warwickhunt

Just bought my old Zon back from Simon, dead easy transaction and nice to meet and put a face to a name.

I think that's how some folk get their kicks; either that or the OP is so conceited that they are incapable of differentiating between opinion and fact or that other opinions can be equally valid.

Has anyone ever thrown away a set of flats off a bass? No, I thought not. Ergo, every set of flat wound strings ever produced is still in existence. Bass players who use flats are the ultimate eco-warrior... just saying!

Up, down... I use sideways just to spice it up!

I own 4 short scale basses. Nordstrand Acinonyx - unusual aesthetic but so easy to play. EQ/pup selector buttons 'might' be limiting. Sandberg Lionel (fretless) - the most regular shaped and sounding (i.e. Fender P bass clone) Dano Longhorn - lovely and light, well balanced and surprisingly versatile Hofner Club bass (not the violin shaped one) - hollow body (technically so is the Dano to a degree) which gives it character and a distinctive tone which I'm quite liking. Any questions on these, fire away.

He generally plays finger style and not on a Ric, so it could just be what feels natural on that instrument for that style/genre of music. I defo use upstrokes exclusively at times but I've never analysed why and when... until Owen pointed this out.

Interesting indeed. I've tried to think of an audio/sonic reason re sustain/note decay etc and then considered that I sometimes play upstrokes; if I've done it I 'think' it is because I can't hear myself properly and I'm trying to get maximum attack and ring (inc on deadish strings). Could it be he was too far down in the headphone mix of the full band but I'd think he's too switched on and would know he might be too loud on the recording if he did that... shall we message him?

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan Sadly a few (inc the OP) seem to think that if they shout their opinion loud enough it will become entrenched as fact.

We are navigating this issue with a double header bill. The other band are full backline and nothing IE, whereas we are all IE with the exception of the drummer (acoustic mic'd kit) who uses a wedge. The other band have an engineer but despite repeated enquires, we know nothing about his set up/PA. I suppose it should be navigable but will he be able to supply 3 band members with adequate mixes so that we all hear what we need (we all do vocals as well)? I've never had to worry about this in the past when I turn up with backline.

We've done a couple of gigs since I've started to move to IEMs and in itself that was more of a lottery/tribulation! 1 gig the sound guy just gave us access to mix our own aux on our phones/tablets. On the other gig it was a case of 'What do you want in your mix?'! Not masses of time to balance stuff out and I frankly didn't want to be relaying messages to him over the PA while we were playing, so it was a less than fulfilling experience. There's no one right/wrong on this matter as no 2 bands or situations are the same; even having a FRFR in front of me rather than IE leaves me hoping the mix is good enough.

Oddly, I have a bunch of basses that I'm going to sell and I'll likely get a better price and a quicker sale if I put them up for a commission sale with BD<> BB<> BG or similar. Folks will pay the shop their commission (+VAT I expect) sooner than buy from me for considerably less. It may be more convenient from a shop (not sure about warranty on used instruments bought via commission sales) but I assure you it'd be the same instrument... just more expensive!

I don't need my backline as a tool to get a particular sound (though I defo prefer the sound of certain amp/cab combinations) and tbh I've been impressed with the results from a Sansamp or the NuX MLD pedal. However, it isn't volume per se that I get a feel from but more that the closed in/isolation and almost lack of staging/placement in a mix takes any 'feel' away from my playing experience. I'm not giving up on IEM etc as I love the fact I turned up at the last 2 gigs with a bass, a pedal and some leads and I didn't care if the car park was 200m from the venue. I'm going to see if I can sort the EQing issue and spend time trying to get a better balance of instruments and sound staging but this does seem to be a case of creating solutions to problems that haven't existed till recently.

For a lot of years my backline was a very good quality 250w 2x10 (vertical) combo, things started to get noisier and I started upping my cabs to keep pace. I peaked at 500 - 1000w (seriously never fully utilised) and a pair of 2x10s (again vertical array) but we seem to have suddenly leapt to this 'silent stage' scenario where the PA is the be all and IEMs are almost mandatory. I still feel that I'm way more comfortable with my Thunderfunk on tick over, a cab tilted or raised and attenuated ear plugs but when members of the band are Helix/Tonex etc and no way for me to hear them other than standing stage front near a PA cab.... hmmm something has to give.

Yeah the guitarist has RCF 15 tops at the moment but I do wonder if upping the level of quality / newer unit in the RCF range might make more sense. Off to message him and gauge feeling.

Yep, got you @Muzz That sub seems sensible size and weight but I'm torn as to whether I suggest that the guitarist and I spend similar values (£800ish) on buying 1 new FOH each. My reasoning being if we get a pair of good quality FR PA cabs we can get away without a sub AND it means that I own a bit of kit that I can use in other projects. I play guitar in a duo with my wife where a single quality PA cab would suffice as FOH and my Cheap Trick tribute would benefit as these 2 new PA cabs would be in that band and the singer in that band has a 15" RCF sub. Not as convoluted as it sounds but me owning a 12" bass bin has no practical purpose outside of this one band situation... a good PA cab has more uses to me.

I think it is, like pretty much everything involved with reproducing sound on a larger scale, down to EQ. Even well EQ'd, inears can be isolating unless the often-overlooked stage/room mic is added in, so the sound of the stage can open up the 'closed in' feeling of inears. We have 2 vocal mics live on stage, are you talking about adding a 3rd mic to use purely to add ambient sound into the IEM mixes? Does that need to be a certain type of mic (plate type, dynamic or condenser)? A good system will allow individual monitor mixes for each person (often on a phone), and you can play with it from there, but if your bass doesn't sound the same in your ears, then it needs EQ-ing to suit. Yes I have access to my Aux on my phone so I cam mix in the band to suit but tbh it is generally a case of bish bash bosh at a gig to get set up asap and on playing. Added to which we frequently use dep drummers. So am I EQing my sound at the desk for my Aux mix or am I EQing the bass send in my pedal? Our sub (which as I mentioned above will fill a 150+ room) is a small 12", a simple one-man lift, and less hassle than a bass cab, considering it's for the whole band... Which sub is this as the guitarist owns the tops and desks and as I am literally carrying a bass, a pedal and a set of leads to the gig he has suggested I invest in a bin. Our other band has a 15" RCF bin but it is way to big/heavy for me to hump about on my own if I was getting one.

I read and (try to) learn from all of these IEM/FRFR/Silent stages/PA carrying the whole band type of threads but I keep coming back to a few points that are frustrating me. I like the sound of my amp(s) and cab(s), it is something which when I am playing is influencing my actual playing, listening experience AND interaction with other band members... the audience aspect for me has always been a case of 'If I'm enjoying it and the FOH is balanced then we are all good'. Now when I go amp less, I go into a pedal/preamp (presently trialling a NuX MLD as it has IRs so I can try to bring that cab colouration back which I like) and then I'm relying on the PA which by all accounts is decent but if we are going to get it to do the heavy lifting of the full band inc all of the bass then we need to bring along a bass bin to every gig (tops are RCF 15" units probably 7 series). But what about 'me'? I'm not getting the same tone back through IEMs that I would through an amp+cab (even when wearing my custom moulded plugs for 15 years) added to which the guitar sounds like a bee in a bean can and the drums are even more removed than if I were just using ear protection as obviously the IEMs are adding bass/guitar/vocals into my ears, obscuring the drums (even with kick+snare in PA) and if I start using a frfr or monitor on stage then I'm carting along more gear and cluttering the stage with audio. I'm just voicing this to try and help me figure out where I'm going with my equipment and how to achieve a pleasurable experience for me as well as the audience.

I suppose I regard it a bit like IRs in as much as it is just an EQ tweak from what you have; if you want to sound passive/long cable/8x10/Aguilar... just tweak your EQ a bit (assuming you are starting from a good starting point ).

There is. A guy came to try out an LH1000 amp through a pair of 400w 1x15 cabs and trialled them while using this very same thing on his bass strap... the irony of firing up an LH1000 with 2x15, whilst wearing a strap vibrator was not lost on me!

Wi-fi Analyzer

Downloaded and going to try it out at a gig tonight (@The Ouseburn as it happens) @Jack.

I bought the Lekato (Amazon £48) with 6ms latency and at first comparison switching with a lead it is very good and the audio quality is as near identical as I can tell; oddly the Line 6 G50 has the option to tune it as if you are getting signal loss from using differing length leads, which I found very odd.

All 'sound' advice! I think I'm identifying that the worst occurrences are WMC gigs where there are devices using 2.4ghz all over the place inc tills/card readers etc or areas that are built up with routers all over... would literally hundreds of mobile phone/laptop users also affect it? My transmitter is on the back of my strap or belt with my back to the receiver so I'm OK there. Ever since I bought my first bit of radio gear (Nady possibly 30+ years ago), I've made a habit of connecting my receiver to my amp with a lead/cable that is long enough that I can literally decouple from the receiver and plug straight in my bass... with a spare cable coiled on top of my amp 'just in case' the lead goes duff! The cheapie Lekato 5.ghz system will arrive today and I'll try it with 3 gigs this weekend. If that works I'll look at an upgrade (Sennheiser or Shure I'd imagine) but I'll also be looking with one eye toward what I use for IEM.

Yes, that was my thinking. I assume the proximity of the desk router isn't helping (5-10m away)? I'm about to trial a cheapie 5.ghz system and if the drop out ceases/eases, I'll look at an upgrade. I've read/reread your excellent IEM bible so many times and the wired IEM is starting to work for me BUT I need to go wireless at some point but don't want to regress and induce more issues. Time will tell.