gafbass02

I don’t use an amp, but I missed having one. A few eBay bargains later and I’m happy to own this. Not sure what I’ll use it for though 😂

Standard pub gig stuff in Gloucester. Nice sound in my IEMs, no drama, somewhat of a squeeze this venue, but was just a standard pleasant gig evening. VIDEO-2023-11-05-13-13-56.mp4

I play a HH bass, it has switches for series/parallel/single, but I just leave it in the loudest, punchiest mode whatever that is.

I tend to get lots of compliments about my playing. I have no theoretical knowledge at all, (more’s the pity), I couldn’t play a single scale. I’ve played live most weekends for the past 30 years, in many genres at various levels, from tiny pub corners to no one, to festivals on t’telly and venues like the Apollos and SECC etc. I think what brings the compliments is that I’m fast and flashy in my style. It makes people go ‘oooh’. Often bands capitalise on it and give me solos etc (which I hate). But secretly, I know that I’m overplaying and that I’m playing the same basic stuff over and over in a ‘fast and flashy’ way - which makes me feel a total fraud. It is what it is, and I’m too busy these days with my new job to think about doing much about it. With age I’ve started to play less and more tastefully (I hope), but I know I’ve plenty of room to improve… One of these days.

Country and western and the Royal Marine band in my house. No bearing at all. In fact, my music making was strongly discouraged for a long time.

Maybe, it was a long time ago, and the first comment assumed I was so dumb I couldn’t tell when strings were dead. I’ve owned around 400 basses and have a pretty good grasp on what’s what after 30 years semi pro and pro playing. But tbh, this kinda makes me not want to bother contributing.

Well that wasn’t a very popular review then. 😅😥

It was ok, a local ish venue that was new to us. Nice enough folks and warm reception. Some of our lot travelled the 40 mins or so to see us. We used the in house rig and engineer, so I took a Headrush for monitoring rather than trust a stranger with my IEM feed. I’m Still ‘running in’ my new bass. It’s had a few ‘quirks and features’ which have taken some fixing, and at an acoustic gig this afternoon its issues reared their head again, despite it being fine last night. It’s going back to bass hospital for another check up next week. just noticed singer is missing in the bottom pic, which means it must have been taken during ‘figure it out’

Thank you 🙏:)

Private function in a cocktail garden in Hereford. Pretty fab night all round, small crowd of lovely folks, paid well, easy load in, good sound. All good Outdoors, but under cover and a pleasant, balmy evening. I used my new bass and was very pleased with it. It’s been a bit of a nightmare situation, but almost sorted. I might post about it soon, it’s pretty damning for a well known bass specialist retailer. Sadly the video was shot using a potato. VIDEO-2023-10-07-01-31-13.mp4 VIDEO-2023-10-07-01-29-00.mp4

I have recently gone blue. It wasn’t an easy ride, I’ll discuss more at some point. It’s pretty awesome now though. GMR soundboard custom 4

Slight change! Current effects situation: out of hand 😅 Left to right: small bass board for tight gigs, zoom B2.1 for rehearsals and acoustic duets, guitar main board (zoom g7), right of the mic stand are my acoustic board/guitar auxiliary board and finally my main ampless bass pedalboard. Behind them on the shelf is a defunct zoom g7, a large ancient zoom multifx, a zoom g10n, a zoom g-something or other and a zoom ms60b.

We only rehearse about once a year, to go over a bunch of new songs, after that it’s gigs gigs gigs. Last rehearsal was about a month back, was quite fun, I enjoyed the little Hartke kickback combo provided.

A dream bass of mine is currently for sale on here from Europe, but thanks to bre***, the charges and risks have just made it a no go. Gutted.

Played a Small stage in the local entertainment complex. Moving crowd that ebbed and flowed, was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours. I walked from my house in ten minutes with just a bass and multi fx and used the small ashdown combo that was provided for on stage monitoring. It was fine. Made me quite fancy owning an amp again. All in all…it was fine

Pretty much this, except I did get lucky for a few years and my crowds were into 4 figures, and I’m now 47. But otherwise, pretty much this!

My present ampless set up. Everything above the zoom is for my IEM line or to my Headrush 112s if I’m using them instead. Everything to the right is in the FOH signal chain. The blue switcher kicks in the eq with the bass cut for a royal blood song. The ABY to middle is simply acting as a link between the out of the smaller IEM zoom to my rolls headphone amp. A incoming pedal means that this will all be a lot less complicated and busy this time next week (hopefully).

Last two weeks with The Bridge have been regular bar gigs in three of our regular venues. All perfectly good shows, no major dramas apart from almost running out of petrol on the way home on Friday. Not much to report!

Another vote for muse here. Great player, cool lines, but just don’t ‘get’ the final product.

Also same. They don’t last me a year, maybe six months, but still worth it.

Three boards for three roles, acoustic/bass/electric guitar. But it’s not quite that simple. I use the acoustic board as an auxiliary board for electric and also have a bass fly rig in my kit bag in case of board failure. Plus, I have two boards for bass, a Pedaltrain novo 32 with choice of hard or soft cases and a Harley Benton spaceship 60xl. If I have a run of bigger venues coming up, I use the novo, if it’s smaller venues I transplant to the much tighter and not as well made Harley Benton. A couple of recent change means I’ll probably be moving back to the novo 32 full time though, which will be a pain in tight spaces!

Interesting, I so nearly pulled the trigger on one of these (to use with my sadoswky pedal!) but was put off by the neck protruding into the ‘slap zone’.