MrDaveTheBass

My covers band do Crazy Horses. It always goes down a storm, and our singer usually announces it as "Puppy Love". It's a proper banger of a tune, but you'll never catch me listening to any other output from the Osmond family.

As long as you play in time, few people will care about the actual note you're playing. If you do hit a particularly bum note and somebody notices, remember to scowl at the guitarist. 😉

Really excited to be able to share this, which went live last week. Very pleased at how it turned out. I even listened to it being played on Switch Radio on Wednesday, so that's something off the bucket list!

I found Ed Friedland's book of reggae riddims really useful. https://edfriedland.com/product/reggae-bass/

I have two EBMM Sterlings; one fretted, one fretless. Both are sporting EB Cobalt Flatwounds, which feel lovely to play and sound tremendous. I haven't used any other strings for years.

I'm in a covers band and an originals band. It helps that the singer is in both of them too, so at least I've got someone to back me up when prioritising gigs. The covers band is the busy one, the originals is more of an occasional indulgence.

Good luck when their autonomous napalm-wielding AI military lawyers catch up with you more like!

Absolutely gutted to hear this sad news. One of my heroes. 🥺

This ^ I can't sing without my ear plugs. They enable me to pitch the notes correctly, even if I can't hear myself in the monitors. The bonus to this is that my voice sounds OK to me in my head, and not that horrible abomination that usually comes out of the speakers, or when someone records me.

I see what you did there!

Good luck! Have fun - I'm sure you'll smash it! 🤘

Even if the singist could sing in tune, alarm bells would be ringing for me if the singard and guitard were an item. 1st rule of band survival: NEVER join a group with a band couple! Haven't you seen Spinal Tap???

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll smash it. Have fun!

I'm glad that nobody was recording last night, but now that we've broken the ice, I've got high hopes for next week. Still lots of work to be done to get back to the level that we were at in February last year.

Had our first band rehearsal last night since February 2020. We were a bit rusty to begin with - I think that we were all a tad nervous, but halfway through the third song we all started to relax into it and the magic started to happen. Really appreciated playing with other people again, and it was great just to be hanging with the band. I haven't stopped smiling all day, and I can't wait for next week!

Could be out of phase?

That's a lovely looking bass. 😍

All sorted! It turns out that the switch was wired oddly. Rather than just 3 wires connected to the switch (one from the bridge pickup, one from the neck pickup, and the third going to the +ve jack socket), there was an extra one coming from the middle terminal. Removed all wiring and resoldered, this time both pickups work fine. The Iron Gear Jailhouse Rail in the bridge is an absolute monster!

Be careful with compression on vocals as it can exacerbate feedback through your mic.

Thanks! I've just swapped the switch for a new one. Will let you know how I get on.

Please forgive me, but my issue is with a guitar rather than a bass - I promise I'll say a hundred hail Jacos. I've had a cheap £100 ebay Squire Telecaster knocking about the house for the last 10 years. It'd been messed about with before I got it, and I've had several goes over the last decade to get it going, but to no avail. It's not standard Tele wiring. Originally when it was built it would've had two humbuckers, a 3 way selector switch and two tone pots and two volumes. (Like a Les Paul). When I got it someone had replaced the bridge pickup with a Strat single coil mounted on a scratch plate. The issue that I've got is driving me nuts. Whenever I replace a faulty pickup, the other pickup that was working fine, and that I haven't touched stops working! When I got the guitar, the neck humbucker wasn't working, so I replaced it with an Entwistle HV 58. This sounded great, but the bridge pickup stopped working. I've just replaced the bridge pickup with an Iron Gear Jailhouse Rail 2, which works fine, but now the neck pickup has stopped working. I haven't touched the wiring for the neck pickup as each pickup has its own volume pot. Before I rip out all of the electrics and start again from scratch, does anybody have any ideas of what's going on please? Many thanks, Dave