Leaderboard

When someone asks me to ‘play something’

I tried playing air guitar to a Jean-Michel Jarre album. It turned out to be a waste of oxygene.

Being able to do this last weekend, biggest gig I've done! and people came to watch . .

Always wanted to try a Gretsch Broadkaster (MIJ around 10 years ago) and have finally snaffled one. Short scale thumpy with flats on and should work well in my country/blues tinged bands.

I’d say Robbie Shakespeare was the biggest inspiration to me after seeing him play live in the early 80s , I was playing blues at the time but after hearing the rhythm and drive of heavy reggae I just knew it was for me , and I haven’t stopped playing reggae since 🙂

I fell in love with bass from an early age. When I was just starting to get into music it was the very late seventies, and there was a lot of bass in the charts! Sting, Colin Moulding, Norman Watt Roy, Paul Simonon and all the 2-Tone guys like Horace Panter, Mark Bedford, David Steele... I loved it all and would listen specifically to those bass lines. I used to have a beat up old nylon strung acoustic guitar and I’d tune the E and A strings down as low as they’d go before they became too floppy and try to play along. I was 10 in 1979. For a while I learned to play guitar properly and played drums for a few years too. The first band I joined was as a drummer, when I was sixteen. When I left school and started earning money I bought myself a Squier Silver Series Precision bass (how I wish I’d kept that!) and forgot about drums. That was 1990, I was twenty one and I’ve played bass pretty much ever since. Good thread, by the way.

To get laid.

Hard to pick an ultimate moment but one right up there of my proudest bass moments was when I recorded my band's version of "I shot the Sheriff" for our album. It was a one take live recording at a concert we did and only my take on the bass ended up on the finished album, everyone else re-dubbed their parts in the studio. Then the icing came on the cake when the producer showed me a letter from Marley's publishers stating how they loved the bass on the track! As this was my first ever reggae track playing bass on a commercial album and Aston Barrett was my inspiration for taking up music it meant a heck of a lot to me.

The bass has arrived, I’ll take better photos when possible. First impressions: Well built for sure. The splittable neck pickup is a great addition to the P. and sounds great on its own. I do not have any recording equipment to make decent sound files though. One issue : The two coils at the neck tend to (not sure this is the right way to put this) pull the E string and notes have a slight vibrato. I have lowered the pickup quickly and the tremolo is lighter, but still can be heard. The thinner A, D & G strings don’t seem to be affected. No time to get into more details now.

One riff, one moment in time. John Deacon under pressure live at Wembley. I had to ask my dad what instruement was doing the "Dum dum dum da da dum dum" Dad. " I think its a Bass guitar" That was it for me.

I fancied being in a band and reckoned bass would be the easiest instrument

Hearing both Benji Webb and Paul Di’Anno take to the stage with their respective bands at the time (Dub War and Killers) after we had supported them say something like “F***ing hell I thought we were heavy, what about that lot”. Then subsequently seeing both gentlemen weeks later (Benji with Dub War at a European Festival and Paul D in a Walthamstow chippie) wearing my band’s beanie hats, I was stupidly chuffed.

Might that be because you're posting on your phone rather than playing?

Well it was Tuesday actually. I had been fancying a P bass for a while now so popped into Gear4music to check out a Player series P. However they didn't have any on display so I checked on their fancy screen thingy & spotted the Vintera range,mmmm had to check it out. To me it looks beautiful,seems to be very well made,plays & sounds excellent too.(it was also substantially cheaper than the classic 50's P bass they have in stock) Over all I am very happy with it,although I've yet to play it with the band but I'm sure it will be mint 🤣🤣

Now that I come to think of it, it did work for me. Once. More than 40 years ago. Hope shines eternal, maybe in another 40 years some other teenage beauty will be overcome by my (bass) fingering prowess! Sadly, I'll need digging up by then, but still...

Well, that would explain it. Can't stand liquorice either and here's how much: As a child I would buy a Barratts' Sherbet Dab, throw away the hated liquorice tube and then commence to neck the sherbet straight from the packet. In the aftermath I would be covered from head to foot in white powder, resembling no one so much as Mr Tony Montana after a serious night on the Charlie. Tony discovers sherbet dabs

Mum and dad said no to drums.

Johann Sebastian Bach. He didn't play the bass guitar AFAIK, but he did write bass parts that defined the harmonic drive of the piece. I concluded that if you had a melody and a good bass part, then you essentially had all you needed. Then one Chris Squire appeared in my world...

Saw a monochrome pic on the front of an early Motörhead EP. Someone told me that one of the band members was playing a bass guitar. It had four fat strings, massive tuners and produced really low, deep notes. I just thought that looked like the coolest instrument ever and I just knew I had to have one. Still think that, too.

Let's give 'Turn the Page' a shout out too, eh? What a smasher of a tune.

Had it a few times, and my reaction varies depending on the circumstances. Most of the time the bass is going through the PA so I don't lose any sleep - I won't have been in control of how loud the bass is, and if the soundman thinks it's just fine then that's OK with me. And if anyone disagrees then I'll point them towards the mixing desk. I did a couple of gigs with an old band where everybody thought the bass levels were fine at the soundcheck, no complaints during or immediately after the gig, then on dissecting what could have gone better/had gone wrong afterwards (what had gone wrong always being the lead guitarist making mistakes and then doing his best to blame everybody else) the lead guitarist picked on the level of the bass, always reporting back what people in the crowd (usually his wife) had said to him afterwards. This being a guitarist who would routinely stand in front of the bass amp and complain that he couldn't hear his guitar properly. After one multi band gig where we went through the same amps as everybody else and the bass DI'd into the PA, when challenged about his wife's comments that the bass was too loud he backed down when it was pointed out that I had no control over the bass levels that the audience was hearing, and given that the bass was fine for all the other bands it seemed unlikely that my bass would have been any different. But he insisted that while it may not have been too loud after all, it had been too loud (as reported by his wife) at a previous gig so clearly it's a problem that I needed to address. By then the band was noticing a pattern of everybody else getting the blame when he'd done a poor gig. Last big gig I played there weren't enough monitors on stage so rather than share with the keyboard player I volunteered to use the backline as my monitor - the DI being taken before the signal hits the amp. I'd left the amp at the same settings as the gig the previous night, but that was on a much bigger stage. Mid gig I switch basses and it gets noticeably louder, so the singer politely requested that I turn down a bit. he had a point, and the singer is the one person who gets to complain about the on stage sound

New arrival and my god it’s lush! I know Fender Custom Shop sometimes gets bad press for their prices and stuff but this is a beauty. Same spec and build (bar head stock colour) to Scott Divine P Bass of Doom! 1959 heavy relic finish in Oly White over Candy Apple Red 😍 I know relic can be marmite but man, it’s a beaut! Even got Fender to send me the Shop Floor Traveler. Sounds bloody lush too! Welcome to come and try it if you’re local to me 😁 Bought on EBay but I believe it belonged to @Atomic dustbin on here. Lovely fella 🤘 Few sexy bass pics for you all.

Ye- ha! 🤠

Listening to Jah Wobble with PiL or Steve Harris with Iron Maiden. Two very different approaches, they both sounded like the most important and interesting sonic situations going on in their bands. And, obviously, Lemmy.

Been watching the daily reruns of The Sweeney have we?

When I was a young lad there was a song in the charts (Seasons in The Sun, by Terry Jacks) that had this sound that I liked, didn’t know what the sound was but listened out for it in other songs. Fast forward a few years I found out it was the bass, and at that time, when punk was at its height, the cooled - imo - people in the bands were the bassists. So the sound I liked was played by the cool people, good enough for me.

This thread is useless without 'that' Partridge clip...

Sitting in a guitar shop about to start trying out that nice bass and realising I have suddenly forgotten every single bassline I’ve learned in the last 30 years except for Money by Pink Floyd and The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. Every. Single. Time!

I once spent five minutes frantically faffing with my amp, bass etc (with the sound guy) to try and work out why I had no signal (having been fine in the sound check). It was at the start of a short set on a multi-band night. The rest of the guys had to wait for me, whilst offering the audience some terribly awkward banter (as you do when you’re 15). After the full five minutes someone in the audience politely enquired as to whether the absence of a cable between my bass and amp may be the issue... 😐 That was pretty embarrassing... 😐

Finally I finished the bass:

I sang in choirs a lot as a kid but when my voice broke I discovered that I really loved singing the bass lines. Fast forward a year or so and my brother, who was in his 20s, played drums in a local covers band. Somehow I managed to convince him to let me come along to one of their practices (so long as I just sat in a corner and didn’t say anything). The bass player had a black, checkerboard binding Ricky and it was the most amazing looking and sounding thing I had ever seen or heard. It looked like it had fallen out of an episode of Flash Gordon. I fell in love with it and knew from that moment on that bass was the instrument for me. It took 3 years of badgering my mum and dad until they bought me a bass and amp - my 18th birthday present (not a Ricky but an Aria SB which I still own). I still love the look and sound of Ricky basses. Sadly I soon found out that I hate pretty much everything about actually playing them!

TBPH when I first came to BassChat I was astonished by the rather narrow focus on bass guitars, bass amps and double basses. Where was the tuba section? What did the forum have against alpenhorns? Why nothing about those big f*ck-off church bells that go Bong rather than Bing? I was so disappointed I never came back.

I was in a band with friends from the age of 14 - however nobody could play anything. Over the next couple of years people learned instruments, and other musical kids joined. One day one of them asked "Why is Heathy in the band? He can't do anything." I was heavily into Iron Maiden at that time, and also thought Phil Lynott looked cool playing 'Out in the Fields'. I spotted that our band didn't have a bass player, so used my first few months YTS wages to buy a bass and amp. As well as securing my place in the band, it also enabled me to lever out the guy who wanted rid of me. And the rest is history...

I've heard the Live After Death album.

Dave makes a valid point. Sections of the US media and political communities have long espoused an animus towards the partition of Ireland and - in consequence - failed (or chosen not) to see the much darker side of the romanticised Bold Fenian Rebels. It is a view which coloured American attitudes at the time and continues to obtain in certain circles ... and not just across The Pond. I think there was also a tendency in the 1960's for the counter-culture to view certain groups as 'freedom fighters' and to harbour a sympathy for those they considered to be outlaws opposed to The Man - this before the growth of international terrorism in the 1970's and the dawning realisation that not all these people were Robin Hood and His Merry Men dressed in berets and army surplus jackets. Combine the historical American animus toward The Brits In Ireland with the hippies' anti-establishment ideals and we can see how even as late as 1981 Mr Weir might have drifted without any great reflection into expressing a certain regret at Mr Sands' passing. I don't think Mr Weir was - or is - a terrorist sympathiser but like many Yanks of his generation he may have had a culturally-induced blind spot. Clarification: I am not giving Bob a pass because I'm a Grateful Dead fan. Au contraire. Can't stand them. NOI, Dave

But now you're older and wiser, you realise you are (and were) actually the coolest 👍

I was a guitarist, bought a bass for home recording. Friend said he needed bass on an upcoming gig, so I bought an amp too. That was nearly 20 years ago...

DFA button: - If talking to someone who has complained about volume / eq / effects = Direct Frequency Attenuation Button; - If talking to another bass player, or someone sensible = Does Fu*k All Button!

Yep, we do it. 80s band, so we have an 80s playlist on the drummer's mp3 player that we play through the PA during the break and at the end. It's especially useful at the end of the night if the audience are baying for more encores and we want to give them a firm "no". Obviously we make sure that the playlist doesn't contain any songs that we are performing that night. S.P.

anyone with plug in 'air freshner' is not to be trusted 😉

for an old school punk covers band of mine, mostly playing pubs, we quickly learned that bringing our own tunes to be played through our PA was infinitely preferable than letting the "helpful" landlord play his CD of the well known old punk songs that made up most of our set We ended up with three CDs. the first two (before the first set and for the break between sets) were punk/metal bands playing covers of well known pop songs - Snuff were particularly good for this - to get everybody in the right mood The third CD was much harder, noisier stuff. Basically a "thanks for coming, now f#ck off" message to the crowd that the sing-a-long punk covers have finished and it's time to go home. Worked a treat, bit like the lights coming on at the end of a gig

I actually wanted to learn how to do the solos you hear in every rock song from the period but, in my ignorance (I was very young), thought the instrument playing them was called a bass. My guitar teacher proceeded to teach me bass and I soon realised I'd been VERY wrong. I loved the new REAL bass parts I was learning though and kept with it. Don't regret it in the slightest....

Loved it!

Sitting on my mates Doorstep listening to the first PiL single, I went indoors, picked up his bass, sat back down on the doorstep and I could play it. I was sixteen and already drumming in little local punk bands by this time so I put the bass back and continued drumming until I was 25. In whatever rehearsal situation I was in I would always play the bass during breaks in my drumming duties so in 1988 I stopped drumming (mostly) and switched to bass (mostly) just in time to take up a lengthy career as a bass and drum tech with touring bands so I mostly played other people’s gear for a few years. I’m wittering, you wanted why, not a bio!

I was a music loving teenager - all my spare cash spent on records and going to gigs. A fairly large chunk of my mates played guitar. I saw a gap in the market. Bought a bass and was immediately in a band

Did an outdoor charity festival thing with a band I occasionally dep for. Fairly indifferent gig but I got to play bass v loud, standing in lots of cool poses on a big stage and wearing sunglasses. That's me sorted then. 🤘

You need to hire some stooges at your next few gigs to keep on complaining that the guitar’s way, way too loud!