Silvia Bluejay

While I understand the sentiment, I thought British Rail disappeared decades ago?

In the meantime, I understand that this is also going to happen at the LBGS.

Welcome, @basmagnus! @Happy Jack and I spent quite a long time at your booth at NAMM in 2018. It will be a pleasure to see you, and your beautiful instruments, again.

Yes - my post assumed my intonation had already been sorted (to a certain extent). Following Simandl to get the visual and muscle memory reference points on the neck is a good start, so your fingertips are never too far away from the correct pitch. I do find muscle memory useful now, rather than visual clues. However, I'm not an upright player who goes all over the fingerboard - I tend to groove rather than solo, and I think that makes it easier for me to not need Simandl all the time.

I must say I agree with the above. With modern double basses, nice strings, low action, etc., and even more with smaller hollowbody or electric uprights, there is no need to use Simandl, unless your hands are small and/or weak - as mine were when I started. As soon as I built up some stamina, I stopped fingering notes by using my ring and little finger together, and instead started applying a sort of 'expanded' version of my fretless bass guitar technique. It seems to work. I still use the correct plucking movement, though - that's very important!

Or indeed the other way round! I sometimes can't touch an electric bass, but can play upright with no pain whatsoever.

Learn how to pluck a double bass properly. DON'T pluck it the way you pluck an electric - your wrist will eventually get b*ggered. The fingering is also different. Hence the need to have at least one initial one-to-one lesson, so someone can actually grab your hands and place them in the correct position on the fingerboard and by the bridge, and show you the movements. The simple fact that you are interested in starting on double bass justifies the £40-50 you will spend, and will save you more than money in the long run.

Lower horn resting on my left leg (I play lefty). But don't get me started on where some people place their double bass while they're playing it... Er cough @Happy Jackcough

IME amps are rarely cranked up. On the other hand, if the slappers among us stopped pretending that they can hear the quality of an amp/cab's sound only by hitting the sh!t out of their bass at high volume (you can't - stop lying), we'd all be happier.

Now guys, please lay off the patronising attitude. I have done my theory studies. If a song is in A minor, it will usually (although not always) start with an A minor chord, and move on to other chords that are part of the scale, with some possible exceptions if the composer wants to surprise you. What this damn piece of software does, not having an A minor setting, is it doesn't seem to recognise it at all. So it usually - IME - gets the key wrong in cases like this, and you can't 'tell' it that it needs to work in A minor. You can ask it to change the key to one offered by its list. The closest is C major: so it changes the first chord to C major, and all other chords that follow are transposed to the key of C major in the transcription offered. The software works on all the instruments, not just bass. You can play the song as transcribed, and it sounds nothing like the original! That's it.

HAHA! I knew someone would notice it. It's a roller banner created by me with two images taken from separate places on t'internet, photoshopped so the cab and the amp are the same width. (Which makes the Matamp way too big, compared to reality). The banner's purpose is to cover a multitude of sins - in our case, mostly the wireless desk and external router my tablet connects to for sound engineering purposes.

I've deleted the email address.

@Adam_02 you can also post a Wanted ad, if you are after a certain cab as opposed to just browsing. Also, I would recommend you delete your email address, which on this thread is currently public.

Flatwounds all the way for me too. I don't do rounds anymore.

I'm not sure whether you're being serious or facetious. There may be no mention, at this moment, of that particular power amp you name, but sure as hell the Amps And Cabs section is all about rigs? Different rigs - if you search a bit, you'll find debates, controversy, fanbois and fangirls of certain amp or cab makers, all kinds of info about new and vintage models... you name it. And there's also the EUB Double Bass section with its own ecosystem that includes specialised rigs. 😉🙃

Hasn't happened to me to be asked to turn down the bass in particular, as opposed to the whole band, but my usual response to similar silly questions is as follows: - shows tablet to the complainer, moves slider in question down while they're watching. - withdraws tablet, turns round, moves slider back up to where it was originally. That's unless it's the pub manager asking, but in that case I'll pull down the main slider rather than just the bass.

Also, I'm not sure how this works in practice:

Regarding payment of royalties, this is what the PRS website says. TBH, I think an updated version of the old-style Italian printed setlist would still be preferable, and more precise in giving the most popular authors their proper share. In the era of computers, mobile phones and the Cloud it wouldn't be much red tape to contend with.

The PRS rules in this country have always baffled me. In my youth, when I lived in Italy, every band had to produce and sign the complete list of the songs they would play at every gig, and if they also played recorded music, they would have to list those songs too. The pub would counter-sign, and everything would be promptly sent over to the equivalent of the PRS office, for royalty payment. If you didn't do it, the police would eventually get you and both the pub(s) and your band would be fined. This country is a bleedin' free-for-all from this point of view. Never seen any band being asked for a list of songs they played live or over the PA. I have no idea how artists get their dues here. Ah, but we're getting our country back from EU red tape, so all will be fine, won't it. 😮

We have our own rockabilly playlist that we use at most Damo And The Dynamites gigs, and occasionally for the Junkyard Dogs. We try to replace the house music with it wherever we are allowed to. It definitely helps, not just because it sets the mood, but also because I have control through the tablet over when to turn it off as the band goes on stage. The bar staff always seem to need yelling at several times before they bother to turn off their (usually) crap house PA to make sonic room for the band.

It's probably very easily fooled by songs that are recorded a bit too fast or too slow, which messes up the pitch. however, I uninstalled the demo version and continued to use MyEars 2.1.

The software writes down the entire song as a piano stave by default. It doesn't just show single notes. You can choose to print out only one instrument, say double bass (there is no provision for electric bass), but you'll still get some chords as opposed to just notes. I remember checking a few songs with the software and at least one third were transcribed in the wrong key. If the real key is minor, you can't have the software re-transcribe it correctly. Not just pointless but a waste of time and disk space.