Leaderboard

After more than 7-8 years, going back from big to smaller board

2006, France. Music bar. I'm depping in a seven piece blues band. Alain, the keyboard player, whilst technically brilliant, was a nightmare to play with. He'd spent the previous five years in a jazzy trio, drums, rhythm guitar and him so, he'd played all the bass, all the solos and couldn't help over playing. You wouldn't have even noticed if me, or the two guitarists and the harmonica player had left the stage. We got to the end of the first set. I unplugged my bass (active) popped it on the stand and went out front to have a smoke. The first thing I see is two feet, waggling, about 18" off the ground. The harmonica player has him pinned up against the front window, screaming at him in french except for the English words. " My fu#k#ng solos" 😂 I was told he'd left after the next gig with a "no time to really commit to a band" excuse.

I love MIJ guitars and basses I couldn't resist this, I was after a 75 reissue but you don't always know what you want until you see it

The Gulf Of America describes the space between the giant Wotsit's ears.

Oops, 2x10 also came up for £40 on facebook yesterday, right off my commute home... just need to come up with a suitable excuse for the gear abstinence thread... but I didn't know my 4x10 was even expecting a baby?

No good for me then. I've got deep (empty!) pockets and short arms!

Not quite the same thing, but if I gave any concerns about a gig... lighting, pressure to deliver, feeling under the weather, I make life as easy as possible for myself and take my Flea Jazz bass for maximum playability. My Sire P10 gets close.

This works too.

"The seller is a liar and a crackhead....." That's enough information for me right there.

Because this particular leader has a revenge list and is happy to use it instead of being an actual statesman.

I use Transcribe from Seventh String. It only costs about £35 so it is not expensive and it is incredibly versatile. I have had my copy for years and have been upgrading for free repeatedly ever since I first got it. Incredible value for money. You can slow stuff down to 10% speed without changing pitch and you can isolate passages to focus in on one note or a phrase etc. It's marvellous for those tricksy little licks that you can't quite hear at full speed. I could never have done half of the stuff on the website without it. Highly recommended. I then transcribe onto Sibelius which I have on a subscription for less that £20 a month (I can't remember how much). https://www.seventhstring.com/ If you want any Magnum tunes off Chase The Dragon transcribed, let me know. I loved that album when I had more hair. 'The Teacher' is already up there!

I skipped over to 5 stringers never to return. I tried a Dingwall in a store and that low B made me tingle. I’ve spent the last 4 years trying to get to grips with the extra string, extended range and fanned frets and I just can’t go back. It just feels right to me.

Just dipped my toes a bit deeper into the world of cab sim and amp sim IRs:

What is also a joke is posting while waiting for my pizza in an area with very poor signal.

Fender doing a 15% off sale today. Squire Sonic Bronco for £179. In 'ultraviolet' or 'lime green'. Unsurprisingly, ultraviolent is sold out, but slime green still available, if you like that sort of thing.

So glad I got my Mk 1 back in the early 90s (personal ad in the back of Guitarist) and my Pro2E back in 2001 (randomly turned up in a local guitar shop - both for about 500 quid) before the prices got silly!

I dislike the guy intensely. But, when it comes to the music business, he does know what he's on about, since Oasis did start very much at the grassroots level and work their way up. The problem is, they started back in the 90s when the old music business model still applied - the whole grassroots > get management > get signed > put out album on CD > tour > get lots of press coverage > repeat cycle. I'm not sure many people of his generation have acknowledged or adapted to the new reality of this streaming world. I'd be more inclined to listen to some of the younger musicians who have succeeded in the current environment.

...so I heard banging and commotion, came downstairs and lo and behold my Trace 4x10 had given birth to a healthy baby 2x10, a £40 lovechild from Facebook marketplace - I didn't even know she was pregnant and now have to find room for another cab to feed! I'm guessing blaming my 4x10s infidelity isn't an excuse to still be in this?

One of those basses very few know about. Sometimes I forget how good it is.

Having had my £350 Wal in the 80s, I knew I was never getting one of those again, since prices went into the stratosphere. That's why I had this homage built, which bears a vague resemblance to a Wal, late last year. With the multi coil pickups and LPF based preamp, it nails that sound.

Apart from 6 Music! They have Giles Peterson with obscure jazz on a Saturday afternoon. And Craig's funk'n'soul show is filled with gems both obscure and ancient. There's even bangin' choons for da kids with Jamz Supernova's show. Even during peak afternoon shows I've heard bands like The Residents, Goatgirl, Gillaband...

Yep, although I only have one bass now. It's still surprising to me how happy I am with it.

"The seller is a liar and a crackhead" possibly the finest neg ebay feedback I have read, I salute you user o***o, strong work

It's the kinda tweak ability that's great.... till my daughters decide to play with my pedals and move all the knobs- and then something like a SA atlas with saveable presets comes into it's own!

Duck Duck Go works well as a search engine and does not track you. I have long considered Google the evil empire.

i prefer p-bass to be honest

Looks like him. He was on the tour at the York gig last week.

I have just learned that Tamsin Greig plays bass in a forthcoming TV series and I may need to loosen my collar and lie down for a bit.

Why has the OP been typed as some kind of incomprehensible prose poem?

Any Zoot fans out there? I’ve somehow ended up with a nice pic of one. If there is a real fan out there I’m willing to post to them… Shame to just toss out…

Nine Loops for Nine Pedals. Edit: the mothership 2 lives in the loop of the T70. So it’s 10 for 10… 🎈 A Splash of midi, but mostly straight forward stuff for Improvisation and Jams.

There's currently a lefty on Facebook matketplace: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/905936938361630/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A30366b98-4455-4410-abc8-442daa1c519a It's in Portsmouth, and £400. Mike

All the things that have made it easier to be a musician/songwriter/band member have made it harder at the same time. Decent quality musical instruments have never been cheaper or more plentiful but that means there are lots more people playing music. Access to recording and video making technology is there for anyone with a computer and/or a phone (which is pretty much everyone in 1st world countries) and you can make your music available on all the streaming services for about $10 which means that there are somewhere in the region of 40,000 new tracks appearing on Spotify EVERY DAY. So while anyone anywhere could listen to your music, finding your audience and maybe more importantly your audience finding you is much, much harder. What could be described as current fashions and trends are far less important than they were in the 20th Century, you can be whoever you want to be, but that means audience sizes for all those different genres are much smaller. So these days it is perfectly possible for almost any gigging band to be self-sustaining, it is also far harder than ever before (and it was never particularly easy in the first place) to actually make a living out of being in a band, even if you are also the main songwriter.

You're on the money there. Herrick pickups and Lusithand pre. I had to sell my 1984 Ibanez to pay for the pickups, but I figured if you do this once, do it right.

There's always been "scenes" - groups of people who'd listen to certain genres of music, dress a certain way and have interests and personal/political beliefs in common with other people in that scene. Thinking metalheads, goths, indie kids, teddy boys, skinheads, New Romantics, punks, beatniks, mods, rockers, etc. They still exist, but one side effect of the whole streaming revolution is that, for people who actually listen to music instead of using it as audio wallpaper, they seem to have broader tastes these days. A lot of kids listen to a bit of everything and don't feel the need to partition themselves into a "scene". Anything from metal to R&B, to West End showtunes, to video game music. They just pick and choose what they like, and this extends beyond music, to fashion, etc too. This is a good thing since it means many of the prejudices that some of us faced for our taste in music is fading, but it does kinda dilute the influence a "scene" can have on attracting its own audience, and hence how many die-hard fans they can sell stuff to.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!

Epiphone don't like money it would seem. I tried to source the loom via a couple of dealers - one just said no, they aren't a parts dealer, so I aimed high and asked Andertons. Epiphone told them no, they can't procure it for me, it's for warranty repairs only. That's lovely - how do out of warranty repairs work then? Just chuck it in the bin and buy a new bass, yeah? Up yours, Epiphone! Anyway, I'm in bigger bother than that. Spied a bass I've always fancied, and the only thing that stopping me pulling the trigger is that it's in Canada and it's a bit overpriced. My powers of abstinence are weakening... if they drop the price (because it's been up on Reverb for 3 months) then I'm screwed.

@Greg Edwards69 1. Have you forgotten about Opportunity Knocks and similar shows? They've always been there and there have always been people who think that they are going the "make it". TBH once you stop thinking that then then you go from a vanishingly small chance to no chance at all. 2. Most of time there is nothing special about album in themselves. Most are simply 8-10 songs whose uniting feature is that they happened to be written and recorded around the same time. They only exist as a whole because the artist and record label say so. Besides IME there are very few albums where every single track is worth playing every single time you listen to the others. And in the days of vinyl there was no law that said when you reached the end of side one you had to flip the album over and play side two. The musical landscape has changed and it would be naive to think that the rules that applied previously should still apply now. My current band when we first started recording our songs made the conscious decision that we would release each one individually as a single because of this change. It has produced some interesting results in that one of our most popular songs is one that under the "old system" of releasing albums would have been tucked away on side two and been passed over by a lot of listeners. However for the last 18 months we've been continually asked when we'll have an album out, so we are in the process of recording one, although it won't stop us from also releasing singles at the same time. The OP was all about the lack of bands in the current charts. And as I implied in my previous post if it wasn't for negative weighting being applied to "back catalogue" the charts would be full of bands. It just that they would all be from the second half of the 20th Century.

Exactly. And they stay together and gel like a band over time. It’s not a thing just for the kiddies either. Paul McCartney has played with the same 3 guys live since 2001. They don’t usually appear on his recordings, but I think it’s a real stretch not to call them a band.

Not a van moment, but years ago played a largish venue in Huddersfield. We were in the dressing room, which was directly behind the stage, waiting for our time to go on, when the DJ came running in. He said something like "Alright Lads", pi$$ed in the sink and ran back to the stage again.

Oh, and the TC Electronic TonePrint stuff has the option of using some reverbs I believe?

A trio would suit me fine. 2 less idiots to fall out with, win win!

Ibby SR300 Passive P, Tonerider, Flats Body Mod by @Andyjr1515 🙂

Mine have been my shortscales for the last two years, which was a huge surprise for me. I traded one of my Ibanez MC924's for an Atelier Z Baby Z-4J because I had wanted to try one for a long time, but I really didn’t expect I would like it as much as I do. Then one year ago I added a Sandberg Lionel that I put LaBella flats on (which was even more surprising, because I had never liked using flats before, but the Lionel just begged for them) and it's just a ton of fun to play. I really enjoy them a lot! I have no place for them in my band (I play doom metal tuned down to low A) which really just adds to the surprise