00:00What's up guys?
00:11My name is Mike.
00:12I play bass in the band Felicity and we just flew in town to play one show here in Chicago
00:17from Orlando.
00:18Let me show you my bass.
00:20So what we have here is the, it's a Fender Jazz and it is the Geddy Lee Custom.
00:26But this one, you've got Geddy Lee's signature right there, and what makes this bass very
00:32unique is it once came with the standard Fender Jazz pickups and I bought it offline from
00:39somebody who had modified it and put a couple of P-Bass pickups in it and I just loved the
00:43look, the inlay, and I just thought, you know what, I've got to pick it up.
00:47It had lost a knob when I first got it, but whatever, that's an aesthetic thing.
00:51It gives it a little bit more charisma.
00:54And something else that I actually did with it, in Felicity, we usually use, I usually
00:58play a 5-string bass, but just simply because I love the look of this, I actually strung
01:04it with a B-E-A-D tuning, which is basically the bottom 4 strings of a 5-string bass, and
01:12I had to actually get the hole drilled a little wider to get the B-string through there, but
01:17basically I can have the thump of a 5-string bass with only having 4 strings.
01:22And then what we have here is the tone knob.
01:24I usually keep it maxed out because I like bringing out the maximum volume in both of
01:29these pickups and then adjusting it on my actual amp rig.
01:33This is just the balance, or the volume of the lower pickup, the jazz pickup right here,
01:39and I usually keep that all the way turned up just because I like getting the power from
01:43it because I usually play more up here with my fingers.
01:46So just to kind of account for not really playing right here, I keep this a lot louder.
01:52And then the P-Bass pickup is at right around about 75% volume, and that just allows me
01:57to play aggressively right here, but still get the tone from the jazz pickup.
02:02So prior to getting this bass, I have an Ernie Ball Music Man that I still use as my backup
02:07bass, and that was a 5-string, candy orange coating, just really nicely balanced bass.
02:13I loved it.
02:14Had no problems with it at all.
02:16It was an active, it has an active pickup, so just to get out of the headache of, oh
02:21geez, am I going to have to change my battery, this bass is solid state, so really no battery
02:26needed, just the convenience of, hey, I know I can pick this up, plug it in, it's going
02:30to turn on, no worries whatsoever.
02:32So my Stingray is at home because I couldn't bring two basses on this trip, but that is
02:37my backup bass through and through.
02:39If anything happens to this, I can easily go back to that Music Man and still deliver
02:43a great show.
02:44So the strings I typically go to are, of course, Ernie Ball strings, and that is in the spirit
02:49of having a 5-string at home, but I really like the 45s to 130s.
02:54It just gives a really good, consistent thump for about the three months, two to three months
02:59that I'll go before needing to change them again.
03:02I can be a little snobby with just wanting that right tone if I know we're playing multiple
03:06shows in a row, so I will change them out.
03:08If I know there's going to be a little bit of a gap of time before shows, I'll wait a
03:11little bit longer, but really to get the best bang out of these, you want to change them
03:16right around that two to three month marker when you're playing active gigs.
03:20If you're not playing a whole lot, go maybe four or five months, but then the tone really
03:25gets dull because when you're playing aggressively, you're sweating on the strings.
03:28It just kind of degrades them over time, so always, though, Ernie Balls.
03:32Great value, great string consistency, and it's what I always go for.
03:35So what we do have here is the discontinued Digitech Drop Pedal, and all stringed members
03:42of Felicity use one of these.
03:44So when we're out on the road, we'll sometimes bring down the overall key of the song just
03:49to kind of help the overall vocal performance, and having this Drop Pedal to just go down
03:54a half step without having to retune the bass and think like, okay, how am I going to change
03:59my finger position?
04:00It just makes that so easy, and I mean, these were built up.
04:04It's a shame that Digitech went out of business, but these Drop Pedals are still all around,
04:08and everyone in Felicity has one, and we have a backup because without this, there would
04:12be a lot of like, oh, hold on, hold on, let's keep retuning, and we won't want any of that
04:16in the middle of the show.
04:17So for tuning purposes, once upon a time, I used a pedal, but I wanted to really lessen
04:24what I bring to shows, so I just use a Snark.
04:27It gets the job done.
04:29You just hook it up to the headstock, and let's put it right here.
04:35Can see it as I play, and it's really easy to just kind of adjust from there.
04:40Let me see if I can get it to show up a little bit.
04:42There we go, and it's just a real easy way to get your tuning right without having to
04:47bring an extra pedal, and yeah, it's not hardwired in, but hey, it doesn't weigh more than what,
04:52half a pound, not even, so yeah, Snark for the win.
04:56The in-ears I use are, I'll say my last name, Handcrafted 4.
05:01In-ears audio, they're based right out of Orlando, and we just knew somebody who knew
05:05somebody over there and said, hey, go over there, go talk to them, they have a really
05:09nice presentation.
05:10Basically, I got the 12-channel ones just because I really wanted a lot of the lower
05:16bass tones to come through these, but you get the nice see-through, blue is always your
05:21left.
05:22You can even opt to have a extra little detail put on the front.
05:27I like the wooden, the wooden tone right there because that reminded me of a very old bass
05:31that I used to have, and then the gloss and blue, but a lot of nice customization and
05:35at a great value, and they get the job done.
05:37I've had these for probably three years now, no problems, and they are insured, so yeah,
05:43in-ears audio in Orlando, Florida.
05:45So basically, guys, the best thing to know about the band right now is that we just put
05:49out our latest single, it's called Lovesick Blues, available on all platforms, Spotify,
05:54Apple Music, Tidal, it is everywhere, Lovesick Blues, definitely go check it out.
05:59And the nice thing about Felicity is all of our handles are the same, it is at WeAreFelicity.
06:04That is on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, all the same, at WeAreFelicity, you can find
06:10all of the tour dates and all the latest Felicity news through any of those handles, and look
06:14for us doing some little show one-offs this summer, and hopefully jumping on some tours
06:19coming your way very soon.
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