SamIAm

The thread in questions is 

In another thread it has become obvious that there are many gifted female bass players about!

But how many of us on BC?

I'd love to know and perhaps start a discussion thread on the factors that we face (that may be different from the lovely gents here).

Please PM me if you are happy to share, including things such as:

• What bass you play.
• Pros/Cons you've found as a female basser.
• Where in the world you are located (approximately)
• Any advice for new gals starting out.

S'manth xx

Please no comments, PMs only ... thank you!

3 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Is it the same for violinists, or harpists..? They, too, are musicians. Should singers be considered musicians, too..? If only bass has a male bias that would surprise me. Personally, I think that it's just a matter of individuals (male or female...) wanting to play the instrument they play (or singers, to sing...). I'm just Occam's Razor simple, though. 

My personal view is that basses (Electric ones at least) tend to be large and heavy and are harder generally (Oh shoot me down here) for us gals to hold, fret, carry.  I used to be 5"9', since playing the bass I'm now 4"11' (A lie, but hopefully an amusing one!)

Exceptions to everything, but statistically are there not more male than female basis players here on BC and in the world of music?

And be careful with Occam's Razor, it has a sharp edge lol

S'manth xx

52 minutes ago, msb said:

Gender has absolutely nothing to do with musical ability. 
 

… simple

Not talking about musical ability, I would agree with you on that.

But let us consider some evidence.

Big South West Bash Bash - One female bassist (me)

Demographics on BC

Research (Check google scholar)

Sex and Gender are not the same, but often women are smaller and less physically strong and basses tend to be large and heavy.

And there are cultural differences to account for

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege

And the timeless

S'manth x

What is missing!

Who here is a female  bassist!!

Let's share our approach!

PM me if you prefer

Smanth x

36 minutes ago, Owen said:

M'eshell is as good as it gets on bass. 

 

Ironically, when I was doing lessons the girls were always better than the boys. My top 5 pupils would all have been girls. 

Note my lack of surprise!

S'manth xx

1 hour ago, TheRev said:

I bet some of them don't even have an opinion on flats vs rounds.

Flatwounds all the way!!!!

S'manth x

On 12/10/2022 at 11:57, dclaassen said:

Cannot forget Thomann's own Julia Hofer.....

In my shortlist and I simply love her style!

And I fancy her! lol

S'manth xxx

21 minutes ago, mikel said:

As for weight and fret spacing. Plenty of lighter basses out there, and semi or hollow body models. And short scale for smaller hands. I only mention as I am a bloke but vertically challenged, and I have small hands so I can empathise. 

I'm also a short scale lover.

S'manth x

I recently attended the most excellent Big Fat South West Bass Bash, a most excellent event!

When you consider female bassist, for instance this very short list:

• Carole Kaye
• Esperanza Emily Spalding
• Gail Ann Dorsey
• Gail Greenwood
• Johnette Napolitano
• Julia Hoffer
• Kim Deal
• Kim Gordon
• Paz Lenchatin
• Suzi Quattro
• Tina Weymouth

And SO many more!!!

There are a lot of us about!

I was shocked to find I was the only gal bash basher at the event!

Now given basses tend to be heavy as f*ck and with frets that are miles apart it may be a challenge, but. ..

I'd love to hear who you consider great female bass players ... and I would especially love to hear from any female bass player here on BC?

It's not about dissing the gents (Who here on BC are amongst the most lovely folks in existence), it's about discussing the approaches to how best to manage these huge instruments for those of use with lighter frames in a way that makes people sit up and beg for more!!!!!

S'manth xxx

5 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

I did too

 

though if the schematic works it would be easier and cheaper to layout our own board and get a few made up… 

Luke, where did you get his done?

S'manth x

See further down

What a thing of beauty .. @Jabba The Hutt is an artist!

Tho is seems to missing a B0 string lol

S'manth xx

EMG are the boss!

I used the MMCS in Twiggy and ... well, they rocked!

GLWTS

S'manth x

2 minutes ago, Merton said:

Absolutely. I’ll have my ACG Mule (in the classifieds here already), possibly some other bits too. Do we want to start a list of bits?

Totally!

That UBASS is gorgeous!

I had one in black (But the fire took it!)

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 18:20, pn_day said:

Surely the dream bass multi-effect is just the next one that you buy, and then shortly thereafter sell on the marketplace here?
I'm looking at you @stewblack!

 

But yes - open source, build your own is a very nice idea. 

 

For me, decent preamp, compressor, tuner, some modulation, and then ideally some spare digital processing for future proofing/loading other processing. It's beginning to sound like the MOD Dwarf (or whatever that project was called). 

Phil

 

 

 

LOL!!!  Poor @stewblack, (I do love him!)

Open Source (IMHO) means that whilst I might start the project, anyone can enhance it ... I'm fairly techie but have limited bass/audio experience, but there are many out there who do ... and they can add to the result!  Also, as it is not being built for profit (But just for love and perhaps the delight of seeing some folks actually using it!) it will be in the price point of more than some of the incredibly sexy units that are available (I'm looking at you Neural!)

I see the range of F/X falling into a number of camps:

• Those that are available already as various plugins for other F/X units or DAWs or even perhaps in other commercial units, some are free, some are paid for, some that currently run only on Windoze or MacOs.
• Those that some users write themselves, these can range from ... ahem ... heavyweight C++ or some such code to GUI based plugins developed using tools like Juce, Elementary, Pure Data, etc.
• There are a lot of users who just want to select the F/X ... probably need some sort of shared F/X site for this, with rankings etc ... not a huge issue!
• Some users will want to emulate the sounds of existing F/X and a IR/DSP sampling approach will work here.

"Unamed MFX" will  be able to do all of this (bit it will take time!)

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 18:12, stewblack said:

The behemoth I commissioned was mainly distortions drives and boosts, Just a hugely expensive noise box really.

For me the ultimate multi effect would have at least 8 switches, assignable in any way I liked, parallel processing,  a good compressor, some great synth sounds, a clean boost separate from distortion and fuzz, a really bubbly watery auto wah, a pedal for manual wah, a phaser, a chorus and a flanger. It would be instantly responsive (no lag) and have external control via a smart phone or tablet. Be bluetooth compatible and with a proper DI out. Be as physically small as possible, rugged construction and a really simple user interface.

Stew, your points are insightful and well made.

8 Switches is doable, some might want more or less, in two rows or a single row ... my unit (I must come up with a name for it!) will allow that.

Assignable in any way - for sure, the Mod Dwarf I played with seemed to have hit this nail on the head, you could 'almost' assign anything to do anything ... the only limit I noted was that I'd like to be able to have a switch/midi command/button on your bass (Oh yes, this is possible!) change one or two or multiple settings.  Another example is an expression pedal that could morph from one configuration to another (Volume up, wah down, fuzz from nowt to extreme ... all with one control pedal).

Parallel processing - For sure!  My Stomp seems to support two paths, the Mod dwarf seems to support as many as you want (But it has some limitations that I find too constraining). I'm aiming for a mullti-core "beating heart" of the unit, to allow for DSP upon DSP ... and the beauty of this open source approach is that in a year (or three) when something more capable is available, just upgrade it (Rather than the ... hey you can buy a whole new device for £££)

DI - Like it!

F/X - Not being a musical prodigy (nor a maths genius) I intend to rely on the plugins that are out there, but when you support (As I intend to) all the popular formats, there are literally thousands!  To be fair, a subset of these are aimed as bass and a smaller subset at decent, but ... I really like the approach taken by Quad Cortex Neural Capture and the Impulse Response approach, where you can capture the essence of something and model it.  There is tech that will do this that is not costly (For example the Corel ... a fairly cheap add on that can detect faces, cats, cars ... it surely can figure out some analogue pedal characteristics)

Small - it's a tradeoff ... to small means no room for display and switches, too big and you need a Mac trick to carry it about!  And this will vary from one player to another, but a solution will be found!

Lag - Totally agree!  The lag in switching "pedalboards" on the Dwarf was unacceptable to me, the Stomp not so much.  Basically my perspective is if I have to wait for a device to do what I ask it is a fail!

Rugged - Oh yes!  Resilient to drops, slips, trips, dropped pints, drummers (lol) ... IMHO this means a touchscreen display is out ... too fragile.

Simple UI - The most important point I feel, it could be capable of running the entire NASA space program ... but if it is not easy to configure in advance and even more so use when gigging ... it will be like a lead balloon!

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 18:06, Skybone said:

Didn't @stewblack get someone to custom build a multi-fx pedal a while ago?

 

EDIT: Found it - Lunar Cluster

 

Surely, something like the Tech21 Bass Fly Rig v2 or the Valeton Dapper Bass would be a great reference point.

 

Personally, I really can't fault the Pod Go. Yes it's limited. No, I'm not using all of it's capabilities. Sounds great though.

Good shout, both of those units have some nice features.  Added to list!

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 17:35, BigRedX said:

One of the things to consider if you are going for two tiers of footswitches would be to stagger them so that there is less chance of hitting one of the front switches whilst pressing one at the back. Have a look at the Roland FC100 Mk2 to see what I mean. For this very reason I don't use any of the top row of switches on my Helix whilst I'm actually playing and they are reserved for use between songs, which IMO reduces their effectiveness.

Great point.

The positioning of footswitches can make a huge difference.

Too close together - fail!

Too many - it weighs a ton!

Too few - not enough control when gigging.

I've built a multi-switch control unit before, Trampa, which was based on an open source project called Pedalino Mini.

It is an  amazing design, with the ability to add as many/few switches and seems to support almost every type of third party expression pedal out there!

If you scroll down the readme page you can see it's capabilities as well as a number of "I built one of these" photos from various users, which I found fascinating!

It has many pros but also some cons from my perspective (no easy USB MIDI, limited display capabilities, only configurable from a web interface) but I will be adapting a lot of similar features into my yet to be named MFX unit.

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 17:12, skidder652003 said:

 A noble preamp and a cali 76 compressor!

Added to list.

edit

Check out this rather cool video (In fact he has a lot of cool videos!)

The Neural DSP Quad Cortex comes in at a not so cool ballpark of £1,600, but the idea of "capturing" a sound (A bit like IRs do) is not unique and there are ... more cost effect ways of implementing this tech approach ... definitely a feature for the list!!!

S'manth x

On 07/10/2022 at 19:24, LukeFRC said:

I think the first step in a successful project is laying out what it is you want to achieve.
Or what are you achieving that you couldn't do better another way? Are the effects pluggins you would be using any better/worse than a Zoom MS-60b or similar cheap MFX? 
What could you do that no-one else is doing, or doing well? 

Or is it an exercise in using your programming chops for something cool? I dunno, I'm skeptical of such an open brief.  

One of the cool projects/products I saw was the little Robbie pilot - essentially a pre programmed midi controller for HX stomp - but also really clever in that it made a complex bit of functionality really simple and allowed you to do things simply that previously were difficult. 

Luke, your POV is spot on.

I've played with Zooms, Mod devices, Line 6 units (Sadly none of the high end stuff, tho happy to if someone would loan me one! lol)

They all fall short (IMHO)

I feel a "dream mfx pedal" would:

• Not be be costly.  I aim to use easily available H/W and open source the software.  I'm doing this for love not dosh!  Let's spend out money on our basses etc!
• Seamless to gig with (Multi footswitches to either switch in/out settings, snapshots, presets/layouts) ... but able to integrate with state of the art  midi/ble/osc systems for those that want to, and the ability to configure via computer in advance of a gig ... best of both worlds I hope!
• As intuitive to use as a pedalboard made up of pyysical pedals, who the heck wants to have a degree in computer science to use it!?  Twist that know to get what you want, press that button to store it ... LISS!
• Robust (I feel that touchscreen is too vulnerable to the sort of things that happen at gigs, like pints of beer being dropped, feet being misplaced, etec, etc). Protected screens and twisty/pressy knobs ... I'm not sure it would survive a Hummer ... but you never know! lol
• Aimed at bass players ... most (if not all) of the MFX units do not really cater for us bass folks, we are an afterthought!
• Ability to use as many of the existing F/X plugins as possible.  I mean VST/LV2/Etc ... I am thinking to use Carla as the plugin host and it seems to deal with a wide range of plugins.

But ... these are my views and I really want to garner what the community would like to see to help shape things ... the brainstorming phase!

WHY am I doing this ... 

I love the bass and a great bmfx unit would be fab!

Mod devices is very a nice system, but it is impossible to setup new layouts without a computer and in my experience it has some nasty audio glitches, plus it only supports LV2 plugins

Line6 ... not aimed at us bass players and a rather closed proprietary system.

I cannot speak to the other high end stuff.

here

So my plan is to garner a set of desirements from the gang here on BC and look to incorporating them in the "MultiS'manth" (Better name to be determined!).

I aim to use OSS plugin hosts (I am handy with IT but not a rocket scientist!) but I expect this will cover most of what we BCer would find valuable.

To be fair, this is not a short term project (And any takers for getting involved would be very very welcome) but I think it will be a great thing for us!

S'manth x