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Some pics have now appeared from an official photographer for our Tomintoul gig back in July with punk covers band Emergency Exit. Did add to the original post but its way back in the realms of history and i just liked these pics. First time i've seen more pics of the bass player than the guitarist too so this is a first. Dave

A weekend of two halves. Saturday night took us to a pub that I am not fond of playing in. It is very crowded, always feels like it is on the edge of something kicking off and has the acoustics of a swimming pool. Turned up, not very crowded, set up, still the acoustics of a swimming pool. Hit on a revolutionary idea I managed to get the band to go along with of 'turning the volume down'. It worked really well, and the sound was fairly balanced (for the venue - only so much you can do with wooden floors, shiney walls, massive tv behind the band and reflective ceiling). Started off and it was notable that there weren't many people there. Turns out that the put has fallen out of favour with the sort of people that are almost kicking off all the time, and instead of 100 people ignoring us, we had 25 people who were really listening. As a result, it turned out that although probably good for business, I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever have there. On packing up, some guy came up positively gushing as how good we were, and finding out where we were playing later. He had danced to pretty well everything since linkin park. Sunday was a club in a local village, I was having a problem with this as I didn't remember the venue at all, but had been assured by everyone we had played it, obviously they were right. A bit of a tricky decide as to how to set up - it was a long narrow shed, open to the sports field on the side, but it was also raining, so noone was going to be out there, so we faced down the room. The first half was pretty dire - loads of people, and there was a TV on the opposite wall we were facing with a load of blokes with their backs to us watching the football. There were people dotted around sort of moving and singing though, so not completely wasted. Then the game finished and the blokes wandered off, and we hit our 'you should be dancing' - 'does your mother know' combo and some women appeared from nowhere and did dance, and then basically carried on the for the rest of the gig, so in the end it went really well. They wanted to pay us extra at the end to go on for another hour, but I don't like doing that, it sounds sloppy and I am already tired, plus it was an afternoon gig, I could be home by 8, so I did and I was

got some sonicakes lying around so why not.. suprisingly good for the price. mounted on a £1 IKEA board. powerbank/usb powered using a Joyo ZGPw

I think it’s the way that it’s done that is the issue rather than the price. An analogy would be queuing up to buy a coffee. The board shows the price so you stand in line. Occasionally the coffee machine breaks down or some official takes you to the back of the line without an explanation. Eventually after much patience you reach the front expecting to pay £3 only to be told that it’s now £10 because of the ‘demand’ This is not a reasonable business model. If the coffee chain has a monopoly and they are using this model then questions should be raised.

This is exactly it. The system is designed to pressure you into making a decision. Imagine the situation. You've accepted you'll pay £150 for a ticket and spend anything from 4-6 hours waiting for your chance. When you get in, your heart rate is up and you see the tickets. But they're more expensive. There's a count down timer which will boot you out if you don't buy. The rational part of your brain is saying no, but you want the hit of the purchase and you can afford it (just). So you dig out your credit card, get the hit and then the long and precipitous drop happens. A lot of people can't figure out why they did something so stupid, they just did. Ticketmaster knows exactly what it's doing and the ways to encourage people to spend recklessly...

I wouldn't bother with a power supply in that case - just use a battery when you use it. Be careful to unplug your lead from the pedal input when it's not being used otherwise the battery will drain.

Why would it be an 'unfair restraint of trade'? If companies are manipulating the market or utilising unfair business practices to disadvantage the customer, then surely they should be regulated. Part of the many issues we have in this country is that government has been reluctant to regulate when it should, which partly has led to a lower standard of living for ordinary citizens while giving inflated dividends to shareholders (look at the water companies and the water / sewage issues we are currently having). This doesn't happen in most other countries in Europe (or at least to nowhere near the same extent) to the advantage to the lives of normal people.

While it springs to my unreliable and ancient mind, @SamIAm , just a point to consider before you cut the headstock off - give a bit of thought to exactly where you will be putting your clamp (especially if it's an end one like the one in @itu 's picture). Whether or not you are leaving the nut in place or fitting a zero fret, give some thought to ensuring there is going to be a decent break-angle over the nut/fret. You will never suffer from 'harping' on a headless, but a decent break angle will minimise vibration losses in the scale-length of the string. There will be a hole in the clamp for truss-rod access which limits how much you can move it, but there is usually a little bit of wiggle room up and down (and/or for a straight cut or angled cut of the headstock stub). My personal rule-of-thumb is 10 degrees break angle but certainly no less than 5. If it is an angled headstock, then a cut square with the headstock rather than square with the fretboard would be my preference.

Last night in the old dive.

i will concede to all this as well as Massive Attack, Portishead et al

Each to their own, but I reckon that was a golden age (possibly as those were my late teenage years). Robson & Jerome, Vanilla Ice, Boyzone, Menswear, Aqua, Hanson. It had it all! Seriously, though, the best 90s UK music was Electronic stuff: Orbital, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, Boards of Canada, all the Jungle/DnB stuff and UK Garage. Like it or not, it was genuinely world leading, innovative, original sounding stuff. Whereas Britpop was always a bit of lame nostalgic/throwback radio-friendly/Saturday morning kids TV sort of stuff. And there was the really pop sort of stuff like boybands for the 13 year old girls, which in hindsight was perhaps quite good to have that quite clear boundary, nowadays pop is a bland mush to try to appeal to as many people as possible.

I loaned you one of my likes cause i'm a nice auld guy wie a bass. Dave

I have updated my 40th precision with a EMG Geezer pickup. Nice improvement in sound and potmeters are included 🙂

I am a million years away from it, but one of my objectives for playing bass is joining a band. How did you know when you were ready to join your first band?

16 years apart…

It was when some lads I knew who had already been in a few local bands knocked the door. They had heard I was learning and that I possessed a bass and an amp. "We've got a gig in a fortnight and need a bass player...want to do it?" "Yes. Cool. Great. Thanks!" Being bowled over with excitement while all also shi..ing your pants is a very unique feeling 😆 We practiced everyday and it went surprisingly well! They were pretty good musicians which helped, and they could draw a crowd. The club was packed. I hadn't even played with anyone else other than a mate in his bedroom a couple of times. I'd been teaching myself by playing along to records for about 18 months and no way thought I was good enough to even think about joining a band. Luckily I was thrown into it. Played out with them for 2 years. Learned a lot. The joys of growing up in a small Welsh town. If you can make it through a song you're ready to play with a band. That's where you really learn. Just by doing it.

Before I played anything at all, I was that friend. I played the repeated bass note to Queen's 'Flash' after having been directed to the correct fret by the guitarist. 😀

That cover is by Yes.

You're ready already! Just need to find the right people and the right music. Bass is definitely a social instrument that works best playing with others. Luckily, one of my best friends is a drummer, so just doing boozy rhythm section practice/jam sessions was my starting point. Then I joined a 3 piece that just did practice stuff, then onto bands that were a bit more serious and played live, now I also do some Dep stuff so can have very little practice time before playing live. I'm yet to play anything bigger than pubs and small festivals though so there's still hopefully a progression. The gradual progression seemed a good way of doing it.

Useful if you're not going to be changing instruments, but not so good doing changes as you either have to take the strap off and put it on the other bass or take the bug out of one pouch and put it in the other. Another alternative would be a short extension lead and stick the bug in your pocket.

here's one!

I found the RB series to have their own voice. And starting with everything at noon was a wonderful place to begin. Probably one of the easiest amps to dial in.

Bit of zombie thread time 🧟‍♂️ I've enjoyed owning the NS WAV, but don't play it as much as I should, mainly down to it not having any place in the band I'm in (Mod, Ska, Northern Soul, etc), where I almost exclusively play my JMJ Mustang. All this means that I've had thoughts of selling the EUB, so that it at least gets played by someone. However, today, I started playing around with an old, live recorded, track I did years ago on fretless (Tori Amos' Cornflake Girl). I dropped it into GarageBand, remixed it a bit and played along, first with my Rob Allen MB2 and then with the WAV. Tonally, the basses weren't a million miles apart (those MB2s are amazing for that almost DB tone), but I had way more fun playing the WAV, almost dancing whilst recording. So it looks like the EUB might be hanging around a bit longer, I just need to play it more. That is all.

I wonder if the zero nut is a bit like directional audio cable? I know that when I was slightly more interested in audio as opposed to music, there was big movement in copper interconned cable that cost a fortune and sounded better in one direction than another. I also know that somebody was selling directional fibre optic cable for audio as well. I do know a tinybbit about fibre optic and shifting large quantities of bits as I have designed and built a number of data centres and server rooms. Some of these may shift petabytes per day. Never once had a directional fibre cable there. Anyway have read loads more and still struggle to see what the advantages are.

What pedal is it? Some are much better than others for this sort of thing. Still likely to be a power supply issue though. A good power supply with isolated outputs is a great investment. They can be expensive, but it's also something you usually only need to buy once. Unless you are a bit of a pedal junkie and you have 3 different boards assembled all the time.... ahem.

I saw that on reggaeville, I remember them being around , mainly as a backing band but they didn’t do much for a few years, I really like some of their stuff and I’ll definitely be interested in the story

The irony of it is that thousands of people who've paid through the nose for tickets will doubtless spend the whole gig filming it on their phones so that they can watch it on Youtube later. Mugs.

I often think that, for me, the mid to late ‘90s is where music went to die in the UK.

And another... More media exposure for smaller artists! When I were nobbut a lad there was all sorts of music on telly; kids TV would have Motorhead or The Jam playing, Top of the Pops could have absolutely anyone on (apart from the Sex Pistols). There was Rock Goes to College, Old Grey Whistle Test, The Tube and loads of other stuff. It was all there and easy to find. Now you have to actively search - which admittedly isn't difficult, but I suspect that as a result more young-uns are playing video games or binge watching who-knows-what instead of going to gigs. I know that my nieces and nephews never go to gigs in their hometown but will trek to That London to watch a Big Artiste.

I almost myself into building a Valve amp recently. You remember valves. They look like cola bottles with small electric heaters inside. Anyway, contacted Michael at Modulus Amps and go a reply that went something lie this: We have the golden bottom kit and the tweed bassman kit, they are both 50w amps that are really most famous for guitar use as 50W is not really considered enough for gigging with a bass unless you are playing motorhead. There will be a 100w bass in the future. So I asked for more info, the reply came back: Hi John, Here are the links. https://modulusamplification.com/golden-bottom--bass-amp-kit----50w-output-8675-p.asp https://modulusamplification.com/tweed-bassman-5f6a-style-kit----35watt-output-3170-p.asp The Golden bottom amp can be fitted into the small box or compact head cabs. https://modulusamplification.com/jtm45-style-cabinet---black---made-in-the-uk-3057-p.asp https://modulusamplification.com/compact-50w-plexi-head-cabinet---made-in-the-uk-8705-p.asp The bassman amp is normally fitted into a combo that could be mounted into a large head too Keeping to the two power valve option on these, we could make the transformers suitable for two 6550 or KT88 which will give more power. Also if someone was interested in the 100w amps, most of our kits develop from people ordering a kit and then us putting it all together for them. Takes a little longer but has always worked out. I would love to do an Ampeg based kit at some stage, but that will not happen in the next 12 months unless someone puts coin down. The problem with higher powered bass amps is the iron and the valves get really expensive fast. So get in touch with Michael if you want to build a better bass amp.

This gentleman came around last night to buy an electro-acoustic bass guitar from me. A pleasure to deal with in the normal tradition of Basschat. He bought the bass, and also gave me a guitar to donate to a local youth project. What a star. Highly recommended.

The wealth will trickle down?

It's not "dynamic pricing", it's "price gouging". Blatant profiteering imho

It was the last night in the old dive , and it closed with the Sunday jam. We had sixty people up to play. It’s moving to a new location so we’ll be back at it when the new one opens. It will be several weeks , there’s still a lot to do there. I’ve been doing the jam for 28 years , and have been gigging in the old place even longer. Bittersweet night , hard to believe it will be gone. Lineup outside , packed house. Wonderful night.

From what I've read about it the band and their management get most of it, and Ticketmaster get the rest. What would be hilarious is if the venues hosting the shows who presumably agreed a price with the band before hand now demanded double the agreed fee due to 'market forces' and 'unprecedented demand'

Cheers Dave - it’s mainly smoke and mirrors though! My guitarist buddy is truly amazing - he can play anything from 30’s swing/jazz to heavy rock and everything in between and does lead vocals too, all to a very high standard. I just keep the bottom end nailed down and sing harmonies wherever I think appropriate- ‘Don’t fear the reaper’ was interesting, especially without laughing! The audience love us having a go at some stuff that is challenging - if we manage it then great, if we don’t then they laugh along with us. The main thing is to be creative with song keys - for example we did ‘Maggie May’ in ‘A’, ( with the guitar capoed up to play in a D shape) as my mate’s vocal range is nowhere near Rod Stewart’s!

On the copyright front, if you create an original work then you automatically have copyright. The issue is proving that you created it first - traditionally you would record the song and put the cassette/CD into an envelope which you would seal and send to yourself through the post which would result in a postmark with the date on it finishing up on the envelope. I suppose nowadays you'd just video yourself doing it and put it on Youtube.

Missed out on Oasis tickets? Don't worry, you can recreate that reunion gig experience at home. Simply stand 2 Lego figures at the far end of your garden, drink some warm watered-down beer, play a Slade single at 33rpm and set fire to £150.

Yep, I decided 2 years back that I needed to find something new, and answered an ad for an originals band. Met up with them, jammed and they loved my playing (I guess someone has to haha!), and I agreed to join. Within about 24 hours I realised I’d made a mistake, as the messages on the group chat went a bit weird. I gracefully bowed out as quickly as I could and then found myself being given the opportunity to join up with Katy Hurt and band instead, so it worked out great. I’m now with a group of people I really like, and get to watch/listen as Katy wows crowds with her voice and songs.

Pickup arrived! Custom order from Bareknuckle with aged grey bobbins! All in the details!