Count Bassy

To continue my previous theme: Do these 'mistakes' matter? would Maggie May have sold anymore copies if it had a 'Correct' bass line? (probably not), would have sold less copies and be less memorable ? (Possibly). Does playing a C where it 'should' be a C# really matter as long as it works (or even adds something) in the context of the song? And surely pushing and pulling the timing is part of what brings music alive and gives it swing or whatever. Music is an art, not a science. It may have 'rules' but , unlike the laws of physics, but they can be broken and bent, and who cares as long as the result is pleasing to at least someone.

[quote name='chris_b' post='728900' date='Jan 29 2010, 04:36 PM']Rod Stewart is off key in places[/quote] But surely Rod Stewart's ability to put it slightly off key and make it work is what made him famous. I can't help but feel that the whole musical word is suffering from over production and the expectation of perfection. Music is still mostly (thankfully) produced by human beings after all. Personally I think a bit of humanity adds so much to recordings. Anyone with enough time, technology, and 'takes' can 'produce' perfection. To play a song live and get it mostly right, with some feeling takes real skill. Give me real live music with some flaws and personality over a perfect studio production anyday of the week.

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='728860' date='Jan 29 2010, 04:04 PM']Give in.... sounds fine to me [/quote] I can't hear anything wrong either, kept my foot tapping along right through it - obviously cloth-eared.

Don't get drunk, or anywhere near, before hand - limit yourself to one of whatever your tipple is. Stay sober until it's done and give it your best shot, plenty of time to drink afterwards. Try not get too wound up over mistakes as this will only lead to more (advice I need to take myself!). Try to relax and enjoy it. Remember that you will be your own worse critic and that things that sound like glaring errors to you will not be noticed by the audience. I know it's easy to say these things and harder to implement them, because I can clearly remember my first public performance but, if you get anything like the buzz I got from my first public outing, despite the nerves, then you'll be chomping at the bit to do it again. Best of luck with it.

4 out my 5 basses are 32" and I love them, although 2" might not seem much I certainly find the stretches easier, especially when playing/fretting two notes at once. There are some things I can play on a 32" which I physically can't do on the 34". The 34" is a fretless fiver, but the only reason I went for the 34" was that there are so few 32" fivers around, and none that I could afford. However one advantage of the 5 string is that you can play a lot of things 5 frets up, so you're effectivley playing about a 27" scale. Obviously some tonal differences in playing 5 frets up however.

The Bass solo at the start of Handy by Wishbone Ash. Unfortunaetly the only Youtube copy of the original I can find misses it off, though there is a cover of it, which I wouldn't reccomend

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='710008' date='Jan 12 2010, 02:08 PM']Why aye, man. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Thompson#Partial_discography"]And loads more[/url]. Highlights include Kate Bush, Everything But The Girl, Peter Gabriel, Alison Moyet, Talk Talk ([i]love[/i] those albums!) and T Rex.[/quote] Could I add Richard Thompson to those highlights please?

[quote name='keving' post='719953' date='Jan 21 2010, 11:34 AM']Reminds me of a contract that a band I sometime dep with had. It was a standard contract with number and length of set etc, and then at the bottom it stated: YOU WILL NOT PLAY MUSTANG SALLY. More contracts should contain this clause [/quote] Although I've never played it personally, I wish people would lay off Mustang Sally. It is a victim of it's own success, but that success is because it's a fine song and audiences love it. I for one certainly wish I'd had the skill and foresight to write it and one or two other 'Standards', and if I had I would be very proud of it, not to mention considerably better off. Who here can honestly say that they would not have written such a successful song given half a chance?

[quote name='spinynorman' post='720154' date='Jan 21 2010, 02:34 PM']Oh, and I'd ban covers of Hallelujah entirely.[/quote] I think the original of this is my favourite Leonard Cohen song, but I really would not like to be without the Jeff Buckley version, so I have to disagree on this.

[quote name='nobody's prefect' post='713607' date='Jan 15 2010, 12:14 PM']Unless it's a VERY recent Roscoe, it's 35". Then again, Roscoe feels like 34" to many. (Myself included)[/quote] I very nearly posted the same thing, but on reading Simon's post again I think he meant that going back to the 34" 4 string was easy after the 35" fiver. Edited to add: A shame really cos I'd be very interested in a 32" fiver

The copper sleeves (AKA bootlace ferrules) are meant to slide over your cable end before you put it in the hole and screw it up. It prevents the action of the screw, and/or the concentration of the force on one or two strands from breaking strands off, and also ensure sthat all the strands go down the hole. Ideally you'd have a bootlace crimping tool which crimps the ferrule tightly onto the cable end before you put it in the hole, but decent ones of these are quite expensive (£100 +).

Speakons also have the advantage that both the pugs and sockets are finger proof. Leass likely to short out on he metal work whilst unplugged, and less likely to give you a tingle if you grab hold of a 'Live' plug.

[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' post='706117' date='Jan 8 2010, 10:54 PM']I've been in a few conversations with various people about the pub situation. We generally thought about three things that ruined it for us: Recession No smoking over£3.00 a pint . What do you think?[/quote] plus, if I'm reading the OP correctly, people expecting to get paid for a Jam! I play quite a bit of folk music as well, and sessions (the folk equivalent of jams) are never paid - people go along because its good fun, to swap tunes etc. If you're lucky and the landlord perceives that you've brought extra business to the pub in yourselves and any people come to listen, then you might get a free pint or two.

- Spend more time playing - more than 2 or 3 Gigs a year - Take the lead vocals in a song (but not while playing bass -yet). - try to avoid falling back on my 'standard' riffs all the time - Learn my scales and modes better

QUOTE (waynepunkdude @ Jan 3 2010, 01:58 PM) It was good, but am I the only one who thinks it would have sounded better on guitar? [quote name='EssentialTension' post='699602' date='Jan 3 2010, 03:03 PM']No, there are at least two of us.[/quote] But the Colin Hodkinson doesn't play Guitar - he plays bass, so it only natural for him to play these songs on a bass. After all a lot of "slap w***ery" would sound better on drums, but we let people play it on bass because that's what they play. Personally I'd rather listen to this Colin Hodkinson stuff than the likes of Michael Manring, which I personally find incredibly boring.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='684182' date='Dec 14 2009, 05:01 PM']hmmmm..............that one wins. [/quote] Go to say that if there wasn't a video I would have thought it was a double bass - I'm not a DB player though.

I also fancy building a medium scale 5 string headless, with 16 - 17mm spacing, but I don't suppose it'll ever happen. There was a steinberger spirit on Ebay a few weeks ago and had everything I wanted except for the scale length. (I did think about buying it and lopping the top two frets off). I don't have the woodworking skills so it'd have to be mostly CNC for me. Besides if I messed one up I could mod the program and knock out another - and if I didn't mess up I could knock out a headless version as well. I'd probably want to use the individual tuning bridge pieces, like status use, but wouldn't know where to get them. Landing make a 32" 5 string and Birdsong make a 30.5" fiver, but I've never tried one.

[quote name='molan' post='668134' date='Nov 28 2009, 11:33 AM']Standard D'Addario 4 string set colours are: Green 45 Black 65 Red 85 Brass 105[/quote] and a light violet for a B string. Does the colour actually change according to the gauge or with the nominal note?

Just to re-enforce the need for decent straplocking of some form or another: My lad (drummer) was playing a gig on Friday night and the guitarist in another band was going to play his 'new' vintage Gibson out for the first time. He was showing it to some mates before hand - strap slipped off and voila - a headless Gibson. Apparently it was about 30 seconds before anyone dared speak.

'Clutterbuck' just seems such an appropriate name for a Bass Slapper - so descriptive of the sound it makes.

I like the idea - and the sound. What's $5000 in pounds these days? Too much for me I suspect.

[quote name='Bass Culture' post='661745' date='Nov 22 2009, 01:09 PM']The playing was incredible and JPJ proceeded to swap between a variety of Manson mulit-string basses[/quote] Wot? No single string basses at all?

I think its been made clear by others, but just to say it again - do not plug the speaker output of any amp into the line in of another. To get 130w at 8 ohms your Trace must be pushing about 33 volts RMS, about 45 volts peak, into the speaker. A line-in input is typically rated at 1 to 2 volts. i.e. you will almost certainly damage something. Use line-out to line-in and you will be fine - this is what line level signals are designed for!

Great thread chaps - We've been having very similar problems in rehearsals so some good ideas to try out here. We have a female singer and although her pitch and tone are good she doesn't belt it out particularly loud. Also not helped by the fact that she only has a cheap mic (SM48?). Oh - and a guitarist who only has one volume doesn't help (he is partially deaf which can't help), although he is working on this and it's getting better. I'll try out the side fill monitor idea at our next 'full PA' rehearsal.

Just looking at the vid, is he actually hitting the string on the return stroke as well?, a sort of double thumbing but with the index finger? I am puzzled why people post vids like this, are they 'waiting to be discovered', or is it just to get an ego boost from peoples comments?