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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 😍

I used to work for a company that did vinyl signage. They used to spray with a very weak solution of detergent i.e. washing up liquid, then squeegee it once in place. A soft cloth would do the same. Start from one side, holding the vinyl up slightly as you apply it. If there are any bubbles you can prick it with a pin then use a cloth to smooth it down

Just thought I really struggle to like anything by lamb of God music is great but when randy starts wailing like a stuffed pig then it spoils it for me

The best bass players (pro or otherwise) are the guys playing the best bass lines. Who cares what instrument they used. Do what the best pro players do. . . make your own decisions and resist following the herd.

Excellent! Like the decal - LOVE the overall colour scheme

They'd generally play what they need for the gig. Sometimes a band leader might specify a certain instrument. I've never personally had that, but I do know people who have been told they must use a P bass or something. I know someone who did a musical based on the 1950s, the band were visible on stage, it had to 'look' right. Dave Swift is one of the UK’s busiest, his main bass at the moment is a 6 string Ibanez, though he plays others depending I guess on what the gig requires. Anthony Jackson always plays his 6 string Fodera. John Patitucci always plays a 6 string, usually a Yamaha. Jimmy Haslip plays a 6 string Roscoe.

Should be a good little project. Shows us the end result pics when it's done.

Yes, someone just made a mistake

I painted the scratch plate on ‘51 style bass I was modifying. It was black and I wanted white. I couldn’t find a white one that wasn’t a stupid price so I spray painted it with aerosol craft paint. I roughed the scratchplate with 2000 grit paper and built up light coats. No issues whatsoever. I doubt it would stand up to much abuse before scratching through, but it’s been ok so far.

Today's favourite post award goes to!

awesome. Many thanks!

That's a radiator and no you can't have the fire extinguisher..

As if my GAS wasn't bad enough already... https://www.talkbass.com/threads/the-2018-stingray-special-color-poll-w-pics.1352598/ Post 12 has pics of all the 4-string colours too.

Here you go good Sir; https://www.dropbox.com/s/q2hsody1salb1my/BassChat Podcast - Pilot.mp3?dl=0

@tonyf - probably not the UE900s to start with - i was thinking of a new quad custom first. I just need to find the time to get some impressions done. If the quads are OK, i might get the UE900s done as a backup pair

I went to see FORQ recently in Manchester. Fantastic gig and met Kevin afterwards ... he’s a top guy as well as a great musician.

Well done @Rob MacKillop, I had a quick look at the youtube samples and these look awesome! Although i mainly play upright, I do have an electric bass for rehearsals, so I'm gonna delve in - thanks for the introduction to Giovanni Bottesini, who I hadn't heard of.

Between the Buried and Me - Automata 1. In anticipation of Automata 2 on Friday. This band are a recent discovery of mine, can't believe what I have been missing out on.......

https://www.red5audio.com/ The RVD30 is perfectly adequate for most applications you might use an SM58 for, and if you ask Red Audio nicely they will normally do a 'four for £100' deal.

You would think that, and i did as well, but it’s a bit more long winded than that.

There's a couple of FIs going on Gumtree for £270.One has an M2 thrown in. I love my FI, still feel like I've only scratched the surface. The Soleman makes a big difference but only had that a week.

The Heil is defo where it's at out of the two. Plus extra cool points for being the Hunger Games mic...

Extremely irritating - 'The England band' and their following murdering eight bars from 'September'. It seems to go on all game, every game. All together....1234

My old Epic looked like this. Wenge top, unlined fretless five. I have lost most of the good photos I had of it, and the ones I still have were taken with an ancient camera phone (it would be close to ten years since I sold it). However, I can still remember the furterbil.

Friday's gig, we were on straight after the football. Three Lions was our opener, and it took the roof off the place 😎 It was purely mercenary, we'd only learnt it a Wednesdays rehearsal, but it did job of getting the audience immediately onside 😁

Just thought I'd do a quick update on this topic. I haven't had much of a chance to use the cab in anger until the last couple of weeks down to the usual band politics and lack of gigs followed by all the work involved in starting a new project. You've probably all been there. Anyway I have had the chance to try it out in anger at a full rehearsal. As a little extra spice the drummer has a 7 week old baby and hasn't been out for a while so was hitting things with a little extra enthusiasm, thank heaven for earplugs! So, I was back in the hall with the most appalling acoustics, all hard surfaces high ceilings, well you name it. To save anyone having to go back the speaker was designed to cope with this sort of space, and those pubs where you just can't get the bass sound right. The deepest bass was rolled off with a 2dB hump at around 120Hz to add a bit of thump so they didn't sound too bass light, a kind of old school underdamped response but with a modern high excursion driver using a single 12 built into a very simple 30l cabinet. To complete the picture I was using a Fender American Deluxe P Bass with a Markbass Tube everything set flat with VPF set at about 10.00 o'clock. We play pop/rock covers AC/DC, Queen through to Chelsea Dagger via Summer of 69 sort of thing (I've no shame) It sounded awesome, first of all really effortlessly loud with two guitars a keyboard and drummer really driving on it was really well up in the mix, not a hint of a clipping light on the input and with plenty to play with at the master volume. I have to say there didn't appear to be much in the way of high power compression either, it was over 30degreees outside, warmer in and we played for three hours without any noticeable tail off in performance by the speaker. This with a single 12 in a cab the size of an old fashioned milk crate. The sound? Well it was the sound of a P bass, punchy but sitting just right in the mix once the band got going. Not the sort of thing you'd set up playing alone at home where you'd probably want a bit more deep and some mid scoop but with a band just spot on. I can also report that in this really difficult room I had no problem in monitoring my own playing both with and without ear plugs. I know you can't trust someone praising their own design but this was meant to be built as a bit of fun, a demo at the bass bash, something I wanted to try. I fully expected to be building a 45l cab which to my mind modelled a lot better but thought I'd try a cab just on the silly side of 'too small'. it was only when we plugged it in at the end of the bass bash I realised it was worth sticking with. It started life as a curiosity piece really but honestly I'd recommend building one to anyone who wants something really portable, isn't too bothered about the top end (it has no tweeter/horn) and who is happy with a straightforward old school sound straight out of the box. It will cost you around £120 to build and once the parts are cut, well it took me around an hour to do the basic build in the video, maybe 2.5 hours in total including the pre prep and finishing.

Maybe he is a secret bass player and thus only pretends to be a tool

If you like the terror bass, get one! I think they’re cool.

Without wishing to state the obvious, why not get an Orange?

Fixed. We can see that you're trying. ... ... Very trying.