BigRedX

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1495547181' post='3304645'] Yup - Mick will be able to hit the audience with a G9sus4 when they are least expecting it... [/quote] That would be unexpected - especially considering that it's a 5-note chord. ;-)

TBF this is pretty standard practice when playing with bands from outside of the UK. The only time the band I've been playing with hasn't been expected to supply the full backline and drum kit in this situation was when we were supporting a German Rockabilly band that came over in a mini tour bus with all their gear and their own PA engineer. At least they aren't completely taking the piss like The Meteors who turned up to a gig with a guitar and a snare drum (and a van load of T-shirts to sell) and expected to be able to borrow all the other gear including an upright bass! On the other hand some more notice/confirmation of the situation than on the day of the gig would have been nice.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1495521845' post='3304335'] How many here were happy with one bass until they joined BC? [/quote] I had been slowly building up my collection of basses through eBay when I discovered TalkBass and BassWorld (BassChat's forerunner) while I was looking for more information about Spalt Basses. At the time I had just got back to playing bass after about 5 years of being the guitarist in my then most recent band, and had also discovered fretless bass. In many ways, it was the other way around for me. I was interested in getting more bass guitars and in the course of looking for more information on those I like the look of, I found the bass forums. I don't think that BassChat contributed significantly to the growth of my bass collection. I've always owned lots of instruments when finances have allowed, be they guitars, synthesisers or basses.

I quite like it, but for £8500 second hand I'd expect the decorative top/back to carry on around the sides in order to hide the bland core body wood. And do something about the horrible stripy neck too!

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1495538590' post='3304521'] Clearly this is going to vary from region to region, and the type of gigs and venues involved. But there are lots of bands and bass players who would love your situation to apply to them too! That said, just because there is a house PA and soundman doesn't mean they will get a good sound... For those of us who play solely on backline, the dispersion of our bass cab(s) remains an important consideration. [/quote] The Terrortones played all over the country, and with that one exception (and the house party mentioned earlier in this thread) in every case a PA and engineer were supplied at the gig. I see that as another reason not to go back to playing covers. I like the idea of, if necessary, being able to rock up at a venue 15-20 minutes before the band is due to be playing, and not have to be there from the early evening onwards spending ages pissing about setting up and later breaking down the PA and lights (which was my experience of playing in a covers band).

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1495534587' post='3304469'] I don't think it's quite as simple as that. It's probably almost always true that people who use a professional sound engineer will be steered towards a proper front of house mix, with stage levels kept as low as possible and backline as monitors only. For pub gigs (and the like) even with your own PA pragmatism rules. With no-one mixing out front many of the advantages of 'everything through the PA' will have gone. A full mix means miking up the drums, with a lot of extra complexity, and small venues don't demand high levels to fill the room so the onstage levels are bearable. With often one poor band member setting up the PA time to set up and knock down needs to be reduced, so even if the PA is up to it you won't necessarily put anything more than vocals through. Stage space and access for loading become issues too. Keeping it simple makes a sensible compromise Personally I've a range of PA including a choice of multiple tops and subs available. I've used my biggest set up with up to 2,000 people so it's adequate for most things. I don't use the full set up down at the Dog and Duck and most of the times it's everything mixed to the drums (heavy sticks confiscated ) and just vocal PA through the smallest lightest tops. I could put bass through the tops and that'd be my first choice but the rest of the band (drummers especially) usually like a lot of bass so I end up with backline I could do way better mixing out front and cutting the backline out of the vocal mics but the places we play wouldn't stand the cost of a sound engineer and wouldn't thank you for setting up whist they are finishing serving food, we still get compliments on our sound from time to time. [/quote] My own experience of playing in originals bands over the last 8 years is that in almost every case* there is an in-house PA system with an engineer. The majority of these venues are no different in size to the average covers band pub gig but the PA supplied will always be adequate enough for the kick and snare drum (at a minimum) too be mic'd up and the bass to be DI'd. As I've said previously, several of the most recent gigs I have played, I have been asked to turn down my rig to such an extent, that I have relied on the wedge monitors in order for me (and the rest of the band) to be able to hear any bass guitar. In these instances the dispersion characteristics of the bass cabs have become completely irrelevant. *In fact the only time I can recall there being no PA with the venue, was one where between the gig being booked and actually occurring the pub in question had undergone a refurbishment that had included removing the in-house PA system and not replacing it.

IME any low B with a gauge of less than 125 will feel too floppy unless the break angles on the bridge and nut give it a lower than normal compliance.

Since in this case the filter is being used to cure an audio problem as opposed to being an effect, the steeper 24db/oct slope ought to give better results.

I'm assuming that bassists who aren't being put through the PA are playing in bands that own their own system?

I saw both Bauhaus and Classix Nouveaux at the Ad-Lib club in Nottingham within a couple of weeks of each other in 1980 and from what I recall both bands looked a lot weirder than their record company approved sanitised publicity shots shown in the link.

The scale length of any bass is the distance from the nut to the 12th fret x 2.

Nothing wrong with an 80s look, but very few of the artists picture there have a good one.

I still own the first bass that I bought back in 1981. It doesn't get a lot of use these days. The 4 basses that I do use most of the time now were bought at various times over the past 15 years. TBH since I got my first Gus back in 2002, I haven't seriously used anything else except for the Warwick StarBass I got a few years ago.

Early 70s Glam Rock. I had absolutely no interest in any kind of music until I heard T.Rex 1n 1971. After that I was hooked. However I didn't start learning to play the guitar for another 2 years, and didn't get my first bass until 1981.

IME research is almost completely worthless. The only thing that matters is how a product performs when you are actually using it. Only then can you make an educated decision.

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1495199210' post='3302076'] Could you make the introduction a little longer... ©Eric Morecambe [/quote] IME the introduction tape is always way too long, so either there is far too much "atmospheric" music and an empty stage which eventually kills the anticipation, or the band are stood about looking embarrassed waiting to start. Unless your band is massively famous with an audience of thousands of adoring fans at every gig, the intro should be 1 minute max plus whatever time you need to appear on stage and plug your guitar in.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1494535520' post='3296872'] I`ve seen bands come on to instrumental music of their own, the theme to The Flintstones, the theme to The Godfather, things like that. All great but to me I always think that the impact should come from the band itself, hit `em hard & fast and tell `em you mean business with your own music. [/quote] The number of times I have seen bands mis-judge the length of their pre-recorded intro and the amount of time required to get on stage and plug in their instrument, so consequently get on far too early and then proceed to stand around on stage looking faintly embarrassed while they wait for the appropriate moment for the first number to start.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1495020683' post='3300476'] Was that in Carrington? I think a couple of my mates were at that gig. I didn't hear any complaints about poor dispersion [/quote] Yes it was. And I think bass cab dispersion is the least of your worries in room approximately 3m x 3m in size!

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1495023970' post='3300536'] It's probably mainly the rhythm that you're messing up? I find I have to be able to figure out exactly where the bass notes go, in terms of rhythm, in relation to the drum beat/vocal/lead riff. Kind of like when you're first learning to play drums, and you have to figure out "this kick drum goes with the right hand here, but in between the right hand here" etc. [/quote] I had a song to learn recently where the bass line to the chorus had very obviously been written and recorded before the vocals. I had no problem learning the line and it was a great tune on its own, but trying to play it with the vocals was very hard work indeed as the rhythms were completely different.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1495003092' post='3300268'] I can only think of one occasion in the last several years of gigging where bass wasn't through a PA (OP that was at JT Soar, and you know how tiny that is) [/quote] I think the lat time I didn't have my bass in the PA was when we played in Mr Venom's front room: [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Dick%20Venom%20Live/1001267_10151596597111339_1619030816_n_zps06fe18c8.jpg[/IMG]

1. Listen to the track concentrating on just the bass line. 2. When you've got it turn off the track and sing the bass line to yourself. 3. Work out what to play on the bass from your singing and then write it down in whatever form works best for you. 4. Practice playing the bass line. Only go back to playing along with the track when you can do it without really thinking about it. It might be worth also practicing the lead in and out to this section on its own first. HTH

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1494935646' post='3299699'] IME that description applies to at least 80% of bass players. Besides, having a rig with good dispersion doesn't require jumping through multiple hoops, so why not? [/quote] That's not my experience at all. The majority of my gigs are small venues (under 250) but I'm struggling to recall the last time my bass wasn't DI'd into the PA. On several of the more recent gigs, I've been asked to turn down my amp to such a degree in order to get a balanced and controllable sound FoH that the bass in the the foldback has been louder than what has been coming out of my cabs. It has got to the point where AFAIAC my rig is mostly there for show at gigs and is only really used at band rehearsals. I'd love to be able to go in-ears but I don't see it as an option for small bands that rely on the venue's PA system.

Following on from some rather heated discussions about the merits of certain bass cabs over the past few months, some of the arguments have got me thinking. In particular the question of dispersion. The physics of a lot of the advice seems to make sense - don't mix your cone sizes without cross-overs and the arguments for stacking your drivers vertically rather than horizontally, but the more I think about them, the less they seem to be relevant to real-world gigging situations. A lot of it comes down to what we actually use our bass cabs for? Since 2010, I can recall less than a handful of times when the bass wasn't put through the PA, and all of those were in rooms so small that most of the audience would have problems getting 33° off-axis let alone 45°! Conversely, for the rest of the band to be able to hear me properly without help from the foldback, I'd need speakers/cabs with a decent 90°+ off-axis response. On most stages I'm pretty much stuck in one place, and on the bigger stages that have room for actual movement there is nearly always excellent foldback so most of the time the band is relying more on the foldback to hear my bass than it is on my cabs. If I'm being honest with myself, my bass cabs are mostly there for two reasons - for show and bring the controls on my amp and BassPod Rack up to an easily accessible height. If I could guarantee that every gig I played had suitable foldback, I'd probably ditch the cabs and amp altogether and just bring the BassPod (or upgrade to a Helix). Apart from bassist who regularly play decent-sized rooms without PA support, is dispersion an important consideration. From where I'm standing I can't see (hear) it!

My latest band The Death Notes are in the middle of producing our next EP and we need someone good to do the mixing. We have all the parts for the 4 tracks recorded and need someone to take these and produce some truly excellent mixes. The band were fairly happy with the standard of the last mix (although I'm not convinced it's anywhere near as good as it could be) but with the length of time it took due to changes it ended up being very expensive. This time I'd like to give the work to an engineer/producer who is sympathetic to the style of music - post-punk with goth and shoegaze influences - rather than someone who's just doing it as another paying job, and consequently can get us what we want in a couple of sessions. Please don't suggest we do it ourselves. I've got plenty of experience recording and mixing, but I now know that my ambitions are beyond my abilities. We are happy to pay for the right person to do this. Files are in OMF format so software compatibility won't be an issue. Ideally we'd want somewhere local to Nottingham as some of us will want to attend at least one of the sessions. The last EP is available listen to on [url=http://thedeathnotes.com]Bandcamp[/url] so you can get a rough idea of what they did last time and the style of the music. Thanks!

IME musicians who tune too often do it simply because they can now that everyone has an electronic tuner somewhere in their signal chain or attached to the headstock of their guitar. When I started gigging in the early 80s electronic tuners were only for bands with record deals. We tuned up to one of the synths before we played, and that was it. I can't recall any of my band members sounding horribly out of tune at any point later during the set. Later on when I was playing in a synth band we did buy a tuner, but it was mainly to check that the analogue synths were in tune with the pre-recorded backing tape. Again we would tune up once during the sound check, and as long as the synths were left switched on they wouldn't need to be tuned again. When we finally got digital synths, the tuner was left at home. When I went back to playing bass and guitar, I bought guitars with locking bridges, nuts and machine heads. Again check the tuning at the sound check and make any slight adjustments as required. After that I never found the need to retune during the gig. And none of the basses I've used live have ever needed anything but the smallest readjustment of tuning between use (unless I had managed to knock the machine heads taking it out of its case). I used to play with a guitarist who had a novel approach to the problem of tuning during the set. He was a heavy user of string bends and vibrato bridges, but he managed simply by having two guitars which were tuned just before playing - using the tuner in my rig as he didn't have one of his own. He would then play one guitar for the first half of the set and swap to the other for the second half. I never once noticed any tuning problems during a gig. When you don't have the ability to pedantically check your tuning between every song, you become a lot more relaxed about having to be "perfectly" in tune all the time.