chris_b

I don't think it got as far as court, but Led Zeppelin had to pay Willie Dixon a lot of money for Whole Lotta Love, which plagiarises his song You Need Love.

I buy the best sounding basses I can find. In the last 20 years, the 5 basses that made it to #1 status have all been in the £1k - £2k range. I have been trying to find cheaper basses (I have too much money tied up in gear) but I'm not finding any cheap basses that are even close to knocking my current basses off their perch. YMMV

Barefaced make a lot of noise for your watts. I use 2 in a blues trio and I easily keep up with the guitarist and his Twin Reverb. One Super Compact would be very good for your sound, even with a 200 watt amp.

Or you can look at it from the other direction. . . . We have to work at sounding the best we can sound. Some of the top players only play either flats or rounds, not both. A good bassist will use the gear that makes the sound he wants to make. Many of these guys don't follow the music but make the music fit around them.

I did a direct comparison with Happy Jack's Lull bass and his sounded better! I finally tracked down the difference. . . . his bass had flats, mine had rounds. As soon as I put a set of GHS flats on my bass I got that nice, big, warm thump. I hadn't used flats since the early 70's and my current set of TI's are now on my PJ5 for good.

5 string Danelectro Long Horn bass.

Does ageism count? I've been discriminated against many times on account of my age. I guess that if the main objective to being in a band is to have a larf with their mates, then they're going to want potential "drinking partners" to apply. Proper musicians probably wouldn't be bothered, unless there were image considerations. Who gets the invite, or not, to an audition is hardly a matter for the law. I really don't care who is in the band, men or women, as long as they pull their weight. The only thing that puts me off is smokers and people who can't be bothered to wash! Now I'll probably be told off for discriminating against the smelly!

I've got 2 and love them. IMO a PJ is always a P, but with extra tone shaping options. I've got TI flats on my Mike Lull PJ5 and a piece of foam under the strings. I've been playing this bass for 10 years, as I say, I love it.

I have no idea what gridcore is, but the bottom line for playing anything is have confidence in yourself and your ability. You can do it. I did play with one guy who wrote everything down and preferred it played exactly as written. That was easy. I also played with other songwriters and when I asked what they wanted for the bass lines, they said, "Play it your way." One said, "I hear the whole song until the band plays it, then everything changes and improves." I just told them if they heard anything they didn't like to tell me and I'd change it. There are many ways of working.

Yes. Yes. Yes!

Several times I've lent over, after the first number, and told the keys player, "There's only one bass player in this band and it's not you!". With a smile, of course.

Fortunately I don't play with guitarists who are sitting in my frequency range. . . my beef is always with electric piano players who think they are the only bass instrument on stage. Most will change if I ask nicely, but there are a couple where I just have to alter my bass lines in certain songs to get away from them!!

+1 Being felt rather than heard was never a "thing" on recordings. It was more of an excuse to explain away the poor live sound many bass players were lumbered with, back in the days of crap bass gear.

I'm working up the numbers for a new band. I've been given a couple of YT videos to work from, but the bass player was so quiet that even with earphones I'm guessing what the guy played most of the time. They said, "Yeah he was a little quiet on the night!" And no one thought to ask him to turn up? I've played with 3 out of the 4 members before, so they know what they are getting, but no one is going to be straining to hear the bass on their next gig.

I had a conversation with a sound man on a gig. Him, "You're loud. I don't even have you in the PA." Me, "OK, I'll turn down." Him, "No don't. It's sounding good." QED

Just back from town and parked at the side of the road was a McLaren Senna. https://cars.mclaren.com/us-en/ultimate-series/mclaren-senna Who needs one of those to get from A to B when you have a Volvo? Wow!! I bloody do!! Same with basses. I buy the best I can find in my budget. I can't afford the top end but I can certainly appreciate them all the same.

Check out Hipshot lightweight tuners.

I discovered this when I bought my first "good" gear. Every fluff, squeak and fumble came through very clearly. I was shocked. Stuff I'd been getting away with for years stood out like a sore thumb. I had to reassess my playing to bring it up to the level of my gear.

+1 All they want from us, is to turn up on time, sound good and get the notes right.

Larry Graham and Doug Rauch on the first album. Larry Johnson on the rest.

Many years ago I was guilty of scooping the mids. These days I prefer to buy an amp that sounds right with the EQ flat, maybe adding the occasional small tweak of bass depending on the room.

Tosh. You won't paint great pictures if you don't know how to combine the colours at your disposal. Knowing your notes is what every good bass player does from Dusty Hill to Jaco. You'll play interesting lines more regularly if you know the notes that fit and can put them together in interesting ways.

That's a bit like Dali's melting clocks. I can see the attraction for an LSD frame of mind.

Learn your scales and modes. Tasteful is melodic which requires you to know the notes and make good note choices. It doesn't have anything to do with speed or tortuous time signatures.