Leaderboard

Last nights gig for me was absolutely amazing. It was a sort of open night in a beautiful venue called The Mill in Elstead. Backline is provided and 5 bands played, each getting about 25 minutes each. The sound is amazing and it's super intimate with a really appreciative audience of music lovers and musicians. We play very stripped back, heartfelt singer songwriter stuff with lyrics personal to the singer. I'm on fretless creating some ambience and our drummer is very chilled and percussive. The first song is very atmospheric and as soon as I started playing, our singer said the two young girls sitting in front me who were about 16, their jaw's hit the floor. They'd never heard fretless and I had reverb and chorus and apparently they couldn't take their eyes off my playing. Mid way through the song, I get a sort of instrumental lead part and as soon as I go into it, the lady at the table whoops and shouts out, 'woah, go the bass player'. When I finish my little piece, the whole place applauds 😮 I've never had that and it was very much like what happens at a Jazz gig. Anyway, we play a blinder and we even had some of the audience in tears by how the singer had captured them with his lyrics. We get to the last song and we are improvising massively and our singer got the who room singing followed by a standing ovation 😁 Afterwards, we got a tonne of compliments and it turns out the lady who shouted 'go bass player' used to be a singer back in her day and one of the two girls was her daughter who is a singer songwriter. Her husband was also there and after chatting to him, it turns out he's a Jazz trumpeter 😎 What a amazing night and just makes it all worthwhile 😁

Landed back from hols at sparrow’s fart. Bit of a nap then lock and load. A couple of ‘how does this go again’ moments to start but woke up and cleared ‘flight throat’ for backing vox and overall a great fun night as ever at a small but appreciative pub 🤘😁 I still need to get things sorted with the IEM feed as something doesn’t seem quite right. I should be getting pre-fade, but I’m not convinced that I am. I set my mix, and then it changes leading me to suspect I’m getting post. i also need to get a damn sight fitter and shed a few stone!!!! New bike due I a week or so so I must get on it regularly!

Janek just posted this yesterday

The pedal I was waiting on to finish my sci-fi board arrived this week and the board is ready! Thanks to @lee650 for selling me the pedal that got the ball rolling a couple of years ago and to @pbasspecial and @andybassdoyle for a couple of other excellent pedals. The signal chain is: WTF > T-65 > Grand Tarkin > Destroyer Bass Fuzz > Dual Knightfall > Tarkinfall > Han-Taun > Kaiburr > No Moon > Resurrector > Hyperspace Bass Chorus > Darth Fazer > Harmochorus > Blue Harvest > Dark Father T-65 FX Loop: Boba Fuzz

A mixed bag tonight at the Chadwell Arms in Essex. Set 1 was riddled with issues, which we realised was down to the singist’s radio mic interfering with my wireless. It’s happened before when we’ve rehearsed in a smaller room and the pub was pretty intimate tonight. I wired up for set 2 and it was a million times better. The small crowd loved us, the pay was good and we’ve got a few adds on social media and some pledges to come see us at other local gigs.

Lookatthelittleguy! Boss TU-2 > Hotone Harmony > Yamaha CO-10MII compressor > Joyo Monomyth.

So - we got the video back of the gig. The mix on the live stream was pretty rough... literally can't hear me at all. However... aforementioned LEDs might be a little bright... 🤣

Can you post pics? I won't be clicking on that link 😄

Mine just a few days ago... Should get the black P bass back today with ashtrays fitted.

This is my board for the weekend, nice and simple but gets the job done!

My second post on this forum, with the most important subject for a bass player : ) Pedalboard for my punk-ish drums + bass-guitar DUO:

Perhaps I should have gotten round to posting this thread sooner. Indeed, just having a Warwick Dolphin in my collection at home is grounds for celebration. I had waited, however, to get it set up and get used to it. More on that in a bit... Now, I wouldn't normally preface every NBD thread with a backstory. Or would I? Perhaps I would, because these days I don't really buy a bass unless it's something I really, really want or have wanted for years. Maybe this leads to less 'wildcard' revelations but all the same, I have never been disappointed by taking a more selective approach to buying. I keep saying I'll get back to selling or trading but so far, I keep getting things I can't bear to let go. I've wanted a Dolphin since I was about 15. I've long been a Warwick fan and I've had Thumbs and Streamers in the past. There is room in my collection for a few more, I dare say, so watch this space. My affection for Warwick goes back to the turn of the millennium, when I was first getting into Talkbass and discovering the world of boutique basses along with a world outside of rock and metal. However, I was very familiar with that world at the time and Warwick were very visible in that field. If you were anyone in the nu metal game, you probably had a Warwick bass and a great tone to go with it. I remember the Dana B. Goods Warwick website (indeed, I'm sure that they owned 'www.warwick.com' and enquiries would take you to their site rather than Warwick.de). In short, Warwick were everywhere and I loved them. Nothing sounded like a Warwick, particularly the 'dark' wood models (bubinga Corvettes, ovankgol and walnut Thumbs, boire and ovankgol Dolphins etc). I had consigned myself to never seeing a Dolphin in person, never mind owning one. The one I ended up buying was in fact, the first I've ever laid eyes on. The moment of seeing those unique and unusual proportions in person will stay with me forever, a bit like seeing the leaning tower of Pisa or whatever - you know them innately, by exposure, but seeing them in person is an experience on another level. So there I was at work in late March on a night shift, idling away. I'd seen the advert here for the Dolphin in the classifieds and considered it but thought restraint was more satisfying than indulgence. In that moment though, I decided that spending a little dough on something I'd wanted for two decades was a fair trade. Communications were made and a deal was done. The bass came looking, plainly speaking, like a new instrument, save for the frets. Like most Warwick bell brass frets, they need occasional attention to polish them up. But the wood was as smooth and satin as any Warwick I've touched and the gold hardware completely unblemished. The action was sky high and the strings were absolutely dead so despite getting the bass in my hands, there wasn't much to report on getting it home. I played it for about ten minutes and felt it had a huge potential, then put it back in the Warwick flight case and put it away. On another note, should nuclear war ever start I'll be hiding inside that case. I trapped my fingers between it and the car's B pillar when I brought it home and howled in pain. I accidentally stubbed my toe on it putting it into my car once and felt like I'd kicked a boulder. Built to last, it is. A visit to the greatly-esteemed Bass Doc, Howard Satterly, finally had the Dolphin ready to play. Strung with some EBMM stainless steels in .45 and with frets polished and the action brought down to a realistic level. An instrument of this level deserves a professional setup and will receive any necessary tweaks by my own fair hand in future. But man, does it play nicely now. Getting it home and plugging it in, I could finally give the full appraisal. The weight is surprisingly light. This is no Thumb and whilst I have no means of measuring it, it is lighter than my Spector NS-5CR and my Pedulla Pentabuzz. The rhomboid body gives it an offset position over the body, such that the bridge is almost offset from your midriff. It doesn't quite hang in a jazz bass position but it's not far off. If the central position and long reach to first inherent in the Warwick Thumb is not to your taste, you would probably prefer this. Seated, it's a joy to play in a classical position over the left knee. I never do this with my other basses but I could find some mileage here, since it seems to encourage a very right hand position that produces a very clean and articulate sound. The sound is absolutely classic Warwick, hi-fi and crisp with a distinct growl in the low midrange. The humbucker back pickup sounds absolutely great and so far, I've been running it solo. With both pickups on full, the sound is so rich with bottom end that my neighbours have been banging on the wall in a show of appreciation. There is little to none of the 'tone suck' that some basses experience when running both pickups on full. The coil tap for the back pickup is also super cool, as running both coils gives a big, juicy sound. Splitting them gives a more classic jazz bass style honk, and you fan further accentuate this by pulling the other pot up to run the bass in passive. I've mainly been playing it through my Markbass Jeff Berlin CMD-151P so far, occasionally running it through a Samsamp GED-2112. However, I've found it most satisfying just running straight into the Markbass and getting some very sweet hi-fi sounds as a result. Well, all I can do now is put the miles on it and see how my opinion of it moves. So far, it has been absolutely and unwaveringly positive and I've been having a total blast with it. A Thumb or Streamer could yet find it's way into my collection, but I feel as though the crown jewel has already been located.

I’m always happy to hang out with and chat to those that like pedals!

I’d definitely welcome visitors on my pedalboard if there are any pedals out there who want a place to stay 🙌

Pretty big one! Is the weight closer to an X-wing or a Death star?

Rishi Gonn' Lose That Number ～ Steely Dan

And at last, some much better photos of In Isolation from Saturday's gig:

Right, so that's absolutely magnificent Admittedly, I spend a lot of time lately listening to solo fingerstyle guitar recordings so I may be more open to this than many bass player. This is all magnificent but what stands out is how expressive his tapping is. I believe he is on another level compared to all the other youtube show-offs I am aware of. Not because of his chops, but because even at the frantic pace he has to publish videos in his line of business, he still often makes some great music. The objection to youtubers is often that their chops won't account for much in a band context. Well I'd rather take this than the mediocre stuff that 99% of bands record.

WAL Mk 1 fretless. Passed on for £200 in 1989. It still causes me nightmares. Frank.

Best bargain is an easy one for me. I managed to win a Mesa Road Ready 2x18 on Ebay for 62 quid. The auction finished at something daft like 6:30 on a Sunday morning. I sometimes paired it with my Diesel 2x15 using a Bass 400 and a 400+. It sounded immense.

As above, it is a short scale bass - 30 inch but due to the string through body bridge, then the correct strings are medium scale - 32 inch. Lovely looking bass by the way.

I don't ever use my acg-eq-01 bass live.... I sometimes find a really good sound on it and plan to take it out with me "pre set" ; but then dither and take the Wal instead. That one is easy to tweak on stage. For some reason as the evening progresses the filtering gets reduced and the pickup balance heads towards the bridge. It's a problem with owning a fretless Wal ... other basses get ignored.

😎

But he does tap dance well, and at the same time, he can tap semi-quaver triplets on his Blakey's Tap Shoes protectors. As Sir Thomas Beecham probably said after hearing him..."The English may not like his music, but they absolutely love the noise he makes..."

I’d say the second Death Star if it had been finished. It’s actually not too bad because some of the enclosures hide quite light pedals. It is a bit of a beast though.

Fitted one this morning and it's an absolute game changer. No need to make any adjustments on the amp now: I can do it all from my phone or iPad! For live work, my plan is to just use the front panel controls to set the amp for the venue, then I will have my three favourite effects stored to the "panel" so I can just switch between them using bluetooth.

I listened to Marcus Miller quite a lot. As a sideman, super player. His solo discs, meh. He is not a composer to me. With Wooten and Clarke trio, his work was the best of those three when he took the supporting role. Right notes at the right time. Others were more or less playing a lot, but aimlessly. I would have loved to see a structured act. A virtuoso player, and an interesting composer, that's a complicated equation.

If he could tap dance at the same time he'd make a great music hall act.

In the past he would have been a very young prodigy on first chair in an orchestra somewhere playing the instrument of his choice...All I see here is someone whos talent is completely wasted on bass....I mean its just bass right? and always will be. Bass.

There is a short scale version as well Cool looking basses Luna Short Scale Bass John

Nada! Just bedroom player now or with a friend in rehersal room. But when we had concerts, it was great if we had a setliat practice before a gig or pretty crap if not 😄

I've found my challenge for now. Mother Sky by Twelve Foot Ninja I come across this while looking up Strapping Young Lad songs as recommended by @BreadBin Sometimes youtubes recommendations hit the spot.

He uses multiple techniques, that even in highly competent players usually sound deliberate and demarcated, and blends them all incredibly musically and skilfully. Two hours of listening to him and I feel renewed love for the instrument and motivation to practice 🙏

Brilliant cab. I use one with my TE1200; I’ve used it for punishingly loud bands and it hasn’t batted an eyelid with the TE. I have to say I find the Barefaced 10s “easier” and as @Lozz196 says, you need to consider your EQ a bit with these. I ended up setting up a switchable 10 band EQ on my HX Effects to soften the mids a bit and it’s perfect. So for me, 10s for the smaller gigs with PA support and 12s for the gigs where I have no PA to help.

Wow - this week's video is pretty awesome:

Everything has had time to settle and so now is the time to level the frets, re-crown and polish. With the trussrod adusted to give me a straight neck, out comes my sanding beam to take off the high spots and/or high frets: The filings coming off the high frets are a guide - you know you are there when there are just the beginning of an even scrape across the tops of the lowest frets For recrowning, I use a diamond crowning file, first by itself, and then using the file as the former for progressive grades of emery and micro-mesh, all the way from 500 to 12000 grit. And, other than a few final bits of tidying up, it's pretty much there

Now why did you have to go and show me that???

To get back on topic here's a photo of the whole of In Isolation from our set at Whitby on Saturday:

Give yourself some time to think it through. As Mr Micawber said, "Something will turn up'. As stated above by Alex, there may be many opportunities yet to come for you. I really hope it works out for you. Do let us on BC know the outcome. Best wishes.

Couldn't get them all into one due to the floorspace in the jamnasium being chocka with amps but I did manage to get them into two. Pic 1 is everything Fender (and one Squier Rascal): 2005 Mark Hoppus sig in Shell pink 2006 Am std. Precision S1 in Sunburst 1997 Am dlx Precison in trans crimson red 1977 Precision in blue sparkle 1978 Precision in Sienna burst 1978 Precision in Olympic White/bong water yellow 1973 Precision in Black 2011 American Standard Jazz in Sunburst 2022 60th Ann. Road Worn Jazz in Firemist Silver 2004 American Deluxe QMT Jazz in Amber 2023 Squier Rascal in Sherwood green Pic2 is everything else: 2004 Dean Stylist Cabbie (for sale) 90's Danelectro DC in silver sparkle Gibson Thunderbird Studio IV in Ebony Aria Pro II SB-CB 1000 in black EBMM SUB in Teal EBMM Stingray in Black EBMM Darkray in Obsidian