mcgraham

Lol you guys crack me up Good read to wake up to! Glad to hear I definitely did the right thing. Regarding some other questions: - i was asked to play guitar (I do that at a similar sort of standard to bass) - the bass player is his girlfriend (go figure, no idea what she sees in him) - despite being the music guy for a gospel choir he isn't a christian Every time we've seen him he's been bitching about how you can't find the band members these days and 'this musician' won't learn the parts, 'that musician' isn't available when we want to practice... every person he has referenced has been a musician who earns a living from playing gigs and teaching locally. He is an out-of-work sound engineer with a lot of time on his hands who calls off practices at a moment's notice cos he got a job, or cos he wants to go water-skiing, yet throws a wobbly because 'you've got a prior commitment that night'. What bugs me most is not necessarily the attitude, but something some of you have already touched on. He is expecting session level professionalism and ability WITHOUT paying for it, AND without reflecting any of what should be expressed by an employer of such musicians. In fact, scratch that, what bugs me the most is that no-one pulls him up for it. Well I will. And have. What. a. tool. I will have no more to do with him.

So, played a gig or two last year for the gospel choir my wife and some friends sing in. Got asked to do it again, and I've had to decline and it was a difficult decision to make. I don't want to ramble on, but it's more complicated than that. Basically, the person in charge of the band is a colossal tool. I don't use that word often, particularly when describing someone who is meant to be a friend of me and my wife, but the truth hurts (not if you've got an ego that big to protect you of course). At the outset when I consented I was given an incomplete set list, I asked what he wanted me to work on first before a practice, and he informed me that he wants me to learn them EXACTLY as recorded and perfect them to a T before a first practice, otherwise what's the point. I say OK, when is the first concert? Obviously there's a lot of work involved perfecting a 20 song set list, I don't want to outlay all that time and effort if it's going to just be ongoing rehearsals for 6 months before a concert... particularly as it's a favour and i'm not getting paid. He informs me he refuses to schedule a gig until he thinks the band is ready. I've been down that road before and I think it's a massive waste of time... anyway.... Since then, he's had another couple of massive rants, expecting me to attend a rehearsal within a days notice, and insisting there will be no provisional gig til a practice. I've now been given an updated set list numbering 30 tracks, and he's not clarified which ones I'm meant to learn verbatim, create parts for, or ignore. I asked for him to specify, he said he mentioned this in an earlier email, I respond with 'what about the new ones' and his response his 'I've already explained all this numerous times in detail I refuse to do it again'. *breath* I politely informed him that I no longer wish to be part of his band. Sure it might make things a little difficult, but I don't see why I should endure amateurs with that sort of attitude, bring my level of professionalism to what he wants, for no money, no respect and no effort on his part. People like this need to be told to grow up and we need to stop tolerating them... 'oh they're just like that, leave them be' is not a valid excuse. In any case, I was wondering what you guys would've done in my place?

Good effort man. I like the sparseness of some bits, then sliding in at points. Definitely get stuck in and do some more. If I had to suggest one thing to have a think about is try to feel the groove - the ebb and flow - of the piece a bit more. Sure, artistic license and pushing and pulling and being free is great but there's a pulse in there that you can work with and around, so why not use it! Just a thought!

I'm pretty sure it IS in G. It's in Em, and the progression is from a piece in the key of G.

I'm sure he could! Just give him a call, that's his mobile number on the website. He's very into what he does and is happy to discuss lots of stuff on the phone - he loves it! Very helpful and knowledgeable.

Got a new amp from MJW Amplification in Derbyshire. I think it sounds sweet as, so did a few clips to show off the goodies. [url="http://soundcloud.com/mcgrahamhk/mjw-bantam-amp-clips"]http://soundcloud.com/mcgrahamhk/mjw-bantam-amp-clips[/url] First part is as clean as clean can be, then moderate AC/DC crunch, then saturated crunch. I can give settings if you want. It has power scaling, so every single one of these clips were done at bedroom/apartment volume levels. That crunch is all power stage breakup though. Recording was just standard SM57 1" from dustcap on-axis micing straight to Garageband. The AC/DC type crunch/lead is my favourite sound and could listen to that all day. What I love, even on the saturated crunch, is how articulate and clear the pick attack is on every note. The definition is never lost. Let me know what you think!

Need? Possibly, possibly not. Could you use it? Absolutely! Like someone else has posted, you can get by without, but how much better would it be if you knew where to look for particular sounds or styles, or how to interpret and reproduce something you've heard only briefly, or then incorporate those elements into your own playing? Why would anyone NOT want that? I get that theory is boring to some. But a good teacher should be able to make it fun and accessible. A great teacher should be able to do that AND incite an insatiable thirst to acquire and learn how to to use theory to your own ends.

I know I've been down the fast/complex/impressive slap route, and it's been invaluable as a learning experience. I now have a better appreciation of what is TOO much, but the practice I put into the technique means it's easier just to think about the music and contribute something tasteful. Regarding tasteful slap, I think some of Marcus Miller's stuff is good - his cover of Boogie on Reggae Woman where he does the melody with slap/more percussive bass is beautiful and tasteful (IMO). Lefty, regarding your student, I know exactly what you mean! People like that give creedence to the idea that knowing theory is a waste of time, because if you can do it you can do it.... and simultaneously gives creedence to the idea that knowing theory is a bad idea, because he couldn't apply it any more musically than he could before. I've seen a lot of bedroom guitarists develop amazing solo chops, but they lack a band to try out and experiment with fundamentals (e.g. rhythm playing, write their own stuff, tackle things outside their own comfort zone). I know I've been in that position - I had chops, I had theory, but it took being in a band and playing guitar regularly with that band (rather than bass) to glue the two together to get some decent music out of me!

Just spoke with Newtone strings today. Very helpful! They suggested increasing the core diameter on the bass strings to allow the string to remain roughly the same diameter as the sets I'd use on a 34" scale bass AND have more or less the same tension. Probably going for something like E - 0.100 A - 0.080 D - 0.060 a - 0.038 d - 0.028 g - 0.017 b - 0.013 e - 0.010

Congrats Shep! You definitely need some more endorsee T-shirts! Shep, is the board a single board with a riser for the Moog pedals? If so, how did you fit all the pedals on? Are some of them under the riser? I'm just finding it difficult to visualise how the board is laid out from the individual pics you've posted. I realise I can come round to the studio and look at the board to work this out, but thought I'd ask in case anyone else is wondering the same thing.

I had a problem like this with an older Geddy bass. It wasn't all that bad, but my tolerances for action on my basses is finer than most. My solution was to get Shuker to make me a brand new neck identical to the old one even down to the profile but with neck reinforcements. That was about £300 total, and that was about 2007/2008. What's great about that option is that you can tweak minor things you don't like about the neck to get something made that suits you a bit better.

I have some slight anti-GAS to get rid of stuff I'm not using and pare my gear down to the minimum. I don't have any defined GAS, but I'd like to get some dirt pedals (OD, gated fuzz) and possibly a smallish keyboard synth like the Moog Little Phatty II.

In terms of muscle tension mine stay relaxed. What that looks like for me is that they tuck under slightly. For some people relaxed will mean they hang quite far out, others it will mean they tuck right under - relaxed is definitely the best way, whatever that may end up looking like. Re: floating thumb - it may not feel instinctively natural, but - to be blunt - it is by far the most efficient technique for traversing the bass with your right hand (reasons discussed in numerous other threads) and it is far healthier on your hands and wrist than any other technique. Just because it doesn't quite feel natural doesn't mean you should just throw it away as 'not for you'. I appreciate that the bass is a relatively new instrument in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't automatically equate to 'well whatever works for you' attitude to people's technique... that's just plain wrong, at least from the point of view of what is healthy, let alone what is efficient. Sorry to be so blunt, I'm just weary of these responses coming up and the same complaints coming up time and time again.

Good good. Yea, GW advocates that having your third finger always on an adjacent string means it's really easy to move up a string. But what if you are doing (say) an exercise ascending your strings with two plucks per string... 1st string = index, middle; 2nd string = third finger, then either index/middle; 3rd string = third finger, then either index/middle... 4th string = third finger, then either index/middle... etc etc So now I'm alternating with 3rd and 1st/2nd where I'd normally just do 1st/2nd regardless of what I'm playing. This means you are having to learn to play strict alternation between multiple selected pairs out of the three... that's SO much more effort for little to no reward when all that time could be spent just drilling yourself on 2 fingers. This is why it's worth going for 2 fingers generally. Yes it can feel harder and on paper could seem less fruitful than multi-finger techniques... but the amount of work that multi-finger techniques require you could instead spend on 2 fingers and become a monster player. All it takes is going at 2 finger technique the same way you would go at a multi-finger technique - i.e. with an attitude of 'I WILL master this and I CAN be as fast as <<insert name>> using this technique'. I'm convinced it's psychological... the guys who went at multi-finger techniques invested loads of time and just believed the multi-finger technique to be infallible, hence stuck at it and reinforced desire to practice cos they believed they technique could do everything they wanted. if you take the same mentality to 2 finger technique the results are astounding.

Gosh you'd think I'd be more memorable than this! Shep, my W&T are both 33" scale length. TBH I don't notice much of a difference, and I'm pretty attentive to these things. You're obviously welcome to check them both out... again

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that using a third finger in general is a waste of time. What I'm saying is the way Gary Willis uses that third finger is inefficient. The reason he uses it is to always use it as an ascending finger for ascending to a nearby string... but it introduces the very problems it tries to solve. I'll give a more detailed explanation later, I'm a bit short on time right now.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/29644-finger-speed/page__view__findpost__p__958020__hl__hanon__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.u...__fromsearch__1[/url] Check that out. I started using and now highly recommend Hanon ever since Janek Gwizdala said he used it. They are piano exercises, and as such they are demanding on bass. Pick a few (anywhere from one of them to four of them) and get them under your fingers, then run them with a metronome. Start really slowly. Get your technique right slow, cos if it ain't right when you play slow it sure as hell won't be right when you play fast. Make sure to do every exercise TWICE, once starting it on your index finger, once starting it on your middle finger. Search for Gary Willis on youtube. Ignore the talk about the third finger, waste of time. What is important is to watch him talk about getting your next finger in position to pluck WHILST the other finger is plucking... that way as soon as one note is done you are ALREADY ready to pluck the next one, rather than then having to get your finger in position for the next note. Turns it from a sequential process to a simultaneous process. That + Hanon + Metronome = world class chops. There are other great routes too, this is just one approach but that will get you killer technique very quickly.

Stick with 2 fingers. I used four fingers exclusively for a few years (the Matt Garrison technique) and since went back to 2 finger technique on the recommendation (general, not personal recommended to me ) of Janek Gwizdala that 2 fingers can get you up to great speeds (e.g. 16ths at 200bpm), it just takes work. In the same way, the perceived speed benefit of 3/4 fingers actually requires as much work (if not more) because you need to be able to start each pattern on any finger... hence every exercise you do needs to be repeated for every finger you incorporate... Most people who say they use 3 or 4 have spent longer getting that technique to work than it would've taken them to get their 2 finger technique up to scratch... oh and it's never quite perfect - there's always issues to try and root out because of asymmetries between fingers.... therefore the fewer fingers you're using the fewer asymmetries and imbalances you're trying to address. The main pro of multi finger techniques (more than 2 at least) is that it is less tiring to play fast for long periods of time, but we are talking extremely fast flurries of notes that consistently go on for minutes without a break. I put in the work to have the technique to do that with 4 fingers (and 3)... but it really isn't that musical and you'll find you drop back to halving or quartering the number of notes you play per bar rather than mirroring guitar lines... In any case, stick with 2 fingers for now. There's some good threads on here to help you with it. In some ways it's easier, in some ways it's harder, but my experience is that the pros outweigh the relative cons.

Stunning basses... I can't help but balk at the price tag though. Not saying they're not worth the money, just saying that it's a lot of cash.

Does anyone know of any company that might make isolation boxes, custom or otherwise, that is based in the UK? I realise this is more of a guitar related question, but I'd like to know if there are any out there.

P - Jamiroquai's 'Runaway', or perhaps ToP's 'What is hip?' J - Miller's fingerstyle, on quite a few of his tracks on 'Silver Rain', e.g. Frankenstein, Power of Soul, etc.

Congratulations to Paul and Fodera! Personally, I think it'll be hard to top the sound of his Alleva Coppolo basses - they sounded stellar, both in general and also for what he was doing with Jamiroquai.