thisnameistaken

What kind of infections does he specialise in? Mine is scabby but it hasn't fallen off yet, should I show it to him?

Do you feel like your current picking technique is holding you back? Only it seems 99% of bass players pick exactly the same way you're doing it now and it works for them.

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='991531' date='Oct 17 2010, 07:59 PM']Somebody actually said to me the other day: 'Is thisnameistaken gay?'[/quote] Sorry boys!

WH no there's no crack in the bass anywhere. The neck laminates have shifted a bit around the body join and a couple of edges feel a bit raised but nothing scary. I will have to try different strings, then different pickups. I definitely didn't remember have this issue the last time I was using this bass regularly, which was about a year ago. And nothing has changed except the string brand. It just seems like too weird an issue to be strings though.

Phil - yes that's exactly what I was talking about. I haven't tried adjusting the pup heights because tbh it doesn't seem like one string is any louder than another, but I might mess with it and see what it does. Simon - It does indeed seem like an EQ problem but it must be something onboard. I've noticed it through my amp but I recorded direct and got the same effect. I wonder if I should take this to a Warwick forum and see if anyone else has had this before, but I've never heard of Warwick's pups wearing out or whatever.

[quote name='bassbluestew' post='990022' date='Oct 16 2010, 11:09 AM']( At the risk of being perceived as homophobic which I am sooo not darling ) it [i]is[/i] MISTER Thisnameistaken ?? Just the avatar - that's all. Very attractive btw.[/quote] FTR I am a bloke and I am straight, I just got the hunky homos avatar recently to balance out all the airhead bimbo avatars.

It doesn't seem to be related to which string or which fret, but rather a particular range of notes that just sound weak. Anything above the second G in particular seems to drop out. I am using Slinkies for the first time (after a lifetime of Rotosounds) I wonder if that could be anything to do with it?

So the promoter doesn't want to rent an amp but he also doesn't think he should be liable for any damage to your amp? Tell him to get stuffed. It's his gig, he needs to make sure he has the equipment needed to put on the bands. If other bands can't/won't show up with enough backline then that's their problem and his problem, not yours. Tell him to get stuffed again.

He looks like a knob but he can play. So teaching is probably what he ought to be doing.

Nah it's still called Fibbers, but it's hard to tell because of the gay font they used.

[quote name='casapete' post='989968' date='Oct 16 2010, 09:41 AM']Hey up, easy tiger........its not all bad![/quote] Good point, I've been to Goole.

Our keys player also plays trumpet, and I think when she is on keys she likes to play lower notes. I have told her to shift stuff up an octave before now - partly because we already had a trombonist occupying that tenor area anyway - but mostly because all the interesting sh*t in our band happens on my bass guitar and she was making it sound untidy!

This is a weird one... I don't know if this has always been the case because I don't know if I've ever paid enough attention, but my Thumb is seriously lacking power above the first octave. I've noticed it more in rehearsals lately. The bass is a '91 Thumb, completely stock with the original MEC pickups / circuitry. I really like the sound of the bass, but obviously there is a problem. The tunes we recorded back in April show the symptoms: [url="http://www.myspace.com/copaseticska"]http://www.myspace.com/copaseticska[/url] It almost sounds like the bass itself is compressing out the higher notes. I thought the engineer had put some aggressive compression or maybe a low-pass filter on the bass tracks that was causing the effect but apparently there was nothing on there. Any advice?

TBH recently they've been picking on my pedalboard because it looks expensive, despite the fact that it has shrunk as I've focused it towards what this band does, and until now I've only used the OC-2, the fuzz on my O.S., and a heavily compressed overdrive sound on my M9. But on some new tunes I've got a full-on dubstep bass gnarl on one (the 'all effects switched on' sound I mentioned earlier), and a square wave reverb pitch-shifty thing on another that sounds like the underground theme from Super Mario, and it's all being accepted as just what the bass is supposed to do. It's f***ing ace being in my band.

Two things: Tonight they brought up a post I'd made on Facebook where I'd said I was going to learn to play jazz before I was too old for originals bands and had to play Mustang Sally to happy couples every weekend, and that I'd found some other potential jazzers in York to play with. Bless 'em they were worried I was leaving the band which I wouldn't do, I love the tunes. But tonight I actually had all my pedals on and they were encouraging it. Basically an OC-2 suboctave blended with a gated fuzz from my Octavius Squeezer, through a chorus, vibrato and low-pass filter on my M9 and finally through my Bugcrusher. I was saying "No this is silly" and they were saying "No let's do it, it will freak people out." I love my band. For the record we're a rocksteady/punk band. Not the sort of band you'd expect to find endorsing drum n' bass bass sounds.

I wish I could practice every day! Sometimes I'll do an hour practising scales on the DB to work on intonation and for position changing / thumb position practise. Other days I'll put on some jazz tunes and fail to follow the charts, or practise reading parts, or practise playing and singing difficult stuff at the same time. That's most of my practise efforts these days, I don't really practise the bass guitar any more but to be fair I get enough playing in with the band to keep the mechanical skills in shape.

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='989298' date='Oct 15 2010, 03:11 PM']That really sucks. Fibbers is (was) one of the best places i've seen bands in. The Duchess is good as well, plus it's right next to fibbers which was helpful when trying to find it earlier this year lol. Shame to hear it ruined.[/quote] It seems the new owners want to turn it into a club. They've got York St John's main campus just around the corner so I think it's mostly student drinks promos and DJs now. TBH I haven't been in since the refurb but that's because they haven't put on a band I want to see, and strangely we haven't been booked there but I suppose if all the promoters we work with have jumped ship then that's not surprising...

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='988851' date='Oct 15 2010, 09:16 AM']Unfortunately, being a 2-loop pedal I feel as if I really should have a different effect in each loop, but that stops the "clean channel" effect. [/quote] FWIW in the second side of my mixer I only have a Boss OC-2. So I can either mix a dry signal in or I can mix in a suboctave. It also means I can footswitch between soloed OC-2 suboctave or a mix of suboctave and clean (using the other channel of the mixer with no pedals active), or indeed a suboctave with something gnarly above it, without having to turn any knobs.

Bear in mind that the sound you like best for recording might be impractical to use live - you might struggle to get enough level using a mic without getting lots of feedback. FWIW a jazzer I know uses just a Realist on one of his basses and it sounds great, he uses just a Full Circle on the other and that also sounds great. Neither give the full acoustic presence and woody sound of his basses, especially on the lower strings, but tbh once you're going through a PA I doubt you're going to be able to preserve a lot of that.

While we're on the subject I've heard of bands having trouble getting paid at the newly-refurbished Fibbers in York. Tokyo Industries took over, announced that they'd spent 250k on the place and bought a whole new PA, but apparently that's not entirely true. They had Oceansize booked a few weeks back and the new rig couldn't meet their tech spec, so they dragged the old desk out - covered in brick dust from the refurb - and couldn't get it going. They also didn't have enough monitors or - laughably - XLR cables, so the gig got cancelled and the band had to turn away all the fans who were queueing outside. A lot of the old guys from Fibbers have jumped ship since, including their main promoter. So yeah, I would recommend booking Stereo on Gillygate or the Duchess instead.

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='988511' date='Oct 14 2010, 10:08 PM']that's cool, though i prefer 'matador' and 'carmela' by l.f.c. myself[/quote] Yeah they're a great band. I first heard them guesting on a Fishbone tune (One Planet People) about was glad I did. Bass player gets a great sound out of that baby bass.

[quote name='ahpook' post='988489' date='Oct 14 2010, 09:59 PM']you'll most definitely need a preamp with that.[/quote] I take it you know what the output signal's impedance will be and what the impedance on the input of his amp is? I need a pre between my Bassmax and my Hartke head, but got away without a pre when using a GK combo recently.

I would rather get the mix right in the backline. All you need is a blender pedal, maybe with an active volume control on the loop return, to get the mix right between your fuzz and clean sound. A Boss LS-2 would be about the cheapest way of doing it, and it's a pretty useful swiss-army-knife pedal to have anyway, and I'm not just saying that because I have one for sale. Incidentally mine is for sale because Max replaced it with a high-quality two-channel mixer a few weeks back, but I'd been using the LS-2 for a couple of years.

[quote name='Lenny B' post='988591' date='Oct 14 2010, 11:05 PM']The Haggis'? Good days, bad days I guess... Great players though (which was the point of my post - do you know them? happy to chat more via PM if you do)[/quote] No I know them through other people, I've never really been part of the Leeds scene because I split to the USA for a bunch of years. I am good friends with a guy who turned down a bunch of work with them because he'd just had a baby daughter and didn't think he would cope very well with the lifestyle. That was shortly before Jason died.

[quote name='Lenny B' post='988582' date='Oct 14 2010, 10:53 PM']... So's Corinne Bailey Rae's band - half of them are ex-Leeds So's my mate Malcolm, now playing with Jamiroquai / Mark Ronson / Haggis Horns[/quote] I do worry about those guys. They don't seem to handle the high life very well.