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Last night we played at Manchester Opera House, which is a magnificent Edwardian theatre right in the heart of the city centre. Had a nightmare journey up from Swindon - a major accident turned the M6 into a car park - so arrived very late after a five and a half hour journey. Fortunately our sound and lighting guys had got there on time, having travelled up the night before. Had a fairly quick sound check, despite having more PA than usual due to the size of the theatre (around 1,900 seater), and sounded fine. Lots of bass bins meant I was very happy! The gig went well - had over 1,400 people in so it felt quite full. Lots of audience singing and dancing which is always a good sign. People doing this in the upper balcony looked quite dangerous from the stage! Got another big theatre today at Sunderland Empire so looking forward to that one too. ( just noticed our PA guy Rik photobombed the 1st pic - looks like he’s praying!)

Today at a festival in Dorset, gagglefest (due to it being the gaggle of geese). Did an hour between 2-3pm, when it threatened to rain but didn't so people could sit out. it was a bit early, had some dancing but not as much as you would get later. Were told that the venue were laying on a PA with a sort of implication it was a PA company, but turned out that one of the other bands from later were putting on the PA, and it was considerably smaller than ours! Last year a group laid the PA on and it was massive. this time there wasn't any micing for the drums and no monitoring, so couldn't hear anything. Sort of sounded ok out the front with no real drumming. Still, I didn't have to worry about it and it was nice being like the guitarist for once and just turning up with an amp, pedalboard and bass. But my bass was pretty clear, so that was nice! Still, got to love a full paying 1 hour gig in the afternoon where you can get home before the shops shut and have food at home!

Landed Festival, Mid Wales, Friday night. Excellent PA and really well mixed. The stage (trailer) seemed to absorb the sound and for the first time ever, BF Dubster and Peavey Tour 700 required PA support as well. Chowny fretless (another BC purchase) worked really well. Band is called Glyderau (a Welsh mountain range), all original material. Magus is Ben Grant, Freelance sound engineer, PA Hire & Location Recording, who ran the sound system - really good. The chappie on the right clearly enjoyed himself.

I'm glad you made that simple. 🤔

Nothing fancy last night, a well to do pub in Alcester, it felt like a jazz gig, we were playing to terribly middle class people sat around little tables. They enjoyed and so did we, but it was very different! Playing my local tonight for the first time with this band.

No apologies; this is a topic in which I shall be posting stuff that I like, and that I think merits a listen. Eclectic..? Rather; no other theme than that it's my choice. Some long, some less so, from a mix of periods and dates; a real rag-bag of music. I'm not ashamed, either to say that I know who the bass (if there is one...) is played by for a few; I know who plays drums on more, but even then, not always. To me, it's secondary, as it's the music created that I listen to principally. Posts will be sporadic; maybe daily at first, but no promises. Here, then, is the first; enjoy...

It’s one of the most impressive theatres we play. Built in 1912, it later lapsed into being used as a bingo hall- unbelievable! I’ve attended a few gigs there since it reopened in the early 80’s, best one being a Steve Winwood concert recorded for the BBC. You know it’s got history when it has special rooms allocated for stuff like this -

Do you have a favourite.? Of course hes not for every one musically. But im sure most respect him as a musician. Personally I consider him to be the greatest most accomplished musician of our times. .His piano playing is just fabulous as ive seen him playing the piano live in London. His vocal range was just incredible. His guitar playing was very vocal in his approach. And the cat could play the bass very well.. I have a 3 disc album which contains all of the B sides of his records and its pretty mind blowing that they weren't hits. These records are both B sides. Just fantastic records. imo of course.. The great thing about Prince was his shyness and his humility. The guy could play 20 plus instruments but he never ever mentioned it. I really respected him for his down to earth approach to humanity and music. But underneath he was a near genius.

When it's a Sandberg California Central of course! I had a 4-string StingRay for years, and I absolutely love the distinctive sound of a StingRay, but I haven't played 4-string basses for ages now so it was sitting in it's case doing nothing, so I decided to move it on, along with an un-played '58RI Precision, then instantly regretted it! I toyed with the idea of buying another 4-string StingRay, but there would be literally no point as it would never get played, so I've been looking for a replacement StingRay in 5-string flavour. I cannot be doing with the pickguards on 5-string StingRay's so those were out of the running from the get-go. I picked up a 5-string H/S Bongo, which is a great bass, but doesn't have that StingRay sound. So I looked at the Lakland Skyline 55-02 (which is another great instrument - so good that I bought two!) but again doesn't quite do that StingRay sound. Then in walked the California Central... While I was in the shop trying it out I A/B'd it against a 4-string StingRay and a 5-string StingRay , both 3-band EQ like the Sandberg, through a MarkBass combo and then through headphones, and if you were blindfolded I guarantee you would not be able to tell the difference, it's so convincing at mimicking a StingRay. The build quality is excellent, the finish is superb, it comes with a substantial soft shell case, I love that the treble control doubles as a passive tone control while in passive mode, and I love the smoked chrome hardware, but I really wish it had an ebony fingerboard as opposed to pao ferro - it just looks odd. And seeing as I'm nitpicking, I also don't like the massive exposed truss rod route (it's not what you would call subtle!), and there are too many adjustment points on the bridge - each saddle has 5 adjustment screws! Anyway, I can live with the minor niggles as I've now found a bass that scratches my itch - it's half the price of an actual EB MM StingRay and sounds exactly the same. What's not to like!

Evil Blizzard, just the four bassists here (three fours and one fiver)... (line-up has changed slightly since, now down to just the three basses, plus one guitar and various random noises)

Yes, indeed, anyone can start their own topic of stuff they would like to share. Soooooo, just to keep the ball rolling along here, here's another of my 'top' selection...

An old friend that’s been living in Paris is back for a visit and a jam was organized. Unfortunately his daughter has come down with something and they are quarantined. So he was a no show for the party. I’m hoping he might be free Sunday for our regular gig in the old blues dive downtown. Fingers are crossed. The venue was once an old stone church that’s been converted to an Arts Center. Very boomy acoustics , an old friend that organized the jam supplied the night’s back line. An Aguilar TH700 powering a couple of Markbass cabs. Not the best sounding room for any amp.

I've encountered this sort of thing a few times - bassist crapslapping in between songs, even when there is no other slapping in the set itself. Jesus!.. Another thing that gets me is when bands don't seem to have endings sorted out for songs and they resort to some bizarre ping-pong effort that sounds like everyone in the band is trying to have the last word. Play the song, have an ending that everyone can perform crisply, Stop. Say whatever you need to, if that. Play the next song. Rinse and repeat! 😡

I've encountered this a few times. AFAICS it stems from general insecurity about either their playing or their equipment. It's generally worse at rehearsals compared with gigs but not always. TBH when I have come across it the practice is so ingrained and automatic that the musician in question is barely aware that they are doing it. A lot of bands I have played over the years have used some sort of backing which I am usually in control of. For one particularly bad example, I go so fed up with this at rehearsals that would deliberately not start the backing track for the next song until there had been a couple of seconds silence from all the band. When I was eventually asked why I was taking so long to start each song, I told them that if they were playing stuff then they obviously weren't ready, and it was only fair that I should wait until they were. After couple of rehearsals like this they finally got the message. For The Terrortones we got around this problem ever arising by simply not giving anyone any time between the songs. IMO for the majority of bands the space between songs should be taken up with: Applause, "Thank you, the next song is...." count in. That's it. If the intro is being performed by the problem musician, either give it to someone else or drop the song for one where everyone comes in together. With a bit of luck they will eventually get the message.

The entire album is a masterpiece, but this is stand out for me, as is U Got The Look, Hot Thing, The Cross, the title track, and probably a load more

When Darryl Jones joined the Stones he asked Keith Richards about the bass lines he should be playing. Keith just said, "You tell me, you're the bass player".

We've been using a Behringer XR18 for the last few gigs and it's been quite the revelation. Impressions so far; metering is great, so setting gain levels is easy, as is keeping an eye on send/returns and bus outputs, plus an RTA which helps with overall eq'ing. Fully parametric 5 band eq, comp & gate on each channel is brill. The effects modeling is amazing, shame there's only 4 stereo fx slots but that's only a minor gripe. Still a lot of stuff to get a grip on like the dca groups and ultra net monitoring, so still on the learning curve with it. Oh, and it's got a small stage footprint and doubles as an interface for the home studio. Our foh and monitoring sound have definitely benefited from using this desk, I can't see me or the band going back to an analogue desk again. Anybody else using / getting into the digital desk thing and your impressions on using them?

Mildje!: My project almost 20 years ago with 3 basses and 1 drummer and a single track of 45 minutes named Stuyvenbergh (which means mountain of dust in ancient Dutch) and subtitled Arhythmic Deconstruction... It says enough. 6 months of rehearsal for a unique concert that was sold out...

That's one vote! Scott, if you're following, it's a start! I actually stood in our local government elections on 4th May. I was a "paper candidate" for the Green Party, who stood a candidate in every available seat, 63 in total for Lancaster. I polled twice as many votes as the Lib Dem candidate, so was fairly happy with that. We now have the second biggest green council in the UK with 21 councilors. Perhaps I should have promised more funk and groove, that might have swung it for me.

I'll play... Here are my two Lakland Skyline 55-02's. I've had them for a while now, and they're absolutely fantastic instruments. Bought the purple one first, then added the black sparkle one as a back-up, cos they're that good! The black sparkle one is just shy of 9.5 lbs and the purple one is a shade over 10lbs.

I’m more wondering is some of those old big box electro harmonix pedals would be big enough to work as a canoe and get off the desert island? otherwise do you think it would be possible to get the Hudson broadcast to actually broadcast?

Simplified background: Operational amplifiers (opamps) need double sided power. Positive (+), negative (-), and the zero point. A preamp can be built with one sided (with a single 9 V battery), or two sided power (2 x 9 V). Two sided is easier to build, because it is simpler and requires less components (the first battery is the lower side from -9 V to 0 V, and the second from 0 V to +9 V). If a preamp is functional with both options, the circuitry is based on a one sided power, and "an artificial zero point". +9 V 0 V -9 V The preamp sees the lower side (- connected to negative, + connected to 0 V) as negative voltage, and the higher side (- connected together with the first battery to 0 V, + connected to +9 V) as the positive. Opamp is happy with this arrangement. If there's just one battery, the voltage has to be divided with components to positive, negative, and 0 V. More voltage equals more headroom (Status has a preamp running at 4 x 9 V = 36 V, like @Hellzero mentioned), but the output of an ordinary bass is in the ballpark of 1 V (peak to peak). Even a single 3 V battery could be enough to drive a pre. True: depending on the pickups, some transients could reach few volts (peak). [Sometimes it would be wiser to have two batteries in parallel. Then the last drops of the batteries would be used till the very end.]

I play drums in another band where the guitarist finishes a lot of the songs with a solo. In fairness they're pretty good and fit the moment but unlike songs with a definitive ending the solo can be indeterminate in length, so I've developed a method of ending songs by doing one bar of kick drum / crash as a signal. The beauty of this is that if I feel like I can make him solo forever!

A wig room? Well I’d be alright then……

All of the bands I've been in (bar one, which was hard rock from the outset) have been a "let's see what happens" sort of thing... One band had a jazz-funk drummer, punk mohican singer, blues keyboardist, heavy metal guitarist and me (into anything groovy and out-there); we produced a sort of James Chance and the Contortions meet Butthole Surfers noise... Current band has a hardcore punk singer, classic old-skool punk bass player, me as other bass player-come-widdle-fest-merchant, a guitarist into psychedelia and Hendrix and 70s rock inspired drummer. As a result we don't really sound like any of the other bands on the punk circuit; we have 6 minute songs based on an Ornette Coleman riff, 1 minute 50second punk bangers with slap bass solo, slow chuggy grunge numbers with a tango based chorus, phrygian jazzy middle 8 and double speed rockabilly ending... So I reckon that if you decide in advance exactly what you'll sound like, that's what you're likely to do but you're less likely to produce anything off-the-wall and ever so slightly crazed...

My current favourite...

Did you see the bit when I mentioned "hes the most accomplished of our time" ..? now im not sure how old you are matey but you aint as old as Beethoven. Who I consider, as well as Bach two of the greatest musicians of all time. BTW Just stick with with the subject pal. xx

Last dedicated Compressor pedal I had was a Seymour Duncan studio bass , decided to ditch it (regrettably) when I went to the Helix Stomp. Love the Stomp and the Compressors are good but ultimately feel too digital and just more of an affect. So decided to look at a dedicated compressor again. Wanted the Cali but just could not justify the price as I’m just more a hobbyist and occasional jammer nowadays. Looked at the Boss and the Mxr (which both looked good value) also the Jam pedals which is a two nob compressor which felt too simplistic and I am a fan of Jam pedals. Then Saw the Keeley which had great reviews and it was on sale at a bargain price if £125 brand new (£199 usually) from a place I’ve not heard of before called HotRoxuk. Great fast postage and tracking from them will be using them again. Plugged it in everything at noon, threshold, gain at zero/unity compression 4:1 at noon, twiddled about a bit sounds fantastic, transparent nor tone loss, just a bit of squish when digging in hard, just what i always wanted, totally dynamic and not to fast not too slow response, even at full infinity it never really squashed the sound too much. Have it set at threshold about 11.30 -45 gain about 12.15-30 compression 4:1 12 i clock and that’s it might need slight tweaking on different basses but marginally. Great pedal and almost the definition of what a compressor should be. Could not recommend it enough and at that bargain price ( still a few left) disclaimer: i have no affiliation with Hit rox uk! https://www.hotroxuk.com/robert-keeley-bassist-bass-compressor-kbass.html

Also I used to play bass in a hardcore and noise rock influenced math rock band that consisted of a guitarist/vocalist, 2 bass players and a drummer, me having the role as sort of a lead bass player, using a brighter tone and alternating between playing melodic parts, noise parts, counter parts to both the other bass and the guitar, or playing unison with either the guitarist, just one octave lower obviously, or the other bass player, depending, whereas the other bass player filled out the more traditional, consistently supportive, role of a bass player.

I've done a couple a while back. IIRC these figured in them. Cissy Strut - The Meters Cantaloup Island - Herbie Hancock Watermelon Man - Herbie Hancock Chameleon - Herbie Hancock

I don't think I've posted this before but apologies if I have! Here's my sparkly orange 5-string H/S Bongo. A fabulous thing even if I do say so myself! (I realise Bongo's are kinda 'Marmite' in terms of their appearance but I think they're incredibly well designed basses!)

I thought Randy just played a Precision, Hagstrom and a Rickenbacker. Turns out I was very, very wrong... https://randymeisnerretrospective.com/2023/01/26/basses-used-by-randy-1968-2006/

Yeah, the wifi remote tablet thing is great. No more snakes! When we get a new sound guy sorted that'll be the way forward.

The xr18 is just a small stage box with no controls. I connect a laptop and have that next to me. The fx and input gain settings are all done in advance of a gig, I then just have to worry about the overall mix and master level and with scene recall that's easy than using an analogue desk.

We're going to use the xr18 even if there's a sound guy at a gig just so we're in control of our own in ear monitor mixes and not at the mercy of the engineer.

The last one we had knocked politely on the door and announced itself before commencing the shake. 🤣

We have earthquakes in Wales. Just small, civilised ones.

Scott Devine is clearly a workaholic and has a very clear business model. He’s clearly very driven and runs a tight ship that is very successful…. best of luck to him. I….. just find the barrage of emails, videos, incentives and constant presence overbearing and irritating. But that’s more about me than SBL. He (as the shop front) seems to be a nice fella and a good bass player, as does his is husband Ian Allison. Best of luck to the growing empire, it’s just not for me.

Looks an amazing venue.

The bass player I replaced in a local Grateful Dead cover band (more country & blues than heavy metal, for those unfamiliar with the band) played a slap solo between songs. It was so bad that on the one occasion I watched them play (before I had joined them), I had to leave before the set break.

I hope that this isn't thought to be a de-rail; more, to me, a putting into perspective. I watched the first of a series on BBC TV, recounting the life of Beethoven... BBC: Being Beethoven ... I'm not one for proclaiming any G.O.A.T., in any domain; comparaisons are rather vain, with different epochs, styles, 'standing on the shoulder of' et al, but there have been, are currently, and will be in the future, many many Greats. Not, then, to belittle Prince, but the Pantheon is full of 'em, for our edification and delight.

If I liked a couple of the bands mentioned, I'd get in touch. It's an advert, not a manifesto.

You have not removed enough of the carbon shield I suspect. Modern instrument cables have two screens, a copper one and a conductive PVC. it is the conduct of PVC that stops crackles win. Cables are moved around. Conductive, PVC is almost always black as it consists mainly of carbon, and it needs to be stripped away from the cable that goes to the tip of the Jack Bug. The inner cable usually screened with either white or a transparent insulator. you need some clear or white insulate are showing beyond the Black screen. If not you will get a signal but it will be low or muffled. See picture below. I have repaired a number of cables made by BBC members where this mistake has been made.