Cato

Pop music is pretty circular everything, including bands with traditional instruments, comes back into vogue eventually. It happened around a decade ago in the UK with bands like Artric Monkeys,Kaiser Chiefs & (to a lesser extent) Maximo Park doing big things. At the moment it seems to be 'back to the 80s' with The Weekend and the 1975 getting a lot of hype for what ( in my opinion) is a very derivative sound. Give it a few more years & we'll be back to Britpop & 'proper' bass players again.

If you've never played a Thunderbird before then it's worth trying one before you buy, especially playing standing up, not everyone gets on with them.(although I suppose that's true of any bass). I've got a VM 70s Jazz and they're great basses, but you should definitely read up about the Sire V7, they've got a pretty much unrivalled reputation in that price bracket at the moment.

Another recommendation for the Zoom B1on or something similar. For less than half the price of a single dedicated mid-range pedal you get a multi fx unit/headphone practice amp with drum presets, which, if nothing else should give you a pretty good idea of what various effects sound like and how useful they might be for what you do.

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1452027415' post='2945737'] Who's Drake? [/quote] Larry Graham's nephew.

There's got to be a backlash against all the beardy sensitive singer/sonwriter guys with acoustic guitars at some point, there always is when the market becomes over saturated with one type of genre. Who knows, 2016 could be a great year for bands, a whole new crop of inspirational young bass players could be right around the corner...

Slow for me too, I'd put it down to my increasingly knackered Kindle.

As long as there's water in the pan the plastic shouldn't melt, although I suppose it's possible the process might weaken the plastic in some way so that it becomes too brittle to anchor the string.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1451900942' post='2944320'] I get frustrated with the rest of the band who refuse to wear earplugs as I worry that I'll do them damage [/quote] If they're aware of the risks & are still refusing to wear hearing protection then they are responsible for any damage to their hearing.

Contacted John a few days ago to ask about a new solderless wiring loom/bell plate for my squier VM Jazz. A couple of days later the new loom had arrived. What can I say that hasn't been said before? It really is a fantastic bit of kit. Less than an hour after picking it up the new loom along with some new pickups had been successfully installed and the bass is sounding fantastic even though I have no skills or previous experience in doing anything like that before. The solderless loom really is that simple & is also a noticeable improvement on the stock pots that came with the bass. John is a pleasure to deal with and could not have been more helpful. I would recommend his services to anyone.

[quote name='Maude' timestamp='1451595281' post='2941804'] Would whatever these attacks are possibly be responsible for my home internet keep dropping out, restarting or whatever you call it? The front of my BT hub keeps going red for thirty seconds or so before returning to the normal blue. [/quote] I spoke to BT about my connection dropping out (I'm in the Midlands) & they claimed it did this in order to search for the best & fastest available connection. As my router is connected to my phone line & that is the only connection available to it I'm pretty sure that's complete BS.

Yep, just gone again.

I had a bit of trouble last night when it didn' t want to load, but it's been ok today. (At least as ok as its been since my kindle browser updated itself about a week ago since when I've been unable to view embedded videos- but that problem is definitely at my end).

I suppose it depends on what you are playing, but generally I'd take clean & punchy over dirty & mushy every day of the week.

'Air' from J S Bach's Orchestral Suite No 3 has to be one of the most recognisable bass parts even if due to shortsightedness on the composer's part it was not originally written for bass guitar.

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1451429985' post='2940492'] What are the synth sounds like in terms of quality at gig volume? We do some tunes that were originally recorded with a synth bass part and have no idea if this is a credible option. [/quote] The synth patches on the B1 are mostly excellent. There's one or two which to my ears don't work as well as the others, but those are ideal for tweaking or replacing with your own patch. For me, if the B1on has a weakness it's the distortion & drive presets, but then I don't really go in for driven sounds on bass so I may not be the best judge.

Another vote for 'the Jackson 5' 'I want you back'. I can't explain it but there's just something very satisfying about the way the various sections fit together. It's also become part of my basic warm up routine as its great for getting all the necessary fingers moving.

For me death metal was the point where the metal subgenres started to get really confusing & I'm never sure what's what. I used to like Celtic Frost and Sabbat. Do either of those count? I think Sabbat might have been more thrash folk metal if that was a thing? Although it's entirely possible they might have been proto grindcore, speed metal, doom metal, black metal or possibly early djent. All of which apparently sound different enough to each other to get their own subgenre.

In my early teenage years both. These days neither.

I love both. I used to think I preferred Stax because to me their productions sounded a bit rawer & edgier than Motown, but the more I've heard from both labels, the less I think that's actually true.

Merry Christmas.

I reckon John Coltrane is about as accessible as it gets, his Blue Train & My Favourite Things albums are as good a place to start as any. Personally I prefer smaller ensemble jazz stuff to big band because you can really hear each musicians contribution.

I remember reading many years ago that one of the Ramones ( pretty sure it was Johnny) used to perform with a bucket by his feet in the early years because he regularly vomited through stage fright. ( although I just ran a few Google searches & couldn't find any references to this on line). Apparently the Ramones love of curry stemmed from the discovery that it seemed to settle his stomach. Maybe the stories have become confused with Johnny Rotten at some point?

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1450607150' post='2934183'] The kid has perfect pitch, a massive musical gift that is rare (1 in 10000 people have it apparently) but not unique. [/quote] I've known two people in my lifetime who demonstrably had perfect pitch, one guitarist & one keyboard player. And a handful of non instrument playing vocalists who claimed to have perfect pitch, but either didn't actually know what the term means or were just lying to themselves...

I've been watching this guy recently. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqbxybR6Q6Y[/media] I reckon my slap technique has improved more in the last 2 weeks than in the previous 10 years. It's not just slap though, he covers a load of stuff.

New, there's a lot of love for the Yamaha BB range. A new BB424 should come in at just under £300. There's nothing much wrong with Squiers either. Those are the two I'm mainly looking at for when I plan to take the pbass with flats plunge in the new year. Second hand you can get all sorts of goodness in the £300-£400 range. There is a rumour (which I'm pretty sure I got from basschat) that Marcus Miller's Sire affiliate may be starting production on a pbass in the near future but I've no idea on the timescales on that.