peteb

Round here they want you to start at 9.30, have a decent length break then finish at midnight (including encores). The break is to give punters chance to chat and buy more beer, with the band coming back on before they start to think about moving on. Generally the curfew for live music is 12.00 and they want you to play up to then so people haven't got time to go elsewhere for last orders.

It depends on what the gig is. If you are playing original rock music to a new audience, you may want to play a short set packed with your best material to make the maximum impact and finish before you outstay your welcome. If you are playing to a blues crowd you might want to extend the songs and play a bit longer. A typical covers pub gig to a crowd that have come to see a band is generally 2x45 plus an encore, whereas a venue with a constantly changing clientele moving from one bat to another may want three one-hour sets.

When I was in a blues band playing a bar at a festival in Dundee, as we finished our set the landlord said he would pay us an £175 on top of our fee if we could do an extra 45 minutes. We did another 3 songs and played for a hour and 15 minutes...

That's autocorrect on a cheap tablet for you! I've just edited the post so your comment won't make any sense, but nonetheless nice one...

Well that's the beginning of the end of live music in this country then...

The live version of Ain't No Love would be an obvious one - another stellar bass part and hopefully no copyright issues...

That is a great shame as I would love to see exactly that video on YouTube. I do hope you manage to find a way round it and, of course, I would be very interested in subscribing to any YT channel you do manage to put up, as I imagine many bass players my age who grew up with your playing would.

UFO??

Regardless of his views on active bases, this is Scott doing what he does very well - an excellent interview with Gail Ann Dorsey

I was definitely impressed with Scott's video response and I don't think that he was using it as a marketing opportunity. However I agree that as a teacher he shouldn't really be making attention grabbing statements that might confuse his students. Having said that, I like Scott and think on balance he makes a positive contribution. There is obviously a demand for an online bass school - a demand that he is successfully meeting. It might not be for me, but good luck to him for developing something successfull and generally positive...

Well spotted sir! It is a top venue.

Just because sensationalist headlines have been around forever doesn't make themacceptable. He's making a nonsensical statement about active basses then trying to justify it later, which as an educator is hardly helpful to his students who might be taking his initial statement as gospel. Let's be honest, it's all debatable. There are great passive bass sounds and great active ones. I find it easier to use an active bass in most situations, but that's just a personal preference.

Dunno, he says something quite clickbaity about active basses then rows back on it, which I could quite easily disagree with. The thing is that everything in the signal chain affects your sound to some degree or other – from your fingers to the strings, the pickup, wood, electronics, any active onboard preamp, cable (or wireless) right through to the DI or how you mic up the cab.

I've heard that story is actually true! Lizzy, Queen (to an extent - they were never as massive in the states as they were here), Quo, The Jam, early Whitesnake (pre 1987) never really broke big the other side of the pond...

SAHB possibly - don't think that Dumpy's Rusty Nuts & Pink Fairies were that big in this country, let alone anywhere else...!

That one wasn't Scott's finest hour

Very much so

It depends where you are playing. It is self-indulgent to play a set full of unknown original material on a pub gig where the audience wants to hear classic rock (or whatever) covers...

I have to disagree, to an extent. Our job is, first and foremost, to entertain. However, there has never been a great band (even at a covers level) that doesn't have an element of self-indulgence. Of course, there is a line - no one wants to hear a seven minute bass solo version of Chromatic Fantasy at a wedding gig, no matter how good you are! But as you say, the better you are the more you can get away with. It helps if you can judge things on their own merits and not get too precious - for example, I quite like that Toploader song...

I generally won’t audition these days. Everyone local has seen me play and if they want me involved in their project, they can ask me and I will do it if I’m interested. If it was a bigger artist from outside of the area, then obviously that would be a different thing but that doesn't seem to happen unfortunately. I can’t remember the last time I auditioned anyone for one of my projects either – invitation only! When I did do auditions, I generally did pretty well at getting gigs. I’m pretty good at busking, which always helps at auditions, even though I would obviously make the effort to learn any songs that they gave me. I’m big on listening to the drummer and trying to lock in right from the off and I have always got a good bass sound, both of which help as well. My main problem was always that I don’t have strong BVs, which has cost me a few decent gigs.

A lot of U2 and Foo Fighters tributes around

I usually play with a single guitar player and tend to boost the low mids a little and cut hi mids. Sounds nice and full and there is no problem cutting through a pretty sparse mix. I did the same last Saturday when I was playing in a band with loads of big keyboard sounds and I wasn't cutting through, so I took a little low mids and bass out and it worked fine. It all depends on the room and (especially) the makeup of the band you are playing with.

Yes and no. What we've done so far for the Magnum tribute is to take the arrangement from a live performance from the 'classic' period as a template, but not stick slavishly to it. For example, the arrangement for Midnight just didn't work, so we combined the live version with the single one. As far as I'm concerned it's a tribute rather than a copy and I've approached the bass parts as what I would play if I actually got the call to play for Magnum. If you saw the clip I posted above, the guitar player very obviously isn't playing the same part for the solo as Tony Clarkin, but hopefully it is sympathetic to the original.