BigRedX

Are you a leader or a follower? So many players here seem to have picked their first instrument based on what their "hero(s)" played. I've never really felt like that. maybe it's because I see myself first and foremost as a composer/songwriter, secondly as a producer, and only thirdly as a musician. Also I've never really concentrated on just one instrument. I started on guitar and have also had spells playing synthesisers as well as bass guitar in bands. I'm interested in any musical instrument capable of producing sounds that I find relevant for the music I write. Also I'm not really interested in following the mainstream. That's not to say I won't be influenced by it (both positively and negatively), but I'm not intent or following it slavishly. I'll take on board ideas that I like and make a conscious decision not to be like bands I don't like, but all those influences get mixed up an hopefully something a little bit unique comes out of it. I'm very much the same when it comes to my choice of musical instruments. In many ways my tastes have been shaped by the "cards I have been dealt". My first guitar was an acoustic - my parents very much disapproved of "pop music" and this was as far as they were prepared to support my musical endeavours - that I modified over the years to incorporate pickups and various other things that would allow me to get closer to realising the music that I wanted to make. My first proper electric guitar was one I built myself during my last year of school when I really should have been working on my A Level studies. It was a mixture of originality and what I could afford. If I was influenced in my choice of instrument by the musicians whose bands I liked it was that the ones I found interesting (and noticed) all used non-mainstream designs. The guitar I built had obvious influences (Explorer, 345, Iceman) but the combination of influences made it a unique instrument. It was the same when I came to buy my first bass. It was a combination of what I could afford and a conscious desire not to have the same bass as everyone else. Ultimately it was completely by chance that I ended up with the bass that I did. I just happened to drop by a music store before I went back to university and hanging on the wall was one of the most unusual basses I had ever. Later research showed that it was actually a Burns Sonic from the early 60s, but in the state it was when I bought it I wasn't entirely sure that it wan't home-made. Probably the most important thing about was that I could afford it (if I spent a bit less on food for next couple of months), but it also looked interesting - particularly next to the Grant and Columbus copies. IIRC it cost £55 including the original had case and I persuaded the salesman to chuck in a strap as well. As an instrument it served me well throughout the 80s, and both it's strengths and limitations very much shaped my playing style and the bass sounds I would come to favour. When I finally decided that it time to "upgrade" in the early nineties having spent the previous years mostly playing synthesiser and guitar in bands I bought a second-hand Overwater Original 5-string. Again the choice was based almost entirely on cost (it was a complete bargain because apparently no-one else wanted it and the store was getting desperate to sell it) and the fact that it didn't look like any of the other instruments in the shop. Ultimately I have come to realise that I don't like "ordinary" looking instruments.

For detail/delicate work you can't really beat a Dremel.

I suppose it depends what you want out of live performance of the studio recordings. Myself, I'm very much a believer that, for rock and pop music, the arrangement is an integral part of the composition and to deviate significantly from the known recorded version can lead to audience disappointment. That's certainly been my experience with some bands - particularly Eurhythmics and Propaganda, who elected to replace the electronic perfection of their albums with a rather lack-lustre "full band experience" and were all the less impressive for it. If you want to try something different rather than subject your audience to massively altered versions of the songs they already love, then write some new ones in the appropriate style as Goldfrapp did when progressing from Felt Mountain to Black Cherry and play those instead.

I don't get why The Doors felt in either necessary to have a bass guitarist on the records or not have bass guitarist when they played live. IMO they should have picked one instrumental line-up and stuck with it both on stage and in the studio.

Last time I was playing guitar in a 3-piece band it was an acoustic fitted with a piezo under the bridge and a Schaller pickup screwed to the soundboard in front of the bridge. This was later replaced with an electric guitar in made myself in the woodwork shop at school while I should have been studying for my A levels.

LOL... IMO "Heathen Earth" is probably their most accessible to the first time-listener who isn't already into late 70s industrial music.

Fine for in the studio where they can be hidden away and so long as they have the musical ability nothing else is important. Unfortunately on stage is another matter. Unless your band has a big budget for hiring session players finding ones who also understand the importance of the band image and are willing/able to conform to it is IME very difficult. Even a simple instruction like: "wear black, no trainers or noticeable brand/band logos" appears to be too complicated for a lot of them to follow.

What guitarist? I play in a 3-piece: Vocals, Synthesiser, Bass VI.

I've got to agree with this. Great music but I just can't get past the over-wrought fake emotion vocals. Sounds like he's having his balls squeezed in a vice.

How useful they are to you will depend on how accurate you need what you hear to be in terms to sound. Some musicians are incredibly precious about their on-stage sound and seemingly can't play properly unless it is as close to their perfect sound as possible. Others like myself just need to be able hear enough to be able to tell that they are in time and in tune with the other musicians and be able to tell where they are in the song.

The IEMs will be fed from whatever signal goes to the PA. Where that point is will depend on you and/or the PA engineer. Remember that your cab(s) colour the sound just as much as the amp so any PA feed that does not take your whole rig into account will not be any accurate representation of your bass sound. The musicians who benefit the most from IEMs are those who have completely ditched conventional amp and cab systems. They can provide a PA and IEM feed that completely captures all the signal processing that is part of their sound.

I made plywood cases for my guitars and synths in the 70s and 80s. All were almost as heavy as the instruments they were designed to contain. These days if you look hard enough there is almost always a suitable case already available. I personally won't be making any more myself.

I've done this for a previous band, in order to keep the gigs coming, but absolutely hated it. Even though they were all sufficiently competent to play their instruments to the required standard, it felt fake, and despite the fact that they were being paid they didn't make enough of an effort to look the part for the band. I'd be very reluctant to using session musicians for gigs again unless I was in a position where I was paying them so much I could also insist that they get some suitable stage attire, an appropriate haircut, and act on stage as though they were a proper part of the band.

There was a parody of him in one of the NME cartoons called Exodus C-Ornflakes

I quite enjoyed the occasional track by either band back in the 70s, and that where they belong. After Hotel California, Journey of the Sorcerer is probably The Eagles best known track even if most people aren't aware it's by them.

Probably at least half of them already are real bands.

So which bands do you think are made up?

TBH most players only really need 2.

Close... probably the only thing more pretentious and BS.

But I play pretentious BS music, so I need an instrument that reflects that.

I have friends who both changed their surname to something new when they get married. Neither liked either their own surname or the one that their partner had, so they saw it as an opportunity to pick a new name they both liked.

In the past: Black Lab Cabaret Voltaire Comsat Angels Danse Society Fra-Foa Freur/Underworld Furniture Pizzicato Five Plus-Tech Squeezebox Polysics Shiina Ringo Supercar These days: The Birthday Massacre The Last Cry The Pretty Things (with the passing of Phil May I don't expect there to be any new releases, but I can always hope that something previously unreleased turns up)

I'm off to oil the fingerboards on all my guitars and basses (except for the one with the lacquered maple board) and you can't stop me!!

Definitely not a RIM. If it was it would have a slotted headstock.

Loads probably... However I will give at least a cursory hearing to anything that is recommended to me, and if after a couple of songs I've not been grabbed that's it. There's a huge number of supposedly "influential" bands that I've never really got, and TBH it doesn't really bother me. There's already plenty of bands and music that I do like and I'm discovering more all the time. I'm not going to loose sleep because I've listened to a couple of tracks by a band and having decided it's not for me not listened to anything else by them.