SumOne

£619.....Ooof! https://www.thomann.de/gb/hotone_ampero_ii_stage.htm?glp=1 Looks good, but it'd better be at that price.

One Bass is fine, I like getting really used to just playing one. Lots of famous players seem to have stuck with one or two. I don't see much point in having loads that are similar all set up in a similar way,it's a bit like a stamp collection. ....although in an ideal world I'd like one for each special task: one for slap (stingray with low action light and bright roundwounds), one for Reggae (Jazz with tapewound), one for soul (Precision with flatwounds), one for punk (Precision with roundwounds), and perhaps a fretless, an acoustic, and 5 & 6 string multiscale ones. So I would end up with about 10!

The flip side is a lot more people attend than you expected, and an 'influencer' type walks in an posts positively about you to thousands of people. I'm not sure everything I listed can be done in rehersals - experiencing/learining about different sounds/setups for different live rooms, getting good at set up/pack down and learning to bring along the right gear for each eventuality, getting more comfortable and confident playing in different venues and in front of different people and all types of situation, and of course - playing live as a band and learning good stage presence and audience interaction. I dunno, I think that's all valuable experience that can't really be replicated in a rehersal room (that you have to pay for) and the positives generally outweigh the negatives. Each to their own though, there's no right or wrong answer.

Perhaps it's just in my head, or not setting things up properly, but I've never found the SA C4/Spectrum to do it for me quite as well as the as the feel (perhaps a tiny delay with digital?) and perhaps randomness of an analogue filter. Recordings of the Spectrum version of the M82 sound prety much indistinguishable form the real thing, but I don't find it to be the same experience to actually play - it doesn't have quite the same feel and response, and not the same 'on-hand' experince of making adjustments. Then again, I would also recommend the SA Spectrum/C4 as they can do so much. But if there was one very specific filter sound I was after then I'd still go for the specific analogue pedal. (For me it's the M82 for quick/responsive almost precusive stuff and slap/pop, and the 00Funk for the slower/squelchy sounds).

Playing in a band to a small/uninterested audience is still the same thing though isn't it?

Sure, it's not for everyone or every situation. For me, I generally think it's worthwhile for honing a stage show and for the enjoyment I get playing with a band - regardless of the audience or pay.....time was the main caveat I mentioned though.

If the band have the evening free and it isn't a big cost to you (e.g. long travel) then I'd tend to look at it as good practice - a step up from a dress rehearsal even if it's not a big or interested audience. Cheaper than hiring a practice room. Set up/pack down, getting the sound right for different situations, putting on a show/stagecraft, discipline of ploughing through/masking it if something goes wrong and fixing things on the fly are all things that can only really be practiced playing live - even if it's to a small crowd. It didn't do the Beatles any harm just putting in the live hours in Hamburg to often uninterested crowds: "Between August 1960 and December 1962, the Beatles played over 250 nights in the seedy seaport city, and venues often demanded they play four or five hours a night. The shows were not glamorous. They played for audiences of “inebriated seamen and bored wh0res,” often antagonizing the audience, and afterwards crashed on bunk beds above the clubs. Early on they were even reduced to playing background music at a strip club."

'what's the best preamp pedal' and 'how do I get that edge of breakup tone' (I'm probably guilty of asking both)

Generally written by someone that happens to have the same gear and wants the price/demand to stay high for when they offload it!

Edit: Small amount of pricing competition going on with Gear4music, DV247, and Bax have the Bass version reduced to £349 (Andertons are still trying their luck at £399 though and making out that it's a sale!).

Yeah that Bass Driver bling is a bit annoying, partly as I find the dials a bit trickier to see and there's reflections/glare, but mostly because it doesn't match! In fact, I'm not overly impressed with the Bass Driver. It's fine, but the much maligned ODB-3 costs about half as much and has similar controls (low, high, blend, gain, level), the ODB-3 is higher gain though so worth having both. BB-1X is always on, ODB-3 for more rawkus stuff.

Full House! That's basics covered. Next stop will be some more exotic top shelf material.

'might as well keep it as does what you need and much more' is fine until you consider cost, size, sturdiness and complexity . If you only need tuner, and simple eq and drive, then a quad cortex is perhaps not the best choice.

I usually see that phrase when someone is selling a multi fx and partly read it as doublespeak for: 'the unit is too complex/inconvenient for me to use 90% of it' .... or '90% of what it does is unnecessary (and more costly than individual pedals) for a bass player'.

I've found multi-fx to be great at setting presets to get things sounding just how I want them at home, and can get really creative and do stuff that isn't possible without having a massive amount of individual pedals and complex loop switchers. My issue tends to be when I'm playing with a band and seemingly simple spur-of-the-moment changes become a bit of a faff. It's fine if things all work out with presets, but feels a bit boxed in. One other thing is that a drum cymbal stand fell on my pedalboard of Boss Compact pedals the other day, I didn't even bother to check they were alright as I just knew they would be. I'm not sure I'd be that blasé with a multi-fx unit with things like touch screen, none seem quite as bombproof as tough individual pedals. ....but I am contradicting myself here! I do feel that Analogue individual pedals vs Digital multi-fx is already pretty much something akin to DJs using Vinyl vs Digital. I reckon a few interface improvements will seal the deal and Analogue pedals will be the preserve of collectors and enthusiasts.

Nice! I keep owning B1-Four's and then foolishly selling them. They're better than many expensive multi-fx or individual pedals for home practice (more portable, drum loops, aux in) and there are a few Band practice sessions where it would have been really useful (especially when I've had to lug about a pedalboard on public transport, and when the drummer is late!), and even if I just add it to my live board for HPF it's cheaper than most HPF pedals, and it'd do as a backup. I'm going to get one again, probably for about the 4th time!

I suppose there is quite a distinction between Individual Digital pedals and Multi-FX. Only a minority of purists still use analogue Tuners. And certian things like the Boss CEB-3 have gone from Analogue to Digital while keeping the same interface and very few people can tell/care about the difference. And some things like long delays with a pedal pretty much have to be Digital. One issue for me is when individual Digital pedals add a lot of functionality just because they can, but the interface isn't really improved so it over-complicates for live use e.g. 'long hold' a small button to access a second parameter on a knob, meaning that the user isn't sure where either parameter is set. And similar for Multi-FX, they feel to me like they could be amazing but the main issue is the interface and foolproof live usability when you want to do any more than just click between presets. For me, I want a really clear footproof way of 'what you see is what you get' in stomp mode, perhaps just for a few basic things (Compressor, EQ, Drive) but I'm yet to find a digital multi-fx that does that as well as just looking down at those few individual pedals. I like the style of the cheap Zoom B3n for making it quite obvious what each footswitch will do when you stomp on it and what the parameters are set to - and being able to quickly turn a dial to make a specific change, give that sort of simple view format a Helix makeover with assignable coloured footswitches and a small TC Plethora type screen for each effect block and it'd be a winner for me in terms of interface: Hopefully improved usability/interface is the next big thing for digital multi-fx as I think they are pretty much there with most of the sounds (they need to catch up with Source Audio's digital filters/octave/synth though and put them into a multi-fx).

EBS Flat Patch have done me well for a few years. It depends on what they're replacing, but they poke out probably a bit less less than 1cm whereas I have some heavy duty Fender ones that poke out by about 2cm. The Fender ones do feel more robust though. My worry with squeezing mini pedals as tightly together as possible is it becomes a bit of a delicate move to stomp them on/off without hitting neighbouring ones, those soft touch TC footswitches are easily pressed (and my size 12 DMs quickly stomping on small pedals on the floor in a dark pub is not usually a delicate manouver!). The flat Harley Benton flat cables have not done me so well - the outer sleeve has started to come away on a couple of them to expose bare wire.

Yeah, someone that already makes wireless transmitters would seem the most obvious candidates to basically put their wireless receiver into some bluetooth headphones, that seems basically what Boss did using the WL-20.

Ah nice one, good to give Boss a bit of healthy competition. They are available to buy now, £299: https://www.yamahamusiclondon.com/product.php?product_id=GYHWL500&source=froogle&srsltid=AfmBOoqV6dfJLXNE8BBcWrl1YkyJaqrwvSjzx5_Drhb7cmMJzUmqyTuQZ6A they don't make it obvious, but I assume that bulky base/charging unit is also the transmitter and needs to be plugged into the Bass via a cable - so you only get rid of the need for a headphone cable. In fact, I think Yamaha are being a bit cheeky on how they are presenting this: It gives the impression of a fully wirelss setup like the Boss, but what it's actually showing is: Bass > Line 6 Relay transmitter > Line 6 Relay receiver (not shown) > Amp > YH-WL500 transmitter > headphones. So that £300 pair of headphones actually needs at least another £200 spent to ditch the cables in a similar way to the Boss. Clearly the selling point is getting rid of all cables like the Boss though so hopefully that's something that'll be in development.

I'm a bit gutted these haven't gone down in price yet, in fact - they've gone up (but I guess everything has). I paid £333 at the end of 2021 and sold them after a while to save some money and use the NUX Mighty Plug (£59), now the cheapest I can find the Waza Bass are £364 (again via Scan). It's quite hard to justify spending £300 extra just to do away with the headphone cable, but the Boss certainly are better and I'm keen to get them again as a luxury that I'll use a lot. There is no competition for this fully wireless system to help bring the price down or encourage more innovation, but it must be relatively easy to use a latency-free wireless system and put the receiver directly into headphones, the heavy-lifting technology is already there, it's just a case of re-purposing it. Isn't it about time NUX made a headphone system 'inspired by' Boss, they already have the NUX Mighty Plug and the NUX Wireless receiver technology, put it in some headphones and Bob's your uncle....then again, perhaps that actually gets up to the Boss sort of cost. I'll be keeping my eyes open for Black Friday deals. 🧐

I decided to return it. It is an alright bit of kit but if I can't easily see what effects the stomp footswitches engage I might as well use a smaller unit to change between presets (like the 200 LT or JR), and if I don't trust it for live use I'll only end up using it for home practice - which it's good for, but the Nux mighty plug already does me well for that. I'm sure it'd be good unit for some people, just doesn't fit what I need.