chris_b

The OP asked for first steps. . . . . . . . . . and you lot are trying to advise him on how to run a marathon!!!

The Spotted Horse was my local. I don't know the Castle, but we used to queue up for a pint at the Duke's Head. One of the worst places to get served in SW London on a sunny Sunday lunchtime! Not blaming the staff, just the number of people trying to get a pint in "on the river".

No, they are sensible concerns. Unless your guitarist has 2 full stacks, you won't let the side down with your gear. You'll be fine for the gigs you are describing. Learn to walk before you try to run. Good luck.

According to Roger Sadowsky, Warwick send a person from Germany to the Chinese factory every 9 weeks, for 2 weeks, to oversee and check on all aspects of production and quality control. I'd be surprised if the Metro Express could ever be described as "poorly made".

We had a Friday, Saturday and Sunday gig many years ago in a big Victorian pub called the Ladbroke, which was in an area of Ladbroke Grove that had been cleared for demolition. They hadn't knocked anything down and squatters had moved in (these would now be very posh multi million pound Victorian Villas!). At least once a weekend there was a fight that would have made a John Wayne western proud. Like the Beano, a cloud of dust with arms and legs poking out of it at all angles! We were OK, our stage was 5' high and we were told, "Never stop for any reason. Just play through it, till they're either exhausted or dead!!" I've hardly seen any fights in pubs since then, but these days I don't often gig to audiences that have that amount of energy any more!

I'd go for the Squier, every time.

Best check how long you need the string to be first. I had a B string that only just made it over the nut by about an 1/8th of an inch! DR strings and NYXL's are fine but that set (can't remember the make) was a close call.

IMO that green Dingwall has the best tone of all his basses so far.

Trevor Preston, one of the Sweeney script writers, used to collaborate with the song writer in one of my bands from many years ago. Nice guy. Apparently all the Sweeney scripts had to be vetted by the BBC because they thought the excessive Police violence was being overstated. Trevor interviewed ex-Flying Squad people so everything he wrote was accurate and authentic, but the red pen still went through quite a lot of the "naughty" stuff.

On 95% of my gigs I get no FOH. My objective on a gig is that the stage sound is constant and my sound is exactly the same. IMO that is best achieved by bringing my own gear. So I'll always take my rig. If I don't use it that's fine, but I have been promised back lines and found inadequate or broken amps and once a mains cable with no amp on the other end of it! I have also had blank stares when I asked where the monitor was, and monitors that sounded more like a black and decker drill. Being self sufficient in the sound department is the best advice I can give.

Back then Fenton Weill were the cheapest of the cheap and subsequently the worst of the wosrt. You'd have got a better sound out of a tea-chest bass.

The US versions of my Ampeg SVT3 had a mains power outlet for powering addition gear. That plug was blanked off on my UK amp. I just assumed it didn't meet our regs in some way.

Drop Roger Sadowsky an email. An NYC bass is a fully custom order. Tell him you don't want neck dive. Chambering isn't an option, it's what he does to all his $6k basses. With his focus on detail and his A list clientele in the upper echelons of the bass playing world, I would be surprised if any of his NYC basses had serious neck dive.

I don't think you should change anything unless you know you have a problem. Throwing upgrades onto a bass on the off-chance of making it "better" is a great way of throwing good money away.

Two good points. My vote would go for the incorporated pedal power supply. I had a tuner on my TC amp which was good but IMO a tuner is better situated in front of you. I prefer to tune facing the audience, rather than fiddling about with my back to them.

I worked for a few companies and in some offices that were a bigger hassle than any gig I've done. Playing with good people will always leave me with a smile on my face. No hassle can take that away.

I have a Japanese Metro and it has the same hardware, pickups and preamp as the NYC models. You can't request custom versions but I don't see the value in paying nearly £6k for an NYC bass when a good used Japanese Metro can be bought for around £2k, and they play and sound just as good. What Sadowsky basses will look like after the production move to Warwick is an unknown. I'm sure they will be good but my Metro is good enough that I'm not bothered about finding out.

I haven't had any trouble worth mentioning on pub gigs in many years. The better gigs will be going to the guys who are out there playing, being seen and making contacts.

This. Also it was a celebration not a warts n all investigation!

Hi, Did I miss this in either the thread or on the web site. . . . . . do your 5 string sets fit 35" scale? Cheers

That's nothing to the shock of discovering you prefer R4!!

I watched the Shadows program. I thought it was an interesting look a the music business at a time when British music was was just starting to find its feet. We went on to dominate the world from these small beginnings. It was an interesting time. Old music isn't bad music. Apache was my first 45, I won it in a competition at school. I played the grooves off that thing.

When I was starting out, it never did. That's why there was such a fantastic club scene in the 60's and 70's. If you want "new music" the internet's full of it.

I've always loved the bass part on It Must Be Love, (surely another contender for the Wilton Felder thread). Dave Richmond is an excellent player (is he using a P bass in this clip?) , and I know guys have to make a living, but this Saturday night light entertainment stuff made. and still makes, me cringe! It's what my Dad imagined I'd be doing when I told him I was going to be a professional bass player. He was horrified when I told him I'd joined a Soul band based in Brussels.

Listen to Nathan Watts and you get the same type of bass line. It sounds great in the mix, but when he takes a break (at about 3.30) the sound is clunky, buzzy, over played and pretty horrible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6f6BOKXXxg The reality is that these bass parts were never designed to be heard in isolation. They were a signal provided to the desk where they would be re-EQ'd, compressed and mixed into the track. Listen to the original Motown mix of I Want You Back and compare it to the remixed HD version. The HD version is the same bass line but has a much better, fuller overall sound, because nowadays songs are intended to be played to the listener on speakers designed to a much higher spec.