BigRedX

Don't be so sure about that. My last purchase from Ishibashi was a Yamaha BJ5B - essentially a 5-string version of the Yamaha SBV. It was marketed as the Terry & the Blue Jeans (massively popular Japanese surf band) signature bass and made in a limited edition of 50 instruments. Until the one I bought appeared on the U-Box site the only photograph I had ever seen of the bass was on the vintage Yamaha guitars pages, and since then the only other photos I can find appear to be the ones taken by me and then by the person I consequently sold the bass to. I also have pretty esoteric tastes in musical instruments, but every single bass I have ever been interested in owning has shown up for sale second hand at some point in the last 20 years. I've even been lucky enough to own some of them.

I've bought quite a few musical instruments direct from Japan - 4 basses from Ishibashi's U-Box (second hand section), a guitar in person from a shop in Osaka and had a friend get me a MIDI controller which they brought back with them. All the items were things that were either impossible or at best very difficult to buy in the UK and I have never bought solely in an attempt to save money on something that I could have bought here. My experience is unless you are buying used from Ishibashi, you or a friend will need to go in person in order to secure any purchase as most shops are still reluctant to deal with foreign sales. Certainly in the first decade of this century when I did all my Japanese purchasing the Japanese seemed to be far more interested in buying new and most second hand items had little perceived value, hence all the used bargains. It even extends as far as buildings. I have a friend who has been living there permanently for the last 15 years who recently bought a house and didn't immediately demolish it and build something new in its place, a practice that has perplexed his Japanese neighbours.

Went to see Auger supported by Feather Trade and Beck Stacey at the Angel in Nottingham on Friday. First time in quite a while that I've attended a gig where I haven't also been playing myself, although if our synth player hadn't been on holiday I would have been doing this one too! I play reasonably regularly at this venue and usually when the other bands are on I'm stood near the back working the merch table or after I've packed the gear away when it's nearly impossible to get anywhere near the stage. Since I was just a punter, I decided to venture down the front, and got a perfect demonstration of why EQ can't solve room problems. For Feather Trade especially the mix was very strange, with almost no guitar and lots of honky high-mid frequencies on the bass. Retreating to the back of the room where I normally stand (and where the mixing desk is) and the mix was almost perfect, plenty of guitar and a fuller-bodied bass sound. Auger appear to have had some major personnel problems as tonight as last night it was just Kyle on vocals and guitar with everything else on backing. I heard a rumour before he went on that the drummer and keyboard player had pulled out of the tour with very little notice, hence the minimalist stage set up. Still he managed to put on a good show and also with everything going through the PA only the mix was much more consistent through the room. This tour may be the last chance to see Auger in the UK for a while as I believe Kyle is relocating to the EU where his music is a lot more popular and to make touring on the European mainland a lot easier.

Why did you up date anything? If everything is working as it should there is no need to update, and in fact you are better off leaving a functioning system alone, especially when it comes to your DAW and the computer it runs on. I can only run High Sierra on this Mac. However the version of Logic X I run has more than enough functionality for my needs (TBH Logic 4 plus a handful of eMagic and 3rd party plug-ins did everything I could ever want). I hope you didn't make the mistake of buying something with the promise of features you wanted now being added at a later date. I have done that once and got badly let down in the process and won't be doing it again. Everything is now purchased based on the fact that it will do what I want out of the box. If there are upgrades down the line that add additional useful functionality then that is bonus, but I will never again rely on it.

To me those are more "power pop". I'd class post-punk as Magazine, Joy Division, Comsat Angels etc.

Auger at The Angel in Nottingham on Friday. My band would have been supporting them at this gig and again the following day in Leeds but our synth player is away on holiday with his family.

One and it's not really a rig just a powered FRFR PA cab. It only gets used for rehearsals and the smaller gigs one of my bands does. For the other band I go direct into the PA both in rehearsal and at gigs. Before that I had 3 full bass rigs and a guitar rig, costing many thousands of pounds even though much of it was bought second hand. When I sold it all because I was going Helix and FRFR I made an overall profit. I can't ever see myself going back to a traditional rig and if I could persuade the first band to ditch the rest of the backline I'd probably get rid of the FRFR too.

Joining an established band can be a good way of gauging what they are like in terms of music and commitment. However there is also the chance that you will always be the FNG and never a proper member of the band.

PA system is only really useful if you are based out in the sticks and only want to do gigs there or you want to join a covers band. However a van is useful for any band so long as you are happy to always be the driver.

If you really wanted to be cost effective and/or environmentally friendly you'd ditch your bass rig altogether and either use the PA foldback or IEMs.

The date-stamped photos are all 13 years old...

I wouldn't necessary agree with that. If you have the right attitude and the appropriate level of commitment to suit the other band members IME age isn't really a barrier at all these days. I've been the oldest member of all the originals bands I've been in over the past 15 years (I'm now in my 60s) with the other band members ages ranging from 17 to just a few years younger than me. Most of the time I have been the member least likely to have to turn a gig down due to other commitments. Besides the current image trend means that most rock/metal band members look like they are in their 50s even if they are 30 years younger.

I got my "in" because I was following the band as I was a fan of the music. I also follow a few genre specific groups (in my case goth/post-punk) as well as local gig guide pages, at the moment mostly to get gigs for my bands, and have seen ads for band members on all of these.

However, don't spread yourself too thinly or you might end up annoying all your bands if you are constantly juggling your time between them. Any decent band will be out gigging almost every weekend, which leaves little time for anything else serious. I get away with two bands because both are of a similar genre and if we have gigs on the same day it going to be at the same event (something that has happened twice so far). I'm also realistic enough to know that if either band suddenly become more prolific or popular I'm going to have part company with the other one.

IME the success of any method to join a band very much depends what sort of music you want to play, what sort of commitment you want from your band mates, where you live, and how far you are prepared to travel. However a lot of the time it comes down to networking and not being a dick. If the band you want to join know who you are from previous musical ventures, know that you are going to be ok to get on with and can perhaps bring something on top of your bass playing abilities to the band you are more likely to be offered the place over someone they have less idea about. I currently play in two bands. One of them was a band who I was a fan of and was following on Facebook (see it is useful for something), so I saw their post when they were looking for a new bass player. The other found me through my JMB ad. I had been very specific about the sort of music I wanted to play and what sort of ambitions and commitment I was looking for in a band. However when it came to the actual auditions, the fact that both bands knew who I was from my previous musical activities (my last band had shared the bill at various times with both bands I was hoping to join) gave me the edge over the other candidates.

IME there is no "proper" way of using Logic. It's one of the great things about the program. I share projects with our synth player and also our producer. We all have completely different ways of working with it. I've had to stop attending the vocal recording sessions that the synth player does with our singer because sometimes I find the way that he works compared with how I would tackle the same task incredibly frustrating. Neither of us are right or wrong in our approach. It's just that the program allows both as being equally valid.

Do what I do and just ask questions in Mac section of the SOS forums

When I auditioned for my third band in 1983 it was as a bass player, but we quickly decided that all-synth was the way that we wanted to go. I already had an EDP Wasp synth that had been used for noise textures in my last band but I wasn't really much of a keyboard player. I ended up spending most the 80s playing synths until in 1988 I auditioned for another bands who were looking for both bass and guitar. They preferred another person for the bass playing role, but I really liked the music and mentioned that I could also play guitar and in the absence of anyone else even remotely suitable they asked me to join the band. That was a big learning curve as I hadn't played guitar seriously since 1980 and even then I was average at best. I think I surprised myself as much as many of my musical friends when we did our first gig.

Thanks! This was my first Gus bass which I got back in 2002. It's my main bass for recording when I don't need the range of the Bass VI, and the only reason it doesn't get used as much at gigs, is because the red one looks better on stage.

Facebook is fine for advertising my band activities and finding out what a few of my friends who no longer live locally are doing. I would never consider using it for anything else.

Surely you can tell which is which by the thicknesses?

It's a sad fact that most bands should find it fairly simple to sell a single colour print T-shirt for £10 where at the very worst they should be making 100% profit, whereas their audience is becoming ever more reluctant to pay the same price for their album which has probably cost more to produce than they could ever hope to make back through sales alone.

To the OP who appears to be in the UK. Just go and buy a standard mains lead with an IEC C13 connector at one end and a normal 3-prong UK mains plug at the other, from a reputable source. Then it will have the correct fuse for the lead which is all the fuse in the lead is there to protect. Job done.

In Isolation, along with Chaos Bleak will be supporting The Rose Of Avalanche when they play at The Donkey in Leicester on Sunday 28th July. It's an early gig: Chaos Bleak 4pm In Isolation 5pm The Rose Of Avalanche 6pm Tickets are £11 in advance

I already own two of my dream basses: If I had the money I'd also get Simon at Gus to make me a pair of Bass VIs to this design with the Shergold Marathon 6-string bass neck width and scale length.