Prime_BASS

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1318429' date='Jul 27 2011, 04:54 PM']I don't think its a case of plucking that e-string as hard as possible but of plucking it as hard as you are going to when you are perfroming. If you are plucking it as hard as possible when you are playing, you will lose all the finesse in your technique.[/quote] Ah!! Exactly what I was thinking. The later was working since I was playing pretty damn hard but it's more than likly a sure fire way to develop some hand issues, hopefully the blisters will stop soon aswell. My only worry about the one song the band does once in a blue moon involves a slapping section for a verse, would I have to develop a better slap technique to fit in with the gain setting? It's not a major issue but I'm not one to fiddle, I lick to set my amp and go with no worries. So it's fair to say I'm going the right way around this now?

[quote name='pantherairsoft' post='1315007' date='Jul 24 2011, 07:11 PM']I want the cowboy dude to come and stand by my rig when I play live... He gives the performance much more presence [/quote] This is so full of win. The tune is also good.

Since my dramatic and telling experience at the bands recording session the other day I've been playing a lot with my technique. I've alway been told and read that to set the input gain right you should pluck the E-string as hard as possible until the clip light barely comes on. Now this has been fine with my usual aggressive and inconsistent technique before, but now that I want to try this softer approach I wonder if I should be turning the gain up to compensate? I've already tried it and it does sound better overall with turning the gain up, the mids are still very present, but I wonder if setting the input gain to your playing rather than how much input the head can take is a better way of setting the amp up.

[quote name='Linus27' post='1315601' date='Jul 25 2011, 12:11 PM']Cool stuff, which one is it. I remember him using Stingray copies live. Just for you, [/quote] It's the sterling used in this video!!! There are a few pictures of him using it live aswell. A lot of wise words. I think on the offending day a lot of things affected how badly I believe it went. I wasn't overly happy with the setup. I'm just a newb so I didn't feel right saying anything. I felt the singer rushed us to get as much done as possible. I never got in the zone, as such. As I can at a gig and rehearsing. The guitarist turned up with his usual lackadaisical attitude towards his own sound, usually its very dirty, witha few tracks going from clean to very distorted, and this sounds great for the sound we all want to achieve but for what ever reason he insisted in recording it with lightest overdrive he could get and it was just too clean and too much treble boost, it was just off putting. Again I guess I should have said something. About the mind set thing. I think we all went with the "live" mind set rather than "recording". This was the first time we've done a full day of recording and the young ones were getting frustrated with the very long setup time and the constant tuning of the drum kit.... As first experiences go it wasnt great. Thanks again to everyones kind words does mean a lot.

[quote name='Linus27' post='1315470' date='Jul 25 2011, 10:20 AM']Sorry to go a little off topic but do you mean the band Midget who were a three piece, around 10 years ago and did a song called camouflage? If so I know then and we did tons of gigs together. Great that they are being remembered if so.[/quote] Yes, I actually have one of the bass players basses. Used it to record with aswell. [quote name='LawrenceH' post='1315532' date='Jul 25 2011, 11:04 AM']What/how are you practising? From my own somewhat painful experience inconsistency is down to poor technique and that's what you have to focus on in practice. I DON'T mean widdling away doing fast runs but looking closely at your hands and the way they move when you're playing a particular line. I learnt a lot simply from watching the right hand of good jazz players on youtube vids. Even on complex lines their hands stay in comfortable positions, and their movements are very economical. The more you flail around the less control you have, the more hit-or-miss it becomes. I have periodically gone back to specific exercises to iron out problems - I see this aspect of technique as an issue of biomechanics.[/quote] Well I'll do all sorts from learning lines from different genres to widen my musical vocab' to going over theory stuff and practicing simple stuff, every so often I'll make a point to make sure my pinky is being used as much as possible as I often find it's dead weight. Cheers for all the kind words guys, they'll be a track to listen to on the band page in my sig by the end of tonight so hopefully you guys can actually hear what I'm doing right/wrong. I guess I'm going to go back to plying some blink 182 on guitar or shits and giggles to try and relax a little.

I'm just bout to upload our latest track to our Facebook page which is in my sig. I had to do all the mixing myself so forgive me for it's amateurness. Personally I'd rather sound a mixture of Rage, Midget and Mad Capsule Markets, and I'd say my Writing style is similar to the bassists of all three. I just don't seem to be very consistent in how well I would play, and hearing how bad I played over the weekend put another downer ontop of the fact that I wasn't totally happy with how the sound engineer insisted we set up and the recorded sound from my rig was pretty naff. It was one of those days that just didn't go aswell as it could of.

After recording session over the weekend, I realise how crap I am. Even the singer noted "you are one of the best bassists I've seen, but you are also the most inconsistent".... In terms of pulling it off and not that is. I'm putting in the hours of practice and I've played a tonn of gigs but he is right. Sometimes I'm just sh*t, and sometimes I feel like I'm making it intentionally hard for myself. I wish I could turn up and play roots and fithes with a pick and a bit of distortion, but it's not interesting enough for me at all and I'll just give up playing. I know I can get it right on the night sometimes but not often enough and it's making me rather depressed and since coming home from the studio I've not even bothered setting up my gear again. Have I faced an inconvenient truth, and give up to start spanking the tiny sixers again? How can I recapture the magic and be content with my abilities. ? I don't know what is wrong with me.

I've not had a duff DR string and have been using them a year now. Just having an issue getting hold of sets.... Ordered 100-45 hi beams with Mark at bass direct and that was over 3 weeks ago now.

[quote name='bobbytodd' post='1314406' date='Jul 24 2011, 01:37 AM']with the tweetertone knob on the rh750 controling the hights do you have to turn the horn right up on the cab then controle it from the tweetertone knob.im only asking because im not sure how it works[/quote] Yes. Or you can have the tweetertone on full and use the tweeter's cab control.

Barefaced. Can't rate them enough. But you'll struggle to find a used one, midgets rarely come up and usually don't last long. Compacts, it's usually the older ones that come up which are little heavier in IMO look a little ugly. The super twelve is by far the best of the modular range. Being the lowest and loudest, will having very nice mids.

General QC being of higher more thorough standard. Setups that last longer, basses that dont have mood swings if you change something or the weather gets brisk. Strings that never die!!! Better quality hardware and electronics or cheaper basses, it can't honestly be too expensive to put on higher quality tuners of a squier, I've played some where in at tensions the tuner is loose and then stiff and juttering causer the gears font fit quiet right. On active basses, somehow being powered by the amp head,

Id do it, but more often than not the lower attack at gigs it causes a low end mess and muddy sound.

The Barefaced midget is exceptionally good with guitar, although in a band situation the low end would be invading bassists range too much and the high end can feel kind of shrill.

They are considered "good" ones but don't seem to suffer from the inflated prices that the Japanese ones get priced at on eBay. I think I've seen a Korean go for £260 at the most, I'd keep it. If you've had it 20 years it must be doing something right.

Ive been quite nice in the past. Being well aware of the horrors of eBay I've asked sellers if they don't mind it selling fit the ridiculous price I've won it for, so far it's worked in my favour. Both my basses have come from eBay and for what I see as ridiculous prices aswell.

Personally there is a difference between what a tiny box can do and a valve amp. At one point I was running a Orange HTC120 into two 4x12, but very overkill, however I soon learned that the difference becomes rather lost in a mix. The para driver is 100% better pedal than the bass driver aswell. I miss mine from time to time. It's a shame they no longer produce them.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1310412' date='Jul 20 2011, 03:16 PM']Hey man, fingering is what you do with the other hand - stopping notes behind the frets. Picking is what you do with the hand that's down near the bridge. As for the Stingrays... I wouldn't buy a 2-pickup bass just to have somewhere to put my thumb. I wouldn't worry about it too much - the pickup on a Stingray isn't as close to the bridge as it looks, the ovoid pickguard and 21-fret neck make it look closer to the bridge than it actually is.[/quote] +1 the "top" section is rather in the middlemore than anything, it also feelsmore natural position for the hand aswell IMO. Failing that, try a makeshift ramp.

[quote name='mcnach' post='1310048' date='Jul 20 2011, 10:33 AM']+1 on everything except the 2-3mm clearance for teh pickups. I don't find you need to have them too close to the strings: you want higher output? then turn up. Use EQ. For my taste, pickups on guitars/basses always sound better when relatively far from teh strings (certainly 5mm or more), but I suppose that playing style may also play a big part, I think I'm a little on the aggressive side (fingerstyle)[/quote] I'm quite aggressive, the G string is just over 2.5mm away from the magnet and the E is about 3.1-2 mm away. It just doesn't sound the same at distances like 5mm. The lower notes especially don't sound as hollow. I prefer to get it right at the bass cause you can always turn down, but you can't add what isn't there. OP will definatly get more Present mids with a closer pickup to string spacing. Particularly on pickups close to the bridge as the vibration isn't as forcefull so you can have closer. Also being a pick player wouldnt make much difference, I'm fingers and I generally have a "louder" attack than most pick players. Unless they absolutely thrash the strings. I'm aware that the magnetic field can interfere with the strings, however I'm merely stating that this is right for me and my stingray.

Make sure the pickup height are optimal for your playing. Generally the space between the bottom of the string to the magnets should be around 2-3 mm with the lower strings being further away. Personally on a jazz bass, I'd role off the neck pickup altogether. On the amp boost lows, lowmids, highmids and cut the highs a little bit. This will give you a more aggressive cutting through sound. It depends how you play. Unless you a quite aggressive fingers guy a flat EQ on a jazz with everything on full, can get quite lost, as the attack doesn't give a lot mids and the pickups naturally scoop the Mids out. Rolling giving bias to either pickup usually helps.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='1308428' date='Jul 18 2011, 09:01 PM']I recommended an S12T originally. I'm not 100% convinced a Compact will be perfect but I'm 100% certain it has a better chance of doing the job than all but the Neox-212T, which itself is much more like an S12T with less potent drivers.[/quote] Plus one!!! Depends what you want from the cab. There isn't much between a compact and a S12T, if you were to simplify it. The compact is 8 ohms so gives the option of adding another or something else, the S12T is 4 ohms and is a fantastic one cab solution. I prefer the S12T for the tweeter 20khz!!! Super crisp, I feel it has a slightly better vertical Vd, an the mid range is a little more defined/angry/growl whatever you want to say. The compacts mods are little smoother.

I went from a LMTube to the RH750. To be simple the only significant difference was the mwoah!!! Bass on the RH and a little extra high end. I liked the tube side more than the standard SS preamp, which I believe is the same as in the LittleMark line, however I used to use it with half and half (rotatary knob on the front of the head) I found te SS side to be rather nasal when set flat and would boost the bass a smudge along with a bit of treble. My main worry was the TC head not having those tube harmonic dynamics and end up being nasal and a little lifeless like te markbass was. I'm so impressed with the head I don't know what I wa worried about. The sound is incredibly similar to markbass, very clean and transparent, I just want to get the sound of the bass through. You might find the RH750 more to your liking due to the added high end.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='1307963' date='Jul 18 2011, 03:27 PM']The lows on the Bongo can be HUGE...that bass control is very very powerful.[/quote] No doubt, isn't the pre-amp the same on the big al? I still want to find out what the bands are set at to give me a better idea of how they work together.

I wouldnt worry too much on his behalve. Modding and bitsa-basses tend to be worth less than the total sum of the parts. However, I laid a ridiculous £530 for my sterling posted, and I'm not modding that at all, no need it's already a great bass and I don't think much will change by spending £600 on parts.

Thanks Fat Rich, definatly provided some clear in sight.