KingBollock

I have two main "set lists" that I play through, each between twenty and thirty songs long. One is for my five string, the other for my four string. They include music from the likes of Willie Nelson and Garth Brooks to Amon Amarth and Bolt Thrower, with all sorts in between. I am not in a band and haven't been for a very long time. Of the nearly sixty songs in the lists, I have only ever played two of them (Megadeth - Peace Sells and Metallica - Enter Sandman) in bands.

I've only seen this situation once, and it wasn't a band I was in. They had just taken on a mate of mine as a second guitarist, as it was his first rehearsal and they were rehearsing a hundred yards from my house, he asked if I'd be there, which wasn't a problem because I was mates with them all (and they were thinking of getting rid of their bass player and were going to ask me to join). The new chap was eighteen and had just come into quite a lot of money, so he blew three and a half grand on new gear. This was the first time he'd used it outside his bedroom... "Dude, that sounds like a wasp in a biscuit tin!" His face dropped like a stone. But then the first guitar explained why, even explaining why it sounds better in his bedroom. He accepted this and they got together with the bass player and sorted out where they each needed to be tonally. I don't understand why this doesn't happen everytime a band takes on a new member. It has certainly been a part of each band I have been in, though there were never any insects in confectionary containers, only slight tweaking needed, if anything.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1450476239' post='2933290'] ... and pull your lightweight cab over (or pull the handle off..!). Go wireless..? [/quote] If someone's [i]that[/i] clumsy, perhaps they should invest in one of those padded helmets with the little propeller on top?! When I first started playing in a band I decided it was a good idea to make a lead that could be screwed into place. There was a collet thing on the plug that screwed onto a nut that was threaded on the outside as well as in that you replaced the nut on your jack socket with. But the lead guitarist in that band had the nasty habit of standing on peoples' leads (though never his own...) and he particularly liked to stand right in front of my amp... I soon learned that that arrangement was a silly idea!

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1450471226' post='2933240'] Absolutely. Wrap it once round the strap. Only problem is you may pull your amp head onto the floor if it's a lightweight one... [/quote] If you're worried about that, wrap the amp end around the handle of your cab before it goes into the amp.

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1450474442' post='2933272'] Because I wasn't allowed to play drums when I was 12. Had absolutely no interest in guitar (and still don't) and my mates dragged me to see The Hamsters in a local pub. The bass player had this massive trace elliot stack and a really scooped sound that shook the foundations. He grooved so hard and I just I just loved the sheer size of the bass sound. Job done. Next week I had my 1St bass. A week later I was in my first band. [/quote] I had the opposite problem, when I was twelve my dad wanted me to play drums. He had decided he wanted to manage a band and forced my three brothers and me to take up instruments. He had decided I was going to be the drummer, but I was feeling rebellious (a dangerous thing against such a bully) and didn't want him to have it all his own way (if it had been up to me I would have had a radio controlled monster truck). I was really into Iron Maiden and Motorhead, so bass made sense to me. I suggested it and, as he hadn't even considered the bass, he agreed. I still want a radio controlled monster truck.

Things got a bit complicated this year and I didn't do half the stuff I wanted to. After Christmas I intend on having a reboot and getting going again. I still have a few projects that I need to finish, but they're just utility pedals, loops and boosters and stuff, as opposed to fun stuff like effects, and I am having all sorts of ideas... I am going to make yet another Big Muff, with lots and lots of mods. I am also going to have a crack at a Tubescreamer (mainly because Jo Bench uses one and I already have the same amp that she uses, there really is no other reason than that...), again, modded as much as I can. Now, the reasons for this post... I want to build a couple of Zvex pedals, a Wooly Mammoth and a Box of Rock, but I know the Mammoth struggles with active basses (my two main basses are active), and I gather it is to do with impedance. Am. I right in thinking that it needs a higher impedance? Is there a circuit that I can put in the box, on a switch (so I can still use my passive basses and guitars) that will fix this? Also, while I am thinking about it... I quite like the idea of using a sliding pot for a blend control, for no other reason than I think it would look cool. I've got a metal cutting disc that will be ideal for cutting the required slot in the enclosure. The problem is that I have never seen a sliding pot that would be suitable and I am not sure where to start looking. Anyone got any ideas?

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1449736511' post='2926309'] Oh get over yourself... ... Your opinion is no more valid than someone who has never picked up a bass guitar. It's music, there isn't a league table of who is better than who. Different music appeals to different people... [/quote] But Blue is 62 and all he does is play rock and roll, at least once every weekend. It's all he does, he forgoes family and, apparently, friends, to concentrate on his music. Unless you, too, are 62 and have been playing for 50 years, doing four hour bar gigs every weekend, then your opinion is invalid. You're just a pretender, a hobbyist that lacks dedication. Haven't you ever read any of his threads? He lets us know that at least once in every single one of them, so how could you not know? Geez!

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1449651785' post='2925479'] I'm not [/quote] Nor am I and neither is my wife.

I would imagine it would depend on what kind of noise and where the muting happens. If it only mutes the input, there is a lot of potential noise making gubbins still connected.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1448823300' post='2918410'] I went to a large retailer's shop on Friday and would have tried one of these out but couldn't find one. However they had lots of other basses with funny things like offset contour bodies and four in line headstocks, none of which make any sense at all aesthetically ......... I think you're right et, many of us are probably playing far more ungainly devices than this!! I still can't help thinking there's an element of looking down the nose at entry level basses in this thread though I may have completely the wrong end of the stick!!! [/quote] I just think it is ugly. I also find the original Gibson and Alembics, that it is trying to emulate, ugly. None of my basses are expensive ones. The only one I have had from new cost me £200. In my life I have owned six basses, and the total I paid for them comes to £920. My favourite one is a BC Rich Warlock (which would have been the most expensive when bought new, at about £600. I paid £250, so it is the most expensive bass I have bought.) the shape of which often makes people throw up in their mouth a little bit.

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1448747764' post='2917904'] It looks pretty ugly but equally ugly as the Gibson it's mimicking to my eyes. [/quote] Mine too! I really can't stand the original Gibson. Or Alembics, which it also has shades of, for that matter.

I have always said that I wouldn't let that kind of thing discourage me from good music. However... There are two bands... One is W.A.S.P., after Blackie Lawless got Born Again and decided the renounce a lot of their earlier, better stuff and declared that he would never play them live again, I swore I'd never go to see him live again. The other is Megadeth. Again, Dave Mustaine got Born Again and started doing interviews spouting proper nasty, vile bigoted stuff. So I vowed to never buy any of his stuff again. I still listen to and enjoy the stuff by them that I already owned, I just won't be giving them any more of my money. It's not that they got Born Again, I listen to bands with christians in them and even bands that declare themselves christian bands. It just seemed to be a trigger in those two cases.

The only speaker I ever "blew" was a PA bass cab. We were doing a party for a mate's birthday and were doing it for free (even though it was a 320 mile round trip...). My mate was helping lift the gear in and dropped the cab. Not hard, it only fell a few inches and didn't damage the cab itself, just killed the speaker. (Carrying all the gear so far also took out one of the suspension leaf springs in our van. That damned party cost us a fortune!)

I was in a band that was the most fun I have ever had. We'd got rid of the guitarist with a huge ego who didn't seem to want to be in a band, he just wanted somewhere to widdle loudly once a week. We got rid of the talentless singer. A guitarist I had played with before who was mega talented and a proper lovely bloke just joined. The other guitarist and the drummer were also very talented and some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. I absolutely loved every minute of it from then on... Then I left. I had a massive upheaval in my life (that I won't bring up here) and had to move to another town. Since everyone always contacted me I had no way to contact them, I had no phone numbers and didn't know where they lived (one of them always picked me up from my house), and the last I had heard was that we had changed rehearsal spaces, so I couldn't even find them that way. I still miss it every day, and it was over twenty years ago now. About a year later I bumped into their new bass player, who also sang. He was another really lovely lad who I knew from school (he actually got into music and bass playing because of me). He said that the band talked about me and how well I fitted in (I shan't brag about the other stuff he said) and offered to stop playing bass and just sing. I didn't like the idea of usurping him like that and I felt guilty for leaving, so nothing ever came of it. Never found anything like it since and it's probably never will now.

Not entirely sure about the video, but everything else about it was bloomin' brilliant.

On my first bass I had a strip of Velcro (the soft side) attached to my bass and had little circles of the rough side that I would stick to my picks. It also made the picks easier to hold, so less likely to be dropped. For quite a while I played with a 1mm Dunlop pick that I had stuck a rubber foot from under a TV to. It made the pick feel thicker and easier to hold. I played with that thing until there was no more plastic left sticking out from under the rubber foot. For twenty odd years I played with 3mm picks which wore down rather slowly. Then, last year, I started playing with the Dunlop orange ones, which are quite thin (~.70) and noticed that I wore them out very quickly. So I got one of those spring loaded pick holders. I haven't decided where to stick it, yet, for best convenience, but it sits on my make shift pedalboard at the moment, which I keep on a stand a couple of feet high for easier fiddling.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1445873758' post='2894888'] on the subject of picks... I like to use big thumb picks but I easily wear them down within an hour of playing. I see Discreet recommends some long lasting picks but I can't find any nylon thumb picks straight from google, and searching through the music shop sites is a bit impossible. Do we have a "plectrumchat" or maybe an existing thread on here? [/quote] What about something like a thumb pick holder? It's a clip that attaches to your thumb that you can attach normal picks to. http://hardrockhaven.net/online/2013/03/chris-broderick-pick-clip-product-review/ I could never find nylon thumb picks that fitted comfortably and ones with a metal clip were a bugger to find, so I ended up just going with all metal ones. For the banjo that is, I use normal picks for bass.

[quote name='alyctes' timestamp='1445786849' post='2894162'] True. But actually knowing that is a big step towards sorting it out - one way or another. [/quote] Indeed. An old mate of mine got a bit of a wake up call when he finally joined a band that had the sense to explain to him that the white noise he enjoyed through his rig in his bedroom, was not suitable for a band environment. Fortunately he took it onboard and sorted it out.

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1445710083' post='2893679'] [Scrolls to top of page. Enters "gene simmons" in search field. Presses Enter key. One result: a post by KingBollock. Enters "kiss" in search field. Presses Enter key. One result: a post by KingBollock.] Er... Nope! [/quote] I didn't think of trying that before I posted. I didn't know you could search the contents of just one thread. However, I did try it after I posted, and it came up with nothing, even though my post was now in here, so I didn't know how trustworthy it was, or if it didn't include it because I had posted it, or something.

Did Gene Simmons from Kiss get mentioned in the old part of the thread (I only read the first and last couple of pages)?

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1445707635' post='2893651'] Alternatively record it live and post it on here for us to critique. Then show him the thread. [/quote] This. Definitely this.

I had one of these as my first ever bass. I bloomin' loved it and it broke my heart having to sell it. It's actually the same price I paid for mine back in 1987. I was sort of half tempted with this and my wife even asked if I wanted it, bless 'er. But it's too far away and I really don't need it. If It was the one I had to sell then I would definitely have it, though.

You could shorten it by lumping 5,6 and 8 together, under: Thou shalt have no imagination...

Peavey T-Max 500 - £160 Peavey 410 - £40 Aria 5 string - £150 That's what I paid for those. Though I have had the amp for over fifteen years and the bass for not much shy of that. I have seen the same bass, more recently, in better condition for just £115. I don't have enough money to be too proud to play cheap stuff... I do have better, more expensive basses (though not a lot more expensive). If I was to come into money I would probably stick with the same amp anyway. I love it.

All the time. I've put stuff off for years because of it. I worry that just being so nervous will be enough to make me cock up. But in the end, once I've actually done it, I just feel stupid for worrying so much and wasting so much time. You have a much better chance of doing it right and making something useful out of it, if you go for it. Whereas you'll definitely end up with an expensive doorstop if you don't.