Doctor J

Go to lots of gigs as an audience member for a while, focus on bands who are playing the style of music you'd like to play and get to know the people involved. Musicians tend to know other musicians. Bands of a particular style tend to be in frequent contact with other bands of similar style. Opportunity will present itself soon enough. I don't think the "I'll play anything" approach is a long lasting key to success. Bands have ups and downs, musically and personally, if you have a passion for the tunes you'll find it easier to stick through the rough times. If you're not arsed about the tunes and the drummer is being a pillock you'll find it easier to find yourself right back where you are now. You're also less of a benefit to any prospective band if you're just there for the sake of being there, rather than being there because you fully believe in the music. Drop the deadline idea too, don't volunteer yourself into a stupid situation just because of where the Earth is around the Sun. Decide what you really want to do and take time in making sure you do what you really want to do, rather than just diving in for the sake of being in any band. Personally, I've never been happier since leaving my last band, just spending time writing and recording music myself. The idea of joining another band seems like a surreal proposition now where once it was everything which drove me forward.

More ABM love here, I've had my ABM300 for almost ten years now, never had a sniff of trouble either live or recording. Never found it lacking in the volume department either.

Beautiful! Any chance you could save that audio as mp3, my computer doesn't know what an ipb file is and I'd love to hear what that thing sounds like.

[quote name='Stockholm Syndrome' timestamp='1330257108' post='1554619'] So yesterday [/quote] Yes? Go on...

Yeah, you've got a lot of low end added there, while the frequencies you'll actually hear in a band setting, your mids and highs, are turned down. Set everything flat, next time you're playing with the band, and tweak as you go on. Don't judge your tone by how it sounds when you play solo, because it's not an accurate reflection of your tone once the bass drum, snare, guitars and vocals start taking frequency space away from you. Your biggest boost, 30hz, is pretty much inaudible in a band context but you're devoting so much energy to it. Can your cab even do 30hz? Get that right out of there, see what a difference it makes. In fact, I'd say reverse every slider on the eq, see how you cut through then.

How much is people's perception of a genuine, live, energetic rock performance coloured by years of media saturation of miming to pre-recorded, studio quality tracks? I don't have too much of a problem with Blur's performance there. They were a great band in their day and I enjoyed every Blur gig I ever went to. They're giving it a bit of energy there, they're putting on a show, it's a bit much to be expecting a studio quality performance, especially vocally when your lungs have to push the words out as well as throw shapes. Perhaps they were overdoing it a little considering they were trying to energise an audience of biz types sitting at their dinner tables? Put that performance into a sweaty club filled to the brim with people who aren't scared to crumple their tuxedos and it might make a little more sense.

How do you set your eq?

It's worth saying that no matter what you do to your bass settings, your band is going to sound poor until the guitar tone is sorted, because those settings will be interfering with everything. If they can subdue the ego for a little while and use their ears to listen to the band as a whole and how the guitar works in the context of your whole band sound. You need to explain this to them if it's something they're not aware of.

[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1330135525' post='1553331'] We have a Marshall JCM2000 60W TSL602 set as follows:[list] [*]Clean - Gain 10 : Treble 10 : Middle 3 : Bass 10 [*]Crunch - Gain 7 : Volume 7 [*]Lead - Gain 8 : Volume 9 [*]Crunch/Lead controls Treble 8 : Middle 3 : Bass 10 [/list] [/quote] That's classic rock tone? It's the tone of someone not used to playing with other people. By way of contrast, my last gig was on guitar in Metal band with a very heavy sound and I had my Fryette 60W head set like this Gain 7, Treble 6.5, Mid 7.5, Bass 4.5, Volume 3 and it left [url="http://www.justinmaloney.com/anbwt.zip"]plenty of room for bass[/url] while still being nice and heavy. I frequently got compliments on my tone from proper guitarists, most of whom did the whole boosted low end thing themselves. If your guitarists have eq pedals, get them to try boosting their tone around the 1-2k mark and drastically removing the low end. You'll be amazed at how much everything will clear up. They'll be happier, you'll be happier and your punters will be happier

I think it's a good idea. I see it as something akin to a record shop which only allows its customers put up posters for gigs, not just any passing sh*tehawk looking to spam their goods in as many places as google finds for them. To get something back you must give something first. You could also put ebay, gumtree and the likes into the swear filter, meaning any such links offsite in the FS forum don't work and, in doing so, are pointless. You either encourage people to engage with the site and [i]community[/i] most of all or they leave it alone, but at least it doesn't get used as a dump.

The main problem with Floyds is user ignorance, they're incredibly stable [b]once they've been set up correctly[/b] and, by a comfortable margin, the floating bridge which stays in tune the best (although Steinberger have an incredible system too but I trust we're discussing guitars with headstocks?). Every floating bridge will exhibit the same issue if you try alternate tunings on the fly. The bridge is kept in place by the force of the strings pulling it forward vs the force of the springs pulling it back. Funny, I would count a Bigsby as one of the least stable vibratos I've ever encountered and they're affected by string breakages too, they just get a lot of unjustified credit on account of the look. Plus, have you ever tried to get a string on that tiny post with sweaty hands at a gig? A well set up Floyd will only require minimal tuning tweaks, I'm talking about once at the start of each rehearsal or gig after you take it out of the case, throughout the lifespan of the string set. I found a fulcrum style Kahler to be the easiest to switch between standard and dropped tuning, you'll need to tweak all six strings, which is to be expected, but your top five won't stray too far from pitch and it can be done rather quicky. For my last band I had a Floyd in standard and the Kahler in dropped which also acted as backup for the Floyd, I could tune it to standard in about 20 seconds without too much drama. I can't remember the last time I broke a string though, so it was never required.

Just sing along to him with the lyrics "tuning song, tuning song" in as atonal a singing voice as you can muster, while sternly eyeballing the guitarist. If he doesn't get the message and sort his tuning problems out then get someone else. There's no reason to put up with this kind of crap, neither your band or the punters who paid to hear you should have to put up with it. If it's a problem with the guitar, he needs to get it fixed. If it's a problem with how he strings the guitar or if he's doing something stupid like tuning down to the note, he needs to get fixed. Either way, trying to cover it up is the worst solution, it makes your band look amatuerish and not up to the task of playing a set of music in a professional manner.

Hmmmm, Phil Kubicki might be making a call shortly

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Q:What kind of bass player are you?[/font][/size] A: An unemployed one

Great colour, really goes well with the maple.

Yow! Lovely bass. Incredible price, too. Well done. Now clean it up and take some proper pics

[quote name='TraceAmp' timestamp='1326971157' post='1504394'] My new one: [/quote]Beautiful!

[quote name='Protium' timestamp='1327956098' post='1519534'] I like what you're doing here. We've all been there, pushed for time at the end of the set, the sound guy tapping his watch, the bar waiting to cash up. Four songs left on the set list, which do you play? Genius solution: Everyone plays one song each. At the same time. IBTL [/quote] Well played

Excellent. People are [i]always[/i] asking me to do solo bass stuff at parties. Now I'll have something to play, which is great, because nothing gets the party started like songs tapped on an unaccompanied bass.

Keep an eye on the u-box, get it second hand from Japan for a whole lot less [url="http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/u_box/e/"]http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/u_box/e/[/url] Enter 'Fender jb75' as your keywords and it should show you what they have of that model http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/u_box/e/eubox.php?word=2&or8=31&or8=32&key=fender+jb75&value5=&select5=down&sort=&print=40&T=gazo

Bit late, but mint green. Go on.

The only video I'm aware of of me playing the false one. I'm not going to be modest about it, I have great hair. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlGC15rgix0[/media]

I thought this kind of thing wasn't a secret? If you want consistent quality, try a different manufacturer, everybody knows that. It's funny when you see ads for Fender from the 80's on, no matter what year there's often a line about "this is the year they got their quality in order" Forget about the badge and buy a good bass instead.

[quote name='KiOgon' timestamp='1327580241' post='1513596'] From the trivial amount of 'work' you describe having to do it, sounds to me like you got let off light! I expect to do at least that to any bass bought secondhand. [/quote] Same here. First thing I usually do with any purchase is strip it down, clean, rebuild and setup the way I like it. I find quite a lot of instruments are set up shockingly poorly and what one guy thinks is great is unplayable to others.

"Have you got any tom mounting arms in your car?" - A genuine question from a drummer at a gig 60 miles outside away from home.