Japhet

The man was a genius in my opinion. He managed to bring the bass guitar out of the shadows and into the spotlight with his gorgeous melodic lines and sexy, slinky style. What made this achievement even ore remarkable was the lack of influences to draw from at the time. He did It by himself from the age of 15. He wrote some damn fine songs too. A massive loss to the bass playing fraternity.

A couple for now. Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (Bob Babbitt) B52s - Love Shack Undoubtedly more to follow.

Welcome aboard. Can't imagine not having my lightweight 2x12 now.

I put a John East preamp in my Stingray a while back and just love it. Sounds grittier and more responsive to me. Going to do the same with my 55 01 as soon as I have a few quid to spare. Will leave the Bart pickups in it for starters.

Looks like a Fisher Price Chapman stick. I could never play a stick in a million years but this thing looks tempting.

Learn the fretboard. Learn the scales. Play any scale or pattern starting with your known root note which gives you the key (pretty much).

The Carpenters were useless at woodwork. Karen, however, wasn't bad at plastering and Richard was a reasonable brick layer.

Mustang Sally Alright Now Sweet Home Alabama Hard to Handle Honky Tonk Women Rockin in the Free World Pride and Joy Have almost managed to dump all of these from the current set!

In his spare time, Van Morrison is a delivery driver for Sainsburys.

You never said you were one of quads.

Not exactly underrated, but with the amount of adulation James Jamerson (rightly) gets, I often think Bob Babbitt deserves a lot more acclaim than he gets.

TRBX 305 or, if you can find one for the money a Lakland 55-01 is a cracker.

Another vote for the GK500 Fusion or the Aguilar Tone Hammer. I use a Streamliner but also get a nice warm sound out of my Tecamp. The Puma 500 would be worth a listen if you get a chance.

Don't know anything about them other than their one hit 'Christmas Rapping' but the bassline in that song by The Waitresses was pretty epic in my opinion.

Not clear yet whether you've altered your own EQ settings Rob. What sounds awesome on it's own often becomes a mush in the overall mix. You'll find that cutting some bass and boosting your mids will bring your sound to life with the rest of the band (I hope). Pay no attention to how it sounds on its' own though because you'll go straight back to your usual settings. Give it a go - you might be surprised.

Absolutely Conan. Used to have a rhythm guitarist who insisted on playing a LP through a Marshall and it just bludgeoned the sound to death. Eventually I got him to play my Telecaster (admittedly with humbuckers) and the difference was amazing in a 'heavenly' way.

What kind of volume do you practice at? Do you set up as you would live or do you face each other at all? If your guitarists have a 'big' sound (e.g. Les Paul into Marshall) they can hog a lot of the frequencies. You may need to cut some Lows and boost the Mids to be heard in the mix. All from my own experiences.

From my own experience; Genz Streamliner is a very warm, 'tubey' sound. Very nice EQ with valve driven mids. Preamp can be driven nicely. Can sound boomy if not EQ'd proprerly. Tecamp Puma is a cracking amp. Solid state but sounds as warm as you want but can do a nice driven sound. Sits very nicely in the mix.

Tecamp are always worth a look. Super light cabs and very good tweeters. There's a 4 ohm 1x15 in the For Sale section (nothing to do with me!)

Struggling a bit at the moment with John Mayer - Who Did You Think I Was? It's not particularly hard to play but the whole song has a very 'loose' feel to it which actually needs to be tight as a gnat's chuff. Hard to have it not sound a complete mess in the band context if that makes sense.

Used to use a Trace SMX head through Ashdown mini 1x15 and 4x8 cabs. Also used an ABM 300 head. Very small footprint but sounded monstrous if needed. Only got rid of it to go light-weight.

Ditto Looper is good. If you fancy a few effects as well the Zoom B3 multi effects has an easy to use looper onboard.

Anyone mentioned Living for the City yet?

Maybe I should start 'relicing' some amps. If anybody has an SVT they want done I'm ready with my orbital sander, Stanley knife and assorted tin of noxious substances to decorate it with.