Kiwi

Ray! Wow! Bernard Purdie? That's amazing. Did you get any souvenir snaps? How did you find locking in with him? Did he flatter your playing? I've just had a listen of your bands myspace and love what you do Nice track with Noel McKoy too. Following a late night post-gig party and getting to bed at 3am, we had a midday start for a journey up to Huddersfield for a 30th brithday party of a young teacher. Her family ran a asphalt contracting business so the venue was this godforsaken ridge running between Huddersfield and Mirfield on the site of their contractors compound (which was next to two houses they'd built themselves.) Stunning views but the ice cold wind that blasted across that ridge stripped the heat from anyone who wasn't wrapped up in thermal gear. Anyways, bit of a ho hum type affair. The client didn't make any attempt to warm to us. It became apparent that we were there just as the entertainment so we came, we got paid, we played and we left. Food wasn't that great (quiche and some chilli), the applause was minimal after the first set, slightly less minimal after the second set and finally, after most of them had consumed their weight in booze, they started to warm up a little. We were flagging too from the late night on Friday and I kept being on the verge of pulling a muscle in my shoulder which involved me moving awkwardly as I attempted to shift the weight of the spector sufficient to avoid pulling the muscle. Luckily one of the singers gave me a near murdeous massage that beat 11 shades of crap out of that muscle and left me feeling like I was walking on air afterwards... at least until the other shoulder started to pull. Meh. Good job the gig was a new fee record for us or we might have thought it wasn't worth the hassle of getting there. We stayed overnight and then I came back this morning so I could go straight into work to sort out a client issue that I couldn't do on Friday because of the London gig. This was after a 2.5 hour drive and 5 hours of sleep too. Where did my weekend go? Still, we got two confirmed gigs out of the show we put on Friday though. Good times!

[quote name='tonybassplayer' post='390260' date='Jan 24 2009, 10:48 AM']We are meeting tonight to discuss it and just to make sure we are on the same wavelength I am compiling a list of surefire dance floor fillers. Songs that are guaranteed to hit the spot every time. As long as the songs get people on the dance floor then anything is allowed, pop, rock, cheese, soul, funk etc etc Songs like these Raining Men I Want You Back Disco Inferno Mamma Mia Hope you can add me another twenty today..........[/quote] They'll definitely hit the spot at a civil partnership. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you need to understand who your audience are going to be. Disco works well with 30's and above, plus any crowds that aren't too self conscious. Motown works with nearly everyone, no class divides or associations there. We tend to do a mix of both with some cool top 40 stuff thrown in too. In an ideal world my band would have a set dedicated to each, once we'd seen from the first set what the punters liked the most.

I've played the bass version and didn't like it at all. I really don't understand why they even bothered putting it into production. As has already been mentioned, the body shape is very uncomfortable, the whole instrument feels stiff rather than rigid and the sound was full but extremely clattery and unforgiving. I found the neck profile was too flat as well, my hand cramped up after a few minutes. I would have needed to put it through a compressor or valve amp to cut back the transients a little, I think. Seems to me they just decided to make a bass version of the guitar and didn't think it through properly. BTW I was looking at getting a Parker P42 guitar at one point but got put off by reports that the wooden necks sometimes warped on them.

We played our first public gig to mostly clients, friends and family last night at the Kings Head in Crouch End. Awesome gig, nothing quite like playing to a room of people who are rootin' for ya. The venue was too small though, people couldn't really dance because they were so tightly packed in. I had a situation where half way throught the first set, one of the girls must have trodden on my EBS Microbass pedal because I played the start of the next song and no sound! I couldn't waste seconds trying to find out the cause so just yanked the output cable from the Microbass into my bass and got on with it. Made a bit of a racket through the PA unfortunately and it took a while for me to get back into the pocket afterwards. The number of people in the room surrounding the band acted like an acoustic trap for mids, I couldn't hear the upper three strings of my Euro 6, played the bass breakdown in Le Freak not being able to tell whether I'd hit the open A or the D string! Just had to go by sight alone (which isn't easy on a 6 when it lies so flat against me). The girls interacted really well with the crowd too. We'd had email conversations before the gig about the girls and the guys interacting more on stage and there were mixed opinions. Some (like me) were up for it, others didn't want the limelight. Pris and I interacted a fair bit on stage which was cool, hopefully we'll be able to work on that when we have a bigger stage. I might even start using wireless again (given I've got three of the buggers, which I don't use at the moment). We had an agent come along who got really excited about promoting us to his corporate clients so it will be interesting to see if anything comes out of that. I wouldn't mind the occasional trip out to Tuscany to play on a boat for Tiffany like Crez5150 Mewsie showed up with some friends of hers, one of which had flown down from Dundee especially to come see us!

At the moment, none, I need to stay on top of other priorities.

I heard it was Homer.

the one question in my mind is whether I'd be able to sell it for what I paid for it.

Hang in there Al. Keep the faith! Wanna come dep for me? I'm taking a lot of May off, they've booked a load of Friday gigs south of London that I'll never make.

[quote name='ARGH' post='386536' date='Jan 20 2009, 06:44 PM']Ive gone the other way regarding GAS and gear...I just want one instrument to create MY sound,Ive tried,making different sounds for different bands,and found it....for me..a waste of time..[/quote] I think there's a lot of wisdom in that approach. Using one instrument helps develop muscle memory and I've found that also allows me to think less about adjusting to the instrument and more about choosing how to play it. I just need one that can cover a wide number of basses.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='386329' date='Jan 20 2009, 04:12 PM']The thing is, if you're thinking about your gear when you're playing music then you should really be playing better music![/quote] [quote name='benwhiteuk' post='386366' date='Jan 20 2009, 04:33 PM']amen[/quote] COUGHCOUGHCOUGHmulti-taskingCOUGHCOUGH

For me it started off as the belief that better gear could make me a better player. In comparing a Westone Spectrum II to a Jaydee Supernatural MK S2, there was some validity in that. Later on it became more about having the right sound for the song and then also an interest in the design of basses. So I had two aspects to my collection, one side for sounds and the other side because I liked having instruments that represented milestones in the evolution of bass guitar design. Also, band have asked me to use one bass to avoid lengthy switch overs. So the other instruments I have only tend to get used for recording which I'm not doing a lot of at the moment anyway... ...rig wise, its mostly been about being caught between liking the powerful sound of valve amps and needing a more neutral sound for live work while I was swapping instruments... plus being too lazy to carry the valve amps to gigs

I believe Birdy may have been looking into a trade for one as well...?

[quote name='ped' post='385418' date='Jan 19 2009, 09:17 PM']Kiwi I looked at active monitors but their performance at low volume is quite variable and they can be expensive for a decent active set...[/quote] My yammie HS50s are good and people speak highly of Tannoy too. I'm sure they'll be flatter in response at low volumes than a pair of Hartke cabs and a cheap stereo power amp! You'll be able to lift a pair of studio monitors without screwing your back up too!

How about getting a pair of cheapish active studio monitors?

I agree! All the players for JTQ have been monsters, Andrew, Gary and Ian King. Ian was a member here for a short time until he had a negative expereince via PM in regard to a bass he was trying to sell.

Oh blimey, I haven't updated mine for a while. Too busy! Sheesh. Okay, here goes: [b]Dec 15th[/b] Corporate christmas gig at the Sloane Square Hotel on Sloane Square for a hair dressing chain. Really small stage space sort of crammed between two seating alcoves. Dreadful acoustics but the crowd looked like they'd all stepped out of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins_(TV_series)"]Skins[/url]. The singers heads were being turned for a change! LOL. Arguably the worst company pep talk we've ever listened to, with the manager focussing on the economic downturn. It would have pretty much peed on the fire of most staff socials but from what we could tell most people just ignored him. No meal supplied, but we did get sandwiches. [b]Dec 19th[/b] Leeds Town Hall, corporate gig. What an amazing venue. The staff bent over backwards to help us, even with the load in and load out. We had our own dedicated security guard keeping an eye on our room and it was the biggest stage we've ever played. The gig went well although quite a few people left early during our break so only the hard core party crowd were left when we came back on. Meal - lasagne. [b]Dec 20th[/b] Fawsley Hall near Northants. Interesting gig in the midde of nowhere (almost), we were in the refurbished stables building separate from themain house. The staff were fairly helpful although the manager was pretty stressed out and curt with everyone. Load in/out was easy as we were playing in front of a large set of double doors, basically just had to take the stuff into the van directly through the back of the stage area. The crowd were pretty responsive but the acoustics were terrible with all the hard surfaces there. Meal - lasagne. [b]Dec 21st[/b] Gig at Westgate-on-Sea, at St Augustines Chapel for a wedding. The event was a surprise for a couple, thrown on by her parents. The crowd were a bit rough, one bloke had too many and kept walking up and down in front of the stage, oogling the singers while clutching a can of lager. A number of his attempts to engage the singers were ignored until the Best Man hauled him away and told him to sit down and behave. Meal - sirloin steak dinner, cooked to perfection! [b]Dec 31st[/b] New Years gig in Dubai. Flight from hell over there via Cairo on the 28th/29th. We left at 2pm and got to Cairo around 9pm local time only to be told our connecting flight to Dubai was delayed until midnight. What was actually the case was there would be an announcement at midnight. We found a starbucks with free internet access and those of us with laptops and iphones managed to stave off the boredom. At midnight we were invited to get some food so we followed an airport staff member to their 'Long Transit Lounge' (which reminded me of a prison for lost travellers) and then into a cafeteria which looked like a civic service staff restaurant from the 80's. We joined maybe 200 other passengers all in the same situation and we were treated to a meal of some diced chicken, chips, rice and an apple. Plus some water. We were then left to our own devices for the next hour until we were led back by which time they'd announced our departure in another hour. Overall our flight had been delayed by 8 or 9 hours and we eventually landed at 7am in Dubai. While Dubai was free of fog and a balmy 20 degrees, the same couldn't be said for our sleep deprived brains. Anyways, so we rested. Then the following day we each did our own thing apart from checking the hire equipment that had arrived. There were some glaring ommissions, including the bass cab (an Ashdown 8x10), keyboard and percussion. That evening we went out in the evening to a bar with one of the singers friends (late nights are easy if we stayed on UK time). On the 31st, we got word that the Ruler of Dubai was considering a ban on all New Years celebrations in order to show solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. There was a strong likelihood we would have come over for nothing, however he relented at the last minute and allowed indoor celebrations to continue. Another band who were booked to play to 2000 people outside at the same hotel weren't so lucky but they were a lot smaller than we were too (two singers and keyboardist) The rest of the gear arrived and we soundchecked while the hotel staff were stage dressing around us. Everything seemed to go well. The meal for that evening was basically help ourselves from the banquet and the banguet was stunning. Lobster, fillet of lamb and beef, salmon in every variety of cooking, foie gras brulee, raw oysters, and the chefs had even prepared a seafood selection in the shape of a 5 string bass! The night went well although the crowd arrived a bit late and we had to go on for our first set before they'd finished eating. So there wasn't a lot of dancing until the last couple of songs. Then we counted in New Years and used that as an excuse to get people on their feet for Aud Lang Syne. The second set went a lot better and once we'd packed up we all piled off to the girls apartment to see in the UK new year. The following day, the drummer had organised a desert safari with dune bashing and a BBQ. It was fun at first but some of us were on the verge of succumbing to motion sickness at the end! Flight back was nearly as hellish. The girls were late back from the apartment of a friend of one of the singer's and delayed us getting to the airport by nearly an hour. We made it just about in time though. We left at 2am on a red eye flight and got to Cairo about 5am Dubai time and landed back at Heathrow at midday. Then I faced a 2 hour drive back to Peterborough! The food and features on Egypt Air were about what most airlines had back in the 80's. The food was awful and everyone had to share preprogrammed entertainment. [b]Jan 10th[/b] 18th birthday party for a private client at the Dali Cafe in County Hall, the former GLC building. I arrived an hour late and in a mild state of panic only to find that everyone else was still unloading too. The crowd were very young and didn't recognise most of the 70's stuff in our set list until we got to the choruses! lol We were apparently also told we were too loud by the venue manager and we repeatedly turned ourselves down. Apparently they'd never had a band there before and guests at the Travelodge next door were complaining (as well as another band elsewhere in the building!) We finally ended up playing at a volume that was more of a side show to the conversation than anything so we lost a fair amount of atmosphere. Still, not much we could do about that. Meal - nothing

[quote name='umph' post='383984' date='Jan 18 2009, 02:08 PM']i'm sick of this perception that valve amps only do gritty tones, valve amps also do extremely hi fi sounds to just as well as solid state amps if not better, they just distort in a much more pleasant manner[/quote] I'd agree with that to a degree. My strategy 400 power amp acts as my hifi amp at the moment (200w a side - oh yes!) I'd say a lot of 70's amps sound a bit grindy to me like ampeg, Marshall, Hiwatt etc. Nineties stuff like the Eden Vt300 and some of the Aguilar kit definitely doesn't. I've even played my old Smith 5 through an Ampeg SVT and 8x10 once and it didn't sound too bad. Nice match in colouring I guess.

I never say never...

I don't think he's far off in some respects. In my experience its about how well the colouring of the bass matches the colouring of the valve amp. Warm basses tend to sound better but sometimes even some fairly modern sounding basses can sound good. I've had great results from playing a graphite necked status through a valve amp as well as the more traditional stingray and fender p bass. I'm sure there are probably some vintage instruments that don't sound so good either.

I think they're a little overpriced and owning one of the family reserve is almost like wearing a badge that says 'I want to be liked by other musicman stingray fans'. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, just not for me.