Lozz196

I`ve not got the Facebook/online details as am not a Facebooker, but do a look up for STP. Stu is a great guy, puts on bands oop north, and his shows are very good, he looks after the bands too, plus punk is his thing. We`ve done gigs for him at a good few venues, Manchester, Wakefield, Nottingham, Morecambe etc.

Ashdown are on here, send them a message, they should be able to advise: @Ashdown Engineering

It is a problem, and in one respect I think Jack has it nailed with his description. The only possible downside is then when everything is loud at gigs people might find themselves a bit lost but if you`ve put in sufficient practice at reasonable levels then this shouldn`t be an issue. We however only rehearse and write at gig volumes, but that`s cos we`re punk (for that read stoopid).

Yep, we`ve been together for almost 5 years now, have released 3 albums, 3 eps/singles, played festivals, done overseas gigs/tours, and it`s all still incredibly good fun. I think a lot of it is to do with age, similarly we are all 40s/50s with no illusions of being stars. As such with the ego malarkey out of the way this is the most successful any of us have ever been, probably due to it being a hobby, albeit a very time-consuming one, and primarily done for fun/the love of it. We don`t take any money from the band, it all goes back in to the pot to pay for recording, flights, ferries, hotels, more merch etc. This coming week we`ll rehearse Mon, then got gigs on Tue/Wed/Thu in Bristol, Manchester and London respectively. Later on this month we have another 3 gigs in 3 days, Stockton On Tees, Edinburgh & Doncaster. That`s off the back of releasing an EP at the start of this month, at The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. Were I to be in my 20s doing this I don`t think I would have appreciated it at all, probably would have just got riotously drunk at all the gigs (which is what I did in fact do at the smaller gigs I did back then) whereas I realise now that I`m incredibly fortunate to have my hobby enabling me to do all of the above. I reckon being able to do all of this in my 50s has made me appreciate it all the more.

The Liquid Room, with Dirt Box Disco

Well my main gigging bass is a 2015 US Precision, and I`ve found that that series are the best ones for me, so I have four of them, as such it`s unlikely I would trade in for anything different as simple-tastes me has already found the ideal.

There would maybe be a tone difference to having two seperate cabs which are more than likely voiced differently, though I`m sure with the flexibility of the eq on the ABM600 you could easily get the same sound as the 410 as with the 210/115. I`m not sure about volume/power - I`m yet to have to push the amp for volume on some pretty big stages when connected to the 410. I`ve also had it connected to two 115s and there wasn`t much difference in my regular settings.

That would be my first port of call too, for that reason.

Yep ABM all the way - in pub sized venues you might not notice too much of a difference but on a bigger stage at higher volumes the ABM shines through. Plus all ABM amps from what I understand are built so that they can be fixed/serviced by Ashdown, who are here in the UK, and who offer excellent customer service. I should add after that that I`m not affiliated with Ashdown in any way other than using their excellent products.

I`ve had the LMT and the LMIII - the tube in the LMT doesn`t seem to do anything until you turn it off, at which point you get a much flatter, less lively dynamic sound. Grit/drive it isn`t, it`s more like a shimmer around the sound. I must admit though, if I were looking at Markbass amps now I`d be checking the Little Marcus which imo has much better frequencies for bass than their other amps.

Out of the two amps listed I`d go for the ABM 600 EVO IV - it`s an amazing amp, incredibly flexible eq, very loud with a good presence. Re cabs, well I`m all about the easy life and I find one relatively heavy ABM 410 with good castors on it is pretty easy to move about.

I`ve quit a few bands over the years, a couple because playing gigs was getting on the way of me being able to go to the pub with my mates, and a couple because I`d just gotton to the point where I was no longer enjoying it. One I quit was due to we`d been a regularly gigging band that rehearsed all the time, and went to 4 gigs a year with 2 practices before each gig. As such we were a poor tribute of ourselves imo, so I quit, so did the singer, and from that we formed the band we`re currently in. With regards to telling the bands, well the beauty of e-mail is that you can tell everyone at much the same time, and deliver the same message so that it doesn`t get twisted into a he-said-she-said scenario. But before those days, well I just told the person in the band that I considered to be the band leader, and left it to them to tell the others.

For me personally, no, wouldn`t matter what the song was, or what context, the answer is no. Though Skank does raise a good point above, about Olivers Army, I`ve loved that song for years and until he mentioned it I`d forgotten about the use of that word in that song.

Yeah, because it was so unique sounding I didn`t want to base my sound on an instrument that if it got cattled, as per JJs, or stolen/whatever I`d never be able to recreate the sound again, so moved it on. A practical move but I do sometimes miss that bass.

The fretboard colour doesn`t make me play any differently but I do find that the colour of the bass itself influences my stage performance - with my black basses I`m more subdued, but when playing the white ones I tend to move about a bit more. Of course at 52 that really means shuffle around more on the same spot, but mentally I`m leaping and running around when the white bass is on.

I know what you mean, Paul. I had a 78 Precision that sounded pretty much unlike any other I`ve ever had, I named it Ian Paisley as it just barked at you, was really aggressive sounding. Sometimes you get one that just has a different voice, for no specific reason.

Interesting short list. I reckon Duff is def in the offing, but Airbournes bassist, Justin Street certainly fits the bill. But when all is said & done, keeping it in the family seems to be an AC/DC thing, so I`d reckon that`s where they`ll end up.

Mine was a Kay EB-0 copy. Action about a half-inch, strung with flats, though I wasn`t aware they were flats til I broke a string, bought a replacement and said replacement turned out to be a roundwound. As I`d learned to play on flats wasn`t too keen on this new roundwound string, how times change eh. The high action was a bonus in my view as it gave me a good grounding in playing a not so easy instrument to play. Once I got onto decent instruments, well the world was my lobster. No idea what happened to it, up until a few years back I wasn`t sentimental about anything, now I`d pretty much like to have that bass back though that`ll never happen.

That`s why I went back to a heavier amp, WOT, on a bigger stage the difference is easily noticed in my experience. In pubs etc, where you`re all close up together not so much but on those big stages, with the amp pushed louder, well that`s when they stand up and get noticed.

They do in the RM range, I had the separate cabs in that formation - with the RM500 head - and they sounded very good together.

Agree Chris, never leave a door/tail-gate open unattended. I also do similar, the stuff I need goes in last/out first, and it`s that way for the rest of the load/unload.

8 years, wow, where did that time go? Great shame, only spoke to Si a few times on here but his contributions to threads were always good.

Def not US, truss-rod at headstock, no hi-mass bridge. Was a bit of a marketing mix-up imo, Standards were MIM, US Standards were, well rather obviously US. The new Player Series has taken over from Standards, so now we have Player (MIM) and Professional (US). Makes it a tad easier now.

Yeah I was hoping to get as near to it as possible but I don`t look at it as a bad thing, it just shows that I`ve already got the right kit. I`m just surprised that given how flexible the Para Driver is, there aren`t more bassists using them. Still, I never said I was normal.....