Norris

Voice of Experience: Tell your guitarist to NOT keep his guitar tucked behind the sofa up against the radiator. It will take several hours to come back down to normal room temperature, and will not hold tune while doing so

You ought to have kept that Squier P-J you sold me and used the pups from that. No, you're not having it back

Khakiglo?

Sometimes a bit of whispering Bob, sometimes wander over to Radio 3, sometimes just drive in silence. The drive home is great, especially in the pre-dawn light

Drummer has a chest infection that four different antibiotics have failed to shift so far

I bought this [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/162766-fs-squier-p-bass-special-pewter-pj-l140-sold"]Squier P-J[/url] just before Xmas. It's a fantastic bass & the P pup makes for some great tone. I've gigged a few times now and am quite happy to be waving a Squier logo around. After all, it's all about the sound, not the label.

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1328552925' post='1529001'] I know what the person meant about the audience not listening. I think they meant that the tone of the bass is not foremost in most punters minds so probably isn't as big a deal as we might think. [/quote] The punters probably feel the bass more than hear it, and only really notice it when it's not there. However the tone does have an effect on the rest of the band - who are (hopefully) listening to it, and that can affect the performance - making the difference between a good gig and a cracking one. Oh, and I choose my favourite bass of the moment - currently my Squier PJ. My Jazz is wondering if it's ever going to see daylight again, and the Thunderbird is wondering what the hell happened! Both are more comfortable to play than the Squier, but the compliments about the tone from the other band members will keep it as my gigging bass for some time.

[quote name='hairyhaw' timestamp='1328461130' post='1527392'] On the subject of tribute bands - The Musical Box spring to mind - several members of Genesis have either sat in (Hackett, Collins) or been in the audience (Rutherford, Gabriel) so yeah, a funny old business. [/quote] Now there's a good tribute band! Good enough for Genesis to lend them the original slideshow when they did their Lamb Lies Down tour.

The Aussie Floyds are about as close to the originals as you can get. If you wanted to see the real Floyd (assuming they were still alive, talking to each other and gigging), you'd probably have to pay a lot more than that. I saw the Aussies a couple of years ago doing the Wall and it was a really fantastic show - as close to a real Floyd show as you could fit into Leicester's DeMontfort Hall. Having said that, I'd be thinking twice about paying that much to see an original band, let alone a tribute. Maybe I'm just an old skinflint

[quote name='Jambo10' timestamp='1328217029' post='1524035'] If its a younger age group in the pubs the oldies are left out, a more mature audience and the Beatles and Tina Turner etc are wheeled out. [/quote] It's nice to have enough numbers and a wide enough diversity to be able to tailor your set to the event. There are some pretty decent songs in there. Once you're up and gigging though, you'll probably soon weed out the ones that don't quite cut the mustard. Keep throwing in new ones every so often and you'll find the best ones get played & the not so good ones fall by the wayside.

Years ago I was loading our trailer - being the only one in the band that seemed able to stack equipment so it didn't fall over, damage anything, or cause the trailer to sit at an odd angle afterwards. Anyway, I'd had a few glasses of pop during the course of the night, and when I came to load the huge & heavy Traynor head I had at the time I managed to dump it down next to one of the PA cabs - trapping the tip of my middle finger on my right hand between them i.e. my main 'plucker'. This crushed the tip of my finger, split it open, and resulted in a trip to A&E for four stitches and a tetanus booster. It took a few weeks to heal, but a lot longer before I could play again without pain. On the upside though, scar tissue is great for hardening up your fingertips.

If you want to stiffen it up a bit, either use a less flexible string (as AceBassMusic suggests with hex cores - never tried them myself), or a heavier gauge so you can get more tension on it. The pitch of the string depends on it's length, mass and tension. The length between nut and bridge is fixed, it still needs to be tuned to 'B', so the only other variable is mass i.e. the thickness of the string. A heavier gauge string needs more tension on it to get to the same pitch - which should help with your problem with floppiness (snigger). Any other gubbins you stick on your bass (like a different bridge, string trees, spacers, etc.) are not going to make any difference unless they [s]shorten[/s] lengthen the scale of your bass - and then your frets would be in the wrong place. Edit: Longer string = more tension for same pitch - oops!

[quote name='musophilr' timestamp='1327668632' post='1515048'] I was beginning to think that! BTW Martin Turner did get a bright crunchy sound out of his T-bird. Try digging out some old pix of their backline and see if you can get what he was using? [/quote] From his own mouth - with a pick, always neck pickup only, bridge PUP dialled down to zero. [url="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RyBfxSThF5YJ:www.flyguitars.com/interviews/martinturner.php+martin+turner+interview+thunderbird&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk"]This interview [/url](google cache, as website has exceeded bandwidth message up!) talks about his gear.

I've gigged mine quite a bit. I use my GT-6B pedal with SVT emulation to give it a bit of an edge, and it sounds great. Never bright & crunchy though.

If they are demanding a T-bird, they are probably not after a 'bright crunchy' sound tbh. How about making some cardboard wings to fit over your Jaydee?

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1327582062' post='1513644'] Larry, barry and gary? That would confuse the hell out of me [/quote] Didn't know which way to run Luckily the baby-faced solo singer bore the brunt of it...

Bill Maynard turned up to a few gigs many years ago. I spent half an hour chatting backstage with Dave Edmunds slagging off some highly talented 'balloon dancers' that were also on the bill - wish I'd have known who he was at the time Larry Grayson - who was spending the weekend with his friends Barry & Gary (luckily I wasn't the target for their drunken affections that night!)

I learn the original bass line, especially any signature licks. But then being in a covers trio we have to fill in for the 20 missing guitar overdubs, lack of brass section, etc. You can't always play it as original. There again, once you've gigged a song a few times you'll realise it's become faster and twice as heavy as the original was

I played trombone in a Big Band for a few years ... er... probably not much help to you

When I asked for a nice tight backline...

I've just bought a [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/162766-fs-squier-p-bass-special-pewter-pj-l140-sold"]Squier P/J bass[/url]. I've fancied trying out a P/J for some time, and that was a nice price for an experiment. Having got the bass last Friday, I gave it a bit of a tweak on Saturday morning. I managed to get the action nice & low and gigged it that night - New Year's Eve. It needed another tweak to the pups at the first break but ... it sounded MASSIVE. I've been really enjoying playing my thunderbird recently, but am now torn. The Squier feels and sounds great, and the workmanship and finish is excellent. It's one heck of a bass for the money! The stock pups sounded very good - the P pup had a heck of a punch, the J added a nice growl and the tone control is excellent. On most basses you lose the tone when you wind the control right down, but this had balls by the bucketload. It's definately coming with me to the next gig!

I just bought a Squier P-bass special from Sagawa. Good communications and the bass arrived in excellent condition, only delayed slightly by Christmas postage. He's a good chap to deal with. By the way, the bass sounds massive - I gigged it on New Year's Eve

Ah - cached. Thanks

Despite uploading a new image last night, my avatar still shows my old picture

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1324543849' post='1475299'] I think in pub-covers-land, think a window of couple of weeks either-side of the date is reasonable. Anything more than that is stretching it a bit. [/quote] ^This^