Beer of the Bass

Jeff Berlin is one who could probably warrant his own thread (though it wouldn't go well). Facebook keeps thrusting his posts and other people's responses at me, and I can only think that however fine a player he may be/have been, he hasn't been a well man for the last decade or more.

It's confusing; to be lifting all those lines as closely as he is, he has to have fairly high-level transcribing skills even if the actual playing of the lines might be massaged a little. It's a surprising amount of work to put in for something that's still passing off other people's work. I feel like most people able to do that probably have the skills come up with their own variations "in the style of", if they wanted to. So beyond the "what" and the "how", the "why?" part is puzzling me.

That was definitely a factor in going for the PF50T rather than holding out for a bigger beast going cheap (as they sometimes do). The cost of one pair of 6L6 isn't going to be too much of a financial catastrophe, and now it's out of warranty I'm fairly sure I could figure out most issues myself, where some of the bigger lads increase in complexity too.

He's been a big influence on my playing, I think he may even be the reason I picked up on the sound of double bass as being something I wanted to do some day, back when I was a kid digging out my parents' Pentangle LPs. He had such a big, confident sound, yet always managed to complement whoever he was playing with when guesting. Always remarkably in-tune too, it took me a while to appreciate how much of a magic ingredient that is. And I've never heard anyone with a bad word about him personally, clearly he was doing things right!

Oh, that's a shame, I was fully planning on auditioning some German bows from them whenever I was feeling flush enough. I might try a speculative bid or two on the auction, you never know, especially with the German bows where demand might be lower...

I'm not sure there are many under 40 using single interest hobby forums at all, I'm 44 and still somehow among the younger users of most sites like this. But given the song referenced by the OP, maybe we should be asking if anyone in the thread lived under the 70s Nigerian military government, or a comparable situation (same answer, I suspect).

There isn't really a definitive answer, I reckon. You can only consider whether you like the idea, and whether you're comfortable with any possible reactions you might be able to anticipate, then make a choice about whether it's something you want to do based on that. So my take on being in a band of white British guys playing Zombie in particular is that I wouldn't, not "you must never"

Eh, not sure I'm getting whatever it is you're trying to say here. So, by exercising my choice to decline a gig offer that I just wouldn't feel enthusiastic about, I would be participating in the death of free speech? Last time I looked, freedom of association was considered an important part of freedom of expression.

Nobody is saying anything should be crushed, destroyed or banned, the thread is literally a question of "I am unsure if I want to do this thing, would you?". Personally I would choose not to, we all have that choice.

I listen to Fela Kuti fairly often, and I think I'd feel pretty uncomfortable if I was on stage playing Zombie with a white British guy singing the lyrics, especially given the amount of pidgin Kuti used. I would absolutely play stuff influenced by that style, but singing those actual songs feels a step further than I'd be comfortable with. Though I'm not claiming any great virtue on this type of thing - a couple of decades ago I played with one or two bands that dipped into other cultures in a "middle class white kids playing dress-up" way that I still cringe to think about.

I had a 100 watt Carlsbro valve PA head that (with a similar amount of cab) would stay fully clean at the sort of volumes where the PF50T is starting to get grindy. But for some styles, the sound of a valve amp sailing close to the wind is fun, and the portability, more useful EQ and DI outputs of the PF50T are good to have. The Carlsbro got left at home for a lot of gigs just because it was a heftier lump and sound guys tended to just want a DI in front of it anyway.

I haven't had the chance to compare to a Bassman 50, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be in the ballpark since it's also a fixed bias push-pull 6L6 pair with the same nominal power rating. We have a drummer with reasonable dynamics who's not a shed-builder, and our guitarist usually uses a Blues Junior, and in that context it does fine. Running the midrange control most of the way up helps things to be audible too, an option you don't have on a Fender tone stack. I can hear that it's starting to grit up and squash a little on louder notes when I get to around 2pm on the master volume, though that was at a gig where I was running into a single 12" without PA support and the guitarist had a larger combo than usual. I had it running into a venue's house Orange 8x10 on Friday, and it felt plenty loud that way!

I suspect the difference you hear when shifting a bridge backwards or forwards slightly is the change in the relative position of the soundpost qnd the bridge foot. If you move it by 5mm, say, that's going to be a barely noticeable change in scale length, but a significant change in the gap between bridge and soundpost.

I played a set with him a bit over 20 years ago, before I really knew who he was or what he did. The band I was playing with opened, some local improv-heavy jazz sorts played with him, and then we combined everyone for a third improvised set. I was not prepared for how funny he could be, I remember absolutely cracking up trying to play.

Ah, but consider; https://youtu.be/xccLqr4jW7c?feature=shared