BigRedX

[quote name='paul_c2' timestamp='1504699481' post='3366657'] Yes it does. Simple example: There's one way to do it on the (4 string) bass.....its as clear as a bell. [/quote] But that only works if that part of the score is written expressly for the bass guitar, otherwise there are three different ways to do it.

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1504650161' post='3366403'] Do those of you who use public transport ever feel uneasy about carrying your gear around, from a safety / security perspective? [/quote] No. Never.

Breaking a string is very much the main reason for me bringing a spare bass to gigs. No matter how lightly you play eventually strings wear out and snap. It is inevitable. And even changing your strings regularly doesn't protect you from a duff set where one of them will let go the first time you dig in a little harder than normal at a gig. And sure you might be able to swap a string in well under 60 seconds in the comfort of your home, when the pressure is on at a gig and the audience as well as the rest of your band are looking at you expectantly just as you drop your spare set of strings down behind your amp... Much better to have a back up bass you can swap to during the intro of the next song.

Well it didn't for me. The only way to get rid of it was to leave the site, which means it's not 100% modern browser compliant.

Nasty pop-up that won't go away no matter where I click, asking me to join their mailing list (which I am already subscribed to). Needs more work.

For most bass lines you really don't need more than two.

For protecting your bass, they are really good. If you need to use it to carry your bass on your back for any distance you should try before you buy. I find mine very uncomfortable to wear for more than a few minutes because the straps are too close together at the top and the bottom of the bag slaps against the back of my legs as I walk. When it wears out I'll be looking for something else. Other people don't seem to have a problem with it.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1504553295' post='3365667'] In the US you can purchase a dependable used car for around 10k and insurance with a clean driving record would be about $50.00 a month. Question, is the notion of being able to hop into your own car at anytime and going anywhere you want not apoealing in the UK? How do guys take women out on dates without a car. Is this another cultural thing. You guys are aware in the States women judge men by the cars they drive. Blue [/quote] For me most of the places I would want to get away to, also involve getting on an aeroplane to get there, so owning a car is mostly irrelevant to me from that PoV. Although car manufacturers would like car culture here in the UK to be more like the US it never will be. Running a car is expensive. Petrol (gas) is really expensive here in the UK compared with the US. At the moment we pay £1.16 a litre which by my calculation works out at $5.66 a gallon. Also I can get a taxi for me and all my gear from my house to city venue here in Nottingham, and back again, for less than it would cost me to park my car nearby while I played the gig. As for dating - I doubt I'd be very interested in any woman who judged me by whatever car I did (or didn't in my case) drive. Plus if I drove I wouldn't be able to drink.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1504521476' post='3365360'] Don't mean to derail this thread, but surely any 2-channel power amp with the option to bridge the channels is ... erm ... a mono amp? [/quote] Yes and no. The problem with bridging into mono is that it changes the impedance requirements of the cab(s) being driven. A stereo amp capable of driving an 8Ω or 4Ω cab each side will require an 8Ω or 16Ω cab when used in bridge mode. So for one 8Ω cab it's fine, so long as the cab is capable of handling the bridged power, other cabs and combinations may require specialised cables to get the impedance load right.

[quote name='prowla' timestamp='1504306053' post='3364084'] And yes again, a blank panel is easily unscrewed. [/quote] Yes it is, but it's not so easily unscrewed mid-set which IME is when all the serious problems that require quick access to a rack occur.

Electrics should be very reliable these days. They tend to fail either when they are very new due to manufacturing defects or very old as the more suspect able components wear out. In between so long as you don't abuse them they should be fine. In 40 years of gigging I've had 2 amp problems. One was due to manufacturing defects (Ashdown Superfly) and the other from user error - I stupidly plugged both sides of a stereo amp into the same cab. IME mechanical things are much more likely to go wrong.

My ideal back-up bass would be identical to my main bass in every way except for the colour.

IME it depends on the type of band and whether you need a car for other aspects of your life. Covers bands from my personal experience of being in a couple and from what I've read hear do tend to be very insular. Every member is responsible for his or her own gear and each turns up to gigs in their own vehicle. For originals bands it's entirely different. For a start few have to worry about lugging PA and lights about (I've done only a couple of originals gigs in the past 10 years where the band has had to organise their own PA and lights because the venue didn't have any). Secondly any serious originals band playing outside of their home town will have a band van along with a driver/roadie/merch seller so individual transport isn't a requirement, and local gigs can almost always be accessed by public transport or taxi. Also IME originals bands tend to be a lot more accommodating if non-driver members can bring something else important to the band such as free rehearsal space, storage for band gear, free design and printing of posters and flyers etc. And it very much depends on whether or not you need a vehicle for the non-band aspects of your life. I've managed being in gigging bands for almost 40 years now and I still don't own a car. If I did it would only be used for band activities, so my income form the band would have to completely cover the purchase and running costs in order for me to justify it. I've never needed on for my work - before going self-employed and working from home I never lived more than 30 minutes walk from my place of work, the exercise certainly did me good, and on the few occasions when one of my colleagues gave me lift him, rush-hour traffic meant if I saved at least 10 minutes on my journey we were doing very well! The last time I looked into buying a suitable vehicle for gigging, I found I could get a year's worth of taxis to rehearsals and local gigs before I had covered the cost of buying and insuring said vehicle let alone the other running costs.

15 years ago before I started work on transferring my complete CD and record collection on my computer I spent a week comparing different encoding rates and listening to the results through both my HiFi and home studio systems. I discovered the following: 1. By far the most important thing was the quality of the digital file encoding. Ideally I would have used uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, but back then the 1TB hard drive I had bought to store all my music files on had cost me a small fortune, so I was going to have to go compressed. 2. Using the built-in DAC on my PowerMac G4 I could hear an improvement in quality as I increased the BR or the MP3 file until I reached 192BR. Higher bit rates didn't sound any better. However when I listened to same files though the MotU converters in my studio system I could hear improvements all the way through 320BR to uncompressed files which were by far the best quality. So the BR used on the MP3 files makes a big difference until you go beyond 192BR after which you also need a better quality DAC in order to appreciate the benefits of higher bit rates or uncompressed audio files. Everything else (such as the amp and speakers) is IMO entirely subjective, so long as you have something half-way decent, and when for the past 20 years you have been able to get good HiFi speakers and amps for around £100 each there is no excuse to not to already have something perfectly serviceable. Personally I don't like sub-woofers. IMO they sound artificial.

Time to ditch the MP3s and other lossy audio formats. One of the reasons you may be having trouble hearing the bass is because lossy audio compression works by removing parts of the sound that are supposedly being masked by others. Often this means details that we as musicians may specifically be listening for are being removed because something more important (louder) is happening at the same time. In particular bass instruments in time with the much louder drums. The MP3 format dates from a time when hard drive storage was small and expensive and a fast internet connection meant you had 512K board band as opposed to 56K dial up. These days storage is stupidly cheap and for the majority the internet is plenty fast enough to allow real-time streaming of uncompressed CD quality audio.

[quote name='scrumpymike' timestamp='1504263599' post='3363737'] I'd say there's a bit more to it than that. [/quote] Not a lot though... it's got a second coil on the bridge pickup and enhanced upper fret access which makes the body look a little awkward IMO. Other than that it's just a J-Bass copy.

Do we need yet another J-Bass copy?

Two things that you should consider before "sealing" off your rack case. 1. Airflow. many rack units even if they don't have fans or heat sinks rely on the design of the rack case to direct the airflow over them to keep cool. Blanking off the unused rack slots might prevent this. At the very least consider vented blanking panels rather than plain ones. 2. No matter how well you think you've got everything fitted and secured, eventually things will work loose, and an open U or two can be invaluable when trying to find out exactly what has come undone when one or more items in your rack suddenly stop working for no apparent reason.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1504084662' post='3362504'] My concern when leaving an originals band would be to have some form of written contract regarding material I had a hand in writing. All it takes is for someone to come along in 10 years time and nick a sample off whatever website you've used, and use it to make a recording that makes millions and you're left high and dry. It's a slim chance but could always happen. [/quote] Which is why you should join the PRS and get all the songs you have had a hand in writing registered and your percentage contribution noted.

The vast majority of interviews with bassists published in International Musician and Recording World magazine during the 70s would contain a section where they would describe what they did when they got a new Fender bass which would almost always involve removing the bridge and pick-up covers and replacing the standard fitted flat-wound stings with Rotosound round-wounds.

I was very nearly the bass player in a band with John Bonham's daughter. Our original singer had quit the band and since we were feeling ambitious and flush with money we put display ads in the classified sections of NME and Melody Maker (mid to late 90s). It certainly brought the nutters out. However in amongst all the demos from complete no-hopers were a couple of really good ones, one of which was from a Zoe Bonham. Unfortunately as much as we liked her songs and recording, she wasn't sufficiently impressed by what we were doing to want to join the band. I ended up giving her some advice on her home studio and that was it.

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1503661821' post='3360061'] Fender made a five WAAAAY before that. Also a six. Both in the 60s. [/quote] But not a low-B Five string. Also the 60s Fender 5-string had the upper frets missing so it had exactly the same range as their 4-string basses.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1503496496' post='3358706'] When I had an 11 year old he was listening to Pink Floyd and learning Comfortably Numb; but at 23 he's saying 'actually, Pink Floyd are often a bit sh*t'. [/quote] As someone who was getting seriously into music whilst Pink Floyd were producing some of their best known works I've always thought that they were mostly "A bit sh*t".

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1503563760' post='3359117'] And no one recommending drum'n'bass. [/quote] Drum n Bass is so late 90s...

If it works as you want, there is absolutely no reason to update any computer software. If the applications you are using don't run under the next version of the operating system then [b]DON'T UPDATE IT[/b]. I still run Logic 9 under El Capitan. Both do everything In need, and therefore I see no reason to muck about with updates to either.