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I have vivid and fond memories of watching my (South African) mate giving an excellent and very well received impromptu version of "We Will Rock You" on the highland pipes while dressed in full Scottish regalia, accompanied by a German oompah band, also wearing their traditional costumes, late at night at an open-air riverside café in Turku, Finland in the summer of 2017 during the Europeade (European folk dance) festival. Pick the cultural bones out of that one!

I've only ever depped a few times and only for people I know. Last time was a young girl who occasionally songs with my band gave me about 48hrs notice that her bassist couldn't do a festival gig. She got her band moved to be on just before mine so I'd be there and sent me the set list of covers... i got introduced as a last minute cover and got through the first few songs including an improv section I wasn't prior warned about and all went well. Then Seven Nation Army was up next. I just stood there. Singer says "it's you". I had ear plugs in. "It's you. Now, it's you" I'm just standing there. "It's you" "what?" "Play the riff" "what riff?" This went on for ages until she basically spoke like to an elderly relative who thinks he's escaping from the nursing home "seven nation army. It starts with the bass riff. You need to start playing it"

I'm looking forward to going down my next blues jam night to check passports, and I'll be requiring written proof that the singer's dog has actually died, his woman did indeed done him wrong, etc. 😁 I used to go to the Bier Keller in Manchester when standing on tables and hurling steinfuls of lager around the place was a big night out, and the house band there (definitely Oompah) covered Like A Virgin...it was a life-changing experience... 😁

"Music eh...shit business int'it?"

Two things: first, Bob Marley's dad was a white guy from Liverpool. Second: you live in a flipping colony!!!

@The59Sound do you need to take a break?! How about it, or do you think you can behave like a grown up for a bit? Calm down.

Been in the news a bit this week following Michelle Obama’s speech. How many of you guys have been in this situation? I did a dep gig on Saturday night. Was sent the set list, had a brief look through it, met the guitarist and ran through a few numbers. Didn’t seem anything too complex. Turned up to the gig unloaded and set up and then realised I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Not practiced any of the tunes at home, didn’t know the structure to half the tunes, no ideas of intros or endings. I was screwed. Anyway, felt my way through the gig by using my eyes and ears and smiling a lot. The band thought I was great, the audience thought we were great. We got paid and the band leader was asked for cards. I suppose really that’s what musicians do when they play properly and all this endless rehearsals and preparation with semi-pro bands is mainly just to stoke the singer/guitarists ego. Quite honestly I’d prefer to dep all gigs. Keeps it fresh and reminds me of what a real musician is.

This. When I started, I was the worst musician in the room, but - I was a musician! Our om community was truly appreciative of the people who came every week just to listen, but as soon as I crossed that line it became completely different. I'm usually still the worst musician in the room, but that's because I keep pushing myself, and trying to play with better musicians, because it's the only way I'll get better myself. Many years ago a sprinter who came last in the Olympic 100m final was asked how he felt about coming last. His answer: "Being the 8th fastest man in the world ain't bad."

Flight cased in ears porn.

Remember , unlike my generation, I'm 65, no longer is every kid in the neighborhood buying a guitar and starting a band. There aren't that many guys in their 20s & 30s interested in bands or gigging. But there's a ton of us older guys not willing to give up our rock & roll spot light quite yet I'm not Blue

I had some trouble with Twist and Shout once I realised I was a different colour than the people who first sang it. Or is it a different nationality? Or religion? The Isley Brothers (who were the first to chart with it) were Seventh Day Adventists...

He's currently on a hiatus. God knows what he's going to be like when he finally decides he loves playing bass again.

It's a good thing to be helpful, right? Apparently the cry has gone out that the 2nd market is slowing (see that other thread). How could what we are signing up to do here (led by our pied piper moderator @Sibob) be described in any shape or form as being "helpful" on that score? 😄

My current fretless squeeze... OLP Ray body, Jaydee neck with mostly-unlined ebony board, EMG-HZ pickup, as yet passive electrics. Future plans are to squeeze some sort of 3-band eq in there. For the moment, I'm loving it just as it is. It plays beautifully and sounds better.

I fully understand. I just wish that big events like this weren't always so London-centric.

How did the Hipster burn his hand? He changed the light bulb before it was cool.

Next time I gig my Super Twin, I'll have to take an umph meter and see what is lacking

all brands of IPA available in the UK for a Yule long tasting session 🍻

A bit of peace and quiet hopefully.

Have you planted the Helix Stomp seed yet? I love how you have named your P2s too. I'm going to call mine Stan.

You can download them yes. Click on the 3 dots at the side of the video, that should give you the option to download. I've attached a photo of one of mine.

Unless you have a Mark King complex, you'll probably find that 4kHz isn't much of a limitation at all.

@Paul S Good luck. They won’t be expecting too much. Have fun.

I play in a ska band. I thought I was a bass player. I never realised I was a thief, coloniser and oppressor too. Thanks for the heads up.

You really are an over opinionated racist fool aren't you i grew up in Tottenham listening to reggae [both uk and Jamaican] and have played it for most of my fifty years i play with a band that consists of Jamaican, Indian ,Polish, Bermudan, mixed heritage and uk born some of the white members of the band have played with some of the biggest names in reggae without any problem i play the music from the streets i grew up in but reggae music is loved the world over ,and its message of unity and love is open to all.

I started in live music by playing at one of the better jams in West London (the Drayton Arms, Ealing, formerly the King's Head, Acton jam). Quite literally everybody in the room was a better musician than me, and the great majority (including the guitarists) were better bass players than me. So? You have to start somewhere. If I could get in a time machine and go back those years - taking my bass with me, natch - there would still be plenty of better musicians there. There will always be better musicians than yourself somewhere, if you look hard enough. So stop looking and enjoy what you do.

Good luck with your endeavours. If anyone, of whatever colour, tries to tell you that you shouldn't be playing a particular type of music because of your ethnic background, then they are being racist, and should be ignored, however much they may try to conceal their racism behind such fatuous pc terms as "cultural appropriation". It's no different from someone telling a black person that they shouldn't be performing opera or playing in a string quartet. Music is music, and has always benefitted from cross-cultural fertilization, without which much of the music we enjoy, and which has enriched our lives, simply would not exist. Enjoy!

Why are you being rude? What an odd reply. Literally an opinion, a point of view - my 2p. The concept of a cheaper (‘kiddy’) Flea bass in itself was acknowledged by Flea when he brought out the “fleabass” range of instruments and further addressed by the introduction of a lower price point Fleabass (street bass). I was just pointing out that Fender may have missed a trick by only having the one price point which would be out of reach for younger/less affluent fans when they’ve done broader attempts to previously... Mike Dirnt has/had a Fender and a Squier model simultaneously BB King had a Gibson and Epiphone version of Lucille (there are plenty more examples) It just broadens their buying audience somewhat and more buyers means more money. Makes more business sense. And having left the guitar/bass retail industry after 12 years in 2015 - I might have an idea of what people buy into. As a point, the cheap fleabass instruments weren’t that great - but we sold 100’s of them because people bought into the Flea name/image. But what would I know, I’m only a child.

Went along to a start-up originals audition once. The band were pretty good and (along with myself) had largely done their homework - except for the potential singer/guitarist/front man, who clearly was unable to fulfil any of those roles. It became obvious that he had made no effort to listen to any of the material, but this turned out to be irrelevant as he just plain couldn't sing, sounded as if he'd never ever picked up a guitar before and had all the charisma and personality of a canoe. BUT he thought he was great! The band played the songs while he made a terrible howling noise like an aphasic drunk falling down an escalator with a cutlery drawer, gurning horribly and throwing weird stunted shapes like an arthritic gnome with terminal hemarroids. The band immediately avoided each other's gaze. Rarely have I been so embarrassed yet so wanted to laugh as never before. No-one stepped in to stop it, we just kept going on and on through the set. It was absolutely interminable. We never met again, but later I heard he had persistently phoned the band leader pleading for the job, claiming he was obviously the best choice! And in the end actually got weird and threatening. Steps had to be taken. I've met some deluded flakes in my time - comes with the territory - but I won't forget this one in a hurry.

The LBGS has been moved from its customary slot in March to the last weekend in September (TBC), so it looks like we'll have to wait a few extra months for our next one. There are lots of other changes and improvements which will be officially announced shortly - I'll keep you posted when I know more. We'll have to make sure not to set the date of the South East bash on that weekend! 😮

My plan was to make my unbranded P bass look more like this.......... But when I started to sand this body to refinish it White ready to fit my new maple block and binded neck, to my surprise the body has actually got some really nice grain to it!! So I might now just Danish oil it with a black pickguard instead??.......... The body is really light so I thought it might have been Basswood or Paulownia?? But looking at that grain I'm not so sure??..........

I've been out of the 5 string game for a while. I've honestly preferred playing 4's but it's good to have the option available, and band members "encouraging" me back in that direction, but with 5 strings I'm very picky about neck dimensions (don't have the biggest hands). Usually only Soundgears do it for me - I swore by them for a long time, but I wanted something different. I've always been GASsing for the big W. I must have tried ten different 5 strings over the last week or so. Old faithful Ibanez got a look in, but I don't like those Panga Panga fretboards they're putting on a lot of stuff now. Came pretty close to buying a Ray35. Sire, nice but too many switches. The Spector was great, but unsure about the 35" scale. Tried a Yamaha BB735, and it was beautiful, but the neck was still just a tad too chunky to be comfy. The TRBX didn't do anything for me. I remembered playing a Thumb BO 5 and how playable I thought it was, despite the odd pickup arrangement. I just didn't want to drop the £1000+, until I got my hands on this:

Thanks for your replies everybody, it will help the relatives of my workmate not get ripped off. The Auctioneers valued a 90's Gibson Explorer at around £200. Luckily they didn't proceed with this. Sorry for the thread derail !!

Hmmm, so I'm going to be saving a load of cash and also getting to grips with the already far too much gear I've got, and very probably spending more time on the fretboard to boot (cos I won't be thinking about the next upgrade!). Definitely not "A" then 😄

This pretty much describes me , I don't let it get me down though, im competent enough to get through most situations just not what you would call a great musician

Ok I'm in! No new gear for me in 2019 (unless, that is, a Yamaha TRB5PII shows up in mint condition) 😂

@PaulS Good luck mate, you'll smash it! 😎

Quite right too, and probably very restful for the audience. Piling on layer after layer of virtuoso solos can be very wearing on the ear, so that would be a welcome respite. T'wouldn't work for some numbers, though, where one is supposed to be 'trading eights' for four minutes..! My 'drum solos' are equally sparse, applying the principle that 'less is more'.

As a package for power, sound, size, weight and portability, BF Super Twins (or Super 12s) are pretty hard to beat imho.

I don't think you've got anything to worry about mate! Eude

Shared on the BC FB page. Sorry to hear the news and keep us up to date.

Absolutely agree. Other cliquey musicians on the other hand....felt I was getting sneered at because I wasn’t the usual player. Uncomfortable.

ive always had a comp first (after tuner), Pre amp (BDDI mostly), dirt stuff, then chorus/phaser. i couldn't get my head around having an amp with a comp in it, as that puts it right at the end of the chain. Since i recently put my TCE Spectradrive last in the chain (and taken the BDDI off), this also means the comp is last. So far i find the comp more useful there. Although im not using filters it seems to even things out about when i engage the various effects.

I’m sure they are very nice... mines better though IMO.... 😃😂

Could’ve been so much better. And being USA - alienates younger players, I mean they did the dimension and Jaguar basses in Squier, MIM and US. in all honesty, a £600-£700 Version would’ve been bought by me as a long time fan, but at £1200+ they can jog on

My current two. Chalk and cheese sound wise.

As AGEDHORSE points out in a later post, I got my maths wrong as both peak voltage and current are 1.414 times greater than their RMS values. Thersfore PEAK Power is almost twice "RMS". I have left the rest of the post intact but in the table below, Peak power should be 1414W and peak to peak 2827W all rounded to the nearest whole number. Peak of a sine wave is 1.414 x RMS and Peak to Peak is 2 x Peak. So can we believe that the Veyron is 707 Watts. Are Uli's boys playing tricks on us? Well yes to both and it is the slight of hand that causes the problem. However as has been said already, it is a loud amp and is really good value. I have read most of the guff online about power and Rod Elliott has, as usual summed it up well on his site http://sound.whsites.net/power.htm Incidently you will see a term Average power used on some HiFi sites and although not wrong, it is as wrong as RMS watts or RMS power. It should be just power but many, me included, like to say RMS to ensure that people know I am talking about the RMS voltage X the RMS Current. Of course then you have the issue of distortion. If you quote a 10% figure it will still be inflated. I am happy for 1% figure to be quoted on a bass amp although I would like better than 0.1% for HiFi

New amateur Builder here on Basschat. I've been posting on Talkbass for a few years, seen some amazing UK and European builds over there, figured I check out what's happening over here. Ive never posted photos here yet, so this is an experiment......That works!! Here we have a Ric 4004/4003 inspired build in walnut and rock maple. This was my first experience binding a headstock, nerve-wracking, but I'm really happy with the result. A fair way from finished, as you can see. Still the whole fingerboard and neck process to complete, but the gist is there.