Muzz

I regularly work with three or four professional/semi-professional deps, and they set up (we give them a hand in with their bags/boxes first) in 20 minutes max, including a kick and overhead mic, with minimal noise until the actual soundcheck starts. Any more than that and I'd be looking at a guy who frankly hasn't got his sh*t together... The professional guys are the fastest to set up...funny that...

I have a friend whose Mrs was out on the lash, and at the end of a long drinking session decided to climb a steel fence, jumped down the other side and carried on up the street. It was only when she and her friend had got to the top of the road about 1/4 mile later and were trying to hail a cab that she spotted she was missing the top two joints of her left little finger. During all the shenanigans with hospitals, etc, her other half went looking for it with a torch and found it sticking out of the top of the fence...

That's the rig of a man who knows he's never gonna have to lift any of it...

Coincidentally, for most of our gigs it sounds like I'm playing with my feet...let's see the Flea boy beat that... EDIT: For a real answer, I think it's a perfect time to use the phrase "shambling on like Wombles"...

Sold Frank a Hipshot Xtender - easy, pleasant transaction - deal with confidence, he's a top chap....

I noticed the ER20 standard ones did get uncomfortable after a couple of hours (and went from comfortable to very uncomfortable quickly), but I can't recall any time I've thought the custom moulds were uncomfortable - trying to think of the longest stretch I've had them in in one go, and that'd probably be three hours or so at a long practice session. I regularly have them in for 90 minutes at a time at gigs.

I've been through just that upgrade path - started with the generic plugs, then moved to the ACS custom fits, and I now use these for both attenuation at other people's gigs and for monitoring onstage at my own with the ACS T15 drivers. As far as monitoring goes, the T15 monitors are right at single-driver entry level for that kind of thing (tho better than in-ears like the Shure SE215), and some folk prefer 2 or 3 drivers, but for my ears they're fine, and I don't feel any desire to spend £300 more. The ER15 (now Pro17) attenuation is very very good, and the custom fit moulds are a world apart from the off the shelf jobbies. They attenuate sound across the spectrum, so I don't notice any boominess, in fact for things like talking to people at gigs they're miles clearer than not having them in. At loud guitar-based gigs, they take out the harsh ringing upper mids and highs, and you can hear more of the spread of instruments. Like any attenuation, they take a little bit of getting used to, to get over the slight disjunction of lower sound levels, but as I've started with tinnitus, I won't go to gigs (or gig) without them now. Comfort-wise, I'm rarely aware I've got them in.

Sold Mark some Hipshots, smooth and easy transaction - he's one of the good guys...Cheers Mark.

I've got the T15s in a set of ACS moulds, and I get plenty of bass. Not as good as triple drivers, naturally, but then they're a third of the price. I use them for general listening, too, and they're fine for me. Better than the SE215s I had, certainly. There's got to have been something wrong with the seal if the was no bass at all...as with all in-ears, it's all about the fit. If they're not attenuating the outside world, they're not fitting properly. Are you using the black adaptors between the T15s and the moulds?

Yep, I've got ACS plugs and the T15 drivers in (only single drivers, but good enough for my wrecked old ears), I use a MyMonitor mixer/amp to monitor myself and get a line back from the desk to hear everyone else. Very good, as I can mix a bit more of 'me' in when/if I need it. A double lead from OBBM means I haven't had to go to the mither and expense of wireless IEMs (we had two LD systems go bang at a gig the other week).

Went to see Whitesnake last year, and they were down-tuned to G*....and Mr Coverdale still strugged on the higher bits... * Yep, I was the saddo in the audience waiting for a long open E with the tuner on my phone switched on...

If you need a lot of volume, then a Barefaced Super 12 (or S12T) would be a good call - very, very light, too...oh, and it has wheels, too...

That's a lovely lovely thing...

One of the beauties of IEMs is that you can get the tone you've been faffing about with for ages in your ears, completely removed from the cab, the stage, the room and all those shenanigans. Let the FOH guy(s) worry about the room acoustics and overall sound, I can overlay my tone onto the band in my ears and I'm happy in my little bubble...as has been said before, 99% of the audience don't care about the bass sound as long as it's there.

I think IKB's main issue was that he was a terrific shortarse - he was only 5'7" to the top of his hat in that photo... Anyway, I'd like a Torero for that Nonchalant Mouseketeer look...

So's mine: Mighty Mite maple Jazz neck, Wizard Big P/J set (Thumper and 84), Schaller 3D bridge, CTS pots and Serial switch fitted. Done.

Where do you find these venue staff who can tell/give a crap about basses? I could turn up with a 9-string solid gold Alembic with 27 LEDs and all I'd get would be "The bass is a bit shiny, mate..."

The 202... Basses really need to be played to be appreciated: they're the ultimate stealth bass. The blurb does tend to read like techno-twaddle, but the reality is they're very, very good indeed.

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1400881841' post='2457969'] I've just had a cable made up by OBBM on here, which pairs a mono instrument cable with a stereo headphone feed, I'm going to use a headphone mixer/amp on my amp to control the mix of PA feed/direct bass signal. [/quote] This is I think what you're asking about - the cable is a single piece (kinda figure-eight in section), one side has the normal two 1/4" jack plugs for the instrument either end, the other side has a 3.5mm stereo socket at one end so you can plug you in-ears in, and at the other end a 3.5mm (or 1/4") plug to plug into your headphone mixer/amp sitting on top of your amp. I used mine on Saturday night, and it worked well (there's another thread - the iOS for Gigging Bassist one) where I go into more detail, but overall it's a good solution.

Ok, sooooo, following a catastrophic gig last weekend when two wireless units went bang (one receiver, one transmitter), resulting in me not using my in-ears and ending up deaf, I decided to get a backup wired system sorted out. I got OBBM of this parish to make me up a combination instrument/headphones lead, and bought an ART MyMonitor headphone amp/mixer. The gig was the worst possible situation to try it out for the first time: we played a holiday park, so no sound check or even noise to be made during setup, but it worked really well. Bass into Sonic Port/iPad, Sonic Port into FX Return of the Streamliner, DI out from Streamliner into the Art mixer, out to PA. Feed from PA into Art mixer, headphones into Art mixer. I got the whole band on one volume control, and me on another. Result. The only downsides were a middy tone to the bass, and a mono feed from the PA meant it could have sounded better and more balanced, but we can work on it when we get more than ten minutes. I'm sure I can get it right, but at least I could hear everything everyone was doing, especially me. About £85, too, so until I can afford a really good wireless IEM, I'm gonna work with this.

OK, I'll clarify that one: there isn't an ACG shape I like at all...the nearest would be the J-type, but that one's too Jazz-y for me. They're beautifully made, though.

Yep, I wanted a bass (in luthier terms) REALLY quickly, after the new-4003W fiasco (birthday present) and Jon had a Stock bass part-built which I liked. I wasn't keen on the neck, though, so he made me one to my spec from scratch, added the pups and all my choice of hardware and finished it in three weeks. Result... Everyone else was struggling to get one to me in any sort of timescale I could live with.