Scotticus

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1204686' date='Apr 19 2011, 12:58 PM']since you've mentioned the attack, release and alluded to key filtering, I guess you're after a pretty advanced gate.[/quote] Ah, that's probably true Dan. I've been spoiled by learning how compression and gating works on rack hardware, then had plugins to fiddle about with for the last few years. No stomp boxes have the same level of control (at least not the ones I can afford)

[quote name='joegarcia' post='1204807' date='Apr 19 2011, 02:26 PM']I'd just put the pedals you need to switch on/off quickly in a bypass loop so you can do it neatly in one stomp. Best to avoid gates wherever possible and use them as an absolute last resort I'd say.[/quote] Hey Joe - this sounds promising. Sorry to seem thick, but I'm really not a gearhead (at least not pedals-wise), so if you've got a minute to answer a couple of daft questions... My head has a loop (Genz Benz Shuttle 6), though I don't have a foot switch to bypass it. I could get one, but to be honest if something I could have on the board exists for this purpose I'd rather go that route. The idea of building the board setup is to have less plugging in to do before and after gigs (because I'm lazy), and less wiring laying around on stage (because I'm a deadly mixture of clumsy and too blind to see them) so the mess of leads I had before was an accident waiting to happen. Any tips on a way to do this, keeping it totally on the board? I guess I'm after a decent quiet stompable loop. Cheers Scott

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1205502' date='Apr 20 2011, 08:50 AM']I've never noticed a cut in the low mids from my NS-2. Is sounds like you have your compressor set up to be pretty harsh!! Maybe a subtler setting would be more suitable. No wonder it was raising the noise floor when it was at the start of the chain![/quote] True, I'm pushing the TonePress pretty hard, because it feels great to play at those settings. I did try easing up on it a lot though, and the second of "breathing" wasn't quite as noticeable but still definitely there. Hmmm, I've always liked the Tonepress for it's simplicity... it just does what I want a compressor to do without tweaking... but maybe I'm too fussy to not have manual control over attack times and such.

Tonight at rehearsal, I rewired as follows: Warwick $$ 5 -> NS2 input NS2 send -> Tech21 XXL input XXL output -> NS2 return NS2 output -> Tonepress input Tonepress output -> Genz Benz Shuttle 6 head Shuttle 6 -> rubbish backline cab There are a few positives: Not having a compressor before the Tech21 XXL was great, it reminded me why I liked the pedal in the first place. With some tweaking of the NS2, I managed to get a wonderfully quiet rig, so you'd think jobs a goodun, but... Negatives: It's now impossible to get a significant boost when I engage the XXL distortion, because the Tonepress grabs it and evens everything out. Worst part of this niggle is that there's a bit of recovery time when I switch back to clean, a big drop and then half a second or so of it ramping back up. The biggest negative, I swear I can hear this NS2 sucking a load of body out of my sound. Seems to be a noticeable drop in low-mids as soon as it's turned on, no matter what I set it like. It's a lengthy rant, but there are my findings. Any further advice would be much appreciated, because if I can hear this on a sh*tty rehearsal room cab, it's going to drive me up the wall next time I get to play through anything better (Friday night) Cheers all Scott

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1204415' date='Apr 19 2011, 08:37 AM']There's no compressor aspect to the NS2 is there? I have an NS2 but I have all (well, most) pedals in it's loop, rather than just having it at the end of the chain. If you have a compressor before it, it might be that there's not enough variation in gain for the gate to react properly.[/quote] What I meant by "compressor aspect" is that I can kinda feel the NS2 gradually swelling when I start to play, so the first second or so is a bit touch and go. Badly explained the first time round. Having done some reading, I think I'm wiring this completely arse about face. Tonight I'm gonna try running the drive pedal in the loop for starters cos everything is in line at the moment, and I'm also probably going to try putting the Tonepress (compressor pedal I like) last in the chain. That way, the compressor will just be rounding out the dynamics of clean and distortion sounds, rather than sending more hiss and crap into the drive pedal before the NS2 gets to work on it. Hopefully my Tonepress can react quick enough to iron out that swelling feeling too.

Hey all, So, I'm looking for a gate to add to the end of my small pedal board. Basically, it's just to tighten up the ends of notes and stop my distortion pedal from grabbing at every tiny noise or harmonic when I'm flailing around and the muting discipline leaves me. That, and it's a way to clean up the noise if I want to leave the distortion active for small breaks where there isn't any bass (I want to do this from time to time because I'm clumsy as hell, so two stomps avoided wherever possible means a less accident prone gig. I tried a Boss NS2 noise suppressor, because I had one laying around. It worked to a point, but I couldn't seem to get a snappy enough release time on the gate for my liking, plus with the settings as extreme as they needed to be for it to gate well it started to suck a lot of body from my sound. Does anyone else use an NS2 for this purpose? Is it worth sticking with it, or picking up a different gate. I should add that the first pedal at t'other end of the signal chain is a Barber Tonepress compressor, which I'm pretty happy with. I mention this because the compressor aspect of the NS2 is probably redundant. Any thoughts welcome... Scott

I already own a comfort strap, and have been pretty happy with it so far. Doesn't blow me away looks-wise, but it's comfy, and I'm on the wrong side of 25 now so comfy matters... I'm going to be bringing my Ibanez ATK 5 string out of retirement to play in a little side project, and I'm on the hunt for a new strap. Have to have a dedicated strap for each bass because I'm so forgetful. The only criteria is that it's got to be as comfy as the Comfort strap, be under 50 squid, and be able to make me forget that this ATK is like slinging a tree around... soooo heavy! Any recommendations? Scott

Hi folks, So, I got me a Lava kit to hook up my new pedal board. For the uninitiated, it's decent cable with teeny tiny right angled jacks and supposedly simple solderless assembly for simpletons like me. I've chopped the wire to roughly the desired length (luckily left a bit extra in case I botched anything), stripped a few CM of the outer coating away, the core underneath appears to be in pretty much top-notch condition though I confess to having nothing to compare it to, and there is just enough of it to thread through the jack insert thingy. Basically, i read the instructions and followed them so far as I can tell. Trouble is, despite trying multiple jacks and even a different section of cable just in case, I haven't had a signal successfully passing through yet. I can only imagine I'm missing something incredibly obvious. Anybody got any thoughts/tips? Cheers in advance Scott

Just snagged an original of this on Ebay for £40, seemed like a good move. I played the bass edition at the weekend and enjoyed the asalt on my ears! Does anyone know what the difference is between the original/bass/guitar editions of this badboy? I'll know myself in 2 days when it arrives I guess, but meh, I'm impatient. Cheers Scott

[quote name='Silent Fly' post='946988' date='Sep 6 2010, 10:44 AM']To summarise: - Wires: [i]Belt-unit, MIDI cable, MIDI-switcher, pedals[/i] - Wireless: [i]Belt-unit with bluetooth [bluetooth connection] bluetooth-receiver with MIDI-out, MIDI-switcher, pedals[/i] If you use wires, and the number is pedals is limited, it is possible build a remote controller that is not MIDI-based. In other words, the remote controller "talks" to the remote switcher using a non-standard system.[/quote] Hey Silent Fly, glad you've replied Having read your ideas, a few potential flaws spring to mind: - I play a Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0, so can't switch straight to a dirty channel via MIDI or relay as it's a 1 single channel head. - The above is why I had some sort of modification to stomp boxes in mind instead. - Money is reasonably tight. I can justify splashing out on customised stuff if it needs to be built, because labour and the skill to do so come at a price, but my Missus would have a fit if I needed to buy much more standard gear So, thinking along a totally different line for a moment, how good are you at actual hardware design? I just had a brief vision of a chunky metal box-shaped housing that's big enough to accomodate a single pedal on a base plate. The top half of the enclosure could be slightly raised, perhaps with a spring at each corner, so it can be depressed by being stomped on. Here's the genius stroke. On the underside of the lid of this gadget, there'd be some sort of adjustable clamp or grip, so I could place whatever pedal was currently rocking my world inside the housing, and align the clamp mechanism to grip the stomp button of that pedal. This way, when I stomp with my giant clumsy boot of doom, I'd have the whole surface area of the top of the unit to aim for, rather than a tiny button. There'd be no chance of knocking the settings of the pedal if I stomped slightly off the mark, because it would be safely under the lid of the housing. And, I'd be able to adapt the unit to be used with whatever gear necessary so it'd have a longer life. It's very different from the vague techno ideas I had floating around when I started this topic, but do you reckon it could be done? More importantly, do you reckon it could be done and leave you with less of a headache than all the bluetooth stuff? I already owe you a box of painkillers for the tuner Cheers Scott

[quote name='throwoff' post='947011' date='Sep 6 2010, 11:05 AM']Is there anyway the effects could be be built into a bass? The just turned on and off with microswitches mounted to the front?[/quote] Yah, that would probably be the most convenient solution. Trouble is, while I'm not a huge gearhead, I am a horrible sound snob. Anything small enough to build directly into a bass would either cost an arm and a leg, or be cutting corners sound-wise and that'd annoy the hell out of me after a few hours. Btw, I'm currently plonking a Corvette $$ 5 string and am happy to be doing so. Fingers crossed that you click with yours when she arrives man. Scott

[quote name='cheddatom' post='946864' date='Sep 6 2010, 08:20 AM']could you not just get your drummer to switch pedals for you with his left foot? I have a pedal board next to me when I drum (but it's for drums).[/quote] It's a thought Cheddatom. My reservations are that he's already singing backup vocals, playing very involved parts (often on unfamiliar kits due to promoters down here insisting on kit shares), and I wouldn't want to add another pressure to his performance. Plus, to be honest, there's probably a daft streak of wanting to be totally self-sufficient creeping in somewhere. Cheers for the thought though... Scott

[quote name='dood' post='946629' date='Sep 5 2010, 08:27 PM']Just reminded me! Audio Technika used to do a wireless system that had a button you could mount on your bass connected to the transmitter. You'd then be able to switch channels on say an amp by connecting to a socket on the receiver. I have no idea if they still have a similar system these days - but wireless switching, it's something to think about for sure.[/quote] Beauty, I've not come across these yet but they sound like another avenue worthy of investigation. Let the Googling commence...

Dad3353 - I send the dog off to gather supplies of heroin and hoes while I'm on stage... nil points! Dood - aha, small world on here isn't it, glad you're diggin' the band! We started off life playing everything to a click, and still tend to for the first few public airings of new tunes until the nerves have worn off, but we don't use it consistently enough nowadays for me to develop a system that's reliant on it. Bobbass4k - yup, that tuner build was indeed for me. The thing is built like a tank, Max is the man. Having read the replies so far, I'm agreeing that sending relays direct from the bass might be the way to go. I started off running with the idea of switches to flick with the thumb of my right hand (mounted above each pickup perhaps). After a bit of practice though, I reckon latching buttons of some sort would be easier, whacking down on something feels more definite, and I seem to be able to hit consistently with my thumb no matter which finger I lead with, probably a good sign. Time to email Silentfly methinks, but if you happen to read this and have ideas we haven't covered yet, keep 'em coming. Cheers all Scott

I've got an unusual situation here that has me totally stumped, hoping there's a gadget guru on here who might be able to nudge me in the right direction.. I play bass for a London-based female-fronted alt metal band called The Mariana Hollow. Here's a link if you're curious about what it sounds like: [url="http://www.themarianahollow.com"]www.themarianahollow.com[/url] Essentially, what I'm looking for is a way to trigger effects on stage (mainly dirty drives, a choice of 2 would do) without needing to carry shed loads of gear around and without needing to stomp on pedals. Here's the background as to why I'm trying to perform this puzzler... Basically, I'm totally blind. Over time, I've realised that when I'm on stage surrounded by music blaring from amps and wedges, with a plug in one ear and an in-ear monitor in the other, my usual senses of spacial awareness become about as affective as a chocolate teapot. So while I like to have a bit of a jiggle and throw some hair about (that's a rock jiggle, not a Mum at a wedding jiggle), the overwhelming urge is to keep my feet very firmly planted in one safe spot as a center of gravity/reference point. Hopefully, all that background explains why I'm sh*t at stomping on pedals accurately. I'm sure it's a practice thing to an extent, but I'm also sure that there's always going to be a bit more room for error when you're trying to step on a tiny button mid-headbang if you can't see what you're aiming at, and with the band starting to get some proper attention, I'm trying to find a solution that goes some way toward iliminating the possibility of me making an arse up of epic proportions. Any and all questions, thoughts, suggestions, and offensive blind gags welcome Scott