bassist_lewis

Up until 2018 I was freelance so I played in dozens of bands a year, some as The Bass Player, but most as a dep or pit work. These days I have my own original band, a singer/songwriter and I dep with wedding bands. I now work full-time as a teacher, I manage to fit it all in because my own band is still in the writing/rehearsing phase, the singer/songwriter does a lot of stuff himself and we only gig (currently) a few times a year, and the weddings are deps or charted, so I just turn up and play.

That's a small bu high quality collection! the B:Assmaster is a beast! And the Deep Impact and Cali76 are highly recommended.

The Free The Tone Black Vehicle bass drive is probably the closest I've got to the sound of an overdriven tube amp. A great and oddly heavy drive, but not in everyone's budget!

yeah, that is much easier, though I still do quite a bit of freelance so still have to do a tax return.

I feel like we talk about going the other way a lot, so I'd like to hear other people's stories about transitioning from full time freelancer to employee. How did you do it? Was it difficult? If so, how did you manage the change? So this time 4 years ago I was a freelance bass player and teacher/community musician. Then, a few months later I started my teacher training, and now I work almost full time in a couple of schools, plus a little bit of freelance teaching and gigs. In many ways it's been an easy and successful transition. My income is stable for the first time, I can pick and choose the gigs I do, I can focus more on my own music, and I can realistically plan for the future (house, family, pension etc). But I'm still finding the transition difficult. It takes a lot of effort and conversation with my girlfriend to say no to a gig (she is very supportive of my gigging), and I still feel a bit guilty about it. I'm also about to give up my last bit of freelance teaching as I've been offered full time after the summer, and I feel like I'm losing something... or giving something up... it's hard to put into words. I worry about not being offered gigs (I have every Saturday up until October), or that I'll be forgotten in my local music scene (I still see those people every now and again). To be clear, I have no regrets about my choices. But the change is hard.

I bought the Micro Synth off here after years of um-ing and ah-ing. Decided to get one pedal to do the synth thing rather than 3 or 4, especially for the soul band I play where I only use it for 1 or 2 songs, and the octave is nice to have for the extra girth every now and again.

OG 3Leaf Octabvre for the win! Is that a standard size board or did you build your own? I'm getting a Noble later this year and it seems to make planning a board really awkward.

Nailed that tone

Thanks! 😃

We spent the last year and a half recording, mixing etc., and we decided to put it out today. Its on Bandcamp and YT, but won't be on streaming for another week (they don't tell you that at the start!). Thanks for watching!

My friend just spent £100 on a 6 string set of flats!

I've just re-remembered the Walrus Audio Kangra, which is a filter/fuzz all in one. The demos sound pretty good.

Built-in fx loop is just the ticket! Put the Diabolik through it and it's exactly what I was looking for.

I have a Chromatron so I'll try that. There's just something magic about the Moog though...

Dammit! The B:Assmaster is annoyingly huge.

I like putting a fuzz into an envelope filter. It sounds synthy and cool. but I've noticed that not all fuzzes behave in the same way, even with the same filter. My B:Assmaster is the best, triggering the filter in just the right way to get that distinct vowel sound. But any other of my fuzzes and it just doesn't quite work. Even my Diabolik, which is just a paired down version of the B:Assmaster, doesn't hit the filter in the same way. If I turn up the volume on my Jupiter it kind of works, but then its impossibly loud. Anyone able to give some insight?

I've owned and still own quite a few filters, but the my One True Filter Love is the Moog MF-101. It's quite limited compared to say the 3Leaf Chromatron, it's huge, it needs a centre positive power supply, it only goes up, it only has 2 attack settings, no decay control, its low pass only and its got a very coloured (though not bad sounding) buffer. But it just sounds incredible. Out of interest, is there a filter out that sounds like the Moog but in a pedalboard friendly box?

Yeah, they don't offer it on their website, I pestered them specially 😂 I'm really enjoying it, though still to try it on a gig. I would say that the switch on the OCD does a lot more than the switch on The Crook. On this it adds a bit of top end but it's not very noticeable.

I've added and swapped around a bunch of pedals in the last few months, the biggest change being adding a tuner pedal (always used a clip-on before).

Just received this in the post this morning. I saw it on the JHS Show about a month ago and asked about international shipping, which they said they couldn't do. However, a couple of weeks ago they emailed and gave me a quote and barely £100 later (that's including postage) here it is. It sounds great, does a really nice low gain drive but also gets really aggressive and almost fuzz-like at the top of the gain knob. To me it sounds a bit like an OCD but with the gain range of a JPTR FX Tesla Wolf. You can also dial in more low end (Lay Low) but so far I haven't felt the need.

Had the JMJ for 4 years, never had neck dive

I use big wooden hard cases for my amps so I put mine on top of those.

I've always been a bit miffed by bass players who take a second instrument to gigs. I've done hundreds of gigs over the years and never once needed a back-up.

I currently own three, with a fourth on the way. From 2015 to 2018 I only had one, my Callowhill MPB 5 string, which is still my main bass as it does pretty much everything. I got the JMJ Mustang and the Nordstrand Acinonyx because I liked the sound. Both are very different to the Callowhill, more unique and less versatile. The Callowhill is still my workhorse, and I used the JMJ for one band in particular for a few years but that's now folded. I just like having the option of different sounds for recordings or gigs.

I saw this go up the other day and was not surprised when it had gone less than 24 hours later. Proper beauty.