Dr.Dave

None. They all served a purpose and did a job for me. When that job was over I sold them. No regrets - no sentiment. The bass I enjoyed playing most that was sold under the above circumstances as a headed Status Energy but I was still happy when it sold because I wasn't using it and I wanted it to be worked. That's what instruments are - tools to allow us to do our job as musicians. I'm a musician - not a collector.

Any neck-thru with that dreadful stripe down the middle of the body - horrid. Jaydees - hideous Warwicks - not comfortable to me and they feel 'sticky' I think I'm always going to lean towards Fenders , MMs and Rics because they were the quality kit I grew up with.

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1331574191' post='1575125'] Ha ha - Dik (who I play with occasionally) does a Jonathan King song which can only be wheeled out on certain occasions! I haven't played that one yet though. He only invites me to play at the more respectable gigs [/quote] Odd you say that - we're figuring the worse the scummy toilet we play in the bigger the chance of some tattooed pond life punching me. To press we've only done it 3 times - all to audiences that can form proper sentences. Today's gig is a ex-WMC in a dog rough area of South Yorkshire full of Benny's. (as in Benny Fitt-Scrounger as I like to term them). Might have trouble there. They bring their kids in in prams - I barked at them last time for it but they thought I was joking. No probs last night - the heavy rock Abba thing's going down a riot. Regular venue for us (The Hop , Wakefield) but our regular stage (downstairs) was pulled last week when we were asked to do a private function upstairs for the owner. That meant we had to bring our PA and drag it up the stairs . Downstairs has a PA so we'd not bothered asking our roadie who arranged a night out instead - so we had to carry it up. Worse still - upstairs has a massive PA installed which we were told we couldn;t use as it was 'too loud'. I reminded them it has a volume control but to no avail. Several heart attacks later we were set up and a DJ tuned up - said he was using the big PA - presumed we were and asked if we wanted the sound doing like the regular upstairs bands do !!! Anyway - Gig was good but it was so totty packed I got several whiffs of scent - eau de kerry katona's gusset or similar - and I've woken up with a glass throat. Have to go sing in a few hours so it's hot ribena for me all day. As a PS which I should probably have put in the amps forum. ....Because we couldn; 't take the trailer (we'd never back it round) everything had to go in the cars - that and having to take PA meant my ext cab stayed home which I wasn't pleased about as the room is quite a big one. Twice the size of a normal pub venue. Joy of joys - new GK combo coped easily. Never went above half way - easily loud enough , clear as a bell and the bass end of a 2x15 shed (in a 2x10 combo)

Sorry , mate. Dr. O'Blue are already cashing in on such stupidity here in Wakey or we'd have stepped in like a shot. Huddersfields only up the road.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1331892103' post='1580392'] Modern bass gear all works. I remember back in the 70s a lot of amplification was absolutely shocking and totally unfit for purpose (like some of the cars of the day), but now pretty much any rig is going to perform well and be (relatively) portable and (mostly) reliable. Just as any modern car is going to perform and be reliable... to labour the analogy somewhat. Amps or cars (or anything, really) your choice is now generally down to 1) budget and 2) aesthetics. IMHO. [/quote] Agreed to a point - I think the thing is that cheaper gear - both amps and instruments - is far better made these days. Way back when cheaper gear was an absolute joke. Now you could go pro with a copy bass. When I left school and saved for a decent bass I had 4 choices - Precision , Jazz , Rick or a pile of sh*te. Not these days you lucky guys and gals. I doubt there's much difference either between the reliability of cheaper gear and expensive stuff these days. Most likely it was made in some far eastern sweat shop from the cheapest components that could be sourced so ther'll always be a question mark. Likely as not if it doesn't go wrong in the first couple of weeks it'll be fine.

I think it's a simple question of whether you're prepared to play venues with noise limiters and because I play for my own enjoyment rather than being a professional relying on the work and the compromises that can entail - I'm not.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1331889146' post='1580329'] +1 I might make a small adjustment to the bass knob on the guitar and I might not. I'll turn up the volume if the drummer tells me to and I'll turn the volume down if the management says something. Other than that the only thing I touch on the amp is the mute and the on/off switch. [/quote] Agreed again - I did use the mute on my last GK head and I'll miss it because the combo doesn;t have one. The gain and master didn't move for years. Straight up the middle. Folk will dick about trying to make their Jazz sound like their Precision. WHY ??? If you want both your basses to sound the same buy 2 of the same model not one that's designed to sound different !!!! As for turning down for the management....... well ,maybe if they were adamant , but we always explain what we are and what we do to new venues so if they kick off on the night it we would never go back again. That's not theory - we've acted on that policy several times.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1331887833' post='1580305'] Good point! Isn't it interesting how people use very different words to describe their amplification rather than their guitars? There is a lot less emotional attachment to the electrical stuff then there is for the bass itself. Why is that I wonder? Is it because we aren't physically connected to the amps? You rarely hear anyone say "I could never get rid of this amp - she and I go back a long way and have many shared memories... etc, etc" Discuss [/quote] Not much to discuss - I just agree. I spend my evenings with my back to my amps - the williams know what they look like better than me! I honestly can;t remember when I last adjusted my amp settings during a gig - but I bet it was becasue I played a duff note and tried to blame the amp ! Never seen much point in twiddling with settings - my ears are shot after 3 songs anyway so I'd probably be making it worse , not better , without me even knowing.

Yes. My new GK combo and cab will do everything I require of it gig wise and I don't see that changing. If Doc B stopped I wouldn't be in a rush to do anything else and , at my time of life , it could well be the end of me gigging in the way I've come to know it - ie rock band in pubs. In which case I'd probably sell the ext cab and wait for something new to come knocking that was interesting and meant I could just use the combo. I've never got over excited about gear. I'm a player , not a collector. I can get attached to an instrument because it's such a tactile thing but not amps. Black boxes with knobs on. I want them to sound OK in 'neutral' and not break - nothing more.

You're all amateurs - I use a curly mains lead!! Keeps my spare room tidy. I nicked it off my Dad's kettle. I believe Whirlwind made decent quality curly guitar leads a few years back but I never tried one. I might check out these bullet jobs.

Because Paul CONTINUED his bass contributions with Wings , and becasue Wings was - in my opinion - the Paul Mac Project and much less of a band than the Beatles... I'll go with the Beatles. Michelle being a fave of mine , and Penny Lane. Having said that I always noodle around with Silly Love Songs as a warm up exercise.

Pub in Elland ,the Drop Inn , where we tried out our new material. It's not really a gig pub - they only ever have us on about twice a year at their small beer festivals. We've said 'other bands are available' etc etc but they just want us. The Gary Glitter song got universal laughter which is what we'd wanted and hoped for. We figured our brand of humour would win the day. If folk had got upset we'd pull it. Lonely Boy went fine but I don't think we do it well. Star of the show was my heavy rock version of 'Winner takes it all' which brought the roof down just as we'd thought it would. Got another gig in......... (looks at watch) 1hr and 10 mins. Just over the road from me so we'll try the same stuff on a different - more gig aware - audience.

Having gotten used to the combo and gigged with it a few times , I thought a few updated comments might be useful to someone. Dr Blue are not a quiet band , and I'm finding the combo easily up to the job. At stage volume the sound is pretty bassy for a 2x10. One nice thing (and one of the reasons I wanted it) is the combo without the ext cab will do a far bigger percentage of Doc Blue gigs than my old system of dropping one of my 2 Ashdown cabs for smaller gigs. Then it was always the 2x10 that got left behind in favour of the 1x15 for depth. No problems here - plenty of volume with the gains and volume knobs running on about half way. Someone mentioned they've put the DI xlr on the wrong way round and you can't get to the catch to release it with fingers. A key/screwdriver or small coin does the job easily but it shouldn't have to. Just sloppy design. Also - be careful as the kettle socket seems very tight. 2 of my old kettle leads have to be rammed in and therefore it takes too much pressure to get them out again , rendering them uselfess. It's also flush with the back of the como - fine , but it means when you have a plug in it you can't back the combo right up against a wall or you'll distort your plug/cable and eventually it will fail - probably half way through the second set in the dark when you forgot to bring a spare like a right pin head. Think about such things - I do. An early worry re. a 'clicky/bizzy' earthing problem which kept me awake all week on holiday worrying about having to send it all back turned out to be nothing more than a faulty (and newly bought) 3m mains lead which I took great pleasure in violently cutting into eight pieces with an axe (yes , really). Bloody ebay. You don't get anything for 3 quid these days - rotten little Chinese kids !!! The light weight is a godsend - but when carrying with the top handle make sure you have the grill closest to your body. If you don't - your arm is too stretched away from your body and makes carrying more awkward as the strap handle is not central. If you get that wrong you'll enter your venue looking like one of these body building numptys that walk into the pub with a gym bag then strut around like they've a roll of carpet under each arm. Personally - I'm not a fan of stacking corners - they seem brittle to me , slippy on hard floors and liable to self destruct - at some point I'll put 4 wide rubber feet on both cab and combo with maybe some of those old Trace Elliot type 'foot receivers' (for want of a better term) if I can find some , on the top of the ext cab. I've been really nit picky here - it's great combo/cab for and I'm really pleased. The lot cost me £750 including having the covers made. I sold the last lot for £600 so £150 well spent and , at 50 , it might even last me out as a gigging rock(ish) player. I always said 55 was my cut off but doubtless I'll change my mind when I'm 54!

Pack it in. Sell all your gear and spend the rest of your days in your slippers in front of the TV. Exactly !!! Either you have something creative in your life that makes you that little bit different and you couldn't stop doing for a gold pig - or you don't. Dr Diedrie replies............. If nothing happens soon you might consider downsizing your stuff - esp in the amp rather than bass dept - and playing for fun while something presents itself or you make it happen from scratch. Everybody who's been in bands has 'musical lows' and I suspect your in a big one. You can't not be player though. That's what you do. Get through this down period - enjoy other things around you that playing has meant you missed out on - then get fired into your next project when it comes along. You can have breaks , enforced or not. You can do stuff for x long then stop , then start again. It's allowed.

[i]Putting in enough hard work to sound lazy.[/i]

You say you're no natural musician - I doubt anyone else round here is either. You also say you have a good desire and work ethic. That will be more useful to you than anything that comes naturally! Just a couple of tips. Always try and play through an amplifier , however small. Play too much without it , and you'll end up like me - hitting too hard. Don't keep practising what you can already do or nearly already do. Practise things just beyond your reach. Be a player - don't get obssessed with being a gear collector. There are loads of folk driving around in a Roller who never played anything other than a root and a fifth - many of them didn't even bother with the fifth! You can't break a rule unless you first know what it is - but rules were written for the obedience of fools and the guidance of the wise. Enjoy - have fun. If all you ever do is practise - what you'll become expert at is practising ! You can use as many fingers on your right hand as you want, or not , - and your left. Thumbs are fine - no thumbs are fine. In other words , you can do whatever you like with one exception - you must use your ears.

A passing Nugget - Dave - pulled off the M1 for a while to buy my GK head and whisk it off to sunny Worcester , where I hope it'll give sterling service to a thoroughly decent chap who does exactly what he says he'll do. Take care , mate. D

[quote name='deanovw' timestamp='1326042574' post='1491465'] Dave bought a Rockbag from me. Fast payment. Recommended. [/quote] And he bought a rackbag from me...... hmmmmm..... what do you think he's doing with them all ??? The cash came over the hills faster than the Transpennine Express on steroids. Sadly , wenever got to meet up but hopefully that's one for the future. Cheers , Dave Dave

Good to meet Martin who popped over the Pennines to relieve me of my Ashdown cabs. He has built up several pages of favourable comments here and you don't get thoise formessing fok about - as others have said , Martin says he'll do something then does it. Al the best , matey. Hope the cabs stay doing a job for you for years to come.

Solid Roq - do you see what I did there........ I don't know how I think 'em up !!! Anyway - went on to ebay and ordered (without having to give sizes) 2 Roqsolid covers for my new GK combo and cab. I put in the message box on the paypal payment page that I wanted blue binding. The info told me to expect to wait 10 - 14 days for my covers plus 2 or 3 for shipping time. £80 (inc. 'free' delivery) and a few coppers for both. That was Tuesday - and Tuesday evening at that. Today it's friday - arrived Fedex this morning. Perfect fit - blue binding - and absolute top quality from what i can see. Waterproof/rip proof outer and a felt inner lining. Industrial quality stiching. Funny thing is - last night I figured that , with cab and combo being the same size - I could do with a way to visually tell one from t'other with the covers on - so thinking they wouldn't have got started on them yet I was about to call them and ask them to do one cover binding in blue and one in red. They arrived before I had chance. You know me - I can get tactile about basses but as for the rest of it... I just want stuff that does it's job and doesn't break. On that basis I'm really pleased with these. I think you can get GK covers from Beyer for about the same cash but I bet you now they're sh*te , made from a bin liner or something. You can just tell these will be happy to be chucked in and out of a trailer in the pissing rain and freezing cold for years and years. At about 17% of the cost of the gear they're protecting (in the cabs case - less for the combo) I'll leave you to decide whether they're good value or not.

I figured out years ago the difference between an artist and a craftsman. As I've become older , fatter , richer more comfortable and more idle I've become far more of the latter than the former , which is what I started out to be. I expect I'm not the only one round here. Anyway What bit of creator rather than reproducer remains in me insists on rolling his own - so do my own lines for covers. Then again - our band doesn;t really do 'covers' as such - we take other peoples well known songs and twist and turn and prat about with them til they make us laugh and hope it has the same effect on the punters. So as a band we roll our own - it's just that we stole the papers and the baccy !!

Just bought the MB210 -arrived from Soundslive an hour ago. First impressions............. It's bigger and heavier than I expected - though it's not big or heavy. lighter than my Ashdown cabs which are a similar size I think one or two reviewers have gone a bit overboard about these attributes though. I'd have liked side handles. It doesn't seem over loud - again I think some of the reviews I read have been a bit OTT. The mains lead had some sort of 2 pin wally plug on it - doubtless some eurozone nonsense. The speaker out is speakon only - odd because the 'matching' cabs have jack too a far as I know. A tuner out woud have been nice - instead I have some silly Aux in. The controls are very like my 400RB amp - but not quite. I'll miss the mute switch. The sound I instantly recognised - it's safe ! The contour control is now a switch rather than a pot so I expect I'll leave it off and prat around EQ's to get 'my' sound. In the few mins I've played it a touch of boost on the trebe and bass , leaving the mids flat seemed to do it easily enough. On the RB I had everything flat and just swung on the contour. The boost seems to start kicking the dirt in a fair bit later - no bad thing. The active input seems pretty fierce - there was a only one input with a 10db pad on the RB but this active input seems to cut more signal than the old pad did. Not that it matters to me because I always use passive or no pad whichever bass I use. The horn really kicks the fizzy highs in - that was a pleasant few seconds of use and it'll never be turned on again! The limiter's a switch. Doubt I'll ever use it. The 1 x 15 ext cab should be here soon but it's coming from Germany - none left in the UK. Not that the combo lacks bottom - quite bassy for a 2 x 10. So - I wanted a smaller , lighter , same sounding version of my old rig (the 400RB and 2 Ashdown cabs , a 2 x 10 and a 1 x 15). I expect it's pretty much on the nose with doing that , certainly nothing to lead me to believe it's not up to the job.

I'm very wary of these 'help for heros' events , popular in local pubs round our way. Not the cause , but it seems like publicans perks to me. The bands play for nothing , other folk do fundraisy things for nothing and the pub gives ' a percentage of the bar take'. I'll bet they do.