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So about eight days ago, I start a new job. My background is in credit management and analytical poop; I'm supervising a team of eight ladies, they're all pretty lovely to be honest. A couple of days in and I'm facing a battery of questions, you know, 'Are you married?' (Yes), 'Do you have kids?' (No, cats), 'What you you do outside of work?' (I play bass and read a lot). The latter question is always a way of saying that I do music, used to gig a lot, but don't now, it's a studio project and so on. I rarely make an effort to big myself up, I mean why would I? One of the ladies says that a heavily pregnant member of the team has a husband who plays drums, so I make a mental note, because drummers are hard to find. I sat down with her last week and we're just chatting and the conversation moves to music. She asks, 'You in a band then?' I explain yes, but no, but yes and it's all studio stuff. I mention I'd heard her husband played drums and - wondering whether he'd be up for a jam sometime - I ask whether he plays in a band. 'Yeah, he's in Scouting For Girls. They've been on Sony for about ten years.' I just wondered why the ground didn't open up and swallow me.

Our company supplies and fits dancefloors for events. Years ago we were booked by an agency to provide one at the Palace Hotel in Manchester. We didnt know anything about the event only where it was. So, on entering the room it was all plush and decked out really nice. There was ice sculptures, fire and flame items etc - the works. So id brought the floor in on the trolleys ready to get into position to start fitting, when i saw there was a big stage and PA, and the band were just walking off with their backs to me after sound check, and the sound engineer was playing around - so i went for a chat. I asked him how it was going (small chat etc) then asked what the band were playing tonight - he replied "oh, just the usual stuff, that they always play". I presumed the usual party stuff etc and went back to the van for more floor panels. Intrigued by the PA he was using i went for another chat and got back on to the topic of the band. I asked when they were on (as sometimes i like to watch if im just hanging around) and what they were starting with. He replied "probably 10 oclock, theyre starting with the same stuff as usual..." Anyway ive got the dancefloor half laid on the floor now, with the rest resting against the wall about 50ft away, when the band came in all dressed up in posh suits, but looking a bit lost. So, for a joke and to break the ice (as im in a band too!) i went over to them when they were stood near the dancefloor panels and said "hey, stop hanging around looking lost and doing nothing and help me lug this heavy floor over there!" then walked off to get on with the job. .......... all of i sudden i heard "where do ya wan' it goin, sir" I turned round to see 4 of the band all carrying and bringing my panels across the room and giving them to me! I apologized and said i was just joking! They laughed and said thats fine. So, i asked them what they were playing tonight as it looked like quite an expensive party. "oh, just the usual thang" came the reply in an American accent, and then they left. On the way out, once id finished setting up - about an hour before the event was due to start, I said goodbye to the sound engineer who was sat there looking bored, and apologized that i wouldnt be able to stay and watch. He said, "no problem, it;ll just be the usual stuff anyway if i wanted to catch them again in the future" So i said "sorry, i dont know who they are, who are they?" (thinking its a local party band). Then came the reply.... "Theyre the 4 Tops." My face dropped. Talk about laugh! Id accidentally been bossing the 4 Tops about and had them lug our dancefloor into position by hand!

Elton John works in Waitrose? This is rather big news.

The new job was just depping with some guys I knew and some guys I didn't know. So far so good. One of the lads had brought his granddad, who seemed a nice enough and modest man when we were having a coffee before the rehearsal. To my surprise (and admittedly slight annoyance) granddad decided to follow us into the rehearsal room and get seated just behind where I was to play the piano. He didn't do anything wrong, mind, but I just didn't feel it was the done thing. OK, so the rehearsal proceeds and after some time I hear a sound from behind me. Looking half over my shoulder I see that granddad produces a little harmonica and starts blowing into it. My OMFG annoyance doesn't get to develop to its maximum before I recognise timbre as well as style: OMFG! I'm playing with Toots Thielemans!... 😂

I was once sacked for not having the right look and direction that the band wanted. It actually boiled down to the fact that I wasn’t willing to hand over £6000 to help set up a rehearsal studio. The band in question got their studio, haven’t ever gigged and never released any material. Bovvered?????

I believe the considered view at the time was that Knopfler minor exhibited the capabilities of a competent rhythm player who favoured solidity over complexity; an approach which many us might profitably espouse. In any event, Knopfler major was content to keep his brother in the band until they fell out during the recording of the Making Movies album. Legend has it that the rupture came about in this way: the producer Jimmy Iovine took MK along to a Springsteen session where everyone was crawling and fawning and generally toadying to 'The Boss'. Iovine pointed out to Knopfler that the only way to make a great record was to impose one's will upon events and people. Knopfler returned to his own sessions where he adopted a slightly less 'democratic' persona than hithertofore. Brother David resisted this development; harsh words were exchanged; bags were packed. The rest is history.

For what it's worth we'll be there too. I think Bass Direct intend to be there too (don't quote me on that).

Anyone else thinking playing live is the pinnacle of being in a band?

About 20 years ago our then next door neighbour says: 'My sister's going out with a bloke who plays guitar. You should get together'. 'Oh,' says I. 'Is he any good?' 'He used to be in a band with his brother. His name's Dave ... Knopfler, I think'. "

And quite right too. Even if it’s not your fault this time, you’ll have got away with something somewhere else so it all just balances out if we blame you for everything. Stewblack’s electric shocks, Sam’s smutty innuendos, Ricky’s dress sense, my inability to pass a guitar shop without buying what Mrs S calls “another bloody bass”....All your fault. I could go on.... ...in fact, I think I will. Brexit. The 2008 financial crash. England’s inability to get close to the (men’s) football World Cup since 1966, that bloody awful Three Lions thing, the git that shoved a trolley down the side of my car yesterday, the fact that I couldn’t sleep last night. All of it the fault of That Teebs. Bad Teebs. You should be ashamed of yourself....

Dood got it right in reply #2. The likelihood is your PA being connected to a powerpoint somewhere in the room, and your bass cab to another, and there is potential difference between the two earths to the various equipment. This could be due to shoddy earthing in the building, or your equipment. One quick way to stop it would be to remove the shield connection at one end of your (presumably balanced XLR) mic cable. Disconnecting this may make the mic noisier, but it will stop the mouth shocks. I got a stage manager to do this once at a gig I was FOH engineer at just before the door opened and they let the audience in. As people were rushing in. The main guitarist (who had been getting the shock) was hidden from view, but through his extremely loud stage wedge I heard him say "Hey man, either that was a lucky guess or you're a f***ing genius..!"

It's really down to just a few things. 1). You have to have enough reasons to want to improve. 2). You have to create enough time in each day that is your music time. Personal motivation will be different from person to person, but a good thing to do is write down all the reasons why you want to become a better musician and why it's important to you. By visually seeing all the reasons this is so omportant to you will help you to prioritise your schedule. In a 24-hour period, there are 1440 minutes. All you need is 100 minutes for 6-days a week to see incredible improvement. You then want to understand the commitment needed to to become proficient. It takes a while. People far over estimate what they can accomplish within a year and far under estimate what they can achieve in 6-years. 100 inutes a day for 6-days is 10 hours per week. There are 168 hours in a week and everybody has the same 168. The average person watches anywhere between 4 to 6 hours of TV and social media...sometimes more. It's all down to priorities and ultimately what's important to you.

If people ask me too many stupid questions then I find a 'Let me Google that for you' link works wonders.

On a similar rant, why doesn't anyone RTFM any more either? My social media feed has been bombarded this week with posts by people who blatantly didn't bother to read the very clear instructions that came with a software update and are now ranting that their hardware won't work properly. This has then propagated to other folk not bothering to read and research following up with comments suggesting said hardware is crap because it doesn't work properly. Oh my, the halcyon days of common sense...

I know the type you mean - not wishing to detrail the thread, but donkeys ago I manned the phones part-time at a driving school. I never bit my tongue harder than when a guy phoned up one morning to ask if we had "a stimulator." "I'm sorry sir, a what?" (Thinks: I think you've confused us with the shop at the other end of the high street...) "A stimulator. You know, one of them computers you can practice on before you go in a real car." I politely explained that we didn't have a driving simulator, and asked whether he was still interested in booking any lessons. But throughout the conversation, he insisted on bring up the "stimulators" again and again, saying that the bigger companies had "stimulators" he could use, and how we should get ourselves a "stimulator", while I politely explained that simulators were quite expensive, and our office space was very limited. I hope he managed to find the stimulation he was after.

Here we go, stay tuned.

A commodity broker friend of mine who played a bit of saxophone in an amateur big band was talking to a client with whom the conversation turned to playing music. After asking my friend what he did he said his wife was a singer. My friend did the obvious - oh, she could come and sing with us. Turned out the client, a Norwegian shipping magnate was married to Diana Ross 😄

I came here thinking this was going to be about Pete Townshend, as you were.

You see something for sale that interests you, what do you do? A) Bombard the seller with obvious questions which are readily available via an internet search. B) Google relevant info, THEN contact seller about pertinent 'detail'. I seriously thought the answer for everyone would be 'B'! However, based on the time I've wasted answering questions on the most obvious stuff I'm lead to believe I'm in the minority. It's one thing to spend time giving simple automatic answers like; Yes it is made in Germany (the only place these particular model basses have ever been made). Yes it has 2 pups (ALL of this type of bass have and it can be seen in the photo). No it doesn't have a piezo bridge (this type of bass has NEVER had a piezo). Yes, it is 4 string fretted (as in the description AND photo) but I've spent 30 minutes messaging back and forth answering a blokes questions about a Roland GK3 'GUITAR' pick-up I'm selling... Will it fit any guitar? Yes. Can it be adjusted to fit different types of guitar? Yes it has spacers. Do you need to cut holes in the guitar? No. How is it powered? Via the lead. Do you have the lead? Yes but I use it with my GR20. What's a GR20? It's a unit you can use with this pup. Do I have to use one? ...losing the will to live I answer several more (6) messages before he says... "Will it work with a Mandolin because that's what I need?" WHAT! Please tell me the majority do a 'bit' of basic research?

I thought Saturday is just for fighting😀

Regarding the new HX Stomp first hour: Make sure it has v2.8 installed. You'll need to create a Line6 account, get the updater etc. A faff but worth it. Try one of the presets and experiment with one of the SVT amps. There's much fiddling to be done, so be patient! Have a look on Facebook for Jon Willis and his page (Dr Tone I think it's called?). Heaps of clips, advice, presets etc that help to make sense of it. Regarding the Kemper, their amps are pretty good for bass: the not numerous but a fair amount to play with...

Best bass solo ever!

It will hugely increase your sense of ownership if you set it up yourself. Just about the only thing you can't do without special tools is fiddle with the nut slots and you likely won't have to do that. And provided you're not ridiculously cavalier with the truss rod nothing's dangerous to try. I used to take my bass to a tech (charges variable) but he looked at me one day and said ' you know you could do everything I'm doing.' So I do.

Strange Feedback? I always thought it was Strange Magic!😂

Unfortunately its a sample of one of each type of wood, so scientifically the result is meaningless. Give a sample size of 100+ of each type of body wood and get consistent results from the majority of each sample and I will concede that you can make absolute statements about the effect of a particular type of wood.

I was once in Waitrose trying to find the harisa paste. I went looking for a store assistant to help me, got talking to them, they said they played piano. I said "oh, my son plays piano too, maybe you'd like to jam sometime." He said "no, not really, I'm Elton John." And he was! S.P.

I was always disappointed that my TRB6Pii didn't have the punch that humbuckers would have given it, so sadly I only know through research after that experience. Very nearly changed them for Aguilar DCBs but ended up selling instead. TRBX are obviously entirely different, and probably more of the sound I want from a TRB-style instrument.

Science!

...and it's ME!!!

Got mine in. Have to say at the moment I prefer my VTDI. But I do have ancient strings on well overdue for a change, plus haven't tried it alongside a mix yet, so will give it a fair run! With the BB1025X which has quite a lot of output and low end, the YYZ definitely needs the tight switch to stop overloading the clipping section with too much low end. It's the same with the VT, but I achieve a similar effect to the tight switch with the VT by cranking up the character and cutting back on the mids and blend. It somehow sounds more Geddy than the Geddy pedal, but I probably would not be saying that if I had a Geddy bass with fresh strings on! It's definitely more than capable of being a subtle warm drive pedal though, it's not overly nasal/fizzy/clanky until you really push the gain.

My medium scale P got a new tort pickguard today and a Zero-Mod thumb rest. For those who have been curious about whether one will fit on a medium scale P, well it fits mine (‘84 MIJ Squier). I got a classic one and also the more aggressive V2 which is on my Dingwall Super P... and I think I prefer the V2 so will be getting a couple of those for my 61 and 64 Precision.

Bollix! Bollix bollix bollix

It's funny, this lead singer syndrome. The guy that I bought in to sing was already playing in a Dr Feelgood style RnB band, but he left them as he clearly felt my band (alternative/punky) were better suited to his remit. Prior to his arrival, we were a more fun unit; it was more about having a hoot and doing the odd gig rather than being too serious about things, but gradually he just took over, like an invasive species. The whole band became more confrontational, there were times when no one spoke to each other and the absolute testicles that we had to put up with individually made rehearsals and gigs a chore rather than a joy; thing is, while I would never question his commitment, he was an unmovable object and the rules of the band didn't seem to apply to him. Better out of it. Life's too short. As an aside, last week the old band played a radio show and they were terrible, truly terrible. I took a bit of joy out of that.

I agree with most of the other posts you’ve done nothing wrong so don’t feel bad try and try and do a side project with the drummer I’ve only been sacked once from the only band I was in it was completely my own fault the lead guitarist/lead vocalist tried throwing his weight about with the other band members trying to intimidate them into doing what he wanted so after a very heated argument at one of the rehearsals I really lost my rag and chinned him (but he had it coming to him) a while later I saw the other band members and they said his attitude had changed completely so my actions helped the rest of the band but not me.............😕

Full. The extra connections are awesome for recording and it also has a mic pre so you can run vocals through it as well. It's also built better. Scribble strips are one of those things that you don't need... until you'e tried it and then wonder why everything doesn't have them.

Off topic, but we've had a similar issue at work with a policy around "agile working". Since them half the team have been taking advantage of the bits of the policy which suit them (like, say, you can leave at 4.30), and completely ignoring the parts which don't (like, say, if you leave at 4.30 you need to make up your hours elsewhere in the week). Whenever they get picked up on it, the same two defences are rolled out: "the policy isn't clear" (points to sentence in the policy that says hours need to be made up) "well nobody ever said anything about that before" So expecting anybody to read stuff is way too optimistic, and for any changes at work we now have to have a meeting to explain everything, and the policy is a reference document in the background that can be referred to (but rarely is)

To be fair I wouldn't recognise their drummer of he was sat in front of me at a drum kit, playing through their "greatest" hits, nevermind his wife!

There's another one from me, too. I used to attend credit circle meetings and struck up a good friendship with a guy from a comptetitor, who was a big alternative music fan. He contacted me one time and said he had a spare ticket for the Manic Street Preachers, I think it was at Brixton Academy. Not being a fan, I declined. A while later, different Manics tour, spare ticket. And again. Four or five times this happened, one time the offer included all access passes. I jokingly asked him why he was always touting Manics tickets, to which he responded, 'I've told you the story haven't I?', to which I just kind of replied, 'Err, no what story?' Turns out James Dean Bradfield is his brother in law. D'oh.

I was at a birthday party for one of my daughters friends a couple of years ago, and got chatting to one of the hosts neighbours. He turned out to be one of the designers of Laney amps, I'm not sure what the other guests made of our conversation about mosfet transistors.😂

I think you can deal with it very easily. You found a drummer to form a funk/ soul band. The guitarist joined that band but brought in a mate who took everything in a completely different direction that you didn't want to go in. These guys have basically taken a shortcut to forming their own ego trip band by hijacking you and your concept. I'd chalk it up to bad experience/ sh!t happens. Maybe see of the drummer wants to keep going on the original track with you?

Ha, saw the bass yesterday in Dublin.

It's a bit like the Gibson Hendrix Strat package over in the current Gibson thread which included a (printed) tie-dye tee shirt and a bandana. It's all a bit w@nky, as if we're really going to dress up like our heroes and go 'Look, Mum, I'm Hendrix'. If manufacturers are going to be doing retro classic rock case candy then they should strive for greater authenticity and include a handwritten set list, an empty miniature of Jack Daniels, a cling film wrap of red Leb and an opened packet of Benson & Hedges.

Yes. I can take or leave the rest of it but the gig is where it’s at for me.

Given the number of rip-off merchants out there, I like to ask a couple of questions just to see if the seller really has the item for sale and that they know basic facts about it. But that's a world away from some of the idiot examples quoted here....

I'm the same as you in that I do my homework, as you say most of the technical information is available online so not exactly difficult to come by. When listing something for sale I try to put in as much useful detail as I can to try and pre-empt any obvious questions - but that, of course, only works on the assumption that the people actually read the description, and judging by some of the questions I've had over the years many people clearly don't. I usually try to politely say that the answer to their question is in the description. And you can guarantee that is someone asks for the weight of something it will be too heavy regardless. In much the same way that the nut width will never be what they're looking for!