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Your lack of reggae influence is disturbing... 😁

Glockenspiel, Marimba and the Oud, mostly in the capacity of performing post-modernist marxist neo-soul jazz opera in the style of the Gypsy Kings meets Pantera.

Not the album. I just love em. . They always come out with the finest. imo.

I posted in a similar vein last month. on Monday I meet a new band. hard to tell what can be around the corner

Something like this :

The BB3000 was the top of the range Japanese - made bass in the early/ mid 1980's and was a fantastic bass. It had its own distinctive tone, and the neck-thru construction probably played a big part in that. Compared to a traditional Fender-style PJ, the classic Yamaha BB's have a much wider frequency range. The bass goes deeper, the midrange is rich and complex, and the treble is extended. A Fender -style bass sounds a bit muted by comparison. That is not necessarily a bad thing, by the way, but a Yamaha has a very different tone, for better or worse, depending on your taste.

Hotel California.... Just saying' 😀 You can check out, but you can never leave (There is a much deeper story from me, but another day mebbe.)

Have you ever tried playing Reggae on an Oud? 🙉

Managed to knock off 3 of the remaining 14 jobs on this, including installing some blue luminlays: Assuming I remembered correctly, @eude wanted the dots on the fretlines rather than between. Assuming I didn't remember correctly, it makes no difference... @eude is getting the dots on the fretlines Probably going to start the final sanding and finishing pretty soon, then that can be hardening off while I finish the other bits and pieces.

Does this mean that soldiers in blue berets are going to be dispatched to escort fat middle aged white blokes off stage for being most of UB40? Fixed.

Finally joined the club!

Friday night randomness happened, aided by gin.

I think a lot of us have felt the same over the years. I had a long period where I barely touched a bass through university and just played excessive amounts of soppy, mopey drivel on acoustic guitar. I love acoustic guitar and always keep one freshly strung and ready to go at home. Enjoy your acoustic playing, go and get yourself a lovely acoustic with the money you get from bass gear sales and go and get a real cheap playable bass to our in the corner just in case.

Oooof! Always loved that one. Was going to post it myself. So many, but: Ewan Vernal (Deacon Blue days) - virtually anything... (Warwick?) Meshell Ndegeocello - Bittersweet (Fender Jazz heaven) Mark King - The Pursuit of Accidents / Dance on Heavy Weather (gritty flanged Jaydee) Richard Nolan (It Bites) - Midnight (Zon Legacy?) Jamiroquai ‘Radio’ - not sure who plays on this but P bass burpiness Bobby Watson - Rock With You Will Lee - Walk Between the Raindrops (Fagen’s The Nightfly) Leon F Sylvers III - anything from Solar Records days. Pick n P bass funk perfection And on and on...

I don't mean to harp on about it, but I'm quite the celebrity on the oud/reggae scene in the North West 😬

My PDN Starry Night Stingray!

Is that grilled or fried? And does it come with Humus?

... my Raqsat al Gamal / King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown mashup is the talk of Manchester.

I am known for it

Try the Coffee!

So THAT’S what a Smith sounds like.. Thrown my long-time Sadowsky GAS into a right kilter that has. Here’s one of my faves from the Dan. Tom Barney playing a ‘Ray 5.

I just bought this combo off @discreet Managed to try it this afternoon for a bit. Why isn’t this rated in some sort of Richter scale? Input gain at about 7 - no clipping. Into the active input as I used the ACG with east Preamp. Master at 1.5 cos it’s just our music room. Loud. Low B was tight and defined. Slipped the East bass boost on. Mrs B was upstairs and came down and said “WTF is that?? It’s making me feel sick up there with the vibrations!!!” I’m going to like this amp....

First finish coat. Well, I think that looks pretty classy already I'm still amazed what a difference 0.6mm of veneer makes...

I do.. '71 and '73.

Slightly off the wall maybe but Killing Joke's Love Like Blood bass sound and especially how it sits with the drums in the mix has always been my favourite bass sound and one I have struggled to emulate on any recordings I have done

Two of my faves. David Barard with Dr. John, playing a Sadowsky low and loose Freddie Washington playing a Smith for Donald Fagen. Always loved the Smith sound, this is a good example Interested to hear other people's faves...

"Do you often take your Class D Bass Amp Head with you on holiday, sir?" "You never know when you might need it, officer" "And did you have many emergency Bass Gigs that you had to do whilst shopping in New York?" "No. Not really."

Hi Kieran, Sorry to hear this, unusual for sure. If you can email me your details and serial number of the amp I can do some investigative work and we can get you hooked up with our USA guys who will take care of you. My email is [email protected] I am assuming the amp was used when you bought it rather than new form a store?

The newer Class D power modules (the D800, Magellan, etc) are very good, and a different animal from the older ones.

Fantastic set list and a few i don't recognise. I'll be keeping an eye out for you guys up here. I do Jean Genie and Rebel Rebel in our Glam Rock covers band and i just love doing Trevor Bolders bass lines plus the songs are just so rewarding to play and they give you that little lift when finished. Great stuff and long may your success continue. Dave

and if you need a bass for the time being let me know .... i have few spare one , although not at the dingwall level

Just in case you didn't already miss your dirty blonde Thumb too much already, here is one being put to very good use on YouTube (If you think this is going to be just another cover, skip to 2:39 and thank me later):

It's an unusual tuning arrangement so best to just watch somebody...

That's exactly what I'm talking about -- it's wrong -- like two blokes having sex with one bird is wrong -- but in all honesty I'll probably watch it. edit: Yep, it was exactly as I imagined it would be...

Update This is not a cure for sticky flats, it was a shocking idea, my balls remained fresh and fragrant throughout the gig, however my fingers felt like they were playing sand paper all night, knacker lacquer is not for bass strings..... it’s for knackers....

As another year comes to an end, the inevitable set adjustments for next year are being discussed once again. Looking back at page one of this thread, on one hand we've come so far since those first ten songs, yet I feel we're still barely scratching the surface of the Bowie cannon. There are so many iconic songs still to do, yet maintaining the balance between the old, the new, the expected and personal favourites is a tricky one. We've tried to address specific song requests as we go along to keep our regulars happy, but the bigger the repertoire, the harder it is to put a set together - and there's still more to do. Very much a first world problem and not a bad one to solve really. I'll never get bored of playing this stuff. I just hope the punters never get bored of listening. Anyway, this is what the list has expanded to from those ten songs: Absolute Beginners Afraid All The Young Dudes Andy Warhol Ashes to Ashes Blue Jean Boys Keep Swinging Breaking Glass Changes China Girl Cracked Actor Dead Man Walking Drive In Saturday Fame Fashion Five Years Golden Years Heroes Hurt I'm Afraid of Americans The Jean Genie John, I'm Only Dancing Jump They Say Lazarus Let's Dance Life On Mars? Little Wonder (in progress) Look Back In Anger Loving The Alien The Man Who Sold The World The Man Who Sold The World (Lulu version) Modern Love Moonage Daydream New Killer Star Oh! You Pretty Things (in progress) Quicksand Rebel Rebel Sound and Vision Space Oddity Starman The Stars (Are Out Tonight) Station to Station Stay Suffragette City Under Pressure Valentine's Day (in progress) What In The World Wild Is The Wind Ziggy Stardust

A couple of thoughts on looping multiple instruments, in case that's useful - software is one way to do it, but you can also do it with hardware loopers and a mixer. I started out using a little Behringer Desk almost 20 years ago, upgraded to a Mackie one in 2002, then switched to a MOTU Ultralite Soundcard (that works either hooked up to a laptop or standalone) in 2008. This year, I swapped that for a Keith McMillen K-Mix. What each of these allow me to do is have the looper on a 'send' of some sort. Either the effect send on the desk, or just one of the pairs of outputs from the soundcard. That way, I can have instruments plugged into any channel and route them to the looper, but with the soundcard version I can also route virtual instruments to it as well. I currently use a Quneo as a controller and play sounds that are generated in FL Studio - nothing's pre-recorded, and none of the sounds are loops, so I play the controller as percussion or 'keyboard' instrument... Then the big issue is thinking about the arrangement - layering things can either sound like the gradual evolution of the piece, or like you're constructing a loop to play over later on. I much prefer the former. The big advantage of looping inside a DAW is that you can do things that are partially pre-recorded, or that use pre-recorded loops that you're manipulating the way @urb does. But again, you'll need to think about how much of a 'construction' phrase you want to have as part of the performance... The trade off with this is very much audience-dependent. Some audiences will be wowed enough by the tech wizardry to give you pass if it takes you a while to build the track before it feels like the beginning, whereas an audience that are more familiar with the tech may be less forgiving in terms of what they expect from the music aside from the tech constraints, if that makes sense One thing that's definitely worth considering is how important it is to you that the live versions are anything like the recorded ones... making great music is way more important than faithfully recreating a studio experience on stage. A lot of bands/artists have come unstuck trying too hard to replicate the sound of their records like when with a little imagination they could've maximised what was great about their live lineup by allowing a more fluid approach to the arrangement/structure/instrumentation...

Just heard that Aretha Franklin is the latest artist to have her classic recordings re-done with new string parts. Think she is the first artist to have this done who is still around, probably due to recent successful sales of albums by Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Only heard a couple of tracks of the Aretha stuff so far, but despite it being the RPO playing on it, I just can't understand why it seems okay to meddle with something that was pretty damn perfect all those years ago. The Elvis stuff was to me pretty dreadful too ( anybody hear 'Burning Love'? ), and although Orbison's material lends itself to the more orchestral approach, the originals were just sublime as they were. Some things just need leaving alone......rant over.

New member residing in Tampa, Florida

It always makes me sad... I've never exceeded the status of average on the bass and I've never really been without a gig. Lucky I suppose. I think as long as you're getting out there and doing what you do... that's the important thing.

Really sharpens things up, doesn't it.

The first half a minute reminded me of this: Then I remembered to turn my speakers on, and became jealous of his bass tone.

Oh, go on then. My first fiver - still love it. 😎