chris_b

Good playing is a good thing, on any instrument. I'd love to play clever, intelligent and impressive solo's. Unfortunately my brain isn't wired for soloing, so I don't.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1438769404' post='2837003'] [size=4][color=#3F3F3F][font=Oxygen, sans-serif]So you're being asked to agree to contracts whose terms you haven't seen... surely that would never stand up in court? [/font][/color][/size] [/quote] How much are you going to spend to find out? The Beatles and Rolling Stones were unable to get out for their Alan Klein contracts, so don't assume questionable terms invalidate anything.

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1438759905' post='2836897'] Suppose these are standard TV conditions. [/quote] Never sign away any rights on a guess or supposition!That is a supid hing to do. Only sign a contract when you know [u]exactly[/u] what it all means.

That's a "Simon Cowell" contract. This is a fishing exercise, and why they only want unsigned bands. They will own your music whether it is used by them or not, and they will probably take a percentage of your musical earnings whether that work is generated by them or not. You have to understand exactly what you are being asked to sign away. I wouldn't touch one of these contracts in a million years. Be very careful.

I wonder if this involves signing any "Simon Cowell" type contracts?

I don't know the signal path, so while I would expect the passive tone to not be affected by the bypassed active stage, it might be. I'd ask Maruczszyk the question.

You can slap narrow spacings as Gerald Veasley does, or play wide spacings as Esperanza Spalding does with her small hands. A good technique and practice should overcome any spacing issues. I prefer 18mm-20mm but I also need consistency, so whichever you choose, I would always keep to the same spacings on all instruments.

So, 60 posts and 59 suggestions. If we are correct and that many different instruments will work then, your style, ability, note choice and how you EQ will make your performance fit and not the instrument you choose.

In my first pro band (based in Brussels) we used Davoli amps and cabs. An Italian version of Marshall I believe. They did the job. Don't remember much about them.

I think the mk3 has a different power design to the Mk2. . . . but on my Mk 2 I had all the tones controls at 12 o'clock and the filters off. Made a wonderful sound.

A Lakland was the bass that covered that amount of territory for me, but I never set out to copy the sound of a record only to get the feel. These days I'm playing many of those styles on a P bass, so really any bass can do the job, if you play it right.

I'd add US Laklands.

So everything was OK, you had work done on the house and now everything is not OK. The last change is always the point where you start the investigation. I'd get an independent earth/bond check done. Fix the problem not the symptoms.

Bartolini pickups are used in many boutique basses and I put their preamp and pickups in my PJ. I love the sound of Barts, but I have some fantastic sounding Seymore Duncan pickups in my passive Lull. Whatever you choose I'd leave it passive. You can always add a preamp later.

Great drummer. Thanks for posting. The Steve Gadd Band is at Ronnies in November. Jimmy Johnson on bass.

[quote name='Wolverinebass' timestamp='1438357808' post='2833919'] I just find it irritating that DI's differ so much from the output because cabs are hyped in certain areas. [/quote] Sounds like you'd be better off with a mic on the cab.

Alex, I don't disagree but I'm not sure I said anything that controversial. As the discussion was about "flat" I was wondering what you end up with in a perfectly "flat" system. Can't "accurate" exist in a "non-flat" system? How is your sound in the back room of a pub going to be replicated when you play at Wembely Stadium the next night? IME a DI is about handing your sound to someone who can make that sound a better fit in a different environment, ie a studio or through a FOH. IME "flat" is pasta without any salt. Players are "colouring" their sound at every stage of the signal chain. My point was where should "flat" start in the chain and where would their sound ideally be created? I look at my rig as a jig-saw with the sound being created at every stage of the chain, by every stage working with the others to get the final sound. If the sound of a cab isn't giving you the sound you want then get one that does. On the other hand a "flat" cab might very well be the one you want.

I'd agree with JTUK. I don't see the advantage of "flat" in the bass world. The concept of "flat" just seems like a starting point to me. Then you add [i]your[/i] sound. Are there any "flat" basses out there? My fingers certainly don't do "flat". So starting with a non flat amp and cab seems like a no brainer, as long as their sound is heading in the direction you wanted to go in the first place.

To many people music used to be special because they had to go out of their way to find it. An audience had to make an effort. Rock started and flourished because your parents didn't approve. I've taken my kids to gigs and my son has taken me to some. I went to festivals but my parents never did. This year my 65 year old next door neighbour and his son went off to Glasto. I'm pretty sure no one imagined Rock would ever turn into a family event. Punk was subversive for about 5 mins but since then music has just been a commodity. These days the entertainment machine has turned music into audio wallpaper. Everything is available to every one all the time and nothing is special any more. Rock was breaking down barriers from day one. What does it do when there are no more barriers? I guess that's what we've got.

Talking about guitars. . . I think George Harrison just wanted to be Carl Perkins. I see GH as more as a song writer not really up there as a guitarist, although he later developed a very unique style. The Dave Clark 5 and Hermans Hermits were bigger in the US than the Beatles for a brief period. But quality won out in the end. The Beatles would have disappeared if it wasn't for other bands? You're having a laugh! The other bands were bands. The Beatles were a cultural phenomenon, as well as being the best of the bunch by a country mile. Where are the other bands of that era? Who fundamentally changed popular culture, music, song writing and recording? It wasn't the Hollies, Animals, Kinks or Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Seems to me you're describing an EQ problem or short comings in your gear or maybe you're just playing the wrong line. I could say, get an acoustic bass and don't play 7ths but I don't know enough from your description. Check out Jon Banks in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain for gear, technique and all things bass in a Uke orchestra.

A lot of music existed before The Beatles and some of it fed into what was to come but most of it did not. But as I say, the impact felt from 1963/4 onwards was life changing for most of us. If you didn't experience the "before", then the "after" would have a totally different meaning. I think you'll find that The Beatles were hardly marketed at all, clever or otherwise. Beatles marketing was largely a ramshackle and uncontrolled attempt to manage the avalanche of interest, that they never really got to grips with. Brian Epstein was so far out of his depth that they lost most of the money they could have earned. When the first Americans arrived to discuss selling the Beatles in the US Epstein insisted that they wouldn't take less than 7 1/2% on everything. The Americans were going to start negotiations at 30% and go up from there.

I believe it's waiting for certification. If they only released it in the US they'd cause a "grey market" of unofficially imported amps all over the world, so they're waiting until they can offer a combined world wide release date. Anyway, I'm still interested. It would have to be special to retire my TH500 and Thunderfunk but I'll certainly audition it. I believe early models have been tested by people on Talkbass and they say it sounds like the IP's and then some. So it might be that special. With good used versions of my TH500 (at less than £500), and making a fantastic noise with my current cab, the price of a new Berg amp will probably be the issue for me. There was also a hint of a Barefaced amp lurking in the shadows. I'm very interested in that as well.

I read Blue's point as, if you experienced what went before then your perspective on the Beatles era (and what has followed) could be very different from later generations. I'd agree with that. The Beatles were the spearhead. They enabled many careers and ended many more. They didn't just gently open the door, they caused a seismic earthquake and blew it off it's hinges. If you think they're only songs you don't appreciate what happened, but why would you. You weren't there to see it. Anyone caught up and changed at that point could easily feel very different about most parts of our subsequent culture, even to this day.

I'd suggest a Mike Lull, Sadowsky or Lakland P bass. You won't be looking next year with any of these.