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Rehearsing on your partner's birthday - now that's dedication/sheer stupidity 😟

In the interests of accuracy I am prepared to disclose certain pertinent facts: * I am not Dr No. In point of fact my former associate Julius No worked for me between 1957-1961 but we parted on difficult terms, mainly because he complained that I 'expected him to be a Yes-man'. Nothing could have been further from the truth; I always welcome constructive discussion. Nevertheless, Julius became far too wedded to the whole Caribbean Island thing at a time when super-villainry was trending more towards space stations and / or lairs in dormant volcanoes. I was all about the volcano. Julius wanted an island. We parted ways. C'est tout. * My affinity with the game Cluedo dates from 1944 when I lent my chum the pianist Tony Pratt the not inconsiderable sum of fifty guineas towards the development costs of his idea for a board game. I'd known Tony from his days playing the piano on cruise ships; he tickled the ivories while I plied my trade as a gigolo / lounge lizard among the ladies of a certain age travelling first class. (That Barbara Cartland? Had her). So when Tony needed some cash for a working presentation to Messrs Waddington it was I to whom he turned. * I do not live on the South Coast, rather in South Central Wiltshire. My bungalow (decorated in a tasteful, un-ostentatious Louis XIV stylee) forms part of a more extensive compound including a small airstrip, weapons testing bunkers, a communications centre and a compact but efficient miniature nuclear reactor. I've given up on shark tanks. IMO, they're both passé and de trop.

I nearly bought it, but I tried it out and it wouldn't play Rhythm Stick properly, kept fluffing some of the notes, so I gave it a miss...

Warning! Bass solo content! 😂 What a brilliant player Gerry Mc Avoy is. Shame he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. 😢

Just over 30 years and still learning new things, still improving and certainly still loving it. When I was at school along with my parents, I was told that I will never make a musician and I don't have a musical bone in my body. I must of been about 10 and I then picked up the bass at about 17. I played it every day in my bedroom for 2 years and then went out and joined a band. I've played Stadium Rock, Indie Guitar Punk Pop, Folk Pop, Acoustic Soul, Electronic EBM, 50s/60 pop, 50's sounding Rock n Roll and depped for a U2 tribute band. I've had a record deal, been on TV, written music for an advert, multiple live radio sessions, many tours either supporting or on my own. I've worked and recorded with many named artists, did 119 gigs last year and have gigs booked up for the next 3 years. I consider myself very lucky but every day there is something new I learn about playing bass, it never stops, it never gets boring and I love it to bits. No idea how long I will keep going as my fingers seem tighter these days and a couple of knuckles get sore occasionally so gonna make the most of it while I can.

I can’t ignore the lead singer... he’s just... THERE. Like a creepy uncle.

Personally I have used a rack compressor (a Focusrite compounder) for years and years, but then I had a very specific set of requirements with my rig that it helped out with a lot. New rig now, may even ditch the always on compressor completely, and get a pedal comp for some very overt compression fx in a few distinct spots rather than the always on comp set up I've enjoyed for the last 10 years. In general the single biggest weakness of 90% of compressor pedals is a lack of serious metering: by definition you cant hear compression work when its transparent, unless you are in the mix, in which case you are playing your bass, not setting up a compressor! If you want really transparent compression then I recommend looking at parallel compression, or anything with a blend knob. Parallel compression allows you to 'get away with' heavier compression settings without them becoming so obvious, its all about psychoacoustics, it also can act more like an expander than a compressor. Most compressors with an LPF dont compress the bottom of the signal at all, anything under the LPF frequency is not compressed and so you have to bear this in mind, they are great for transient shaping but not so good at taming wayward low end. Multicomp pedals are the solution to this, but the truth is you need a huge amount of parameter control and metering to get the most out of them - or some kind of computer interface (and therefore a digital pedal) - and masses of experience. Things like the spectracomp are fine, but unless you really know your beans dont go fiddling with the internals. Personally if I want an obvious effected compressed sound then I love optical compressors, they have this gorgeoues bwoooOOP sound to the front of the note when set right, its so funky I love it to death, but its definitely not an always on thing! My favourite is the Joe Meek FloorQ btw. For an always on compressor I like to emulate the compression of a tube amp (not the saturation though), I have explained exactly how I set this up on a bunch of other threads so a search will help you, but basically its a very very low ratio (1.3:1) and a threshold set so its always on, just (this ends up being a very low threshold indeed), attack slow enough to let the transient through, a bit of low pass, a medium/fast release ( I play a lot of 16ths) and make up gain to match on/off output when digging in. This way you cant really feel it, but its always helping atad to even things out, your dynamics are unchanged in the main. I've even run this in parallel with a much faster attack too, it stays really transparent but fattens up the front of the note a bit.

I've seen the guy from D.A.D's version before - not sure why, but there's something about these that just makes me want to punch whoever thought this was a good idea.

My birthday too - many happy returns

"Dr Nowt" 😂

As a long time fan of both Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, it's seems to me to be an utterly pointless argument to say that one of them is a (musical) genius, whilst the other is not. They are both extraordinarily talented songwriters, singers and musicians in their own right but they come from very different cultural and artistic backgrounds IMO, which makes comparing them more about personal preference and opinion than fact. Their back catalogues, record sales, worldwide fan bases and respect from amongst their own musical peer groups tells its own story though and they both have those things in abundance. I'm just grateful that they have made the fantastic music they have over the years; my life's been all the richer for it.

Feel free to come, @MoJoKe We’ll have sessions of people showing off and giving talks about bass related bits so let me know if you’d like your name down for that.

Oddly enough i do see it as a plus and never a negative. Not sure my wife shares my opinion as we normally go out for dinner but as you say .......never on your wife's birthday Dave

Surely playing with your mates is a plus not a minus? I would take it as a birthday present, anytime.

A great pedal, no doubt. Having said that this very forum proves that if you ask 10 bassists what the 'best' compressor is you'll get 47 different answers.

They’d go bust.......

Thomann advising 'In stock within about one week'. Getting a little moister. 😄

Had an email yesterday from Andy @ Wing Instruments. They’re just putting the finishing touches on my Wing. Things got somewhat delayed, partly due to NAMM amongst other things. I decided to take the plunge and order the UDG MIDI Controller case I posted about above - it arrived today and is fantastic. Obviously I just have the empty case and no Wingbass yet but the guys who designed the case really thought it through. Very high quality. I’ll post pics once the Wing arrives! EDIT: Just realised I’m actually hijacking @Grantd‘s thread so I’ll start a new one when the time comes

Giblin played some lovely things with Chris de Burgh and with Jon Anderson. This is from the 'Song Of Seven' album. The opening bass solo is sweet.

Apologies for not meeting your high standards. I've just spent a week in A&E in Ipswich Hospital, so I'm slightly behind the curve.

As soon as you send any contact details to each other before buying, phone, address etc its robots will automatically pick it up and flag it.

One question, Mr D... Do you have an industrial laser that could burn a bloke's jacob(s) off if required? 😬

Nice introduction Gary and welcome back to the world of bass, how are you finding it with giving it a break? More passion and interest than before? Not too bad equipment as well, pretty much ready to go pro 😉 hahaha Just.... word to the wise, steer clear from the marketplace on here. You'll end up penniless like the rest of us haha. Welcome to BassChat and I hope you enjoy your stay here.

Merlot. Burp.

'The Space Ritual' by Hawkwind. Most of Hawkwind's early studio stuff was pretty lack lustre to say the least, but this album was something else.

My take on it is.... 1. They must have written procedures to follow. Written by themselves. These are there to ensure the job gets done correctly. 2. They clearly haven't followed their own written procedures. AND they have admitted this. Therefore they are responsible not just for loss, but for being negligent and not abiding by their own procedures. 3. They're offering the standard cheapo payout because that's just what they do. It doesn't make them right.

Best concert/gig/performance I've ever seen in 44 years of going to gigs was KB's Before The Dawn show in August 2016.. It had everything - incredible songs, musicians, vocals, stage sets, choreography.. It was as close to artistic perfection as I think it's possible to get. And KB herself was the strangest mix of down to earth 'girl next door' and charismatic diva all at the same time. Just brilliant! What she created was performance art of the highest standard and it was all on her own terms; no record label or product driving it - just the desire to tell her own story.. And for me, it was on another level of creativity altogether, better than most of my other favourite artists shows that I've seen over the years, including Queen, Bowie, Sinatra, Prince etc.. I love Joni Mitchell too, but to try and compare her and KB is pointless really - their musical DNA comes from quite different sources IMHO. We're just lucky that they've both created unique and beautiful bodies of work. Oh, and at the KB show, John Giblin with Omar Hakim on drums were absolutely unbelievable as a rhythm section.. 😊

Rehearsals tonight 9-12pm .......on my birthday. Is that not dedication for you. Anyone else shown extreme dedication to their band. Lets hear your stories. Dave

Sorry. I meant that for a true lightweight setup you could switch to using a Line6 Helix as an amp modeller, (or any other preamp pedal to be fair) send your signal to the PA from it and hear yourself back through in ear monitors. It's not for everyone as some people just have to have the traditional bass amp back line. To some it's a heinous crime but gigging without an amp is so achievable nowadays and not limited to large venues or complex PA setups. There are thread some in the effects section on the Helix and IEM discussions are in the accessories section.

So what happens with a seller who puts in his description, "Welcome to come and try"? I've seen that many times. Bet eBay don't delete the item and suspend the seller as they lose their wedge on the sale.

I like the playing. That chromakey filming, though, is dreadful. When the whole stage is visible, it looks like they're on the deck of a trawler in heavy seas, and when Rory's amp is in shot, it looks like it's wandering off somewhere. Add to that the lurching in for close-ups every now and again, and that is a video that should be heard and not seen.

I thought this could do with a refresh. A mere 8 years playing now and tonight I am just noodling away to anything from I Predict a Riot to Fly me to the Moon but am still smiling away to myself like a lunatic.

I can handle most of that apart from Nad Sylvan. He's completely dreadful.

I've had a bit of a bass journey over the past couple of years. After 20 plus years of bass playing, owning and fettling the whole band shenanigans finally drove me to selling my rig, several basses and a host of other gear. I was just left with my ACGs and Rita my Sterling. They haven't been touched for over a year. I'd completely lost interest. Brilliantly, I'm at it again but with a better practice routine and I'm working on the basics as opposed to learning songs from tabs. I'm enjoying myself more than ever. Back to this story. I was hankering for a Jazz. Back to basics again. I bought a lovely 2008 MIM Jazz from Nick Carey on here. Its playability ranked with the best I've used (speaks the man who's owned over 100 basses). The fretwork has had a professional dress and setup and it shows. I am a serial tinkerer. I fitted upgraded electrics (still passive) and saw some overwound neodynium pickups that I thought might add something. They were great, looked lovely, well made and they sounded very punchy. Therein lies the rub. The bass was perfectly setup and I had to raise the saddles a whole turn to a turn and a half to stop fret buzz as the neo magnets were so powerful that they were bending the strings towards the board. I told myself that this was okay but yesterday I thought, no, I'm putting the old pups back in. With exactly the same setup I lowered the saddles by the same amount I'd raised them and normal service is resumed. My Jazz is back and it actually sounds bloody wonderful. I don't know if the pickups I've put back in are originals but they are very good. Lesson learnt.

Gun metal grey, Lake placid blue (metallic), muted gold? Not all at once, obvs.

You make a good point - but it’s entirely possible that Cluedo is a recent hobby, taken up by Skank/Dr No when he retired to the South Coast. Let’s face it, he’d need something to fill the empty hours now that the whole super-villain thing has finished. So he retires to the bungalow, takes up the bass as a hobby and enjoys a nice game of Cluedo every Wednesday night with Mrs SD/No and the Pargeters, George, a retired Colonel of the Yeomanry and his wife, Dotty.

I have a Cluedo board game and I am currently living in a bungalow. My 18 year-old self would never have envisaged such an outcome.

Thinking about this my tendency is to play 6 notes in a 4 note bar, much like: 1, 2/3, 4/5, 6 Giving a bit of a rhythmic feel to it. Unleashing my inner Lemmy methinks.

Personally I would add the Glockenklang Blue Rock. The sound may be a bit modern for some, however, I have yet to see an amp that matches the build and sound quality of this one.

Simon Phillips!

Read his website. Jamerson claimed Cool Jerk and it was actually Babbitt on bass. Apparently Berry Gordy was a tricky character. Most Motown sessions were documented but some are a little sketchy. Some of the recordings made in LA were Motown masters, but were overdubbed etc in Detroit. Back then a song could have been recorded multiple times, for the single, album or film and many artists would cover the same songs. It is possible that many of these songs would have been recoded in separate sessions and vocals added later. Also the LA guys made demos for Motown. They got paid less because it was a demo, but because these guys were so good the demos had the quality of masters and some of the session guys in LA claimed that their demo sessions were actually used as masters. It's not an exactly clear picture, then add in the AFM Special Payments Fund rules that gave session guys a cut of the "mechanical royalties" of the songs they played on. In typical style the session guys were screwed over, because they were made to claim the sessions they were on and were not given very long to do it. Some had the lists of sessions but wouldn't have known what happened to those songs after they laid the tracks down. It was, and still is, a mess.

The stock Spectracomp preset does indeed boost the volume slightly, but you can adjust the level via the app, or find another preset that's closer to unity gain. Me, I just leave it stock and don't worry about the boost as it's always on. Hyper Gravity if you don't mind tweaking tons of parameters to find your setting, and want the hands on control of multiple knobs. Spectracomp if you want an easy life and tons of dedicated bass presets, and don't mind having just the one knob!

Thanks all for your input, much appreciated, seems i may have found a new home for the spare quarter pounder pickup i have knocking about if i can get my butt into gear to do it....

Three fingers. 😎 I like to try this, but not in public. lol

Just bought a pedal from Frank. Fair price for a nice bit of kit. Good communication, and helpful with postage. All good. Thanks man 👍🏻