tauzero

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='417373' date='Feb 23 2009, 01:22 PM']...and yes, I'm sure most bands have been shafted to a greater or lesser degree. We played a venue for very cheap on the guarantee that we'd get proper paying bookings if we packed the place [and we did], but the good paying gigs never turned up - I'm happy to name and shame the 'Gallopers' in Bradford.[/quote] Yes, we did a cheap New Years Eve at the Greenlands in Longbridge, Birmingham with an agreement to another three gigs through the year, which didn't materialise.

Any song that's used in an advert, as they cut out odd beats and half-beats here and there to shorten it. Current example: Suspicious Minds, can't remember what it was advertising. Really annoying example - You've got a friend off the AA adverts. Tubular Bells - main theme. I think it's 4/4 with one 3/4 bar every other time through so it drops a note. In 4/4 but doesn't seem like it - Music, by John Miles. The first instrumental section seems to be in odd timing but according to the sheet music, it's 4/4. And it's always fun to watch people try to dance to it after they've got up on the dancefloor when we're playing the first slow section.

At very short notice - we're playing the Cardigan Arms in Moulton tomorrow night, er, tonight, Friday 20th February. Would be nice to see my fellow bassists in Northampton that I've bought and scrounged things off...

There's also Joe at Guitar Spares, next to Reverb on Constitution Hill. 0121 248 5867.

I'll bring a few Tsais and a Thumb. Also a BFM DR250 cab plus Superfly, and probably a GK MB150 and some headphones too. Or maybe a Crate Powerblock plus headphones.

I used to share a flat with the UK importer of the Megatar, [url="http://freespace.virgin.net/myron.edwards/megatar.htm"]Myron Edwards[/url]. I didn't get tempted to buy one though. It was quite impressive seeing him play one. One thing strikes me as really odd - I understand fanned frets on basses, but I would have thought that putting them on a Megatar would make the strings on the long side rather hard to play.

[quote name='William James Easton' post='398731' date='Feb 3 2009, 11:29 AM']Surley a multi stringed instrument of higher register is not a bass? yet we see Tony Levin (is that his name) and others on the front of bass publications/websites holding their favourite toy the Chapman Stick! And here i 've read a few posts and comments about them. In my view it's like me saying i play keyboards (badly) but claining it's still a bass of sorts.[/quote] It's worse than that. After all, a Chapman Stick is at least a lump of wood with strings on, some of which are in the right general area of tuning to conflict with a bass guitar, and you can play different notes on a single string by making the vibrating length change by fretting it (or fretlessing it) at different points. But far more insidious is the fact that inside these bass guitar magazines you can find articles on such completely un-length-of-wood-with-strings-on-like items as amplifiers and effects pedals. How on earth am I supposed to get a note out of a Boss OC-3 when it doesn't even have any strings on, eh?

The neck on the 5-string is a bit on the chunky side but the 4-string neck is very nice. That's a nice instrument, I'd have it if I had lots of spare cash, made more use of 4-strings, and didn't mind seeking Mrs Zero's forgiveness.

I'm pretty sure the first one isn't an Antoniotsai. His are generally neck-throughs - he does a few notlobs these days but not many, and they're generally J- or P-type. Bruce Wei is either an offshoot of Antoniotsai or a second outlet - the six-string neck and body is identical (except for the inlaying) to the Antoniotsai one that I'm making painfully slow progress in adding bits to. Top horn is a bit on the short side so I think it'll have some neck dive when it's done. Neck feels really nice though. Now I'm getting tempted to buy a Bruce Wei 5-string...

[quote name='mewsie' post='396887' date='Feb 1 2009, 03:06 PM']finally i can contribute to this thread! well... first gig last night... and the main reason i've been a bit quiet over the last few weeks. in a moment of sheer madness three weeks ago i agreed to stand in for a bass player who was on his stag do last night. which left me with 3 weeks and 33 songs to learn.[/quote] Congratulations, and welcome to the start of your addiction.

Agatha Christie must have written the script for this. For background, a couple of years ago I left the band I was with because it didn't seem to be progressing beyond rehearsals. They recruited the former bassist back again, and then one of the original guitarists had to leave through work commitments so he was also replaced. On Monday I got a call from the drummer of aid band. Their bassist had disappeared and they had a gig this Saturday that they didn't want to cancel - I said I should be able to, and asked him to email me a set list. The guitarist emailed me the set list - and in the email, he told me that the reason for the bassist disappearing (which they didn't know at the time) was that he'd died. They weren't sure whether to go ahead, but eventually decided it would have been what Ian the departed bassist wanted. So we arranged that I'd rehearse with them on Thursday. Cue snowfalls, which fortunately didn't cause any travel disruption on Thursday night, and all went well. The gig was at the Holiday Inn in Bromsgrove. Went down the M42, turned off for Bromsgrove, and found the A38 closed. After following a diversion I eventually got there, and found out that the road had been [url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7877648.stm"]closed due to a murder[/url]. The gig itself went well and I managed not to make too many glaring errors, aided by numerous crib sheets littering the floor (because I'd forgotten my music stand but luckily put everything in large enough type to read it). I'll be doing at least one more stand-in, as they want to do a memorial gig for Ian and asked me to play for that, whenever it is. The gig, incidentally, was for a club which the departed guitarist was involved in the running of and he was also got a guest slot at the end. So the entire band from a couple of years ago was briefly reunited, which was nice.

[quote name='hubrad' post='395690' date='Jan 30 2009, 07:59 PM']Hmm. I'm stuck with IE6 as I use Win2000 Prof - nice and stable but lost support from MS. They're pulling support from WinXP in a while.. anyone think that'll give them time to iron out all the Vista incompatibilities?[/quote] I think they'll have a job pulling support from XP. A lot of organisations are going to be reluctant to move off it. In business terms, there's no advantage moving forwards (in fact, there was probably no advantage in moving to XP from 2k) as all the flashy bits don't actually enhance productivity.

[quote name='Jimbo' post='395054' date='Jan 29 2009, 11:31 PM']Drum Key Radiator Key (???????)[/quote] One and the same, surely? I'm trying to rationalise what I carry things in but it's all a bit up in the air. Generally use an aluminium case and in it is Leads (instrument x2 at least and mains x2) Music stand light which I never use because the guitarist's got my music stand 9v battery 2B|!2B box Cable tester, unless it's on my desk Last 5-string set that I took off What I need to add are Crosshead screwdriver so I can actually change the battery on the Tsai if it goes flat Tuner, because I haven't quite got enough for one per guitar case and I have been known to turn up at gigs with two basses, neither of them with a tuner in the case Towel

I play the blues on a fretless Warwick Thumb, mostly above the 5th fret. But then I'm awkward. When playing duo I play melodic bass lines with fills to compensate for the absence of a lead instrument. Playing in a trio+ with the guys I normally do this with, we tend to weave what we're doing around each other.

[quote name='Buzz' post='394613' date='Jan 29 2009, 02:49 PM']I suspect it's IE8 being sh*t quite frankly, as there's a number of standards compliant browsers (FF, Opera, Safari I think, etc...) that work just fine with the boards. Sounds like a return to the days when you had to have two sets of code in a webpage, one to handle IE and it's quirks and another for everyone else.[/quote] Only now it will be three, one for IE7, one for IE8, and one for proper browsers.

[quote name='Fliplowe' post='392784' date='Jan 27 2009, 02:57 PM']I'm 28, go figure [/quote] You're their perfect age then.

"Mustang Sally". It's the law. I generally just have a little play around acoustically to see how they feel. Bear in mind that I'm not actually looking to buy anything these days (unless just the perfect 5-string fretless comes along for ten bob) but I'm open to checking stuff out anyway. I don't have anything as a normal piece to play and find myself struggling to think what to do, though it often finishes up being "Toccata".

[quote name='spacecowboy' post='390981' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:46 PM']anybody else got what i suppose you could call a [b][/b]wife[b][/b] bass? did you have the one and then let another in? How did it go? and are you still with her?[/quote] I'm quite happy to play other basses. I've never found one to touch my JD Thumb (which I've had for 21 years) or my JDised fretless Thumb in 4-strings, and ditto my first 5-string Tsai. I'm still looking for my ideal fretless 5-string.

Band 1: right-hand side because the guitarist and drummer were the founder members and the guitarist goes on the left. Band 2: no drummer. Band 3: next to the MIDI file player that does the drummer's job. Open mic nights: on the right, whether there's a drummer or not, so I can see the guitarist's left hand. I'm not bothered which side I go. I can play equally badly on either side.

Is this the Brunel chap you're all on about?

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='389609' date='Jan 23 2009, 02:41 PM']Seems I'm in a tiny minority then. Not unknown, I must admit. Position maintained and conscience perfectly clear though. [/quote] I signed both the noise level and the arms embargo petitions. While the noise level petition is not very soundly based, noise level meters are coming into more and more venues. Anyone acquainted with the history of motorcycle regulation, specifically the helmet law and the noise level restrictions, will realise that prevalence of noise meters may well lead to their becoming mandatory, and that prosecution of offenders takes second place to tightening the restrictions so that the obedient majority are penalised by the disobedient minority.

They did reply to me, but they were after someone younger than 51.

[quote name='BassManKev' post='378507' date='Jan 13 2009, 12:21 AM']its got a certificate, so looks like it could be. As said, its now obvious why fender reinvent the same bass over and over again and never think out the box...because this happens [/quote] You'd have thought that they'd manage to do a better copy of a Warwick Streamer than that. They've got the top horn looking like a semi though, so that's a good start.

There's the Ergo bass look: