stewblack

I too returned to the bass and thence to Basschat recently. I haven't actually been reduced to begging in the street but every available penny I manage to scrape up gets spent here. Good luck not getting the gas..

Going to seem weird but I enjoy the Louis Bellson torture. Like others enjoy crosswords, I suppose, while to me they seem unnecessary, masochistic and painful. I found a YouTuber who uses the Louis Bellson torture method with notes and metronome and it's great for tapping along on your lap using your phone. Anyway Carole King is done. Just a week to try to force it into Musink (worlds clunkiest software) and I'll share it.

Thanks @TKenrick I am evolving a system but it's great not to have to reinvent the wheel, so I really appreciate your pointers. I use Audacity to slow songs down, repeat tricky passages etc. Also you can label sections of the track so I am breaking it down into its component parts but I haven't been listing the numbers of bars for each so that's a great tip

Just wish I could afford to pay someone to teach me. I work so much better to a deadline. Knowing someone is waiting to see if I'd done my homework or not is a great incentive

I have started learning to read music and it's taking me an awfully long time but I am progressing. I realise that scribbled notes, tab, homemafe e formulas for saving ideas, recordings etc were all attempts to do something better done by writing and reading music. I don't want to relearn a song if I've not played it for yonks. I want to pull up the score and get it down again really fast. Also learning anything is immensely satisfying and rewarding, and anything to do with music doubly so for me.

So you would learn the part first then play it to a metronome? Is that right?

I can pick out the notes, but then if I don't play the songs on repeat every day for the rest of time they drift a distance from my memory. If only there was a way to write out what I'm playing, that way if I need to revisit a song I can pull out a piece of paper and just read it. The muscle memory would soon kick back in. But what's this? There is a way?? I know never to go near tab (thank you @TKenrick ) because it is apparently the work of Beelzebub - so what about these here dots? Turns out my childhood piano lessons and some work last year from a bass tutor have left me with the ability to translate the dots into sounds. Result. So writing them is just reverse engineering this right? Wrong. Rhythm, note length, timing, whatever the correct name for it; this is where I've been falling down. So I've devised a sheet to which I add dots in what I believe to be the appropriate places. (Lots of slowing stuff down and chanting one e and uh two e and uh while attempting to split my mind in half, one to maintain this chant the other to listen to where the notes are landing). I share all this here with you good and knowledgeable folk in the hope you might say - wow, well done, that's awesome. Or slightly less of a massage to my fragile ego but infinitely more useful you might say, yes but if you do this this and this it's even easier. Here's what I made: Each line is one bar and the pink dots are where the note lands. The length of the gap tells me the value of the note. So far I'm nearly at the end of Charley Larkey's bassline from I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet by Carole King and guess what? Each time I come to an obvious bit (where the first beat of the bar is clear and unambiguous) I'm on the money. This includes tied notes across bar lines which have foxed the bejasus out of me in the past. OK so it may still be disastrously wrong but I shall laboriously enter this lot into a piece of software and play it back, the results should be interesting. Only taken three days to get this far. My respect for those who churn out transcriptions like others write shopping lists has passed through the roof.

Bloody brilliant. Again.

Welcome aboard. Prepare to need to buy everything ever made with any connection to the bass guitar. This place has bankrupted me more more times than my ex wife. 😉

Anyone gigged this yet?

I picked up a Boss syb5 in a trade recently. I has previously owned the syb3 but hadn't got a usable sound from it. The 5 is much better for the stuff you're after. Also the distortion into the octave and wah works for me but if you're really on a budget then get one of the Zoom multi effects. Not only can you build your own synth sound however you want it but you'll get a bunch of other useful stuff too. I gigged in a function band playing 80s stuff and used the cheapest of the lot the B1on for tracks like Lets Dance and it sounded awesome.

I tried it live last night but it didn't sit well in the mix. Maybe in a 3 piece it might have been OK but this seven piece has a lot going on and the sound wasn't quite right. Switched at half time to Comp In The Middle and that did the trick. More middly less muddly.

I have an embrace. I stabilise the stand with a weight from a dumbell slid down the shaft. I was ready to quit two years ago with the same problem. Lightweight bass, wide strap with bobbles to aid circulation has sorted me out. I did make a waist strap which worked like a charm but required extra strap buttons so extra holes.

One band I dep for does, my main band tend not to turn up much earlier than 5 minutes before we start so no time for such niceties and line checks, micing kits or soundchecks!

I saw a red one fs on FB the other day, didn't know they existed until then, now here's another one!

I'm looking forward to trying it a little louder at my next outing.

I recently liberated the TCE 250 watt amp from the 2X8 cab to which it had been attached. So I could pair it with other cabs and try other heads through the cab. You know the drill. Mucking about instead of learning new songs. Any road up, while in a fiddling mood I thought why not change the tone print (I'd previously had the SpectraComp installed) . So I went through a few and the TubeWarmth 'N' Comp is a real winner. A noticeable volume boost - I mean really noticeable - and a rounded, fat tubiness which is extremely satisfying. Oh and it's a flipping sight easier to use the amp when it isn't over the back of cab too!

Yep, those are the ones i was wondering about - do you use them?

Gosh. I actually understand what you've made and what it does. Everything beyond that, with the exception of the bit about hacksawing, raised the technical frequency to 45KHz, or beyond my thinking range. Well done and I love the name. Let me know when you're ready to sell them.

Thank you

I didn't know what a recursive link was, so thanks for that!