Stub Mandrel

I've done two gigs. In both cases there was a PA with 15" bass bins it was a bit academic. It's a powerful PA (3kW) but not run ridiculously loud, I have the Orange Bass terror at about 8:30 volume with gain about 3:00 and tine controls pretty much at noon, so not working hard at all for plenty of volume. On the second gig I had to turn down as I was too loud for the PA. Then on the second set we played half the first song with everything but the vocal on mute. No-one noticed the difference - I was subconsciously digging in to make up for the reduced volume and then the PA came in and the roof nearly came off! Second gig had a mate who does pro audio in the audience and he said our sound was cracking, the landlord booked us for New year and we got another booking but i'm not sure all of that was down to the cab... Two issues - one of the feet has come loose and I've cracked one of the corner pieces. It slid off a chair, then tipped over so one corner hit the skirting board pretty hard. I suspect most speakers would have been unscathed, but it was quite a whack. The problem is that the cores of the carbon panels don't give the screws a lot to bite into, one of them was pulled loose and that allowed the corner to flex and split. The cab itself was fine. I plan to fit bigger, self-adhesive feet anyway (I don't like the little ones). As for the corner, I might ask for a replacement, but as I have a 3D printer my most likely plan is to print slightly bigger, thicker corners in TPU (a flexible polymer) which will be much more shock absorbing. My feedback for GR Bass will be to fit much more robust corners and consider some sort of inserts or reinforcement where screws are fitted.

After an inordinate wait I finally have the wee beastie. It got delivered my old address (I watched it all unfold in real time on the tracking!) A month kater when I travelled up I missed my neighbour, so eventually he posted it to me. It's no bad for around £40, 10 watts and significantly bigger than a Blackstar Fly. Lovely retro look to the cream version, and the Joyo logo lights up. Sound is good for a 5" speaker not driven hard, loud enough gor home practice, playing with unamplified acoustics and maybe busking in a quiet area. The tone control is a bit puny, seems to work a bit like the Fender tbx and sounds best near 12 o'clock. Gain works well, needs to be fairly high to get ddcent volume, but I usually like a decent amount of gain, its main use might be to tame active basses. The drive channel is decent. Sound and volume don't match up to my more substantial 25w Orange Crush but that's not the point. Included an external mains psu - a big plus over the Fly, and a quality european to 13A adapter. Certainly a lot for the money - typical Joyo.

Thanks, UG is my first point of call as it usually gives several versions, easy ones to learn the structure then more advanced ones to flesh it out. That version is close to UG's official tab. There's a good tutorial here that has some differences but is really well-structured for learning. Getting there!

Last night the guitarist started jamming 'While my Catarrh Gently Seeps' and I foolish thought it would be really simple.

Not according to David Tudor, the pianist who first performed the piece in 1952. But it is somewhat shrouded in mystery. http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/2018/09/10/the-composition-of-4-33/

Carole King was first and foremost a songwriter, and a performer second. Many of the songs have been done famously well by others, but it deserves its classic status. It's remarkable how many of them are familiar, the album felt a bit like putting on a cosy sweater.

It's taken me 40 years to get a copy (since deciding I ought to get one).

If you're going to be so bloody pedantic, you could bother to check your facts. It is in 4/4 time at 60 beats per minute, so 76 bars long.

History is made... accurate tab! But it is for guitar, not bass 🤔

What about "The Eighties Tribute Band"?

You know you are getting old when you would rather have roadies than groupies...

^^^ This!

It's probably because I came to bass largely from (amateurishly) fingerpicked guitar, so I find that sort of pattern relatively straightforward compared to learning several similar but different runs.

I was just going to say that.

That's only the Dave Brubeck Trio! I demand a refund.

If you play all the fills. Folks do realise the chorus isn't just 3 or 4 notes? This will play from 4:20:

I was a relic sceptic too, but I wanted an jazz, fancied an early 60s spec jazz, tried a Flea and it was awesome.

I always think one of the defining characteristics of Fraser's playing is how much time he spends in what is effectively the guitar's lower register. Honestly, if find the solo part easy, just needs care to get the jump up right on the first round.

The chorus ISN'T EASY!!!! Not if you try to sound like Andy Fraser.

I've been playing it for over thirty years. The bit under the solo is easy enough if you practice it, just need to be quick if playing it in the same position as Andy Fraser and not doing it around the 12th fret. The chorus is the tricky it, you can just bluff it with a few notes, but done properly there's a fair bit of variation as well as several improvised fills.

Just play TO the chords. If you know the chord the individual notes are usually pretty intuitive. You shouldn't have to be sitting there picking out individual notes of a run. ... As you clearly are unfamiliar with All Right Now, it might be a good one for you to try playing live without learning it first and reporting back on how it goes.

I should add that I agree trying to play along with random songs is a great way of developing skills. It isn't a way to learn how yo play them it isa way to improve your improvisation

There's a big difference between winging it which takes more confidence than skill, and doing the job well. In the blues band its great for confidence building, because there's a common musical language and conventions, even if you aren’t playing a twelve-bar. For example, its rare to have a true bridge. This means when on unfamiliar territory you can still anticipate enough to sound reasonably tight, and when you do know the material you can go off piste with confidence. In the covers band even something as simple as Chasing Cars - sure you could probably play it without having heard it before, but to do it well there's a fair bit of dynamics and stop start to learn. A better example would be Purple Rain where you have to build your playing over the song and can be fairly improvisational, but you need to know when and what you're building up to. Of course there are songs you can learn on a single pass, but on clser inspection most turn out to have subtlety you need to tease out to do them justice. If it was really that easy, why is such a large percentage of onlne tab wrong - I recently got a site to correct its "offical tab" for Green Onions FFS!