51m0n

This is going to be stupidly long, apologies in advance! Been out of action on the live scene for a fair while now, spent a couple of years trying out for various bands and either didnt really gel with the people or the material (always one or the other, occasionally both). Basically I have become very very sensitive (hyper-sensitive) to a lot of the signs that I'm not going to enjoy a project, and with the best will in the world I dont want to waste anyone's time (especially my own) if its not going to meet some basic requirements regarding characters involved and the music. Eventually I all but gave up playing live, just doing the odd covers gig depping for a friends band really in order to keep the worst of the live performance rust off. This has even tailed off over the last year or so. Anyway I was mooching around on a musos looking for musos site a few weeks ago and listened to some stuff by a guitarist who had my ideal list of influences for a great guitarist and liked his stuff (as in hit the like button) and thought nothing of it. Alongside that for a year or so I've been chatting to a chap whose son goes to music classes with my youngest. Turned out he was a drummer, and his band fell apart when their bassist discovered he was effectively going deaf. Major downer as he loves playing. Now I assumed he was into far rockier stuff than me for several reasons. Out of the blue this guitarist gets in contact, saying he'd liked some of the stuff he heard me playing on myfarce (or whatever) and would I like a jam sometime. In order to make it more interesting I invited the drummer along - being that without drums its all a little vague for me. We convened initially 2 weeks ago at a rehearsal studio, all a little aprehensive (I'm as rusty as a old nail, truth be told, and the guitarist fella has done very little in the way of originals stuff). Over the course of a couple of hours it becomes apparent that we are all really into the funky groovey stuff with a bit of reggae thrown in. That we are all very rusty, but the feel when its on is spectacular right from the off. That we are all having a top time breaking the ice. Importantly there are absolutely no egos in the band, not one (the drummer and I had to insist the guitarist turned up a bit more so we could reaqlly hear what he was doing). So we decide to repeat this in a couple of weeks time to see if it was a one off, all of us feeling it may be a little too good to be true. This Sunday was just fantastic. Guitarist brings some of his ideas out, they're extremely cool, everyone wants to completely share the creative process, everything is worth trying, no one is doing anything for anything but the good of the groove. The drummer is absolutely swinging his pants, fabulous drumming, lots of space, and swing to it, without being too busy, sort of a cool funk meets reggae vibe, just incredible groove. And we laughed, and laughed and laughed at the sheer joy of making great music. We talked for a while about the creative process, what makes us tick in terms of writing and performing (note for note or lots of improv with structures - all that sort of thing). Got a really really positive feel for where we could take the whole thing, and discovered huge areas of crossover of stylistic infuences beyond the obvious. Now there is talk of a keyboard player/trumpet player who is looking for a similar project - now that will be the icing on the cake! I recorded both weeks on the Zoom, and listening back there are some interesting things, the drummer has really great ears, is rusty, but clearly very accomplished, and chooses lovely beats that compliment the people around him, really playing off people. His timing is immaculate. The guitarist has the sweetest rhythm feel, makes judicious use of quality effects, and has a delightful clean tone, and the little lead parts he puts together are exactly 'right'. Oh, and I absolutely love my bass, and rig, and tone, and am starting to believe that this could be really good... Just wanted to share something really positive

Sh***y death thats harsh You really are having some aweful luck with this aren't you!

My Roscoe is 007 - which I at least think is cool as f***

OK. Try this. Play your scales for a minute as a warm up with your amp so as to set your mind and fingers into their usual place. Fret the low G on the E string with your middle finger (as if you are about to play a 1 Octave G major scale). Pluck the note. Now, without playing any quieter with your right hand, start playing 8th notes on that low G and slowly relax your left hand's index finger. Make sure your index finger is right up on the fret of the G, keep relaxing. When you hear the note buzz, apply ever so slightly more pressure until it stops. Keep the volume even now! Thats a lot less pressure isnt it!! You have been wasting all that effort and working your hands far too hard all this time (prepared to bet this is the case at this point!!). Carry on like that and you will damage your hands badly. Now fret the A on the 5th fret of the E string with your pinky and repeat the process. Go through all your scales, really really focus on left hand pressure. It will take a couple of hours to go through several scales in all keys resetting your concept of the required pressure and you will have to repeat this for a good long time to come to stop yourself getting into bad habits again. Now try the same thing with a couple of your favourite grooves. Once you are happy with your left hand turn your amp's input gain up about twice as loud as it is now. Then play so softly with your right hand that you dont light up the input gain light. Repeat all the above. Now turn the input gain down to halfway between where you used to have it and where it is now, but dotn play any louder, and turn the master volume up to make up the difference. Repeat all the above but accent the off beat to just below the point of lighting up the input gain clip light. That wil be a lot more force than you were using amoment ago, but less than you have been up until now, and will demonstate the dynamic range you have available all of a sudden. Repeat the entire first half concentrating on the left hand with your new lighter plucking style and you will find you can use even less effort now you arent plucking nearly so hard. As a consequence you will be able to easily play faster, more precisely and for far longer without any pain in your hands or fingers. See if that lot helps!!

I love it when I hear people site how they use no fx at all because they like the sound of bass, and then turn out to be the kind of people who favour a tube amp driven hard over a solid state amp or a DI. Chuckles abound at the (oxy)moronic nature of that.....

It shouldnt hum, and it shouldnt be unshielded, it will be unbalanced however. A decent quality TRS insert Y cable should be sufficiently shielded that at the level it should be driven it wont hum appreciably. I'd be inclined to look at the lead and jack plug quality firest and foremost....

Your real name isnt Willy Wonka is it??

Phwoar, look at the soffits on that!

I didnt, no, I still have the same MB->Berg rig, but this was some friends of mine a while ago who were lookign for a rig. Yes they did go for the SuperTwelveT and the LH500, and I 've heard it fill several large pubs and keep up with decent PA's on a few occasions since. Fantastic rig, can't recommend it enough....

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/99358-lh500-%26gt%3B-super-twelve-vs-mb-sa450-%26gt%3B-bergantino-ae410-comparison/page__hl__super%20twelve%20berg%20ae410 May give some clues? Against an ae410 I grant you, but still interesting I hope?

Yeah, but it would have been well worth it!

No spare cash for this Have a superb gig Nigel, me old mucker!

NIce, I played there, years ago, a European Footie match involving England was playing the same night - not many people saw the band.....

Sheesh mate, you'll need to tell them about that, its all wonky!

Yup, one rig, one bass. There are 5 other basses in the house, one is an old backup. one is a db, one is a fretless (don't play that regualrly enough though), one is a Bronco - waiting fo rthe youngest to get big enough to start on that one), one is Plux's, oh and Plux's rig makes two rigs, and he has a ickle practice amp too.... But me, I have one bass, and one rig that actually see any action from me. Honest!

Damn Bakithi is just the best fretless player, best tone, best groove I have ever heard on fretless, its just so gorgeous isnt it.... Love his playing so much!

Fisheye - I think...... The walls look curved too (arrrghhh my eyes hurt now!)

Dayummmm that l;ooks like its really really moving along now! You've started tearing down the old control room? No going back now! Keep it up, it looks fantastic

Ha, I'm not angry at all Skank, I just dont particularly like bad research in a published article. Yes I have my own list, it runs to several hundred items (easily) and I could bore you all to death with it. I dont because I think everyone has their own list, and its all equally valid, however the minute you publish your list on the internet as [i]The List[/i] it becomes a target if it is not very adequately researched or backed up. And that is where we are at this point Having said that I havent really commented on a list article before, because none of them has seemed so utterly pointless, or bull as this one does to me before.....

And yet its ok to slate every 'best bassist' and 'best bassline' list published by some tool who knows little or nothing about bass? Interesting.... I'd put Quincy Jones in the list of greatest influences on pop too thinking about it.

Joe Meek....

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1340979795' post='1712387'] Lists is me all over, mate. I have lists all over the place. Latent autism. Seriously, though, they are all players I can recognise from about 2 or 3 seconds of playing. [b]Still can't tell a Precison from a Jazz, thoug[/b]h. [/quote] Note choice, phrasing, timekeeping, swing vs timbre, attack, sustain etc etc

I've got two of their Bantams - they sound great....