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Well, I thought they were good mates but then the buggers gave me an early birthday present at rehearsal last night!

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I don’t even know what we’re playing till I hear the first bar.

People I know.

I was thinking that too. Someone should start a Glenn Hughes thread and we can all pile into that one.

If they're not tanked up I do indulge some people. Like the bar staff where the girl is explaining to the others what a Fretless is because her dad plays, so I handed the bass over the bar for them to look at, that really shocked them in to behaving and not trying to make innuendo out of "smooth tones" etc. But if they're hammered and "my mate is better than you" they get my Northern accent. You won't like when I speak Northern.

Supported The Exploited on Saturday night in Belfast. Absolutely fantastic night, they were totally on fire! Big brawl broke out at one point which was a shame and the PA packed in briefly but otherwise amazing stuff. Felt like I was 15 again when Wattie signed my original copy of Punk’s Not Dead!

OR "Can I have a go on your girlfriend?"

I read all of this and thank my lucky stars I’m in an originals band. The only people we get on stage are the ones who’ve been thrown there by the rest of the audience.

Black Friday deal saw me parting with my credit card for a new one. BUT omfg. Lovely brown hard case, holding a bass that was so covered in dust, a fingerboard that was so dry it was pink. Pink dust everywhere that looked like the paint had not adhered to the corners or crevices and a loose jack socket. spoke to the dealer, who said it had come direct from Gibson, and the security label was intact when it arrived so I believe them . secured a further discount on the price, dusted it off, oiled the fingerboard, tightened up the socket, and its wonderful to play . Im surprised ( despite hearing lots of nasty comments about Gibson) that they allowed this sort of lack of final inspection lack of quality.

1/ One of my customers is just learning to play guitar, he's in his mid 50s. His guitar tutor asked what his aim was and the chap said he just wanted to play one gig. The guitar tutor replied that he'd need a better guitar. The guitar in question is an Epiphone Les Paul copy. It's in good condition and very playable. My customer asked me what I thought, I said I thought his tutor was talking out of his rear exhaust pipe. 2/ The music teacher at my son's school told my son that bass players don't play with plectrums, so he should only use fingers when he was playing the bass at school. My son told me this so I suggested next time he 'plays' bass at school and the subject of plectrums comes up he just says Bobby Vega or Carol Kaye. I then told my son, who is learning to play guitar, that anyone who wants to be a well rounded player should try to get to grips with all techniques on their instrument. Being deadly serious, I don't think people, who regard themselves as Music Teachers, and make such nonsense statements should be teaching at all. They're doing a disservice to those they are supposed to be teaching. It may seem minor, however, such narrow minded ridiculousness...well, it boils my waste water!!!

Thanks, it was 3 hrs of of stuff I knew stuff I'd vaguely heard of and stuff I'd never heard of, Intense and a load of fun. Loads to look up and learn at least the root notes of. Lovely bunch of people, it'll definitely become one of my regular evenings.

I got my ABM head a couple of years ago in a trade on a whim (it's the chrome fronted rack mount version - I guess I'm a bit of a magpie). I'd had an Ashdown head about 15 years ago that developed a fault which the store I bought it from failed to get sorted so I just gave up on it. If I'd have know at the time about the level of customer service that I'd have got by taking it directly to Ashdown if have saved myself a lot of money going through other amps over the years. Anyway, my current ABM head was a revelation - powerful, punchy and I don't know about anyone else's but mine is 100% wool free. I recently got myself some Ashdown cabs to go with the head and a little Five Fifteen AAA head as a backup and honestly can't see myself using any other make of amp in future.

Nah. Mutual online appreciation of each other’s awkwardness is enough socialising for this week.

128 presets dude. People pay £375 for a Darkglass pedal that does dirty or clean. Let that sink in. A 128 channel preamp. It's not new technology, but it makes other things that claim to be "versatile" look like they should have a sign showing where the coal goes.

I've been playing bass for about 45 years (minus a few breaks here and there along the way) and have never used any effects pedals. My Ashdown amps have sub-octave and compression built in, but I never use them. I'm not against effects, but view it is just more stuff to buy, store, plug in, etc. which I don't have a need for. No band I have played has ever asked me to use effects to change the sound of my bass, so I must be on the right track.

And I found some pics of how the bass arrived with me, the only thing removed was the cloth bag that the bass arrived in... they must really trust their couriers!

Just watched that: Glenn is astonishing; "Sit down, Bruce: the bassist's got this..." 😁

Hi @james_027 Like many people here, my older Yamaha BB seems fine with a one piece neck, 4 bolt neck join and top loading bbot bridge! I'd not really be concerned about the structural side of things (as you say, that's what you get on most of the multi-thousand dollar Fender custom shop basses) but it's more a question of whether the laminated neck, and through body stringing give a "better" sound to your ears. The biggest difference (for me) would be the pickups. The 2 series have ceramic magnets while the 4 have alnico5 magnets. Received wisdom would imply that the 4 series pickups are a bit more subtle and vintage voiced. As always, it's a bit more complicated than that. One player's "vintage mojo" is another players "weak and characterless", one players "brash and unsubtle" is another's "punchy and agressive" etc. Bear in mind that, unlike previous BBs, these new ones feature standard-sized pickups so upgrades will be possible further down the line if you feel there's something missing. Needless to say that Yamaha make great sounding pickups anyway! I guess this isn't helping. It's 5am and I can't sleep so I thought I'd put some thoughts out there. I don't think you can go wrong with either choice and a great deal on either is what might sway it for me. I particularly like the yellow natural 2 series look but the teal 4 series is pretty saucy too. I daresay some of the Big Beasts of the BB thread will be along with far more informed guidance soon enough.

She plays incredibly well, I’m for sure selling my Geddy Lee, maybe even my MIM Pbass... I have to hunt down my stash of capacitors for the tone fix, and I’m seriously considering replacing one of the volume pots with a blend knob. I did find my thicker Kydex for the pickguard, but I don’t think I need it. The next project is starting with 2 sets of Pbass pickups....

I’ve joined the club 🤦🏻‍♂️ What have I done.....

I love their configurator!

The singer in one local band is a powerlifter and ex-doorman. On more than one occasion, a tanked-up stage invader has been launched back over the monitors... great to see, and greeted with a roar of approval by other punters. Life in Penzance!

"I really want to play your guitar." "I really want to give you four stiff fingers in the throat. It's probably best that we both go home disappointed."

I've got CCTV at home so when delivery firms say this to me I can tell them what a bunch of lying bar stewards they are.

Its a bit like kids playing guitar in music shops on Saturday morning. If you don't own a guitar, then that prospect is filled with excitement and wonder. If you do own a guitar (and amp etc), then you can sit down and play it at any time at home, right? So the mystique is gone. Therefore, anyone who asks to play something at a gig, almost by definition, can't.

For anyone thinking about a cab from Barefaced, just seen an Instagram post for a 20% discount at Barefaced, enter the code, NOTBLACKFRIDAY At the checkout.

It has become my task as I seem to have produced the most balanced in the past. I always send them round for editing, especially by the keyboard player (patch loading) and lead singer (potential vocal strain), but they tend to come back unaltered these days.

Well we don’t socialise outside of the band but we gig so much that would be difficult anyway. We spend so much time together gigging/touring that it would be rotten to spend it with people you don’t class as mates, so mates they be.

it's hard to stay real friends with band mates because band politics gets in the way, when you start off everybody's up for it and really pally, but the longer it goes on the more arguments happen, the Beatles, Jagger and Richards, extreme examples but you should get the idea

Me

@Boogiebass I found the 2 YouTube videos that helped me the most when learning to play the 12 bar blues was Blues Box - BassBuzz Blues bass lines - Luke from become a bassist

Carl is epic... heard him with Matt Schofield a few years ago, the album they did together is awesome!

And another pedal (tuner) despatched from the Travis trove. Excellent communication, packaged to survive and rapid arrival. The B string on my 5er can now be tuned. Many thanks.

Been a fabulous year for me: Muse (twice), frank Turner (including to my utter amazement Jimmy eat world who were on my unlikely to ever see bucket list) and a bunch of others. Latest two have Periphery/plini last night of the European tour and they looked like they were having a good time. Buck and Evans at the 100 club a couple of weeks ago, great up and coming blues guitarist, bass too low in the mix tho (isn't it always eh?)

It’s coming in 3.01. See the videos I posted earlier in this thread. Also, I am working on FI-specific MC6 MKII banks (again see the soundcloud links earlier in this thread) which I’ll be making available when they are perfected. I’ve made banks for preset scrolling, bank scrolling, active/bypass, tuner on/off (another v3.01 feature) and a page for selecting which expression message gets assigned to the pedal. I ordered a Bright Onion auxiliary switch yesterday and I intend to put page toggling and bank selection and a couple of other things on the external switches if possible to make things smoother.

thanks for those inputs, I guess there's not much need to worry about the structural side. Does the 200 series pickups considered good? Many thanks

I find it fascinating and Nita is a great example of this. Is she just social media'ing what she does in her spare time for the good of her fans or creating second income streams that a touring musician needs? Let's face it Alice will retire soon, she still needs to eat and pay rent long after so creating awareness of her drives up demand for her services. Everywhere she tours with Alice Cooper she's giving guitar master classes in guitar shops and promoting her solo material, she's definitely putting the hours in but also keeping her name out there. I respect it, seems very clever, and of course it's all backed up by supreme talent, fair play to her, seems like the template for the working muso in the social media age.

The Exploited in Belfast, Saturday night. We were one of the support bands, which was nice 😁

Well, I don't think I can unsee it.

I think that you have to remember that each situation is different, just as each band is different. You have to be adaptable and to make yourself the best fit for the band, assuming that you actually want the gig. As mentioned above, you are more likely to get a gig through having good networking skills and (vitally) having a good solid reputation. I haven't done an audition as such for 25 years or more (in fact I point blank refuse to audition for local bands), all the gigs I have got have been through personal recommendations or knowing the band. We have just recently replaced a drummer in a covers band. As soon as we knew the old guy was leaving, we just discussed on messenger who we thought could do the gig and might be interested. We then made a list of three guys (in order) to contact. Fortunately, the first guy could do it so we asked him to join the band (no auditions or trials, etc). If he couldn't have done it, we would have rung the next guy on the shortlist. Only if none of them were available would we have started putting out feelers and started getting recommendations from people we knew.

I also play originals and we don’t get people on stage either, but to be honest that’s mostly because there are often more people in the band than the audience... 😐

Absolutely love the intro to this track but once the band kicks in it just falls to bits.

I've only ever experienced Devin Townsend in the context of metal and/or space opera. Here he's teamed up with someone and they've produced some sort of folky, trippy, but somehow haunting thing that I'm not sure I can adequately define... but I like it!

Frantic by Metallica. It is great for about 1.5 seconds until the first snare hit.

Well, I'm left handed and play right handed. When I first joined this forum I explained that it went back to when I was trying to learn to play the classical guitar. I had never played guitar before and my teacher told me to try right handed as classical guitars are braced to have the strings fitted in that way. He also pointed out that you don't find left handed pianos (although someone did post a photo on here of one!) or trombones etc. Plus, as I had nothing to unlearn, it wouldn't make much difference to how I progressed. I'm glad I took his advice. I cannot even attempt to play a bass as a lefty or even hold it correctly. I do everything else left handed (except using a knife and fork). Playing as a right hander has not affected my playing - I'm just rubbish anyway! Back to the plot about daft things some people say. I was chatting to someone at church on Sunday and I said that I would have to go and check my bass before the service as it was near a radiator and it may need re-tuning. Her amazed reply was, "Do you have to tune a bass?" I'm sure it was a genuine question and not a comment on my playing!