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This poem was in the order of service at a memorial service for a young Bass player I knew, taken too young. I appreciate that not everyone shares the poems view on bassists "place" in a band, but the sentiment was definitely shared by the young lad.🙂 Thought I'd share it.

Here's my JJ4 California Hardcore Aged 2011 model, it has the older ABM bridge, Delanos and 2 band active its a complete dream to play, sounds amazing ...

I came across this a few weeks back when i was looking for a VM5.... It made me melt a little inside when i decided on the surf green. i still dream about this bass!

I was wondering when someone would come along and - in an excess of feeling - step firmly upon on the tribute band landmine. It's always fun when that happens. The thing about tribute bands is that they are merely a variation on the time-honoured practice of musicians playing other peoples' songs. Indeed, until the Rutles came along pretty much the entire industry was predicated on the idea that songwriters wrote songs and musicians performed them and seldom the twain did meet. To my uncertain recollection the greatest popular singer of all time (Frank Sinatra) wrote (and subsequently performed) only one song in his career. If it was good enough for Francis Albert, it's good enough for me. In any event, the point is moot when it comes to bass players; apart from ten or so household names nearly all bassists have to dutifully play what they're given by The Talent, even when - as in the case of most 'originals' hobby bands - The Talent is a technically incompetent dullard with an Epiphone Lester and Himmler's way with a tune. All of which is is to say that my ranked musical preferences for a local Friday night out would be: 1. A tribute band 2. A covers band 3. Red hot needles in the eyes 4. An 'originals' band

When we set up to play in a pub, the people who are there have chosen to be there. They could have gone somewhere else, but this is where they want to be. Some (a few, a very small number) are there specifically to see us, some are there to check out the music because it's a music pub, and some are there for all sorts of other random reasons. Once we start playing, those punters who don't like rock music will leave. Those punters who don't like our particular brand of rock music will also leave, but not so quickly. Meanwhile, those punters who DO like what we're doing will be texting or phoning their mates and saying "great band on tonight, you should come down here". By the time we play our last set, the people in the pub will have self-selected to be only those who actually like what we're doing, and who will respond to the music ... dance maybe, or sing along, or at least applaud after each song. The gig is far more involving for the band, far more fun for everyone, far more likely to bring repeat bookings. ************************************************************************************ When we set up to play in a club (Social, WMC, whatever), the people who are there are always there. Most of them cannot imagine going somewhere else on a Saturday night, and if they do their friends will ask where they were. They are there for the venue and to see their friends, and the music is almost incidental. They sit there with their arms folded, staring at us, and daring us to entertain them. It's THEIR club and we are the intruders. Once we start playing, those members who don't like rock music will complain. Those members who don't like our particular brand of rock music will also complain, but not so quickly. Meanwhile, those members who DO like what we're doing will NOT be texting or phoning their mates and saying "great band on tonight, you should come down here", because the club is Members Only. After the first set, one of the members (almost invariably a guitarist, allegedly) will buttonhole a bandmate and explain in enormous detail what we are 'doing wrong', advise the lead guitarist and the drummer to play louder because no one can hear them, and then disappear into the smoker's paradise for the rest of the evening. After the second set, there will be a 30-minute hiatus while everyone pretends they've joined the Jarrow Hunger March of 1936 so that they can get excited about the Meat Raffle. Have these people never heard of Sainsburys? By the time we play our last set, most of the people in the club will be sitting grim-faced and glowering their sense of entitlement at us, waiting for us to finish so that they can return to playing Abba on the jukebox (last Saturday it was Phil Collins!). Those who actually enjoy what we are doing and want to dance will be intimidated off the dancefloor by the drunken poseurs trying to throw shapes while playing air guitar, and stumbling into the PA. The club gigs are well-paid and the venues are usually excellent ... big stage, loads of power, built-in lightshow, etc. But in truth if I never play another club I won't miss it. Silvie and I do all the gig-getting for my main band, and we have already decided not to bother with clubs at all for 2019. Life's too short.

We do What's Going On - Marvin Gaye and Let's Stay Together - Al Green near the beginning of our first set and they always go down well

She’s here!! Obligatory family shot: Have just been having a play for the past half hour or so, going through the available tones and I’m very very happy. Classic Precision growl with the split coil, more trebly bark from the bridge humbucker and blending them together kind of smooths out the characteristics of both for a less aggressive sound, at least to my ears. 2-band preamp with a treble knob which functions as a tone control in passive mode. All basses should have this IMO. So far I’ve got the preamp set identically to my Electra VS4 - treble up about 2/3 of the way and a very slight bass boost in active. Switch to passive and everything mellows out by default. Lovely. Previous owner strung it with new Rotosound Swing Stainless Steels 45-130 which I’ve never tried before but I like them well enough. I’ve got a fresh pack of Dunlop Flats which have gone churlishly unused for over a month so I’m considering putting them on. Action is perfectly playable but just a touch higher than I’d like so I’ll be lowering that at some point either today or tomorrow. The neck is somewhere between a satin and gloss finish, but more on the glossy side of the spectrum. May have to get that taken down a bit but so far it’s not nearly as obnoxious as a typical “true gloss”. There’s a scratch on the back near the neck bolts which I knew before buying. A slight downer but who’s seeing the back anyway?? What a back though: And there we have it. All in all I got a bit of a bargain for an incredibly well built, unique bass. I’ll be going on tour for a year with a theatre show from July and I can only take one bass with me. This is definitely the one. Now my MTD is feeling a bit of sibling jealousy .

Wicked tunes...if these don't get people dancin' you may want to check their pulses...

That's really hard to say after several beverages.

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My Kindle library now has Weekend Rockstars in it. 😎🎸

To celebrate it needs Rage against the machine blurting at massive volume on it. None of your smooth love bass lines

I haven't really touched any of my other basses since getting it (I think it might be the one)

I was so excited about this pedal when it was first announced........ then saw the form factor and then tried a GED2112 that I didn't get on with so eventually lost interest. I've always had a "want to love them more" relationship with Tech 21. Love the ethos and approach, like the VT Bass, never really got the bass driver or RBI . After seeing the responses on this thread I ordered one for Andertons on Saturday and it arrived yesterday (nice one Andertons) I don't know if its the marketing or photos on the website but the form factor is in fact excellent - the pedal is a compact sling in a gig back pocket and go. Not 100% sold on the knobs but time will tell. and....... It does all the things out of the box that I want in an overdrive/pre pedal and more..... sure it's a baked in tone but what a tone and it really is touch sensitive. Agree about the clean channel but in certain situations it's going to be an always on pedal. It's my favourite Tech 21 product by a million miles..... it's pricey sure but it will take a compressor, tuner and overdrive pedal out of my signal chain and I can go direct to the PA without a DI Box. Very excited about using this in a live environment.

Oops, that's what happens when you don't read the whole post :-/ I'll get me coat.

If it's in the right key and tempo you'll be fine. Good luck.

Has anyone else painted a Pedaltrain board before? Here's my first attempt. Didn't remove the black finish, just gave it a key with a fine sanding sponge. 5 thin coats of nitro, then a couple of coats of clear poly I had. The only pain was having to drill out the rivets on the feet, then tapping the hole to create a thread to screw them back on. Turned out pretty well

Dannybuoy is right. On the Manta the wave forms are all used at low frequencies as modulation sources. Some of the bass synth models in your zoom have sawtooth and square wave oscillators. And I’m sure they have equivalent LFOs too. CVs can be used as modulators or as sound sources in synthesis, depending on where they’re directed. If a waveform is directed at pitch or filter input then it’s a modulator; if it is routed straight into the amplifier then it becomes a sound source. It can even do both those things simultaneously.

We have just wound up our band “smells like Seattle” doing a grunge “tribute”. Some amazing songs to go at there mate!

Wizardry

That was a good start

Is this still a thing? I remember years ago when my daughters school used to get regular visits from the "escaping gang culture through music" chaps.

Baby got back!!!

I've also had the pleasure to have a play through @Opticaleye's Quilter bass block and can confirm that it is indeed a great amp and surprisingly versatile given its ostensibly simple tone stack.

Glad to be of service :¬) :-) and a very tidy P to PJ conversion.

This. I’ve got them on all of my basses - they’re the only strap I’ll use now.

Dunno what kind of band setup you’ve got but Soul With A Capital “S” by Tower of Power is one to get people in the mood. It won’t be the same without a horn section though!

But you know the answer...you're going to have to build two

Just watched it on catch up. Thought Tower of Power were very good, but a little bit too frantic / muso for my tastes if you know what I mean. Bass sounded great though! Surprised how much I enjoyed Plan B, although a bit baffled as to the white face paint?!! Betty Lavette was okay, and Jools didn't play all over her. As for Shame, didn't get it at all, but then again I'm probably not supposed to. Looking forward to the next few editions, still a great music programme after all this time.

I don't know how accurate they are - but Aguilar do 60s and 70s wind versions of their J pickups and do video demos of them. They don't do a specific 70s P, but they have a Hot version. The Js have 60s, 70, Hot etc Worth having a listen on youtube even if the person playing is a bit stinky poo. I've got a 60s wind P in my PJ-Ray and it's very nice. Not sure that helps you really!

We do 50's and 60's rock and roll and always go down a storm with groups up singing and dancing. We always get repeat bookings.

The mighty Genzler Magellan 800 ought to meet your needs (although it only goes down to 2.67 ohms, which I believe is suitable for three 8 ohm cabs, or maybe one 4 ohm and one 8 ohm together). Very clean sounding with a huge weight and size to the tone, and a very simple pre-amp that can does everything from vintage mid-rich warmth to scooped mid tones. More of my thoughts and experience with it here -

Hoping Neil Murray is going to post on this thread...

Very nice. So sorry about your friend.

There are some good functional features and, to my eye, some very pleasing lines

I’ll see what I can do There’s no escaping the smooth love bass lines though

For a through neck, the determining factors are generally the depths of the pickups and pots or switches. For a bolt on it's more about the amount of meat needed underneath the neck pocket. It's worth checking the heel depth and resulting neck pocket thickness, but I would have thought 30 to 32 would be OK. Then you need to check how you are going to fix the neck - you will need shorter screws than the 'standard' ones or you could use set screws (which bring their own challenges!)

So the New PCB arrived, it's been installed and it works as I expected it should albeit still a narrow blend band from the centre detent. Anyway, it's as I believe it should be. I guess I just lucked out with a faulty board.

Downloading as I type this; thanks for posting. I'm rather partial to a spot of 'Dark Star', so a couple of hours of it is right up my street.

My band are mostly 20 years younger than me, so it might help that I look 20 years younger than I am :-) Although not exactly glam rock princess! :-) To their credit they don't stereotype on age, many others do :-(

I'm not sure you read my post very well. You'll notice my first sentence says quite clearly that damping has other meanings.Yes I was very obviously referring to Q in all it's guises (mainly Qtc as it happens) but this wasn't written for anyone who already has that knowledge and I deliberately steered away from any technical terms or any algebra which probably isn't appropriate in this forum. My aim was to simplify things enough so that anyone can get a grasp on what is going on inside any cab they buy or decide to modify. I suspect you knew exactly what Ashdown meant by tighter. I know Kevin is an intelligent guy who likes to experiment and he asked a reasonable question whose answer would interest quite a few people. That's why I jumped in with an attempt at a simple explanation I hope people can follow. (For those who are confused by this Qes is the damping due to the magnet and coil, Qms is the mechanical damping of the speaker and Qts is the overall damping of the drive unit which combines the two. Qtc is the damping of the speaker plus the damping of the speaker cab, if you get that far it's time to look elsewhere but for simplicity there are lots of 'dampings' or Q's that control the movement of the cone but the biggies are the magnet and the cab design)

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way at all, was just trying to continue the conversation, hence quoting Cato's post. For any bad experience we have in a music shop the guys in the shop can probably trump us every time.

Eventide h9

Funnily enough we played a club tonight. It's a post-CIU club, so actually had some people in. We played Frankenstein. We played War Pigs. They booked us on the strength of a pub gig, so that's what they got. Pretty good night and money wasn't bad either

This is a common problem with many cover bands. Members seem to forget that it`s the entertainment game. I have left bands in the early rehearsal stages when members start wanting to play songs that very few people will have heard of. Playing popular songs that most people know is a pub covers band lifeblood. To the op. Your drummer would do my head in. I would either be looking to change him or would walk myself. Sounds like a right negative character, just what you don`t need in a band.

How can Rebel Yell not be anybody's "thing". Fire him. Fire him now.