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tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
When I played my new-to-me Jag Bass back-to-back with my trusty Jazz 5 and Precision Special the other week at rehearsal, I realized just how freaking dead my strings are. So, some nickel-plated Fender sets are on the way from Sweetwater: a set of 45-110's for the 4-string (it lives tuned down a step), 45-125's for the 5-string, and their current set of Bass VI strings, since that one hasn't had new strings in a couple years. (The old stock strings had a low E string less than .090 in diameter, which I guess was them matching the gauge used back when they were using flats, which have more tension--they've corrected this since then.)

But then I thought, man, I (and my guitarist!) love the tone from my "ClnCrunch" patch on the Zoom B3n. Now, I can't replace my rig with the Zoom--it doesn't do the octave and envelope filter stuff nearly as well as my pedalboard can; the Zoom is just for practice at home and jamming, when space and/or laziness stops me from using my main pedalboard. But, the MXR DI+ emulation is the basis for that great tone, so I went to Sweetwater and got one after watching a bunch of videos. I'm going to take the overdrive* and EQ** off my board and put the DI+ at the very end of the effect chain. That means the chorus will be before the non-fuzz distortion, but I'm not a 1980s metal guitarist, so I won't be using chorus and distortion at the same time. I want the chorus before the MXR mainly because it'll let the MXR be more than a DI and distortion--it can actually function as a proper DI if need be.


*: MXR Bass Overdrive, which is OK but tends to really rob the tone, even with the tone control all the way up
**: Boss Bass EQ, which really lets you shape the tone, but I've found that it can be really touchy, and I don't need 7-band granularity
†: Electro-Harmonix Bass Clone
‡: Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Bass Big Muff π

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tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I was in a band a few years ago with guitarists who tuned a step down, and sometimes they'd drop their bottom string down a step for Drop C or, when they got 7-strings, Drop G. I did the same on my 5, which I think just has a 34" scale length.

I used a hefty set of strings for that. I ordered from Kallium until I got tired of their wildly inconsistent service. Eventually, I just bought D'Addario sets with a .110" E string and a single .145" for the "B" string.

Also, that ultra-low G is almost useless musically. It kind-of works for long notes; for anything quick, the frequency is just too low to sound good.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Winding down after the gig and the drive from hell, and what's on MTV Classics? "Venus." Specifically, the Bananarama version. I forgot that was the name of the group that did the version of the song I know the best.

So naturally, I said the name out loud. "Bananarama." My wife affirmed my analysis of the situation. Then I added, "OR RAM A BANANA? FUCKIN' BARRY MANILOW ON THE COPA CABANA!!!!!"

Had an OK-ish gig. Played some stuff wrong in one set because I didn't practice enough, but I got it sorted out quickly. I did manage to play the verses of "The Bad Touch" in the wrong loving key for the whole song, but the envelope filter made that seem almost on purpose to anyone who isn't a musician. My favorite moment was when we started "Closing Time" and the guitarist told me I was loving it up. "It's in G!" But I am playing in G!, I mouthed to him. Then I looked at my Pitch Fork, and it was not set to 1 Octave. It was set to m7, and on that song, the blend is set to almost all wet signal. Jesus.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Wowporn posted:

I was getting frustrated by not getting the exact sound I wanted so I broke my no gear while between jobs rule and got the Caline Wine Cellar, a $30 Sansamp knockoff. Only been using it a day but it seems good, it took a lot less fiddling to get a clear, punchy sound out of it than through my guitar amps. Once Im working again I might put together a small, super budget bass pedalboard with it

This is why I just got the MXR DI+ for my pedalboard. The clean setting with the Color switch engaged is just about perfect, although I use the 3-band EQ to add some mids to help me cut through the mix some.

Its switchable distortion circuit is great for that just-breaking-up sound without zapping a lot of treble and bass, which is what I've experienced with a lot of more traditional overdrives. Cranking the gain yields a nice distortion. Between this pedal and my Deluxe Bass Big Muff, I've got the dirt covered.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Laserface posted:

Trying out for a sludge/doom 3 piece next week. Songs are easy enough to learn. Is it good to have add my own little touches here and there for a band audition or should I play it straight?

Also how many people does it take to move an 8x10

For sludge/doom, I would play it straight, personally, because these are their original songs, and this is an audition. Coming into it with "I learned this song, but I had some ideas in a couple spots I'd like you to hear" might come off as "your bass line was boring, so I changed it because I know what your songs need more than you do." Or it won't come off that way. But definitely play it straight, and maybe drop a hint that there's something you could add. Or, just add a little fill here and there--nothing obtrusive or too attention-grabbing, but just a little of yourself in the line.

As for the cabinet, I've never seen an 8×10 that didn't have two casters on the bottom and a metal bar (as a handle) at the top of the back of the cabinet. These cabinets are really heavy, so they're designed to be tipped back and rolled. The top and bottom corners of the back of the cab are cut at a 45° angle to recess the casters and bar when it's standing upright. The bar in particular makes them surprisingly manageable; I helped load one of these up and down the steps at a gig in St. Louis (the Hi Pointe) where the load-in door opened directly into two flights of stairs. It wasn't too bad.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I have the B3n, which lacks some of the ammo simulator and IR tools of the new B2 FOUR, but it allows for more effects at once.

I've had Zoom pedals and used them ever since the original 506 came out, and as such things go, they are a great value. For an extremely portable and versatile effects rig that doubles as a headphone amp, they are really hard to beat.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Discussion Quorum posted:

I stumbled into a B1 Four for $65 shipped and for that price, gently caress it, what's the risk? Even if it sucks rear end it will be a long time before I'm good enough for it to matter.

I bought the B1Xon when I got back into playing several years ago, which is like the one you bought but older and with an expression pedal.

It's not a bad sounding little unit at all. The only real weakness is the inability to really turn individual effects in a patch on our off on the fly. There are some ways to work around that if it's an issue, but as far as the sound goes, most of the effects are surprisingly decent.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Hey, watch out for cheap soldering irons, and honestly, avoid portable ones at all costs. The amount of stuff they can't do far outweighs what they can.

But mainly, you need watts these days. A lot of things, especially imported things, are using lead-free solder. My trusty 30 watt iron, which I'd had for eons, could only get it warm enough to kind-of scoot around when I re-did the electronics in my Jaguar Bass. I ended up getting a soldering station at Home Depot that can get quite a bit toastier. Maybe 60 watts or so? It's variable. Anyway, that's what it took to really deal with lead-free solder with authority.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I've got the Bass Clone, and I love it. It's got a "X-OVER" switch that will remove the low frequencies from the effect, and that can keep your bad from getting lost in the mix. You have to experiment with it, though, because it can also drop the low end from the mix (which is disastrous) if you have the BASS knob turned down. Ask me how I know.

Then tell me who is going into my pedalboard bag and fiddling with my pedals' knobs between when I pack it up and when I get it out to play.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
The scratchplates are not all the same. I don't have an Affinity to measure with a caliper, but Affinity models often have a single-ply pickguard, and pretty much everything else uses a three-ply (except for the anodized aluminum ones, of course). It's very possible that they are different thicknesses, although that shouldn't cause the issues described.

And I'd also go with CV over Affinity any time I had to choose between the two.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
The tone circuit works by having a volume pot and a capacitor, and there are a lot of ways you can hook it up that are all electronically equivalent. The long and short of it is, the hot signal (usually coming off the volume pot, directly from the hot from the pickup(s)) goes to one of the side lugs (1 or 3) on the tone pot. The wiper is connected to one leg of a capacitor, and the other leg is grounded, usually to the pot.

The thing is, as long as the wiper of the tone pot is connected to a capacitor, the other end of the capacitor can be grounded to any viable ground, and the tone circuit will work fine. In a standard wiring setup, the bridge, pot cases, and sleeve of the output jack will all be a common ground. So, you could definitely connect a capacitor between the wiper and the sleeve of the output jack. It would work fine, assuming everything else is wired correctly.

Now, if you take the hot from the pickups or volume pot and connect that directly to the sleeve of the output jack via a capacitor (as opposed to going hot > Lug 1/3 and Wiper > Cap > Ground), you've wired it to always attenuate the high frequencies. Unless you're doing that on purpose, that's a mistake.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Laserface posted:

I've had some really rough round wounds. Whatever is on my rickenbacker right now (supposedly factory strings, has coloured balls on the bridge end with no silk wrappings) are much smoother in comparison but also might be a lower gauge than what I normally put on everything - Ernie ball yellows.

I liked GHS boomers in my old band but haven't really tried anything else.

Is there a difference in abrasiveness between nickel and stainless?

Stainless is much more harsh on your fingers than pure nickel wound strings. Most strings marketed as "nickel" are nickel-plated, though, and stainless is still a lot more harsh than those. Pure nickelwound are not too common, but man do they sound great for a lot of styles. And for roundwounds, they last amazingly long.

Now, I should make it clear that I'm talking mostly to fingerstyle players. The harshness is felt 99.7% on the plucking fingers. If you don't have amazing calluses on your plucking fingers, and especially if you have really good calluses, these strings can give you the worst blisters right where you want them the least. Ask me how I know.

I never was bothered by the feel of the stainless strings on my left (fretting) hand.

As for La Bella's, the first set that I bought was a 5-string, black nylon-wrapped flatwound pack that I got from Carvin, which I bought because I'd played one of those acoustic-electric P-basses from the late '90s and it was fretless with those black strings. I had a 5-string fretless, so I got these strings, and when I sold that bass 15+ years later, they still had those strings, and they sounded good still. I bought another set when I got my Squier VM Precision fretless. I love them.

I think the flats I got for my vanity bass, an American Professional Precision Bass, are also La Bella's.

I did get a set of strings for my Squier VM Bass VI from them, but they sent the wrong low E-string. La Bella let you get custom gauges, and at the time, the Fender set was a much lighter gauge that was a roundwound version of the flatwound original set. (Flatwounds have more tension, so those gauges made more sense.) I selected the Fender length, because some 30' scale, 6-string bass guitar models don't have a tailstop and bridge that extends the necessary length of a string like the Bass VI does. They sent the wrong one, but when I emailed them, they fixed it right away. Now, Fender offers a much more appropriately gauged set of strings, and I'm using them.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

muike posted:

im going down to the crossroads and asking the devil to make my rick a 35" bass instead of a 33.25 or whatever

He's going to require more than one soul for that, and the best deal you'll get is "we'll research it."

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Yeah, Rumbles are great. I have the 100, but they make bigger and littler ones.

Rumbles have great tone, and they're crazy-light.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Basic Poster posted:

Or a shielded cable?

Them're single coils, my friend. They sound amazingly clear and have a lot of high end, but they pick up lots of noise, and it has nothing to do with the cable. If the volume isn't set at the same level for both pickups, then they act as antennae, and will pick up, oh, pretty much any 60 Hz (or 50 Hz) noise in the area. With the volumes equal, the hum is cancelled because the pickups are wound in opposite directions.

If y'all are old enough to remember transistor AM radios, then you know that when they're oriented one way, they'll pick up signals for any given station much better than of they're turned 90°. Single coil pickups are the same basic thing: turning to face a different direction will increase or decrease the volume of the hum. But, it won't eliminate it. The weak point of single coils is that for all their awesome sound, they're noisy. There's no getting around it.

Thankfully, a Jazz Bass with both pickups maxed actually sounds pretty amazing, and it's as hum-free as a humbucker because, well, it is a humbucker. But if you have to have that neck-only sound (that's similar to a '51 - '56 P-bass), or the bridge-only, fingerstyle quack tone, then you'll need to get creative and have a noise gate.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
My band was talking about adding some "new" songs, and I suggested "Buddy Holly" by Weezer. The band actually played it regularly a few bassists ago, so it was like jumping back on a bike for them. So, if you listen to that song, there are a few places where you can clearly hear a synth (or a guitar with an octave effect) do little runs. The key is that is sounds a little artificial and is an octave or two above the rest of the music, but it's close enough to a guitar-ish sound that it's not totally out of place. Lately, the guitarist has been open to my ideas on more creative arrangements to make our covers sound better, even though we're a trio and thus can't cover every part in a song. We've been re-arranging songs with more thought toward what hooks people tend to associate with a song, versus what is a little easier to play and/or sing. So, no more strumming chords when we play the verses of Cracker's "Low." Instead, it's the hook-y single-note bend that everyone remembers.

And I have a Pitch Fork.

For the uninitiated, the Pitch Fork is basically a Whammy Pedal without the expression pedal: it shifts the pitch of what you're playing very accurately (up to 3 octaves up!), but the further away you get from the dry signal's pitch, the more obviously artificial the sound is. It's a 1990s effect that at the time was amazing, but now sounds almost low-fi and fake... but that's not a bad thing! Tom Morello makes it work amazingly, and so can we. Not only does it shift the pitch, but it makes it sound like there's another instrument in the band. It's cool. I have had it on my board ever since I started playing Royal Blood songs several years ago, but now we're getting a lot more use out of it in places where it's OK for the bass to drop out so we can introduce another instrument for a few bars.

It gets a lot of use in "Gold on the Ceiling," but the way it's getting incorporated in "Buddy Holly" is pretty cool.

Also, screw half-step-down tuning forever. Gosh freaking dang it.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Elissimpark posted:

That's good thinking. Who dresses up as Sandra Bernhard and punches the singer though?

As the singer (also the guitarist) would tell you in front of me if ever you met us, uh... well, I have actually punched him at least once or twice. The one he will definitely bring up was at Boy Scout camp. For 5/7ths of a minute, we were mortal enemies, and I was punchier. I think there was one other time, but if it's not a misremembered event, then it was when we were little kids.

As for dressing up as Sandy, well, do you mean just the typical-for-her underwear worn under regular men's clothes?

Because if that's what you mean... none. We're all basically the cis-est, whitest, straightest, awesomely-middle-aged guys in our community circles.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Captain Splendid posted:

Got asked today which pedal I was using to make my Bass VI one octave lower.

... well? What pedal????????

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Risky Bisquick posted:

Looks great, probably sounds feels incredible when you play. 8x10 moves a serious amount of air, guitarists and vocalists are going to tell you to turn down because you have easily won the volume war :golfclap:

Guitarists and vocalists will tell them to turn down because they are a bass player, and that is the way of things.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
My wife has been asking me what I want for my birthday, and I thought, you know, as much as I like my Fenders, I wouldn't mind having a 5-string whose neck wasn't 42 mm thick. So, since we were driving through, we stopped at a Guitar Center on the way home from the Special Olympics event our son competed in.

They didn't have much at this place for bassists. This isn't "the good Guitar Center"; that one's across the river. But, they had one of those Sterling Music Man 5's, and I thought it looked cool. And, the price wasn't bad. So, I picked it up, tried to play it, and the notes were all choked out. "Just a little adjustment," I figured, then tried playing open strings. Still choked out. I made sure that the price tag string wasn't interfering, and it wasn't. Then I eyeballed the neck's relief.

It was so back-bowed that it couldn't be played. At all.

Back on the wall it went.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

ColdPie posted:

I got my first bass!



MIJ Fender Aerodyne P-Bass. Local store had it on a steep discount, $800. I guess they aren't selling? Anyway I took it for that price.

Very hard to rewire my brain to not think of the first string as E. My wife says it "feels" cool when I play it, hahah.

Nice! I'm more of a regular Precision guy myself, but that is one nice-looking bass. While a P-bass may only have one tone that you can only change a little bit, the good news is that the one tone it's capable of works perfectly in literally every musical genre.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Nthing the Rumble series, especially the Rumble 100.

These amps sound really good with just a bass plugged into the amp and no other effects. The Overdrive is pretty cool and can be controlled with a footswitch (though it might be sold separately... but it was pretty cheap when I bought mine). It's also crazy light; 100 watt bass amp combos used to be a ton heavier.

The first Rumble I got was a Rumble 40, which I got to replace the old Squier 15 watt amp I bought a long time ago because it was just not very good, even as a practice amp. When I joined a band, it became clear that the 40 watt amp wasn't enough, and the Rumble 100 was pretty much perfect for band rehearsal and practice at home. It takes effects pedals and boards well. And, it has a direct out with a ground lift, so you can play small to medium size bar gigs with it without any issues.

The Rumble 100 reminds me of the Broad Sword in the original Dragon Warrior game on NES--it's something you can pick up fairly early in the game if you know what to save your money for, and it'll be the best bang for the buck for a surprisingly long time.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Jestery posted:

So I'm going ahead with my two string washtub

Ive engineered a limit that should keep everything in line and return home, after dicking about with my upright , the potential utility of two strings is too attractive to not try it out for the price atleast as a proof of concept that is sub 20 dollars to make

Just being able to play dyads is amazing for the type of music I like

So watch this space


I can't wait to see it. Many years ago, I think sometime in the 90s when I was learning to play, I remember seeing an article about a guy who played washtub bass in a magazine (think website, except it's been printed out) called Bass Player. I thought it was pretty neat, but being a rocker myself, I was never going to do that. The guy played with a mop handle and a clothesline, and he used one of those thick leather gardening gloves to protect his "fretting" hand. He even had a specific brand of washtub he would buy, mainly because it was the only one still being manufactured.

Hell, I wonder if anyone is still making actual washtubs (as opposed to craft-grade decorative ones).

I always wanted to figure out how to do a smaller version of that that I could play standing up like an electric bass. I even have thought about how I'd mount a pickup to catch the vibrations from the body for amplification... and just how janky this homemade pickup would be....

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
My work bonus hit my paycheck. It was pretty decent, but I have some money-sucking hobbies that I usually spend a lot of my bonus on.

I ride bicycles.

I play the Electric Bass.

I have a third hobby that really freaks some people out, especially some of the bicycle people.


And... this time... well, I had some needs. See, my 1997 Precision Bass Special has never been 100% awesome, although I've put 25 years of miles on it. I have known for the last few years that it really needs some fret work, because there are dents in the first several frets from where I've played. But for even longer, I've had a bigger issue with that bass--fret buzz. If I set the action to Fender standard, it buzzes. If I raise it until the buzz disappears on open and low-fretted notes, the action is just high enough to be a noticeable problem. But, it's a problem I've learned to deal with.

Today, I took the bass to the shop in E-ville, and the guy set the neck straight as hell and started taking measurements. No matter how straight he made the neck, there was a rock in the frets around the middle of the neck (maybe the 8th or 9th fret), so the frets weren't as level as they should be. That's going to get fixed for a pretty reasonable fee, and this is a tech I've heard great things about, so that's pretty cool.

My Jazz Bass 5-string needs the same exact treatment. But, that means I have to take my only 5-string out of the rotation, and since I've been pining for a 5-string with a thinner neck anyway, I decided to get another 5-string. I looked at the multi-scale instruments, but of the ones that were in my price range, most were either visibly not great (like the Ibanez Soundgear that has a standard headstock, so there's a weird triangle on that end that makes no sense) or headless, which I hate the look of.

So... I'm getting a Schecter Guitar Research C-5 Plus 5-string Bass Guitar. The guitarist in the last originals band I was in loves Schecter, and they get good reviews, so I can't wait until it gets here. I hope my Fenders and Squiers don't mind!


Edit: Killer snipe!

tarlibone fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Mar 3, 2024

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
The only strings that chewed up my fingers so badly I replaced them almost immediately and never went back were stainless steel, if I recall correctly. I don't know if anyone makes them anymore, but I was a babby bass pwayer who finally had enough money for something better than the $15 Darco strings from the local music store, and I feel for the high-output hype.

Don't get me wrong, they sounded great. But, they were extremely harsh on my plucking and fretting fingers. Never again. Nickel or nothing for me.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
New gear day!



The picture doesn't do it justice. This is a handsome bass.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Something amazing happened tonight.

So, we're at the venue, a bar & grill that loves us and the music we play. We've got our stuff set up, and I'm eating my dinner, and then this bearded shitheal in a Cobra Kai jacket pops into my view. He looks at the guitarist and I, and shouts, "LOOK AT THESE REDNECKS!!!!!!!!!1"

He was... well I'm not going to say his name, but it starts with a K, so I'll refer to him by a special pseudonym that has no weird connotations. Special K is a guy I haven't set eyes on for far too long, but we talk online sometimes. He was the drummer in the first real band I was ever in, back in high school. In 1999, he, the guitarist in my current band, my brother, and I formed a band in which we had our first cover band success. We were in our early 20s at the time. When that band eventually crashed and burned, we all went our separate ways, and life happened. Eventually, he moved to the most rural county in Illinois--and that's loving saying something--and he's been making a resourceful living there for over a decade.

He's a great drummer. And man, if I could put his talent into my current drummer, I'd be pickled tink. But also, he's just a great guy. Seriously. He came out to St. Somethingorothers in Missouri to watch a couple of his old bandmates play a bar gig. He's in two bands right now--he drums in one, and he sings in the other. I even got to meet his don't-call-her-a-wife, finally.

Needless to say, we did a lot of catching up between sets.

What's really funny is that if I hadn't bought a new 5-string and if I wasn't having the frets on my old 4-string leveled right now, I'd have brought both of those basses to the gig, and they were the same basses I was playing when we were all in a band together from 1999 - 2002 or so. The guitarist in our band is playing an EMG Kirk Hammet Signature guitar, which was what he was playing back then. Crazy.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Also, it depends on if you're using multi-band compression. You can really lean into a multi-band compressor and end up with a wonderfully full and musical sound that lacks only a wide dynamic range at max compression/minimum threshold.

Conversely, a single-band compressor (the most common pedals), when set to the max, will result in a tone that sounds squashed and a little weird, almost to the point of this crazy "clean overdrive" that flattens the dynamics in a less musical way.

It's for this reason that I've been thinking of going back to my SpectraComp. I love the MXR, but it's not easy to dial in, and now that I've got an active bass in the lineup again, I can't quite get it just right. The SpectraComp, being multi-band, might work better.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I have a Rumble 100, and it's plenty for practice, jamming, and even band practice with a drummer. I've used it for several gigs at small-ish bars. A Rumble 200 will be fine. The 500 is also great, but it's a lot of amp if you're not out playing quite a bit. Sure, when you get to that stage, you won't have to upgrade your amp, but the 500 is not the bare minimum for gigging, not by a long shot.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I just went and got my Precision Bass Special back from the music shop, where the in-house tech guru diagnosed a problem with a high fret or two that has plagued me for decades: set the action to Fender spec, and the strings rattle in several positions. Set it a little higher than spec, and it's mostly free of those sounds, but now the action is high. Not insanely, unplayable high--especially for a heavy-fingered player like myself--but still high. Basically, using the standard tricks for setting neck relief and action (using the string as a straightedge), I was never going to get it right because the frets were wrong.

Also, after 20+ years of regular use, I'd worn the frets visibly in the lower positions.

I just got it back. Frets are leveled, crowned, and polished. I think he raised the action at the nut a bit (by adding material to the slots), and then dropped the action to the floor, even grinding some of the saddles down to get the action as low as it needed to be. I was skeptical because I'm so used to playing this thing with higher action; I figured I'd just raise it a 64th or two.



Nope.

This thing plays like greased butter sliding over a hot pan made of ice.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Captain Splendid posted:

Thoughts on halfwounds?

I have a PJ

I've never tried them, but I like the idea.

I put flats on my Fancy Pants Precision Bass (my American Pro Precision Bass), and I love the sound, but it means that if I'm playing a gig, I have to account for the flatwound sound. For a lot of songs, it's not an issue at all; at most, it's a stylistic choice. But if I'm doing "Song 2" or something that requires some snarly, sizzly fuzz, or just a lot of treble in general, I'll have to use my roundwound-equipped 5-string. My normal complement of basses at a gig is either a 5-string in standard tuning plus a 4-string in B♭ concert, or those two plus a 4-string in standard tuning for songs we play in standard that I just prefer to play on a 4-string.

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tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
I use the Pitch Fork to add an octave up, and sometimes an octave down plus three octaves up. This pedal is basically EH's take on DigiTech's venerable Whammy Pedal, except without the expression pedal. But... you can use an expression pedal with it if you want. And, the switch can be like a regular switch in Latch mode, but turn that off, and it's a momentary switch, with a preset portmanteau that is perfect. And you can change that portmanteau if you want.

Being a clone of that pedal, though, means that it does sound fake. You can get a decent 8-string sound by using it in single octave up mode with the blend set to about 50% or so, especially if you add just a touch of chorus. Beyond that, you're getting sounds that are fake enough to act synth-y, which is what I like to use it for.

In dual mode set to down one octave and up three octaves, with the blend set to about 80% wet signal, I pair it with compression and fuzz for when we do "Gold on the Ceiling." It sounds loving great.

Speaking of songs... the guitarist in the band has decided to do some refreshing of our setlist. We're going to lean extra hard into the 90s stuff, seeing as how we're all in our late 40s and a ton of local venues love 90's bands. I have been hinting at wanting to learn "Time Bomb", so the guitarist relented and said, "Let's learn 'Ruby Soho!'", because anyone who's heard the former song (which still gets regular airplay) must certainly know the latter (which hasn't been played on the radio since 1943, several decades before it was released). So... well, I learned it, and it's surprisingly challenging for a punk song, especially when you've never heard it before.

Then he said that we might as well learn both, since they're so short. I got my wish! And hoo boy, is that song not as easy to play as I thought. It's one of the few songs where I actually know some of the lyrics and none of the bass line, and... yeah, be careful what you blah blah blah.

I did learn both though. And I'm playing them with my fingers. If you have anything to say about that, I'll play it on my flatwound-strung Precision.

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