51m0n

Only ever seen the MM vid on VHS unfortunately. At work now - when I get a minute I'll dig it out if I can find it and give you the title. Sounds like a lot of your issues are to do with not using left and right hand together to damp strings. Do you play 4 or 5 (4 is waaaay easier to sort this out on IMO)? Left hand fingers should be gently curved and lying on the strings above (ie if you fret a note on the D string then your LH index finger can mute the G). Also I find that the tip of my LH index finger, even when fretting a note, can often just touch the string above and help damp it (so in the above scenario, my LH index finger frets a note on the D, damps the G, and helps damp the A). In the mean time my RH thumb is resting on the A to pluck the D, it is positioned such that the back of the thumb is resting agains the E (often firmly) - completely deadening that string too. Thus all strings are dampened. If you fret a note with your middle finger then your idenx can lie flat behind it dampening even more effectively. Take this to its logical extreme playing slow scales in one position across all strings using all your spare fingers as much as possible on both hands to dampen all the open strings as much as you can. Getting this all coordinated at speed takes A VERY LONG TIME The results are very clean though. Slapping cleanly relies on LH dampening even more!!!

Look, what you are talking about (strings ringing, slowness when switching strings) is normal. This is precisely where what I've been talking about (slow right down, concentrate on one tiny aspect and work super hard on that) is what you need to do. You dont need lessons, you dont need someone there to point out what is wrong. You need to be patient. You need to find the exact issue, using the technique I mentioned previously. You need to work slowly but with absolute precision and very gradually speed up. In this way you will find exercises that you target at exactly your weaknesses. You will build 'muscle memory' and familiarity with a way of doing these things that works for you and solves your problems. There is NO quick fix. No teacher will have a magic bullet or actually tell you anything else other than what I have said. They may have some stock exercises - thats all. Lastly remember that proper damping is always a function of both left and right hand technique. One without the other is never as good. DO NOT TRY AND RUSH THIS!!!!! Can you play the classic one finger per fret exercise at 120 bpm 16th notes cleanly. I bet you cant. I find it damned hard personally. Can you play 1 single note 16th notes cleanly at 120bpm? Can you alternate legato/staccato 16th notes at 120 bpm? How fast can you play 16th notes swung hard? 100bpm? 90bpm? Perfectly?? For a full minute? If you want to concentrate on technique, buy an exercise book to record your progress in and a metronome, and treat it like weight training. It will take you about 6 to 9 months in all likelihood, of careful managed exercise to get up to 140bpm swung staccato 16th notes for a full minute. Now try string skipping fifths, now octaves, now ascending scales in thirds, now scales on one string. Blah blah blah blah. You dont need a teacher to come up with exercises like this. They are obvious. You need to start slow. Record you progress in a book, get serious about commiting the time and effort. Dont do more than 15 minutes a day. Stop if you hands hurt or feel uncomfortable. Warning, the reason so few people get that fast and precise is because it is very hard work, takes a very long time and is incredibly tedious. The reason I mentioned Michael Manring's vid is he ignores music theory in his hand exercises and instead works all the permutations of one finger followed by another. Hence he can play anything in any position. If you arent getting anywhere in a year then you need some one on one guidance. Save £10 a week and you'll have enough for 10 lesson of an hour each with a top teacher. If that happens you didnt do it right...... Good Luck!

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='485205' date='May 11 2009, 05:23 PM']Like I said, I've a couple of Manring CDs myself, and to be honest I can handle so much of Victor's double thumbing until the notes get lost and then all you can hear is the clickety clack of strings against wood, then it sort of loses its point for me.[/quote] Yup that speed for speeds sake reminds me of Frank Gambale sweep picking extravaganza'a - 'kin rubbish w@nkery - STOP IT!!!

[quote name='AM1' post='484913' date='May 11 2009, 11:12 AM']Simon - hi If you don't ask, you don't get, so I thought it worthwhile to at least try! There's a guy that does free drum and bass lessons in West London, I've seen his adverts in the studio but I won't be back in that studio until later in the month. Maybe he's a serial killer though and the lessons are to lure his victims in! Anyway - yeah thanks for the really useful tips! The intention is definitely to join more bands in more styles once I can play those other styles more convincingly. I know exactly what you mean about funk, it's infiltrating into my fingers all the time, despite my best attempts to stop it! My fingers have got the funk! Anyway - a bit of diversity is definitely good to shake up the mix now and again. What you said about punk - there seems to be a really common misconception that punk is the easiest style to play - well it's as easy as you want to make it, there are some great punky bass players around that easily demolish that misconception. I personally prefer melodic punk basslines rather than typical 3 chord root note pick basslines but try playing flat out punk bass in that style for 4 hours! Not as easy as people think! I live in hope that there is someone who will give up some free time to help in my quest! Cheers AM[/quote] Hey AM, I hope you work something out! I've played enough noise to know punk can be very tricky - it was a very crude generalisation . My first band were very influenced by punk, Jon Zorn's Naked City, and all sorts of thrash stuff as well as funk and dissonant noise; but we had a flutist and two drummers so I don't think anyone knew what it was we played stylistically. It was very very fast and very complicated though so fast we never did a gig that lasted longer than 40 minutes! Just long enough to scare the punters away usually. You will get through this. If it works for you like it did for me, each style you get under you belt and each technique you nail will feel like another plateau, then you strive again for ages before getting up to the next plateau. It does take time. It is not always the case that more practice makes the time taken to reach the next level shorter. Often its practicing exactly the right thing in the right way for the right amount of time that gets the job done best. Working out what to practice, and how is very difficult to master. Break everything down. Easiest way to do this for pure technique and speed issues IMO, is to record yourself attempting to play whatever at a speed where you can do it perfectly. Now go to the point tempo-wise where its starting to go wrong and record yourself there. Listen and compare and take (mental) notes. Sometimes when playing you miss things you hear when just listening. Figure out exactly what the issue is. If its a string skip, a muted thump, your fingering getting out of shape. Now isolate that precise bit. Whatever it is, just slow down and only work on that part, very very slowly. Completely internalize that tiny part of the whole. This is tedious, but get really Zen-like in your approach. Over the course of half an hour by increments of just a couple of bpm, bring the speed up (you have a metronome dont you?). When you can get no faster go back down to the speed where you were originally going wrong and play the whole thing. Now speed up until you are fluffing another part (remember the recording again). Repeat until you are at Mach 10 and we all bow before AM1 the fastest most precise bassist on the site

[quote name='rslaing' post='485029' date='May 11 2009, 01:12 PM']Some real intonation problems there......................[/quote] You do know thats the parody dont you???? Just making sure!

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='485148' date='May 11 2009, 04:06 PM']You see, that's it in a nutshell, that doesn't do much for me at all, and I have a couple of Manring CDs. It's all about opinions. It doesn't necessarily mean anyone's right or wrong. I suppose we're all right. This is as much to me "self indulgent nonsense" as some would put it, as Victor's "slappity tappity" is to others.[/quote] Fair play mate, I wouldnt suggest its for everyone at all. I doubt anything out there ticks everyones boxes... Self indulgent it may be, but that is the nature of solo playing that pushes boundaries, if not its very definition! Otherwise we'd all be doing it and it wouldn't be pushing boundaries.... But its definitely very musical, and definitely pushing boundaries of what the instrument can be considered capable of, which is so often the argument supporting the VW stuff. And extremely valid for all of that. Personally I'd rather hear that and its ilk than another doublethumpathonic masterpiece. Not knocking Vic, but I think that whole side of his playing has been artificially blown out of all proportion. IMO his groove playing is fabulous, and in fact what he's best at. I love the Bela Fleck and the Flecktones stuff.... Interesting point to note, how many people have you heard or seen imitating VW's double thumping thing in shops, on youtube etc etc? How many have you seen even getting close to Michael Manring's stuff??? Which is better, I dont know, which is beyond your reach (and nearly everyone elses), well if you answer to the above question is the same as mine, then MM's music is significantly harder to emulate. Doesn't mean its in anyway better or worse in my opinion, but I do think its interesting. If everyone were ripping MM's stuff, would we all be whinging about the number of kids out there worrying about changing their tuning all the time rather than learning how to play the instrument as it was traditionally intended.....

[quote name='WinterMute' post='485103' date='May 11 2009, 02:48 PM']rofl No, don't get me started on over compression....! I've been mixing and recording in protools at -14db for several years, certainly since I started habitually using 88.2Khz 24 bit. My mastering engineer is Sean McGee at Abbey Road, he's always commenting on how much better for him it is to have mixes that aren't crushing the transients in the digital buss and already compressed to buggery. The masters I get from him are quite as loud as anything short of some "maxed to 11" pos, but they have space and depth and movement, qualities all but forgotten by modern production.[/quote] You have no idea how much better that makes me feel mate. Any time you want to shoot the breeze about this stuff and you are in Brighton gimme a call (PM whatever). A beer will be coming your way just cos you are fully in the industry and actively ignoring the louder is better hype

[quote name='WinterMute' post='485003' date='May 11 2009, 12:47 PM']Yeah, I guess thats what you get for playing rock and recording rock and metal for a living! There is a general inability to discern dynamics anyway, due to the over use of compressors in mixing, my point is that in the bassists I've seen who employ a compressor in a live rig they tend to do exactly what you suggest they don't, i.e. smash it flat with a very low threshold, tons of ratio and as much gain as the system will allow. Every note at exactly the same volume regardless of the input energy on the string. Guitarists do this all the time, although in my experience a guitarist will also know when to turn it off. Using a compressor the way you describe requires an understanding of the mechanics of the system, and some experience in using a compressor to enhance your sound, not merely bolster your level. Of course it's entirely possible to employ a compressor sensitively to support an instrument in an ensemble, it's done all the time, my point is that most players will stack one on the live rig and let it do the job that their ears and fingers should do, hence "lazy". Lots of players owe their sound to the compression effect to some degree, whether that is amp or effect compression, I wasn't suggesting every bass player who uses one is lazy.[/quote] I think bassists are their own worst enemy, I was into sound engineering from the minute I picked up a bass. Maybe I'm weird, but the first time I got into a local studio to record something (all be it in retrospect something utterly cr@p ) I was completely entranced by the desk. Went on to do several private courses on the subject and some higher education stuff too. Not to mention sound engineer for all sorts of people. In all the time since the first time I went into a studio I've only met about 6 people who could listen to a bass, and set a compressor up for it to make it do specific things to that sound without just stabbing in the dark. None of them were bassists predominantly. Guitarists are no better (often worse) with understanding compression. Compression isnt easy to 'get'. But a few hours of fiddling with several examples and a good understanding of the theory, and anyone can learn enough to set a good comp up for gain riding versus punch verses squashing etc. Most bassists use nasty comp pedals that have most of the controls preset to 'suitable' settings. These settings are usually pretty shabby, mainly cos they are average settings for average bass situations. They rarely have decent monitoring lights to tell you how much gain reduction you are getting, so as far as most bassists are concerned the comp isnt doing anything unless they can hear it doing stuff to the sound. Which usually means they have got the comp button dimed, which will be a combination of lowering the threshold and upping the ratio and makeup gain to staggering levels. Sure you can hear it happening now, it just happens to sound cr@p, chokes your tone (so more eq please) and kill your dynamics to a very noticeable amount. To me, thats not using a compressor, thats getting used by compressor manufacturer's marketing t("our product will make you sound great like Joe Bingbaldy the great bassist for WeSuck") and not bothering to RTFM or learn how to use the tool. Don't get me started on overuse in mixing - I thought I was as bad as the next for that, until I heard a recent mix from a friends studio in which everything was so unbelievably squashed I couldn't tell where anything ended and anything else started. It was an amazing sound, but not nice IMO. I like to get the bass and drums sat together, and maybe a rhythm guitar or two with a couple of group comps, bass normally with the drums. But nothing too over the top, just a tad of 'glue'. Same for BVs, and Lead vox (seperate comps though). Limiting in tracking is important (esp on drums and bass) but I try and mix without a limiter anywhere - then master afterwards. I know people who just ram everything into the red on ProTools with the safe button engaged and say 'Ta-daaaa loudest best-est mix ever' - sounds like cr@p though!

[quote name='WinterMute' post='484564' date='May 10 2009, 08:26 PM']I'll limit a bassist on the recording phase, just to stop clipping, but otherwise will attempt to reproduce the sound he already has (unless it's crap). If the player has no dynamic control, I'll suggest a compressor on his rig, I'll use a dbx 160 usually, if he has a preferred unit, I'll play with that a little, again it;s what the guy sounds like that's important. Compressors in the mix are an entirely different proposition, often they are employed to "set" the instrument into the mix, not to alter the characteristic of the sound, however a Urei 1176 or a Joe Meek Opto will give a good warmth to the sound. Rupert Neve's 9098 compressor by AMEK is my weapon of choice for hardware, followd by an LA 2A or a Focusrite RED5. Plug-ins can be a pain, but the Sony Oxford Comp/lim is very good, as is the standard Digi Comp/lim 3, Guitar rig and Digi'd 13 are good for a bit of tine shaping too. I used to use the 160 live, it's essentially invisible, there a decent opto-compressor in the Line 6 110, which I use lightly now. [b]What compression really does is makes you lazy in the observance of your dynamic control, and it robs you of the ability to use volume as expression[/b]. Now, if your in a balls to the wall metal band, that's irrelevant, and a compressor is essential for a skull crushing sound, if you're a slapper compression makes your technique a little more sloppy, as all those triplets will be audible regardless of whether you catch them. If your a jazzer, I'd think you'd want to be in control or every nuance of your playing, and automating the volume would be limiting your expression. I'm no jazzer though, and many jazz players I've recorded will compress at amp or pedal board. My name is Richard, I play rock, I use a compressor... [/quote] Other than the highlighted statement I think this is a great post. Unless you set a compressor to an unbelievable extreme then the statement:- [b]What compression really does is makes you lazy in the observance of your dynamic control, and it robs you of the ability to use volume as expression[/b] is hogwash IMO & IME both live and in the studio. You are saying here that no matter how light the touch a player could not make the result quieter if a compressor was on. That is not the case. With sensible/normal compression settings on a bass (even for fairly obvious or heavy compression) the player still has the ability to back off the volume from their fingers to below the threshold that the comp is set at. Since no one ever sets a threshold at -infinity db. It just is not done. Now anywhere below that threshold dynamic control is as if there were no compressor. Up to that threshold you have to back off by the ratio setting more than otherwise. In reality with any ratio I've ever used up to about 10:1 this is not even hard to do. It just takes a couple of minutes of playing around to find the required amount of gentleness to get the effect you are after. So you can in fact play with dynamics when you have a comp engaged, especially if its set to do some sensible levelling. Also the perceived loudness of a sound is not just as a result of its volume, but also its envelope and timbre and while a compressor has an effect on both, playing more gently will still have a huge effect on both even with a comp engaged. IMO & IME both live and in a studio.

The warehouse is down the road from the shop a little way. They can (and used to without too much hastle) go and get stuff from the warehouse into the shop. That doesnt go the other way though (obviously really) Their website as an online store not having a stock quantity is pretty lame for a retailer their size. But that kind of thing requiresa a level of warehouse competence, prcedure and software that I dont see them getting into anytime soon to be honest. The shop has always stocked a gazillion Warwicks, the chances are that they will have a BO T in there. Phone the shop before a visit to check, ask for Mark (he posts on here sometimes, nice fella).

Yeah, I think you'll struggle here for free. I would make one suggestion on the whole getting my fingers to be faster and so on thing. Get a hold of Michael Manrings old VHS video. He concentrates for the first 3/4 of the video on finger conditioning. He goes into a staggering amount of depth and provides a huge array of well constructed exercises. No they wont change anything overnight, but if you actually do them for 6 months you wont believe the difference they make! And they are very focused on not damaging yourself and good warm ups etc. There is virtually nothing he cant do with his fingers on a fretboard, so I'd say take his advice - it helped me no end.... As for a wide range of styles, thats not my bag at all, although I've played in many styles of music (though not jazz - bleeuugh!) and done fine, and can write a b-line to fit most stuff (my walking is so shocking that we wont go there), I certainly wouldnt say I can jump from style to style and be completely convincing these days. But I could at college (again jazz excluded) because I was in about 12 bands at one point. I think you need to really get into a band in every style you are interested in. The quick way to do this is to learn five songs in each style with as different sounding b-lines as you can find. Preferably the five classic songs in each style. Then go get the bands. Be that bass whore for a while and get in a cover band in each style you want to play in. It will very quickly get you good enough in each style. Other than that listen to a lot of each style. Have a week of evenings where you pick a style and work on that feel exclusively. Then move to the next style for a week, after going through each style a week at a time have a week with a different style each evening, then an evening with a different style each song. I did this to a certain extent when I was in college (instead of getting my reading and walking together I'm afraid) and it definitely works! Afterwards you can stylistically jump ship at the drop of a hat and be convincing. The ones than I think can be very hard to get right (and again I am not including jazz cos thats a world of pain in and of itself) are reggae and funk. Country is pretty easy to cop, cos the b-lines are generally really simple, and the feel is like a 2/4 halftime thing. Rock can have a lot of notes, or not, but the feel is generally pretty easy, its more often than not slightly ahead of the beat and pushes the down beats with emphasis on 1 and 3. Punk is the same but simpler and more aggressive - even more ahead of the beat. But funk and reggae are a real struggle for some people. Its the laid back thing and the syncopation. My advice is to immerse yourself up to the gills in the stuff for a couple to six months and learn all the classic songs you can find. Play along to everything. Eventually it becomes second nature. Some people do this really fast and some people arent convincingly funky ever, however hard they try. They can play funk lines note perfect and sound completely unfunky. The danger with funk and reggae is that they are crystal meth for bassists, I got into funk and never got away, really. Everything I write now has a hint of funk in it, and most of the reggae I try and come up with sounds like ska Its is a powerful addiction! If I weren't ridiculously busy though I'd have a jam and offer some pointers, but I don't do structured teaching anymore, time etc etc....

Vic is great in the early Flecktones stuff, I think he got the mix spot on on Three Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - one of my favourites. He is a product of his own success now, in that he gets paid to showcase - all the time - and every solo record has to be flashier to keep that income in to a certain extent. Vicious circle I reckon. Personally his solo records have never done it for me like Manrings stuff does. I'm not a huge fan of jazz, but Michael Manrings' Drastic Measures is just awesome. And IMO this is the finest solo bass piece I've ever seen (although its not in any way conventioanl bass playing) I defy anyone to say that isn't staggeringly musical, and taking bass beyond the role of support in a completely convincing fashion. And no widdly slappity tappity stuff anywhere, its mainly great big long whole notes over a drone....

Dunno what you all talkin' 'bout. Low action is where its at for me. Not such that it buzzes if I dig in, but I might get some fret noise, which I think is a really good sound. Having said that my digging in is where most people start.. High action just wastes energy, I dont like fighting my basses. I thought my old bass was sorted action wise till I got the Roscoe, but that has without doubt the best action I've ever played, its not just low, its incredibly consistent across the board. Personally I've been trying to play lightly and evenly for years now, and its pretty much just how I play. I do sometimes catch myself digging in a little more than I would like, but only if I'm not plugged in. I'm not in Gary WIllis' league on this and I dint use a ramp, but it just seems sensible to not waste energy or stress my hands any more than I have to (RSI is a real indicator that you are over doing it). I certainly dont have a weedy tone as a result though, its all in the fingers! As for slapping, well as long as the notes dont choke its fine. I've found that the lower the action the less welly you have to give it to get the same tone, and you can more easily bounce back with a low action than a high action, plus muted left hand slaps are easier, and sound more like muted right hand thumps if your action is low, which is a good thing in my book.

Totally depends on the song dunnit... First time I picked up a bass I was taught Hey Joe in ten minutes flat, and could play it just fine thank you. But its completely trivial. Now Rhythm Stick on the other hand.....

An on/off switch A mute button A gain A DI (Possibly) an FX loop But I want it to sound exactly how I need it too in any and all situations, and better than anything else, with no other controls at all, just automagically (hence I may not need an FX loop since it should handle that too) Oh and it must weigh less than a fart in a teacup (without the teacup) and cost no more than £20.00 inv VAT (with free p&p).

I would have to say an ae410 wouldn't I If you want it to sound a bit more old school, just turn the (fabulous) tweeter all the way down). I dig old school as much as anyone and this nails it for me. Its earth shattering for its size, and IMO sounds every bit as good as an HS410, and weighs significantly less.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='482010' date='May 7 2009, 02:17 PM']GILF? Give her time. Her kids are only teenagers. I thought she might be a bit up her own arse, but she was genuinely really, really lovely, and spent a fair bit of time with the choir backstage and in rehearsals. [b]A bit too obsessed with her own rack, but lovely nonetheless[/b].[/quote] Me too, I wasn't happy till I'd built bespoke interconnects for mine using only premium grade components and absolute minimum line lengths, seems completely natural that she would view hers in the same way to me.....

The reason its different is because its a shelving eq with a fixed db reduction that you sweep the frequency of. That is different from (most) passive tone controls (at least as described to me at college) as they tend to be a very wide bell that you apply more and more cut to such that the bell effects a wider and wider range of frequencies, but the center freq gets massively more cut (even though that center freq may be as high as 20KHz) Not sure how different the perception of the two is, although the VLE to my ears does tend to leave more detail in than my 4 string's passive tone control, that bad boy will send the brightest strings straight to tonal mushville without any probs.... I'm more than happy to be told I am misinformed re passive tone controls though, this is merely what I have been led to believe....

Joe Osborn - criminally neglected session player:- [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Osborn"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Osborn[/url] He played on some pretty massive tracks throughout his career!

Anyone still interested in the difference in real terms between 16 bit and 24 bit needs to read this fairly comprehensive study over at Recording Review forum. [url="http://forum.recordingreview.com/f18/bit-depth-wars-10872/"]http://forum.recordingreview.com/f18/bit-depth-wars-10872/[/url] Interesting stuff....

Having demo'ed Alex's Compact in GAK the other day (by pure chance) I'd atest to it laying absolute waste to any similar sized cab I have ever tried. Massive low end, lovely grindy mids, and enough top for clarity - really, I whipped the old thumb out for a bit of tasteless nonsense and the top was all there. Fantastic cab, if you want a one cab solution, and having heard what you like I would recommend this or even more Alex' Big One (has a smoother mid range, and hence even more clarity) and an LH500 on top of it. That would be you sorted, for ever (OK you could put 2K through the Big One if you wanted, but you dont need too). 'Nuff said.

[quote name='leschirons' post='480128' date='May 5 2009, 05:25 PM']This is really sound advice. I would just add that in this situation I would also get them into the easiest song that they would actually like to play. I gave a local young girl some guitar lessons a couple of years ago and her choices were all bands like Dragonforce so I was on a loser. Luckily, she was also into Greenday so we started with Basket case. It's all a matter of holding their interest and being able to achieve something no matter how simple although [b]you'll know how keen they are when you get to lesson No2 when you see if they've practiced or not[/b].[/quote] +1 and tp be honest if you are really lucky 5 out of 10 will have, and after 6 months 1/10 will still put the work in. Having said that, that 1 can make the rest worth while. I've been lucky enough to so far have 2 students out of I don't know how many who really wanted to put the work in, and they just improved so fast it was amazing. The rest of the time people improve at a much slower speed, and sometimes they never do. I once had a student for 2 years, she swore she practiced, yet she never improved at all. I told her mum (quietly and privately) that I didn't think bass was really the right thing for her (after 3 months) and her mum just said that she "enjoys the lessons" must be my animal magnetism, cos it wasn't bass playing!!

[quote name='wulf' post='476477' date='Apr 30 2009, 10:51 PM']Tonight I finished off my practise time by investigating [url="http://www.noteflight.com/"]Noteflight[/url]. This is a notation editor but with two big distinguishing features from most of the competition: 1. It is free to use 2. It is an online product which you access via your web browser. I found it relatively easy to pick up and it did everything I demanded of it tonight (rough bass transcription including some triplet runs and a couple of bits of text to mark key points). I have only scratched the surface but suspect there are plenty of things it can't do (I didn't notice an option for cross noteheads to denote ghost notes, for example, although I didn't need them tonight and so didn't look) but if you do like to write notation but find you can't read your scribbles back when it comes to use them, it is definitely worth a look. Wulf[/quote] Nice one cheers! You can definitely change the note head to a x just did it. But I'm not sure how I did it (all a bit hit and miss playing about with it at the moment) OK found it. Select a note, see the orange box with options, it has a down arrow on the bottom edge, click that - it opens up a bundle of extra options for that note including an x note head. Still sounds like normal if you hit play though....

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='480053' date='May 5 2009, 04:26 PM']Now that's an incredible skill. If you want to take this music lark seriously and make a living from it, I can see a small benefit in learning to read to an average standard, but a huge benefit in learning to sight read a gig. Its something that I will never be able to do that's for sure![/quote] +1 and BBC thats the most sensible post you've ever made I think - whats going on?

[quote name='Linus27' post='479931' date='May 5 2009, 02:19 PM']A lot of what you say is actually really really interesting. The point you make about dialling the VPF up is in your opinion what other amps are flat especially. I usually run my Ashdown and infact most amps flat. I hate mids and so keep things either flat or turn a little bit of treble and bass on or the mids down a little. I really do mean a little. When I plugged into the Ashdown ABM, I just set it flat and it sounded perfect right away. So its no surprise I liked the VPF filter What I should had done was tried the Little Mark with the Ashdown ABM 4 x 10 like you say. I think, the fact I was in there for 2 hours playing and had the whole room to myself, I kind of felt I overstayed my welcome. Still, I should had tried it.[/quote] Absolutely. To be honest I went through a whole mids epiphany when I got back into playing. I used to be definitely of the opinion that a 'little' scoop was always right. But since getting much better kit the mids actually make the sound for me. No I dont boost, but I run everything absolutely flat. And lo and behold in a band mix it just sits absolutely spot on in the mix in a way that it never used to. 2 hours to test out nearly a grands worth of kit (maybe more). No problem if you are going to splash the cash, being a t#sser if you're not. When I bought the ae410 Mark at bassdirect let me play for over 2 hours, we tried the ae210s against the ae410, we checked what I could get in my car, we went through about 12 basses that I wasnt going to buy just then etc etc As a result he's got all my custom for new purchases since (bar my rack tuner cos he doesnt do them). He understands that it is in his best interests to let you fiddle, let the gear sell itself to you - he doesnt really involve himself in that process beyond answering questions and offering advice when asked. As such he is the most dangerous salesman I know - visit him at your peril Fortunately most other shops dont 'get' this at all!