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Found this today. "Marie and I had a second fun-filled day at Summerfest yesterday which was also the last day of Summerfest 2018. Bands we saw included Paper Holland, Soccer Mommy, Aleem, and Bad Boy. The day ended with Cheap Trick thunderously rocking the house filled with adoring fans. Surprisingly, they were not, in my opinion, the best band we saw yesterday. That was reserved for the local Maple Road Blues Band. https://www.facebook.com/Maple-Road-Blues-Band-181086306205/ We had never heard of them before, but went to see them because we had noticed that they hail from the same suburban/rural county north of Milwaukee where we live. They played to a much smaller venue than Cheap Trick with hundreds instead of thousands in the crowd. Yet their excellent musicianship and passion for their craft captivated the audience with both original music and standards. I think Stevie Ray Vaughn was smiling down. Sometimes the best is indeed right in your backyard." Nice, I don't see very many of those. I'll take it. Blue

I say bat the ball back into his court. Ask him if he's sure he wants to play guitar, maybe he'd like to play the ocarina instead. Ask him if he's sure he's in his 40s, maybe he's actually 27. Also I'd pull him up on his assertion that he's in Hitchin, because it's possible that he's actually from Croatia. S.P.

Among many other things, I love the trouser choices going on here.

It's just a tool. I play a 5 purely because I get piano scores rather than bass parts and I like to be able to play the low end without having to thing about changing things. Half the time I don't use the lowest notes but I have more positions to play in because I can play across the board rather than up and down. TBH anyone who does the "4 was good enough for Jaco" routine is a weapons grade silly billy. There were hardly any 5 string basses around at the time. There was the 15 fret Fender V 1965 but the first really popular 5 was the Stingray and that wasn't introduced until 1987. The year Jaco died. Wal and Alembic did some before that but they weren't common or affordable. Who knows what he would have done if he had lived longer. But one thing I am sure of - he wouldn't have said - "Oh look! a 3 string double bass was good enough for Bottesini so that's good enough for everyone"

Get some black Fablon type material. Goes on in a one'r,no drying time and no smell. I picked up a 2M roll of white for £3.99 in Lidl, so far it's done 3 scratchplates with plenty left.

Call me age-ist but I don't think you are going to make it big in alt-rock in your forties. I'm mid 30's and I wouldn't be able to put up with the lack of sleep from touring. It just seems like one of those ads from a complete dreamer who doesn't understand what they're saying. Wouldn't be surprised if he's never taken his guitar out of his bedroom.

I totally disagree, 40 is the new 20 so at 44 I am so close to making it big with my electro emo punk jazz funk..... now where did I leave my glasses? ........

Mastodon - Leviathan Off the back of the albums you tried to love thread; it really is superb.

+1. Also, there is much more of a continuum between the 'disowned' early records (Tone Float > R&F) and the 'official' canon than they'd like to admit. Aside from the title track, Autobahn shares quite a bit with R&F to my ears and there are still conventional instruments on Autobahn too. Florian's flute is quite prominent and Klaus Roeder played guitar - although he's been excised from the sleeve notes. I'm not sure if he's still on the back sleeve (inside the car). That picture was doctored anyway. Not only were Ralf & Florian composition students, but Karl Bartos was an orchestral percussionist - also from the Franz Schubert Conservatory, recruited via their former tutor for the Autobahn tour. Only Wolfgang Flur was a rock'n'roller. Ironically, given the flack they took about musicianship, there can't be many successful pop bands with a higher level of formal training than Kraftwerk. It shows too.

Or Messi. Or Ronaldo. Or Neymar. Remind me again, what happened to their teams?

Channeling my best Ron Manager, “Back Home; Esso coins, dad getting the petrol; Banks upset tum; Bonetti the cat; Uwe Seeler; broken dreams; best England team ever; jumpers for goalposts; hmmm, Wembley Trophy football...” Yep, definitely Back Home!

We played Scarisbrick Marina Festival, just outside Southport, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday clashed with the footy and predictably there were only a handful of people there, it felt a bit too quiet, and we drifted toward the end. Better on Sunday - we had a drummer this time, a dep who did pretty well, still only about 30 people but they were bouncing around in their seats and clapping to the faster songs, better atmosphere and we played better. Afterwards an elderly lady came up to me with the sweetest smile, put her hand on my arm and said "Thank you - the bass drives the band, you know." Made my day 🙂

Surely vindaloo qualifies on both counts 😀

Anything where they have to chant, Inger-laaaand. Which is pretty much all of them, well English ones anyway I seem to recall liking a Scottish one with the bloke from Gregory's Girl singing. Early eighties. Talking of Gregory's Girl, Clare Grogan 😍

Just to let you folks know that the first pedals from Malcolm Toft's Bassics have started to ship to UK retailers and have a are RRP of £199. They are made in small batches with loving care. All Bassics pedals* and are road friendly …they have a unique feature in that they will work with any power supply from 9-18 volts, A.C. or D.C. and any polarity. We'd love to hear what Basschatters think. Visit http://bassics.co.uk for more information Bassics Cruncher Pedal The Cruncher distortion pedal can be switched to 'hard' or 'soft', with the hard setting adding extra harmonics, and could become a favourite with guitar players as well as bass users. Bassics Omni Pre The Omni Pre preamp/bass switcher is just the right foot stomp to instantly change from one instrument to another, say from fretted to fretless, or upright. Heck, Malcolm Toft has even done the unthinkable and put in a mix switch to run both channels at the same time! RRP £199 Bassics Squeezer The Squeezer compressor pedal is a studio quality VCA with a sound much like the revered dbx160. The controls allow the player to control the levels of drive, compression and overall gain. RRP £199 Bassics Tone Ranger The Tone Ranger EQ pedal is a three band preamp with sweepable frequencies. The illuminated controls come in to their own on a dimly lit floor! RRP £199 *Excluding the daddy of them all, the BPA-01 Floor preamp which is AC powered only.

Here’s mine!

Here's my Aria also from the same era (modified with bridge pickup and the original scratchplate was white). The body is made from Sen I believe.

Thats what I thought! Nice and understated!! 😁

I’m liking the Jet Black and Burnt Apple too, plus the two Sparkles. I’ve already got a white Ray, which is weird as I usually don’t like owning white basses, but she’s a good’n. Tough choice for you though with the Charcoal, wonder which you’ll get... cos we all know you’re getting one! I’ll be driving past Bass Direct in September, that could be dangerous...

Yep cheap spray paint will do it. Couple of passes of it. I usually do it to cheapo guitars. Just adds something else to it.

When the singer says "mate, can you do something about your tone?", you simply hit the "vocal enhance" switch (DFA1) and say "How's that?". S/he will love it. On the other hand when a guitarist say's you're too loud and s/he can't hear the nuances of their '57PUPs, you hit the "guitar enhance" switch (DFA2). S/he will also love it. I have a few such circuits in stock if anyone would like to buy one, they're lightweight and require no expertise to install, but don't come cheap.

From this: to this: with a few coats of Halfords finest black... It's heard up really well over the last couple of years too..

As are such simple hardware issues as knobs. My fret ends were ok, but I replaced the knobs with shiny ones from fleaBay and the tuners with some nice Hipshot ultralites (thus shaving a good half pound off the overall weight of the bass). Oh, and I replaced the bar string retainer with some Hipshot string trees. Twisted necks and duff finishing and dodgy woodwork are all problems, and as far as I know they are absent from Sire instruments. Tuners and knobs are just niggles.

Hearts Alive isn't a bad way for it it end either! I know, Joesph Merrick actually finishes it, but that is very much an outro

It's Gibson scale. The body is small, as per Prince's request, which makes it look out of whack a little. Width is what you would expect on an average Les Paul. 42mm at nut. 53 at 12th fret. The neck is a definite C - a bit of a tree trunk, but nice to play. Here it is next to a common or garden Strat. I am getting an ESP Cloud tomorrow (below), so it will be interesting to compare them.

Very true - Blood & Thunder is exactly how an album should start!

loads of music I like where the bass is very much low in the mix. In fact what really gets my spine a-tingling are songs where the drums or percussion is to the fore. Few things get me more buzzin than this

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I made the switch in my main covers band about 2 years ago, mainly due to complaints from other band members about general on stage volume. I agree Chris, it's a total revelation when you get your mix right. We also use a Behringer X mixer, but ours is the X-18. I agree totally on that too, it's a fabulous bit of kit for not a massive amount of money.

Give it to charity. You don't know how to spend it so it give it to someone who does. Only joking, get on the phone to the Fender Custom Shop and make them build you something like a Gibson Thunderbird.

Surely this is the answer?

So this is my effort for this month, I hope you enjoy it ☺️

They're all irritating

Outstanding work, sir! And what's age got to do with it?

Are you using your FI and SYB-5 in a band / live performance context? If so, would love to hear them in action - e.g. a video or audio clip on this thread would be great:

Keep the Sire.

"Yeah, the load-in is really good, you don't need to worry about that. You can park literally right next to the stage. Oh but there's a lion." "Sorry, could you repeat that last bit? It sounded like you said something about a lion." "Yeah, huh, kinda embarrassing. There's sort of a lion that will be protecting the stage. You'll need to take your stuff past it." "That sounds sub-optimal." "No, it's fine really. Most people get past without losing use of more than one limb, two max." S.P.

Yeah, nice try Maude, but we're not buying it.

Their first three albums were made using conventional instruments and the spirit was already there. Listen to them : Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2 and Ralf und Florian. Don't forget that the two founders were classical musician interested in electronic music of the time (1968) so they knew what they wanted to hear and started with what they had : conventional instruments. Ralf und Florian is the beginning of the "massive" use of "synthesizers". I would also recommend watching the Swedish film "Sound of Noise", very Kraftwerkian approach.

I’d save for 3-4 years and get a Fodera or (insert uber priced brand here) Si

If you used the Terror with your own bass and own cab and loved it, getting one has to be the answer.

Bob Dylan, his songs always seem to sound better when someone else sings them

Conan, to be honest, Walter Becker's attention to detail meant that nothing but the best was allowed under the radar. The best education a musician could ever get and a life-changing experience. The guy's innate musical knowledge is second to none and, as a person, totally inspirational. His enthusiasm for music knows no bounds and he's honest and just a f***in' great bloke. I've got a mate who's a dog's-bollocks trumpeter and he says that playing on Flaunt had the same effect on him. And he's played with The Who and Eric Clapton! Make no mistake, the greatest thing that ever happened to me, though, was the day Kevin Wilkinson walked through the rehearsal door. A bass player's only as good as his drummer, and we had the best.