peteb

Compressors, hi-mass bridges and why Jaco is the worst bass player ever...!

But isn't that what you actually want, to find a bass that makes you sound like the best version of you??

I know that she lives in the US and is friends with some people I know (who play with her occasionally) from Detroit. To be accurate, they are from Detroit but are actually based in Beaver Island, about 300 miles north of Detroit.

Real bassists, or just some of the people who post on here?

The simple answer is because they pay him lots of money! As he is in a position to pick and choose, I would imagine that he doesn't share your opinion of the stuff that he plays on...

I would imagine that he makes very good money indeed and that he sees these basses as the tools he needs to carry out the jobs that he gets asked to do.

I would imagine it is because he likes them. Also, as a session player, he probably wants to have the best possible versions of the industry reference sounds that many producers want to hear / are happy working with. No one has ever complained about a bass player turning up with an old P bass!

Just to remind people that Pino is known for playing Stringrays, Laklands and vintage Precisions. Like many session players, he may have odd curiosity type basses that he uses for getting different, one-off sounds, but the above have been his core basses over the years.

That's very true. Then again, he doesn't turn up to a session with a f***in Harley Benton...

Is it that time already? A compressor thread must be just around the corner!

For balance, I've bought secondhand and sold quite a lot of gear on commission at Bass Direct. These days, I sell pretty much everything through them as it takes away the hassle of dealing with idiots online, they tend to sell quickly and sell stuff for higher prices than I could (for example) trying to sell something on here. If I need advice about something I'm thinking of buying then I ring them up and ask. I once rang for advice on buying a cab and Mark advised me to buy something that I had been offered by someone else as he thought that it would be better for my needs than what he had in stock! I can't fault that and for me the service has always been great.

I believe that they were a band playing the Glaswegian circuit when Harvey saw them and thought that they sounded great (I believe that "like a hand grenade going off" was the phrase he used to describe them IIRC). He then pitched the idea to them of going forward with him as a frontman and playing his songs.

That is hardly ever the case!

Absolutely, but to be in the same room with anyone who's any good, you have to put in the hard hours to get your technique and knowledge up to a level where they will want to play with you.

When you are learning, you slog away for ages without anything happening and then it all clicks and you improve. Then you slog away again for ages trying to get to the next level (sorry to sound like SBL) - rinse and repeat. The best way to improve is to try and play with other musicians who are better than you. Practicing with a metronome helps as well.

All this talk of why fuel prices are so high has little to do with why there was a shortage a few months ago, which was because of a shortage of tanker drivers...

The MU doesn't operate in an area that makes any sense at all to semi-pro musicians. If pubs had to pay a five piece band £500 for a bog-standard pub gig then it wouldn't be economically viable for landlords and there wouldn't be any gigs for semi-pro bands.

Sensible landlords will be wary of a band that charges too little. The fact that they are prepared to undercut other bands suggests a lack of confidence in their abilities and the chances are that they are not very good (not to mention p***ing of all the decent bands in the area). Better to pay a band £250 who will keep people at the bar for the whole night than £150 to a band that will have punters running to the exit after one pint, vowing to never return! But unfortunately, that is a completely different market and therefore irrelevant. It's all down to supply and demand...

Actually, the pub gigging circuit in pubs and other venues that semi-pro bands are likely to play is a pretty good example of how a market is supposed to work! Having said that, I have no problem with bands getting similar fees. I used to play in a pretty popular pub band and there were certain pubs that we would pack out and provide far better value to the landlord than the £250 we (and every other band) were getting. However, you can't play the same four or five pubs all the time and there were new gigs where we would get £250 despite not getting a big crowd, al least not until we had played a couple of times to start to build up a following there. So, in some places we were, in effect subsidising other bands, whereas in different places other bands were subsidising us! Pubs need a rota of enough good quality bands (that can be refreshed from time to time) so punters don't get bored of seeing the same bands all the time. Similarly, bands need a list of enough pubs in different areas so they can gig constantly without the same punters seeing them too frequently and getting bored of them!

Spot on...

It all depends on the gig. That guitar player might have stormed it at a club gig on the blues circuit, but the wedding was the wrong gig for him. Generally, better bands will do better than mediocre ones, but its not just about sheer musicianship. Stagecraft and being an entertainer is just (or more) important. Essentially, the vast majority of us are just song and dance men - but what the song and what the dance is depends on what audience is coming to see us.

It doesn't matter how good you think your band are, there are only so many people in the pub catchment area who will turn up and drink beer. If you are getting people from other towns coming to see you, it is likely that they will be driving and therefore (hopefully) not drinking! That's no good to a landlord when he's not charging admission and relying on beer sales.

But there was a shortage of fuel getting to the pumps, only it was caused there being a lack of drivers. Sill a shortage though. To be fair, I haven't seen that happening so far. Landlords seem generally pleased to be able to put on an attraction that they hope will encourage punters down to the pub in a difficult period. What happens in a few months when things start to settle down will be interesting. Will gig fees be forced down if there are less punters going to see bands in pubs??