fretmeister

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFLB1L-Pqqo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

They look lovely!

https://www.gallien-krueger.com/rb-legacy

I really like the look of that.

8 hours ago, Peaty said:

It's the body shape that I find uncomfortable, the split pick up is totally fine.

 

'possible can of worms alert'

Does the split pickup configuration (normal vs reversed) have any meaningful effect on the tone?

I think so, it can reduce a little low flub just by having the EA coil further back.

57 minutes ago, TorturedSaints said:

This thread seems to explain why I found it so difficult to find a replacement for myself!  As I posted in another thread here a few weeks ago:

 

It looks like from all the comments above that it’s a bit of a niche “ask” 😀

That sounds fun to me.... but it's about 400 miles away!  

2 hours ago, solo4652 said:

Update:  After another rehearsal with the orchestra, I've decided it's not for me. Fish out of water. I asked for the rehearsal tracks and bass tabs for the last rehearsal to be sent in advance so I could practise at home. Some arrived, some didn't, which was frustrating. Also, to my ears, many of the backing tracks for rock songs really did not sound much like the original rock songs. They sounded like - errmm - an orchestra playing a rock song. All of that, together with my complete absence of experience of playing with an orchestra, meant it was clearly not the right place for me.

 

A drummer friend has contacted me about setting up a pop/soul/funk band from scratch. Drummer, bassist (me), keys player already in place, with a couple of female singers showing interest. Now then - that's my scene... 

That's what most community orchestras are like - they often get a wide range of instruments to deal with - lots of them brass or reed instruments so they naturally end up sounding like an orchestra or a jazz big band.

I still remember my first rehearsal with one - a jazz band. Seven Nation Army to start - nice and easy even though it was in a different key.

Then it was Stevie Wonder (in a different key and with a completely jazzed up middle section) and things started to fall apart. Not helped by the look I got from an 11 year old (yes, really) trumpet player who was already Grade 8 and looking to study at a conservatoire already.

I finally quit last summer after a total of 12 years there in different ensembles, with about 7 years in the Jazz Band.

I learned a huge amount. I only started because my kids wanted to attend and it wasn't worth driving home and then back again to collect them.

On 20/01/2025 at 23:46, Stub Mandrel said:

 

I cropped the page quite a lot. All the missing information is on the original.

 

Most sight readers would struggle to interpret 'Portrait of Tracey' with all the notes played as harmonics.

 

To me the shortcomings of tab are lack of key information and not making chord inversions obvious.

 

As I am incapable of retaining anysight reading skills for more than a day or so, I will make the best of tab. Sadly most tab is inaccurate (but then so are many of the traditional scores for bass I have painstakingly worked out a note at a time).

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - until it becomes a genuine second language it needs practice every day. It's a perishable skill.

But so is reading English if you have enough time away from it.

It's also why any teacher will say "10 minutes a day" rather than 3 hours on a Saturday. 10 mins a day is only 70 mins a week, but it is far more effective doing short daily practice so the brain gets programmed with it properly.

On 20/01/2025 at 23:48, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Just search round. Both tabs are out there. The main riff is a doddle it's the chorus that's trickier.

I know - I bought the book in about 2004/5 as I was going to a jam night and one of the scratch bands wanted to do it and it was quicker than transcribing it myself.

Wasn't as many tab sites 20 years ago!

1 hour ago, neepheid said:

 

I'm in two minds about this.  On the one hand, I have sympathy and can understand the frustration of being thwarted by the omission of such a tiny, yet crucial part.  On the other hand, I am also in the waiting room for a bitsa (I'm actually waiting for the cheapo donor bass to arrive - been on backorder since September last year!) and I took the time to make sure I had all the parts I needed ordered before the end of the year, so why did I bother?

 

Is this your first bitsa?  No spares box?  Nothing you can pinch from some other poor unfortunate project?

It is my first bitsa.

I don't have any string trees that aren't already on basses.

2 hours ago, edstraker123 said:

Yes Bax is in the Netherlands - you do wonder how they can be so cheap given there is no futher duty to pay when the goods arrive - or maybe we are just being rinsed by the UK retailers.

Andertons have till Tuesday to sort my issue out - I've bought a lot off them previously without any issue so hopefully they will resolve it before then given they had promised to do so- I've emailed them this morning asking for an update.

There's no further duty to pay because it's already included in the price. 

If you paid with a credit card or paypal, get them involved.

Question!

I am in the process of assembling a parts bass for which all the parts were purchased last year.

However... I forgot to buy a string tree wotsit for the headstock. 

If I buy one (for about £4) would that be a breach? I notice the grey area bit on Page 1 about parts for bitsas.

3 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

Is it a decent weight? 

Probably only 32.8 KG!  

2 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

Well, you know it must be on a fretless instrument as you've got to play at fret 3.2 and fret 2.4. Some sort of microtonal experiment then.

Or maybe fretless because of some sort of weird offset tuning system. Like the Buzz Feiten thing that was popular for 5 minutes.

3 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

Challenge accepted:

 

How many pieces of pizza can you fit in a trombone?

How many trombones can you fit in an oboe player before they (thankfully) stop playing?

That'ss a weird thing with tab. It limits the player to someone else’s choice of position playing.

I once bought the official Muse bass book and although the notes were right, Hysteria’s tab was all string skipping instead of pedalling open strings. It made it much harder to play.

I suspect they used software to read the notation a human had written out and it just generated the lowest possible position for a note rather than considering playing ease.

Just before xmas.

Cheap stuff seems to be as quick as it used to be. Expensive stuff seems to take an age to clear customs.

I just spotted this thread.

It might be an Origin item that I really want. And it would be significantly cheaper than buying a Noble di!

25 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Really?

 

That sort of thing is rather rare.

And it doesn't look like it is in C Major so it's lacking a key signature.

I don't know why so many guitarists and bassists try to find often more complex ways of reading than just learning the system that every other instrument uses without a thought.

It really isn't difficult and despite the "don't learn theory - it ruins creativity" crowd, this is NOT learning theory, it's just learning reading.

We can all read a novel in our primary language without needing to know what the Past Perfect Progressive tense is or how it works.

EDIT:

It also doesn't mention tuning so there is no actual confirmation of pitch information.

And it doesn't have a clef so it could be for bass, or as it shows 4 strings it could be for violin, cello, uke as well.

On 18/01/2025 at 00:26, mcnach said:

 

Indeed, it sounds a bit... obtuse not to let you have those tracks now. It's NOW that they would really be useful, not later on when you've already familiar with how they play them 🤷

Maybe the boss thinks the OP is going to steal the tracks and then set up a competing band... organising rehearsals for maybe 20 people and dealing with all that admin....   

(I'd rather cut my own hands off!)

51 minutes ago, chris_b said:

Passive cabs for me.

 

If anything breaks or I want to upgrade, I'd prefer everything in separate boxes.

Me too.

I'm kind of looking at this as being a middle ground between a fully featured combo and a separates rig, and ultimately not doing either job.

I get it a lot more for guitarists using modellers more extensively.

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

 

Yes I agree - hence it's not for everyone as it is a cultural difference. Thus said some bands are a bit more flexible than others.

I do remember one occasion at a rehearsal where we were playing a big band version of Europe's "Final Countdown."

The bass part was crap and the entire arrangement lacked the feel of the original which had quite a driving tempo.

So I did something different.

The MD was all "what on earth are you playing?"

Me: "Exactly what is on the sheet."

MD: "No you are not"

Me: "I am - I'm just not playing the bass part! I'm playing the guitar part. It's on the sheet"

The guitar part is quite gallop-like. We then tried it both ways and my version was preferred, especially as at the time we didn't have a guitarist.

My formative years of being obsessed by Steve Harris definitely helped there!

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

 

This is so important! I make it very clear to every band I'm in that I'm not the right player if they just want someone to stick to what's written. I get bored far too easily and start experimenting once I've played something a few times! Of course iconic bass lines need to stay more or less the same, but elsewhere I start experimenting with different fingerings, different octaves, trying it on a fretless instead, seeing if a different syncopation works...

Surely the bass player in a big band type arrangement is the very definition of a sideman who has to play what is on the sheet?

If I thought of something that I thought worked better I always asked the MD so it could be tried at a rehearsal and then either officially changed or not. The last thing the rest of the band needs is for 1 person to improv unexpectedly and have them all second guessing whether they have lost their place in the tune!

1 minute ago, solo4652 said:

I'd like to thank everybody here for helping me to understand what's going on with these orchestra tabs. A lot of the confusion comes from me attempting to play bass in an environment  that I have no previous experience of. I naively thought it would be like playing in a large covers band but, of course, it certainly isn't!

 

This is what I'm going to do: I'll ask the arranger to send me the tab for four songs, and to tell me about any key changes. I'll also ask him to send me the rehearsal tracks for those songs. That way, I'll give myself the best chance of going to the next rehearsal and making a useful contribution. I can't sight-read tabs, so to be given a tab sheet sight unseen and be expected to play it there and then is not going to happen. If he can't/won't send me the rehearsal tracks, I suppose I could use Audacity to change the pitch of a standard YouTube recording for re-keyed songs to give me something to practise against, but that's not going to cover any new arrangements. The four songs would be: Riders on the storm, Baker Street, One Vision and More than Words (Extreme). There's also The Chain. If any of that causes any difficulties for the arranger, I'll most probably throw in the towel. 

Do not throw in the towel!

Nobody can sight read tabs - they are a crap system for sightreading as a fret number doesn't give any timing information for the note.

Trust me - 10 mins a day and you'll be reading Grade 1 in 6 months and those images you have shared are no more difficult than that.

26 minutes ago, Huge Hands said:

I play in a concert band (brass, woodwind) and like you, joined as a reading novice 11 years ago.

 

I found it is the norm for the band to hardly ever play in the original key of a modern piece - I would guestimate the majority of our pieces are usually played in F, Bb and Eb keys (1-3 flats). 

 

WIth the concert band, if you want to play along, the easiest way is to find a video of another concert band playing the same arrangement.  

 

I am guessing that your arranger may be trying to be clever and make their own arrangements for an orchestra, which means there likely won't be any other recordings, unless your orchestra has played it elsewhere before and been filmed/posted?

 

I wonder how that works with copyright?   As far as I understood it, bands like ours have to buy scores and with that comes some performance rights? 

 

I always I assumed that was why whenever you get a famous group medley (ie Abba, The Beatles. Elton John etc)  you either get one really famous one and a load of less famous songs, or the arrangements are so butchered they don't sound anywhere near the original.   I thought this was because it was too expensive for the publishers to secure the copyright from the original artists....?

 

I could be very wrong and overthinking it all of course....

 

Another one to watch out for with these kind of bands/orchestras - if original scores, you may get "tuba" or "basses" parts which can be written an octave lower than bass guitar parts.   Although I know what the notes are - I often struggle if sight reading faster parts and trying to transpose up an octave at the same time!

Re-arrangements of existing tunes are still covered by copyright / IP rights. They are referred to as Derivative Works.

Butchering just means the new arranger didn't know what they are doing, or they got instructions to do it in a simplified way or to suit a particular band make up. Hal Leonard has multiple versions of famous tunes. Sometimes only slightly different to allow for junior / senior players. and then sometimes for a Concert/Jazz band that often has bass/drums/piano and then another version for a Marching Band and so on.

Some of them are just crap even with the same publisher. The recommended HL version of "Sir Duke" is awful - the main run is barely there at all. Fortunately the Mossman arrangement (also by HL) is far better and has some excellent jazzy re-arrangements while keeping the normal progression of the song.

When you buy sheet music most of the time it comes with the right to play for educational purposes and on your own and in non-profit & charity situations. Just can't make profit with it. In reality they just don't care unless you are recording and then releasing it for money: There are loads of school and community bands on youtube playing Hal Leonard arrangements and they never get taken down.

7 hours ago, solo4652 said:

Arranger's reply to my request for clarification:

 

"The tuning is all standard tuning, no detuning needed. With that said, as I warned you, some of the arrangements will be different keys due to accommodating the transposing instruments and trying to give them a more comfortable key in which to play. I know you like to write your own tab, which isn’t a problem, but I’d advise looking at what I’ve given you so you get an idea of keys and structure. Once you've joined us permanently, I can let you have access to the Dropbox which has the rehearsal tracks we use during the [rehearsal] sessions."

Surely he could let you have access to the rehearsal tracks now?

A lot of the arrangements I was doing were published by Hal Leonard and they are on youtube and that was very useful for home practice .