BillyBass

That was one thing! Jack went through a few different pedal options with me, as a means to filling out the sound when the guitarist solos and there is no rhythm guitar. He (and his other half @Silvia Bluejay ) also gave me lots of advice about gigging, which is something I haven't done yet.

@Happy Jack messaged me after seeing I live quite close to him and invited me over to his 'studio'. I spent a couple of hours with him today learning from his experience and knowledge, mainly on the subject of this thread. Many thanks Jack, I learnt a lot today

I mainly play root and octave for the outro but slip in a few 5ths when playing G and A, and yes I make use of the glissandos, harmonics and vibrato, though I play a fretted bass with rounds.

Thanks for all your replies. Two songs stand out: Alive by Pearl Jam and Enter Sandman. With Enter Sandman our guitarist plays the lead as opposed to the rhythm at the beginning of the song and I have to fill the gap. It would be better for me to alter the tone, add volume and a bit of hair and perhaps, 'Lemmify' my bit, . That is to be experimented with. With Alive, the original bass part is on a fretless and Jeff Ament doesn't play many notes, he uses lots of sustain. I have to marry the fretless bass bit with the rhythm guitar, particularly the last section, which is a guitar solo with Jeff Ament playing 4 bars E-G-D-A repeated over and over again. Our guitarist is our most experienced musician; over 20 years experience as a rhythm guitarist and he has a wikipedia page about himself. Trouble is, he's a bit lazy and often wings it in rehearsals. He is also new to lead; he mainly tries to copy lead parts but will occasionally go off on one.

Hi all, I'm an inexperienced bassist, less than 4 years playing and am in my first band. We (so far) have a setlist of twenty 90s rock covers that we do with drums, bass, vocals and one guitar. When listening back to our rehearsals I sometimes find it sounds a little empty, particularly where the guitarist is soloing and not strumming chords or where the original song was played with two guitars. I've tried a few things to fill out the sound, such as following the guitar chords with the bass, instead of thumping away on the E string as the original song bassist does and also playing more notes. These work sometimes and sometimes they don't. I sometimes read about other bassists using pedals to fill out the sound. This is something I don't know much about. I have a few pedals and use them for specific songs, e.g. fuzz with 'Song 2' but I don't know much about single pedal use or stacked pedals to fill out the sound on stage. Any tips?

I did this course in 2019 as a relatively new bassist, I'd been playing for less than a year. I think it is one of the best courses for bass out there, it helped me immeasurably. You have to knuckle down and do some quite repetitive exercises for 6 months and you don't learn a single song but you come out the end with the foundations of your future bass playing life well laid. The other really stand out Scotts Bass Lessons course is the 'Harmonic Layering' course, which is one of the courses you can do when you subscribe to SBL.

I've often been tempted by a Tribute Kiloton but put off by the colours available and the weight. The new ones seem to be made of poplar and I'm they will be lighter. The black frost model looks like it would fit very nicely in my bass rack.

Congrats @wateroftyne Cool video of you with the bass, pity the camera guy was more interested in the singer and that old bloke with the red Strat

And I thought the £50 that most amp makers charge for an amp bag a rip off!

Calling @Stub Mandrel Who I think uses one of the 212s with an Orange Terror Bass.

It does look interesting. I'm guessing the 'Vintage' name is just so people pair it up with their pre amp. I would imagine its just a Class D 1000 watt head, no valves. The global supply chain and shipping issues are taking their toll; most of the bigger sellers in the UK are really short of stock.

Reading threads like this reminds me of how lucky I am. Our drummer makes mistakes with songs he hasn't learnt well enough or has forgotten but he is always in time. When he does make a mistake, I turn my head towards him and he sees; he always has his eye on me. I believe you are right @NikkiSixxfan as we need to lock in with them we are more aware of inconsistencies in drumming.

Ashdown publish their figures for the RM800 EVO ii, (which I have), and their other solid state amps, as -3dB @ 17Hz and 30KHz. The CTM-300's frequency response is from 35Hz -18 KHz. So does this mean the solid state stuff has a rumble filter that kicks in at 17Hz? @Phil Starr and @Al Krow I will speak to Max again.

Full disclosure: I have a micro-thumpinator but have had trouble with it. It may just be faulty but whenever I stick it on my pedal board it affects the sound quite badly; I get a hollow farting sort of sound. It worked ok at first but gradually got worse so I removed it. I then put it back on after 6 months and everything was fine for a couple of weeks and then the same happened. I still want to filter out the below 30Hz stuff but not with a micro-thumpinator.

I had a long conversation with Dave Green from Ashdown last year about the benefits of high pass filters and I'm sold. I think if there was an obvious improvement in sound they would receive more attention. There isn't though.

All modern amps have them? Really? So the class D heads from Gallien-Krueger, MarkBass, Ashdown, Orange, Darkglass, Trace Elliot, TC Electronic etc all have built in high pass filters? So no need to add a SFX micro-thumpinator to any amp unless its one of a small minority of vintage amps?

There are a few heads that have high pass filter knobs on them, Mesa and Bergantino come to mind. I have read, however, that high pass filters or 'rumble filters' are often built into heads but not advertised. Do any of you know and brands or any particular heads that include a built in high pass filter?

I have the limited edition 'iron man' Marcus Miller 500W head. Unfortunately, going into the effects return does not circumvent the EQ on this, so I doubt yours would either.

If you are wondering how the bass is reversed but nothing else in the photo, it's not. It's a lefty. But maybe I misunderstood you?

As someone that has had both 10" and 12" Barefaced cabs, through which did you find the MarkBass produced the sound you miss?

I always use my Cali76 which lets me tweak things to suit my preferences, so the RM800 compressor stays off.

A lot of reviewers are paid and they don't hide it. Bass the world are paid, for instance, and they often review Ashdown kit. You have to read between the lines a bit with the obviously paid for reviews. They will praise certain aspects of the product and demo it but you can't really learn much from a YouTube demo though. Low end Lobster does great bass guitar reviews on his YouTube channel. He buys the basses himself and then flogs them on afterwards, consequently he can call a bass 'Fender's turd' for example.

Guitarguitar in Edinburgh has a couple in stock, not quite so far to drive from Fife. Edit. D'oh! Just seen this was posted in February!

I didn't get any impression my Musik Productiv RM800 EvoII was B stock. Looked brand spanking.

Another vote for Pinegrove 4" straps here. I have three of them.