basexperience

I build speed and dexterity by learning maiden with 2 finger gallops originally. When I started trying to learn some Sheehan era DLR, I started using 3 fingers (shy boy, etc) but recently started playing some maiden again and actually found the 2 finger gallop was still the way my brain wanted to play the songs. Somewhere in time is a real workout: loneliness of the long distance runner is excellent if you try to double mcbrain's double bass work. It's a useful skill if you can perfect it, 3 fingers: I've got exercises I've developed which work the 3 plucking fingers in 4 ways - 2 "directions", with leading finger and string skipping approaches. I use them as warmups (about 15 mins covering both hands) before playing a few scale parts. And at 42, my 3 fingers are still improving - triplet time at 132bpm is now almost possible in both directions, with recent breakthroughs on leading with my middle finger on "leading finger" exercises. As a result, I use 3 fingers pretty much all the time: eventually your right hand ring finger starts to join the party without being asked. ;-)

Another +1 for gonzo here. That was quite a well phrased post.

Because it can get you a season in Andorra ;-) actually that was a long time ago, but I'm still kicking around with the same band occasionally. Cover bands are lucrative and the audience is always appreciative if the band can match the sound well enough. As an example, the band was lucking enough to pick up a guitarist named Ryan who had the authentic talk box for "living on a prayer". Normally I wouldn't have been seen dead playing a bon jovi cover and it caught be off guard, but as soon as he started with the talk box guitar I lost every ounce of cynicism as the pub went mental. Truly mental. I even sang backing vox. That's why I do it - because musicians love feedback, and you get feedback faster from a covers band. That's why as a creative musician you always feel slightly dirty afterwards. It's the addiction to validation of your shedding time ;-)

Nice, but feed the audio signal direct into what you recorded with so we can get a better idea of the lows ;-)

Sweet! Man, I could do with that on the Tobias!

There's a fair mix out there. Turns out I'm building the sampler rig as well, rack mount PC kit, audio interface, touchscreen controller for control... The lot!

Bass + didge impressive. I do have one so I'll give that a crack :-D

Wow, good luck there mate. I was sort of shamed into learning those tracks by a good friend at Uni who presented Moving Pictures (and later permanent waves) to me saying "you can play more than Iron Maiden, Andy". I've never regretted it, and still run through moving pictures to this day, it's beautiful music for bass. I did it all to tapes though, this was back in 1989!.. My only advice would be to do what I always do - learn the intro slavishly (spirit of radio's damn tricky!) get the hang of the main parts, then concentrate on the little fills and embellishments, like the small drum/bass call-return fills in YYZ. Great music. Have fun!

The new project (2 weeks now) is taking a little shape: I'm starting to think I'll be: - playing some fairly complex lines (funk/reggae/ragamuffin/grime/DubStep/garage - the vocalist has some great ideas), - singing the odd doubling vocal line (call-response style verses, end of chorus), and - triggering samples from a foot pedal (I'm in the process of building the sampler rig - those 1010 floor pedals by Behringer are really well built btw). Anyone else multi-tasking? I'm going to have to grow a third arm...

This is an interesting thread, and I have a new perspective on it. I've had some form of effect in my chain for a long time now, but in the last band I only really used a little Q-tron, with the bass POD essentially just providing some colour and boost (the amp does have a couple of channels but it's vale/solid state). The new project (2 weeks old now) is with a vocalist who adores mixing wildly eclectic styles, and myself and the guitarist both decided to go nuts and bring pretty much every effect and noise making thing we could drive from our instruments. As a result, my chain was the 6 string, into a GR20 via the GK pickup (giving me the ability to mix bass and synth with the synth on its own volume pedal), into a BOSS synth pedal (analog), into the Q-tron, into the bass POD, and finally into the amp. So far the weirdest sound has been bass+piano thru the boss synth, with Q tron added. Huge noise. But it worked: it's more effects than I've ever chained before. The act is mad for tech: I'm building a sampler rig I'll trigger with foot pedals, and I'm working out how the whole band will provide a stereo image, including myself and the guitarist. All this said, if I'm at home, feeling lazy, and I want to work out against some Jamiroquai or whatever, I'll dial up the least effected patch on the Pandora and go with clean tones, even on tracks where there's autowah. Do you think there's a correlation between your willingness to stretch your musical boundaries (I felt pretty uncomfortable turning all those effects on at once at first) and *not* reflexively reaching for the "who needs effects?" line? After all, look what that guy out of Muse achieves: I've never heard so much low end and sheer SIZE in a bass tone. Huge.

Did you have any luck?

[quote name='grich154' timestamp='1338736348' post='1678622'] bump bump bump. seriously great opportunity [/quote] Hey, did this get filled? I'm a huge flea fan, been playing chili since early 1990s... ;-)

If I've got 2 basses with me I'm lucky enough that the grating on the front of the cabs has exactly the right hole size for the tuning peg tops on Warwick tuners, so the bass just stays there. Like the little rubber thing though, that's very cool.

You can add another Andy bass player to the pile who saw this thread and fancied the bass slot ;-) Pity, I'm local too! Good luck!

[quote name='Bigwan' post='586221' date='Sep 1 2009, 08:15 AM']Didn't the Yamaha John Myung sig basses have a really narrow neck?[/quote] I'd almost put money on that. He's a tiny chap!

It's more the tone than the style for me, but for "visible" drooling I love stripey through-necks. Twin pickups lend a nice balance to the body, and I do like natural wood with no scratchplate (if I owned a house I'd probably be one of those that strips all paintwork). I do like fender jazz for the look but I've never come across one which sounded remotely inspiring (and believe me, I've tried) - maybe I've just been unlucky. Tonewise I love Warwicks for the growl AND the shape (and the finish!), but the 6-string Tobias I've got does sound good when pushed (with a little low action for extra noise). A nice acoustic bass is a joy to behold. The Ashbory never fails to get a raised eyebrow and a question, it looks wicked in black

This is why I use a Bass POD... I had a TNT150 when I was starting out, and the hiss direct was huge! My Warwick Pro IX head has masses of hiss when on the tube channel (well, they're tubes, fer chrissake) but the clean is silent. This did lead to a hysterical happening at a Gig in Reading arts centre: I set up as usual - I prefer the tube channel for a little more edge in my Funk - and the sound engineer said "wow, there's masses of hiss, can you cut it down?" - I fiddled a bit and got "no, it's still there, we'll use a DI box instead of the Amp DI out" (the back of this amp is like a space shuttle dashboard). He plugged it in, it made no difference. Until I flicked to solid state and said "how's that?" and he said "wow, how did you do that?"

I used Elite blue labels for years until I bought my first warwick - after using warwick strings I just buy Warwick black labels now! Sound great on all the basses I've got and far less dead strings (winding tension seems nice and uniform on all the sets I've had). I used Rotos years ago and they sounded great but didn't last very well. Oh - the warwicks clean up with meths a treat. Saves a fortune!!

[quote name='fumps' post='540018' date='Jul 14 2009, 08:49 AM']Hi Peeps I've recentley been playing/learning "Money" By The Mighty Pink Floyd & found that it's just a fun & rewarding bass line to play. for some reason it make me smile. So now i'm looking for something else thats just fun & rewarding to learn. can anyone recommend me some new stuff ? i like most types of music but after doing "Get up & Jump" from the Chillies i just feel a little burned out....lol[/quote] Return of the Space Cowboy makes me giggle while I play it Three Mile Island by the James Taylor Quartet is a great one as well, very driving but funky nonetheless!