BigRedX

Not in my experience. It was by far the oldest member of The Terrortones, but since I was writing most of the music, was in good health and didn't have any problem doing gigs all over the country, my age was never really a factor. In a lot ways if you are of any age where bringing up kids is no longer a concern and you might be considering winding down your employment hours, being in a band is a lot easier with regards to other commitments. The last time I was able to put as much effort into being in a band was in the 80s when I was unemployed. After The Terrortones stopped gigging I had no problem finding another band (or two) to play in - one where the rest of the band are of a similar age and another where there is a much wider range of ages. Plenty of people to be in bands with. You just need to right attitude.

Unless you want to write and play chart-orientated pop music, age is no longer any sort of barrier(unless being old in itself actually impacting on your ability to play and create). A few months before my 50th birthday I joined what has turned out to be my most successful originals band (and I've been in bands since I was 15). We were gigging all over the country and released two EPs, a mini album and a full-length album. I had to quit the covers band I was also in, because the originals band was more active (and better paid). Now in my 60s I'm in two different originals bands with a busy gigging schedules (both have gigs up to the end of 2024 already in the diary). One band which is relatively new are currently recording our debut album. The other who are more established are writing songs for our 4th. Both of my current bands are post-punk/goth influenced so obviously much of our audience and fellow bands are of a similar age, but there are a lot of much younger people in the audiences and a significant number of bands with members in their 20s playing gigs with us. Age is only a barrier if you let it be one.

Also note that the Kramer has has the pickups repositioned on that new body. This has the "neck" pickup in roughly the P-bass position whereas it would have originally been much closer to the neck.

"Stiffness" and "tension" are not the same thing. What we should really be measuring is "compliance".

But is only accurate for D'Addario strings.

TBH I don't think I've ever heard a Bass Guitar being called that unless it actually had a "Fender" logo on the headstock. When I was getting into music in the early 70s the bands I liked were more likely to be be sporting bass guitars by Rickenbacker or Gibson as they were Fender.

One of my bands do this: It's mostly D with the occasional A and C, so dead easy to play. I just have to remember to count the bars of 2/4 to come in in the right place. My other band has just released our own composition Christmas song called "December Snow": We don't have any gigs coming up so we won't be playing it live. Maybe in December 2024? However we massively changed the structure of the song once the lyrics had been written, so I'd have to relearn the bass part from scratch as what's on the final mix only has a passing resemblance to what I originally recorded.

If I want to show photos from Facebook posts I save them onto my computer and then re-host them somewhere more universally accessible. Regarding Spotify payments - it's not a fixed amount per play. From looking at my data from this year the amount depends on both when and where the stream occurred. In the UK earlier this year I was getting several months of over 0.5¢ per stream. Last month each US-based stream was only worth 0.2¢. However extrapolating my figures to 1 millions streams would have netted me around $5000 after my aggregator has taken their cut. And that's only for the "mechanicals". One of my bands has managed to get a song onto a fairly popular Goth playlist which is currently getting 50-100 streams a day. If it's still getting that kind of attention this time next year that will give a far better indication of what a decent amount of streams pays. Of course the real money is in the performance royalties for the songwriters, and streaming even from the better paying services is minuscule compared with what a couple of plays on National Radio will bring it. Best get writing those Christmas songs....

All I have bought this year are two sets of strings for my Eastwood Hooky Bass.

He’d use whatever was the cheapest.

Thanks everyone! "December Snow" is now available on all the major download and streaming platforms. Also we have an animated lyric video to go with it:

Also the only USB-A to USB-B cable I have is the one that came with the Helix. I have a load of other USB cables but no others with that particular combination of connectors.

Logic X runs perfectly happily on my 2010 MacPro. It's not the very latest version of Logic X but it does everything I need it to.

And GarageBand which will probably be more than enough for most users needs is free.

Full price for an SY300 is £650 and for that I would expect a USB cable as well as the correct PSU for the country where it being sold.

The Line6 Helix comes with a USB cable.

If you venture regularly into the for sale threads you find an entirely different set of users who rarely post on the rest of the site.

I use one of the reverbs on my Line6 Helix for a solo part that I play on a Bass VI on a quite up-tempo song. However at that point the arrangement breaks down to kick drum, sequencer synth, and a simple synth pad, and the Bass VI part is massively pumped up in volume:

If you are a Mac user, the moment you spend more than £200 on 3rd-party plug-ins and samples to go with Reaper, you might as well have bought a copy of Logic. Just the instruments and effects that come as part of the installation are more than most people will ever really need. I have broken my "Logic only" rule twice - once for a Simmonds Drum emulator and once for Helix Native. However, while they do make life a bit easier, neither of them are essential - I could recreate all the electronic percussion I want from drum machine designers and the various synth plug-ins; and having Helix Native allows me to manipulate my guitar and bass sounds after recording, but I could either use the hardware to re-amp the direct recorded sounds or simply tweak the Helix settings and re-record the part as required. For everything else I do - drums and synth programming for the live backing of one of my bands as well as recording Bass VI parts Logic does way more than I will ever need. Some years back I did fully orchestrated Christmas Carols for a high-profile web site's seasonal promotion using just the instruments that came bundled with Logic and some vocals from the marketing company's employees.

Who you know is always key, but I have found that you get to "know" more people by making your band more visible - by networking and promotion. It's a sad fact that getting on the BBC these days means having music that appeals to one of their "gatekeepers" and if they simply don't like you or think your music isn't a good fit then there's nothing you can do about that until your band becomes a lot more famous to the point where they can no longer ignore you. However I have found that they will take you more seriously if you actually put out our music on a physical format like CD or vinyl. After all anyone with some audio files and $50 can get a "album" out on all the major download and streaming services, so just having something on-line isn't really that impressive any more. If you are serious about upping you Spotify plays then you need to get your songs on some decent Spotify playlists. Unfortunately there are no real shortcuts and it will involve a lot of hard work doing research and pitching your songs to the most appropriate playlists, and even then you'll still need a bit of luck. One of my bands recently managed to get a song on a very popular Goth playlist which means that it now gets over 50 plays a day and as a result of this the listening numbers for the rest of our catalogue are slowly increasing. However this was the result of several months of hard work identifying appropriate playlists and then having the right song to pitch to them.

Also lots of quite large dings and dents on the body edges and fingerboard. Missing the bridge and pickup covers. No photos of the back, or any showing the amount or lack of fret-wear. I wouldn't want to exchange money for this without inspecting it in person.

If the cab has a front port as far away from this as possible.

You really can't argue with the price, but in the long run it only works out as good VfM if you don't need to do anything complex with MIDI data and if you don't buy any 3rd party plug-ins.

Thank You!

In Isolation played at The Sal in Nottingham on Friday. Unfortunately it wasn't the greatest night - the gig clashed with New Model Army at Rock City and as a result was fairly poorly attended, and only a handful of people took advantage of the half-price entry for those coming from the NMA gig. It wasn't helped by Discord & Rhyme having to cancel at the last minute due to their singer loosing her voice. On the upside we played well and those that had come to see us were most appreciative. The new songs went down well as did out cover of "I Believe In Father Christmas" and we sold some copies of the single afterwards. Last gig of the year for me will be on Friday 22nd at The Fiddler's Elbow in London.