Muzz

Really enjoying the iPad/Jamup setup for playing live, the only big issue I have is a really niggling simple one, which is - has anyone found a convenient and reliable way of securing the Sonic Port if, like me, you have your iPad on a mic stand mount? The lead isn't long enough to reach the floor, and at the moment I'm using the amp & cab as an ad hoc Sonic Port stand, but that's hardly efficient...

The very best response to the classic 'wandering drunk' scenario is, no matter what they're actually trying to say, to shout "Brilliant! Cheers!" back to them repeatedly, and nod and smile in the most cheerful Fast Show style you can muster. Requires no actual thinking on your part, so your playing won't suffer, plus they get confused quite quickly and wander off... Works even better when I've got my in-ears in...

Still looks fantastic. Didn't Geddy play a Wal on this?

I don't have a Fender, I may well have loved this. Whatever it was...

Actually, I've just checked the FS thread on here, and it was £35.

IIRC, they were an astonishing £85. I think I sold mine for about half that...

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1398621692' post='2435862'] Two Ampeg 810 stacks gets my votes - silver cloth of course. [/quote] This, all day. As long as I don't have to actually move any of it....

God, no: I can't be doing with Jazzes, don't like the look, not that keen on the sound. My new Shuker has a double-P pickup layout. Now that's a bridge pickup!

One of the strengths of the small Schroeder cabs is their low-mid hump effectively EQs a sound which sits well in a live mix, whereas on their own they can sound boxy. I miss mine, and I'm having to re-EQ to compensate. Haven't got it right yet, tho because I'm using less and less stage monitoring (using in-ears more and more) it doesn't matter so much.

Sold an iRig to Lee, and he was very patient, as I was very slow sending (my only defence is a 50th birthday week - it's me age, honest...) but a complete gent about it all. A top chap all round. M

Bought a Hipshot from Simon, all good, well packed and delivered very quickly...he's one of the good guys... Cheers Pal...

I note you didn't actually play it...the one I had (briefly) [i]looked[/i] absolutely gorgeous, too...

When doing the majority of my gigs, I'm playing in a covers band with a very wide repertoire, so for convenience I like to be able to control the EQ on the bass rather than the amp (although with the new Jamup/iPad setup I have, there are a zillion easy presets for all sorts of amps and FX chains - for example, one finger tap is all I need to go from a bog-standard SVT rock sound to Tony Levin's Sledgehammer with Octaver, Compression and all sorts of hoo-hah). To return to the point, tho, the best onboard I've found for that is the East U-Retro: sweepable mids, a passive switch and passive EQ. I've got one in each of my main gigging basses now, and I'm even considering the heinous step of drilling holes in my Dingwall to squeeze one in...

Fascinating reading, inasmuch as there's some huge assumptions being made about what are at the end of the day organic substances with large variations in consistency and makeup. All Indian Rosewood is 797kg/m3, then? Really? That's 'A Scientific Approach'? By that 'science', all Ash Precision bodies (for example) weigh the same...as they do... More Marketing than Science, methinks...

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1398272311' post='2432351'] Why do you need an amp? All the eq is done and the monitoring is through in ears, so you only need to be louder and only need something with a flat output. Go straight into the PA and the audience should hear what you do through the in ears. If you or the rest of the band need some on-stage bass then use an active PA speaker, possibly a wedge, possibly not, with the flat class D amp you want already built in. Why carry a box, which for the way you are set up is not needed. Decent PA speakers should handle bass as well as a bass speaker and if you have DSP built in then there should be no way of blowing the speaker. [/quote] Yep, I do the non-amp thing (straight from the SonicPort (post-iPad) to the PA) sometimes, but then again I sometimes need, as you say, some on-stage bass. I could look at an active PA speaker, but the 27lb Compact I have is perfectly good as a speaker and so, I guess, is the 6lb Streamliner. I was just musing that all the posh preampery in the Streamliner's a bit superflous now...if Positive Grid (makers of the iPad app) got together with an amp manufacturer to make a simple Class D power amp, they might make some money... Thinking that even further forward, what about combining the Sonic Port and the power amp? A Class D amp with an iPad connector to use all the touchscreen goodness of the digi amp and FX models on an iPad. Maybe even put a rudimentary EQ in there in case the iPad's not available for whatever reason...plug the bass into the amp, plug the iPad in, then either (or both) run out to a cab or the PA. Right, I'm off to the Patents Office...

I go from the Sonic Port into the FX return of my Streamliner if I want some backline (and DI out of the Streamliner to the PA as normal), if I don't, I can either go straight from the Sonic Port into a DI box or (with a long enough lead) straight into the desk. The Sonic Port's brilliant for home practice/jamming, too. The only issue I have without the Streamliner/Compact backline is where to put the Sonic Port - the lead's waaayyyyy too short to put it on the floor if you have the iPad on a stand at elbow height, and I don't want to dangle it, so I have to contrive some odd perches for it. Someone suggested velcro on the back of the iPad holder, that might be the way to go....

What're you saying about my head?

Well, I'm using the power stage of my Streamliner 900 quite happily at the mo, but it just seems a waste of all those nice tubes The Demeter is sort of what I had in mind, but not quite as, erm, boutique Oh, and CamdenRob, it's VERY shiny...

OK, so in the ever-progressing search for a less-heavy-lift and less-cabling gigging life, we've got a decent Presonus desk and RCF PA now, and we've moved to wireless IEMs, so accordingly I've started using my iPad for digital amps/FX models, and it's a major leap forward. My setup is either basses>SonicPort>iPad>FX Return of Streamliner>DI out to PA or basses>SonicPort>iPad>PA, which means I can either run some backline or not, depending on venue requirements. This is such a major step forward I can't believe it - I can now hear myself perfectly, I have an individual mix (controlled via iPhone or iPad) in my ears, and best of all I can control the volume. My tinnitus thanks me. The amp models in the Jamup app are very very good (certainly good enough for what I need), and the FX are good enough for the job, too. I think I've spent less than £100 on all the EQ end, which includes half a dozen amp models, all the FX I'll ever need, tuner, plus some great jamming tools like speed and pitch control for playalong with my music library. Oh, and dozens of easy-to-set presets with full EQ/FX chains - Tony Levin's Sledgehammer to Duff to Jamerson to Marcus in a swipe of the finger... Even when we're not using in-ears, I'm still using the iPad and Jamup instead of the EQ on the Streamliner: it's just much more versatile. The only thing missing for the setup, and given the rise in this sort of thing, I'd consider it to be a pretty big hole in the market, is a small, portable Class D power amp: something along the lines of the GK MBs in size, I'd say 500w would be plenty. I know there's the SWR Amplite, but they're hardly common, and MB did kinda edge that way with their modular efforts, but there's still gotta be scope for one of the big manufacturers to just strip out their EQ, simplify the front panel, drop the price accordingly, and I think they'd sell very well. Anyone else think so?

That's ace

Cheers guys. I had a 50th party/gig, and SWMBO did a corking job of organisation so that I didn't get any presents, just cash, which went to the Birthday Bass Fund. It all adds up... [quote name='zenbassuk' timestamp='1398007735' post='2429461'] Congratulations on a fantastic birthday present. .. I have owned 2 Shuker before one of which being a 4 string Horn. Absolutely cracking instruments. Did you spy mine whilst at Jon? In a word Enjoy! [/quote] Hey Ben, Yep saw yours (the body, at least) while at Jon's, but I didn't spend half as much time there as I'd have liked: always aware that burbling on to Jon is taking time away from his builds, so I was as brief as I could manage. Not that brief, though... I've had a couple of Shukers before; a Horn (the green one with the offset Delanos) and a Series One, and while neither worked for me, it was purely in terms of pickups and EQ - the build quality and design were second to none, so I was determined to get 'my' Shuker at some point, and this is it. Gigged it again last night, and while it's a bass with a specific design in terms of pickups and EQ, the combination has produced THE most versatile bass I've ever used (and I've had a few in my time) - we do stuff from Bruno Mars to ACDC to Cee Lo Green to Foo Fighters to KC and the Sunshine Band to Luther Vandross to Johnny Cash to Paul Simon to Journey, so there's a lot of different tones needed in that lot, and I can get them with just a couple of adjustments to the EQ (and my hands). I usually take a couple of basses and switch between them, but I don't need to any more. Oh, and it's nice and light, and it plays beautifully. Definitely happy.