Dad3353

Just as 'eye candy': my bass...

Splendid; well done you..! Although I can already hear the feathers ruffling; in other topics here, how every string has to have its own saddle..! No, my Verithin bass hasn't, either, and my cloth ears don't pick up the difference..! Old school 'thump' guaranteed, I'll bet, and you'll not be doing much 'slapping' either..! Strings are a personal choice, of course; I chose tapewounds (Rotosound Tru-bass 88...) over a decade ago, and they suite the style of bass very well indeed. Just sayin'.

They laughed at Galileo, too.

It was a pretty daft idea in the first pace, keeping the 'C' scale as a reference, and ignoring the black notes. Once they became 'allowed' (by the church establishment, I believe..?), the notes should all have been given individual , non-ambiguous, names, so would span 11 notes (A-L...) instead of 7 (A-G...) presently. There are so many instruments that don't have a distinction (guitars, basses, slide trombones, chromatic accordions and harmonicas, plus all the violin family and more besides...). One would need to keep keys as such, for harmonic reasons, but not use sharps, flats or naturals any more, just the unambiguous note name. Too late now, I realise, but it was a daft idea, and a missed trick, I say.

OK, OK; keep the pulse, or syncopation or whatever, keep the bar lines, but play the notes at their written length, that's all. Why do they have to slavishly fit into this artificial frame of bar lines..? What, musically, would be the difference if a dotted semibreve was written instead of a semibreve tied to a minim..? That's the key factor for me, not the lines as such. It's the tied notes I don't see a reason for.

How does that work with tied notes, then..? What happens to 'pulse' there..? OK, keep the bar lines (although, as a drummer, I've never 'pulsed' with 'em...), but leave the tied notes out. If a bar is 4 beats (for instance...), and a note last 6 beats, use a dotted semibreve, instead of tying a semibreve with a minim over the bar line. Why not..? I agree (and wrote as much...) concerning referencing a place in the piece ('OK, from 152, fortissimo please...').

Think yourselves lucky, then, and make the most of it. But you do wear red satin waistcoats and bow ties, surely..?

Not an expert in the field (although our eldest is starting to make his own instruments...), but I'd say there's more potential in luthering than in a commerce, if you're any good with wood and stuff. There's a commercial aspect, of course, but I know what I'd be looking at in your situation. Disclaimer: When we bought our ruin cottage, I started up a TV shop in the nearby town, as the previous bloke had retired. I held on for three years, and folded it before racking up debts I couldn't honour; luckily enough we like potatoes, as that's all we could afford for nearly a decade. No-one has opened one since to fill the 'gap'. The 'market' shifted away from the local source to the box shifters. Lesson learned.

Not quite a rant, but a couple of frustrations which have 'bugged' me ever since I started to 'read' the dots, all those decades ago. I realise that it's been invented, and that it's now too late to do anything about it, but, if it was to be re-invented, there are a few things I could suggest to make it more palatable. Here we go, then... Accidentals. What..? I would have not based the stave on the key of 'C', but given one line/space for each note, right from the start. It's true I play drums, and read pretty well for that instrument. Do we have accidentals for a drum score..? No, we don't. There is a line/space for each element (snare, bass drum, hi-hat etc...). There's a simplification worth considering, no..? Yes, the staves would be slightly wider, but when one reads a note, it's that note, not a sharpened or flattened one..! Next 'anomaly': bar lines. What..? What, exactly, are they for..? If a note is to be played for a certain length, just use the symbol for that length. A bar line..? Oh no..! Now we have to 'tie' the note into the next bar, to get the n° of beats in the bar correct. What for..? Just play the length of note written, and the beat will take care of itself. I can see the point of having a numbered reference, for when the conductor says 'OK, from 152, fortissimo please...'. What other purpose do they serve except confuse things..? Play each note as it's written, the length that's written, and dispose of this extraneous clutter. That would get more folks interested in playing music from dots, instead of deciphering a redundant and out-dated code. There, I've said it, and it's tired m..... Zzzzzz Zzzzzzz Zzzzzz

... and I would have to completely disagree with you here. Just as with bands, there are good DJs and less good ones. Some are experienced in weddings and the like; others less so. I played weddings for years (on drums, mostly...) in the '70s, before discos came in, big time. Almost immediately, the bottom dropped out of the wedding gigs. The DJs were able to vary their set, add personalised requests, animate, afford a light show, and for far less than a decent band. There are duds, of course, and 'cowboys' doing indifferent stuff, but to say that DJs can't cut the mustard is just plain wrong, in my experience from the '70s, and since. There are very dicey 'wedding' bands, too. I would agree, though, for more 'corporate' events, such as dinner/dances; the bands doing that are more like Big Bands, though, often with podiums (OK, they're music stands really...), and an MC and mandatory formal dress code. DJs don't get those gigs very often.

Just for the record, my main guitar amp is a valve Fender Bassman 50; my guitar cab is a Fender Bassman 2 x 15, the speakers in there now are 2 x 300w Beyma. The combination works quite well.

In extreme cases, this could be true (a headphone amp trying to power an Ampeg 8x10..?), but for 'normal' amps and cabs, you'll be fine. I'll assume that you're aware of the necessity to always run valve amps with a load (cabs plugged in...)..? Fellow BCer OBBM knows how to make serial boxes for connecting your cabs at 16 Ohm (that's serial boxes, not cereal boxes..! ).

There's no problem in having bass cabs able to absorb more power than the bass amp can give. The opposite would not be good, but your combination poses no problem for either the cabs or the amp, provided the impedance of the latter is respected.

@petebassist Oh. (Disappointed ...)

@petebassist, so, which one is you..? ... ...

Nice to see 'em all dancing. Which one is you..?

@FinnDave Off topic, just to say 'Nice one...', having just seen your new avatar.

I'm not sure that I agree here. In 'my' first band (The iniquitous 'Martin Spicer Band'...), we did all of those things, and more. Innocence of youth, probably, and a great big dollop of naivety, but we did our first gigs with home-made, lashed-together gear. I played 'bass' on my Hofner President 6-string, for instance through a Watkins Westminster, and my brother's disto box was a valve reel-to-reel tape recorder, bigger than his Linear amp, all 30 watts of it. No PA at all (PA..? What's that..?). Transport was Martin's Morris Minor. We knew about five songs in all (although one of them was a very rambling version of 'Fat Angel' which could be stretched to ten minutes easily enough...). I fully understand that nowadays, one has standards to maintain, and have a stage presence, with all the correct names on the headstocks and a dress code, but it doesn't have to be so. Just put out whatever is ready to be put out, with whatever can be cobbled together. Hire a van, or minibus, if necessary; there'll not be any money in it, anyway, so make an occasion of it. One doesn't have to be as organised as a Pink Floyd tour for the first gig or two, so I'd say 'Chill..!' and just get out there, whatever. It may be just me, of course.

I can't agree with this (although I've not seen the Italian film...). 'Coup de Tête' is lightweight, an excellent comedy, played out with some very fine actors, especially Patrick Dewaere (RIP; too soon...). It sounds as if the synopsis you've read does little justice to the film. It's still shown quite regularly on national TV here; I must have watched it over a dozen times. Good Stuff, I say (and I'm almost allergic to most Italian cinema, so would be wary, anyway, from your brief description above...). Never mind; it illustrated quite nicely our little theme, though.

Allow me to recommend an excellent film on the subject (French, but available in English too, I think...). 'Coup de Tête', (1979...) written by Alain Godard and Francis Veber, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. I don't know how easy it'd be to find, but it's worth trying, I'd suggest.

You mean... Gasp..! You mean you knew all that anyway, but were just winding me up..? Why, you little... ... ... There'll be a 'next time', just you wait. How goes the expression..? Ah yes: 'Vengeance is a dish best served cold'.

Oh dear; where to start..? The pick-ups 'pick up' voltage because they are in a magnetic field being altered by the vibration of magnetic strings. The coils generate electricity, just like a car alternator, but less of it, which is why one needs pre-amps and amplifiers. It can be easily demonstrated by connecting the guitar output to an oscilloscope (so no amplifier...); the generated waveform can be easily identified and measured. If still in doubt or denial, look it up on t'web for other explanations. Nice try, though, I'll give you that.