stewblack

It's difficult to quantify for me. When I was young the sheer energy and single minded determination I brought to bear were mind boggling to my elderly self. I would write and learn my bass lines for hours and, honestly, I listen to some of them now and I'm not sure I could even play them. Nowadays I play with a calmness, and an understanding I lacked then. Nowadays I can read music and gig songs I don't know from a chord chart. Nowadays I can gig in multiple bands across multiple genres. Nowadays I'm grateful to still be playing but envious of the crazy young thing that played his insane bass lines while leaping across the stage like a gazelle. A slim, young gazelle. With hair.

T40 with a dark board and in sunburst is one of the greatest looking basses ever made. Unfortunately they're reputed to be built in the same factory as the Russian tank of similar name. I like Retrovibe basses and the guy who runs the company is a lovely bloke too.

That's really useful thank you.

Superb review. Thank you.

I was pondering this in relation to one of my bands. It started with high ideals of interesting interpretations of whatever covers we chose. But over the years the inevitable conclusion is that as we play pubs and the odd private party, our set is evolving into playing what the audiences want to hear. Which is leading us into becoming very similar to a lot of other bands. Now I don't mind that at all. My job is to entertain people, I'm the modern day equivalent of the wandering minstrel. I'm not there to pose as an artist, or pretend I don't care if people like us - my job is to give people what they want. I need to get rebooked. I spent my youth playing original material to mostly empty bars, and now I get off on giving the maximum number of people the best evening I can. Luckily we have an extraordinary singer who can and does, sing songs other singers would either butcher or avoid. So the set has some real special moments despite the descent into the somewhat obvious set list.

Ok so we're being finicky. There are no music shops where I live so it's a trip to somewhere and Thomann being out of bounds I guess it's Bath. There is a musical instrument shop in Cheap Street. It has four basses in stock. Three under the price limit all Squires. So I guess I end up playing one of those.

Beautiful. Restrained, rhythmic bass line, perfectly complimenting a busy drum part.

Exactly. It's all fantasy and my fantasy gig is in Deutschland.

Harley Benton. Doesn't matter which one they all come out of the box in tune and set up.

Outdoor Bandeoke in a tiny village near Devizes. Well attended, well mannered punters, played a couple of tunes new to me which is always fun/hair raising (delete as applicable). Only real drawback was the mud shod members of the great unwashed tramping over my cables. Absolutely beshitted by the end of the night.

I did. In fact it was what pushed me over the edge, I ordered straight after watching.

Lizard Queen needs no introduction from me, any musician with internet access knows Josh Scott and his work. Great that EHX made one for the price of a cup of coffee - the JHS big box version was out of my range and sold out pretty darn quick. It's a great variable fuzz with a nice non warbly octave, which is actually quite subtle. Oh, and it's loud! It has a lovely glitchy old school sound when you dig in, is nicely responsive to both instrument volume and playing dynamics. I like it a lot. The Octo Nojs will take me longer to learn, but first impression suggests lots of sounds on tap. A fat, consistent low octave with a clean blend on one side of the pedal and a synthy modern fuzz on the other. Lots of tone shaping available and lots of fun ahead for me.

Bought from @Shepster8316 this week. I've been learning compression for a while now. It's been an uphill trudge but I'm getting somewhere at last. I quite like the Compressore from Markbass, also I have a few which seem to do very little to change any part of my sound, and some which are so extreme they hoover up a bunch of unwanted noise at anything beyond minimal settings. Having only played with the Clearcomp for a short time since the postie knocked this morning I can already tell a few positives. It's silent. It has a hugely flexible but very clearly labelled set of controls. It's beautifully made. It has a dry blend. I managed to dial in a pretty usable sound reasonably quickly, which augers well for the future. Oh and it has a multi coloured flashy light too!

Just bought a pedal from @Shepster8316 and the deal could not have been sweeter. Perfectly clear and prompt communication throughout, extremely well priced, fast delivery and excellent packaging. There is no way you could improve on this transaction.

Sure I must have done this before, but fun to see how it changes. Bruce Thomas James Jamerson John Entwistle Joe Dart Bruce Foxton Kinga Głyk Norman Watt-Roy Paul McCartney John Paul Jones Nile Rogers

Luckily guitar players are 10 a penny so you ought to find hundreds. It's finding the ones who want to work like you want to work. The best guitarist I've played with is like me, he'd rather chew through his own leg than waste time and money in band rehearsals. Imagine being expected to go to work , in your time, and paying to be there, because your coworkers needed you there so they can practice working. 🤦

Great thanks. Sounds wonderful

I know nothing about this pedal. Tell me more

Still waiting...

It's awful you would hate it

It's an interesting pedal. It kind of sounds like its name. It doesn't fit with much of what I play live but it's fun to add it here and there. I guess I use it something like a bubbly rhythmic auto wah. Ish.

Just ordered mine. Nate Navarro's video is a bit of all right.