The Funk

I'm scared. It looks/looked awesome.

Do you need it louder for home practice?

Well, if you don't turn off the speaker simulation in the POD, you may as well go through PA speakers.

But don't you gig with PA anyway?

Fingers/Slap but I've started messing around with a pick in the privacy of my own home.

My sound engineering skills (and gunmanship skills) are a bit like Phil Spector after a few drinks!

Well, once we've got past the initial nonsense, the engineer normally manages to get a good sound that we're all happy with. We go off thinking it's been a great soundcheck, then all the support bands have their soundchecks, then they all go on and play their sets, then we come back on to do our thing.

The sound is never anywhere near the sound we had by the end of soundcheck - clearly they didn't mark anything during soundcheck. And then the sound just gets worse and worse throughout the set. We always give the engineer the benefit of the doubt and assume that FOH must be sounding pretty decent.

It's only when our musician/engineer friends in the crowd tell us afterwards that the engineer was a disgrace that we realise we've been shafted yet again by an engineer who chose:
1. not to make any note of any of the settings during soundcheck - rendering the whole thing pointless
2. to spend the entire day drinking so that he was in no fit state to do anything by the time the headline band took to the stage.

Apart from the awful sound, the ones we've had will also forget to turn on the singer's mic. Completely inexcusable.

Yeah, I always hate being told but I'm always grateful because I want to know.

It's amazing how none of the toilet circuit venues in London we've played have a decent engineer - or safe electrics.

Yeah, I think an apology's in order here. It's actually a very sensible question.

Some valve amp heads have a line-out stage after the power amp section, eg. Matamp Mini-Mat.

My Warwick Quadruplet preamp has a preamp stage AND a power amp valve on a dummy load so that you can get the preamp/power amp valve sound going into a solid state power amp.

Imagine if the question had been: "What have I done wrong? My vintage valve head blew up during a gig?"

It sounds like you don't know what you want yet, in which case I'd say hang onto that money for now.

EDIT: Completely changed my mind. It sounds like you [i]do[/i] want to get started experimenting with a few different effects soon. And the sooner you get experimenting with the different effects, the sooner you'll understand how to get the most out of them. So I'd say get a decent multi-effects unit such as the TC. A guitarist friend of mine who's toured all over the world uses a TC. It's not the only rack-mounted multi-effects unit out there but it is one of the few designed specifically for guitar and bass.

I've heard people work their way through this classic at some of the funkier jazz or jazzier funk jam sessions around London. Does anyone fancy sharing some tips/advice/info on this tune for me?

With effects, I think the real story is that you can't get good sounds out of budget kit. You're better off not using an effect at all than a cheap effect or one that you don't know how to use properly.

I have a bunch of single pedals and a rackmounted compressor/limiter. Studio effects will always be far better than pedal effects but they will also cost a lot more. There's also a convenience thing. A lot of these great studio effects are designed to be operated by an engineer (by hand), not by a musician whose hands will probably be otherwise occupied. If it's an effect you can just set and forget, or operate with some kind of MIDI foot controller, then it's gig-able. If not, you'd have to get a stomp equivalent.

Having said all that, the entry-level studio multi-effects units will probably deliver a better sound than entry-level effects pedals. Reverbs, delays, auto-wahs etc.

It's hard to generalise about these things though. Give us some sounds you're after and a budget and we'll be able to advise better.

EDIT: In terms of ease of use, all effects pedals are difficult to use if you don't spend the time getting to learn what they do. The controls may be presented in different ways on Multi-Effects units and individual pedals but they perform the same functions. If you don't understand those functions, it won't matter if it's a pedal with 3 controls or a rack unit with a digital interface - you'll have no control over whether you get a good or crap sound.

[quote name='funkysimon' post='34811' date='Jul 20 2007, 05:15 PM']FACE! And the other good mnemonic for the treble clef,
Every Good Boy Deserves Fellatio

I can't think of a good one for the bass clef lines. George Bush Deserves F'kin Evisceration, maybe? Hmmm, bit political.[/quote]

Well, continuing your oral sex theme, Good Boys Deserve Fellatio Everyday

Fried chicken grease - wasn't that always Jaco's joke 'secret' to his sound.

If you like the dead string sound then just don't change them. Obviously you have to if they break, but that doesn't happen very often.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='34607' date='Jul 20 2007, 01:02 PM']worth considering - big bang for buck - [url="http://www.george-dennis.cz/pages/bassamp"]http://www.george-dennis.cz/pages/bassamp[/url][/quote]

Those amps have a control knob in the EQ section called BALLS. Superb!

Good stuff. Great fingerstyle, slap and pick technique. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Bloody hell. That's great. See if the seller can throw in some punctuation for you too. (kidding!)

Nothing to be scared of in trying it. Just don't buy it until you have.

The size (and quality) of your bass collection.

[quote name='fullrangebass' post='33620' date='Jul 18 2007, 01:59 PM']Other:

Dingwalls mainly

[url="http://www.dingwallguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=664"]http://www.dingwallguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=664[/url]

, but another 30+ basses are available at hand[/quote]

Yes, I have to echo some of the comments on that other forum... What? How?

If you travel a fair bit, you could peel the worn, damaged old stickers and tags off your suitcases and chuck 'em all over a brand new flightcase out there.

If you live near there just find a way of picking it up yourself. I don't trust musical equipment shops. They regularly manage to sell stuff you've already bought off them to someone else.

Bloody hell. That looks nice.

If you're ever in South London, they had a few in stock in Gig Sounds last time I was there. Didn't get a proper chance to try one out thanks to the ars*y store manager.