EliasMooseblaster

Careful now, this might add an extra dimension to another old argument: "fingers, plectrum, or barge-pole?"

Ashdown themselves would advise (have advised) against it, but I've managed plenty of small gigs with a Little Bastard 30 (since rebadged as the CTM-30) and a not-particularly-efficient 1x15. More recently, it's been paired with a far superior 2x12 and those 30 watts have gone even further. I can also reassure you that the LB30/CTM-30 has a much fuller, richer sound than the CTM-15, but I guess that's what doubling the wattage does for you! Normally, to be on the safe side, I drive the 2x12 with a CTM-100, but then I'm playing with a loud drummer, and I have a lot of sonic space to fill as we only have one guitarist. So I think my advice would be to see if a 30W is loud enough for your needs, but be prepared to move to something a little bigger if necessary!

Is this the danger of leaving pianists to write most musicals? I'm sure I've heard similar anecdotes of guitarists having conniption fits when their MDs insisting on them sticking to the written chord voicings...

I might venture that the question is flawed statistically, as it's probably a safe bet that more players globally - pro, amateur, semi-pro, and every level in between - are still playing 4s than 5s. So you could propose that, just on probability, more famous basslines are likely to have been played on 4s than on 5s. So yes, there are more famous bass players who have (predominantly) played 4s, but as a proportion of all the 4-string players worldwide, how does that compare to the relative proportion of famous bassists who favour a 5? We should probably apply some kind of weighting to this. If there were, say, twice as many 4-string players as 5-string players in the world, we might want to make a famous bassline played on a 5 worth two basslines played on a 4. Going further into ERB territory, 6s and 7s are even rarer, so 1 Anthony Jackson might be worth 50 or 100 Adam Claytons. And that's before we split hairs about those bassists who flit readily between 4s, 5s, and others, and how they balance their time between them; whether we count 8/10/12-strings in the same category as 4/5/4, or as separate entities; whether we can really count it as a 4-string bassline if the player spent their entire career on the E and A strings...am I overthinking this?

I'm rather fond of Gabriel-era Genesis, but I know what you mean...something about albums like Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme does sound very much "of the '70s." Maybe "twee" is the right word; I think it's that aspect which some of their contemporaries (e.g., Pink Floyd and Camel) managed to steer clear of, and they seem to have aged better! There's definitely a thing about "British production" as well - Genesis suffered from it, and I think the first two Who albums do as well. Almost as if they couldn't let go of the "stick the band in a room and put some mics up" approach. I think the finest example is probably the Moody Blues' Go Now, which sounds like it was recorded in a biscuit tin! Compare it to the much crisper sounds American bands like The Byrds and The Doors were getting at the same time, and you have to wonder what combination of the technology and the know-how some British producers were oblivious to...

The biggest barrier I have to getting on with Muse is that I've noticed Matt Bellamy's audible gasps for breath before every single line that he sings. Once you've noticed it, it's impossible not to notice it on EVERY SINGLE MUSE SONG. There. I've just ruined Muse for the rest of you now as well.

I've been rather enjoying Nancy Johnson's thread about Albums You've Really Tried To Love... and it reminded me of a bit of a shock I got a few weeks ago. But first, the question: are there any albums which you used to love, but which have aged really badly in retrospect? For me, the shock was Nirvana's apparently seminal Nevermind. I'd gone back to Soundgarden and Mudhoney with reasonable regularity, but I hadn't put this album on in years. And I adored that album as a teenager. So, I thought, surely it would do to revisit the album that is, for many, the defining grunge LP? My god. Two things stuck out: my tastes have matured, and the sloppy-but-kind-of-cool songwriting I used to be impressed by now just sounds sloppy. It's also painfully apparent that Cobain couldn't really sing. But the other is the production...it sounds so dated now. That strange conflict of trying to move away from the pomp of overproduced '80s rock albums but still using most of the same techniques, combined with the (possibly coke-driven) instinct to keep nudging the faders up until everything's far too loud and compressed to buggery. (Further revisiting has led to me be to believe that the Foo Fighters' debut, from later in the decade, has stood the test of time a lot better.) Over to you...

I could also get behind this - the title track from London Calling as such a promising start, but then I find myself skipping every other track. Quite the anticlimax!

Sounds like a good choice to me - my first one was a Hohner (in D). I've since acquired a few Lee Oskars for different keys after a friend introduced me to them, but I still play the Hohner (when the right key comes up!) I can offer you two tips: 1. Don't expect it to sound great in C. Ironically enough, diatonic harps sound best when played in "second position", also known as "cross position", which is in G. Basically the fifth of whichever key your harp is tuned to. Cross-position gives you a Mixolydian mode, which most harp licks are based on. "First position" (C) can be made to work, but I've only ever got horribly Bob Dylan-esque results from it myself. (1a. Similarly, they also sound good in "third position" - D in this case - as you get a nice wistful Dorian mode.) 2. Learning how to bend notes is worth the effort. It takes a while to work out what to do with your mouth, but it will give you a lot more control over the instrument once you nail it. Hope you enjoy it - for such a tiny instrument, it can be a lot of fun!

What beautiful specimens! I know the feeling: I once went out to buy a pair of jeans, and made the mistake of taking a route through Denmark Street. By the time I got home I'd somehow acquired an 8-string bass as well.

Ooh, what flavour? I've been playing diatonic blues harps on and off for quite a while now - often been tempted to give a chromatic one a go, but I suspect it may be a very different beast to work with!

Trout Mask Replica ...and I'm sure I won't be alone in this respect. I quite like Beefheart on the whole. The Magic Band were wilfully weird and "out there" at the best of times, and I will readily defend several of their other albums. As a huge fan of Tom Waits, I can see why the Captain was such a big influence, and having come to love a lot of Waits' more "challenging" albums, I felt compelled to give this one its due attention. I still don't get it. It's just too incoherent. I can see from previous attempts that it has its merits, but I just can't see it growing on me.

There was a guitarist I played with for several years, who always had a lovely tone - one thing I noticed was that he always had the output volume on his Blues Junior fully up, and adjusted the input and guitar volumes to get things sounding right. I was reminded of this while reading WoT's very interesting and highly GAS-inducing Handbox thread (see below) - the chap who built it apparently suggested running the volume fully open for best results. Now after years of playing with (admittedly never very high-end) SS amps, I always started with the bass volume on '10' and relied on the output volume to set my level. But I recently tried the above with my guitars (into a little hybrid amp) and found the clean tones much more satisfying, even through headphones. Tried the same at the last rehearsal, where I can run the Ashdown at a decent volume, and the tone was certainly good...I didn't have enough time to experiment and decide whether it was "better." Since I can't really use my bass valve amps in anger at home with a sleeping toddler, anyone care to validate these findings for me? Have you found better results backing off the volume on your passive basses and making the power stage valves do the heavy lifting?

Did anyone else click onto this thread hoping that the "Japan Confusion" might be an exciting new design by Fender?

It's even better when you're playing bass for a bloke who's rushed through his set with 15 minutes to spare, panics a bit, and starts blasting through a load of new songs that he's never even played to you before, let alone rehearsed with you, hoping that you'll "pick it up in no time" - not only have I never heard of the song, nobody else in the room has either...

Ha! Not so much "the fifth Beatle" as "the fourth chord"...

Vary it to suit - it depends on the bass I'm playing, but also on the room I'm playing it in, who I'm playing with, and even what mood I'm in!

As Chris rightly points out above, it shouldn't be a case of following one member of the band. Of course it can often feel like you have to follow the drummer if they lose control of the tempo, partly because so much pop and rock music have each beat of the bar emphasised by the drums. That said, if the band are listening to each other properly, you can rein in a drummer who's getting a bit overexcited. Play behind the beat a bit more, emphasise any notes on the beats - especially while they're playing fills - and a good drummer will realise they've sped up, as opposed to dragging the whole band away with them!

Once I got past the beauty of the brushed aluminium body (it took a while), I couldn't help but notice the slightly purple hue of the fingerboard. Is it a trick of the light, or do you have a fancy and exotic wood under those strings?

Remind me to schedule any future amp purchases around mid-February!

"...after several days' exchange of evidence, EHX's lawyer summed up her case for the prosciutto. The judge then allowed the jerky to retire, giving them 12 hours to come to a unanimous brisket."

+1 - I read glowing reviews of their C-1 condenser while I was looking to upgrade my home recording setup, so I took a punt on two of them. Turns out they were good enough to record a solo EP with!

+2 - I haven't tried their basses, but I've had a Vintage VS6 for donkey's years now. I'm sure it's partly down to familiarity, but I've gone into shops and tried out some of the "real deal" Gibson SGs (admittedly the cheaper end of the series) and Epiphones, and come away feeling quite underwhelmed by the difference.

As a confirmed analogue luddite (playing my passive basses through all-valve amps with passive tone stacks), I had a big plate of humble pie recently when I helped my friend record a song at her friend's studio, and the drums were the only thing I played that went anywhere near a mic. Bass and guitar went straight into the desk, and I had to admit that the plugins this chap had sounded really good! However, the song in question was J-rock, a long way from the blues-rock I'm normally accustomed to. So your point about analogue compression got me thinking: how close are digital modellers to replicating the sensitivity of a Tube Screamer?

I can particularly relate to this with the one very specific example of a venue that insisted we use the house backline because our own amps hadn't recently PAT tested. Then, as the gig drew nearer, I chanced across something on Facetube to the effect that their house PA had given up the ghost earlier in the week. I got in touch with the guy to ask, was this going to be a problem for our gig? Should I arrange to bring our PA to the venue? No no, he said, there was a problem, but we'll have it sorted. Not exactly reassured by all that I'd heard so far, I reiterated my offer to bring our PA, if he could let us know ASAP. On the night of the gig, I arrived at the venue first to find them frantically trying to get a new desk to work. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. The guy suggested, well the other night we just put the vocal mic through a spare guitar amp, it worked fine. Not when at least two of the bands have backing vocals, it chuffing won't. I 'phoned the others to say, turn the car around, we're going to need the chuffing PA after all. Was he concerned about whether our PA was PAT tested before we set it up, about an hour before doors? Was he c**k.