PaulWarning

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1489483607' post='3257246'] Yes, quiet clever that. When you consider F# is the more popular related minor chord in the key of A in pop music. [/quote]It doesn't quite fit in with music theory does it? another song I know that does something similiar (I'm sure there are loads of others) is The Ramones (another Holly Ramones link ) is Sheena is a Punk Rocker, chords C F G A , but in the middle bit it throws in a Bb, very effective though

[quote name='Marty Forrer' timestamp='1489461722' post='3257134'] Uh, Paul Warning, Peggy Sue has 4 chords. Just being pedantic. [/quote]yep you are quite right, there is an Fing F in Peggy Sue

streamng and downloads have completely distorted the top 40, there's little difference between albums and singles, as young people tend not to buy albums anymore just download/ stream the tracks they want, no I don't get Ed Sheeran either, but then again I not supposed to like modern music I'm too old, it's one of the laws of the universe, he's doing well in the vinyl chart as well, but at least I can ignore him, rap just makes me turn the radio off

anybody any idea why there are left handed Jazzes about (Squire VM,MIM etc) but budget (i.e. Fender or Squire) left handed P's seem to be as rare as hens teeth

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1489398245' post='3256507'] Absolutely - even if he did nick the odd melody & chord progression from others. [/quote]one of my pet theories is most great songs nick from others, it gives them a familiarity that drags the listener in in the first place and you've got a tough job not reusing a chord progression when it's only 3 chords lol

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1489332679' post='3256087'] 3 chords. Tried "Raining in my heart" & a few of Holly's other ballads? As far as the bass lines are concerned, SO much of it was done on upright that it really IS difficult getting that me feel on a bass guitar. Lee Sklar is rather good at that.... A lot of that old stuff from the fifties is deceptively tricky to nail. Feel is everything & very few drummers are able to really connect to what is necessary. Took me a long time to convince my current drummer that fours on hi-hat are perfectly acceptable. (grin) [/quote]they came later his early songs were among the best examples I know of how you can write great songs using just 3 chords, That'll Be the Day, Peggy Sue, Oh Boy, Rave On, brilliant, brilliant songs

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1489275037' post='3255743'] Oops! Sorry - missed the earlier post entirely. Wondered how on earth you decided to put those two next to each other! [/quote]personnel experience really, when I started learning guitar Buddy Holly's songs were amongst the first I learnt, easy and good songs, and when I decided I wanted to be in a band the Ramones were a big influence, again, easy and good songs, and I believe it was the same for other people as well, Holly influenced a lot of the early 60's bands and the same with the Ramones and the Punk bands

a guitarist I used to play with would get annoyed that the singer was getting all the attention, "learn to sing then" was my attitude, that's the way it is in bands

[quote name='Downdown' timestamp='1489235066' post='3255351'] Er, what about all those early blues players, or do we discount them because they were poor and black? Buddy Holly was just one of the first to tap into an already well established genre and repackage it for the post-war baby boomers. More marketing creativity than musical creativity I'd say. [/quote]er, the early blues players for whatever reason never got into the mainstream so most people never heard them, Holy was inspirational because he made it to mainstream

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1489230802' post='3255308'] The set wasnt obscure but it didn't evolve much, lots of potential songs in the genre we were covering but sadly it did show up the singer's limitatons. Not a bad voice but not great either and limited range (needed a second bass tuned down a whole tone as that was the only way she can sing some of the songs, a whole tone lower than originals) so our choices were always compromised. I think the real issues run deeper. They are never wrong and won't listen so any sound issues are met with knee jerk swapping of gear and if the gigs arent so good then swap out a band member, always seem to be looking for a quick fix than working on getting the best from what they have. I thought I might hack it for a couple of years once I'd seen that they hadn't really changed from 8 yrs ago but in the end I was ready to go before we got that far. [/quote]I only saw you in Rapture for 1 set but it did strike my that your front women lacked charisma, and like you said some songs she sang well others not so well, changing key to accommodate the singers range is nothing new, but sometimes it just doesn't work with a particular singer no matter how you faff about with it, just drop it and move on, we all have to learn to accept out limitations, sounds like the couple in Rapture couldn't do that, after a few gigs its blindingly obvious which songs work and which don't

so Fleabag, when are you running out of volume with the TE combo?

Buddy Holly showed that you didn't need to be a guitar virtuoso to write good songs (personally I think it can be disadvantage) 3 chords will do it, it's the lyrics and the melody line that's important, the Ramones did the same thing years later

[quote name='inthedoghouse' timestamp='1489226098' post='3255274'] Exactly this for me too, apart from in my case it was the singer and guitarist. When I first joined the (newly formed) band I had never heard a majority of songs in the set, even though I enjoy rock music. We had a few "classics" in the set and it was no surprise that they were always the best received. Any sugggestions from me that we might play some better known songs, not necessarily 'standards', was met with almost scorn by one of them. I even tried using an example of a friend's set list. The response "anybody who plays that should be shot". An audience member was overheard to say "why don't they play anything we know?", to which the response was "why don't you know anything we play?". Not really the attitude from an experienced and skilled musician you would hope for. Knowing your audience is such a basic. The result, generally small and disinterested audiences. Very sad, seeing as we were all very experienced and capable players. More than a few times I had people come to be and say what a good band we were but they didn't recognise many of the songs. [/quote]occasional someone will suggest doing an obscure song, and I always say if nobody knows it we might as well do one of our own, also if we do a song and it dies at a gig a few times it quickly gets dropped

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1489221050' post='3255228'] I have a couple of 300W TE heads - I've found them to be plenty loud enough for most situations into 8ohms - louder than, say, TC Electronic RH750 or GenzBenz Streamliner 600, which were the class Ds I had at the time. [/quote]Trace Elliot watts are twice as loud as normal watts (probably more than that compared to class D watts), my AH200 is easily as loud as my Fender Rumble 500, we're going into the recording studio next week and the engineer said "I see from photos you use a Fender Rumble, I've got a Laney head and may be able to borrow an Ampeg" to which I replied "I use a Trace Elliot SMX, just use the Rumble as an extension cab)", "Great he said, bring that along"

[quote name='fleabag' timestamp='1489160976' post='3254866'] Is it possible to swap heads on TE combos for a bigger job ? EG, 150 watt head in my GP11 MK V 4x10, for the AH500 or something similar ? Would it have to be an amp taken from another combo or will the stand alone heads slot in ? Cheers [/quote]won't you have to upgrade the speakers too?

Working with 3 or 4 other people is always a challenge, more so I would imagine when the 2 main members are in a relationship, there's another band localish to us that have a similar thing (very much like Macca and Wings) and they seem to get through a lot of members too, God knows I've had enough ups and downs over the years, but when its good its bloody good, first thing is really enjoy what you're playing, I couldn't be in a band for long if I wasn't enjoying the songs

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1489148489' post='3254742'] a set of gauges like those used for car spark plug gaps are useful [/quote]feeler gauges, trouble is you need a load of them together to get 2 or 3mm and they tend to spring apart not a problem when you doing spark plugs but it is when it's easy to move one of the things you're measuring, like a string, they're really designed for narrower gaps, well that's what I've found anyway

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1489144690' post='3254696'] I never use measures. I lower the action until fretbuzz (normaly with the strings sitting on the frets ) then gradually raise it until it stops, for my playing. Never measured the height, next time i change strings i'll try to remember to put a ruller on it. [/quote]this is the obvious way and it's what I did to start with but it takes a long time, once I'd established where my string height was I measured it and this is where I found a pound coin just slide under the string at the 17th fret, so on my recently acquired Jazz I had a good starting point and found out if it was a decent neck, my first VM Jazz wasn't so I moved it on

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1489138193' post='3254600'] That's approx where my action was but decided to try dropping it and playing safe i dropped it to 2.2 on the E at the 17th rather than 12th fret as per Fender guidelines. Did check at 12th fret and not much difference in height to be honest. If ok at next rehearsal will drop to 2mm on E. Fender guideline is 2mm (+/- 0.4mm) on all 4 strings. Bass def feels a lot easier to play at home and no fret buzz altho i am playing a bit lighter than at rehearsal. Dave [/quote] I'm assuming you're all using a steel rule to measure string height, well I can't tell .2mm accurately even with a magnifying glass, if anybody's using a different method please tell, as said before I use a pound coin under the 17th fret, different coin widths are available.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1489137234' post='3254586'] Final bump to say that 1. Tomorrow night's gig (Mar 11th) has been cancelled 2. I'm no longer in the band [/quote]sorry to hear that Kev, can you discuss what happened on here?

the only reason anyone gets upset when they're insulted about anything is because they feel inferior about it, I don't feel inferior about being left handed so it doesn't upset me, in fact I often use 'cack handed' and 'I hold the guitar the wrong way' on myself, why should any left handed bassists bother about it when we've got Macca as an example?

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1489050911' post='3253928'] Is it just me or is this a problem in studio mixes as well? I don't know if some engineers are still trying to work an addiction to gated reverb out of their system, or something, but the drums on some modern albums seem to be brought up in the mix to the point that they're almost killing the groove. Not just on rock records, where there still seems to be a fetish for triggered samples rather than actual drum sounds - the drums on a lot of modern blues albums seem to be mixed far too high. I know a lot of blues guitarists are trying to ape Stevie Ray Vaughan still, but did nobody point out that if you look past his guitar playing, the mix of the rhythm section on some of his albums is dire? On the other hand, I'm listening to a recent Nick Cave album this morning, where the drums have a much more modest space in the mix, but have not lost any of the drive or punch. The whole ensemble is much more pleasing on the ear. [/quote]no it's not just you, fashion come and fashions go, at present kick drums (as well as the rest of the drums) seem to be mixed loud, in the 80's/90's it was the snare that was ridiculously loud, trouble is listening to a track years later it stands out like a sore thumb, bit like someone walking around in flares these days

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1489049856' post='3253917'] I find that as well, if I am not loud enough TURN IT UP! seriously, I have found that I needed to dig harder but that was because my bass seemed underpowered (either EQ or more commonly just volume) turning up a bit fixed that everytime. Digging in is good for effect here and there but if you need to wrestle with the bass for a whole gig that just makes playing more difficult, for me. [/quote]problem with that is, just because you can't hear it doesn't mean you need to turn up, I'm sure we've all played gigs where it's difficult to hear yourself but out in the crowd you're well loud enough (had one of those myself last week) under those circumstances it's very difficult to stop yourself playing harder

it all depends on playing style mines quite aggressive with a 1mm pick, don't like fret buzz coming through the amp so I use a £1 coin under the 17th fret which makes it 3.15mm, have tried lower actions, can't say it makes it easier to play, mind you I very rarely venture beyond the 5th fret, so unless the nut isn't set correctly it doesn't make that much difference

[quote name='spectoremg' timestamp='1488920801' post='3252986'] Saw The Musical Box at Pompey Guildhall last year and the bass player's Rick was clear as hell across it's whole range. I wonder if the crew try for a '70's mix.' And while I'm on it (climbing onto soapbox), all this kick drum nonsense has led to pub drummers insisting on it being amplified however small the venue is. [/quote]yeah, our drummer mics up his kick drum, (there's me thinking a drum kit is an acoustic instrument) fortunately we get feedback from it if it's too loud