T-Bay

It was a twenty minute slot, if you ‘get in’ then you are looking at a booking a month at least at nearly double the going rate so worth doing. Just didn’t work for us but hey ho.

We do it, exuberance may lessen the effect a little at points but it is important.

I find the mild overdriven sound helps when playing as a three piece as well, it fattens out the sound nicely (even better with mild compression).

It will be ok but might not sound that great. That can be a negative for someone starting out but better than nothing!

When I finished with ink, I just did a quick once over with a 6000 grit pad which kept it nice.

The saxophonist in a mates band asked me if I had anything in the lab where I work to remove lacquer and dull his new saxophone. There are loads of things but I wouldn’t suggest anything in case it went wrong. So it’s not just guitars. It’s not my thing at all but my Gibson is more than a little loved and it makes it less stressful in some ways.

Not an audition for a band, but a band audition for a lucrative pub chain gig run locally. They ask you to do a twenty minute set to see if you fit what they want. We went along after having been told that all kit except instruments was provided, it was but it was far from the best. We then played to a total of about ten people, not one under seventy. So our set of heavy alternative and hard rock went down well as you could imagine. I then had an issue with the amp cutting out so missed most of the last two songs. There was virtually no monitoring on stage so sound was really hard to judge. That all combined to put us well out of our comfort zone and we were pretty crap if I am honest. The next band on had had similar experiences in the past and brought all their own kit. Not sure we will bother to try again. It’s a shame as I have been to a few gigs at their chain and our set would go down well.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Homer Simpson ran based on recent events.

Like a scumbag would do that, far too much effort and risk. I thought it would be found by now, so it’s either too hot and is tucked away or has already been dumped. I really hope it’s not the latter.

I started at 44 about 18months ago. I did my first gig after two and half months and have been playing regularly since. Got two gigs this month, both rebookings. I didn’t have any lessons but spent a bit of time on YouTube at places like Scott’s bass lessons. Mostly I just found bass lessons for songs I like and learned from them, then moved to working out basslines by listening and working them out. I also found Yousician app useful at first for technique. For me there is one key question - what do want out of it? That will determine how much you need to put in. I wanted to be in a band and be playing gigs so half an hour a week is no good. I practice an average of an hour a day and play seven days a week (have a travel bass that goes on holidays with me), when learning new sets in the run up to gigs I have been at it three or fours a day for short periods. It is amazing fun and I regret not keeping up my very brief attempt when I was 19. It’s never too late and this forum is an amazing resource and people are so friendly and helpful you have an amazing amount of experience at your fingertips.

That is a good point, I had forgotten about all their rubbish they had tagged on.

I meant it more in the ‘I don’t understand why they made the decisions they did’ as opposed to why did it happen, but you are right to a degree on some models. That said I have a 2013 EB and the quality is excellent and it was keenly priced, certainly better made and cheaper than some Fender models I looked at, but I think the damage had already been done. I think the major error was in making all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff but only doing one or two options on their main sellers, whereas Fender concentrated on a small range but did them in every colour and option you could imagine.

Another Gibson fan here, still can’t understand how a once innovative company are at where they are now, whereas Fender ‘two designs in any colour you want’ are doing well. They diversified in weird ways that were poor business decisions I suppose. My thunderbird will be prised from my cold dead hands.

My Horner travel bass would fit in a normal upright locker, would have been ideal for your needs by the sound of it.

I would be happy for,it to,go for what I paid for it. It’s just with holidays around the corner, A Capri project and a YV250 after money I have to prioritise a little at times. Still not sure what to do but will think on it. I have stuck it up locally with a little increase to allow for the now standard haggling, if the right person comes along I will let it go, if not it will donate neck, tuners and bridge plus a few little bits.

Lunchtime is your time (or should be) so why not play a bit of bass? Or have a band meeting? Beats talking about deadenders.

There is a bass kit section, I have not had much success on it but some stuff sells. Prices need to be keen to get any interest in my experience on there.

Not a through neck sadly, I don’t have the tools (or knowledge) to make my own necks as yet. If you have any good four string necks for sale I would be interested. I picked this one up ‘because it wasn’t there’ and just seemed too nice to use once I collected it. Stupid really but seems a shame to strip a perfectly nice bass when some young lad would make good use of it. I have picked up a few now for the club I run at work and it amazes me what you get quality wise for £50-100 second hand.

Slow progress on this due to work, finances and other projects. i spotted a decent bass locally that I thought would be good as a neck donor and for the other odds and sods you need. Only problem is that when I picked it up it’s too nice to kill. But I don’t need another bass so what to do? It only owes me £60 and plays really nice. It seems a shame though to part it out. Looks much nicer in the flesh. So now have three options- 1, use it for bits as intended, 2, let someone else have a decent bass for little money and find something else, 3, keep it as a backup bass (already have one of those).

If you can get it spot on slow then you can increase the speed later. It’s always the best way. If you try to fix it at the full speed when your technique isn’t quite there you will just learn it with errors that are harder to get rid of later. When I was a relative beginner (not that long ago) we were asked to do livin on a prayer for a Christmas doo. At first I could do the main riff at full speed a few times but then it broke down, I just kept playing it for five minutes a day for about a fortnight at 2/3rds speed and then when I tried full speed again the muscle memory was there and it all worked (never played in since and don’t miss it though!). It will come, some songs just take that bit longer.

We missed a trick, one of,our bands surname is Sage, we could have been Sage against the machine.