Leaderboard

So I flew out to Stuttgart at the weekend with an old friend of mine to see the Rolling Stones. My mate had scored some particularly good tickets but I wasn't quite prepared for how good they actually were. When we landed we could see the Rolling Stones private jet which was pretty amazing to see. However, it got better. We arrived at our hotel and there were fans outside. It turns out they had booked out 1st and fifth floor. The show was amazing. I was floored by Mick's energy, Keith was really on it and noticeable humble. The set just didn't let up from start to finish. The whole band were on fire. And we were close. We were basically right down the front. Back at the hotel I am queuing for more beers and an American voice asks me what beer I am drinking. I turn around and get chatting to the guy - I quickly realise it is Darryl Jones! I ask if he is and he confirms it. I told him he was a great player and decide to tell him how when I was back in college I had to do work experience - Bill Wyman had just left and I was a typically flaky musician student. I asked the lady if for my work experience she could get me the Rolling Stones gig. Needless to say she couldn't. Darryl possibly politely laughed but said it was a cool story. He was very humble about what a great player Bill Wyman was (I suppose on the one hand he has to be but also having studied all those lines he will have a great appreciation). I asked for his photo which he said "not now because we'll get swamped" (interesting how nobody else in the room at that point had recognised him!) but to grab him as he was leaving. The beer flowed and later on my friend snapped a very blurry shot of me with him. A great night... but to think I was happy at seeing the plane! I don't like taking phone pics at shows but my mate snapped a couple. Here they are...

OK, "Gig" is perhaps not the right word as I was playing in our church band today with a 100+ congregation belting out the songs. A quick bit of background; I'm 67 years old. About 15 years ago I was part of a Christian music band that had around 15 members. There was a brass/horn section, drums, guitars, keyboards, clarinet, oboe, bass and sometimes a violin. I was more sound guy and backing vocals until the bass player moved away so I stepped in - having never played bass before. I just learned the bass parts by rote and didn't try anything more than root and fifth with the occasional third and chromatic approach. With so many members it was inevitable that people would drop out and leave the band so eventually we called it a day and my Tanglewood copy of the Hofner violin bass was retired to its case. Ten years on and attending a new church I let slip that I once played bass. The next thing I know I'm on the music rota! I took delivery of a Chowny SWB-1 in January and have been getting to grips with it (off and on) since then. My playing is basic and I'm still trying to get my fingers to do what my brain wants them to do. I'm left handed but play right handed and have a limited finger spread, which means one finger per fret is not on. The church has a pool of musicians and singers who are on a rota to provide the music each week. The rota means that you don't always play with the same people each time. Rehearsal is about an hour before the service on a Sunday morning where we run through the five songs we will be playing. There is no set band and no mid-week get together so I was in at the deep end today! I'd been practicing the songs to backing tracks using chord charts with the lyrics but today was the first time I had played with other band members. So there I was in the corner on bass, crammed between the keyboard and drum kit. The drummer forgot he was on the list to play so we had no drums! That was a relief because I was so close to the kit if the drummer had hit the cymbal it would have chopped my arm off! The rest of the band was; keyboard, flute, semi-acoustic guitar (band leader) and two female vocalists. I was sticking to root notes and the odd fifth or third except for one song for which I had the sheet music and bass line that was for the bass guitar as opposed to the keyboard player's left hand. Band leader decided to change the tempo of one song which made life interesting as I'd practiced it in standard 4/4! I think I did OK. There was the odd fumble for notes but, on the whole, I was fairly pleased with how it went. I was caught out on one song when BL decided to repeat a chorus causing me to have an Eric Morecambe moment for a couple of bars - playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order! Afterwards a "senior" member of the congregation came up and congratulated me on my playing and said how good it was to hear a solid bass line. Then a young lady (17 years old - half a century younger than me!) came across and said "Hey Mr cool bass player!" I wish I'd had that effect on 17 year old girls when I was young enough to do something about it! My next "gig" will be at the beginning of August with a different line up and no drummer. I can't wait!

I think ours is still halfway through Winnie The Pooh ...

Exactly! My experience with auditioning new gear is that first impressions are crucial - and they're usually right. Your impression of that item of equipment may alter as you become familiar with it, but there's also a good chance that in time you'll convince yourself that it's actually OK when it isn't. The problem is not your bass, your amp, your cab or you. It the cab. Quite why you were sold this as a solution for hearing yourself better up close is anyone's guess. However, your volume problem is easy to explain. The midrange sensitivity of the 12" driver in the Super Compact is about 97dB - fairly standard for that kind of driver. The midrange sensitivity of the 15" driver in your other Compact - as Ebenezer has pointed out - is 100dB. As Phil mentioned earlier, to compensate for that 3dB loss of sensitivity will require twice the amplifier power. Not only that, but the Kappalite 15 has a broadband rise in efficiency across the entire octave between 1 to 2kHz, where it measures 104dB. Without going into too much boring detail, that should actually make the 15 easier to hear than the 12 when you are standing in front of it. So, having spent £600, or whatever it costs, on a box that you describe as underwhelming and that obviously doesn't do what you want it to do, you are now being advised to go out and spend another £500 on an 800 watt amp just to get back to where you started. Before long someone will be telling you to buy another Super Compact so that you can hear yourself properly. If you're happy with the sound, volume and convenience of your current cab, the best and the cheapest solution is to keep it, and tilt it upwards towards you. That will cost you (virtually) nothing. If you fancy a new cab, have a look at cabs like the TKS 1126 which are fitted with a separate midrange driver, because they will direct more midrange to your ears when you are standing in front of them and make it easier for you to hear what you are playing. The (only) bass cab manufacturer who has really considered this problem properly is Greenboy with his F112. That cab not only has a midrange and HF driver but it also has a tilt position. I haven't heard it (or the TKS) - so I'm only suggesting the kind of cab that is likely to work for you. The other option is the active PA cab solution that some bassists are working with now. There is a long thread on those somewhere on here.

On my way for lots of beer with my old school friends ( we left school in 1973, we meet up every six weeks or so!) I was a tad early so I called in to Music inn (in Nottingham) I ended up with a Fender electro acoustic bass that I had to leave there and come back into Nottingham the next day to pick up. Still my efforts weren't wasted ..I have lent it to Brook-fan of this here parish, in his hour of need ,which resulted in a great night on the beer in Bath...bonus! 🙂

I've tried to listen to Jaco Pastorius many times, awful.

I quite like that finish on the body. And unlike manufacturers of other bolt-on neck basses, I'd trust Warwick to have made that neck joint function properly despite the way it looks. When I read the title I was expecting to see this bass:

I'd be gutted if I dinged that on the first outing.

I've had a good play with this now. The big lesson is that the controls are very sensitive. Getting a sweep that doesn't dive into subs but still recovers in time for the next note takes a surprising amount of work. Part of the issue is a re rethink about the parameters. I'm used to a dedicated 'sensitivity' control and a simple range that goes from 0 - 100%. Splitting the range into Up/Down/Notch means that the adjustment becomes very fine. Presets are therefore essential I think. This is not like the basic filters I've used before, that's for sure. I tried the presets that @Quatschmacher screenshotted up-thread and that was pretty instructive. Neither sounded right initially, but minute tweaks to them yielded major results. I'm assuming minor differences in the input signal cause very large nonlinearities in the filtering. For starters, I've found that I need to back off the gated fuzz - I generally run it at 3 O'Clock into the harmoniser, but this is way too much for the filter. I'm still trying to get a convincing deep but slow sweep triggered by the LFO though. I can hear it in my head - and indeed on an album by a band I've been asked to try out for - it'd be cool to be able to show up and recreate the intro to their album since they rarely attempt this live and always compromise when they do. I'm sure it's doable though. The major negatives are that to really get the most out of this I think the hub is going to be essential. However, given that the basic pedal is less than 150 quid, it seems churlish to gripe. Nothing at that price point gives you presets and this at least gives you a couple. Those micro-buttons are a non-starter live though. You'd have to have your sound dialed in before stage time since there's no way you could get away with on the fly adjustment. The other thing I don't like is that the pedal is small for it's feature set. I think the tap tempo would be pretty useful on the LFO settings but the switches are just too close together for me to get an accurate tap - I guess this is one exception to the previous comment though, in that the rate control is easily tweaked. Overall: Very versatile if a little fiddly to dial in. Possibly not as fat and resonant sounding as some old-skool 'single function' filters either. I'd interested in hearing something like an an Enigma now and I'm beginning to see why some people on here have large filter collections. They seem to generate the same obsessive questing in bassists that drive pedals do for some guitar players.

Ezekiel \m/

One of those situations where I'd been lusting after one of these for so long clearly I wasn't going to be happy until i'd bagged one - and here it is! Its beautiful to play - even though it's 30" it doesn't feel at all cramped compared to my regulr 34" precision - it has the same sort of proportions, and same very Fendery sound. It's a 2013 Made in Japan model, with a slab body, 7.25 radius and smallish frets - kind of slightly bigger than vintage. Really lightweight at 3.5kg and pretty well balanced too. The condition is immaculate - the guy i bought it from was retiring from playing and selling off his stuff - he'd barely played this, and never taken it out of the house. Genuinely could pass for new. Its just had a set-up by our local luthier here and now has a lovely low action and strung with La Bella Mustang flatwounds I'm gigging at a little festival next Saturday and itching to take this along - I really, really hope it's a keeper, as I've had to sell my Epi Jack Casady to help pay for it

I've just done a #2 . . Crew cut that is 😎 and can't get this tune out of my mind, the feeling of that summer breeze going through where the hair that used to be there was 😬 Cool vocals and sizzling hot guitar - what's your summer earworm?

I only went in for a strap for a new bass, an Ibanez SR100B-NT (that has yet to be delivered) and ended up walking out with a 5-er, an Ibanez SR1405E-GWH.

I've told this story before on another thread: a year ago I went to visit my son in Nashville having just seen a Gibson EB-2 gigged at a local music festival and decided that I *needed* one (as you do 🙂 ). His many virtues do not include discouraging my GAS - guitar store crawls are an essential and dangerous part of all my visits there. I had been to his excellent local place and found an EB-2 which I tried and was just dead wood, so I thought I was safe. We walked into Gruhn's, my eyes swiveled left to where I knew the basses were, and there was another - only this time as soon as I picked her up she just came to life and sang. I couldn't really afford her, dragged my feet, decided to sleep on it. Dreamed about her, literally. We went back the next day, me well anxious would she still be there? Had I remembered her right? and there she was with a big card saying "Rob" tucked into the strings. I actually started shaking and sweating with heart pounding thinking no, please... and asked the nearest member of staff who said "Oh, that means Rob has found a buyer." Even worse... until he pointed out Rob, who had helped me try her out the day before, and immediately grinned and said "I knew you'd be back." She's still in Nashville, my son and his musician friends love her too, and I have three grand-sprogs there as an excuse to go back and play her 🙂

I know the feeling. I actually made it to the car, then went back inside to buy it 😊

Sometimes being a lefty - and therefore usually unable to walk into a shop and find a bass to buy on the spot and bring home - helps save you from GAS. Not at Wunjos, though, oh no, they usually have at least one really nice lefty model, sitting there whispering 'Take me now. I'm yours.' in your ear, until you either make a dash for the door or produce your credit card... 😛

I once went into Sound Control looking for strings, and left with a Yamaha RBX765A and a Bass Pod Pro. Whoops.

-

Innocently walking past Johnny Roadhouse on my way to work, as I do, can have that effect. I was, honestly, sort of thinking of looking for a five-string acoustic at the point when they put a beautiful Michael Kelly in the window... it didn't stay there. 🙂

I'm actually thinking it needs more relic work, like incineration.

It's all about playing in 2nd position so that you can bend notes by drawing through the harmonica instead of blowing. I think a C harmonica gives you a G blues type sound when you mostly draw through the instrument (but could be wrong about that). Give it a try over a blues in G.

Sounds like a good choice to me - my first one was a Hohner (in D). I've since acquired a few Lee Oskars for different keys after a friend introduced me to them, but I still play the Hohner (when the right key comes up!) I can offer you two tips: 1. Don't expect it to sound great in C. Ironically enough, diatonic harps sound best when played in "second position", also known as "cross position", which is in G. Basically the fifth of whichever key your harp is tuned to. Cross-position gives you a Mixolydian mode, which most harp licks are based on. "First position" (C) can be made to work, but I've only ever got horribly Bob Dylan-esque results from it myself. (1a. Similarly, they also sound good in "third position" - D in this case - as you get a nice wistful Dorian mode.) 2. Learning how to bend notes is worth the effort. It takes a while to work out what to do with your mouth, but it will give you a lot more control over the instrument once you nail it. Hope you enjoy it - for such a tiny instrument, it can be a lot of fun!

Anything by Jaco Pastorius, especially the Best Of double album. Frankly, I'd rather listen to The Bay City Rollers.

Its an adjustable height nut and the grub screw goes almost the full width so I thought it would be easier just paring off a couple of mm off the fretboard, it only took 30 secs with a sharp chisel 😀

Swindon, yes, Slough, yes. Nottingham, yes. Reading? No.

My Vintage Tony Butler P bass & a standard Vintage V4 bass. I bought both 2nd hand, the Tony Butler was as a cheap practice bass to save my Gretsch & Squier for gigs, the Squier has been sold & the Gretsch & my Thunderbird haven't been played for almost a year. On the other side of things I bought a Fender P bass & it sounded no better than the Vintage ones even though it was 3 times the price so that just got returned.

George michael at the ...oops ...forget that

Well done guys. I'm well aware of the effort that must've gone into this. Sterling work! 👍 I've so far listened to the first hour or so and bailed out during the interview with Chowny Bass (not due to boredom I hasten to add!), so I have the rest to finish. Thoughts so far: I think the format works well as a starting point and can obviously be refined/adjusted with experience. The current runtime is too long, as already mentioned (but I think you know that). Up to 1 hour would be ideal. It'd be nice to include a regular feature on writing/performing music. Potential here to link with contributions in the Share Your Music forum and/or the monthly Composition Challenge.

In fact I just bought it. Hohner B2V soon to appear in the classified! Thanks Mike.

Wow, what a great story! Love the fact Darryl praised Bill too, sounds like a top man.

Cameron just saved me a load of typing! But there’s nothing wrong with repetition..... I wholeheartedly concur with most of what’s been said above - this is a great idea and please do more. Well done - and thank you - to all involved. This was a great pilot, you asked for feedback so here’s my (meant to be constructive) comments... The time is too long - but that doesn’t mean you should cut material, just split it into two podcasts. Personally, I think an hour would be about right. The Chowny Bass interview was fascinating. More of these , please. Pedal Review was excellent although some of the nuances of tonal variation escaped me - a little bit more commentary on what was being adjusted as it was being adjusted would have helped I actually didn’t mind the scripted aspects of the podcast. Yes, I agree that more natural is better but I’m assuming that no-one involved is a professional broadcaster and so I think it made absolute sense to have a script with occasional ad-libs rather than rely on a few chapter headings and risk having the thing descend into chaos or worse, self-indulgence. This is only the pilot and I’m sure that the “flow”will get better with experience - but for a first attempt, this came across as well structured and professional. I think a script contributed to that enormously. I liked the fact that we could actually hear the pedal being used in the pedal review and did wonder if sound could have been used elsewhere through the podcast to illustrate points and give some examples? Er, that’s it. Really interesting and a great idea. Ideas for future podcasts? A news segment? That might be drawn from stuff that’s hot on the forums as well as some of the things that folk may have missed. Possibly a summary of what’s in the Bass magazines this month? Then a technical section with discussion on stuff like; pickups, preamps, amps and cabs. For example, a feature on strings and the nuances of different materials and construction techniques? More Industry interviews would be good - Mr Chown has set the bar high (he’s also given me GAS 😀) - but it would be interesting to get the views on the marketplace from retailers, builders, etc. Is the high street music shop dead? Gear reviews, obviously - and maybe invite an occasional basschatter to talk through their rig - what they like, what they’d change, etc. Clearly, there’s no shortage of topics and the “magazine” format you used in the pilot worked well so I’d keep that and see how it evolves over time. Apologies for rambling on and for having the implied arrogance to tell you how to do things better - I really don’t mean it to come over that way. The pilot podcast was excellent and if you change nothing it will still be excellent so please carry on as you are!

I refuse to use amazon for anything these days due to the appalling way they treat their employees.

Just finished listening to the podcast. First things first - massive well done to all involved! As mentioned above, putting together 2 hours’ worth of podcast is certainly not 2 hours’ work. For me, the highlights were: The interview with @Chownybass which I found incredibly insightful and the conversational style of that portion was very easy to listen to. Mr. Chown has a great “mic manner” in my opinion and I really appreciated his his openness in sharing the gory details of creating and running the Chowny brand. These “industry interviews” should be a definite keeper for future episodes. Also really enjoyed the blind pedal test. I’m so used to pedal demos on YouTube (i.e. with a visual element) and it was nice not to have any prior knowledge or imagery to rely on. It forces a more critical use of one’s ears which I think is fun. I think the deliberate absence of a “Basschat rating” for the tested gear is a good thing. Might be worth having a minute or two at the end where a BCer who owns the pedal in question shares their first hand experiences with it. The “hottest recent topic” section was another highlight of mine - and not just because I got a cheeky mention! In future it might be worth seeing if it would be possible to interview one or two of the most prolific contributors to the thread to give contrasting viewpoints and have a bit of light banter on the subject matter. I realise this poses a logistical challenge in terms of organising a conference call/recording session though. Things I’d want to tweak: 2 hours is definitely too long, though I realise there was a ton of material to get through and this episode was a proof-of-concept. I had to listen to it over about 3 sessions! I think the ideal length would be between 30 minutes and 1 hour. In general, the less scripted/more conversational elements of the podcast were the most enjoyable to me as a listener. It just came across more naturally. That’s all for now - if I think of anything else I’ll post it. Again, a massive well done to all involved!

I only ever get to practice on my own. Sometimes even I don't turn up for that.

A clip from the other week at MK 11 - I'm hidden behind the PA from this view, but it's a banging version of the tune

Thanks gor that Si. Checked mine it is 9.7.6. Will probably upgrade as 8 tracks is not enough. All works fine

Primus, 'Sailing The Seas Of Cheese'. I bought it to see what all the fuss was about, what with Les being this supposed bass demi-god and all. Listened to it. Hated it, I mean utterly. Disjointed tuneless bilge with horrid nasal 'vocals'. Stuck the CD in a drawer and tried to forget that I'd actually spent money on it. Found it about 18 months later, stuck it on again to see if time had mellowed my opinion... No. It's still caterwauling nonsense and I still hate it utterly. Gave the CD away.

Another nice wedding gig on the weekend. A castle that was built in the mid 15th Century in Gloucester. Nice. But it was a cool gig for a different reason. Remember the Boo Radleys? "Wake up Boo!"? Probably been woken up to it by GMTv for many a year? Well the lead singer was at the wedding as he is good friends with the bride. We played "Wake up Boo", with him singing as the bride and grooms first dance. First time he's sung the song live in 20 years! He's done Glastonbury, and now he's played with The Big Easy. Nowhere else for him to go, so he may as well retire 😆 Real tidy bloke too. You want picture proof? Ok

I thought his persuance of Patti was a bit naughty - not only was she married but she was married to one of his best friends. On a different note , his mum was a nasty piece of work IMO. What i found weird was the fact that they didn't really focus on any of his solo albums much at all. Especially his brilliant 461 Ocean Boulevard effort, which is full of angst ( understandably ). There was not even a mention of it

I’m pretty sure I mentioned this to you: MIDI Pad 2 on iOS devices. £3. I have mine set up as below. Each button is a program change number and jumps straight to the stored patch. You can also set it up to send multiple CCs and a host of other stuff. On iPhone the formatting is too small for one page with 128 buttons. There are a couple of improvements I’ve suggested to the coders (such as the option to have the last-pressed button remain highlighted).

Having been an Ampeg fan for a LONG time, my days of lugging the full size kit have been drawing to a close. I picked up one of the Aguilar cabs at PMT and I'm blown away with how great it sounds. I road tested it with my 3 piece rock 'n' roll band last night and the drummer was asking if I had changed the basslines. "No, you can just hear it now!" I replied.

That neck join is giving me the runs.

In addition to the direct link to Podcast on Soundcloud, here is the link to the official Basschat announcment: Basschat podcast: Pilot - Ped's announcment

Well done! Putting together 2hrs of material is NOT a 2hr job so thank you everyone for the time and work you've put in. As a couple of people have mentioned above I would prefer 4 x 30 mins podcasts rather than one long one. Easier to track and digest. Other podcasts I've enjoyed listening to have contained a mixture of scripted and conversational type sections. Some people are really good at the unscripted podcasts. Me? If I tried it, it would just be an incoherent rambling mess