Monkey Steve

The home insurance cover tends to work on whether you ever get paid for gigs (well, that's how mine works). If you do then they become regarded as professional tools and excluded from a home policy. It sets up an odd situation where stuff that you never take to a gig with you can be covered and stuff that you do gig with isn't covered even if it is stolen from home (although, how would they ever know/prove that your Jazz is covered and your Precision isn't?) I've got policies with both Musicguard and Allianz. They're both pretty easy to use and comparable in price, although Allianz would get my vote for being very easy to deal with and revise as and when you buy or sell stuff. They both throw in some fairly generous public liability cover, and I think that one of them (again, I want to say Allianz, but possibly Musicguard or both) include unattended vehicle cover fairly cheaply. I know that one of them, and again I want to say Allianz, has an upper limit for cover where if there is more than a specified insured value the policy requires you to have certain security measures wherever the gear is stored - window locks, etc. However there doesn't seem to be any restriction in having more than one policy, each below that ceiling. reminds me, I need to have a look at my policy terms as I'm pretty sure I don't have any international cover and there's a whiff of some overseas gigs on the horizon...

I've said it on another thread, but very early on, bands need to sit down and have The Chat about what each member wants to achieve and how much commitment they can devote to the band. Trouble is, even when you have The Chat people walk away thinking completely different things. In one band we all agreed that we would try and play as many gigs as we possibly could, but for two of us that meant literally playing every got we got offered regardless of how big or small the pay packet (often non-existent when trying to establish an originals band, and we weren't in it for the money...just as well), but for another it meant getting as many well paid gigs as possible as he wanted the band to supplement his income (and he eventually left for a functions band). None of us were lying, we just meant different things. Although I've certainly been in situation where people have lied about it. And there is a special place in hell for the ones who claim to be "really committed" to the band when in practice that means it's one of their most favourite hobbies and they'll do their best to come to rehearsals and play gigs as long as they don't have anything better to do that day. And there are an awful lot of people who like being able to tell people that they are "in a band" just as long as it doesn't involve any of the tedious stuff like playing their instruments and learning songs. We should put together a questionnaire to be handed out whenever a new band forms or a new person joins an existing band: Does "rehearsing every Saturday afternoon" mean (i) "rehearsing every Saturday afternoon" or (ii) "rehearsing every Saturday afternoon when Arsenal aren't playing"? Are "gigs" (i) events that have been confirmed that will be honoured unless you are prevented being there due to accident or illness or (ii) loose arrangements that have been pencilled in and you'll play them if nothing better comes up that night?

I'll regularly do BVs and will sometimes get roped in to do lead. An old punk covers band of mine uses to regularly do a Christmas gig at a local pub when our singer would be away somewhere with his family, so we just divided the songs between the rest of the band depending on who thought they could cope best with each song. That actually went down really well and was oddly ego-free, certainly in comparison to what follows about another band, we wanted each other to get a fair share of the vocals, and to make sure that we were singing the ones best suited to our voices. Possibly no coincidence that it was by far the easiest band to be in ego-wise, everybody just pleased to be there. My last band also tried something similar when our coke-addled lead singer was relieved of his duties and we were struggling to find a replacement. That went less well. Mainly because the original idea of "let's all try, see who suits the songs best and divide it up that way" soon got taken over by one of the guitarists insisting (in a very passive/aggressive way) that he would do most of it. We recorded a couple of practices and it became apparent that the said guitarist was very much not up to the task, and he then insisted that we were all equally poor (despite feedback to the contrary from outside parties, it was mostly just him) and should revert back to looking for a new singer (that we didn't ever find). I tend to agree with Blue that things get better over time with experience and confidence, certainly from my experience. The stuff about conflicting rhythms and melodies applies to a degree, but does get better...although there are some songs where it's a complete brick wall. There was one song in my last band where I could cope with some bits and the guitarist could cope with others, but neither of us could manage the whole song. But what I do know about myself is that I don't have the personality or the voice to be the lead singer. Good at BVs, but you don't want me trying to carry the band.

I tend to agree with the issue of sound men who think "this is what this type of music sounds like" rather than speaking to the bands and listening to what is being played. Whenever I've played in a rock or metal band with two guitars the bass is disregarded because the sound men simply don't understand what the role of the bass is (drive and melody) and assume that it's just thumping along behind the rhythm guitar. [quote name='Graham' timestamp='1488889615' post='3252642'] I saw Cannibal Corpse a couple of years ago, Alex Webster is one of the most talented bassists in metal, but he was completely inaudbible, only time I heard him at all was when he hit a couple of notes between songs and during the bass break in Hammer Smashed Face. Very disappointing, but my actual point is that the person on the sound desk was their tour manager! So even when bands bring their own people out, who should know how to mix the band, it's still no guarantee of a decent mix. The rest of the band sounded great, but clearly the bass had been sacrificed for guitar, kick and snare tone. [/quote] In a similar musical vein, I saw Akercocke a couple of times on their tour last year and at both venues they had almost inaudible rhythm guitars for the first couple of songs, then the sound man woke up and suddenly the faders got shoved up to the right levels. I wondered at the time if it was to do with them using Kemper heads and those not responding as expected to gig conditions.

Agreed - they seem to tread the line between being able to answer a detailed specific question without telling you stuff you don't care about, and not becoming too "salesman-y" and off-putting. It may be unconnected, but they have a lot of young musicians on tap to choose from as salespeople as the Academy of Contemporary Music is just round the corner. Possibly that also affects their sales techniques, if they have a lot of discerning customers who know more about their needs than the sales people. The other thing I like in comparison to GAK is that they don't differentiate between the physical and on line shops, certainly in my experience anyway. You go in and ask about something you've seen listed on their website and if it's not in the shop they'll pop out to the warehouse to fetch it for you. Although, it is a little characterless as a shop, and not as much fun as poking around Guitar Village up the road. That said, perhaps getting back to the point of the thread, I've never been very excited by the bass section, it always seems like a very poor relation to the guitars. It'll be interesting to see how that changes.

slightly off topic perhaps, but I always find it peculiar that Andertons are regarded as a GAK/Thomann type internet provider when to me they've always just been my local shop. I remember the days when they were a much more appealingly shambolic outfit, down a back road, opposite the local head shop, with a lot of second hand stuff piled up outside. I guess it goes to show that a bit of ambition and embracing the digital economy can work wonders. I need to go there in the next few weeks to get some stuff for my pedalboard (including a much larger pedalboard) so I'll perhaps report back.

[quote name='fiatcoupe432' timestamp='1488974107' post='3253350'] i do agree with bigredx , i m a bass player geek , i love seeing bass player coming up with new techniques , playing at 7000bpm, slapping and all that kind of stuff . the difference is that i ve tried many times to listen to ( example ) Hadrian Feraud full album , and as much as i appriciate is ability as bass player i was bored of listening after the second song . i also try to work on songwriting and even if i do study bass and try to become a better bass player my main focus is to wright a beautiful peace of music even if the bassline is simple and and contain only a handful of notes the hard part is trying to make "That Notes" count . i don t know if this makes any sense guys but i m very tired and my ass is in pain as i ve been sat in the megabus for 5 hours already [/quote] Makes perfect sense, and i completely agree. I'm not one who listens to stuff for the bass playing, unlike a lot of my more muso-ish mates. I love to hear great bass playing, but great bass playing in great songs

I'm probably a 2.5 In general I'm pretty happy with my level of playing, and see it more as being part of the band I'm in at any one time - I don't have ambitions to play to a theoretically higher level just for the sake of it, but will practice a lot (mainly with the band, but I'll sometimes work on stuff on my own if i need to catch up) to make sure that I know and can play all of my parts. That said, I will practice techniques to widen my palette (and then work out how to apply them to whatever band situation I'm in, sometimes just to mess with their heads - slap bass in a thrash band? done that!), and at the moment I'm learning a load of stuff for a band that plays stuff well outside of my comfort zone - it's an achievable stretch and I'm enjoying the discipline of getting up to speed on it, but I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't needed to. One thing I have noticed is that often the improvement will come some months after all the hard work, and sometimes out of context - like I'll have learned a load of stuff on the guitar and some time later I'll find I'm flying around the bass applying the same techniques

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1488898485' post='3252752'] Could always consider not detuning? If the band don't have a problem with you tuning the 5er up then not detuning shouldnt be an issue. Just ask them to communicate in either what the actual pitch is (so no hassle for you); or according to what the equivalent would be in standard tuning and you only have one transposition to do. If drop/open tuning stuff is written out it's generally written out as if it's concert/normal pitch, with the tuning specified at the start, so in drop D, for example, you'd be reading and playing G at E string 3rd fret but sounding an F; exactly like what you described with the first band. [/quote] I think I'll file that under "it sounds good in theory but my head will hurt even more!" In fact there's a practical issue in that there's a lot of stuff riffed on an open string while hitting accents and fiddlier stuff much further up the fretboard. If my open string is different to their open sting than it'll make my life a whole lot more difficult. I have, however, floated the idea of them de-tuning to a B, and possibly switching to seven strings. I don't think the second half of that will work, certainly not with one of the guitarists who has never played a seven string. Still gives me the "one string down" transposition issue, but solves needing to re-tune or swap basses

another vote for giving it a go without a rhythm guitarist for a couple of practices to see if you can fill out more space with the bass - having been stuck in my last couple of bands with two guitarists I do find it a bit restricting, and it's been noticed by the lead guitarist in common from both bands (a lover of Rush) so that may come to something on the side... In answer to the OP's question, I have done my time playing guitar in a punk covers band. Bit of an odd one - a drummer that I've been in bands with was playing with them and gave me a ring when their guitarist told them that he'd got a job elsewhere and would have to leave. The call was "you've got a guitar, how hard can it be?" Turns out, not very hard at all. I'd always played and written stuff on guitars, and pick up a guitar to noodle around on at home far more than my bass, but I know my strengths and I'm a good bass player and an average guitarist. In fact my test for auditioning rhythm guitarists for one band was that if they weren't better than me on the guitar then they certainly weren't good enough to join the band. It's the only band I've ever played guitar in, and I had a great time - I was in fact lead guitarist so my ego grew exponentially. Also, the old guitarist was rubbish so despite me being of the honest opinion that I'm pretty average (especially in comparison to the proper guitarists i play with in other bands) I was always the best musician in the band (other than the excellent drummer - are we counting them as "musicians"?) so my averageness was never a problem. Although I do somewhat echo Roger's comments about seeing how bad the bass player is - it was never a huge problem, and in fairness he massively improved over our time in the band together, but I knew i could do his stuff much better and at times it grated when he got stuck on something and couldn't improve. But it turns out it's true that most pub crowd aren't really listening that closely to anything other than the lead vocals. I was competent enough though, and once we'd got through the first gig - mainly a test because I'd had to learn a 25+ song set inside a month - I never looked back. Personally i don't think I would have enjoyed it half as much if I had been "only" the rhythm guitarist - most of my two guitar bands have got two "leads" who split things between then, but the one I was in with a "rhythm only" guitarist, well, I had much more fun on the bass than I think I would have had playing his guitar parts. If you fancy a go then maybe don't give up the bass until you've tried it at a couple of (perhaps bass-free) rehearsals, or at least don't do anything to leave yourself without a get out if you turn out not to be enjoying it as much as you did on the bass.

Give Hilltop Hoods a try - a crew from Australia with a very British sense of humour. Their best albums (IMHO) are, in chronological order: The Hard Road The Hard Road Restrung (rather than re-mixing the album the hired an orchestra - classical hip hop: genius! and makes Metallica's orchestral effort look rubbish) State Of The Art (my personal favourite - check out Chris Farley, Parade Of The Dead and Fifty In Five) Drinking From The Sun a lot of good music, including a lot of double bass. Gone off the boil on their last one - far more bland R&B arrangements which is a bit dull

[quote name='James Nada' timestamp='1488833875' post='3252264'] How about thinking of your bass as a four string (tuned EADG) with an extra high C string, rather than the thickest string being the extra one? That would work for me. [/quote] This is sort of where i am...I'm just not very good at it yet!

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1488828466' post='3252172'] Capo? [I'll get my coat] [/quote] actually that has been discussed! the issue being that old stuff is in C, but new stuff has been written in standard (E) tuning. When challenged about how I would cope with this I suggested just putting a capo on at the first fret for the de-tuned stuff. In practice, it doesn't save a huge amount of time compared to just tuning back down a fret - they change guitars and spend just as long checking the tuning on those.

yeah, sounds sensible...not sure the rest of them are going to go for it. The previous bass player played a four string, so it wasn't an issue for them, and they don't seem to be feeling my pain. Don't think I'm going to win this one, so I'd probably best get used to it

Possibly a slightly odd/niche one. In my last band (and a few prior to that) guitars were de-tuned by a couple of frets - E became D, A became G, low B became A, etc. We stuck to identifying notes/chords by their place on the fretboard, so what we called an "E" was in fact a "D", but we all knew what we were playing. My latest lot de-tune four frets, so E becomes a C, which is the lowest note that the guitarists play. Rather than doing that I tune my 5 string up one fret, so the low B becomes a C, the E is now an F, etc. Much nicer to play than having the strings flap around and means i don't need to change for a much heavier gauge (the guitars are basically strung with the bottom six strings of a seven string set). Works fine, but there is an odd element of confusion because what they refer to a, say, an "E" is a low "B" on my bass (and is actually a C). It never occurred to me that this might be an issue, and most of the time it's fine, but i get those odd moments where i can see the guitarist playing something or he tells me a note/chord and my brain has real trouble transposing that a string down. My cunning plan seems to be causing me a few, admittedly very minor, issues. Just me, or anybody else had to struggle through this?

Another vote for the TU2 and TU3 - great display, work brilliantly as a kill switch at gigs, and never a problem in finding the low B

Having initially misinterpreted the title of the thread (and wondered why it was in General Discussion rather than Off Topic), I wonder if there is a similar misunderstanding here. I'd read it as being "!the landlord who rents me my home has asked for my NI number" which would be to do with new obligations for landlords to check that tenants have a legal right to live in the UK. The same thing broadly applies to employers, and one of the consequences is that companies are obliged to obtain a valid NI number for anybody that they wish to pay as an employee. As others have said, bands are not employees of the pub (in theory the "band" should check that all of it's members are legally able to work in the UK before sharing out the fee) but it may be a simple misunderstanding that the new landlady thinks that she has these obligations.

First speaker cab I ever owned was a Marshall 8 x 12, from Rokas in Denmark St who didn't have any s/h bass 4 x 12s in stock but would flog me the 8 x 12 for the same price. them was the days. the fact that I have never learned to drive made this somewhat impractical long term option and sadly it's now long gone, but even when i could persuade someone to put down the back seats in their car to give me a lift it had fallen out of use as soon as I got a 1 x 15. Storm Studios in Holloway, where my last band used to practice, have Ampeg 8 x 10s in all the studios, but with underwhelming cheapo Chinese Ampeg amps (not a valve in sight) so I've never been that enamoured by them per se. Great spread of sound, but nowhere near the oomph I get with an SVT through a smaller speaker set up, Probably needs a decent amp to get full value out of them then. Although they were excellent for getting the guitarists to complain about the volume of the bass because they'd always be stood far too close to their own 4 x 12s to hear what they were playing *everybody else in the studio tells them that no, the bass isn't too loud and to turn their guitar down as it's drowning out everything else*

I'm 18, long hair, leather jacket, spend all my time listening to music, reading about bands, going to gigs. All my mates play guitars (some very well...some less so). If I get a bass I will instantly be able to join a band... That's pretty much how my musical career has developed ever since - "oh yeah, Steve plays bass, let's get him to do it"

I dunno. Personal experience and all that, but I've always found that something turns up eventually, even if there have been a few months, even a couple of years, being not in bands or even particularly active in looking for something. Maybe I'm just lucky that a lot of the people I know are in bands, and eventually one of them is going to need a bass player. the only band I ever played guitar in was an invite from a drummer I've known since we were in teenage bands together who rang me to ask "our guitarist has just quit - you've got a guitar haven't you? It can't be that hard". So, nil desperandum and all that. Don't give up hope, and just be ready as and when something comes up.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1487782663' post='3242864'] reminds me of the old joke: what is the difference between poison and venom? Poison are glam metal, Venom are black metal. [/quote] Venom are black metal - I think you're in for a good two hours of lively debate from the true black metal aficionados there my friend!!

[quote name='Jakester' timestamp='1487780992' post='3242837'] Fleabag, I am afraid your definition of fact differs considerably from mine, then. You are free to agree an alternative form of payment but under the terms of eBay's user agreement you cannot refuse to accept PayPal if a buyer chooses to use it in a transaction. If a buyer pays by PayPal, you have two options - refund it, or take it. If you refund it and the buyer complains then you may be censured by eBay. I suspect if you repeatedly return the money your account will be blocked. You do not HAVE to use either eBay or PayPal. They are private companies. But if you do, you are bound by their terms and conditions. [/quote] In an attempt to diffuse this, I think you are talking at cross purposes here. To list anything you have to allow payment by PayPal. However, you can list the item as being for collection only, and for collection only you can insist on cash payments, not PayPal. So if you don't want to accept PayPal then you list the item as collection only and you insist on cash payments only - this does not infringe on any of eBay's Ts & Cs. If, however, you are going to send the item out by any delivery method, you have to accept PayPal.

Some old band mates of mine who's other bands were at a far more extreme metal end of things compared to what we were doing once sent me into fits of giggles quite seriously discussing whether an assortment of bands belonged in a book (for which one of them had been interviewed) about UK death metal, because apparently there are people who are very serious about whether a band is black metal, death metal, blackened death metal, or any number of sub genres. There is genuinely "shoegaze black metal"

yeah, seems a bit weird that they don't want you to play a bass that looks exactly like a Fender to the casual observer in order to get a bass that is actually a Fender. Can you get a Jazz in the same colour?

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1487761121' post='3242477'] That's what I always do. I've been all over the place over the years, but have never had a problem. I've bought and sold basses in no end of railway station car parks, tube stations and coffee shops . You'd be amazed at the savings you can get by booking the train a week or so in advance. I always use national rail enquiries for the tickets. [/quote] +! And it's always good to meet the buyer in person, have a chat, count the cash and shake their hand. I'd add to that list meeting in a handy pub - if one party is running late then the other always has beer for company. The last time I sold a bass I left it up to the buyer to decide whether to pay extra for a courier. Faced with £25+ in costs plus a couple of days wait and the risk of damage (I'd made it clear that it was collection only or courier at buyers risk) he wasted no time in finding a £10 return fare from Chester to London. For a few hours out of his day he saved a chunk of cash and got a trip to town for a wander round the shops before he met me...possibly wasn't entirely a money-saving exercise...