uk_lefty

Do you have a male or female lead singer... Or both? It's a great function set but wondering how many my band could do with our male singer! We play functions but have more of a rock edge to our band, we are chasing the money!! But our male singer will do "piece of my heart", proud Mary, and "hit the road jack". We occasionally have a female singer come up and do a few numbers with us but now she's gone to uni we will have her less and less.

Mick I'll have a rummage around for any bits spare, they will go to you FOC

I have three basses, a practice amp, a gig rig, a multi fx and an electro acoustic guitar. I lust after: a fender jazz because I love em and I don't have a jazz at the moment, a Hofner because I'm a lefty and it's the law, a fretless probably jazz but could go ACG/ Zoot/ Shuker, there's an ibanez 5er I like but can't remember the model number, a fender Aerodyne jazz so I can give up my P but still have the best of a P and a J, 80's Aria basses, a Status headless, the Washburn status headless, a Hohner B2A with the EMG's and just try harder with the string spacing, an electric guitar, a valve head bass amp, a trace elliot rig... I don't think I'll buy much of any of it. I can't justify most of it. Buying my last expensive bass was an eye opener. I went USA Stingray over a USA Jazz because although I really, really loved the jazz the Stingray was the better gigging bass for what and how I play. If I was recording it would be valve amps and jazz basses but for gigs it's lightweight class D and a Stingray all the way! I'd love the time to do recording but I barely practice for my actively working band! While I like lots of different types of gear I prefer quality over quantity so I've looked at cheap jazzes and so on and I just tell myself it won't satisfy me like one day getting that USA jazz bass I want. Effects never worked out for me so I went good quality multi fx and I'm satisfied, I was always getting signal noise and pedals reacted differently with different basses, too frustrating buying and selling all the time. I really want an electric guitar because I am writing songs in order to set up a new band next year but 99% certain I will play bass in it so I keep looking at six strings but not buying. I also don't have the space for all my gear at the moment so space saving, rationalising down the gear hoard is a big thing for me and has been for a few years as my family grows. I am having an "office" built in my garage though so... 🤐

Woukdnt surprise me if it hadn't been plugged in properly in the first place! May have just been a shoddy connection or something? Anyway, it made a loud buzz through the monitor, there's video of me pointing to it for the sound man while missing a bv cue and then he runs on and plays with loads of cable by my feet.

As long as everyone knows what is going on in enough time before the gig I don't mind either bringing my own or borrowing. We do a charity festival each year, last year the organisers said they would provide amps if we needed. Our guitarists amp was knackered and he hadn't got the money to buy a new one. When we got there the stage was lined up with amps, seriously a whole line of guitar amps all across the stage, of varying quality. It was such an effort for them to allow him to use an amp, they gave him the crappest most unreliable one available and told him not to touch the settings. It's OK he will only use the clean channel he says. The bass amp looked like it had been salvaged from a WWI U boat wreck so I took my own up. We could barely move on stage for amps we weren't allowed to use! In the first song I moved my foot and managed to unplug a monitor and there was buzz coming through the PA. Had they been clear beforehand about what they would or would not lend out we could have made decisions like DI'ing the bass if there was no room, brining another guitar amp if we weren't allowed to use anything half decent...

They're constantly putting new used stock up on Facebook, maybe it moves so quick they can't update the main website?

Have a good play around with it and see what you like, see if you bond with the bass before sinking cash in to it. Some things may not need changing so you could save yourself some pennies, e.g. Lots of people change Sire tuners but I found them perfectly up to the job.

Nothing to add except they may have seemed like pro's to you but they wanted someone to hold down the low end and lock in with the drummer. I bet your mis-key was only noticed by the band and hardly anyone at all in the audience. Also from their point of view if 90% of what you did was correct and good enough then you're 90% towards the next dep with them in my view, just probably concentrate on the keys and watch where you step on stage 😊

I'd play bass on the ones where there's an 8linteresting bass line, a song that wouldn't be the same without it.

Agree with this. You can enforce chords with root notes and play counter melodies and so on under the guitar. It really adds something to have bass. If you really want the beat just ask the singer to tap her toes.

Never had as bad as that but I'm sure it happens so easily. I've had complete mental blocks with forgetting the main riffs to songs I know inside out and fumbke through something until I get it right near the end of the second verse, etc. We try to rehearse for the gig but we often change the set list on the fly. Our worst gig was a function earlier this year when we were over confident, under rehearsed and everyone was in a bad mood with personal stuff, then some speakers didn't work so we were swapping PA kit at the last minute. We had food ordered by the venue well in advance that was amazing the year before and this year was dreadful. Our room bookings were messed up. We had to wait and hour and a half 0ast show time to start then packing up took forever. We were dreadful. We learned from that: don't drink and moan when waiting to go on, be more strict with organisers about starting times, and be more strict with people making requests and generally interrupting your flow.

I watched a fair few mins of noodling but not all of it

Sometimes, sometimes not. My rhythm guitarist runs our sound, it used to be his full time job for touring bands for a number of years, he's never had an issue with the bass sound with me playing either two fifteens or a fifteen and two tens. I trust his opinion. Regardless of what is or isn't superior, I preferred the sound of two fifteens and one day hope to be back set up like that.

Sounds too zingy in that video, I'd want more of a vintage tone myself. Well worn flats on it may help

Great track, real energy and drive to it. Very tasty bass lines, I especially like that!! Love the samples and so on. Particularly interested in how your project works with someone splicing parts together, would love to do something like that myself! Really original sound, hope it goes from strength to strength (once the guitarist heals, hope he gets better fast!)

I have a P bass with flats and often play through my "clean" amp. I sometimes add drive. I like the sound of the flats clean, it has a character that the same bass can't reproduce with rounds. I also like the same bass and amp with nylon wrap strings. The bass sounds OK with rounds but I've got other basses that sound better with rounds, so horses for courses. Though my p bass with flats does sound flipping amazing through an Ampeg SVT and 8x10 I like a clean amp anyway. If I want it to sound like something else I'll use an amp emulator off my multi fx and/ or other effects.

I think that's it but I know nothing of the science...

I use Ashdown RM gear. My favourote multi cab option was two 15" cabs. The Mrs had a bit of a dig about the amount of gear I had so I sold one and instantly regretted it, but then bought a 2x10 just because. I like using the 2x10 on its own as a single cab solution but when I take both, which is very often, I found I preferred having two fifteens. There was just more depth and fullness to the sound. I am toying with the idea of having just a single 4x10 from the Rrotmaster series in the hope that it gives me what I want tone and volume wise but is only a single cab, but I'm reluctant to try. Partly because I like the idea of having a stack of speakers behind me, I feel a bit less of a man when I only take a single cab... Funny enough my drummer says more surface area = more volume... My two fifteens (30 inches of speaker) set up was louder I think than my fifteen plus two x ten (35 inches of speaker). While I understand where he's coming from I think that's not completely true... Anybody know the answer?

I have never and am incredibly unlikely to get any kind of music "endorsement" but I can speak of experience of sports sponsorships. At under 14 County level I was offered a discount on equipment, anywhere from 15-40% depending on the brand. Going up to playing in the men's 1st Division (not Premier) I got one set of free kit for one season only and that was from a minor brand. The point being to try and be as visible as possible, not because of my name but because they wanted to see as many players as possible in the top leagues and junior representative sides in their gear. It went back to big discounts after that. Following a brief stint out the game I got "trade prices" on kit from major brands when playing in the third tier. When a full set of kit costs near £2000 and you can wear out a lot of it in less than a season it's worth doing for the player at least. The big boys in the Premier league got much better support, training sets of kit (recognising they train so often they need at least two of everything and will go through three or four sets of some items of kit). All of this is paid for out of the 'marketing budget' and is therefore an overhead to the trade buyers and end customers. I only know of one person who got paid to endorse kit and they used his name on it and had his design input. I guess with music gear it's different. At the Marcus Miller masterclass where he's plugging Sire basses he openly says his Fender jazz is the best bass he's ever had, it's on every record, etc. You have to be less "on brand" with music gear I think because there's an emotional connection to collectors items from the past. So maybe the cash is only there for a select few with the marketing value, the rest are about tour support for their gain and for the brands its about maximum visibility, e.g. "70% of bassists playing download were using X brand of amps" would be a great ad for a rock image bass amp brand regardless of whether you know who the players are.

You mean Sexy Eyes, Sylvia's Mother, etc didn't provide a suitable interlude? Who'd have thunk it? 😅

I have an early 2000's MIJ Precision and I think its great. Really well built, noticeable step up in quality from the Mexican fender I had, can't comment on how it compares to USA Fender though.

Absolutely for me. I don't have a complex signal chain for it though, sounds best with a clean sound and a bit of a tickle on the dusty end with the sub dial down low.... And mark bass will now rethink endorsements because we have discussed one feature of Ashdon amps more than their coup of recruiting Mark King smash capitalism!!!

I was tempted to get one of those that came up recently but looked like it needed sinking it cillit bang for a month so i decided against enraging the wife for unknown upside. Do they sound any good? I like the look with the black and red colour combo

I lust after basses more but go through amps and used to go through effects regularly. I guess basses are a much more emotive purchase for me that I agonise over for months, years, sometimes forever... I will one day have a Hofner, one day in the future!! And a sandberg 48, an 80s Aria, two jazz basses (again), something custom, a sixer... Amps just make them louder. Effects just disappoint.

Like anything it's down to the user to be tasteful with it. I personally like it, used sparingly as a doubling up effect but its only on the odd phrase. I wouldn't leave it on constantly, but it is use able.