stewblack

Been playing for decades now. Big stages and small, theatrical to rock and roll and every point in between. 2017 the wheels fell off, lost marriage, home, mental health, work, just about all of it. Was lucky to have a family member willing to put me up so had a roof. Got a small pay off from the ex so she could keep everything and help ease my way into whatever awaited. Decided to embrace my 'freedom'. Buy decent gear, keep a vehicle on the road and get out there and call myself a musician. Took lessons, joined bands, started bands, depped in bands, placed ads answered ads. Gave it my all. This week the money ran out. I'm not earning anything apart from the occasional dep slot in a function band and the odd £50 here and there which gets eaten by petrol and rehearsal money. So I finally lived the dream, for a whole 13 months. Got pretty good at the bass by playing for hours every day. Learned I can improvise live to a good enough standard to get paid and asked back. Made some friends. But that's it. I'm going to have to get a job and go back to being a hobby bassist. Unfortunately at my age and with my checkered employment history, the economy about to collapse, and enjoying very unstable mental health, my prospects are not great. Perhaps I just left it too late. I did enjoy saying 'musician' when people asked what I do for a living, that was the first and only time since entering the workplace in 1980 that I've derived any pleasure from answering that question. But it was a sham.

My singer is obsessive about messy cables and so always brings a suitcase full of XLR cables and routes everything around the back of the drummer. Monitoring and effects will always be the weak link - obviously. Some folk favour the isolation of in ears others the little mike stand mounted mini monitors. I have one of the latter and it performs very well but you know what? I'm old school, I actually like a row of monitors across the front. Delineates my space from the steaming hordes. Also looks proper somehow. I know I'm a dying breed, one day there will be no visible amps, no cabs nor cables or stands. It'll be different. Not better or worse just different. Not how I like it but that's just my taste.

I love it. Truly love it.

Some of my amps could not cope with the master up full. Rather they could but the venue wouldn't. The Orange Terror for instance. There isn't a setting on the gain nob low enough for that kind of caper. You'd need to employ a team of nano robots to ease the gain up to 0.01 and even then I'd want some acro props at strategic places to be on the safe side.

There is the third camp. Neither cramp nor poseur. Those of us who don't take ourselves too seriously and are just having fun.

Thanks guys. Knew you'd be there for me

OLIVES?? Why that makes me mad. Evil devil's food.

Friend just bought himself a bass. Rather nice Squier Precision 5er, and for a bargain too. It had something called a ramp fitted between the pick ups. Lawd knows what or why this chunk of ebony had been shoehorned in there but I bet someone here can tell me.

I suspect the mistake a lot of you more, ahem, sedentary bassists are making is assuming we're 'showing off' or 'trying to be cool' rather than just having fun or getting carried away. I don't quite know why what someone else chooses to do while playing bass should upset you in any way, or affect you at all really, but each to their own.

That is feckin awesome. I love the way BC has some people using computer design and cutting technology and others painting chopping boards on the cooker - both achieving similar ends. We truly are a broad church!

I'm intrigued by the anti slip mat and the velcro... I get the paint, the feet and can imagine a 1000 uses for any kind of sticky tape, if I didn't know what the board was for then I am probably on the wrong forum....but why two anti slip systems I wonder

+ While we're talking valves and ohmageosity, and indeed Ampegitude, would I be right in saying that flick the ohmageation switch on the back of my Classic from 4 impedences to 2 impedences and I'd be Ok running three 8 ohm cabs paralleled up via their in / out link sockets on the backs?

The cooker hob where I'm staying is the best lit place for pics too. Never thought of working on it though - genius.

I get fired with enthusiasm, go at it like sa bull at a gate, break something, lose the will. Not the right project for me.

God yes. Me too. Please God don't say I have to get a job

Missed this entirely first time around. Just read it all in one go. Thank you for replacing the final pics. I screamed when they weren't there. Talk about the video breaking before the money shot. This has utterly convinced me never to even try to make my own bass! But I love reading other people's stories. Bit like climbing mountains or being lost at sea. Fascinating, inspirational but I don't think I'd survive it myself.

What wine will you be having with that? Seriously though, looks great already, love this kind of invention.

I could have joined the challenge because the cash I've lived off this past 13 months just ran out. So buying new gear has suddenly become impossible. Then I discovered the joy of trading. Guilt free GAS satisfaction. No money changing hands. I'd have failed royally anyway - the money ran out because I bought an amp I couldn't afford and didn't need. I am so much safer poor.

She's right of course.

Beautiful

God - you'd hate to watch me. I'm always taking my hand off, flipping the guitar over, throwing it around, lifting it up. No there's no need, yes it makes me interesting/fun/cringey to watch (delete according to preference). But I promise you this I only do it because I'm into the music and I cannot stand or sit still while I'm playing. Obviously being the bass player I have a duty and resonsibility to be the coolest person in the band - I know that, but that doesn't prevent me from being a showman.

Apparently so.

I aired a grievance about an amp, and what I perceived to be a pain in the ar$e situation vis a vis getting it repaired. As a result I learned that the situation is not peculiar to the particular manufacturer involved but common to most modern amps. Once I'd learned this I shut up about it as no good could come of me moaning. I therefore don't say never complain, you might learn something. But endless repetition of well worn complaints achieves nothing except to increase the negativity in the world and we already have more than enough. Moaning because someone else has a problem is beyond pointless. You aren't even affected by it so why on earth are you taking the trouble to sit and type a negative comment on a public forum? It's like when someone posts 'I want to do X instead of Y does anyone have any advice on the best way of going about it' and the next thing you know people are queuing up to say 'I wouldn't bother, just stick with Y'. I mean, what is the point?