paulears

I've been doing some 'how to' videos lately and just completed this one on recording double basses - cheap mics, expensive mics, different techniques and you can hear a range of examples. Oddly - some of the mics I expected to do well did less well than I expected and other did better? Even if you regularly record the things, you might find it interesting?

Grandson might, get a go but I'm keeping it safe - the action isn't mega low, and won't go lower, but it's very playable and no buzzes.

My grandson wanted to play my basses - but he's not big enough really, so I decided to buy a violin bass - tobacco finish - Rogue brand, as it wasn't that expensive. I didn't expect much and it didn't even appeal to me. Short scale - so a bit weedy and no guts, and worse a 4 string when I play 5 - have done for years. I've got all sorts of basses. When it arrived I figured they'd not put the bass in the parcel - far too light, but no - it was there. Actually I'd not realised they were this size and weight. I tuned it up and plugged it in and got a big surprise - it's not bad at all. It records really well too. It's more like the old Rickenbacker I had years ago and it's got plenty at the bottom and loads of tone adjustment. I've got a bad back now and my American Jazz is probably double the weight. I always assumed and never checked, that these were a lightweight instrument in tone, style and playability, but I really like this thing - and I'm going to play it. Lots! Has anyone else discovered the same thing? I've no idea if this is all violin basses including the original Hofners - so down to the design and style, or if it's just this particular brand.

I think the 'casual' 5 string player treats it like a 4 with just a few extra notes down low which you can use if you want to, but once you start to be a 5 string player as first choice, you lose the ability to easily switch back. The bass player in the show I'm currently running made the switch last year and we had some banter on how the 5 wasn't really much help in his kind of work, but this year I note he's on a different 5 string that's his No. 1 instrument now, and he's tweaking the dots he plays to make it work better. The score written for a 4 string so lots of downwards runs that end on perhaps a D, and the music is better for the C's to Eb's that are in it being played down low - and the PA here is substantial with subs, so the bass is a powerful feature. His scepticism has taken a year to go and now my suggestion he should revert being a 'traitor' to the 4 string annoys him (good). Once you take that step to treat the extra string as a real part of the instrument, to keep good at the 4 string would take practice, so why bother?

I'm happy switching between my 5 strings, and my one 6 string, but going back to 4 is out - I've changed how I play so much that I use the B an awful lot now, higher up the neck. I make mistakes on my old 4 string.

Got you! I assume the pay is better than here then so you can invest in the extra equipment? I suspect that for many bands who do smaller venues and bar, Ivansc's price is at the higher end of the range. Our band are lucky in that we tend to do theatres, corporates and festivals where the money is OK, and funds the PA and lighting we have available when it's needed. I the area we live in, the music scene is very poorly paid. I don't think we have every played a show within 60 miles of where we all live. In fact, last but one show we did was on the UK West coast, and I liven the most Easterly town - and we went all that way for a 35 minute set, and we're doing it again in a few weeks.

I'm a bit confused on the PA/Lights thing. We have a pretty standard price for the band. If we need PA, the price goes up, and if we need lights - same again. When we do theatre shows, it's quite common for venues to have PAs - our rider and contracts are always PA Supplied or PA NOT Supplied. So they get backline and us. We'd then expect what we need - which is 4 monitor mixes as a minimum. Sometimes this isn't possible so then we have to take our PA. This means an extra vehicle, and extra fuel - plus of course the equipment itself. Of course they pay! What often happens here is that their PA is decent quality, but lacking mixer channels or monitoring - so for these we will bring in our desk, our monitors and give them a left and right. This is quite common. Now we can control from an iPad, this isn't a pain - and the mixer can be stage side, not taking up FOH space. If a venue has enough lighting so we can be seen, we usually live with it, but if they want a lightshow, that is extra, and again extra transport - as in a bigger vehicle, and somebody to work it, putting costs up. If we agree to do small gigs, in small venues, then the equipment provided has to be sufficient for us to play. If their system is two boxes on sticks and a 12 channel mixer - we won't do it. We don't ask for things we don't need, but it's clearly unrealistic to expect a PA and lights for free, as much as it's unrealistic to expect us to play through an inadequate system. A band who buy a PA vs a band who don't - is surely a no-brainer? You get what you pay for.

Playing out of tune is bound to make people think you are a bad player. It's craziness! It's flawed physics anyway. If both musical illiterates and other musicians perceive it as out of tune, then it's bad practice. If I'd heard a bass player tuned sharp enough to make me aware, I too might have said something if the opportunity arose. You are going to get all sorts of weird beating with the guitars bottom strings and while maybe it's a valid effect from bands with a brilliant PA and sympathetic person out front, in a pub, it's just (in my humble opinion) a technique that will be misunderstood and make you look like a bad player. I've been playing bass for 40 years now, and this is the first time I have heard of this 'trick'. My own worst gig was with a mixer doing foh and monitors side stage, run by a female who was clueless, and didn;t understand the concept of monitors at all - hearing feedback and turning down gains, removing a totally DI'd keyboard from the mix. I played 45 minutes by touch and eye, my bass amp totally inaudible, the keys totally missing and none of my voice in the mons at all. It was simply terrible, and painful.How can you play bass, and sing four part harmonies when none of you can hear anyone else?

I've found those types of jacks to be the worst in the world. They have very little cable clamping ability, and they bend. Sure, when used to link pedals it doesn't matter that much, but I'd rather use cheap moulded plastic ones.

Apart from the band, I also hire kit out mainly to theatres, so I have a fair bit of different kit. Sennheiser G1,2 and 3, a few bits of AKG, and Line 6 2.4GHz kit. I've also had some cheaper kit, which rarely performed well on a couple of points, while on it's own, wasn't really too bad. The Line 6 and Sennheiser kit is quite happy (as is Shure that I occasionally hire in to meet rider requirements) to operate multiple channels. It's been designed to operate as a multi-channel system. The cheaper ones don't have the filtering and technical tighter specs to not get 'annoyed' by others, and nowadays, in our band, we have two radio guitars, and now four IEM systems going the other way. I use Sennheiser IEMs, and Line 6 for the guitars, and although we have Line 6 handhelds we could use - we stay with wires for what we do. They all work together perfectly and we very rarely have any issues - until somebody pops up with something different and it doesn't integrate properly. Looking back over maybe 5 years, we've lost a couple of battery door flaps on the Sennheiser packs, split two tubes on the Line 6 handheld from over tightening. Apart from that, the only other things that have broken are one handheld that somebody rolled a flight case over! I bought a couple of counterfeit Sennheisers from China. In fact, they sound really nice, and perform quite well. They do suffer from intermod problems - using the same trouble free channels as the proper Sennheisers they are not clean - and background warbles pop up. I'd be happy using them on their own, but they're a bit less well made than I'd like. Screws come loose, tight joints become wobbly, and the sound is not quite the same. When I buy more, it will be more G3 or Line 6. The Chinese have stopped making the dodgy copies in the main now we've changed bands. The factory who made them now sell the same stuff buy with their own brands. No idea what they're like, but they're sending me a twin channel ch 38 IEM system to play with. Might be good, might be bad, but it might be worth it?

Hard to play, or hard to keep up? Hardest to play - all the little syncopated bits in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris, and for hand cramps, Disco Inferno!

If you are after things to get your fingers working, but are not too tricky - then Michael Jackson's Billy Jean, Garry Moore's walking by myself, Alannah Myles Black velvet in Em (mainly because there is a nice open E twiddly bit that you smile once you get it right!, and if you fancy something faster, then Final Countdown to test your semi-quaver/16th right hand - which also does note changes on the last of some 16 note bars. For fun, add in a version of Disco Inferno, where the pattern changes every now and then. Many, like the chain, are instantly recognisable, even if people don't know what they are. The timing on some is a good test of your feel. If you want some baselines that are not quite as you remember them, then try my Beach Boy stuff. Sloop John B is nice and busy and of course Good Vibrations - that has a riff everyone should know!

My first band was Eggie Rumdrum and the offbeats - and one of the band was called Luke Drongo! (His real name was Charles Riddlecombe - which is perhaps even worse)

I just remembered I leant a keyboard to a friend in 2002, and they've never given it back! They're also a heavy smoker, so all things considered, they can keep it!

Our keys player (and band leader) has been doing the Beach Boys for years - and his brother now lives in the US, having played with the real Beach Boys for a long time.