51m0n

Easy mistake to make, thats a 12" speaker and an asian leprechaun

Wow! Reminds me of the lights on the front of the Rolls Royce 20/25 at my wedding - absolute quality!

Definitely, Bob Babbit has stated that he and James Jamerson [b][i]both[/i][/b] got their big fat tone by plucking softly and turning the amp up The transient peak on the note is significantly lower in volume compared to the sustain level if you pluck more gently, that transient peak is largely upper harmonic 'clack', so plucking more softly and turning the amp up removes that from the sound giving you a far fatter tone. And your hands hurt less. What is not to like?

[quote name='BigBeatNut' timestamp='1342303878' post='1733144'] Count me in. Let me know if there's anything in particular from [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/113354-my-little-lot-iii/page__view__findpost__p__1044499"]this lot[/url] that you want me to bring. Andy [/quote] That Rob Allen Deep 5 fretless is very very very sexy.......

A Robbie The Robot jukebox?

If the mixer has a PAD switch on each channel then you can always turn thta on to significantly (-20dB is not unusual) lower the level coming into the channel...

Morris Minor? Winston Churchill?? 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps??? Tell me I'm warm....

[quote name='groovebuster' timestamp='1342186041' post='1731114'] wen i wer a lad y sat down got the key and went from there. now unless ur a jazzer and its just a popular tune UTUBE fool. some1s probly bin there. still using ur ear is never a bad fing. get root notes, get chords, get fiddly bits. wana take it further get melody and play chords. find relavent scales, learn over 2 octives then solo y ass off. [/quote] Errr, pardon?

Get hold of the track in digital form on the 'puter (rip from a cd, record 'live' from youtube, buy the mp3, whatever). Import it into Reaper, which allows me to:-[list] [*]mark sections out, and put notes in the sections, which can include lyrics to a certain extent - also allows section looping to become trivial! [*]apply very surgical eq and noise reduction algorithms to lift the bass out (ReaFir an FFT eq/dynamics processor is excellent for this kind of shenanigans) [*]slow it down, no really this can help [*]pitch shif tthe song up or down a few cents to get it in tune [*]pitch shift it up an octave, can sometimes help pull out the bass line a lot! [/list] Once I've worked it out, and written out the structure and any notes (if I'm feeling brave or deluded I mean even write some of the dots out to particular fills, but this is only asking for trouble as my reading skills are so poor), then it is merely a case of repetition, and reading the crib sheets. Interestingly I have found that reading the crib sheets and mentally playing the song is every bit as helpful in terms of gross structure memorising as strapping on the bass and playing it for real. Just dont do this whilst driving!

He has a point you know....

A friend of mine has an H1, its good, but it doesnt allow you to turn the gain down enough for loud rehearsals in small rooms. IIRC the H2 does, and the H4 does and the H4n definitely does, although if you get an older one you would almost certainly need to flash the device (not a difficult operation) to update the firmware to allow the input gain to be a fraction of 1. Worth double checking though! The H1 hasn't had its firmware updated to allow this (yet) - which is a real shame, since other than that its a great looking tool. Other than that, they are superb tools, and can easily easily fit a coupl eof hours rehearsal recorded at 24bit 48Khz on to a 2Gb flash card (I would still suggest you get something far larger though)

[url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/"]Zoom H4n[/url] Sounds incredible at recording all sorts of stuff. [url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/track-7/s-T7TIC"]Here [/url]is a recording of a jam in a rehearsal room on Sunday night

Soul to Squeeze - my favourite bass line of all time....

The Roscoe's B is immense, and very tight at the same time, its taken me a very long time but I now cant feel at home on a 4 string, and use floating thumb to keep things damped nicely ( coupled with left hand damping naturally). I have not had any GAS for rigs or basses since getting this lot - with the tiny exception of Sheps fretless 6 string Roscoe, which is the most sublime fretless I've ever played. Apparently there is a keys/trumpet player who would be up for joining in, I think that will do the icing job very nicely, although we'd also be well up for a scratch DJ too - in order to generate some very early hip hop type vibes. Of course none of us have any idea where to find a scratch DJ, which is a shame! Some of my favourite horn sections are trumpet and trobone - if we got that we'd be golden!

Proper bit of glass that!

Yes its my full rig (such a rig slut, can't bear the ones they have at that studio compared to mine!) and the Roscoe, fairly old strings for me, but it certainly works in context! Its really cathartic that free jamming thing, and the laughing at ourselves, our mistakes and each others mistakes (with no malice, just all the "doh" moments all round) was just totally energising. Thanks for listening!

Just for fun, here's a link to one of the things we mucked about with, it just kind of 'happened' as these things do.... It is just jamming along together, zero structure, or form, or chord sequence, and we are rather rusty, but it was so much fun! [url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/track-7/s-T7TIC"]http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/track-7/s-T7TIC[/url]

Cheers chaps! Vocal? We dont need no steenking vocal, we're too funky To be honest I'm not at all sure, no one has shown any interest in getting vocals involved, and I can see why, as soon as you get a vocalist there in lies the path to rigorous structure, since very few vocalists like waiting for the resat of the band to finish their damn groovey noise and get on to the chorus.... Some sort of vocal sampling triggered by well trained mice may be the answer?

Always always always test each socket and use an RCD. One of the 3 LED testers. Mine goes beeeeeeeeppppp when it all good, so you wouldnt want to leave it plugged in! Got looked at strangely a few times (esp by guiatrists) and have found issues on a handful of sockets in the last two or three years in pubs of varying states of decrepitude. When it finds a fault jsut before someone plugs their kit in that shuts them the f*** up sharpish!

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....