BigRedX

Having spent a lot of my time since the early 80s trying to make basses (and guitars) sound like synths and synths sound like guitars or basses, I've finally learnt that the easiest way is to use the right instrument in the first place. If you need a synth sound buy a (keyboard) synth. I found it easier and quicker to teach myself enough rudimentary keyboard technique to be able to play what I wanted, instead of trying to find the right pedal (or combination of pedals) or invest in a guitar to synth system, and then spend even more time learning how to modify my playing technique to make it work properly.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1476431181' post='3154152'] I'm happy to faff about cutting cardboard to pack a bass. It's not hard. The last cardboard I got, I lifted out of a skip at the back of Mothercare. I didn't ask, but I'd be amazed if they got upset. IMHO the more prized contribution to packing a bass is the bubble-wrap. I get loads with the stuff my company ships out to me, but where do others get it from? Or do you always sell a bass with a case? Otherwise, what-else do you do to protect the bass inside the cardboard? (I too should get some work done too now ) [/quote] I buy mine off eBay. You can get a roll 100m x 1.5m for just over £30. Not a brilliant price if you only have one bass to ship, but excellent value if you send lots of things that need it.

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1476437103' post='3154240'] I agree with ead about the bass reviews. These are largely geared towards kit costing £1,500 plus. If BGM is meant to be targeted at the ordinary bloke/ette in the street it'd be more useful to have more reviews of sub £500 basses. I buy it for a read on the train/plane and on balance it's a decent mag IMO, except when there's any mention of Gene Simmons. [/quote] As I say whenever this subject comes up. I don't need to read reviews of sub £500 basses. If I want to find about them I can go into a music shop where there will be plenty to try which beats even the best of reviews every time. For me the interesting reviews are of those instruments I can't easily get my hands on. Those tend to be the more expensive ones.

Bear in mind that the Ibanez is short scale. I'd want to hear how good that low B string is before buying one. Most semi-acoustic and hollow bodied basses have slim bodies - certainly all the ones that I've played are. I own a MiK Pro-series Warwick Starbass which is 1.5" deep at the sides and a little bit more in the middle with the (slightly) arched top and back.

In in case anyone is wondering what we are on about here are two photos of one of my stands showing the affected part: [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Stand%204.1_zps9hiwurds.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Stand%204.2_zpsmfavnv2b.jpg[/IMG]

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1476433364' post='3154179'] Mine's gone sticky but it's the only one I have and used every gig, can't really do without it at the moment so can't send it back for replacement until theres a break in gigs, maybe December. Its only the bit you briefly touch to lower and raise the centre shaft, it doesnt come in to contact with any instruments. The foam bits that touch the body and the headstock grabbers are all fine so far. [/quote] That's the only bit that has gone sticky on any of mine, but it was disgusting and I needed to wash my hands every time after handling, so it really wasn't suitable for gigging use. You don't need to send your old one back (I didn't have to return any of the 4 I had with the sticky grip). Simply photograph the sticky part showing that it is sticky and get in touch with S&T and they should send you a brand new one.

Actually, thinking about it I have only rarely in 40+ years of buying magazines, bought one on the strength of what was on the cover. When I first bought a magazine - International Musician in the mid 70s - it was simply because that was AFAICS the only publication that covered the musical instruments I was interested in. It didn't matter what or who was on the cover. In fact IIRC the very first issue I ever bought actually had a picture of a miner on the cover and headline asking what the MU was going to do for me, so the cover really had nothing to do with wether I bought it or not. I bought it every month. Several years later when I discovered Beat Instrumental, I bought that as well - after all in those days I wanted to get as much information about the musical instruments as I could, and the two magazines were quite different in the musicians they interviewed and the gear that they reviewed, so both were equally relevant to me, although the late 70s and early 80s incarnation of Beat Instrumental tended to be a little more left-field and the music and instruments that it covered so if I had to choose between them, that would have been the one that got my vote. After that in the early 80s there was a massive proliferation of magazines covering musical instruments, and so I tended to buy all of the ones that covered whatever my current musical obsession was, be it synths, home recording, guitars or bass. I tended not to buy ones full of notation and tab, because I have zero interest in being able to play other peoples songs and TBH it's instruments (and the people who make them) that I am interested in rather than the people who play them. Over the last 5 years I've pretty much stopped buying print magazines, mostly because by the time they are in the shops the information is already out of date compared with what is on the internet. I haven't bothered with any of the on-line magazines either. What I've seen of them has been a disappointment. For me they manage to combine all that is wrong with print magazines without really embracing the possibilities offered by non-linear interactivity of the electronic medium. The videos could be great but they all go on too long before they get to the point and most of "presenters" are simply unwatchable, because they need a proper script and education in the use of the edit. These days the only time I buy print magazines (on any subject) is when my band is in them. The one exception is Wire magazine which I buy on the 3-4 occasions each year when it has the Wire Tapper cover mounted CD.

if you can get the bass restored back to it's original condition under an insurance claim then why not.

It's also known as "Nottingham By The Sea"

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1476376705' post='3153811'] Christ, am I talking to myself? To re-cap: We had a Brexit thread. It ran, had its 15 minutes, and is now locked. The subject is therefore closed. We have a longstanding 'avoid politics' policy. It's there for a reason. I've already asked once (and repeated once) that politics in general and Brexit specifically should be avoided in this thread. Comments have now been unapproved, as will any more that appear. [/quote] In that case you need to have a blanket policy of no longer discussing the prices of any musical equipment on the forum, as these day it is completely linked to the current political situation.

I have zero interest in the cover "star" if it is a person. A particularly unusual bass on there might persuade me to buy a copy though.

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1476366902' post='3153688'] Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V [/quote] :-))

Go to your local bicycle shop and get one of the boxes that a full sized bike comes in. Made of considerably stronger cardboard than any bass or guitar shipping box I've ever seen and the shop staff are only too happy to get rid of them.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1476038031' post='3150725'] I must say I love the epiphone thunderbird classic but its pretty much a Gibson anyhow same materials nearly the same construction same pickups same woods etc etc. [/quote] Really? Only the Classic-IV PRO is anywhere near close to the [i][b]current[/b][/i] Gibson version of the Thunderbird, the others are all different construction (bolt-on necks) and different woods, hardware and electronics. Even then the current Gibson Thunderbird has little in common with the original from the 60s other than the basic shape.

You use whichever note sounds the best to you.

[quote name='12stringbassist' timestamp='1476354393' post='3153521'] So, what's the general consensus about a cure for the stickiness? [/quote] Get in touch with Strings And Things who are the distributor for Hercules in the UK, send them some photos of the affected stand and they will send you a brand new replacement free of charge. Just in case anyone hasn't read through the other thread which I started, I have 6 Hercules stands bought at various times over the past 7 years, and 4 of them developed the sticky grip some time during the course of this year. To me it looks as though the plastic used for the grip has started to break down. The two that haven't developed the sticky grip show no signs of doing so, so I wonder if the formulation of the plastic has been changed at some point? Anyway after getting in touch with Strings and Things and sending them photos of the affected stands showing the sticky areas on the grips I received a large box with 4 brand new stands completely free of charge. That is excellent customer service in my book. Well done to Strings and Things!

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1476039217' post='3150736'] There have been many threads about bass tones but what tone/effects do you like/hate from guitarists. Personally I can't stand overdriven/distorted guitars but love Envelope filters and reverb. You?? [/quote] Depends entirely on what all the other instruments are doing. Just like there is no perfect bass tone there is also no perfect guitar tone.

I think that unless all you do is play covers by learning the lines exactly from the original recordings, all of us have more than a little bit of theory under our belts. We just don't always know how to describe what we do know. I think a lot of it comes down to how the other members of our various bands communicate their musical ideas. As someone who has spent most of their musical life playing music I've written myself or in conjunction with my other band members, my little musical knowledge is exactly enough for what I need to be able to create and play the music that I want to hear. I don't need to know what key a piece of music is in (and BTW how do you tell whether they key is the major or the minor one that uses the same notes?) and I doubt many of my fellow band members could tell me either, because I can hear the bass line I want to play in my head, and then it's just a question of finding those notes on the fretboard. Even getting the guitarist to tell me what chords they are playing is often only a portion of the overall musical picture. A lot of the time when I'm playing in a band with more than one melodic instrument, a good deal of the time the contribution of the other instrument(s) will completely change what the actual chords are at any given moment, and sometimes it's my bass contribution that will shift the note emphasis from one chord to a different one - something I find myself doing quite a bit. I think that because a lot of rock and pop music is written by people who don't always know what they are doing, it has a tendency to either be completely obvious, so obtuse that basic theory will no longer help you out.

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1475875574' post='3149520'] there isnt any right notes. that's up to you. Music is very free in that way. [/quote] Very true, but for any given style of music some note choices are very much better than others. And IME they vary from one style to another. Is there anything in music theory that can explain this, or is it simply down to individual taste combined with a good working knowledge of the style(s) of music you are playing?

Thanks for that info. Sei basses are also finished before any of the holes for controls or fittings are drilled, so I'm familiar with the concept of doing this but hadn't really thought about why it was done. Also makes sense why you would drill one of them. Thinking about it a bit more I'd have drilled the one for the varitone switch since it will have the large surround with the position makers on it which might help disguise any finish blemishes around the hole.

I know a little bit of theory, but can someone who knows a lot more please explain to me how theory helps you pick the right notes to use depending on the style of music you are playing. For instance given two songs with exactly the same chord sequences, the notes I would use for a bass line (especially those notes I use to get from one chord to another) would be completely different depending on the style of music I am playing.

Get a good large external hard drive for your audio files. Probably Thunderbolt for your Mac (or FireWire) but definitely not USB.

That finish is looking amazing. I see you have drilled a single hole through the top from the control cavity. Why just the one at this stage? And why that particular one?

Forgive for being a bit cynical what exactly does this achieve? It say "At 10,000 signatures, government will respond to this petition" What sort of response? Thank you we'll have a look at it, meaning Now f*** off so we can make some money with our property development friends... And "At 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament". That doesn't actually mean it will get debated, and you can be sure that even if it does it will be by and handful of backbench MPs late on a Tuesday evening when everyone is ready to go home...

Having been an enthusiastic home recordist since the 70s when it was considerably harder to do that it is now, I would like to offer the following advice: It's never been easier or cheaper to make your own recordings at home - all you need to get you started is a computer (nearly everyone has one of those), some software (it's far cheaper now than it has ever been and Reaper is essentially free) and some means of getting audio into your computer (an audio interface and some microphones). However despite the initial investment being low, if you get into it, you'll soon find yourself wanting or needing to spend more on all sorts of add on from 3rd-party plug-ins or a better interface/microphones/monitor speakers. And if you thought to bass playing was a potential bottomless money pit, then think again because it's completely insignificant compared to what you can spend on even a modest home studio set up. In my case having got some very reasonable results with hardly any gear (and certainly nothing that could really have been considered "professional" standard at the time), I came into some money in the early 90s and went out and bought myself a decent home studio set up based around an 8-track recorder and a load of outboard hardware effects and instruments. Over the next ten years I spent several tens of thousands of pounds upgrading and expanding this to a computer based digital system and a load of plug-in instruments and effects. And I made some pretty good recordings along the way. Quite a few of them got released on CDs - some that I financed myself and some that were paid for by various small record companies. However despite the fact that my recordings were sounding better than ever, they still didn't have that certain magic that recordings by my favourite signed artists did. I don't think the source material was at fault. There were certainly plenty of music industry people who seemed to like the songs that my bands were producing for them to want to get involved, it just seemed to me that there was something lacking with the recordings themselves. When I joined The Terrortones and we came to record our first single there was never any question that we would do it ourselves. We wanted to play live and all my recordings since the early 80s had been done by building the performances one or two instruments at a time. I didn't have either space or the microphones to record a real drum kit. So we booked a local studio that had a sufficiently large live room to comfortably get the whole band in and went to record there. That was certainly an ear and eye opener! The audio engineer got excellent results very quickly and everything was sounding fantastic almost straight away, and certainly far better than I had ever achieved at home, and that was before we started mixing the tracks properly. The whole process including mixing and mastering 3 songs took about 24 hours, spread over 4 days. It was a massive change from my previous recording experience with my last band where I had spent well over a year working almost every evening on tracks for an album in my home studio; and in the end all I had to show for it was three quarters of the album done but not sounding as good as I wanted it to, and the rest unfinished recordings that would remain that way since the band had split. In hind-sight based on my experiences recording with The Terrortones, I can't help but think that all the money I had spent on home recording equipment might have been better put to use hiring a decent studio and a name producer for a few weeks. At the end of it I would have had a finished album recorded and there is a good chance that I would also have had enough money left over to press up our own CD, if none of the people who had shown and interest in the band had come through. After all that, it's not to say that you won't turn out to be a fantastic engineer and producer once you figure out how to make the equipment work. However IME just because you are a decent musician doesn't automatically mean that you can make decent recordings. And sometime the presence of an impartial person at the recording/mixing session can be exactly what you need. However I've sold nearly all my home recording gear, and I'm unlikely to be using what I have left for anything more than getting my ideas in a form where I can play them to the rest of my band to show them how I envisage the songs I am writing turning out.