, I bought one and it arrived this morning. I'm happy that I've managed to go well over 2 1/2 years without any significant purchases, so I've proved to myself that I'm reasonably GAS resistant. I'm sure I'll be back on the wagon next year and I'm hoping I win the lottery this year so I can get a vintage p-bass during this outage. 😉

I came across this video of Danny Sapko covering a few bass players’ amp settings. JJ is the third one in at around 24s. These are the amp settings he used: -

Gotta love this line: “It is a type of guitar specifically designed for playing bass notes in music.”. Ya don’t say! 😂

Or maybe the sound techs don’t realise that the ‘old tone’ is what a bass could sound like and think that dull/boomy bass is how they all should sound?

Yes, yes, but we don’t really care about all that. What did you get?

Nailed it! Are you able to share how you did that?

This is very true. I've seen the Stranglers live many times and woolly bass was almost invariably the case. Smaller venues definitely fair better than larger ones.

The URL you posted doesn't work. I think this is the correct one: https://bass.relentlessrevolutions.com/stranglers2/index.html Edit: Great Resource! Thanks

Of course, JJ's bass sound on the early albums was allegedly attributed to him using a cab where one of the speakers had a ripped cone but he hadn't realised until later. His trademark tone had pretty much disappeared by the Raven album and not long after that he'd moved from a Precision to a BB2000, further softening the aggressive edge. Perhaps he recaptured the original sound a little after moving to Shuker basses? In my live playing days in the early 80s, although we weren't a "tribute" band, we were heavily influence by the Stranglers and we did play quite a few of their tracks as part of the set, always ending with the epic Down in the Sewer. In those days learning a song involved setting the counter on a cassette deck and endlessly playing/rewinding a small section until something resembling the original part could be achieved. Either that or endlessly lifting and dropping the arm on a turntable with the frustrating inaccuracy that involves. More recently, just for fun, I've decided to try and relearn a few songs and although I've not managed to nail any yet, I have worked out a way which makes it much easier than BITD. Firstly, I import the track into Logic Pro (V11) and use the stem splitter to separate the bass from the rest of the track. Then I 'remix' it with the bass at a higher level and open the result in "Transcribe" by Seventh String Software. The way that allows you to loop sections and slow down the track without changing the pitch make it much easier to isolate and learn the parts and is light years ahead of the way we used to do it BITD.

Sometimes- The Stranglers. First track on Rattus Norvegicus.

Great, thanks. I’m pretty sure I can maintain tier 1 compliance for the rest of the year. 🙂

So, having observed the nuanced debate about foot-switches, cables, signal path and the like, and despite graciously being given a pass, now that I’ve had the Adams speakers for a day or so, I think it’s only right that I declare myself out. It’s clear that these units make recording eminently possible and although this is not something I’ve done so far, I will now indulge a little along those lines. It would be churlish to argue this isn’t gear that is part of the signal path.

It’s definitely a case of scope creep on my part and, like you, crappy speakers would annoy me, hence going for these as opposed to something more vanilla. I promise to behave myself henceforth as I wouldn’t want to be lumped together with the very unpleasant DJT.

So, notwithstanding the comment that consumer electronics are outwith the scope, I’ve pulled the trigger on a pair of Adam Audio D3V speakers which are smallest, baby speakers in their range. I suspect that these may cross the line into studio monitor territory, or at least sit across the line between consumer/studio speakers. I therefore prostrate myself before the court to adjudicate on whether this constitutes a tier 2 fail (I think I know the answer 😉).

That nicely coincides with a question I have. I’ve been contemplating getting some desktop speakers for my Mac because the speakers built into the monitor are pants. Would that be allowed or not?

I’m in too. In fact I’ll be likely offloading some gear this year (to possibly temp anyone who might be wavering 😂)

I made it, no problem. Will almost certainly make it through 2025 as well unless the unlikely confluence of a significant sum of money and a suitable vintage P bass occurs. 😉

Here’s the great Chuck Rainey with a nice story about messing up.

I’m still in.

Awesome, I absolutely love everything about that. The bass sounds incredible. 👏