thcraymer's forum posts 106

Tough choice, I keep my pedalboard pretty compact, and all those pedals on it hold some significance. I'm going with the Zoom MS-70CDR (a similar pedal to the MS-50G that @mylittleeye mentioned, but with more focus on reverb, delay, chorus, and other modulation effects). That pedal alone is responsible for most of my reverb, chorus, and delay, as well as having some decent drives and amp models with the software, and some other useful things (compressors, boosters, EQ), saving me a lot of space on my board, not to mention a lot of cash.

Definitely! It's a pretty useful tool, for artists and others connected with the industry alike to connect. I'm not really sure of the process of applying as a sound engineer there, I just have an artist profile, but yeah it could potentially bring more work... I've also done session stuff on a couple of other artists' songs there

Yeah Submithub has a pretty good community of artists, I've had some interesting conversations in their group chats! And of course there are many useful services it provides, such as getting your songs listened to and rated by other artists, submitting to various playlists, blogs, etc., and finding people to help mix/master/promote your music (similarly to Fiverr I guess, but "policed" more strictly to keep out scammers, I haven't tried it yet though but am considering hiring someone to help promote my upcoming album, if it's cheap enough).

You seem like a good dude too, it's great chatting with you here :D even if I don't come here too often... and I do hope to have more of those kind of meals!

A common issue with Strats in general, I also used to get this issue a lot on mine... anyway, I found this guy on YouTube with a useful hack for this, he has several videos about setting up Strats in fact, I haven't had any major tuning issues with it since!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Oyc6slYRc&t=305s

@pkennethk True, for example on Submithub, among many of the younger artists I meet there, it's not uncommon to have 1 minute songs. Also, it was one of the best meals I've ever had! Took ages to prepare (I helped her with the cooking), but well worth it, and will always remember it, also hopefully someday looking forward to a future filled with these kind of meals :D

@mylittleeye Love it! Microtonal, and everything sounds perfectly in place! I'll need to check out some more of his stuff!

Haha thanks :D I also use my Arabic oud on several songs... hoping to do more like this one of these days! One of my friends requested I should make a longer version of this song, 2 minutes was too short for him!

Regarding Middle Eastern food, there are some decent places here in Hungary. Of course though, it doesn't compare to the actual thing! My girlfriend (from Tunisia) just cooked me a huge array of traditional dishes from her country on New Year, and also taught me how to prepare them! It's pretty similar to Middle Eastern food, just with a lot more heat!

Apart from King Gizzard, I can't think of any other high profile artists who use microtonal guitars in their music, apart from George Harrison's debut solo album "Wonderwall", and Brian Jones' solo album "Pipes of Pan at Joujouka", but neither use microtonal guitars but rather folk instruments such as sitars . I guess the reason I wanted a microtonal guitar was sort of inspired by my travels in North Africa and the Middle East, listening to the local music and street artists, I had bought an Arabic oud as I wanted to incorporate those elements into my music. But then I wanted to do the same but on electric as well.

So yeah can't really think of any other high profile artist that uses microtonal electric guitars apart from King Gizzard, but if you're interested to hear how it sounds, here is one of my songs where I use it for the intro and outro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3e2kCV-3bQ

Oh nice! I wasn't here then either, but also love modding here and there (well depends on the guitar, I won't mod a vintage guitar, but a Cort or Harley Benton, naturally!)

Ok I wouldn't know where to start creating a guitar, let alone a custom one, but some of the ones I already do have, have some pretty wacky designs. One of them is my Jolana Iris (a vintage Czechoslovakian guitar from the '70s, which is a sort of mashup between a Tele and a Jazzmaster), and another is a custom microtonal Strat (similar to a regular one in almost every way, except with additional frets, allowing me to play quarter tones as well as semi tones). Always interested in unusual designs!

The possibilities are endless! But yeah, as mentioned above, for active you need to modify your guitar, it's maybe better to get a separate guitar that already has active. Well I tend to be more biased towards passive pickups anyway, I know for myself if I used active, I'd constantly be worrying about the battery running out haha

There are some pretty good budget options, such as Toneriders, Guitarfetish, etc., if you don't want to spend too much. I put some Tonerider Alnico ii classics into my Cort Les Paul (probably not what you're looking for though, as they are lower output, you would need Alnico v or higher for metal). Anyway, my stock pickups were also Alnico ii like the replacement ones, but could sometimes be muddy, this made a huge difference and didn't cost too much.

Also, something worth trying before buying new pickups: adjusting the height of the pickups you already have. Sometimes that can make a huge difference itself, and it costs nothing. Lower the pickups further away from the strings for a crisp, clear tone, or bring the pickups up closer to the strings if you want more output, and a slightly "compressed" sound. Good luck, and hope it works!

Sorry, I haven't been here in ages... but thanks again! For now I guess even the Kali LP6 are out of my price range, they come in at around $200 each here if I want them new... might keep my eyes open in the local used market though for the other option you mentioned, the hi-fi speakers, something pretty cool turns up there every now and then.

My mum plays piano, teaches it too in fact! And she used to play guitar too (I started on her old acoustic in fact)

I'll definitely consider it then! Maybe some cheap ones like $100 or so should be fine, I'll check them out locally

Definitely and thanks :D I've heard improvement already, especially within the past 2-3 years there's been a lot of improvement in my mixing. And still continuing to improve! I guess the next step is to improve my actual gear for recording and mixing.

Certainly will when I can! For now there is one issue, that I live in quite a small apartment and the sound can carry through the building, so even if I did buy some I wouldn't be able to use them to their full potential, maybe just at lower volumes. But certainly will consider it! As it is, I'm selling some of the stuff I don't use, so will be able to invest in some cheaper end monitors.

My mum is also a musician and I've helped her with recording and mixing her own music, as well as occasionally providing bass and drums, so yeah I do have some experience with mixing songs that aren't my own!

For sure! Even though my mixing skills are nowhere near as good as yours, I'd say I still spend more time on the mix than I do on everything else put together (writing, arranging, and recording the songs). Writing and playing always came naturally, but with mixing + mastering, especially as I taught myself, I found there's a lot of trial and error involved. Though I wouldn't have the cash to pay for all my tracks to be mixed/mastered, especially at the rate I write and record them, so am trying to teach myself.

no no, just use autotune that way, what you do is duplicate the vocal track twice and put whatever tuning plugin you like on each duplicate. Mute the original and one other dupe and fiddle with the tuner to get a subtle tuning, then render that in place to a new track and delete the one with the plugin. Then take the next duplicate and tune it more extremely, render it and delete the dupe with the plugin. Then you work with all 3 files to make a vocal comp just taking the notes and phrases that sit best in the song. Try to blind listen and trust your ear to get a good balance of tuned and natural phrases.... delete the unused junk. Proceed with mix.

Oh nice :D sounds pretty time-consuming, but may be worth it, I'll test that on some of my other tracks when I get the time!

ah, fruityloops... we go way back to the 90s man... it was just a virtual sampling drum machine then like an akai mpc for a pc

Oh nice! Yeah even when I used it in '08 it was still fairly simple, just a sampling machine really... good days haha

there are many uses for compressors... the way of tasteful compression is a skill few have mastered, the dark side of gain reduction is a pathway to dynamics that some would call unnatural

I guess I mostly use compressors for vocals, partly to give them a boost, and partly to help them sound more consistent throughout (especially as I often try to record the vocals in one take if possible)... though recently I have also been using them more for bass and sometimes rhythm guitars too... I'm still at the point of just using Ableton's presets for compressors, and not modifying those, it'll take a long time to master that skill, especially being self-taught

I'm a beatle-brat myself... although John was alive when Iw as born and I grew up with my parent's original LPs on the old technics lol

Oh cool! I've literally only heard an actual LP once (my grandma had a turntable with Elvis Presley's greatest hits), I grew up listening to CDs and downloads (and cassette tapes in the car in my early childhood), hoping someday to own a turntable though and some of my favourite records!

And yeah the Beatles were probably my very first inspiration, thanks :D I guess it started with the fact my parents used to play them in the car, I was pretty much brought up on the Beatles! Regarding the vocals, I guess I partially used the natural reverb of my room, and one of the built in reverbs in Ableton (can't remember now which one). Haha yeah, it's a simple Casio midi keyboard I used, am thinking of upgrading it sometime, but yeah I'll try that out what you mentioned, boosting the area around 6k, cut in the low mids, and compression you mentioned, as well as the piano verb... similar story with the drums, as I only have a small midi drumset so just tried to make it as close to the real thing as possible, that drumset is easy to store but can be a pain to play and mix.

Oh and that may have been my mistake taking out the low bass, I used my fretless bass and wanted to emphasise the "fretless-ness" of it, if that makes sense lol! I am quite big on longer songs, my longest released song reaching 22 minutes, but of course have many 2-3 minute ones too!

Again thanks for your kindness, and would love to see what you do with the song!

Yeah that would be great :D when I do use autotune, I just use it very sparingly, as I don't want to take any of the character or timbre out of my vocals, and I don't really like the sound of autotune anyway it's just to fix the odd note that might be slightly out of tune (especially if I have more vocal harmonies). That method that you have sounds great! How would I be able to do it? I'm not really sure how to access the pitch shifter.

I guess my first introduction to DAWs in general was in '08, I was 14 at the time and the school computer had FL Studio... and am pretty much self-taught when it comes to any of the DAWs I've used lol, so I guess my knowledge is still pretty basic!

I just noticed I used a lot more compressors than I thought, the bass and some of the guitars also had them!

Oh I've already compressed the file with graillon still there, in fact I'm about to send it to you! I've also sent my rough mix so far as an mp3 (the flac is too big to attach to the email), hope you like it! I needed to use my secondary email, [email protected], as my hotmail one doesn't work with google drive.

Thanks so much again :D I tend to stick to one program (Ableton, or in the past Cakewalk), just to keep it simple, but that sounds an interesting idea! I've tried Protools as well before, but couldn't get it to work on my laptop, it kept crashing... and yeah as you pointed out before, all my gear is pretty basic, so I just use what I have pretty much! If I really want a good listen to the final mix, I tend to try it on my headphones at my workplace (which for some reason are much better than my home ones, but I have no idea where to buy them as they are provided by the company), or my car speakers or TV speakers haha

And yeah I use channel inserts for the reverbs and delays! All of the ones I've used were ones that are already in Ableton.

Oh I just remembered though... I had a very slight autotune effect on all of the vocal tracks. The plugin I used was Graillon, it's not built into Ableton but it's completely free to download. But the effect was so subtle, it doesn't make a huge difference if it's there or not!

So yeah am hoping tonight I can send everything over when I get home!

Thanks so much! And yeah I'll try and send it as soon as I can. There is one that is near finished that I think you'll dig, I'll just need to check the panning, volume levels, effects, etc., but everything is recorded that needs to be there.

For now I'll leave the compressors on, I think the vocals had some pretty heavy compression (but I don't think I used it anywhere else). I might have adjusted the EQ on the non-distorted rhythm guitar (which was triple tracked), but don't remember now, I'll need to check that! I had some stereo mastering effect in the Master channel, I'll keep it there but switch it off when I send it to you

Looking forward to hearing what you'll do with it :D I'll check the volume levels and panning tonight, and send it over either late tonight, or tomorrow. My email is [email protected]

So I don't do spotify anymore. I'm boycotting them along with a lot of friends and colleagues because of their unfair business practices and piss poor sound quality. Anywhere else I can hear this stuff?

Yeah it's all up on YouTube as well, and most platforms (Bandcamp, Tidal, Apple, Deezer, etc.)

I did break down and preview some tracks from your singles collection. I would like to hear all of "dead to you." I concur with @pkennethk that you hit on something there. You might want to police yourself while singing and playing slide... you tend to be pitchy on both so get in touch with your inner tantrum-throwing record producer and give yourself a stern dressing down sometimes. 'Producing' your own vocals is tough. But don't turn into Phil Spector!

Thanks! I can send "Dead To You", I removed the original EP though so that's why it has so few views. It was recorded and mixed a while back, possibly 2016-17, and I don't have the original master any more either :/ here is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ni8ktdTCEc&list=OLAK5uy_nYAqII3czN6Pid7ux7ANdLZpwsoJheGM4&index=21

You are not off base in admitting your mixing is a bit wonky. It sounds like you don't have monitoring you can trust. That's pretty important. The quest for affordable, honest speakers that work in your space is a Parsifal type journey. I highly recommend arturia's iLoud MTM with room correction for an untreated room. They lack a little bass extension but I find them to be very reliable, not hyped anywhere even if you don't calibrate them. Hard to believe that something that looks like a 90s sound blaster pc speaker us so accurate. You need the dual woofer version, not the cheap ones. I've heard good things about the slate headphone system too but have yet to try it.

I just really use headphones when mixing, can't really use speakers in my small apartment, haha what will the neighbours say! At the moment am just using some Behringer DJ ones... which is already an upgrade from what I used for the compilation album or "Tornado" album

What I did like is your total embrace of the solid state amp sound. There are moments of totally fizzy distortion in a cloud if ethereal reverb that was really refreshing in thus age of amp simulators. You're like, "these are my tools, they are my sound and I'm more than comfortable with it!"

Thanks :D actually, I tend to go straight from the guitar through the pedals to the interface without the amp, but I think what you're hearing is the combination of pedals I used

Overall I'm impressed with how much you've done with very limited resources. You really believe in yourself and it comes right through in the finished product. You're sincere, creative and resourceful. I've had clients who could learn a lot from your patience, persistence and attention to detail.

Thanks so much! I guess I'm improving, here's one of my more recently recorded songs, I guess the sound is a lot clearer than before! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJPMFJZPlQ

I'm going to make an offer I seldom make. Maybe it's just because I've had such dreck in here to mix lately that your stuff, while not much better recorded, is a breath of fresh compositional air. I see you're using live. I'm on live11 standard. If you aren't using extras from live Suite or paid plugins I might not own (unless its stuff that's not important), why don't you send me the audio and ableton project file for your best cut from the new lp and I'll sit down for a day or 2 and if I dig it, I'll mix you a single free of charge. Please have a rough mix up so I can hear what you're going for and I'll disable a lit of that, route it though my console and fire up the outboard and attempt to exceed the production values of you've done so far while staying true to your vision. If you're down, please make sure you're not sending me noisy material and that your edits are properly crossfaded to be click free so I can focus on making things sound cool. Keeping it to 24 chanbels is good if possible. I have a 32 channel inline desk with a lit if aux returns but I like to keep the last 8 free for crestivity and use my tape returns for mults.

I'm not sales pitching you. I'm offering a free service. I can also take a look at what you're doing and how you're doing it and give you some tips.

Oh wow that's a really kind offer :D I recently upgraded to the standard version of Ableton (before that, I was using the free lite version of Ableton, as well as Cakewalk, for all my releases), so this new album I'm working on is actually the first one since I upgraded to Live 11 standard. And yeah I don't have any extra paid plugins or anything (even when I do use plugins that aren't already on Ableton, they're free ones), so yeah I'll decide on which song to send at some point. Oh also, I tend to double or even triple-track the vocals and rhythm guitars (this is especially the case on the new album) and pan them (keeping one in the centre if triple tracked), but it should still come to under 24 tracks, whichever song I decide to send! How and where shall I send it to you?

Dude, that's a sweet fretless Beatle bass.

Thanks, really love this bass! It certainly brings something different to the music

Jim mentioned a sort of Polish vibe in his comments, and if he's referring to Seaton Park Blues, specifically, then yeah, that one jumped out right away for me too. The 2/4 (2/2?) time feel on that one is great. It's ear-catching. What was the crowd reaction for that one?

Oh yeah, that one was written by David (the Hungarian guitarist in the band), interesting you and Jim should mention that though! He wrote it while he lived in Scotland for a while, Seaton Park is an actual place there! And the crowd loved it!

Do you feel like being a British expat living in Hungary has influenced you musically?

In some ways I guess, well more the sort of idea of being a foreigner here, and somewhat alienated or detached from both my home countries had a certain impact I guess!

I dig the mid/late 60s classic psychedelic sound on the first album. The track on that first-linked album that caught my ear the fastest was Dead to You; if I heard that out in public, I'd whip out the Shazam app: "who ARE these folks with the monster guitar & horn riff?".

Haha thanks :D and actually I play all the instruments myself on my music (on that track the horns were done on a synth)

If I had to guess, I'd say the second album you linked was recorded after the first album, only because I feel like the tracks on the second album were all recorded in roughly the same time period, are maybe a bit tighter, they feel more like they're all "of the same cloth" than the first. I dig the dark, thick guitar tone, especially on the first few songs. I recall an interview with Billy Corgan back when Siamese Dream came out, and he talked about only playing Japanese 50s-reissue Strats (at the time) because they brought the "stormy glory" he was after -- I know that's not the sound you're going for on this album, exactly, but "stormy glory" still feels like an apt description for the overall dark, crunchy, 'verb-heavy vibe.

Yeah, correct! But also the fact that the first is a compilation of all my early singles and EPs, rather than a proper album, so that's why it sounds so disjointed... most of those were from around 2019, I also included previously unreleased material from 2015... and the second one I sent, "Tornado", is a proper album that was recorded within a few months in 2022, so I kept that same feel throughout... "Stormy glory" is a pretty good description actually, as the album title "Tornado" suggests, I wanted that dark crunchy reverb on the guitars to sound like a literal tornado destroying everything in its path!

Definitely! At the following gig after that one, we actually did get what we wanted regarding the sound, in fact the quality was amazing! Perhaps my bass was a bit too loud... it was a smaller gig though, but possibly the best we've played, in fact that one I also uploaded! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMb69BOadU0&t=2814s

Wow that is so cool, I bet your music isn't that bad actually, would love to hear it! I guess for myself I've written a lot, recorded a lot, and am quite prolific, but still not that great haha...

Still, that bass is amazing :D I'm pretty useless when it comes to tech stuff, can only do the basics... but yeah am about to head off to the guitar tech now!

And as for shoegaze, well I guess this is my most "shoegazey" album yet (also the new one I'm working on will have a similar vibe to this one): https://open.spotify.com/album/6l0inZER4ho8nYWJqpaosO?si=J3HAUt_NTLCoO5DI6lBy1Q

Ok that makes sense, well I've never needed to go that loud... even at that gig we only needed to turn up the volume around halfway. For any gig I'll usually only bring one guitar or bass, but make sure it's one of my more versatile guitars/basses (of course there are exceptions when I do play more instruments as a multi-instrumentalist, there was even one where I brought a guitar, a bass, and a keyboard, and switched between the 3 throughout the gig, but usually not), and we'll usually use whatever amps they have at the venue (or for smaller gigs, we might bring our own)

As for that gig we played, we did actually do a soundcheck before it, but it was all a bit rushed... the act before us took longer than expected, and the band we were opening for had a set time when they would start, so we needed to rush through the soundcheck a bit lol. I guess the guitar actually wasn't too harsh actually, just against the vocals, I tried isolating the vocals in the video to make them louder, but the lead guitar was in exactly the same frequency for the most part. We could vaguely hear what we played, but I could only hear my own bass, and each of the guitarists could only hear their guitars. In fact I can send you the gig itself here! I'm on the left playing bass, and sing the 3rd song "Slip Away" (though the vocals can barely be heard), my bro Daniel is in the middle and our friend/bandmate David on the right and they also sung a song each, we didn't have a drummer at that point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BxFUpRQGhc

And yeah, here's the compilation, I'll send that too! It's hardly a "Best of..", far from it in fact, it's all my early non-album singles, 2 of my early EPs from 2019, and my unreleased experimental album I recorded in 2015, "Ambientrance", with a couple of bonus tracks too. It's all solo stuff, so I play all the instruments and do all the vocals, my mixing is a bit rough here and there though, but hope you like it! https://open.spotify.com/album/4QDnJyJ9PEi4hVJnsBWhOM?si=_HLmnuUrTeavVL17CRPfbQ

The current album I'm recording should be finished and released sometime early next year!

For the most part, that tracks to my own, admittedly-limited, experience.

Interesting. Have you had opportunities to play theater-sized venues @ concert volume, per Jim's earlier question?

Per your profile, are you primarily playing Psychedelic & Shoegaze these days?

That's a good-looking mahogany Cort you've got there!

I haven't had many opportunities to play those kind of venues! I guess the largest was an outdoor one in front of 500-800 people, we opened for another band and used their amps... I was on fretless bass that time, it went pretty well! Though it was not easy to hear what we were playing, also the sound guy kind of messed up, the guitars were too harsh sounding and our vocals were far too low in the mix (especially mine, I guess as bassist he wasn't expecting me to do any lead vocals)

And yeah, I mostly play psychedelic rock and shoegaze :D in fact I recently released a compilation album of some of my older stuff, and am working on a new album! I noticed on your profile you're more into synths and production, though also noticed your Fender P-bass, nice! What kind of music do you make then?

I'm actually taking the acoustic mahogany Cort to my tech today, got some new ebony bridge pins (to replace the plastic ones) but they're too big and I don't really have the time to sand them down or anything, and I guess an overall setup wouldn't hurt either!

You're entitled to your opinion but I question what its based on.

EDIT: if you've never opened an old superlead all the way up in a big venue and felt your guitar vibrate in sympathy with every note you're missing out...

I don't have a superlead, and depends what you mean by a big venue!

Regarding tonewoods, point taken for the "feel" aspect of it. I don't believe they affect the sound itself for electric guitars (or certainly, not to the degree they do for acoustics), but they certainly do affect other factors such as the weight, comfort, etc.

From my experience, at least for an electric guitar/bass, the build (body shape, solid/hollow, etc.), pickups, and the choice of strings will have a bigger impact on your sound than the tonewood. Perhaps there is a slight difference in sustain, if anything, but even then I think that is more down to the pickups and the bridge materials (and nut for open strings).

Regarding amps, true that there is an interaction between guitar and amp (as well as whatever pedals you have in between), but I think the tonewood's effect on that is practically negligible.

Of course, for acoustic guitars as we know, the tonewood does make a huge difference, I'm definitely more into mahogany myself!

A small amp for playing at home, or a larger one for live performances? In either case, if you're on a budget I'd suggest looking at your local used market. I managed to get two practice amps, a 15W Line6 Spider and a 15W Marshall bass amp, both for half the original prices on the used market.

It also depends on what sound you're going for... of course they're all different, and will have different components depending on the brand, model, etc. Some might sound more vintage, others more modern, some might sound amazing while clean, others might be able to handle more gain and effects, others may already have built in effects (modelling amps)... the possibilities are endless, but I'd certainly say look on your local used market!

Oh I thought it was too good to be true, a Vox "tube" amp being that cheap (well, cheap in comparison to actual tube amps). That said, I probably couldn't justify buying an actual full tube amp (not NuTube or hybrid) at those prices, unless I went for a small budget one, such as Harley Benton's Celestion tube amp.

My brother also has the Vox Pathfinder, a great amp if I may say so myself! I was considering getting one too, but went for the Line 6 Spider in the end (a lot of extra features on that one, and I got it at less than half the original price on the used market)

If I do ever get a tube amp, the one I'm looking at is the Vox Mini Super Beetle... looks and sounds great, and not too expensive as tube amps go (they range from 300-350 pounds). In fact, they make them for both bass and guitar, so if I saved up enough and wanted to splash out on something, might go for both of them! Though for now, am fine with my solid state amps.

Yeah similarly so here, of course the sound on them is great, but could I justify spending that much more money on one? And if I get one for my guitars, do I get a separate bass tube amp as well?

Similarly, what I have seems to be fine: a Line 6 Spider guitar amp, and a Marshall bass amp (both 15W, good for practicing/recording at home, and playing some small venues). Eventually, I'll likely upgrade the amps (one of my dreams is to build an actual home recording studio), but not sure if I'd go for tube amps, or for higher quality solid-state amps.

Similar experience here! Well I'm classically trained on piano, self-taught on guitar, bass, ukelele, and more recently oud (though still a beginner on that, I barely get time to practice, but it's close enough to guitar to learn quickly). I've tried an accordion only once, and I'd say that was the one of the most difficult instruments I've tried, drawn with violin (which I've tried a few times, took ages just to play a few notes properly). I know one guy who does play accordion well, but he's been doing it for years, and as you mentioned, it's something you'd need to be investing a lot of time towards!

Oh nice! I just bought a Rotosound 10s string set (this'll be my first time trying Rotos for guitar, but I have had their Tru Bass strings which I really liked). Still deciding whether to put them on the Strat ot the Les Paul!

Definitely! I don't find flats that much darker than rounds, on the bridge pickup they can sound fairly bright... my favourite flats are probably Höfner's contemporary flats (granted, they only come in short scale, and are specifically made for Höfner violin basses or others of a similar scale length). Those are actually so versatile, they can go from being very dark and thumpy on the neck pickup, to very bright on the bridge pickup! Also, 2 of my 3 electric basses are hollow or semi hollow bodies, and I feel flats bring out the character of a hollow body bass much better than rounds

I love those Tru Bass black nylon Rotos! Used to have them on my Squier Jazz bass, I eventually sold that bass though so don't have those strings on any of my current basses, but will definitely consider them again! And that's pretty smart what you do with the strings... well now I've completely switched to short scale, but wondering now if I could have kept those Tru Bass strings to move to one of my short scales, and just put some regular strings on the J bass before selling it

Definitely! Each guitar does respond differently... 10s are my go-to strings for electric guitars in general, but now I'm considering 9s for my Tele to be able to bend the strings better, that's my real vintage guitar (it's the Jolana Iris, which is the 50 year old Czechoslovakian Tele with a Jazzmaster bridge). For my acoustic, I've always alternated between 11s, and 12s, I'm currently on 12s but may go back to 11s. I also use open tunings a lot, but also do a lot of finger picking, and for that 11s are a lot easier

Also applies to bass: I generally prefer flats, but my newest bass, a Cort Action Junior, actually feels and sounds better with rounds!

Generally, 10-46 on electric guitars, 12-53 on acoustic, and 40-95 on bass. However, I'm considering switching to a lighter gauge for my Tele and for my acoustic

Yeah you can stack them! You can have up to 6 effects at a time officially, though some effects take up more memory of course (for example shimmer reverb takes up over 3 spaces, so you might be able to stack it with one or two other effects). Of course you can also save the effects you've stacked as presets, so you don't need to dial them in again, and best part is it's only a little over 100EUR, it's a steal at that price (especially as I was able to sell some other pedals to pay for it)!

I don't have a strict order for my pedals, as I'm always changing it, but here goes: Marshall Jackhammer OD/distortion, Cuvave fuzz, Dunlop CryBaby, Behringer noise reducer, EHX Volume pedal, Zoom MS70-CDR multi-effect pedal. Also, not a pedal, but I use an Ebow (Joyo Infinite Sustainer) from time to time. But yeah, I try and keep it compact, these six pedals seem to be enough for now, as the Zoom covers all my modulation/delay/reverb needs

JJ tubes, formerly Tesla... no Elon musk connection lol

Oh nice! I'll keep that in mind then... am still trying to decide whether to save up to a tube amp or not

Well, it doesn't currently affect me, as I have only solid state amps. However, I'm considering upgrading to a tube amp at some point (not anytime soon though, well it depends on how my finances go). I'm wondering whether I should still do this, or stick with solid state?

Additionally, I saw earlier in this thread that some Slovakian company makes tubes, which is pretty good as I live in Hungary, so shipping should be fairly cheap, especially as I often order guitar accessories from Slovakia or Czech Republic if I can't find them locally!