Small lightweight silent practice setup for travelling bass player - lessons learned

[Jolltax]

I travel a lot on business, and sometimes live in hotels for extended periods.  To be more clear I spend literally half my time on the road or away from home, so its not just the odd few days.

 

When I am away I like to take my beater-bass (a Harley Benton) and enjoy practicing along to YouTube videos or mp3's. Carrying the bass, my suitcase and my hand-luggage is bad enough so I have been through a lot of iterations in pursuit of a cheap light-weight options which sound reasonable, this means headphones :

 

1. I first bought a Sonicake Bass Headphone amp and tried it once, I have never used it since because the first time I tried it the sound quality was so terrible that I never plugged it in again. You get what you pay for I guess ..
2. For a while I used a laptop (I always travel with 2 Dell laptops) and a Behringer UMC204HD audio interface, this works OK but its clumsy, latency can be a bit of an issue once you are running a DAW plus other apps and you need power supplies for everything. It also takes a long time to get setup which is annoying and has spaghetti problems.
3. I tried using iRig Amplitube on my iPad Pro, this proved fruitless as I never managed to solve the latency issues, Apple devices are also devoid of any ports so powering an interface, plugging in headphones etc is a pain, you have to use an adapter and the battery is not really up to it
4. I tried using so called 'ultra low latency' AptX wireless bluetooth headphones to reduce the spaghetti, forget it ... (latency again)
5. In one hotel I was able to my Zoom B1 four into the line in on the Bose bed-side clock radio as a speaker and this worked surprisingly well, lol, not sure what my neighbours thought was going on.  Full credit to Bose on building a very robust bedside clock!
6. Currently I am using my phone for music source, a Zoom B1 four powered by a USB power supply and headphones, its OK but not brilliant, the sound quality / effects are adequate but even with IEM's it doesn't really deliver the volume and has limited options to mix music and bass. Its probably the lightest portable option so far though ...

 

For someone who is only making the occasional trip I think this setup is a reasonably priced / average performance option :

 

 

 

For me though, I think I have run out patience and fed up with the cables and fudges,  I can't do it on the cheap and live with it. So I am going to have to spend more money and get something better.

 

Open to ideas / experiences but these two seem to be well recommended and its my birthday soon

 

https://ashdownmusic.com/products/tone-pocket-bluetooth
https://www.boss.info/global/products/waza-air_bass/

 

I particularly like the look of the Waza, completely wireless, no spaghetti!  Only issue is I have never yet found a wireless solution that doesn't have latency issues (to my ears), so I need to read up a bit more, expensive too.  Unsurprisingly I could have saved myself most of the above learning process by following the advice on these forums in other threads, duh.  Maybe another traveller will find / read this and it will resonate ...

 

Hate spaghetti ..

 

Cheers 

 

J

[danweb22]

Darkglass Element? I power mine with a USB power bank, Bluetooth my phone to it for playing along, built in tuner, eq, cab sims etc 
 

I use normal wired headphones though 😬

[Jolltax]

1 hour ago, danweb22 said:

Darkglass Element? I power mine with a USB power bank, Bluetooth my phone to it for playing along, built in tuner, eq, cab sims etc 
 

I use normal wired headphones though 😬

 

Googling now ... 

 

Looks really cool, I guess the advantage of wired headphones is I can change them out when I break them, headphones have a tough life on the road so in some ways a small robust metal box with separate headphones might have a longer lifespan.  Thanks

Edited September 16, 2022 by Jolltax
Done googled shizzle

[Mottlefeeder]

I use a behringer xenyx302 mixer as my headphone rig. It can be powered by a phone charger, or connected to a pc to create a daw. 

Channel 1 is mic/instrument (active bass good, passive bass loses top end) and has 2 band eq.

Channel 2 is stereo, switchable between usb or phone/mp3 player, and also has 2 band eq, which works well for suppressing the bass of the track.

You can record bass to pc while playing a pc track to headphones, but it has no fx.

It is light, cheap and one box.

David

[Muzz]

Bass -> SonicPort -> iPad (Jamup) -> headphones. Job done. Will run for hours off the iPad battery.

 

Apparently you can do the same with an iPhone, but I've never bothered.

[wrinkleygit]

For years I used a Korg Pandora (PX4D I think) batteries lasted for ages or you could use a main’s adapter, don’t know if there’s anything similar on today’s market place, brilliant piece of kit, perhaps they’re still available on the s/h market, does exactly what you need.

 

Looks like the nearest modern equivalent is the Line6 pocket pod, good luck in your quest.

Edited September 16, 2022 by wrinkleygit
Addition

[Velarian]

Nu-X mighty plug? £60 from Amazon or Thomann. 

https://www.nuxefx.com/mighty-plug.html

 

It plugs into your bass output jack and requires a short wired connection to headphones but that’s it. It has built in effects and also allows a phone or tablet to connect by Bluetooth for audio to play along with. There’s no latency issue because Bluetooth only handles the external audio source to the device and your bass is a wired connection from the device. The default presets are not particularly useful for bass but it’s extremely configurable and can be easily tweaked using the mobile app. 

[lemmywinks]

Grab one of these while they're on sale for less than half price:

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Soundcraft-Notepad-5-Analog-USB-Mixer/1XK3?network=affiliate-window&affiliate_id=246555&publisher=Enligo&utm_source=affiliate-window&utm_medium=affiliate&awc=1117_1663452958_f8f3a67da808b6f0f3fb13763aae860c&utm_content=deep-link

 

Does need to be mains powered but can take a line in via USB or phono, the mic preamp sounds killer for bass and it's also a quality mini mixer.

[Bunion]

The Waza air bass is awesome, I got one when they came out and I’ve used it everyday since, it hasn’t missed a beat.

Not the cheapest in the bunch but definitely the best and I’ve tried many. 
 

 

[tauzero]

If you've got all the MP3s you'll want, what about a Tascam GB-10? Load the MP3s onto it and play along. Use a cheap wireless system to get rid of the guitar lead. Allows you to change pitch and speed, loop a section, even record. Built-in tuner and metronome. Powered by a brace of AA batteries.

[jazzyvee]

I use a GB-10 and the sound is good. The menus are really clunky to use and you can’t press a button to return to the start of a track. It doesn’t play all mp3’s though not sure why. But the repeat and key change options work fine. If you want something better quality PJB big head sounds great just remember the usb socket is delicate.

Edited September 19, 2022 by jazzyvee

[tauzero]

6 hours ago, jazzyvee said:

I use a GB-10 and the sound is good. The menus are really clunky to use and you can’t press a button to return to the start of a track. It doesn’t play all mp3’s though not sure why. But the repeat and key change options work fine. If you want something better quality PJB big head sounds great just remember the usb socket is delicate.

 

If you press stop twice it returns to the start of the track.

 

Haven't had any problems with any MP3. The only issues I've had is with 48kHz WAV files (they must be 44.1kHz) - I think it would also balk at MP3s created from 48kHz WAVs.

[Jolltax]

14 hours ago, tauzero said:

If you've got all the MP3s you'll want, what about a Tascam GB-10? Load the MP3s onto it and play along. Use a cheap wireless system to get rid of the guitar lead. Allows you to change pitch and speed, loop a section, even record. Built-in tuner and metronome. Powered by a brace of AA batteries.

 

I mainly use online, since I subscribed to spotify I really stopped buying MP3's and CD's - so something connected will probably work better, but it seems like a pretty cool device!

 

I think its really down to the Waza's or the DarkGlass Element, so i am pondering,  I really like the idea of full wireless (Waza) but the appeal of the Darkglass is the idea that I can change out the headphones if (when) they break on the road.

[Muppet]

I had a Tonepocket which is superb. Until I bought the Waza Air headphones.  Zero cables and brilliant sound. Now the Tonepocket is gathering dust.  If there's any latency then I can't hear it. 

[msb]

I’ve been using a Hotone Thunderbass as a headphone , practice rig , it has a mini aux in for a phone or tablet so you can easily play along to video. Not that expensive , fairly small , works well.

I’m ok using plug in headphones.

Edited September 19, 2022 by msb