Ok - It’s been a good holiday for bass!
Rolling Bass Station 2.0 is up and running.
In storage mode:
Rolling it out:
Cable management (mixer uses a USB-B - and I still need to get a longer cord so I can route it neatly):
And fully operational:
Pulled a small SSD from an old PC. Just enough space to run Windows and Steam/Rocksmith - so time from booting up to being ready to play is only about 30 seconds - and another 30 seconds to launch Rocksmith. Less if I just want to play along with YouTube.
I added an old single monitor mounting arm I had laying around just as a way to secure the monitor while I was pushing the cart - but unanticipated benefit is quickly adjustable height makes sit/stand options for playing really convenient.
Some other notes: The Boss TU-3 came with the first bass I bought used - and I’ve never really used it, but it works perfectly as a “splitter”. Bass goes to TU-3 which splits 1 Main Out) to Zoom B1 Four → Behringer Q1204USB mixer → headphones and 2 Bypass) to RealTone Cable → PC. Credit to Kent McNall for his video explaining how to use a mixer with Rocksmith.
The mixer is just running two inputs. Zoom and PC audio. That way I have super fine control over how much I can hear from PC and how much from my own bass. I can use the 75Hz cutoff to really damp bass from PC audio as well. When I’m working on a tricky section (usually using phrase repeater in Rocksmith) I can even pan my bass to one ear and backing track to other ear so I can really hear how bad I’m screwing it up! And yes, the 1204 is HUGE overkill - but found it on ebay about 50% retail and I really prefer slides to the knobs on all the smaller mixers - throwback to my early 90’s days on a pro soundboard as “Ken Knight at Night on 95 point 5, W I F C - the Hot FM”. And it’s probably upgrade proof - I’ll never need anything bigger/fancier.
Behringer has a built in DAI and when I tested it works with Audacity to record - but I haven’t really played with that yet. No other DAW at the moment anyway.
Right now the amp is just sitting there and 99% of the time I have phones on anyway. Trying to find a way to incorporate it - maybe someone who knows mixers better has a suggestion? Back of mixer has (1/4") “Alt 3 - 4 Output” - so maybe I route bass into 3, then “Alt-3 Out” to amp? Will that work?
Planned upgrades:
- 2 larger “square” hooks for instrument cord and headphones
- longer USB-B cord as mentioned above
- possibly adding two full extension drawer slides with wood shelf to create a pull-out keyboard tray (would put keyboard/mouse at more comfortable height, and clear off the cart’s top.
- PreSonus Eris E3.5-3.5" Near Field Studio Monitors (pair). Not sure how I’ll mount them yet - but I think they’ll need to swing out so I can keep them safe during movement - but also swing out to get enough separation between them during use.
- Rumble 100 is just the right size to replace Roland Micro-cube if I move Boss and Zoom in front of it.
- Software : DAW - maybe Reaper or something similar, simple and user friendly. ToneLib Zoom to work with the B1 Four and ToneLib Jam to help me learn to read music using Rocksmith files
- maybe a USB lighting strip so it glows like a UFO - because why the hell not?
And finally: Craigslist alert and ridiculously good deal forced me to get this last night:
First experience with P-bass or flatwounds. Wow! I’m a fan. I was SURE I was a J-bass guy, but this thing is great. With tone rolled off this is a Motown machine and rolled all they way on is sharp, edgy, in-your-face Mike Dirnt goodness.
Enjoy Memorial Day everyone!
It only lacks an e-drum set 