EliasMooseblaster

You can atone for your sins by posting some pictures when it arrives!

I guess for the "pub band" situation, the key is make the bass solo part of the entertainment. My Generation is a great example of how to do it, where the bass solos are snappy, two-bar breaks which work as a call-and-response between the bass and the rest of the band. If you changed that out for a full 32-bar break for the bass player to go through his/her whole book of chops, then you'd lose that pace and the queue for the bar would probably grow quite quickly. (So at least the landlord would be happy...)

It's a contraction of an old instruction that Geordie bandleaders used to give to their rhythm guitarists.

The string tension is likely to be ridiculous if you bring those four strings up a whole fourth from their intended pitch...I would have some concerns about the safety of the neck!

A cab with a built-in motor and wheels on the back, so I could lie it down and ride it to gigs, using the amp as a backrest and the bass guitar as a punt to steer it.

There's no shame in using an open string to give your ear some reference and reassurance...if the key of the song permits, of course!

I humbly beg to differ...

OK, time for a daft question. I can see why these microtonal adjustments make the difference they do, but it looks like, if you drew a line of best fit through the frets, they'd all be more-or-less parallel. Contrast this with the multi-scale/fanned-fret approach adopted by people like Dingwall, where none of the frets are parellel, and which presumably also helps to minimise these intonation discrepancies - or is that also try to achieve a more balanced string tension at the same time?

This problem sounds familiar. The crucial question is: what does everybody want from this? This is always a dangerm because everybody joins these startups with a vague agreement that they'd like to make a success of the project. The trouble is, they never get round to discussing specifics. This is not a failing on anybody's part: it's just that most people don't necessarily come into things with the well-prescribed idea that they want a given band to be, e.g., "the most popular early-krautrock covers band in Daventry, playing no fewer than eight nights a week, and ideally earning £7,000 per show." I can only speculate. It may be that the singer enjoyed those gigs so much, he now thinks this band could put itself in a position to become his primary source of income; if the bassist has a family and a new job, then he may have other ideas. It may even be that they all want to make it their primary concern, but they all have different thresholds for being prepared to leave their jobs and dedicate themselves to it full-time (I speak from experience, this does happen). Find out want everyone wants out of this project. Let them be honest; don't let one member shoot down another for "not wanting it enough" (read: being pragmatic) or "holding us back from our dreams" (read: my ego must be massaged). It should become clearer what needs to happen. Hopefully you can compromise, and the band won't need to start shedding members, but it's better to get this straightened out before things can properly boil over.

So are we any clearer on what in fornication's name a "minimill" is? At first I assumed he had just mis-spelt a popular brand of ice lolly...

It's the only amp that has ever forced me to make sure I'm properly dressed before trying to take a picture of it!

Though I see you have also fallen into the trap of photgraphing your reflection in the shiny metal front panel!

^ this will probably be the crucial question. They've survived for a long time by being the only companies that could offer "that sound" or "that effect," but now there are plenty of far cheaper options. I started shopping around for Tube Screamers last week - it's a guitar tone I've always liked - saw the options, and the prices, and wondered which model to go for...and then found out that instead of forking out £100, I could get a Chinese-made clone for <£30, which had TS9 and TS808 modes at the flick of a switch. (Obviously I won't know how good it is until it arrives, but other reviews have been quite positive...) The TS9B, on the other hand, I've not found replicated anywhere else. Seem to recall I paid ~£150 for that five or six years ago. Are we into boutique territory at that price point? Either way, that's a tone I've not found in any other bass OD pedal. It's not even an esoteric sound, but if nobody else is doing it, then nobody else will undercut them. (I realise this is probably the point at which you all bombard me with links to cheap Bass Tube Screamer clones...)

I stumbled across this in today's Graun, and apart from being alarmed that Spotify had been around for 10 years already, I found both cases quite interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/05/10-years-of-spotify-should-we-celebrate-or-despair For a bit of fun - or some stiff debate if you prefer - which side of the fence do you find yourself on? Ten years on, is Spotify ultimately a force for good or evil?

I believe they had a session player in for the studio albums (none other than Jerry Scheff played on LA Woman, their last album before Morrison died). Most of the live footage I've seen, it's Manzarek's left hand on a separate bass keyboard. Another more contemporary example is the Matt Schofield Trio. Jonny Henderson has a similar setup to Ray Manzarek. Admittedly the band is mostly a vehicle for Schofield's superb guitar playing, but I must admit I was not distracted by the absence of a dedicated bass guitar or double bass player when I saw them.

It's still a variation on the guitar though, isn't it? They might all serve different roles and be played differently, but a violin, viola, cello (or violoncello, to give it its full name) and double bass (bass viol, for the pedants) are all in the violin family. Similarly the guitar family includes tenor, baritone and bass variants on its more common form. I don't mean to touch a nerve; I just vividly remember Talkbass absolutely exploding down the middle into two camps of people yelling "IT'S A BASS" and "ERM, NO, IT'S A BASS GUITAR" at each other.

You're right, and I've missed the subtle but important distinction, that people are aware of our presence, but not what we're doing musically to hold everything together.

What do you mean, "a high opinion"? I am a GOD, and great shall be the wrath that I do vent upon those who do not fall, yea, even unto my feet, in fealty and worship.

It's clearly very dependent on the circumstance. My role requires me to lock in with our drummer (of course), fling myself around the stage as a visual foil for our singer, and "busy up" the bassline when our guitarist is soloing. But then I also get a bass solo during the first song in our set, so people definitely know I'm there!

I was very sorely tempted by those a few years ago, but I never got a chance to try one - anyone know what they were like? I imagine a tone with more "grunt" than a Jazz bass, but not quite as dark as a Thunderbird - how many miles off the mark am I?

Or an Excision?

I guess every so often you strike a bargain - I had a similar experience six or seven years ago when my combo gave up the ghost, and I needed another at short notice for a gig. I spotted a 1x15 (Laney, on this occasion) which hadn't attracted much attention, put in a similarly low bid and went to the pub. When I woke up, there was an email telling me my stupidly low bid had won! Presumably there weren't many people looking for SS combos that week. You could say I've seen the market saturate itself in real-time: when I was trying to get my hands on a particular Focusrite interface, I set a maximum price in my head and let two of them go when I was outbid, but the third one I was watching came in well within my budget. Clearly there weren't that many people looking for a 2i2 that week.

It's a CN212, which I bought from chris_b a couple of years ago. Wonderful bit of kit.