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So some already know I’ve quit playing live gigs and was selling all my gear. Ive decided to hang on to my American PBass and SVT112AV cab and today have ordered the Ampeg Micro VR head as a neat home only rig. The rest of my gear is sold or up for sale ( two Vintera basses ) but I felt I would miss playing at home hence the mini rig

No. but it is an increasingly obsolete view. He, and others like him, have musical careers. They are getting paid to play. That it is not to your taste is irrelevant. That they are getting paid by advertising revenue rather than getting 2% of physical media sales is also irrelevant. He is not releasing music on 78 speed vinyl, he's releasing it on youtube and he has built an audience over years of hard work. And it is hard work. It's coming up with 4 or 5 new vids a week. Planning it, filming it, editing it. Dealing with copyright issues, etc etc. And that ignores the investment of the time needed to be able to play as well as he does. He's probably putting in more than 40 hours a week on it. That's a lot more than most musicians do, or even attempt to do. Complaining about modern ideas is a weird thing. We are on this forum because we play an instrument that has only been around for about 70 years and was laughed at when it was invented. I suspect that when Bottesini asked for a 4 string double bass rather than the traditional 3 string one the response was "Why? What's the point?" as well. Things move on. People like him do not affect the traditionalists ability to get pub gigs, or record what a traditionalist gatekeeper has decided is valid musical expression, or any of what has gone before. It's just something new to go into the pot. And like or not - he's inspiring people to play. 99.9% of them will never reach his ability. But they are playing and increasing sales of kit and making manufacturers invest in more product ideas etc etc. For some reason I had this view that bassists were somehow more rational than guitarists - many guitar forums are filled with people complaining that many new young guitarists say they were inspired to play by Ed Sheeran! Who GAF how they decided to pick up an instrument? The important bit is that they did! As for the amazingly dim sounding "I bet he can't play in a band" type argument.... ye gods that's a poor argument to present. Loads of the flashiest players spend most of their day doing sessions for other people. Just holding down the bottom end, playing roots. Marcus Miller does it. Billy Sheehan does it. There is zero reason to think that someone who can play like CB cannot play what a song needs. I used to play Classical Thump and Colorado Bulldog etc. And I had no problem joining a 25 member jazz big band and just playing what was written. I loved it just as much.

Ladies and gentlemen... Shakira!!!! https://bassmagazine.com/shakira-plays-bass-during-surprise-times-square-performance

D'Addario black tapewounds will only add to the killer tone.

Retrovibe have some vaguely Rick-ish shorty basses in stock. I got in touch with David and he is currently knocking me up a slightly more Rick-ish version. Short scale. Although we recently went off plan for a more blingy black stain, no pickguard, gold hardware look. Not entirely sure what it will end up like but it should be fun. This was the last mock up but things seem to be fluid

Final answer.... Added the korg pitchblack x mini. Done. There is nothing this board cant do! Compact yet powerful! So pleased.

There ya go

Of course its compulsory but seriously no we don't play too loud. We set guitar and vocals to drummers level. Only vocals thru PA so we can't be too loud. I have upgraded my bass rig to suit tho.😂 Dave

OK, the carving of the top I'm calling finished. There's still a bit of refining to do, particularly on the cutaway, but I'll do that with sandpaper once the top is on. Turning over I use the drill press to mark a 4.25mm depth everywhere (4mm mdf and a 0.25mm feeler gauge). I use a simple wood dowel with a thin piece of cork on top. Without that the top will get dented from the force of the top being pushed against the dowel. I then drill several million holes to within 25mm of the side (note to self, template #8). Several million more to go tomorrow. I'm exhausted.....

Hello everyone, this is my pedalboard, I'm still experimenting with KMA. IMG20240327141541.heic

If you put the compressor in front it takes out the dynamics that the envelope filter reacts to.

Just back from a monthly pub residency with the acoustic duo. Was just one of those gigs where I never got settled for some reason. Don’t know if I’m getting old but audiences in some pubs which were previously okay now seem to be getting more ‘lairy’, for want of a better word. Tuesday evening and they were battered by 9.30pm, loud and annoying some of our regulars so much that quite a few of them left early. Hard when you’re playing acoustic stuff to compete with them, and hard to hear any definition from the PA so I struggled sound wise too. Just glad to get home TBH, but at least we got paid so not all bad. Next one is at The Sun Inn in Beverley on Easter Sunday, one of our favourite venues so hopefully should be better than tonight.

Good idea, I've done that -- she sends her thanks to you all.

In my write up of my home-made fretted bass, I mentioned that the original neck I mad earmarked for it was damaged by a badly behaved bandsaw. This is the story of what I did with that damaged neck blank. For about two years, that neck blank sat propped up against the wall in the attic. I had a vague idea of making a headless bass with it, even though I've never been a huge fan of headless instruments (this is before their sudden renaissance really got going). However, I'd looked at how much decent headless bass hardware cost and scampered away with my tail between my legs. (A Hipshot bridge/headpiece set costs like £400, which was more than I was planning on spending on the whole project). Then, one day, I stumbled across someone (perhaps of this parish) selling a set of ABM individual bridge-tuner units and a hand-made brass headpiece for £100 on eBay. I snapped them up because that's about £200 less than they would have cost new, and this was during the pandemic, so no-one had new ones in stock anyway. With this stuff delivered, I made some measurements and started working on a design. My main priority was that I wanted to have the tuners easily acessible without having them hanging off the back, or having the body cut inwards to make them acessible. Like the odd annulus things on some Alembics – I've always thought those access cutaways give your bass a sort of flabby cloaca thing. Below is the design I settled on. My thinking was that without a headstock to counterbalance, I could dispense with the top horn, and if I followed the staggered angle of the bridge units with the lower edge of the body, I could handle tuner accessibility with a routed-out recess. The little shape in the upper bout was going to be either an inlay or a soundhole-like thing – I hadn't decided which, but I felt it needed something there for visual balance. The idea was that this would be a two-piece ash body with a walnut top. The ash would be chambered to keep the weight down. It was to have simple passive electronics and cheap jazz pickups because I wasn't sure about the integrity of headpiece, and didn't know how I'd go about replacing it if it didn't work, so I bought all my parts with the possibility in mind that the whole thing might be a bust. I'll continue this tomorrow, but I should note up top that I took far fewer pictures of the process of making this bass than I did with my other one. I think this was because it was the spring of 2021, and I was in an Omicron-lockdown fugue state. That means this write-up will probably be a bit more concise than the last one (it didn't require a "15 years earlier" prologue, so that's a good start).

Seems weird that there is at least 5 BBs for sale on the forum just now and @AndyTravis is yet to buy one of them 😂 Jokes aside, some great BBs (both new and old) available.

Hi, It ground to a halt when I hit problems getting the epoxy to form a consistent layer. It looked great until I started sanding and then the denim was exposed. Someone on Instagram suggested a solution (a bleeding obvious one that just hadn't occurred to me at the time) to apply the binding and use that as the dam to give the fill level. At that point I got distracted by an acoustic (ish) travel guitar that's also ground to a halt due to problems with finishing the sides. After flying for the first time since about 1983 I decided that it would be good to have a guitar that could be dismantled and packed into a suitcase. This project was intended to be a quick one so I used a body and neck that I fished out of the scrap box. It has turned out to be prettier than I expected and so I'm taking more care than I originally planned.The body was a prototype Les Paul semi hollow mode from poplar and asit was just to test ideas and templates wasn't made with any great care. I've added a strip of veneer around the edge to tidy it up but this now means that I will have to double bind it. The timber used for the soundboard is Paulownia from a pallet.

Brown eyed girl, Get Lucky, Valerie and Summer of 69. Mostly due to them being played and murdered by many covers bands (including ones I have played in).

I know we've heard geeetards play this every way possible but I thought a bass version might go down well here.. https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.1790-2/10000000_770978667855224_2670692218194705908_n.mp4?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=55d0d3&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCIsInZpZGVvX2lkIjo5NzY3OTU0Mzk5NTU5MDB9&_nc_ohc=PHPMxueKdMUAX-X6X3Y&_nc_ht=scontent.fltn3-1.fna&oh=00_AfBse_J8UJNHHlFF9c-uAlLowXD5tPwRSZZWAMhaKO4lcA&oe=6609D26B

Envelope filter responds to your attack, compressor shapes your attack. Envelope filter first for me, but try both ways and see what works best for you.

Just had one of these donated by my Dad as he uses a Spark Mini for all his practicing needs and I hope this is the kick I need to get playing again. Seems very handy to have at the desk with a set of headphones and you're away - no more digging out the amp from the cupboard!

Great one from Clinton off his album survival vibration

Wife put us in a hot wash. Dave

How did you and your bass get that small?

I'm enjoying thread and learning new tips from it 👍 For 15 years I ran the sound for my band from the stage whilst playing bass and doing harmonies. This doesn't give you much time to learn on the job! It was important to me to occasionaly set up the PA (and full band in a decent size room) and have "hands on time" to become really familiar with the mixer and any new mics / gear that had appeared. I eventually found a solution to getting the singers to co-operate......"Do you want to sound great or sh!te? 'Cos I can do both 🤣" Also getting them in front of the PA so they can hear themselves and the changes between the augmented and dry sounds helped.

I think you can get insurance against saxophonists turning up ?

Do you not play loud enough to make talking difficult? That's how we solve it

We supported Les Gray’s Mud in the late 80’s. Les was a lovely bloke, very funny and put on a good show despite not looking in the best of health.

The fourth dimension is indeed time. It's best left set to the present moment though, I accidentally gave mine a tweak and I'm not going to see it again until next June.

Sorry, I forgot to post final pictures. What a lightweight.

I forgot to post final pictures. Such an amateur.

Depends on your definition. What for one person is a bit of mild frottage is for others a full-blown bag-over-the-head-and-a-bottle-of-poppers-cuffed-to-a-radiator scenario! What fills me with horror for any solo is where the band leave the stage, put on a bath and a baked potato leaving said muso (whether he/she/it are bass, guitar, drums, whatever) to fill the time with a cacophony of a-musical onanism. Like that Cliff bloke out of off of Metallica who seems to be so revered! It's only forgivable if it's completely amazing - frinstance I saw Sheila E do a percussion solo for about 10 minutes which had at least 2 minutes on the triangle, and it was awesome - or completely hilarious - like Nigel Tuffnell and his violin-guitar thang. As for bass solos, I absolutely love a good funk-bass one... Like the one Big Tony does for Trouble Funk. It's there to complement the song, and it's groovy, entertaining and full of showmanship.

Thank you very much. I watched Lobsters review and it nearly put me off but having done much more research found most people giving good reviews. So I have purchased an SR300 in candy apple red. It feels nice to me and plays nicely. I didn't want to spend a fortune on something that might never get used but also didn't want to buy a lemon that held me back. My brother, Rob Palmer had mentioned the Ibanez so I've gone with that. Thanks all for your help. Jon.

So I did go, and… it was brilliant. I'm still buzzing! Superb house band, it would have been worth the trek out just to listen to them; everyone really friendly, including house bassist Gavin, and well organised; really good players getting up, including rhythm section - so I felt stretched, but in a good way, and some people even said nice things about my playing which I'm sure weren't completely deserved but I'll take them! Only really came off the rails on one tune but nobody minded and (as per @Geek99's thread) that's how we learn. The only thing wrong with it is that I have to wait a month for the next one!

I'm back.... I've been slowly settling into a new work/life/making stuff regime and hopefully things will happen a bit more regularly now. To catch up... The headless bass is on a back burner. The flying v is finished and I have gigged on it. The front burner is currently occupied by a hollow body travel guitar that I was hoping to complete by NYE but I'm waiting for suitable binding to be delivered. Simmering away next to it is the double denim bass. It's come out darker than I was expecting but I can't change that now. Also after thicknessing the body I've realised that I need to add another hit of epoxy as I've sanded through to the denim in a couple of places. Eventually I'll be fitting these jeans rivets for dots. Sanding the radius on the fretboard using a piece of salvaged mahogany to act as a guide rail for the sanding block. I have a jig for guitars but haven't got round to a bass one yet. This morning I installed the maple binding on the fretboard. I had to use the bending iron for the two bits at the end.

Come On Eileen American Pie Bohemian Rhapsody

Given the size of some people's pedal boards, almost anything up to and including a 100W all-valve head would fit if the space wasn't already taken up with pedals!

There isn't such a thing as the one ultimate right way to pluck. Personally I more so stroke the strings lightly, rather than really plucking or pulling the strings, in a slight inward slapping motion, with the outmost tip of my fingers/nails, but that is a not too common plucking technique. Some prefer to pick more aggressively, almost pulling the strings, and that works for them (though one thing to keep in mind that this way you will have less room for dynamics). I also utilize 1 and 3 finger plucking technique, classical guitar finger picking style technique, and flamenco guitar index and/or middle finger (sometimes ring finger too) flicking technique, as well a double thumbing technique, depending. My advice is to experiment to see which technique you personally feel most at home with and which gives you the tone you want, but also be open to incorporate less traditional picking techniques for a broader palette of expression. Also I advice you to learn floating thumb technique, instead of anchoring your thumb on top of the strings, in my opinion this will give you much more freedom, and make muting easier and more effective.

For me, the bass is the bridge between rhythm and melody. That's where it should stay to complement the song. When players come out of this pocket, that's what turns me off. I hate w***ing of any kind over a piece of music, be it bass, vocals or even gratuitous overly played guitar.

😎