peteb

The best way to get better is to play with musicians who are better than you. If you play with guys vastly more experienced than you, then it’s going to be a steep learning curve on a lot of things – be it playing, writing, gear (hence your recent thread about buying a new bass) and performance, etc. One of the big advantages that you have if you have only been playing for four years is that you haven’t really learnt how to do things wrong yet! If you are in a band with guys who know what they’re doing then hopefully you will just get used to doing things properly, which will make you a far better player.

Unfortunately, this was getting on for 15 years ago! The trouble is what is heavy for one person isn't an issue for someone else - I have no problems with my 10lbs P bass (although I did once have a Jazz that was over 12lbs, which was a bit too much for me). The Sterling was certainly considerably lighter than the Precision, although I never actually weighed it. I've just gone and weighed my current Ray, which is supposedly fractionally over 8lbs. I never thought of it as a particularly heavy bass, but it might just mean that I need some new luggage scales!

I used to have one for a brief period. Personally I prefer both the Stingray neck & sound, so I moved it on pretty quickly. However, it was a very nicely made bass and I can't remember it being at all heavy.

Good to hear from you buddy

Certainly not any of the bands that I play with...! But you can always learn something or maybe cop a lick or two...

I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with that. We can always learn from those who push the boundaries, even if we have no intention of emulating them.

The combination of jazz fusion, a six string fretless bass and ex members of Megadeth is probably not something you are going to come across generally at the Dog & Duck on a Saturday night...!

This thread has made me think of something that happened many years ago. Back in the mid 90s, I was part of a new band playing hard rock covers. A couple of us had been in well known local bands and everyone involved was known to some degree to local punters who were into that genre. We rehearsed a set up, booked a gig in a big pub and promoted the hell out of it. So, the first gig comes along and the place is packed. The guitar player turns up with one guitar. I asked him where his spare was. He said he didn’t need one, he didn’t break strings on stage (this was a guitar with a Floyd Rose) but he had a spare set just in case. Sure enough, halfway through the first number the guitar breaks down and we stop the show. We spent a desperate 15 minutes trying to fix it before a mate of mine in the audience who lives down the road says he has a Les Paul we can use. So, taxi to his house, pick the guitar, taxi back, straight on stage. Except, of course, nearly half of the audience had left and we had completely lost momentum with those who stayed. The rest of the show went great, but the damage was done. Despite a lot of interest, the band never recovered and only played a few more gigs locally before splitting up. Me and the guitar player never got on after that (to be fair, there were issues before) and he disappeared from the local muso scene soon after the band split. Fast forward 25 years and a singer who I play with in a tribute band is putting together a side project to knock out covers in pubs. He rings me up to ask if I know this guitar player who they have been put in touch with (yep, it’s the guy from the old band). I tell him that I know him and although he’s a reasonable player, personally I would refuse to play with him. I tell him the reasons why, including the fiasco when he didn’t bring a spare guitar. They ask somebody else to play guitar for them…

Basses never fail until they do! It's only happened to me about four times in 40 years gigging, but on three of those occasions it was pretty big (one very big) gigs. Do you want to risk blowing an important gig and getting kicked out of a band because you didn't chuck an extra bass in a gigbag in the back of the car?? Of course we all evaluate risk in all parts of everyday life. How much gear we take to a gig depends in the gig and the likely risk / consequences of a f*** up. There are gigs where I only take one bass and the bare minimum of gear (generally those where there are going to be travel / logistical issues, or those that are simply not that important to me), but there are others that I take spares for nearly everything! Not having spare leads / strings / batteries in your gigbag is simply amateurish and on certain occasions, so is not having a spare bass. If I was to turn up with only one bass to most of the gigs I do for the rock bands I'm in, then there would be raised eyebrows (to put it mildly - again, depends on the gig), whereas only having one bass on some of the dep gigs I've done was accepted as the done thing.

And a lot of time he doesn't...! As someone who has always played in a lot of three piece bands, I would say that it is knowing when to fill space or when to embrace it, let notes ring out more, when to play more or lay back. You just learn how to feel what will work!

Funnily enough, I'm the complete opposite with Stingrays. I've had three and every time I sell one, I find myself buying another. The first I got as part of a trade and didn't really intend to keep it. I used it for a year or so (mainly as a spare), then sold it on. As soon as I did I missed it and looked for another. The second one came in a swap for a Fender Jazz and I meant to keep it, but I needed a 35" five string for a project and didn't have the cash at the time, so I sold it to fund the new fiver. The one I have now was bought from a mate in the northeast, after I admired it at a gig and asked him to give me first refusal if he ever were to sell it. Eventually, he decided to move it on and let me have it for a great price. I have every intention of keeping it! In some ways a Stingray is a bit like a Precision, in that no other bass sounds like remotely like it.

This is another one of those threads (like using a compressor) that turn up regularly on BC. The responses pretty much show where the poster is on the evolutionary ladder of bass players – not whether they take a spare or not, but their reasons for doing (or not doing) so! Whether I take a spare depends (as ever) on the gig. I take a spare bass to the vast majority of gigs, especially if it is: a) a big show, and; b) where I am travelling in my own car or a shared van, etc. If there are likely to be difficulties with getting to or from the gig, if it is a multi-band affair where there are more chances of gear going astray and easier to borrow a bass in an emergency, or if it isn’t a particularly important show then I am more likely to risk it and just take the one. In over 40 years of gigging, I have only needed a spare bass four times. But in accordance with Murphy’s Law, they were all pretty big gigs, including the biggest audience (of about 3,000) that I have played to in the last 15 or 20 years.

Surely that would make it a good time to buy? To be honest, I have been buying and selling quite a bit over lockdown and secondhand prices have been pretty much what I would expect. I suspect that things are about balancing themselves out; some people are on restricted incomes / lost their job / worrying about having gear that they can't gig; whilst others are living on the same income and have spare cash as they can't go out and spend like they usually would or can't go on holiday, etc...

Thanks for that. I've just read up on the new EU Vat regs and the new ‘Import One-Stop-Shop’ (IOSS) arrangements that are being introduced from 1st July and I think that you are probably correct.

The point is that Thomann have already said that they will "shortly be introducing door-to-door pricing whereby the price on our website will be inclusive of VAT and the additional handling fees". My question is does anyone here know when they intend to start doing this?

Does anyone know when Thomann are going to start doing this?

Generally not quite that bad, but I have known a guitarist BL to call a tune in a key that it is impossible to sing it in...!

I used to dep for a blues guitar player who used to ask you to listen to a few songs for the gig, which he would almost always never play but just call out a completely different set to the one he had asked you to learn...!

Blues gig then?? 😉

To be fair, Simon has posted a lot about how to use a compressor. I have certainly learnt quite a bit from his contributions and I'm sure that others (at least those who want to) have as well.

It is not the audience’s job to notice details about the bass player’s sound. However, what they are very good at doing is comparing the band they are watching on any given night to the one they saw last week. Generally, most punters can tell the difference between the better bands and ones that aren’t that great. What the band sound like is obviously a big part of how a band is perceived and how the bass sits in the mix is a small, but important part of that. Compression is a tool to get a bass to cut through the mix and there is a reason why most of the better bass players I know (but by no means all) use a PB compressor when playing live. You may or may not need a compressor, but you should at least appreciate why many bass players use them live. I am not speaking as a compressor ‘fanboy’, but as a musician who has worked with a fair few decent players and several pro sound engineers. Frankly it’s no skin off my nose whether you choose to listen to me or not…

The thing is, back in the day they were so big and didn't release that many albums (and no singles), so virtually every song was analysed by fans / critics and seemed to be almost an event in its own right (if that makes sense). If you are looking for the ones that perhaps are not the best known, I would suggest Ten Years Gone, The Rover, Tea For One, When The Levee Breaks, The Lemon Song and Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. But that's just off the top of my head, there are so many others.

Is there such a thing as an obscure Led Zep track??

I think that this also demonstrates that a good FOH engineer will add compression at a big gig if you haven't already done so yourself. To get the same quality of sound at a smaller gig with no experienced engineer at the desk, then the onus is on you to sort out what compression should be on the bass.