BigRedX

IMO the vast "data set" that AI uses to make something is part of its downfall. A bit like the musician who says they are open to everything but because they have no focus doesn't really get most of it and as a result what they come up with never really fits properly. And if you were to get AI generation to restrict it's data set to a particular genre then it doesn't know when or how to borrow from outside of that genre, to make something just a little bit different and maybe more interesting. But where do you draw the line? If I type some prompts into one of the AI music generators, it might come up with some interesting ideas, none of them will be perfect but there might be something that can be developed, in the same way that when my band writes a song the original idea that one of us come up will go through many changes and mutations as each of us adds their take to end up with something that has moved on quite a bit from the first musical themes. If you start with an AI generated piece of music and develop it, how can anyone tell that the original was AI generated?

I found the same. I could never get on with Squier Jazz, no matter what I did it sounded thin and weedy compared with all my other basses including my 60s Burns Sonic. Also whenever I let a Jazz Bass user play through my rig I would have to turn it up massively compared with my usual settings in order to get anything like a usable sound.

But surely we all learn to create art whether it be visual or audio starting off by copying what we see and hear and like? Certainly no-one in the 21st century is emerging fully formed doing completely brand new work without having gone through this learning process first. The way I see it AI is just like me at 14-15 where my "influences" were clearly on show in both the music and art I was making, and I was only a whisker away from plagiarism. And even today I'll freely admit that if I see or hear something I like it will at some stage probably get incorporated into something I create. What experience has given me is the knowledge not to make it too obvious. AI hasn't learnt that yet and IMO will require a lot me resources and effort putting into it to reach that stage.

It requires Kontakt? I didn't spot that before. I've had problems in the past with NI so I won't use anything the requires their products.

Considering that I've been playing in bands for almost 50 years now, I have only been in one acrimonious split. It brought about the end of a band that I had been involved with for 13 years through numerous line-up changes that had seen every member except me replaced at least twice and had left me as the "de facto" band leader, although I had always been one of the main motivating forces behind the band. The falling out occurred between myself and singer, who was a complete diva and simultaneously very insecure musically, unlike me who knew exactly what I wanted musically and if anyone didn't agree with me, then they could f- right off. (I'm a lot more relaxed these days.) I had actually tried to leave the band a few months earlier as I had become completely fed up with having to organise the other band members musical lives, but they had talked me out of it and things were actually looking quite promising as we were on the point of securing a development deal with a studio owner who was also a member of a reasonable successful 90s band. I don't recall what set the agreement off, and therefore it was probably something completely trivial but it ended up with the two of us screaming at each other. This happened at my house where we also rehearsed and recorded and I'm surprised that none of my neighbours called the police thinking there was a domestic going on. Eventually the singer stormed out and the rest of the band made their excuses and left looking very sheepish. Considering how desperate the singer had been to "make it" at the time, as far as I can tell, she's done almost nothing musical since. I've run into her twice in the last 20 years when we have said "hello" to each other and that's been it. Interestingly the demise of the band led to a very interesting musical development which involved being asked to put together a retrospective CD compilation by the very first band I was in for a US indie label and took up the best part of the next two years of my life. When I was ready to join another band I found one where I could just turn up and play bass and not have any involvement beyond that. That kept me occupied for another 4 years until I joined The Terrortones.

This does look interesting, and I might just break my nothing outside Logic rule. However given that the developer is calling it a day and the Mac specs says it works on Intel Macs, does it also come with an installer for an Apple Silicon version?

Following on from the various threads about how you started playing and what's keeping you playing I thought I'd see if I could find and the oldest photo of me playing bass. And here it is: There a date, 1978, written on the back which means I'm 17, and you can tell that punk rock hasn't really reached Loughborough yet! The bass isn't mine, but one borrowed from a school friend for the purposes of doing some home recording. I didn't have a bass of my own until 1981. I like to describe this instrument as being made by someone who had once been shown a photo of a Fender P and then had to recreate it from memory using just what was available in the spare parts drawer of the local musical instrument shop. This is also probably the closest I've ever come to playing a "Precision" bass. No idea what song I'm playing other than it is likely be something from our "concept album" on the subject of Nature vs Man vs Nature. Compare and contract with this photo taken last week of me on stage at the Twisted Firestarter gig in Manchester: So what are your oldest and newest bass playing photos. Add them to this thread. Don't be embarrassed!

After watching a YouTube video I managed to open the pickup up. The wires from the coils are attached to the tags. Still reads open circuit. Off for a rewind.

Our new single "Adore Me" is out now on all your favourite streaming and download sites: Bandcamp link

Maybe it needs two posts in 20 forums?

I can't even get the pickup out of its cover to see, and if it is it'll probably be lead-free solder which I'm not set up for.

Thanks, I've sent them an email.

So what are the other two badges?

Not really. My early basses and guitars (before 1990) were simply what I could afford. After that I had sufficient disposable income to buy the instruments I really wanted. I saw photos of a prototype Gus Guitar in a musical instrument magazine in the mid-80s and decided that if I ever had them money I'd buy one. I was lucky enough to be in the financial position to buy several in the early 2000s. The bass I use most at the moment is an Eastwood Hooky 6-string, because that is what I need for the band I currently play in. Once I've saved enough money I'll be getting Gus to make me a Gus version of it.

Any recommendations for someone to rewind one of the pickups on my Squier Bass VI. Got it out of storage where it's been for the last 4 years in a case and discovered that the centre pickup is dead. I don't want to spend a lot of money because I'm not keeping this bass and it cost me less than £250 in the first place, so the rewire cost has to be close to the value it will add when selling with all three pickups working. Thanking you in advance...

I felt the same way when I initially started to learn to drive at 17, and as a result didn't learn properly until I was in my early 30s, although the fact that before then I wasn't in a position to afford to buy or run a car anyway may have had a lot to do with it. I quickly realised even though I did pass my test on the third attempt, I am actually a terrible driver with no road sense and therefore I don't drive and the roads are a much safer place as a result. I'm also a terrible bass player (and guitarist and synth player) but the difference is that no one is going to die as a result of my poor instrumental technique. And, even if I say so myself, I think I'm a decent composer and therefore I have no hesitation about getting up on stage and playing, no matter how badly I might be doing it, because the songs will still shine through.

None of the 5-string basses I currently use are within the OP's budget.

In my case the "feel" of my playing style with fingers is completely different to that with a pick. So I have picks that are close enough to sound of finger style and I have picks that give me a completely different sound.

Having had zero interest in any kind of music for the first 11 years of my life I went Scout camp where Radio 1 was on all day every day and was completely taken by the sounds of the emerging glam rock bands - T. Rex, Slade, The Sweet. My parents were horrified as pop music was not considered to be real music and did every thing they could to dissuade me from listening to it. I finally managed to persuade them to let me go to folk guitar evening classes when I was 13 and then to buy me decent (read playable) acoustic guitar for my 14th birthday. That was the end of their support though. The following year I formed a band with three other like-minded friends from school, writing and recording our own weird compositions. We were very much a DIY band, I even built my first solid electric guitar at school while I should have been studying for my "A" levels. None of us owned a bass but a couple of people in our year at school did and we would borrow one for a few days during the holidays when we were recording. I finally bought my first bass - a heavily modified second hand Burns Sonic - while I was at university in 1981. In many ways the disapproval of my parents only made me more eager to play, write and record music. On top of that there were two pivotal points in my musical career that pretty much set me on the route I'm still following today. During my first year at university which I was not really enjoying. I spotted a news article in the NME which mentioned a band called The Instant Automantons and the fact that their second album was available for free to anyone who sent them a blank C90 cassette and a stamped, addressed envelope. Intrigued, I sent off my cassette and a few weeks later got it back with the album recored on to it along with a printed A4 sheet folded to form a cover. I found the music variable, some I liked and some I didn't. What did impress me was the fact that if The Instant Automatons could do this why couldn't my band? We already had several hours worth of music recorded that had mostly been done for our own enjoyment, so during the Christmas holiday we assembled a C60's worth of recordings and I sent off press releases to all the weekly music papers. I didn't really know what to expect, but both NME and Sounds featured our news article and over the next few months I received a steady stream of blank cassettes which I only just managed to keep up with. By the end of the university year I had received over 100 requests for our album, which isn't bad for a band no-one had heard of and that didn't even gig. Not only that but people seemed to like our music, and as a result The Instant Automatons asked us to appear on a vinyl compilation they were putting out. A proper record, how could we say no? We even got played on John Peel's Radio 1 programme. We made another 3 cassette albums and contributed a track to another vinyl compilation. However with all of us being at different universities and only getting together during the holidays to record, it was getting difficult to keep the band together. Myself and the percussionist moved to Nottingham where we started a new band with the express purpose of playing some gigs. Again people seemed to like what we were doing and we were building up a decent local following. By being in the right place at the right time we got our newly recorded demo track included on a sampler that BBC Radio Nottingham was putting out to showcase local bands to record labels. Then out of the blue CBS records got in touch and seemed to be very interested in signing us. This was just the push I needed to drop out of university (to my parents on-going horror) and try and make a go of being a musician and songwriter. Eventually the band was passed over in favour of a much more commercial proposition - Wham! and as a result we folded. There is a good chance that without those two opportunities I would have at some point knuckled down and got on with my university course and gradually stopped writing and playing music. However I'd had a glimpse of what was possible and that set me on the course that I'm still following today. 70s glam rock got me into music, but it was the post-punk and electronic bands of the late 70s and early 80s that have really shaped the musical path I've followed when it comes to writing and playing and the sorts of bands I've been in over the past 45 years. If I didn't still love what I am doing musically I wouldn't be doing it. I no longer expect to be rich or famous out of it, but it's been a fun ride and I'm still having a blast gigging and recording with my current band. I even owe my current day job in graphic design to being in bands and needing to produce posters for gigs and cassette covers for our demos. My taste in musical instruments has been eclectic from the start. With glam rock I would see bands with outrageously shaped guitars every week on Top Of The Pops, and that's what I wanted. The bass players in my favourite bands all seemed to be Rickenbacker and Gibson players, or they had something custom made by John Birch. Fender was never really on my radar. When I made my guitar in the late 70s it was unconventional in both shape and electronics. Even when I was playing keytar in a synth-pop band in the 80s it sported a number of different custom paint jobs to fit the changing image of the band. When I saw the first Gus prototype guitar in a musical instrument magazine in the 80s I thought that if I ever had the money I'd have one. And now I have the money I have 3 (a guitar and two basses). My latest bass acquisition is an Eastwood Hooky 6-string bass which was bought specifically for the band I currently play with. When the guitarist left early in the band's development I suggested that instead of immediately advertising for a replacement that we see what it would be like with me play Bass VI instead. It appears to work fine. Six years later we still haven't felt the need to add a guitarist to the line up. And that's probably way more information than you wanted...

But Liszt was also a good looking man who knew how to dress stylishly. Something I'm not detecting in any of the "bass virtuosos" being discussed here.

If you've got £2.5k to spend on a bass the surely you can find the time and means to get to the best shops for trying out the widest range of basses.

Almost impossible to say. What suits one player may not suit another. There is no one size fits all. The things that matter most to me are: construction - a well constructed bass will always produce better low notes than extending the scale length alone, by all means pick a long scale length because you like the extra space between the frets but don't automatically assume longer equals better. Everything else IME is down to playing technique. If you play hard, like I do, you'll probably find that you'll want a taper-wound B (and maybe also E) and you'll also probably want to move the pickup(s) away from the lower strings slightly. If you have a light touch these things may not matter and something else (I don't know what) will be more important. Spend a couple of days out at Bass Direct and The Bass Gallery trying all their 5-string basses including some outside your budget just to check that you don't need to save a bit more to get the bass you really want.

The material the pick is made out of will make just as much difference as the thickness. If you are still finding your way playing with a pick get a load of different ones in a variety of shapes, sizes, thickness and materials and try them all. There is no right answer when it comes to using a pick, and in fact a lot more variables to deal with since different thicknesses and materials can make a massive difference to the sound. And again there is no right answer to what EQ to use. It will depend not only on all the factors above but also how you want the bass sound to fit into the mix of the other instruments.

One of the things we seem to have lost sight of is that for nearly everyone on here, the people who watch the more than 10 seconds of any of the videos being discussed in this thread are not our audience and are unlikely to ever be our audience, so lets stop worrying about them and maybe put some of that outrage energy into producing some great new music and performing it in a way that will get people excited about both the music and the performance.

TBH these days I don't attend any gigs that I'm not actually playing, because I'm simply too busy with my own music. The last gig I played had about 350 people in the audience, and while they hadn't all come specifically to see us, most of them were watching the stage while we were on rather than at the bar. I might possibly go and see The Birthdays Massacre when they play at The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham but I'm still hoping that my band will land the opening slot.