Leaderboard

I knew a guy like that. He used to (annoyingly) put his cases behind him on stage for easy access too. Whilst I'm all for a reasonably smartish get out of a gig, I really don't get what the rush is to save a few minutes afterwards, and it can give the wrong impression to bookers if the band are rushing around as soon as the last note has died away. Our band used to call them 'Doris Day' gigs ( quick pack away, quick pack away etc.... apologies to younger BC ers.)

Got an Update..and thanks to all your advice which I passed on to him, he stuck to his guns and has got the dealer to agree (very reluctantly) to swap back the guitars on the proviso that he pays £60, 30 quid for setting up the chapman before he advertised it on his FB page and £30 to put back the strat to its origional set up when they re-swap guitars, seems a bit harsh but I told him probably best to bite the bullet on that one and just get your axe back. Thanks for all your advice folks, love this forum, helped me out so many times

TU-3 I typed that slightly tongue in cheek to begin with, but actually, thinking about it, it's truly the only pedal I would be uncomfortable performing without!

Just having some goofy fun here.

He he! No, it’s all good! There’s nothing like a good geek out Unfortunately yes it has been tried and tested. The possible solutions just had me moving away from my desired ‘base tone’ so the MS came off my board. Yes I could replace my EMGs.. but I’ve been using them in my basses solidly for about 20 odd years because of their (imho) tonal benefits.. one being a huge output level. Oh and yeah, a small thing with being an EMG Artist now *chuffed!* ok, so why isn’t it an issue? Well, your Nords aren’t active pickups and are likely to have a lower output level in comparison. So you could say that I am in the minority simply because I have that high(er) output than the average bassist. I use that level to drive my... err.. drive pedals! Although you could now argue that it’s less of a requirement if I am plugged directly in to Helix, but EMGs are just superb sounding pickups when set up properly and I don’t wanna change them out.

For my playing... I'd have to say an envelope filter. If you ask me today, I'm saying the MXR BEF. Tomorrow might be the robotalk 2 Day after that my mini mu..... Revolving doors.

I really wish they'd do a version with the possibility of changing/extending the bands.. maybe making them semi-parametric. That would be a killer pedal.

There was nothing happening to your left.

Find a Cort B4FL. Unlined fingerboard, Bartolini pickups and preamp and great build quality. Also very light and plays beautifully, great mwah.

This is why compact cabs for bass guitar are much more difficult to design than most people think. Not only do you have to get your sound to the audience (assuming no large PA), but you also have to get the sound to the player's ears when he's standing one to two metres in front of the cab. And the sound the audience hears should ideally be the same as the sound the player hears, for obvious reasons. Most players, I think, recognise the limitations of their cabs and live with them - and angling always helps the player to hear better (but not necessarily the audience). You can more or less tell by looking at the driver configuration whether a cab can pull this trick off - and most don't come anywhere near. So you have to stack a second cab on top of your first so that you can at least hear yourself. When you do that you get cancellation between the cabs at certain frequencies, which affects what the audience hears - and so on. No wonder people like in-ears!

Yes I think he has learned a lesson, don't swap a £350 chapman for a dodgy bitsa in the first place!

Can't speak from experience re the mechanical issues, but I have had Basses where there was a distinct 2 tone effect (not the music genre): the top half of the neck has been exposed to sunlight and the bottom end has not and 'shading' has occurred. From memory it was a poly finish and was the rear of the neck.

I think you are making it sound harder than what is, Scalpy. It’s actually very structured and disciplined. The arranger, Peter Newberry transcribed it down to a tee. His scrolling score is below. GM midi sounds, but the notes and time signatures are all there.

Nancyraygun are you still in the room? Anyway, here's the thing all other things being equal the efficiency of loudspeakers is proportional to their surface area, doubling the cone area gives the equivalent of doubling the amplifier power. There is nothing magic about modern speakers just a gradual improvement in materials and engineering which enable you to squeeze a little more sound out of a modern drive unit. The state of play at the moment IMO is that you can just about squeeze enough sound out of a single 12" cone to match a drummer, so long as you aren't demanding anything unusual in terms of boosting the bass. The Barefaced designs along with loads of others takes advantage of this and the ultralight cab helps a lot with portability too. If you are still reading this thread then I'd recommend you think in terms of buying a couple of 8 ohm, 1x12 cabs. a single one will do for rehearsals and small gigs and adding a second cab will double the efficiency and increase the power from your amp giving you a real boost in sound. It means a single journey for smaller gigs and a return trip for big gigs, though I do sometimes manage two light'ish 1x12's, amp and bass as one lift if the route from the car is straightforward. I think you should be fussed by tone though, compared to speakers amps add very little tone of their own and changing your speakers will change your tone more than changing your amp. I'd go out and try as many speakers as possible, preferably with your own amp.

It does until someone asks you to play it. Then it dawns on you.

From some of the conversations in the OT recently, I'm waiting for Tw@t Chat.

Yeah, those early YJ albums had some lovely, groove playing on them. Harmonically, the tunes were interesting & very rich sounding. BB5, I know you are into Piano playing as well, check out this short Russell Ferrante video on stacking/poly chords. It gives you an idea how they got those themes and chord structures.

Hi, eventually managed to register here after realising my main e-mail address must be on some spam list.... but now I'm here looking forward to and reading and contributing .. :-) Been playing bass & guitar for many years though always preferred the former. Lots of time in covers bands though for past two years been with with a busy Celtic Folk/Rock outfit loving every minute of it Guitars - US Fender Jazz, Lakland 44-01, Hayman 4040, Ibanez ATK & Ashbury fretless acoustic Amps - Ampeg SVT7 Pro, PF cabs & Markbass CMD121P Combo Cheers

Fabulous, obv.

I don't know the technical details, but my 1966 Gibson EB2 is still close to the original cherry red on the back and a faded walnut colour on the front. (Mind you imho she looks as a 50-year old bass should - and is pure joy to play :-) My 1992 Jazz Plus is a gorgeous metallic midnight blue on the back and just very dark grey on the front. I've tried one of those colour restoring polishes sold for cars and it had no effect :-(

I was only allowed classical music as a child, but I can remember sitting on the floor in front of the one speaker of our mono record player, intensely tracking the cello line in Mozart string quartets. Just by instinct. I must have been about 6 at the time. The BBC programme "Why is music addicted to bass" is still available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vwg5w and (as you'd expect) some very well informed and interesting discussion here:

sounds actually better with les on it!!!

Thanks but I’ve got some MM pickups to go in it

what you like, is what you like

In my experience semi acoustic basses aren't noticeably any louder than solid bodies when both are unplugged. If you want something that has a much louder unplugged sound your best bet might be an acoustic bass.

Good luck! I am looking for a squier vintage modified precision tb to do a similar thing with.....i think!

Buggrit, I'm going to bend the rules: Korg Pitchblack+. Yep, I know it's a tuner, but the "+" model is also an A/B switch. On the occasions when my pedals haven't made it to the venue, this has been the once I've missed the most - I can trust my guitars to keep their tuning reasonably well during a set, but most gigs really call for a 4-string and an 8, and having to swap leads around between songs is quite a discomfort in the fundament when you're trying to make a set run smoothly!

Well I only have 2 pedals, 1 of which is a tuner, the other being the irreplaceable item is my Tech21 Para Driver. It`s as much a part of my sound as my Precision. I can get the sound from my Ashdown amps but as many of my gigs are with provided rigs some of those can`t get the sound I want, hence the trusty PD being irreplaceable.

Nah it was South Wales. Honestly, one of my favorite venues i've ever played

Nice work, Lowdown, that's exactly what I needed. Does he also do a transcription of what my bandmates actually play?

I might have to cheat a bit too. My favourite all time pedal (though it's not actually on my board, due to size, "unique" power supply requirements and bypass) is a vintage Mu-Tron III. Not sure if it's truly irreplaceable though as I have a couple of vintage ones, as well as the more modern Mu-Fx 3x version and the Micro Tron III (and yes I do like Mu-Tron's 😁). Of those pedals actually on my board, I'd have to say Chunk Systems Octavius Squeezer. Yes it's old, no longer made, and the UI is not very intuitive to say the least, but the range of sounds out of the Squeezer are so fat and versatile, and the 50 presets allow me to easily dial in pretty much most of what I need in a single pedal. If it packed up I'd have to try and track down another. I can vouch that those old big box Q-trons and Mini Q-trons that Dannybuoy is selling really are excellent filters too. 😀

Think the fact Haslip plays left handed with a RH string set up ie E string on the bottom makes it harder to play in his style. No matter what he is an incredible player and hugely entertaining musician. Dave

I was just answering the question on which filters I decided to hang onto, not the general thread question! And @Breadbin, do tell everyone how amazing the big box Q-Tron is so that they can buy mine. Unless you need a spare?

I found one eventually, and it arrived last week. Unbelievable value for money!

Surely you mean tw@ ch@

I run my Flightcase and PB300 rig with a VTDI on all the time. I currently play in an 80s covers band (leaning more towards the rocky numbers rather than the synth tinged ones) and a Tom Petty tribute. Because of the transparency of the Phil Jones stuff, whatever you put in front of it is accurately reproduced. Previous to this I was using a Mark Bass head through a Schroeder 2x12 cab and the PJ rig is similar, albeit superior sounding (smoother, more articulate).

Latecomer just added: SH73

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The non-Fender is probably quite a playable bass....

They'd only allow you to join if you could type with both hands at once.

It sounds like the soundtrack to a yahcht sales video. Guessing that’s the 80s production.

You can try to prise my V3 500 from my cold, dead fingers. Love it

Northampton circa 1987 One of the above posts reminded me of another "interesting" audition / short lived band, I have always loved Reggae and really fancied creating a band, I fell in with a older Jamaican guy whose name I seem to remember was Glenroy, he was a decent singer / songwriter / guitarist who had some musicians lined up but no bass player.....I was in, we booked a rehearsal room and everyone turned up, Glenroy would start playing something and we would join in, for a first rehearsal we actually sounded pretty good, after each jam / song I would score out a very basic bassline ACDG x4 etc, we recorded on an old double cassette machine a horribly distorted tape of the rehearsal which we copied so everyone had a copy....at the end of the rehearsal we agreed it was worth taking forward and the band shall be known as Culture Mix.... We agreed to get together the following week for another rehearsal prior to playing at the Riverside festival in Bedford the following day!!! We met up, set up and started to play.....everything in a different key to the week before, it ground to a halt, I said "we play this in G"..... "No man we have always played it in D".... "err no I wrote it down last week".....the keyboard player nods in agreement, he also scored the parts the previous week..... "nah man you are both wrong I have never played it in G"..... so we fire up the tape which shows it was in G..... "nah man your tape player is playing it slow!" Virtually every song was in a different key to the previous week! We still managed to finish the rehearsal....the singer says we are still playing the festival in Bedford tomorrow.... We got to the festival about 11.30 the following day, what time are we on? I ask.... "Later on" is the reply 2 pm comes and goes still nothing. so I ask again "in a bit" is the reply 4 pm comes and goes and still nothing.....by 6 pm the singer finally comes clean, we were not even booked for the festival he just thought we would turn up and blag our way onto the stage, which unsurprisingly wasn't going to happen That was the end of the band and the end of me playing in a Reggae band!

Morden TTT is the guitarist who placed the advert. He fancies singing some of the material, and he knows that I sing a bit, so he reckons we can split the vocal duties between us ... if a decent vocalist can be found later then all well and good. Yes, everybody involved will be an experienced gigging musician, this is no 'hobby band'. The drummer from his old band is already on board with the project, so straight away we have a functioning 3-piece if we want it. We agree a date for a week later and a studio to meet at, and TTT sends me a list of 12 songs we'll do, who by and which version, and the key that we'll be playing in. This is all very professional and not something to be taken for granted with pub bands. I pick out three songs that I'm happy to sing straight away, TTT does the same, and we agree that we'll busk the remainder on the night and see who makes a better job of it. This is looking good. Next day TTT sends me an email saying how much he's looking forward to this. The day after, TTT sends me an email asking how I'm getting on with the songs. And then the next day he sends me an email saying that he's now got a 'really good vocalist' who's going to join us, so there's no need for the two of us to do vocals. The day before the rehearsal, he sends me a final email checking that I'm fully up to speed on all the songs. Finally I turn up at the studio. TTT is a big guy (sideways) but just as bouncy and enthusiastic as his emails suggest. The drummer is a big guy (like Mick Fleetwood) and very laid-back. There's no sign of the vocalist ... apparently he's spent the afternoon at the dentist and now can't make it. Allegedly. Oh dear. Neither TTT nor I have actually been practising the vocals for these songs. At least I know the lyrics of 'my' songs, I'm blessed with a good memory. TTT has pieces of paper. Then the second guitarist arrives. What second guitarist? Oh, he answered the ad too so TTT invited him along. We start with Shakin' All Over, TTT on the vocals. The drummer sounds like a man with a wooden leg walking along a wooden pier ... boom thump boom thump. That's all he does. The guitarist, who must be about 60, doesn't seem to recognise the song or know how it goes. He's kneeling next to his Fender Twin as if he can't hear himself (he's actually deafeningly loud) and he's staring at his fingers as if he's never seen them before. TTT is trying to sing while glancing at a piece of paper resting on a ledge to his side, so that he sings "when you move ... close to me ... that's when I ... all over me". Oh dear oh dear. Move on to the next song. Guitarist says he hasn't practised it and isn't really ready to play it. OK, the one after that then. Guitarist says he hasn't practised it and isn't really ready to play it. It's I Saw Her Standing There, fer Chrissakes, how can he not know it? Fine, turn this on its head ... what songs DO you know? Grand, he knows Summertime Blues. He launches into a series of power chords, in the wrong key. What the hell are you doing? I'm playing Summertime Blues. No you're not, that's the wrong intro and you're in the wrong key. Well I'm playing The Who's version from Live At Leeds, and it's in A. But we all agreed we'd do the Eddie Cochran original, and it's in E. Oh dearie dearie me. By this stage, the drummer has completely lost interest, TTT is visibly as frustrated as I am but has done enough to show that he can't actually sing, and it turns out that I'm the only vocalist in the room. In desperation I call the simplest 12-bar in G that I know. It's yer standard two verses and a solo, third verse and a solo, repeat third verse and out. I sing the first verse. When I start to sing the second verse the guitarist widdles ineffectively all over my singing. TTT and I start exchanging glances - what is this fool doing now? He plays a simple but actually quite reasonable solo, still kneeling by his amp, still staring at his fingers. I start to sing the third verse and he goes back to his useless widdling. Sod this for a game of soldiers. I stop playing, switch off and start packing up. Words are exchanged, and it very nearly comes to fisticuffs as I leave. The next day, TTT sends me an apologetic email. He doesn't suggest we try again. Neither do I.

Marco Bass SC prototype, Crescent Moon fretless, BSX Model 2000 EUB.