Hi. My name is Mark, and I'm a bass player. I am new here, though I first created the account several years ago. I just didn't do much with it because I had a lot of other things going on.
I first started playing music when I was 10. I started with the Cello in the 5th grade orchestra of my elementary school. Music was always a big part of my family life, so it seemed natural to me to pick an instrument. Of all of the voices available, the cello had the sweetest and most mellow tone. I changed to bass guitar on my 16th birthday, when my mother bought me a Hondo Flying V 4-string bass. It was huge and heavy, and had a warp in the neck to make the Mississippi River jealous. Two years later, I bought my first new bass, a B.C. Rich Virgin NJ with EMG select pickups.
I am now 32. I have spent quite a few of those in-between years without an instrument and without any gear of any kind. I frequently came back to it and touched on it, but my life was so otherwise busy that I could never give it any real priority.
But, I have chosen recently to make it a priority. I play mostly technical metal a la the likes Meshuggah, but I am also interested in playing jazz and blues, and a little country (this
is Oklahoma after all).
Here are my instruments:
The red one is a Schecter Omen Extreme 5 string. It has standard Schecter Diamond pickups and the schecter 2-band EQ. I have D'Addario Nickel EXL170-5 strings on it right now, but I am going to put prosteels on them soon. I like Schecter because they look great, they sound great, and you don't have to take out a mortgage to buy one.
The black one is a Rogue LX200BF fretless 4 string. I bought it to try out a fretless without investing a huge amount of money, in case I didn't like it. Well, I love it, and so now I am looking at some better 5 string fretlesses. The rogue plays beautifully and has a super sweet and mellow tone. I had to do a fair amount of setup work on it out of the box, including replacing some hardware and the strings. It came with roundwound strings, so I put the black Roto Tru Bass 88LDs on it. I am also considering putting an EMG-X P/J pickup set on it, but I haven't really decided. That would cost more than the actual instrument did.
Here is my little effect setup:
I spent a lot of time looking for the right distortion pedal, and completely failed to find what I was looking for. I really like the EHX Bass Big Muff Pi, but I wanted it to sound warmer and give me more punch. I also really love the sound of a lightly chorused bass. It sounds so much more "full."
So, the Big Muff dry output goes into Ch.1 of the little 5 channel mixer. The distorted output goes into the volume pedal, and then into the Digitech MultiChorus. The stereo output of the Chorus pedal goes into Ch.2 of the little mixer. This allows me to have a few things which I like.
First, it allows me to mix some punchy clean tone in with my distorted sound. This gives the distorted output a more defined attack and adds more complex voicing to the distortion. It goes through the chorus, of course, and gets even more harmonic complexity. The volume pedal allows me to fade the distorted effect in and out on the fly. Last, I always have pure clean sound on channel one, so I can mute the other channels and have my un-screwed-with bass tone. The 'tape out' on the mixer goes directly to my computer's line in jack, so I can use it as a practice amp and I don't have to lug a bunch of amp equipment around.
I plan to add a wah, probably a Morley of some variety.
Amplifier-wise, I am currently playing through a 15" 120W combo amp that belongs to a friend of mine. It sounds ok and is plenty loud, but it distorts too easily if I really dig on it.
I have ordered a Carvin BX500, an Ashdown MAG 410T, and an Ashdown MAG 115. I am excited beyond belief for it to arrive.
So...um...thanks, and see yous around.
