lowdowner

drummersworld.com seems to be very busy with chatty drummers though - just would be good for a UK chat forum I guess?

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1349473936' post='1826985'] I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be going anywhere near a gig like that with a guy who has been playing a few years, let alone less... [/quote] <frowns> Right - that's *you* off my invitation list then... shame, 'cause there's free cup-cakes and everything! </frowns>

I'm getting a good vibe here... I have the space and (most importantly) no neighbours!

[quote name='stu_g' timestamp='1349468993' post='1826874'] i dont mean to be funny but have you seen a drummer? some of them live in haylofts and only come out in the witching hour when they can smell food or cider all im saying is primeval !!! dont use your brain smell the cider!!!!!!!!! [/quote] time to break the stereotype?

[quote name='andydye' timestamp='1349468230' post='1826865'] I think the message to take would be that it depends on the person, I took to it with relative ease, others find it hard to pick up, you won't know until you try matey! Have a good old noodle on a drum-friend's kit first and see if you can knock out a straight 4, it will feel a bit weird at first when you have to do stuff with your feet at specific times but you'll know if it feels like something worth pursuing [/quote] I had a lesson about 4 months ago and was playing along to simple rhythms pretty well... so perhaps I'm not such a musk-retard

[quote name='andydye' timestamp='1349467882' post='1826858'] I learned from scratch in a weekend (including basic 2 stroke roll) and to a level where I could convey a varied set of songs and keep the rest of the band going with some energy... If you gotta do it it's surprising what you can achieve [/quote] I'm getting mixed messages on this thread - this is *excellent*, it means I can choose to take whichever advice suits...

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1349467674' post='1826856'] Sure, you can tap out a few simple things, but to get to any decent standard, I'd say the process is very long. [/quote] this sounds more like it... they say it takes 10,000 hours of practice before you can master an instrument... at hour of practice a day it's 30 years of effort

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1349466173' post='1826825'] Jaco played drums and bass on Teen Town, so... Yes! [/quote] Yes, but the gap between me and genius is - unsurprisingly - very large!

whatever happened to this?

[quote name='andydye' timestamp='1349465470' post='1826810'] I'd say yes as I can and do each new instrument I add makes me think differently about the other ones I play and improve on them too [/quote] I can definitely see why this would be - just thinking about spreading myself too thinly - i'm not that musically adept!

... not at the same time obviously, that would be completely insane... I'm having a mid-life crisis (band wise anyway), my band needs a temporary keyboard player whilst we track one down and I may play one on those tracks where bass isn't so appropriate (we do a lot of folk and country type stuff). Anyway, although I can play keyboards due to a mis-spent youth with some piano lessons and fiddling around with one later in life, actually, if I wanted to put time into learning to play an instrument in a gig *properly* i'd probably prefer to play drums. So, my question is this: do you think it's possible to play bass and drums well? I can't help but think that on the positive side, your sense of rhythm would be improved, but on the negative side, all that time you were practicing drums you could spend on getting even better on bass. Anyone on here play both - how do you find it? How did you learn two instruments? Is it even possible?

tune on the harmonics? many tuners seem to have problems even with a standard E tuning (my planet waves tuner does). I usually tune on the 12th harmonic

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1349449151' post='1826515'] If you're ever in the area you're welcome to pop over [/quote] You've gotta love this site!

The M50 seems to be really well thought of by online reviewers... I'll try to track one down to check it out... Thanks for the steer

I've just looked at the prices at digital village and perhaps I am going to need to spend more? Cripes!....

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1349438336' post='1826288'] Duncan at Digital Village cambridge is a keyboard player (as a lot of them there are) so they should be able to help you out. If cambridge doesn't suit you then any digital village is generally good. What's your budget? [/quote] That's great - thanks... Budget? Erm... don't know how much I need to spend. i'd prefer to buy well and buy once i guess... maybe up to £1K tops... although i'd have to save a few pennies *gulp*

I need some help! Our band is in need of a keyboard player and we're having difficulty finding one locally so - as I used to play piano in my yoof (!) - I offered to play some keyboards on song intros where the bass isn't so prominent... at least until we get a keyboard player so I need some advice for a reasonably priced, around 4 octave (don't want to lug around a huge thing) keyboard with pressure sensitive keys, midi, preferably sound sample updatable software, etc. etc. Any ideas to what I should get and from where - are there keyboard specific shops that can give me advice when I buy? thanks for any info/comment

Great track - not sure I can answer the questions as well as others on here, but the bass line is somewhere between funk and soul (to my ears). In fact, it's very close some James Brown funk, and more 'recently' to The Meters (listen to 'Cissy Strut' amongst others). Can't tell whether it's a pick though - it would certainly be possible finger picking which is what most funk is played with...

Isn't this argument a little like the point in tourists taking snaps of the eifell tower? You can buy a much better copy (and more accurate) for less, so why do it yourself? If I wanted to hear Eagles do Hotel California I'd buy the album (well, not again, but you know what I mean), so why would I want to hear a covers band make an (almost) exact replica? I'd rather hear their take. I mean, i'd like to listen to these guys doing 'walk like an egyptian' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc_m3XkYBE0 than an almost exact copy - wouldn't you?

[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1349209888' post='1823440'] Mind you years ago when we used to do Beat It we just played it in E. I suspect that it was recorded with everyone detuned a semitone across the board if it actually plays as Eb [/quote] This seems to be a common thought - a number of people have suggested this. If any track seems to scream out for a 5 stringer it seems to be this one though... but buying a bass for one track is possibly the flimsiest excuse I've yet thought of!

are they going to plug it into your £1000+ stack? What a combo!

This is a very weird coincidence because I was checking out drums last night and came across the wavedrum and thought what a great thing it would be to learn to add to our band's sound... if you get one, let us know how it goes

[quote name='fumps' timestamp='1349183960' post='1822910'] Yeh I have this theory also but thought I was being odd again. I believe It's down to feel & taste. I have played basses that have been highly recommended to me that carry a high price tag but i've sat with one & it just didn't feel nice or right for me. I also think that after a few years of use basses will become different from each other * (Or am I talking poop?). *Part of my theory is this:Two exact same bass guitars with two different owners, who have different postures, putting the basses through different flexural stress' in time, I believe the bass will become slightly different, add to this storage at different temperatures & also handling (Heavy handedness) surely after years like this the two bass' would become almost two different instruments altogether. If this has any truth to it, all basses become totally individual & will give you either a good feeling or a bad one. am i talking crap again ? because my fingers sometimes link directly to my brain & I am always worry about allowing my brain to communicate to the real world. [/quote] I suspect this is right. For more 'classical' instruments - especially ones made of natural materials - they tend to match their owners as they are tuned, pushed, pulled, sweated on, tweaked, polished, stroked, and generally 'bonded' to the player. I can't see why this wouldn't be true of an electric bass. I put heavy gauge strings on, keep it tuned by tuning every day, play it every day (making it warm and greasy every day), keep it in a cool barn in dim light that has occasional heating, but almost none. I have the action at a particular height etc. etc. It's made of wood and steel and it *must* be shaped by this individual behaviour until it's more part of me than i'd like to admit in polite company :0

I didn't mean for *every* string, just the E It will, of course, change all my patterns because the E string will then be 1/2 tone or 1 tone lower, but for some tracks this will be ace!

Oh.. oh .. oh <jumps up and down excitedly> don't get me started - when I'm fed up with being merely half-competent at bass playing I make myself feel better and imagine I'm a *fully competent drummer... *sigh*