LETELLIER : I ’ ll start at the roots . I play my Signature Series bass , which is by Bunting Guitars . So that ’ s the beginning of the chain . It ’ s a guitar from Israel , really awesome , love it . Since I ’ ve had it , I haven ’ t been able to play anything else . That goes into my board , which I just got . Boss makes these like suitcase pedalboards that are just right for fitting in the overhead of a plane . And as a bass player , I ’ m not running 10,000 pedals ; I ’ ve only got like four pedals and a tuner so it ’ s perfect for me . It ’ s the BCB-1000 . It ’ s on wheels and it ’ s got the extendable arm for rolling around super easy . Typically , my chain is first a fuzz ; I have a SolidGoldFX BC 183 . It ’ s a company from Montreal , and they make boutique pedals . They ’ re really visually stunning , they ’ re beautiful . It ’ s a very dirty fuzz , so I don ’ t use it on everything . It ’ s very hard to control and for dynamics and stuff , so when I want to go nasty , I click on the BC 183 . That goes into my tuner , which is just the standard Boss tuner . After that , it goes into an overdrive / distortion / fuzz — it ’ s
a Darkglass Alpha Omega , which is really awesome , and super versatile . It also features a DI so I usually , instead of giving the DI out of the back of my amp , I give the front of house a DI out of this Darkglass and it ’ s just exquisite . That goes into another SolidGoldFX pedal , an overdrive . And that ’ s my main tone is that SolidGoldFX . And then that all goes into a Source Audio EQ2 . So , it allows me to control like after I ’ ve built a tone . That goes into my Traynor YBA300 , built in Canada . I really like to support our Canadian economy .
CM : Do you have a particular practice routine you follow these days ?
SINCLAIR : I really don ’ t . When I ’ m writing , I ’ m mostly writing on guitar . So , I find myself playing more guitar these days than bass , but certainly when I play bass , and when I ’ m tracking bass and stuff like that , I ’ ve got a fairly regimented warmup routine that I used for years on the road with the Hip , and it ’ s just a few exercises , running , chromatic
scales and stuff like that . It ’ s more to limber your forearms than anything else , on both sides . Obviously , as you know , it ’ s a completely different feel and a completely different touch playing bass than guitar and I definitely find these days if I don ’ t do the warmups properly you get the get the cramps and stuff , especially when you ’ re out of practice and playing live night after night after night . You work in different muscle groups but when you take a little bit of time off it ’ s hard to get back into it .
FRANCIS : When I was in high school , I broke my upright bass . And so unfortunately , it was the school ’ s at the time . I was able to go to Home Depot and staple the thing back together . But because of that , and I ’ m no upright bass expert , the action was very high . Because of that , I almost got tendinitis , and I learned the importance of proper stretching and exercising . So , I like to do muscle exercises with weights that target forearms . I often do stretches before and after shows . As for my
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