SumOne

The FI and C4 are the two to go for ....but you can also get some great synthy sounds in an analogue way by combining octaver, envelope filter, fuzz, and potentially with other pedals like chorus and delays. I expect you could get an alright 'give me the night' bass sound just with a down-sweeping envelope filter. I prefer that simplicity, especially live. I mean, look how long the FI and C4 threads are with people running into technical issues that seem more akin to computer programming than playing Bass. It isn't rock n roll! In contrast, there aren't many technical 'how do I turn on my envelope filter and fuzz pedal' threads.

- Drums keep people marching/stomping, they're for the feet. - Vocals are the face of the music, almost literally, as you look at the singers face as they use their voice to convery stories and emotions. - Piano and Guitar and other instruments that play melodies are for the brain and convey emotions on a more abstract level. - Bass is for the hips and groin! (to paraphrase Suzi Quatro). It gets people dancing rather than marching. .... So in my book the Bass is largely a supporting instrument. To mix my metaphors: It's the cement that holds the building together...not always noticeable when doing its job well - but people notice when it isn't, it is not the beautiful building facade that melodic instruments are, it supports them though. Bass even sounds 'heavy' compared to other instruments. If you've only found one bassline that you like, perhaps more melodic and emotionally expressive instruments like guitars or pianos would be more your thing? I mean, you don't get many harp players complaining their instrument doesn't get people stomping their feet, or drummers complaining that they find it hard to convey dream-like whimsical emotions.

... but then again, being a 'YouTuber' doesn't necessarily qualify them any more than anyone on here. They might well have been spouting nonsense on the internet themselves, potentially they just like the sound of their own opinions presented as fact even more than forum posters!

And 'inspired by'

It says 'Demonfx' on it, that's a poor counterfeit!

I suppose though, they are at least being honest about it being a copy and not the original, they give it a cheeky different name. They could just as easily directly copy everything, it'd actually be easier - like the Louis Vuitton bags on sale at Hounslow West market.

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. They don't care enough to respond or comment to any responses, and responses won't change what they do. That's fine, we're all just spending a bit of time to shoot the breeze and shout at clouds.

My worst is ACS IEM (and an Xvive wireless system, but at least I can sell that). However, I have ACS pro 17 earplugs and they are one of my favourite purchases! I don't know if it's a fault, I used the same mould, but the IEMs don't fit well. They are uncomfortable, don't reproduce Bass well. And even if they did I don't think I'd use them - I use an Amp/Cab and our Drummer isn't mic'd up, so I'd need to go to the mixer (easy enough) for Bass to IEM, and mic the drums, or get room mics to get the monitoring. And if ditching the Amp/Cab woud need to beef up the PA. It all feels a bit like adding complexity and cost where the setup with earplugs and monitor speakers (that the drummer needs anyway as he doesn't use IEMs) and Amp/cab worked fine. I think if the whole band used IEMs and PA it might be a different story, still though - I'd need IEMs that fit/work better to properly hear the Bass.

F#ck you! 😁 For the sake of disagreeing: Asking 'how do I get better' on an online fourum is probably quite a 'shoot the breeze' sort of question. Nobody would really expect there to be a short universally agreed silver bullet answer (apart from perhaps 'practice more!'). Debate is good and interesting, it needs a certain level of disagreement.

I've now tried out the Lekato WS90 (£48 via Amazon) at home and in a band practise and it's good, easy setup, not a noticeable change in tone, I can't notice latency and there haven't been dropouts. The band also had two wireless mics and three sets of IEMs running and there was no interference. It was quite liberating being freed from being tethered to the pedalboard/amp in a rehearsal room, and is even quite an improvement for home practise being able to freely move around a room without considering a cable. Going through a fuzz pedal set to high gain there definitely is noise added that's noticeable when not playing - high pitch white noise and some 'squiggly' sort of sounds like radio tuning, whereas the cable adds a different lower pitched 'hum' grounding sort of noise with the same setup. I wonder if having a Passive single coil Jazz Bass with a transmitter right next to it and not having a physical audio cable interferes with what the pickups 'pickup' and the grounding, and if that the case for all wireless devices? It isn't a big deal for me - I can't hear any difference when not going through the fuzz set to high gain, and the cable adds just as much noise - just different, and I've found a lot of high-gain fuzz pedals are picky about the signal they receive: what else is in the signal chain - buffered or not and how they are powered etc. and noise gates are useful for them it it becomes an issue. The noise isn't noticeable once going through an Amp/Cab and playing with a band, and it isn't noticeable when not going through the fuzz set to high gain, but anyone particularly sensitive to added noise might not like it. It doesn't give the impression of being the most 'road worthy' and sturdy thing though, a bit flimsy compared with something like the Boss WL-20 that I used with the Waza-Air headphones, so for now I will stick with using a cable at the gig this weekend. I'll give the Lekato a go live if no issues after a few more rehearsals though, and I think it would be useful even if just for standing in different places during soundcheck. AliExpress are doing them for £24 including postage. But form what I've heard, ordering from them isn't without risk!

The only correct way to do a medley:

Maribou State, Blackoak. 😍

I thought the Space 5 sounded good as it was. Granted, it doesn't sound as characterful as things like P or J bass or a Stingray. I wouldn't hear one and say 'that sounds like a space 5', it didn't sound at all bad to me though. The Space 5 is seemed pretty close to what all modern active basses with pickups in those sort of positions tend to sound like to me. And having even stable tuning, small, lightweight, nice neck, well balanced etc. makes up for that. I did sell it though! But that was party as I only needed a 4 string and I find them easier to slap, and partly as I like the character sound of passive single coil Jazz Basses. As it is quite a 'clean' sound, rather than changing on-board preamps (or pickups) I've usually found it easier to use preamp pedals, different EQ, or use different strings and compression to change the sound character. Being 'muddy' and not enough 'snap' are can be a big combination of things - but I'd have thought compressor, strings, playing style, setup, preamp pedal and Amp/Cab, and EQ are major parts of that, more so than the pickups or onboard preamp (which as you say, have made little difference with £300 of new ones). The pickups aren't in unusual positions, scale length is standard, and as far as things like the fretboard and body/weight of the instrument making any difference, well, that's a big can of worms but personally I think it'd make very little difference. But yeah, if you are after a particular character sound like P, J, Stingray, then I think that is mostly down to the positioning of the pickups and no amount of changing pickups or preamp will really do it.

I know we're sort of shouting 'advise' and arguing together while the OP has walked off (I can picture it in a cartoon where someone asks a question, and everyone crowds around shouting over each other, not noticing the original person quietly walked away long ago).......but that's not gonna stop me joining in! Some music Theory is well worthwhile and goes a long way, but I'd say that reading music is generally a 'nice to have' for Bass, especially if you are doing what the majority of Bass players do - play rock/pop etc cover versions or originals. You won't see many of those Bass players standing there live reading sheet music. It's not the case for all instruments, there's good reason that Bass reading has developed Tabs, and Piano has not. I mean, for the bands I've been in it is the expectation that you learn the songs/basslines to play live without reading any notation, nowadays you can do that by listening to the recorded music, online tutorials, tabs, chord charts etc. to help you memorise, whereas in the past, written notation was the only way to get it communicated (or hearing others play live and memorising). So sure, it would be great to sight read music, but I wouldn't say it is a priority for most Bass players. Piano players (who probably play at least 10x the notes of Bass, and more variations, so need notation as it's too hard to memorise), or Bass players playing in Theatre shows just thrown into it with no time to memorise it's a different matter though and is pretty much essential. Anyway, my advice (shouting at cloud!) would be to nail the timing (and locking in with a drummer that might not keep perfect timing!). The temptation is to watch flashy Bass players on YouTube doing solo stuff with 1000 notes a minute, it looks good in that context, but in a band context it's over the top and you rarely see players doing it, Bass is a supporting instrument - part of the rhythm section at the back, so you've gotta have the rhythm! If 1000 notes per minute solo spotlight stuff was my thing then I'd play a guitar. Nowadays, I always practice to something to keep timing - metronome, drum track, band, recording etc. And yeah, wherever possible, play with others (fnarr fnarr).

Not a Black Friday deal as such (and not Bass!), but for anyone into Metal/Rock/Punk Drums (IR, Samples, Midi files) Ugritone have a big closing down sale. https://ugritone.com/collections/farewell-tour I've bought some and they are decent.