Music

Although it seems that I'm totally focussed on doing computer related stuff that's simply not true. In fact I'm also a pretty active musician. Originally I wanted to play drums (who doesn't want to?) but my parents didn't really support that … still don't understand why not? :-) That put my desire to learn an instrument to rest until puberty set in and I tried to learn the guitar, aged 16. I really sucked as a guitar player, so I started playing electric bass aged 17. Despite starting so late I caught up very quickly with that instrument and soon gained some reputation as a (metal) bass player. I used to play in a couple of bands over the last 19 years (Rotten, Nameless, Shred in seconds, Fatal Charme, Noise `R' Us, Counterparts, Karibow, SORE PLEXUS, Elke Porn, Moshcircus, GOD2B), embracing styles from Westcoast Rock to total metal mayhem.

One of the most outstanding bands in my personal history to date was complex power metal band SORE PLEXUS… just follow the links and read some reviews to get an impression how cool that was. I still like to listen to our old albums - they still sound fresh and cool despite some particular shortcomings in the recordings. Nevertheless I'm still thinking quite a lot about that time and about the unnecessary split up. If only I could turn back time *sing* …

In 2003 I joined Stromzähler GOD2B, consisting of ex-Daily Reign guitar player legend Marco Stützer and nonetheless insane drummer Michael Sticken.

In late 2005, after receiving a distress call (thanks Reina!), I joined the local heros to be *g* Moshcircus… really some fun and kickass band! Unfortunately, after a few lineup changes, in 2009 Reina, Leif & I drew the conclusion to put the band to rest.

One year later, in 2010, Leif insisted on me joining his new band Deviation Project Impressure! Currently, we're recording stuff for the first demo and will be on the road, soon!

Upcoming gigs

Bisher nix geplant. Voll doof.

Equipment

Basses

I own a total of nine electric basses, four of which have been handcrafted by Siggi Jäger of Human Base. They're worth every single cent, and probably more than that. I'm quite hooked up to Human Base basses, because I really like their looks and their sound is outstanding. Sore Plexus' Haptephobic was recorded with the Max 6-String, Moshcircus' Karma and Pandora's Box feature the Jonas 6-String, Max 6-String and Max 4-String. Ok, 'nuff said … some photos!

Human Base 6 string fretless

Human Base 6 string fretted

6 years later … still playing that stuff :-)

Still got the funk…

Diabolic Infernal Fretless™

Just recently I stumbled across Elixir strings which are excellent. I'm using the Super Light 4-String set (.040, 0.60, .075, .095) with Super Light .125 low B and Medium (!) .032 high C extra strings for 5-String and 6-String basses respectively. I've accumulated quite a bit of basses over the years…

• Hohner PJ (4-String), 1987
  In retrospect, the Hohner PJ was a decent bass to start with, however there wasn't too much choice in 1987. If I recall correctly, it cost around 450,- DM. A pretty good instrument, for the price. Lars Petzold talked me into modifying it heavily, so we removed the frets, starting from the 5th fret upwards - seemed like a great idea to me at the time, but turned out otherwise. I still keep it in my basement, though.
• BC Rich Warlock (4-String) (OMG), 1988?
  The BC Rich Warlock definitely had the better (Metal) looks, however despite my thinking at that time that it had much better playability and sound than the PJ, it's just not true. I probably desperately wanted it to be much better because it looked so sharp. Sometimes it's good that times do change. The BC Rich is Korea made, and if you look closely, it really looks like plastic. The headstock is much too heavy. The sound is quite limited and not even metal. At 1100,- DM a pretty bad choice for an inferior quality instrument.
• Ibanez Soundgear SR1000 (4-String), 1990?
  The first good bass I bought, it cost me 1600,- DM. Good alrounder and pretty fast neck, very thin! I have the original model with the 3D bridge (or so it was called), toyed around with it quite a lot. Remained my main bass until I bought the Max 6-String.
• Applause Half-acoustic (4-String, fretless), 1992?
  I bought it because it was fretless, looked pretty interesting and I wanted to have an acoustic instrument, so that I could play together with acoustic guitar. It turned out that it's not loud enough to play acoustically with most acoustic guitars, is pretty hard to play and intonation in higher positions is almost impossible to achieve.
• Ibanez Soundgear SR1300 (6-String), 1994?
  The SR1300 was one of the first 6-String basses you could buy in Germany, I think it cost 2300,- DM. It's sound is rather limited, especially compared to the SR1000 which is a much better instrument. However, the playability is really nice, the neck being very fast.
• Human Base Max (6-String), 1996?
  The first professional instrument I ever bought, at a price of 4500,- DM. This was destined to be the final bass, one to rule them all! Playability and looks are incredible, the sound is extremely good. I bought it at Musicstore (Köln), which happened to be a pretty good shop in 1996. I'm still very thankful for the bass guy showing me that bass!
• Human Base Jonas (6-String, fretless), 1998
  Because the Max 6-String was so incredibly good, I contacted Siggi Jäger and met him at his shop. I really liked what I saw there (obviously), thus let him build another beauty for me.
• Human Base Max (4-String), 2003
  I wanted to do some other music involving lots of fast slapping, for which I needed a 4-String (makes things a lot easier). This one features a hipshot D-Tuner which I rarely (almost never) use. I still use this bass solely for all GOD2B recordings and live performances and have used this quite intensely for Moshcircus live performances.
• Human Base Max (5-String Hybrid [2-Strings fretless, 3-Strings fretted]), 2010
  I've thought about this for almost a year before talking to Siggi about this idea. This single bass incorporates all the sounds I need for live performances. Previously it was hard to decide which bass to use for a particular show - with this bass it's probably history because it covers most of what I need in a single instrument.

Amps

I started with a Laney 15" combo in 1987 which was pretty good. However, I traded it in for a (better) Trace Elliot AH200 (Series 6 with GP12) top and a 4 x 10" speaker in 1990. Believe it or not, I played the speaker until 2009! Markus Becker of Neon Sunrise persuaded me in 1996 to buy a Hartke 5000 top. Compared to other amps it was pretty cheap and we even got a discount for buying two tops at the same time - it think the price was fixed at 1000,- DM. I finally replaced the Hartke and Trace Elliot setup last year, because it was time for a more massive sound. I'm now using an EBS TD650 and two Hartke speakers HyDrive HX115 and HyDrive HX410. The speakers are excellent, I'm not so sure about the EBS TD650. Soundwise it's rather limited and doesn't feature a "warm" tone. The overdrive section isn't exactly my taste either, but the "bright" control offers some nice Korn-like bass sound. I'm definitely looking into getting an Eden World Tour 800. I got a Kemper Profiler Power Rack in 2014 (plus Profiler Remote in 2017) and I'm very happy since.

Effects

With Moshcircus I occasionally used a Digitech Whammy pedal … funny little thing!

Recording

In 2004, on Carsten Gehle's advice, I bought an M-Audio FW440. Last year Carsten bought me a Digidesign Avid Mbox 2 mini in order to pay for his advice! Sound quality of the FW440 isn't too good compared to the Mbox 2 mini, but the FW440 has the better feature set. I also have a Presonus Firestudio which has top-notch hardware and its routing capabilities are immense (although I almost never need them). One thing all soundcards have in common are shitty OSX drivers. Driver development is probably the part all of those companies outsource, at least that's how it feels to me. Sad.