ambient

Speak to John East, maybe he could tweak the preamp?

I would be surprised if they had. That’s actually one of the things that really bugs me. You often see people putting on events, and advertising for bands and musicians to play; usually for free, or for the ‘exposure’. Yet they’re quite willing and expect to pay everyone else, security, bar staff, waiters, kitchen staff etc. I’m not being at all precious, but I have two degrees in music, whatever I can do is the result of god knows how many hours of practicing, yet I’d still at many events, be expected to give my services for nothing.

How’d you mean? I played on a cruise 7 or 8 years ago. We got free accommodation, all meals, all day to do whatever we wanted, plus I was well paid.

I played a 6 string bass for over ten years. I used it on hundreds of gigs, everything from country and western to weddings receptions to jazz. Nobody cared, all they were bothered about was the playing. It mostly seems to be other bassists who are finicky about how many strings someone has. There was one particular tutor at uni who kept on about me playing a 6 string, he was a d**k though.

It is accommodation and food only, there’s no wages. That’s been confirmed. Whoever does this, assuming they’ll get someone, will have spent hundreds of hours getting their skills together, and they want them to play for nothing. I think it’s terrible.

He/she probably wants you to play in his/her classic rock band.

That’s it. Just smaller to carry and to store, I’m not really bothered about it having a deep tone or anything, it’s purely for solo playing.

Seriously, it’s just down to practicing a lot. I use a variation on the floating thumb technique, my right hand moves down the strings, helping to mute the ones that I’m not playing. I’m also muting with my left hand, using the fingers I’m not using to fret notes. Maybe get a string mute thing too, they help cut down on unwanted string noise.

Practice.

I’m interested in getting one. I played a 3/4 size one for ages, mostly doing jazz gigs. This would be purely for solo bass stuff. What’s a good make?

Keep them down the back of the sofa like everyone else.

I had to revert to claiming money back via my bank a few years ago. I bought something off eBay which never arrived. The guy originally had perfect feedback, after my item didn’t arrive, it seemed that many other people’s didn't. Neither PayPal or eBay wanted to know, NatWest refunded me in a few days. I just had to send copies of the transaction, and screenshots of his now less than perfect feedback.

I’m using .060, .052, .042, .032, .020, but I’m weird 😁. A set of .105 to .045 is a pretty good all round gauge.

It depends why you use them? If you play covers, were the effects used on the original version of the songs?

Just use the monitors, maybe use an amp sim in whatever DAW you use.

You’re supposed to use a tracked means of delivery. The Gumtree scam works because they’re collecting it in person.

They could use a hacked PayPal account. My advice is whenever selling via Gumtree, only ever use cash on collection. They come, they try it, inspect it, pay cash and leave. Always have someone else in the house with you too.

How British are they though? Does the British built bass or amp have any non-British components?

I’ve had the same email, we regularly get phone calls from Microsoft telling me my MacBook has a virus. I find it shocking really that people do fool for these scams. I find it annoying that Microsoft can make such rubbish software, users having to constantly pay for updated anti-virus and malware software is ridiculous. How can it be that an operating system will just automatically open and download something? I bought a plugin to use in Reaper earlier, I was warned twice by my MacBook that it’s dangerous to download apps from sites other than the App Store, I also had to enter my password.

It’s practice I think.

Their customer service yes. I do buy from shops, they mostly tend to be great at selling you something, but don’t want to know when it goes wrong. I bought some Genelec monitors from a shop called Musicmatters, who I think are in Manchester. One developed a fault after just a few weeks. I emailed them and they arranged to have it returned, not to replace, but to repair. I explained that I couldn’t be without it, I needed it for my PhD work, I had a composition to hand in. Their reply was well you should have a spare set!

The best music shops I've encountered are Thomann and Bass Direct.

I like Amazon. I bought some DMs in January. They split yesterday, I emailed them and within 5 minutes they refunded me and sent me a return voucher.