SimonK

Seems someone from the Trace Elliot Facebook group was less worried about the drive:

The logistics are currently beyond me unfortunately, alongside probably needing to buy 4x new KT88 tubes for it (at close to £200 again).

If anyone is in the backend of Wales - 8 hour return drive for me!!

Enjoyed the following this morning: Lion and the Lamb Trust in God Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) into chorus of Everlasting God Greater than it All ..and paired the mini Aguillar head with the two TE (name badges removed) cabs which gave me a satisfying growl. Pretty much just used the compressor + blue channel on the Genzler for both fretless (first two songs) and fretted (last three). Someone did, however, come up to me afterwards and ask why on earth a bass player needed so many pedals - it is true four went unused today!

Was just about to cross reference any other thread with the words "Trace Elliot", and then post some pictures of my horrifically heavy TE cabs, but then realised the OP specifically states "Amps" of which I think the Ampeg valve amps win in terms of kgs, even more so than TE.

...I might not be best placed to comment on the T-shirts as have often tried to go the other way - what can I get away with (Iron Maiden?) before someone makes me wear a jumper! I also went through a phase of trying to buy the most church in-appropriately named pedals - I still use the Big Muff but did once have a Damage Control "Womanizer", and have been tempted with a Way Huge Swollen Pickle...

I switch to Cajon when there isn't a drummer as can't stand playing bass without drums as to me it gets all mushy - what instruments do you have?

RE compressor, the signal goes Octamizer -> Filter -> compressor for exactly the reason you stated. RE LS-2, I could but that would be an extra pedal, and if I am putting something new on the board a standalone synth pedal is probably easier - also I use the fuzz on it's own so it would get complicated if it was in a loop. Some of the EHX synth pedals have been catching my eye - does anyone use a POG on bass?

Right so a few weeks of trying to actually use a synth bass sound live and things haven't been going great. Picture of the board is above - I've found the main part of the synth tone comes from the octamizer & big muff, with the chorus adding a bit of icing on top (but not being that noticable especially live) and the decay control on the envelope filter really changing the sound but not in a great way. Was irritating hitting four pedals when I wanted the synth sound so ended up just using the octave & fuzz. BUT, and it's a big one, the tracking on the Octamizer even when it was the very first pedal in the chain wasn't great. Not too bad for quarter notes or less above the third fret or so, but any attempt to sustain a note - which is kind of what I was wanting with the synth sound - just kept dropping out/changing. So my conclusion is maybe I need a new everything in one synth pedal - any recommendations?

It seems to have gone for £78 in the end, presumably to someone local with tail-lift! The suspension on my car has never quite recoved after bringing a 1510x back from Wales a few months back!

Here's another: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196967398730

"God tier" is for those who not only don't buy something, but also do not rearrange their pedal board for a whole year...

I've always used a EHX big muff which is cheap and cheerful, but the controls do what they say and critically it has the "dry" mode to mix clean signal in with the fuzz so that you don't get lost in the mix when you engage it.

Awesome - so that cab shaped Trace Elliot side board that I have never plugged in (who knew you could play bass through a table!) doesn't count - and it looks so nice with a lamp and some pictures on top!

I am wondering whether rather than always arguing for creative exclusions (albeit fun!) it might be more helpful just to state what does count as a purchase? Something like: Tier 1: Bass Guitars Bass Amps/Cabs Pedals Tier 2: Guitars or other instruments including percussion Guitar or other instruments/PA amps or cabs Effects pedals Studio equipment, keyboards, synths etc.

If it wasn't tucked awkwardly on the other side of London from me I would have had this, albeit no gurantee the guy would have accepted £100 - I think probably £250 would be fair for a GP12 & cab. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176794584421

Radial Engineering have a bunch of different options for this. All a bit pricy but as good as you can get. A cheaper option is the EHX Tri Parallel mixer that gives you three controllable channels at a much more reasonable price, also with the critical phase switch.

I did indeed - I think evolution is the reason why we need to be very sensitive to quiet rustling in the undergrowth (which is roughly mid frequencies). As things get louder everything balances out as per the graph, so if you are "used" to hearing more mids they need to be boosted as opposed to the smiley EQ that people use at lower volumes.

Not certain everyone "ought" to know this albeit it is fascinating. The table at the bottom also gives the reason why sounds dialled in at bedroom volume do not work well at gig volume as you generally need to reduce boost (sorry typo!) mids on EQ as things get louder.

As a classical guitarist originally, there is place for tab to see how someone else chose to finger something. Certainly a major challenge I had when I took things seriously was trying to work out the best fingering/position... but yes a pre-requisite was being able to read normal music!

I can't ever recall doing it with pizza, but certainly interfering with the brass players plumbing is standard par for the course certainly in relatively junior (or immature) band situations! As is lobbing things at the tubas when the conductor isn't looking...

Someone will come in with a formula in a moment to provide the answer in terms of SPL, but I certainly find that for the same volume I get better dispersal with more speakers, and thus I actually prefer to practice at home at low volume with as many speakers as possible - I use a Marshall 4x12 and TE 4x10 for guitar and bass respectively at home, and despite the low volumes think they sound much better than the fewer speaker options I have. But I do think this is to do with sound dispersal rather than anything else. Thinking logically, speaker area must have an effect on SPL - if you google it there is a talkbass thread that seems to think 3dB every time you double the speaker area with no change in the amp settings.

Thing is the strength of a forum is the personal interaction - asking the question in your own words and hearing someone's answer. Stickies or FAQs work for some people, but I always wonder at the point of a forum where people just say "do a search as we've talked about this before"... to me this misses the point of a forum. (BTW Trace Watts are bigger than other brand's Watts - they used to grow them specially and combine with groovilium)

If I start another thread complaining about a divorce you can probably conclude that I failed the gear abstinence challenge as well!