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Joy Division

Here are some real world numbers just to show the bare bones of the actual situation. I don't know why people are so protective of this information, everybody should see how things really are. This is for some original music I wrote and released in 2019 and used CDbaby to publish to the streaming services which cost around $90 to do, if I recall correctly. This is all streaming activity since it was released right up to today. I hope to recoup by 2030. Ok, 2040 😂 Granted, the style of music we play - slow stoner/doom type stuff where our shortest song is 7 minutes long - is exactly the opposite of how to play the streaming game. Ideally, songs should be as little over 30 seconds as possible to register a play, hence why so many albums now feature short songs, short skits and other filler. We're in it for the doom, not the money, though. I have had to go to 4 decimal places to make sure everything gets covered. Pay is counted in US$. To clarify, we're getting 1.05 cents per stream on SoundExchange, for example, and 1/3 of 1 cent on Spotify. Why would you bother, I hear you ask? Well, something is better than nothing, I suppose, but only just. People are going to post your music to youtube and the likes, "share" it on your behalf, whether you like it or not, so you might as well get paid (yes, I know) for it rather than them. That was my logic, anyway, based on it being uploaded to Youtube by several different people unassociated with us. I felt forced into it rather than waste my time finding it and having it pulled down (we did that too, a few times). By contrast, we have around 100 digital sales on Bandcamp, priced at €3.00 and get roughly €2.33 for each sale there. If I ever come across as a Bandcamp fanboy, it's because they are, without question, the only decent digital music provider who aren't ripping artists off. Bandcamp also give you free streaming and downloads for every purchase of music you make. If anyone wants to check out the music behind the numbers, http://witheredfist.bandcamp.com is my shameless plug 😉 If you actually want to support an artist, Bandcamp or direct from the artist is the only way to do it, in my opinion. I'd be interested to hear what people think of those numbers, is anyone surprised by them?

STOMP by the Brothers Johnson - with walk-through of the Bass Solo Located on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuSY5uXA2k Please post if you were able to pick up the solo.

I remember reading in Glen Matlocks book that he and a mate went to see Teenage Rebellion thinking what a great name and how this must be a band worth seeing. The band were made up of 40+ year olds. When they asked about the name the reply was that they were rebelling against teenagers.

I'm sad/bored enough to have done a little research. It appears that any wood used to build a guitar is labelled a tonewood, regardless of any actual tonal properties it may, or may not, have. So as long as it is structurally capable of being used to make a guitar, it's a tonewood. It's as stupid as that. So when adverts/luthiers blither on about magical tonewoods then as long as they've built an instrument with it it's a tonewood, and by default means that every guitar or bass ever built from wood is built using a tonewood. So let's just call it wood. I also found out the best way to get spalting started in a wood is to pee on it and store in damp, humid conditions to let the bacterial growth develop. Mmmm 'Tonepiss'. 🙂

A fan and friend of mine linked the copies of these transcriptions that are on my Facebook page Neil Murray Bass Guitarist to a FB page to do with Berklee music college in the US and their associated bassists. A very respected bass player and teacher, Steve Bailey, who I've met at Warwick Bass Weekends in Germany, saw the transcriptions and quite rightly made the criticism that sometimes the notation is not exactly 'correct' - I assume he means that you’re supposed to see where each crotchet/quarter note starts in each bar, by using e.g. two tied quavers/eighth notes instead of a crotchet, indicating that one of the four beats in the bar lands in the middle of that particular note. In my defence, I would make the following points: Although in certain situations (Gilgamesh 1973, National Health 1976-7, We Will Rock You 2002 onwards) it's been necessary to be able to read music (but not sight-read), for the entirety of the rest of my career playing by ear and not requiring the 'dots' in order to do the job has been the most important skill. I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the bassists who are interested in my playing are more likely to look at the tab, with help from the notation, particularly for the rhythms. Tab is probably banned at Berklee, and mostly I wouldn’t use it much myself, but I didn’t transcribe these bass lines for Berklee students, and if I'd known they would be scrutinised by one of the instructors, I would have made sure they were notationally perfect. For me to do these transcriptions, my abilities are not good enough to use a pure notation app such as Sibelius. I need to be able to hear the notes sounding similar to a bass guitar, and to at least enter the notes in tab, based on the fret positions I used when the songs were recorded. The program that is best for this is Guitar Pro, though certain bends and effects are difficult to notate, even in an app designed for guitarists. Some parts took a huge amount of time, partly just hearing and working out what I played, particularly on the live versions, given that I often haven’t listened to some of these tracks for 35+ years. So occasionally if I got it sounding correct rhythmically, I left the notation as Guitar Pro had entered it, even if I knew it wasn’t 100% 'correct' according to the rules. Given that I am not earning anything from the transcriptions, I feel they're good enough for people’s purposes. The criticism has left me less enthusiastic about continuing with more transcriptions, though anyway at the moment I am extremely busy with non-musical family situations, soI don’t have time. My main plan was that the transcriptions were just an add-on to videos of me replaying these songs, but that’s a more difficult task, to do well, especially as I'm not an extrovert who loves seeing their face on social media etc. Thanks for everyone’s very kind words!

Mines only wrapped on one side with a seam of tape around the edge;

Most Stranglers bass lines.

I was watching a video of Scott Devine interviewing the great, Bobby Vega. Talk turned to his famous ‘shark’, 61 J bass. Scott asked what wood it was made of, Bobby replied, “Brown.” Utter genius.

For sure. I installed a tonebrass nut on a bass recently, along with tonestrap tonelocks.

Eagles of Death Metal

I'm old school and still buy CD's. Only downloads i get are when i buy the CD on Amazon and i get the free album download too. I don't use Spotify or any other streaming. I'm a great believer in the artists should get some of the profits from their own albums. Some of the stories i hear are quite surprising and such a shame really. Dave

It's a bit coincidental that the woods we're told give the best tone are the most expensive and rarest raw materials. Imagine how much less money they would make if MDF or plywood were the best woods for tone.

So after playing Fender basses for 40-odd years I decided to give my back a rest and look for something lighter. After months of waiting, a Yamaha RBX-A2 came up on eBay which I bought and loved, then a second really tatty one came up which I got for £135. I don't have much guitar tweaking experience beyond the odd pickup swap, but on the basis that I had little to lose I decided to have a tinker. This poor bass was quite badly abused although the neck only had 2 dents which I drop filled with Superglue. I filled a much bigger ding on the body edge with epoxy putty. Then I decided to try vinyl wrapping it with a carbon fibre look. I’d never done that before and I’m pleased how it came out, although how long it will last is anyone’s guess. Has anyone else vinyl wrapped a bass? The Yamaha is flat topped which makes it easier, I can’t imagine how you’d wrap a curvy Fender. I couldn’t avoid the odd tiny crease at the edges around the horns, so I covered the edges with car pinstriping tape, which seems to work well and should help to stop the edges lifting. Photos attached. For a £135 bass I don’t think it looks bad, and it plays and sounds great. If anyone’s interested I’ll report back in a few weeks, after a few pub gigs, as to how its bearing up.

Almost anything by the Minutemen. Do Public Image Limited count as punk? If so, anything with Jah Wobble on.

I find the first fret quite easy to reach 😁

That wasn't important on the Moon, anyway. ..

Don't suppose you have any photos of it "the right way up"?? Here we go...

Here's my recent purchase, a Musicman Sterling with a lovely roasted maple neck 😊

Alabama Thunderpussy. No cats, no meteorology, not even from Alabama.

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - What In The World??...” Side note: Over a decade ago I had a short lived p/t job selling instruments (the last time I did anything that resembled a real job really) and I met Colin Moulding / The Red Curtain. He was looking for “one of those old sixties Vox basses like Bill Wyman with all the buttons on it and the skinny necks”. He was quite softly spoken and seemed actually a little shy, initially it wasn’t easy getting a conversation out of him, but we had a chat for a couple of minutes and he was super nice. He was polite and quietly friendly and I was polite, and quietly awe-struck. I’d met plenty famous people before and rarely (if ever) been star struck, often it’s no big deal, they’re just other people. But this was Colin Moulding! Of XTC! So I took his phone number and told him I would call him if a 1960s Vox bass came in. Before he left, I told him his playing was always amazing but especially on “What In The World??..” and he looked a bit bemused* but said, “Oh yeah, er, thanks” and that was it. A few weeks later I’d found a 1960s Vox bass, possibly the Wyman model, but definitely with THE skinniest neck, so I phoned Mr. Moulding and told him. He sounded quite interested when I was telling him the details etc, so I was happy to be able to help out. The Vox bass didn’t hang around long at all though. Pretty quickly I sold it either to Sébastien Tellier or his touring bassist, can’t remember which now, but they were super nice guys. Don’t know if Mr. Moulding ever found the Vox bass he was looking for, but anyway *A few years later I was looking at the reissue of “25 O’Clock” and the notes for “What In The World??..” said the bass was by... eh.?? Sir John Johns..?? Andy flipping Partridge!! One of my favourite recorded bass parts ever! Darn. It was a bit like finding out your dad is actually your uncle, or something. No wonder CM looked bemused when I told him it was my favourite of all his playing 😂 In my defence, my default setting is “bit of a div” but I did feel embarrassed about it later. Andy flipping Partridge though!!! And I still want an Epiphone Newport with batwing headstock. 😎

Thank you, thanks to doug, he is a bit of a star, he is just doing me a flame maple topped ash body for my fotoflame jazz bass, and refinishing the worn out body on my 82 wal, also doing a lacquer crack on my early goodfellow. and his prices are very good too, any repair work needed he is very VERY reasonable, yea give him a bell the bass is now done, as said i went for an antique finish, doug is very perticular about his finishes for example on this he did not just spray the edges black but hand done the finishe in an "antiquey" as he calls it brown and also adds something to the poly to blend in, a bit like a violin finish and its like a mirror, here ya go, thanks doug.

Excellent suggestion.

Me too

And (bar some tweaking) done. Not perfect by any means (well the neck carve is ) but pretty happy with this.

I only recently (which recent is yesterday) heard about spleeter, although it has been round for a couple of years. I would be very surprised if it hadn't taken off hugely if it wasn't a massive pain to install. Spleeter is an AI bit of software (literally a tensorflow model if that means anything to you) which you put audio through and it attempts to split the sound in the component instruments. The amazing thing is that it doesn't do that bad a job of it and is thus, pretty close to magic. Unfortunately it is one of those python 'right version of python, right version of every package manager, right version of everything else and a guess at what the errors mean' but after failing to get it to work on the PC, I got it to work on the mac tonight. I actually did it because I wanted to isolate the bass line from 'learning to fly' by pink floyd, as the bass is a chapman stick. It does a fairly good job except it does tend to remove the higher parts. I tried 'fool for your loving', on it as more posts have been done on this forum about it than anything else. Its a command line thing, so it works like this: % spleeter separate -o ~/Music/audio-out -p spleeter:4stems /Users/woody/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/Whitesnake/Best\ Of\ Whitesnake/01\ Fool\ For\ Your\ Loving.m4a INFO:spleeter:File /Users/woody/Music/audio-out/01 Fool For Your Loving/bass.wav written succesfully INFO:spleeter:File /Users/woody/Music/audio-out/01 Fool For Your Loving/vocals.wav written succesfully INFO:spleeter:File /Users/woody/Music/audio-out/01 Fool For Your Loving/drums.wav written succesfully INFO:spleeter:File /Users/woody/Music/audio-out/01 Fool For Your Loving/other.wav written succesfully And the output, well, obviously I can't put it all up here, it is copyrighted stuff after all, but here are bits of the sections in one audio file as examples.. mix.mp3 Obviously it is not the sort of quality you want to listen to isolated, but it is convincingly pulled apart and lets you hear stuff that is hard to hear otherwise. - edit - Should have added the links. Heres it release page https://deezer.io/releasing-spleeter-deezer-r-d-source-separation-engine-2b88985e797e and here is the source page https://github.com/deezer/spleeter although if you are setting it up rather than editing it, python (max 3.7 as it uses tensorflow) will download the files

That's probably the nicest looking board I've ever seen! I use the aguilar db751 when I'm not using my tonehammer amp though. I find the low and high cuts and the aguilar drive control enough to get a good warm sound from the digital emulation. Although I can see why you would want your own preamp and combining the hx stomp on a board is where it really shines.

+1 for the Minutemen, and “Public Image” has to count as one of The great punk basslines

What Dead Kennedys bassline isn't good?

For some OTT punk bass lines check out Brian Ritchie on the Violent Femmes first album - e.g Blister in the Sun.

‘Ugliest woman I have ever seen!’

And.. so what? Your job isn't writing transcriptions so that other bass players can see what you were doing, you are doing it because people have asked (neh, nagged!) you too, as a favour. Before you did it, there wasn't a definitive version, now there is. The world has gained something. If the transcriptions aren't right, and it bothers someone, they can just take those transcriptions and redo them now they are on the internet, or they can just ignore them. But for those of us who wanted to see them, they are fantastic, and we can listen to the tracks and look at the transcriptions and know how to do it, and it keeps us going waiting for your video lessons

Looks aged white to me, especially as the colour ageing is inconsistent, where as it’s not on the blond, and the wear is different too in regards to colouration.

I think there's no doubt that a very well constructed instrument will show off the tone in pups and pre's better than a slab of plywood and some razor wire... It's also true to say that if I pick up the bass of doom or Geddy's Jazz, I won't sound anything like Pastorius or Geddy Lee, tone resides in the combination of the player and the bass, and the bass is the sum of it's parts, some are better than that sum, and some are worse.

Hence my original question!

That was exactly the situation we were in and felt pushed into publishing it on the streaming sites. This one, which we gave permission for as the guy is good about publishing links back, was getting almost 1000 plays per day, initially, which was the trigger behind taking ownership of the music in the streaming world. It had gotten to around 14,000 plays before the licencing kicked in, which you can now see in the description. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9mCQ9JXYYA Youtube can recognise the music published to it and will automatically apply a licence like that into a previously existing video. A lot of the people sharing music are monetising it themselves. They're getting paid for someone listening to your music. If they're "sharing" loads of band's music every day, however, it can start to add up. If you want to... not control it, you can't, but at least establish your ownership, setting up publishing with the likes of CDbaby is the way to do it. We didn't get paid for the first 14,000 or so plays of this and, granted, it's not like I'll be buying a speedboat, but I think the people who wrote and played the music should get something out of it instead of someone just putting up music they didn't have anything to do with. I am not a Spotify customer, they are the very worst thing to happen original music, but you're in a corner as an original artist. If you don't take ownership of your music, someone else will do it for you, sadly.

One big upside today is bands who wouldn't have got a deal under the 'old' system, can self promote and sell internationally in a way no-one could before, Bandcamp etc. The one constant of the music industry since it started is the musicans themselves are quite far down the list when it comes to getting paid. Rare to come across anyone in the industry who pre streaming felt they were getting a good deal.

Tonewood = generic name for a shed load of woods used to make instruments. Does wood have acoustic properties = yes Will one wood vs another magically transform your instrument into a legendary syren like creature = no will it make you more sexually appealing = no Is there a load of marketing hype = sure that’s what people do to sell stuff. is it still known as tonewood by luthiers and guitar companies the world over = yes

Refuse/ resist - sepultura

I'm the same.

Instruments made of the same woods, sorry, tonewoods, sounding very different to each other? What trickery is afoot? We all know that if you take 10 of the most basic and mundane bass out there, the Precision, with ash bodies, maple necks and fretboards, they will not all sound the same. Wood is organic. No two pieces of the same species are the same. To apply blanket characteristics to something which, by its very nature, is inconsistent in cellular structure - before you get into age, how it is dried, how it is cut, etc, etc, etc, is just prone to error. Still no-one can present a list of wood species which are structurally suitable but tonally unsuitable for solid body electric instruments?

That looks excellent !! I had a Kramer wrapped in leopard, the wrap is actually very durable

Sarcasm is the new (old) anti woke woke.

Wow! They are women! They are in a band but they are women! They are playing their own instruments but they are women! They are playing metal but they are women! They are doing what men do but they are women! Whatever next? Maybe we'll have women driving buses, and possibly even women being politicians!

You can probably guess who's behind this. And you'd be right!

To compare size, my 34” fretless and the 27” side by side.

During the first half of a gig once I noticed my top strap button had worked loose in the last song. I finished the song by holding the neck up with my left to take the weight for fear of the strap button pulling out, and sending bass tumbling groundwards. In the break I tried to tighten it but the screw wouldn't tighten properly so I went to the bar and purchased a box of matches, pushed one into the screw hole and broke it off flush. The strap button screw now did up nice and tight, great stuff, now I can enjoy the second half worry free. How wrong was I? All the way through that second set I could hear that the wood composition had changed in that bass. Like an idiot I had not asked for tone matches. What a fool I felt.

My bass is off having the front wrapped at the moment. I was too scared to do it myself. It’s having the Joker (The Killing Joke) image below put on the front and orientated so it’s the right way up when being played. Its going on the the front of my black SR800 and can always be removed if I get bored or want to sell. Hopefully it will protect the paint.