EliasMooseblaster

Thank you! I've been in two minds about Line6, as I was quite impressed with the POD Farm amp sim package...but fairly horrified by some of the Spider amps I've played through on "toilet circuit" gigs. I decided to plump for simplicity and try one of the Joyo preamps, so now I'm sporting an American Sound pedal, which I must admit is giving my real amp a run for its money!

That HB does look the business, especially for the number of options. I might propose an alternative setup - one which I use myself, and may work out cheaper: Amp sim pedal & computer or phone playing youtube track -> Small powered mixer -> headphones Amp sim / preamp pedals which do a single sound can be picked up fairly cheaply, especially if you go second-hand. I recently acquired a Joyo American Sound for less than £30, and it does a pretty good approximation of Fender amp voicings. Mooer and Donner pedals do similar things at similar prices. Certainly cheap enough that you could always try a couple, and re-sell any you didn't like. Small powered mixer: I use a Behringer Xenyx 502. Again, could probably be acquired for under £30 s/h. Some of the fancier models (1002 onwards) have inbuilt effect like reverb, but may cost a little more. The key thing is that they have line in sockets which will take the feed from your amp sim pedal, a CD/Tape stereo input which can receive the youtube track from your computer's speaker socket (or smartphone headphone socket), and a 1/4" headphone socket to deliver the mix to your ears. Headphones: Sony MDR-ZX100. Maybe £20-30 new? And they sound astonishingly good. (I mixed my first EP on a pair of those, and whilst they're hardly flat response, they were more than good enough for the job.) You'll need an adapter as well, to go from 1/8" to 1/4" stereo jack, but that can be had for a couple of quid. All in, you could find yourself set up for silent practise while still south of £100. Biggest decision is probably reading up on the amp sim / preamp pedals and deciding whether you're after more of a Fender/Marshall/Vox/other kind of sound...but as I say, you could probably try a couple without breaking the bank!

Hello! Happy to offer a few suggestions: if you're looking to buy new, the Squier Classic Vibe series tend to come in south of £400, and are very well regarded guitars for the money. (And even the bog-standard Squier Affinity series are a bit more dependable these days - worth trying it out in a shop if you can, though!) If you're willing to go down the rabbit-hole of second-hand models, there are plenty of Fenders floating around eBay, and it's worth keeping an eye on the marketplace boards, both here and over on Basschat (indeed, I bought my own Tele from a feller on Basschat). You can probably get your mitts on a Mexican Fender within the £400 limit; a US one might be more of a long shot. It's also worth considering other brands' knock-off designs - some of them are thought to be better than their Fender namesakes! I see eBay has a couple of Tokai copies going in the low-300s, which have a good reputation. There's also a Schecter sitting at £239 right now - if it's anywhere near as good as my Schecter bass then you could be onto a winner there!

As opposed to the old-fashioned process of buy amp -> fiddle with sound -> get frustrated at gigs -> sell amp to fund purchase of a new one which you're sure will sound better, I see a few companies now have a line in preamp and/or amp simulator pedals. Certainly, I remember being impressed by the sounds that a friend achieved years ago by turning up with just a Boss FDR-1 and plugging that into the PA, but I see the various models from Donner, Joyo, etc are at a price point where I could take a punt on one or two and not feel like it was too much wasted investment if they were a disappointment. So: who else has tried these? Any particularly good or terrible models to watch out for? Do they play nicely with other pedals* ? And are they a good option for going amp-free, and/or silent recording at home? *I play a lot of Blues, and Blues-Rock, so of course I already have a Tubescreamer clone and Tremolo pedal...

Good lord, I remember buying an Arion compressor back in the early 2000s. Construction seemed rugged enough, looking back, and quite a range of controls...but I seem to remember it being a little too easy to get unpleasant tones out of it. (I do attribute this largely to my being a bit inept with compressors, mind...)

Anyone else chanced across this oddity? Friend of mine sent me a link yesterday: https://www.raingerfx.com/product/minibar-liquid-analyser/ Apparently, it's a simple overdrive circuit with a twist: you pour a liquid of your choice into the capsule on top, and the gain and EQ settings are determined by its conductivity and opacity, respectively. Doesn't sound too shabby from the demo videos - who fancies sharing a pint with their pedal?

Big fan of slide guitar myself. Open D's good, as is open G - sometimes it's easier to retune than start faffing with capos halfway up the neck! I believe there are even a few masochists who keep their guitars in standard, but they tend to be lead guitarists like Joe Perry or Ritchie Blackmore, who just use it for the odd solo here and there. Are you learning slide on acoustic or electric? In a bid to get the hang of it, I invested in a second acoustic guitar which I could slap some heavy strings on and leave in an open chord tuning (D and G are good for counteracting the extra tension from a set of .16s) - as luck would have it, it turned out resonators were available at a similar price point to mid-level standard acoustics. Conversely, if you're learning on electric, open E and A are worth exploring - the extra tension can help stop the slide knocking on the frets!

I don't know who said it, but I'm sure at least one music writer has contended that if he hadn't had those bad acid trips, he could have been bigger than Clapton. Even BB King was a fan, apparently: "[Green] has the sweetest tone I ever heard. He was the only one who gave me the cold sweats." I feel fortunate that I got to see him play around 1999/2000 - even if he was a shadow of his former self, he still knew his way around the instrument.

Oh, believe me when I say I've been intrigued by the possibilities of baritone guitars - particularly electric ones! Unfortunately Open C isn't a full-on drop in the guitar's range - if anything, it expands it - so I have strings running CGCGCE. I'm in the dilemma of quite fancying a slightly heavier bottom string, but not wanting to go heavier on the top. But then also wanting to be able to play in standard tuning comfortably...I'm aware that the "traditional" BassChat solution would be to buy an additional acoustic guitar that I can dedicate just to Open C tuning!

Normally, I like a 13-56 set on my regular acoustic. It works well for standard tuning, and the odd bit of drop D. I have, however, recently got into Open C. 13-56 works OK, but I'm conscious that the bottom string, tuned from low E to low C, starts to feel a bit floppy under the thumb. I notice that String Direct carry a few variants with a heavier bottom string: 13-57, 12-59, 13-59, 13-61. Has anyone else tried any gauges like this? I'm eyeing up the 13-59 Newtone set - pending advice from your good selves - but I am also a bit wary of bringing the same string set up to standard tuning. Should I be?

That is an absolute stunner. Somehow, it feels even more rock'n'roll to think that the body wood is also incredibly toxic!

Putting my bass players' hat back on...are we just more aware of our EQ, and the way it affects the way our tone sits in the mix? I wonder if the fact that we have to achieve "presence" in the mix, in the face of more limited audibility, is the reason that bass amps are much more likely to have a graphic EQ built in than guitar amps are! I've certainly played with a few guitarists who didn't realise that cranking their amp's bass control might have sounded great in their bedroom, but just coated a band mix in sonic wool. And in the interests of balance, there are still bass players who think that active pickups and onboard EQ are the devil's work, and will only consider passive basses. (Almost me: I only own one active bass to ten passives!) I hadn't heard of those before, but I'm very intrigued! Speaking on direct substitutions, I did stumble across the "warm stone" developed by AMT: https://amtelectronics.com/new/amt-12ax7ws/ Not sure how they compare to "the real thing," but whilst I've been quite lucky with valve amps so far, I would be happy to consider a more reliable alternative if it sounded as good!

^ I'll second this. I never bother playing the high fifth with this shape. The lowest four strings give you root, major third, dominant 7th and ninth, which is all you really need to give that chord its character. Hell, if you're playing in a group, I'd even leave out the root - let the bass take care of that and free up a little space in the mix!

Active pickups and onboard EQ! I'm being a little facetious, granted, but how many bassists do you know who play active basses, or at least have one in their armoury? How many bass amps have separate active and passive inputs? Now do the same count for how many people you know with active guitars - I know one, and I suspect I'm above the average in that regard! I'm not going to try and argue that active pickups and onboard EQ are the future that we're in denial about. It just seems quite striking to me how the bass community accepted and embraced this new technology, and now has an entire sub-population who will only play active basses...and yet you almost never hear about it among guitar players.

Even if the tone of the HB wasn't up to par (which it might well be, of course), the Wilkinson pickups that Vintage use are cheap enough that you could pop a new set in and make it sound...well, like a Vintage SG, I suppose!

Thank you very kindly!

As starting points go, you could probably do worse than a guitar designed by a successful female guitarist: https://www.uberchord.com/blog/st-vincent-anne-clark-guitar/

'tis me indeed - thank you very kindly! (Fair point re the popshield - I probably should have thought of that before attempting such a close-miced vocal!)

Indeed, that helps enormously - you may have just saved me a lot of money! Fortunately I have a large diaphragm condenser, with appropriate outboard phantom power, which I'd actually been thinking about connecting before, to add a bit of "ambience" to the sound. I might give that a try on tomorrow evening's live stream.

A very good point - I looked at some demos after posting the above, and was struck by how many people were using guitars with piezo bridge pickups! Mine both have magnetics: one has a magnetic pickup of unknown provenance in a "lipstick" style housing, built into the body; the other has a Fishman Neo-D which I pop into the soundhole when I need to amplify it.

I realise a lot of modern acoustic guitars have preamps built in; unfortunately mine don't. Mine have passive pickups, which I use for live performance. Whilst the sound is perfectly serviceable for plugging into a PA system, I wonder if an outboard preamp might improve things. The (possible) need has become a bit more pronounced as I've been live streaming over the last few weeks, where I've been plugging the guitars straight into a little Behringer mixer with very limited EQ and no effects. The tone isn't bad, but I wonder whether a preamp/DI might "bring it to life" a little more. I see that companies like Behringer and Hotone make inexpensive preamp+DI boxes...anyone know whether they're worth a punt?

Guitars? Four. In the electric corner, a Mex Fender Tele and a Vintage VS6 (SG copy). In the acoustic corner, an Epi AJ-100 and an Ozark resonator. Basses? Erm...I had to stop and count. You can probably guess where my primary loyalties lie.

Thanks very kindly for the link. That does sound like a really nice bit of kit - I can see why you're enjoying it! I thought the neck-middle combination sounded particularly nice. Reminds me of a time when three-pickup Teles seemed to be much more commonplace*. *About 15 years ago, maybe? Or did I just imagine that?

Subtly interesting design: if your eyes first fall on the top of the body, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a Strat, but if you were start at the bottom corner, you might reasonably assume it was a Jazz bass! Is this a new series they've released? I'd be very interested to hear how it sounds.

Think you've made the right call there. I didn't realise they'd have those pickup surrounds on as well - probably enough going on without a pickguard as well! Have to say, the Fender-style neck on the Les Paul body shape looks a lot better than I'd anticipated!