Leonard Smalls

They supported my old band back in 1987 or 88 - IIRC it was the Opera on The Green in Shepherd's Bush though most things from back then are hazy...

I use a buffered FX loop pedal with mine, so it's bass into tuner (acts as kill switch), into Wounded Paw Blender. One loop goes into the FI, another into Fwonk Beta and Darkglass microtubes, and another into Bass Whammy. So all the pedals (apart from microtubes!) get a clean signal, the loop outputs can be blended together and mixed with clean signal. And as a bonus, switching a loop off or on doesn't alter the volume; whereas switching an individual pedal off or on does. Not sure if a Boss LS2 wold do it the same way?

I found a Focusrite 8i6 for £70 on ebay - works with the FI plus has 6 inputs and midi for inputting into a DAW. Needs in/out midi cable as well, but I can now record the whole band live (that's bass, guitar, vox, e-drums and live cymbals) as well as editing the FI...

Difficult to say why; but we'd written 3 new songs in 2 weeks, one of these had 8 different parts with different rhythms which might have confused everybody... So next rehearsal we're going to play them in 2s, i.e. drums/bass, drums/guitar, drums/vox, bass/guitar etc which should beat it into everybody. And we'll make sure the drummer knows how to use the SoundBrenner metronome!

Gig in Worcester last night. And I'd like to say we nailed it. But we didn't... Guitarist cocked up the 1st song by coming out of the break early, then in other bits I had no idea what he was playing - it wasn't what he was meant to and it wasn't in the right key, not even in a good way. I forgot my intro for another song, which has never happened before; drummer stopped in completely the wrong place a few times, then changed patterns in random places, plus couldn't get his metronome to work so we speeded up. Singer got confused and put verses/choruses in the wrong order and wrong places. But on the plus side, we did 4 out of 10 songs well; a punter came up and said "you were messy and not tight enough, but you've got an excellent sound!" - he was right about the 1st bit. Just hope he was also right about the 2nd!

I'm usually pretty near the front... And in the current band I write about 80% of the music which means I can get away with playing far too many notes.

They were excellent every time I saw them (6 times),but then the biggest venue was the Astoria so they were still hungry for it!

Found one of these on ebay for £notverymuch... And it works perfectly! Not only that but now I've got lots more inputs available into Ableton.

There's all sorts of unsafe and sipid music produced by every generation... You may not like it, but that's the point, isn't it? Try these for a start: http://girlband.ie/

I've never been overly impressed by anything he's done; never really liked the Beatles, and definitely didn't like Wings! He didn't play bass the way I liked it - which is mainly about the rhythm rather than being mainly about a melodic underpinning. However, enough bass players who I do like cite him as an influence and seminal to their playing - which is good enough for me! So while he certainly isn't a direct influence on me he is indirectly...

But nothing sounds better than playing On The One!

That's why I always preferred Chillis from before BSSM. There were fewer attempts at singing, and I like Hillel's and even Jack Sherman's guitar playing more than Frusciante's...

My favourite Flea moments were at the Mean Fiddler gig in 1988... Hillel Slovak left the stage due to being "tired and emotional" leaving Flea, Keidis and Jack Irons to continue. Lots of over-playing ensued, which was nice.

It's funny how so many bass players absolutely hate skilful bass playing, and seem to have the idea that bass should be sitting in the background doffing its cap to the "lead" instruments while respectfully muttering "yes sir, no sir"! Bass is whatever the player wants it to be. If you don't like what the player's doing, that's fine; but that's just taste, not what should or shouldn't be played...

The Wounded Paw blender was originally at the front, but I found I didn't switch any of the loops off, just individual pedals. And it was much more difficult reaching them behind that big ol' thing... I also use the Polytune as a kill switch - don't like the audience to hear tuning. Might turn it for aesthetic reasons once I've got more suitable leads. And I could move stuff around to get more pedals on there - used to have 3 envelope filters in different loops but the FI adds so much squelch I don't need them, and I've discovered that using the Microtubes on the main output seems to be more pleasing than in one of the loops. Also not too worried about the FI's size - it's not as big as the wireless receiver...

Had a bit of a re-jig to give space to the Future Impact... Have to decide whether to sell 3 Leaf and DOD envelope filters, plus Boss bass synth and bass overdrive.

Anyone got any ideas about cheap means of connecting the FI to my laptop? I've got an Alessis midi-usb interface that doesn't work at all... Or do I need to upgrade my Scarlett 2i2 to 8i6 or more?

What's your band? We're Choked....

Was that with Terminal Rage? Their bass player's girlfriend is our singer... And we played with them last week in Leominster.

The SYB5 is a bit limited... But having one of those made me decide I wanted a proper synth! And it cost me £351 including shipping and tax. Don't know how long Mr Postie takes to bring it from Hungary though.

I hope that "FI is still king"... I've just ordered one from Panda! Now which of my pedals should I sell - 3 Leaf envelope filter? DOD envelope filter? FwonkBeta? Darkglass microtubes? Digitech Bass Whammy? Definitely Boss bass synth!

Ta! Next time The Weeds have a Sheffield do I'll give you a shout... Last time was for Tramlines. Not convinced by the Enzo - perhaps I just haven't seen a good demo but seems to be very much about synthy textures rather than phat'n'pfunky-ness. And it seems to be a bit lacking in switchable presets?

Despite all this, I'm still tempted by the Boss, if for no other reason than polyphony... Might have to take a trek to somewhere that's got one to have a play. Shame the Future Impact is so hard to find, which makes testing a bit difficult.

In that case could a full fat Helix do the PFunky stuff that an FI or SY300 could do? Though I like the sequency stuff available on the SY; but either would freak out the band - I could imagine their little faces if I start producing noises like that Gundy Keller on his FI and SY reviews!

I've been looking at the Boss SY300 as well as the Future Impact... The Boss looks like it could replace all my pedal board as well as give me access to sequencing and phatphunky stuff too. Looks like it does more than the FI, but never tried either and there's no means of trying them here in darkest South Shropshire. I assume both can be edited via USB, but I like those Tamas Barabas sounds for the Boss. Which to buy?