TimR

[quote name='Lee Carter' timestamp='1394643655' post='2393665'] ... on something that plays the way I want. ... [/quote] This is the key part. It's nothing to do with wanting a flash bass to show off with. As you mature as a player, you find out what it is you want. I wonder how many players would just go back and be happy playing that first bass that they learned on.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1394639427' post='2393598'] ... Buy another bass or tweak the old one. It's all good. [/quote] Skank has it on the button. However for me, on a cheap bass many of those adjustments are either not possible or financially viable. Maybe when you bought your 'beginner' bass you picked one with a neck profile or width that you were comfortable with at the time. That may now be the limiting factor. Change the neck and machine heads? Fine, but maybe the pickups and tone controls aren't quite right either, the body might be a bit heavy. These are things you probably didn't consider when you first bought the bass. The bass begins to become Triggers Broom and guess what, in that case you've outgrown it and already changed it without realising. Maybe the phrase 'beginner' bass is a misnomer, maybe it should be first bass. It's more about realising what you can no longer adjust to your personal preferences.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1394632136' post='2393509'] All of that misses my point, which is that good running shoes and good basses are affordable by almost everyone these days so it's not gear that holds us back. [/quote] It really depends on your definition of a beginner bass. I suppose what you are saying is that intermediate basses cost so little, relatively, that people are buying them. So now you have to be playing at an advanced level before you notice the next step up. As I say, if I ran 50-60 miles a week in a pair of £50 trainers my legs would be trashed. Mo runs 120+ miles a week... There's a big difference in most things, if you know what you are looking at, and why.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1394626114' post='2393398'] In some professions, the 'tools of the trade' can make a big difference. An extreme example would be F1 where you could be the best driver in the world but will be outclassed by someone with a better car. Music is not like that because the sort of instruments that our musical heroes play are really quite affordable. We CAN get our hands on the same sort of gear that the best pros play, just the same as we CAN don the same running shoes as Mo Farah, but they will make little difference to our playing ability. [/quote] It will. There are, or certainly used to be, real dogs, that are practically unplayable and you spend a lot of effort wrestling with them trying to make them sound. That's things like tone knobs that don't alter the tone significantly, frets that are not dressed or fitted to the neck properly, and other things like Bilbo mentions. That's not to say (as I did earlier) that all inexpensive basses are like this. There is a difference between 'cheap' and 'inexpensive', there are a lot of good inexpensive basses and if (insert your hero here) picked up a good bass and a poor bass he would definitely be able to tell the difference. For all of us there is a 'tipping point' where we can't tell the difference to the next step up. Mo Farah's shoes? If he ran in my model of shoes he would really struggle. If I ran in his model of shoes I would be able to tell the difference but they wouldn't make me run significantly faster. I've done this with running shoes too. Start at £20 shoes and work up to £130, I got to £80 and decided the extra wasn't going to give me the benefit in return of investment.

As you improve as a player you can feel limited by the instrument. While cost is a factor in the quality of instruments, it's not automatically given that an expensive bass will be better than some of the newer basses. However, a more experienced/better player will be able to tell the differences between basses and decide whether that difference warrants the extra spend.

Should be fine. Get a long lead or go wireless so you can move around the dance floor while playing to check the sound out front. One problem is as the room fills you change the acoustics quite dramatically. Depends also on what the band are expecting regards fold back. Spend a long time in the studio with your gear and the band until they're happy, that's better than spending ages at a gig. It won't be perfect but it'll give you a good starting point for mic levels and basic fold back eq. Feedback destroyer will help a bit and reduce the moments when you have to stop playing and yank the master faders back. Get singers trained with microphone technique if they're not already. That'll help a massive amount. Then set it and forget it.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1394476854' post='2391737'] That's an interesting point and could mean that home insurance wouldn't cover [u]any[/u] 'music gear' at all if they find out the person concerned plays paid gigs, no matter that the gear in question is only rarely used for gigging. [/quote] Yes. They're not all the same. My brother had his bike stolen and tried to claim on his insurance and found out he wasn't covered. They said it was no extra cost to add the bikes for away from home. Seems a bit mad but I suspect they just need to know what they're covering so they can decide whether to charge extra or not. He asked them about music gear. They added all the band PA, and all the band's instruments plus public indemnity at gigs. That was all extra, but not as much as if he'd taken out a specialist separate insurance. As long as each item was under £2k they weren't interested in a list of gear.

I guess it's commercial equipment wherever it is not just when you're using it. You used to have to itemise anything in your house that was more than a £1000.

Ah. Ok. Given the length of the thread and the mentality shown in it so far, it did seem a strange comment.

Yes. Loz from around these parts plays in one and I was talking to a bass player at a gig recently who plays in a band in London. It's a specific genre so you will get people turning up who are, um, interested in that specific genre. I suspect your audience will be limited to 50year olds whose children are old enough to be doing their own thing on a Saturday night. Lol.

[quote name='steve&#045;bbb' timestamp='1394441062' post='2391241'] ... (minus a couple of naughty gaffer taped items by our guitarer) ... jobsworth events bookers ... [/quote] <shakes head in disbelief>...

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1394315506' post='2390303'] I am probably a bit wide of the mark , but the room has a massive, if not definitive, influence on the sound , and if the tone is the quality , timbre and effects that together make the sound then the tone is at the mercy of the room , never mind the influence of the tone of any other instruments that are playing at the same time . [/quote] You generally have no control over the room acoustics though.

Entwistle and Lee both spent years tinkering with guitars and amps to find that elusive tone they were/are looking for. It starts with the player and moves down the chain. If the noise coming from the player isn't right to start with, it doesn't matter what you do to that sound, you can't make it sound better. Player->strings->pickups->wood?->amp->cab A chain is as strong as it's weakest link.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1394199798' post='2389079'] ... Would you recognise a Geddy Lee bass line from a Rush song you'd never heard before if it was in isolation and not as part of the overall music? ... [/quote] It's hard enough to recognise his tone on an isolated bass track when you know it's him. He sounds like a bag of spanners falling down the stairs. Terrible technique.

[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' timestamp='1394226766' post='2389430'] Tried one or two . However, after downloading various applications you must pay to complete transfer. Costs around £18 or 56 dollars. Times are hard. Is there a cheaper alternative ? [/quote] Which Classic is it? The older ones are seen as an external hard drive when plugged into a PC that doesn't have iTunes. You just copy tunes back. I've used irip in the past but looks like you have to pay for it now.

[quote name='steve&#045;bbb' timestamp='1393666533' post='2383051'] thanks - just that i think we might be using someone who is a general PAT tester rather than music equipment specific so didnt want them to be blagging that certain items need testing and adding loads of extra unnecessary items to up the invoice [/quote] They'll just treat your amps as television, computer or AV kit. It would be like trying to test a SCART or USB lead. A 'full' test on 'kettle' leads and 'part' test on earth continuity on amps.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1393708647' post='2383682'] As we've seen in Basschat topics on numerous occasions... [/quote] Good spot. Lol.

Condensation forms on cold surfaces. You need to insulate and heat the space. If it's not insulted you'll be wasting your time heating it. Then you need to make sure it's ventilated but not so much that you lose the heat. Dry lining with foil backed plasterboard and a 2" air gap should do it. You'll lose about 3" off each side of the room though.

The band formed in 1980 and released 3 studio albums. Their first live concert was in 1997. Live means. Guitar, 4 vocalists, 2 keyboard players, bass player plus a shed load of electronic drums and other stuff. As I say, she was working hard. They could easily have just sequenced the drums and keys and sung along to them.

I don't know. But Berenice Scott was working like a Trojan at the back glueing the whole performance together. Running samples, drum machine, keys etc. Not sure how much is live bass and how much is overlayed synth. http://www.berenice-scott.co.uk

Saw them on Friday night at Camden Jazz cafe. Great show.

That really depends. I suppose the aim would be to check everything works then leave the stage and come back to create a definite difference between setting up and performing. We don't necessarily get that opportunity when playing pubs. We arrive, some people are there, we set up, people arrive while we're setting up. We make noise, the singer arrives, says hello, buys a beer, plugs in his mic, says "one, two" and off we go. I'm sure I the London philharmonic make quite a racket before kicking off. Some might say it's all part of the build up to the performance. I know there's a fine line between checking the hi-hat hasn't moved 5mm and your amp hasn't blown up while you were waiting to go on and practicing the first four bars of the first tune at full volume.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1392971230' post='2374701'] ... In this situation the basslines for the incoming player after you were obviously good though... It would be different if you joined this band and the previous basslines were crap, you could write much better ones, but you had to play the old lines anyway... People who had never seen the band would turn up to a gig and think "that guys basslines are sh*t" and you would have no control over it... they aren't even your lines. Not much good if there happens to be a guy in the audience looking for a bassist for his awesome new start originals band. [/quote] Not sure about that. Would you join a band who played music that you didn't think was good? Basslines are by definition pretty simple things for a bass player to come up with, improve on and copy. As I say there were a few lines I couldn't play. This was more down to the fact that they weren't natural for me, they may have been awesome, but I had to change them. A few people who knew the band well complimented me on my playing, no one noticed, or at least commented, that they were different.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1392892515' post='2373822'] ... I'd imagine it's different with covers bands, but with originals bands I always think once you lose a member you should basically start a fresh with material. Otherwise you end up with the situation of bringing someone in with zero creative influence over what they play on your back catalogue. No-one I know who is looking to play originals would want to play a load of basslines written by someone else. I've only every worked with projects where I have absolute control over what I'm playing, if they don't like what I'm doing they can find someone who plays what they do like and I'll move on ... [/quote] Funnily enough I depped for an originals band. They gave me a load of tunes to learn, which I did but quite a few of the tunes I couldn't play exactly as their previous bass player. They preferred what I played. Which was humbling. Their old bass player even said he'd liked what I'd done to them, which felt a bit weird. I created a bass line for a new tune and then when they found a permanent player, he learned it note for note and they recorded it. Again quite humbling. I suppose what I'm saying is that originals bands setlists evolve and if they're creative enough songs get replaced fairly regularly. So it's worth learning a few because you'll be writing new stuff soon and the old stuff will get played less.

Only one band kept going after I left. I bumped into them playing at a friends birthday party. I thought it was bad enough being paid to cover the drummers 4 1/2 beat bars and stop him speeding up through every song. But being in the audience was another experience entirely. Their next bass player didn't last long either. Well shot of them, no idea how I stayed so long.