EliasMooseblaster

[quote name='Monkey Steve' timestamp='1497956514' post='3321567'] That's OK, treat it like a confessional... I think this is an issue for a lot of bands, and it's one of my annoyances with bandmates - people have different ideas about what "commitment" means. .. I also note your frustrations over the drummers inability to explain or back up his ideas...well, he is a drummer, what do you expect? Two practical suggestions before you jack it all in, which would be real shame if you're on the verge of great things. [/quote] Thank you for this insight - it's quite reassuring to know that I'm not the only musician who's found themselves banging their head against a brick wall in situations like this. I suspect a fairly frank conversation is going to follow once we've got a festival gig out of the way in a couple of weeks, and then I strongly suspect we'll end up shedding a band member. If the drummer goes then I might be more inclined to stay...it's hard to imagine regaining my enthusiasm, but you never know! [quote name='LewisK1975' timestamp='1497957758' post='3321577'] If your drummer mentions Maiden as a yardstick often, it's worth mentioning that they have had one of the best managers in the business (Rod Smallwood) since very early on in their career. He has been (and continues to be, I assume) pretty much instrumental in all of the business side of things for them. [/quote] This could be very useful for halting his usual stream of verbal diarrhoea - ta kindly!

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1497955594' post='3321552'] Not necessarily. THose were very different times to the times we are now, so however important those stories are doesn't mean that it translates to now. Also this is the 'how to start a successful business' story. group x, y, and z did this and got famous, therefore doing what group X, Y and Z did must be the way to get famous. Not, it isn't, because groups a-w also did the same thing and didn't get famous. There were other things as well, luck, chemistry, right place right time, etc. How many other groups who were good enough to make it didn't? I saw Maiden when they were starting. They were good. As were a lot of other bands at the time - one made it, the others didn't. They all did similar things. [/quote] Sorry, I probably should have made it clearer that that paragraph was meant to be read in Drummer's voice! And believe me, I've tried to challenge it by asking why Saxon or Diamond Head never enjoyed the same level of success. (He doesn't like it.) [quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1497955594' post='3321552'] Personally it sounds like you have something worth doing at the moment, but the tensions are there to cause issues, you can try discussing it or try to do some compromise, but it sounds like you are on different pages at the moment. How you resolve that depends on the personalities involved and if you all can deal with each other, I doubt anyone can really help you with that and maybe some changes of people are needed before you kill each other. Anyway, good luck! [/quote] Thank you! Unfortunately I've come to dread our "business meetings" because they have a habit of He With The Biggest Gob steamrollering them with his same old lecture. But I think I'm now at the point where if I can't get through that brick wall, I'm ready to pick up my ball and go home.

I haven't quit yet, but I feel like I'm on the cusp of doing so. I'm really just popping in here for a gamut of second opinions to confirm or allay my suspicions that I already know the answer... After six years of working at it, I think we've grown apart. A couple of years ago, I think we were all on more-or-less the same page, i.e., "let's try and make this profitable." I had a job which paid quite well, but it was turning out to be quite unfulfilling. Perhaps naively, I hoped I could transition to making music full-time. 2015 had some definite high points (alongside some real lows), but a few things were starting to come apart. Our guitarist and I felt we'd achieved a lot (new EP crowdfunded and recorded, first gig abroad, big festival to finish the year), but looking at the books it was quite clear that this venture was a long way off replacing our salaries. The main focus had been getting the EP released and playing as far and wide as we could, so we started looking at different approaches. Our drummer, on the other hand, was utterly convinced that if we just carried on with exactly the same model, this band would somehow start to pay four people a salary. When we questioned his logic, he insisted that the only reason it hadn't worked was because we didn't put on "enough of a show." Now, I understand the need for a band to be entertaining, and to be more than just four blokes going through the motions on a stage. But I thought our stage presence was pretty good, so we asked him what we should do differently. The response was vague, at best. So in 2016 I began a radically different approach: fewer gigs, emphasising quality over quantity, and in the meantime I started a new strategy to build the band's presence online. And it worked: suddenly we were taking more and more orders for CDs, and we had people dropping us messages via Twitter or Facetube to ask when we were going to come and play up their way. It certainly wasn't glamorous, but it was working - finally I felt like we had a footprint. Our first gig that year was up in Oxford. Things were off to a good start, we thought. Our singer stayed up there with some friends, and I crashed at my sister's place, leaving our guitarist to drive back with just the drummer for company. Apparently he whinged the whole way back to London: we're not playing enough gigs; we're not playing the right gigs; when Kiss were starting out in the '70s...; when Iron Maiden were going up and down the country in a van... It seems the problem is that I'm up against an ideology. He's read biographies of Kiss, Maiden, Zappa, Zeppelin, etc., and assumes he therefore knows the whole story: these bands went and played absolutely everywhere, and here are some bleak but faintly amusing anecdotes about sh***y motels and snorting coke off groupies, but ultimately it was touring that broke them. They succeeded where others failed by virtue of the quality of their live show. Which is kind of true, if you're prepared to gloss over the massive omissions, such as: who made sure that people were coming to see these shows in the first place? Who or what bankrolled them enough to go and play these places? Who handled the bookings and made sure they got paid? He seems content to look at the bigger picture but lose interest when asked to consider these fine but very important details. Worse still, he gets very flustered when presented with the awkward question of how one makes this old model work since, for a number of reasons, the bottom has completely dropped out of that market? Our priorities have changed, in the meantime. Our guitarist began making plans to move back to Wales, and operate remotely. Given the opportunities I'd found, I was quite happy with this. Drummer was speechless. When I then announced that my partner and I were expecting a baby, he flounced and quit the band (for about the fifth or sixth time in its existence), saying we weren't taking he band seriously enough. I haven't yet told him that I quite enjoy my new day job... In spite of all this, by the end of 2016, I was on a bit of a high: I had some great sales figures to report. They were still miles off transforming our fortunes but it was much better progress than we'd made previously, and it had great potential to grow. Sadly this fell on deaf ears. I'm still being asked why we're not playing more gigs, why we're not playing paid gigs, and I can only point out the bleedin' obvious so many times, especially given that I'm not a very argumentative person, especially in comparison to our singer and drummer who are more inclined to open their mouths first and engage their brains later. I wanted to press on with the work I was doing, to prove a point, but I feel like the wind's been taken out of my sails. Things will change quite radically when our guitarist moves, but even knowing that, I'm finding it hard to muster the enthusiasm I used to have. At last night's rehearsal, drummer was still banging on about touring. I made my case quite clearly, that it wasn't fair for me for me to abandon my family for days on end. Text to the group as I was heading home read, "I'm going to look into touring the continent. When do you think you'll be able to leave your family for a week?" On the one hand, I'd like to watch him try, so maybe he can realise how much f***ing effort the guitarist and I have to put into arranging a half-decent gig. On the other hand, I don't know how much more of this I can put up with. [b]Edit:[/b] Jesus, that went on a bit, didn't it? Sorry for the length, but it was good to consolidate my thoughts...

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1497874341' post='3320978'] That's OK if there's a house backline, and the gear isn't junk. I'd certainly want to know before booking it. They should have a printed handout of what's there. [/quote] Oh, we've done plenty of gigs with house backline - some definitely better than others! But this time they've actually specified "due to restrictions, guitars are all DIed, no amplifiers."

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1497820683' post='3320743'] #2 asking for a before-amp DI is completely illogical ([b]its not like they are going to insist a guitarist does this[/b] for example or that a keyboard player gives them a raw midi out put etc) [/quote] Well...never say never, and all that - I've recently been offered a slot on a gig where we've been told expressly not not to bring any amps at all, due to the venue's licence ([i]apparently[/i]). So both bass and lead guitar would have to be DIed...needless to say I'm leaning towards declining this one...

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1497533338' post='3318929'] Not sure on the body design.... [/quote] It does look a bit like someone cut-and-shut the front of an Aria body onto the back of an Alembic. Looks like a nice piece of wood, mind.

[quote name='richardjmorgan' timestamp='1497529887' post='3318892'] My initial thought was the Orange Terror Bass, as I'd heard good things about it and liked what I heard on the occasions I've seen it being used, but it seems they don't make it any more. TL;DR: Recommend me an amp / loud stoner rock / as small and portable as possible. [/quote] Have they discontinued the OTB? That's a shame, it's probably ideal for the job, but it's probably worth scouring the second-hand market for one. Alternatively an Ashdown Little Bastard 550 would probably fit the bill, and I think there was one floating 'round the marketplace here recently at a good price. If I remember rightly, both are a valve preamp and a SS power stage - so you'll probably need to hit the pre quite hard to get the benefits of the valves, but the 500/550W power stages will handle the deep bass frequencies* without making the amp a back-breaker. I think both have got 4 and 8 Ohm outputs, which should give you some flexibility hopping between cabs. *Ashdowns seem to be particularly good at pumping out sub frequencies - I have two of their all-valve models and I nearly always find myself backing off the bass control.

[quote name='CameronJ' timestamp='1497435658' post='3318060'] Given the breadth of suggestions here I think it's safe to say that there are a ton of mics out there which do a better job than an SM58 and cost less. It's just the stubbornness of sound engineers which has kept them on the pedestal of being "The Industry Standard"... [/quote] Credit where it's due: the SM58's been a reliable go-to for donkey's years, while the Behringer and some of the other contenders will be relatively new to the market. I'd be interested to see if there's any shift in this "Industry Standard" over the coming years, mind!

Oh, I did! There was indeed a lot of information, mostly from people saying they'd had positive results (and a few enthusiastically claiming their Ubuntu partition handled it better than Windows 7...) Thought I'd ask on here to see if anyone else had other advice - hadn't come across the issues about proprietary drivers, so thank you for flagging that one!

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1497364766' post='3317564'] I've heard good things about Toneriders, they seem like good value? [/quote] I wouldn't say I was a connoisseur, but they certainly sound good to me, and are a lot cheaper than some of the better-known manufacturers. See also Wilkinson, who are now providing the stock pickups for JHS Vintage guitars - not sure whether they have a specific vintage-type tone range, ironically enough, but cheap enough that you could take a punt on a pair. (In fact, my Frankenbass now has a Tonerider in the neck/middle position, and a Wilkinson by the bridge. Both sound pretty good, though I'm debating whether to swap one out so they're both from the same manufacturer to see if I can get a better match between their two tones.)

I notice a lot of good things being said about these Focusrite interfaces, and our guitarist has had good results from using them. Looking to upgrade my home setup myself, so just wondering whether anybody's tried getting one to work in Ubuntu/Ardour? I see that there's a lot of material online, including from the Focusrite developers' blog, suggesting that a 2i2 "could/should" work with Linux - can anyone confirm or deny these rumours?

There seems to be some not-entirely-unsubstantiated rumour that Squier are putting Tonerider pickups in their very well-regarded Classic Vibe guitars and basses. I've got a Tonerider in one of my own Frankenbasses and it's really rather good - I suspect you could get your hands on a matched pair for south of £70.

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1497256176' post='3316764'] Seriously, get a Behringer XM8500. Less than £20. 99.99% of musicians will not notice the difference between it and an expensive one. They really are that good. Oh, and did I mention that they are sturdy as hell too. I use a lot of different vocal mics including expensive ones, but the one I take with me for my personal band gigs is a Behringer. Theres a lot of snobbery goes around about a lot of musical kit. [/quote] My interest is piqued...have you tried using this Behringer for any home recording? I'm hoping to improve my current setup, and you've got me wondering whether I could do so a lot more cheaply than I first thought!

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1496009826' post='3308132'] No one has mentioned Faith yet! The Neptune is a beautiful guitar! [/quote] +1 for Faith - our guitarist got one a few years ago and it's a real gem of a guitar. Can't remember what model he has but it is a beauty. Or if you wanted to go [i]really [/i]cheap, I've been playing an Epiphone AJ-100 for about 12-13 years. Remarkably good guitar compared with most other models in its price bracket, and you could always put some of the leftover cash towards a good setup!

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1497233310' post='3316700'] No matter how I tweak them, when I'm gigging and engage OD the signal drops and I get a lot of harsh high end. [/quote] Do you have a tweeter running in your cab(s), and/or do you have a "bright" switch on your amp that you tend to engage? These, I've found, are a bit of a minefield with OD pedals, as they put a high shelf on your sound - this can add a nice clarity to your dry sound, but gets massively overemphasised by the OD pedal. As for loss of signal...I assume you've tried ODs with a "blend" control? Then the question really becomes what you're trying to do to your sound. If you want a fat, distorted-but-still-"in-the-pocket" sound then I'd suggest trying a bass fuzz instead of an OD. Personally I keep my OD in the chain for lead playing, and in those cases I found that most bass ODs scooped the mids too much, but a Bass Tubescreamer does the job just nicely.

Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed that - particularly [i]All Alone In Instanbul [/i] (The cover photo wasn't taken in Richmond Park by any chance, was it?)

[quote name='silverfoxnik' timestamp='1496612376' post='3312762'] Endless positive experiences since being on Basschat this last 10 years or so.. Well, except for my bank balance of course which hasn't quite enjoyed such a positive time of things! [/quote] I had sufficient positive experiences with basschatters that I was confident enough to go to and meet one for the first time in a car park, alone, dafter dark, in Slough, with an envelope full of money to buy his bass!

[quote name='Marc S' timestamp='1496402510' post='3311081'] I wouldn't say that P and J pickups are "mismatched" at all - but that may depend on different pickup brands too? Both mine have Entwistle PBXN and JBXN pickups, and I'm not kidding, these are the best value passive pickups out there.... I would say that I don't particularly like the sound with both the P and the J pups both turned up full (or near full) but I don't think that's mis-matching - I just don't like it myself. I tend to use the P pickup as the "dominant" one, and dial in a bit of J at a time, until the sound has a bit of Jazz "burble" to it. This varies, depending on which band I'm playing with, and what happens to my sound at the venue - which seems to vary more than most other factors... Neither bass ever sounds exactly like a Jazz- but it wouldn't, given that it would need 2 J pickups to do so. Although, I can play with the sound until I've got as much J in there as I want. Go on - get your P P/J'ed! [/quote] You'll have to excuse my choice of words - "mismatched" was chosen long before I'd had any coffee this morning! What I was trying to get across was that there's something about two well-matched jazz pickups which produce certain distinct tones - e.g., the scooped sound (both p/ups on full) and that bright, piano-like tone (bridge backed off a bit) - which I've never managed to replicate with a P/J.

I don't know why Fenders are so notorious for it - my understanding is that it can happen to any bass with a headstock. I think I've recently discovered a dead spot on my Thunderbird around the 5th fret on the G! P/J...an odd beast, probably because the dominant frequencies of the pickups are quite mismatched. I'd say treat it like a P-bass with the option to add some more trebly 'bite' where you need it. Personally I've never managed to get a tone out of mine which sounded that much like a Jazz!

[quote name='Yukimajou' timestamp='1496222283' post='3309601'] I have a Doors music book for piano and the bass line there corresponds to the 12th fret E string as the start. [/quote] [quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1496269530' post='3310175'] So you guys are saying this bass line is not played starting on an open E? And you've all been listening to the original recording? [/quote] I think I have the same book, which is where I learned the bassline from. Bear in mind that a lot of things in there will be "arranged for piano," e.g., [i]Been Down So Long[/i], which has no keyboard part. See also in [i]Light My Fire [/i]that the vocal melody is incorporated into the right-hand part, but there's no way Manzarek's playing that on the record. But most conclusively: note that it says "[i]8va basso[/i]" underneath the bass stave for [i]Riders[/i]. Which is to say, "play one octave lower than written." (Always good to find another Doors fan on here, by the way!)

[quote name='Marc S' timestamp='1496391758' post='3310965'] I've noticed some bass players using their ring fingers, when playing long slides - song's like "Give it away" by RHCP, or "Come Together" by the Beatles. This includes a couple of close Bass playing pals - they know they're doing it, but don't really think about it... Again, me being a lefty, I would always use my pinky for such slides [/quote] Another lefty-playing-righty here: really? I'm not sure I'd have that much confidence in my 4th finger over such a long slide! (Though setup and chosen string gauge may also play a part in this...) But then I've always favoured my 2nd and 3rd fingers for bends and vibrato, so perhaps they're more developed by comparison.

There's definitely a balance to be struck between "too much" and "too little," and it sounds like they're definitely erring on the side of "too little"! Could they perhaps be persuaded to make this one rehearsal a bit longer before August's gig, just so you can at least run over the set a few times and iron out what sound like very obvious creases? It does sound like you're finding the situation very frustrating - and is the limited repertoire not getting boring? I know that playing improvised jazz is often a bit of a tightrope walk, but if the band's fallen off the tightrope halfway through the first number then it's going to stop being fun pretty quickly.

Q: how can you tell when your lead singer's outside the front door? A: (s)he can't find the key, and doesn't know when to come in... Bad jokes aside, I know how frustrating this is. My old blues trio briefly had a dedicated vocalist, who began with great promise, but as time went on he became increasingly unable to remember his cue even for some really well-known covers. In his case, we later found out through mutual friends that he'd been pushing an awful lot of Columbian Marching Powder up his nose, which may have gone some way to explaining his apparent decline in musicality. Fortunately he made it easy for us by forgetting to turn up to a gig one night, but if your man's refusing to even be taught then perhaps it's time to give him the push.

[quote name='DDR' timestamp='1496153772' post='3309169'] I found myself thinking "what if one day I want the low B but I need the G for something? I would then need yet another bass! Doesn't seem right. [/quote] You could always tune in fifths...B F# C# G#, for example, though it would require a fairly extensive rethink of your way around the fretboard!

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1495880797' post='3307262'] It was very curt and aloof, and the general tone was that 'we will decide who is worthy of playing here and if you are deigned worthy you will be very honoured to be contacted by us'. At first we thought it was a wind up, it was that funny. A simple 'thanks but no thanks' would have sufficed. It reminded me of booking gigs in London in the late 80s. [/quote] "Interesting" is the word! Well, they ignored all my attempts at correspondence so you got further than me. That is a shame, it looked like a good venue and all...