SimonK

On bass it was in a pit orchestra for my school doing the musical Grease around '95ish. I'd played classical guitar since I was 9 and did all the termly/annual school concerts up until then, but do remember playing Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" in a school assembly accompanying the choir, and also vaguely remember playing the Shadow's "Apache" in a school assembly possibly before that.

I generally note which fret the worship leader puts their capo on and hiss it at them prior to the start of the song...

I love how many people on this thread have said "passive" followed by something like "I don't twiddle/touch the knobs on the bass" - no shit Einsteins 😀(NB said with humour and affection) - demonstrates why active pickups were created in the first place - precisely so that you could control EQ better on the bass itself! Thus said I don't like the faff of remembering to change the battery, albeit at the moment play two Stingrays both with identical active pickups through identical signal chains, but tweak the EQ a bit on the fretless to get the mwah - currently gassing over a passive p-bass though...

Sounds like time for a car/train crash competition - anyone remember Phatfish's "There is a day"? We did this during the signing of the register at someone's wedding. Bloody keyboardist pressed the transpose button and both he and the singer started in the wrong key. I was playing electric so when I came in with the first chord it was the wrong key and the song crashed. Keyboardist smirks, presses the transpose, and starts again saying a bit too loudly - lets change key for Simon grrr.....

But did you train wreck? There's nothing like that moment when everything grinds to a halt and everyone looks at each other...

My instruments have scars that prove not all stands are equal. Currently I'm using one of these and apart from once when I put a bass on too quickly and it didn't grab it properly, not had any problems:

Yes not a bad thought - so the bass needs to be a bit more scooped with an acoustic guitar in the mix whereas a low-mid boost works better when it doesn't clash with the guitar - but quite a big change achieved entirely due to EQ which makes me wonder why we spend so much on different amps etc. when the EQ makes the biggest difference - although I suppose that's why everyone has started raving about IEM and ampless setups.

...tis a mystery... same drummer but only keys plus vocals this week (so not guitar) which certainly gave me more space in the mix. I have a Genzler Magellan preamp pedal that I bought specifically as it has two curve (EQ) presets that you can toggle between, meaning I can sweep them relatively quickly to find what works (perfect for the zero set up time at church). Three weeks ago "Curve A" at 3/4 sounded great, this morning "Curve B" at 3/4 which is a whole different profile seemed to work, along with cutting around 250Hz on my graphic EQ. But no rhyme or reason! CURVE A (Blue): Provides a variable pre-shaped curve that boosts lows and highs while simultaneously cutting mids. The slopes are fairly gentle which keep the tone shaping very musical. This curve covers a wide range of sounds from flat to classic to modern depending on the position of the independent CURVE A control. CURVE B (Amber): Provides a variable pre-shaped curve with attenuated high-mids and highs, a low-mid bump, and a slight roll-off of the lowest bass frequencies. Again, the slopes are fairly gentle which keep the tone shaping very musical. This curve is intended to provide sounds in the range of vintage amps and vintage cabinets that do not have tweeters. An independent CURVE B control is provided for this filter.

Why is it that you can use exactly the same kit in exactly the same place with almost the same number of people in the room on two separate Sundays and it sounds totally different? Luckily I have lots of EQ options to fiddle with but sometimes I just don't get it... humidity, air pressure??

Back to bass this week!

...and then irritatingly last night I used exactly the same cabs and amp in exactly the same room as three weeks ago, and they sounded all boomy and horrible despite the fact the same set up was fine last time! I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that multiple EQ options make more of a difference than anything else...

...I can't remember which youtuber it was but I was watching a bass video the other day about EQ'ing bass, and in making the point about nonsense spouted on the internet they showed some posts from basschat...

Music isn't a competition, but certainly Charles Berthoud has taken Bass to new places and made some very enjoyable youtube videos in the process (and his upcoming tour looks awesome). But my point was that for me "better" is having more fun.

This one looks interesting - probably neither a rescue or restore as it looks in excellent condition, mind you I wouldn't pay much more than the £200 it's already at (and that would also assume I was near enough to get it which I'm not!).

I think the answer to "Who's better" is almost always Charles Berthoud! As for the rest of us it's more about what individuals enjoy doing: "better" in my books is simply one and the same with "more fun"!

I could see taking this analogy too far 🙂!

Oh I'm very jealous of that!!

Music is like sex - far more fun and you learn more when playing with others - while the internet's just for porn!

Been doing some pedal re-arranging this morning and couldn't help but photograph:

Sigh - second week in a row of drummer being away and me having to play what someone on another thread called the "participation box". Insult to injury I have to sit next to my lovely but silent Trace - mind you I suppose at least we are making music albeit "going acoustic".

It is interesting isn't it - all this talk about different cabs, amps etc. but almost always in the context of full (for bass) frequency reproduction/colouration, whereas in reality the different amps/cab/effects preferences people talk about is linked to how the different systems deal with specific frequencies, so if you can start to route different frequencies to different amps/effects.... one more thing to play with! Mind you my main motivaion here is having a mix of guitar and bass kit and wanting to protect the guitar speakers in particular while still being able to experiment with a bass.

...being a bit more DIY than that!

...been checking out the Tyler and it seems all may not be what it seems when someone took it apart and checked the components - albeit it is close to the advertised values: https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30823 We (I can't say I'm doing this on my own!) can manage 44 to 480, or 69 to 1.4k, so may go with the latter.

Hello from Southampton as well!