EliasMooseblaster

I will suggest this with the full disclaimer that I'm not a big fan of Country generally, and so am not professing any expertise, but... Stu Cook? I know Creedence Clearwater Revival are a bit of a stretch away from Country, but there's a lot of Country-sounding stuff on their later albums, and he was always very good at serving the song while also throwing in a bit of interesting but subtle variation. Might be worth poring over a few of his basslines from [i]Willy and the Poorboys [/i]or[i] Pendulum.[/i]

I can heartily recommend the Blackstar HT-1R for home practice. Even with just one watt, it goes louder than I could probably get away with at home, but not so loud that I can't run it reasonably hard and get a good spectrum of tones from clean to overdriven. The only thing that may put you off is the "baked-in" tone - a lot of people on here aren't fond of it, and it's controlled by a single tone/shape knob. Basically it gives you a mid-scoop at one end and a mid-hump at the other. (Personally I like the tone, so I'm happy with the limited EQ options.) It does also have jack outputs on the back for external speaker, headphone and line out (will have to check the latter), so you could always make it louder with a larger speaker cab and maybe an external power amp.

Nipping at the heels of last week's gig, we've had another London booking in at rather short notice - we're returning to the rather eclectic Bar FM, in Shepherd's Bush, supporting Alex and the Tourists, who are launching their new album, and Melyssa Amorim, who's opening the night with an acoustic set. Bar FM: 184 Uxbridge Road - just off Shep's Bush Green Friday 4th November - doors open 7pm Entry £5 Facebook doodah: https://www.facebook.com/events/328668620827647/

Looking back, it's quite evident how my backline has correlated with the amount of disposable I had to hand! I started out plugging my very first bass into a Squier SP-10 - a little 10W guitar practice amp that definitely couldn't cope with the low frequencies I was putting into it. Fortunately the music shop I bought my old Squier Bronco from had promised to keep an eye out for any cheap bass amps that came their way, and it was only a few weeks before they put me in touch with a chap who was trying to shift a Laney Session 40 Bassman. This began a long dalliance with Laney, mainly due to the fact that their amps were relatively cheap - in fact, I still have the Bassman. A couple of years later, I started rehearsing regularly with a rock band and realised that a 40W solid state combo, with a single 12" speaker, was not going to cut the mustard against two guitars and an exuberant drummer. Looking through mail order listings in a guitar magazine, it became apparent that very few brands of amplifier were within my budget - Laney were one of them, and having had a good experience with the Bassman, I invested in an HCM-120B. That amp must have served me well for a good seven or eight years before it started to fail - I even got the chance to push those 120W to their limits, when we played the Covent Garden Arts Theatre. (I have no idea whether anyone could hear me at the back.) As often seems to be the case with these things, it started to give up the ghost shortly before a gig, but fortuitously I stumbled across a very good deal on another Laney - an RB8 - as I frantically took to Fleabay. By this stage, however, I'd had the luxury of playing through a few valve bass amps. In particular, when we recorded our first album we discovered that the studio had an old Fender Bassman. I'd also become aware of a growth in the market for low-wattage valve guitar amps. Fender Blues Juniors seemed to be increasingly popular among the guitarists I knew, and I started sniffing around for a valve amp I might be able to afford, which ideally would also not be an absolute back-breaker to move around. I was a little disappointed to discover that Laney's only valve series was the Nexus, a bulky 400W beast that was difficult to track down and far beyond my budget. After some research, it became apparent that Ashdown offered a better answer to my search. In the first instance, I bought a CTM-15, and connected this to the single 15" speaker in my old HCM-120B. After one rehearsal I took it back to Guitar Guitar and took them up on their kind offer to trade it in for a Little Bastard 30. I know all too well that it's not a suitable amp for big gigs, but it fared surprisingly well against our guitarist's Blues Junior. I still kept the RB8 around for outdoor gigs, though. Trouble was, he got his hands on a Blackstar Artisan. Same wattage as the Fender, but a much bigger sound. Suddenly my warm valve tone was being drowned out, and when I saw a CTM-100 for sale on here, I pounced. Once again, we were more evenly matched. So confident was I in this setup that I decided to sell the Laney RB8. There's always something though, isn't there? At a gig in Bracknell last year, with no PA support, I found the sound wasn't carrying all that well. I began to suspect the speaker might be the problem - just the one 15" cone, which had come with a fairly inexpensive amp. I asked the collective oracle of Basschat, and an excellent offer on a Bergantino 2 x 12 fell into my lap. Problem solved, it seems. The modular nature of it is quite nice as well - at one of the smaller gigs over the summer, I found the LB30 was ample to drive the new cab, whilst at bigger gigs I can bring the bigger head and put it through its paces a bit more.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1477826540' post='3164620'] Would've been even more of a pain in the proverbial without 6feet7's kind gift of that very nicely made extender bar! [/quote] On that note, can I ask a stupid question? Are these extenders for solving string tensions issues, or intonation/scale length? I can see how it would help to add extra length to the string's total run, but then I always thought the fine-tuning of the scale length was determined by the position of the bridge saddle. (And just to add to everyone else's comments: I've been following this thread in earnest anticipation of any photo updates - this truly is a thing of beauty!)

Gosh, I've not been very good at updating this thread, have I? Well, last Tuesday we played our (approximately) 200th show, which was at the 100 Club: [attachment=230917:CW 100 club-36.jpg] [attachment=230916:CW 100 club-37.jpg] [attachment=230915:CW 100 club-38.jpg] [attachment=230914:CW 100 club-40.jpg] Photos courtesy of Dyana Bittar

I couldn't help but notice that one reasonably popular mod for a Jazz bass is to install a series/parallel switch in the circuit to give an even wider range of tones (and, depending on who you ask, make it sound more like a Precision). I was wondering what the possibilities might be for performing a similar mod on my trust old Epi EB-3. I don't know whether Epiphone have released variations on the model I've got, but just to clarify, it's the same arrangement as you'd expect on an SG or Les Paul guitar - two pickups, separate tone and volume, and a pickup selector switch for neck, both-in-parallel, and bridge. (The only difference is that it's a chicken-head rather than the toggle switches they put on the guitars.) 1. I expect the simplest solution is to simply replace the pickup selector with a s/p switch and just control pickup volumes with the knobs. I assume that's not likely to cause problems if I want to solo one of the pickups...? 2. Bonus points for anybody who knows a component or method I could use to add a fourth position to the existing selector (so, neck, bridge, both-parallel, both-series) - some other websites I've looked at suggest a certain amount of drilling and routing might be required, but I'm prepared to consider something if it's not too complicated. (3. Super Extra Smile Funtime Happy Bonus Round for anyone who knows a way of completing either option along with an easy way of switching an extra cap into the circuit to give it that "shelf" that a Ric tends to have on the back pickup. But that's probably getting a little too adventurous, and I should focus on the s/p switching before I start guffing around with these little extras.)

One last bump before tomorrow - PM me for tickets if you fancy it! [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a2eD8AP4_0[/media]

You might stand a better chance if you go in and try out the bass first. I bought my Epiphone EB-3 from Macari's and made them a very specific offer (logic: I'd seen it cheaper in Guildford, so that price + approximate cost of the train ticket to Guildford) which they seemed very happy to accept. £35 quid off might not seem like the world's greatest haggling, but I've just worked out that actually, that was 14% of the asking price so I think I did quite well!

Less than a week away now! If anybody fancies coming along, PM me and I'll hold some tickets back for you - it's cheaper to buy in advance than on the door!

One thing that we do seem to have overlooked here is the precursory question of how many pickups your bass has. I can hardly blame Precision players for popping the volume on full and tweaking the tone control to find a spot where the tone sits well in the mix - that's exactly what I do with mine. But if you play a Jazz, or a Thunderbird, the volume controls also serve as your "blend" control. T-birds, in particular, have a particular sweet spot when the neck's on full and the bridge is on about '8'. In short, where I'd set the onboard volume may depend on how many onboard volume controls I have!

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1476830237' post='3157714'] Modern equipment is as loud at midrange and high fequencies as it ever was, but where it excels is in the low frequencies as you need huge amounts of power to get the bass frequencies to double in volume. An increase of volume in the bass range is a lot less noticeable to the human ear. [/quote] This is pretty much the crux of it. One of the loudest bass players around in the early '70s was probably John Entwistle, but his sound on those live recordings (I'm thinking [i]Leeds[/i] and [i]IoW 1970[/i], chiefly) is overdriven to buggery, and whilst it's rich in mids, it's a bit lacking in 'true' bass. If that's the kind of sound you're after (I am) then running a 100W valve amp into a modest-sized cab going to serve you very well for smaller gigs - heck, I've even managed to gig a 30W valve amp in some venues. This will not be true if you want clean, tight and funky, however. You'll need something that can produce clean tones with deeper bass frequencies, and that will require a lot more power to achieve comparable perceived volume - hence the 500 or 1000W SS heads that are so commonly seen nowadays. Granted, my 100W valve amp might be able to honk all over a 100W solid state amp, but the tone will be very different.

[quote name='Funky Dunky' timestamp='1476754381' post='3156981'] This has got me thinking - I always thought that, if you use it correctly and tastefully, the volume manipulation technique known as violining (on guitar, a la Yngwie Malmsteen) can be quite cool. I wonder if there's a way to make it sound good on bass? Kinda doubt it, but it's got to be worth experimenting with. [/quote] I have an example right here: http://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com/track/frozen-heart (Skip forward to about 1:00 to hear me attempting to mimic a cello via the volume knob and a Bass Tubescreamer.)

Looks absolutely gorgeous - I look forward to hearing the demos!

Just two weeks away now!

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1475584158' post='3147079'] The Line 6 comment was a bit harsh! I've got a Spider IV 75w...while I honestly couldn't care less about the bulk of the presets (which I guess is what it's sold for), it is pretty simple to dial up a decent tone. OK yeah, for sure I'll admit it's probably not the hardy amp you'd want to take out on a mahoosive tour, but for general use, recording and so forth, it's tiptop. I've used it on everything I've recorded in the last three or four years. New these are currently less than 200 notes, second-hand half that. What's to complain about? [/quote] The biggest problems I've found are the basic clean tone (not to my taste, not necessarily their fault of course!) and, more importantly, they seem to be really unresponsive to dynamics.

Hasn't this style been done before? I believe I know somebody who owns an Ibanez guitar with a similar design, but in blood-red on a white background. Designed, one might argue, to resemble spattered blood.

[quote name='bonzodog' timestamp='1475825199' post='3148944'] There is still time!! [/quote] [quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1475834107' post='3149049'] Ha ha! I'd be lying if I hadn't thought that myself [/quote] Alright, I'll get the ball rolling: [i]BUT IS THIS PETITION ANY GOOD FOR METAL?[/i] PS signed!

[quote name='Indy' timestamp='1475824623' post='3148941'] Loved Andy Rourke and his sound. Think I remember him saying he liked to do bass lines as a song within a song. Love the bass line in Barbarism begins at home. Jonny Marr said that the queen is dead album wouldn't have been possible without the bassists contribution. [/quote] I'd be inclined to agree Marr, some of the bass parts on that album are excellent! Any idea what bass(es) he was playing on those sessions? His tone on [i]Frankly Mr Shankly [/i]and [i]Cemetery Gates[/i] is wonderful.

Time for a new one: here's something I knocked out over the weekend [media]http://youtu.be/YgIaAwlfx4c[/media]

Bumpity-bump... [attachment=229036:CWeventBanner2.jpg]

Oh dear. "Generic" really is the word, isn't it? If they're reading this thread* then might I suggest they either go for something radically different, or reissue the SG-Z bass? The main complaint about T-birds seemed to be upper-fret access, and the (secondary) main complaint about SG basses was the great big mudbucker right under the neck; combining the SG's upper-fret access with a T-bird pickup arrangement seemed to be a good solution to me. *they're almost certainly not

I probably owe a debt of gratitude to my sister, and to a certain amount of serendipity. The Mooseblaster family have not, historically, been musical. On my mother's side, Grandpa Molestrangler played the guitar and was briefly a member of some sort of band. Sadly he passed away before I was born, though his acoustic guitar is still in the family, and is utterly terrible. On my father's side, one of his siblings briefly played the trumpet. I can't remember which of my grandmothers had a few piano lessons before the teacher told her mother, "I think it would be better for your wallet and my sanity if [name] didn't have any more lessons." That said, both my parents always enjoyed listening to music, so when my sister expressed an interest in learning the piano, they expressed a great deal of vicarious enthusiasm, and presumably hoped that she would get the musical education they weren't able to have when they were her age. After the first couple of months, she had to be badgered to practice (like most young children) but did, to be fair, make it all the way through the grades. It probably didn't help having a teacher who didn't appreciate that, whilst the work of JS Bach is technically fascinating to somebody who has spent their entire adult life teaching piano technique and music theory, it is terrifically boring to most children. Of course these things don't happen in isolation - after the piano appeared at home, I began to noodle around on it cluelessly until my folks found a teacher for me as well. Fortunately for me, I ended up with a jazz enthusiast, who encouraged me to listen to [i]Kind of Blue [/i]and taught me how to improvise. I think it's fair to say I enjoyed my piano lessons more than my sister enjoyed hers; I still wonder, however whether I would have taken this first step if she hadn't instigated the piano coming into the house in the first place!

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1475097766' post='3143116'] Did you move it on because the cat sprayed it? [/quote] Let's just say I'm glad Wunjo's only did a visual inspection and not a sniff test...

Off to see Joanne Shaw Taylor this very evening. Got a tip-off from a friend that she's doing an album launch at the HMV on Oxford Street. (One of those "the gig is free entry, as long as you buy a copy of the album from us" arrangements - but I figured if I was going to buy the album anyway then I may as well get the gig and an autograph out of it as well.)