TimR

[quote name='Jonesthebass' timestamp='1417688411' post='2622995'] Time is too precious to waste on incompetent players. We dealt with those guys growing up. If I'm playing in a band I have to work with guys of equal abilities. I teach music by day and don't want to lecture/nurture players when I'm trying to relax and enjoy a gig or rehearsal. If they can't play they don't get the seat. On a recent set of auditions we had a couple of drummers who screwed the pooch within 30secs of playing, one who put his head down and just hit everything for 5 mins without listening to us and one who wasn't gonna get the job even if he'd been steve gadd cos he walked in said he hadn't prepped but that our music was pretty simplistic in the most arrogant tone. Incidentally he could play the simplest grooves we gave him. I have left bands if I can't work with the drummer. sh*t drummers seem to secretly know they are sh*t which is why they then seem to work harder at being the band fixer. One was bloody awful but pulled the cancer card on everyone. I could play better than him..... That's not good. The other never listened to anyone's opinions and wouldn't listen to me about timing and groove cos I was younger than his sons. The last guy was a good drummer once but by the time I left with the guitarist he was pulling fills in every bar. I counted in excess of 100 cymbal splashes in money for nothing!! It was hard cos he was a friend. We didn't talk for a long time but we have a common ground in bikes so we speak more often now but I won't be stepping on stage anytime soon. [/quote] Playing with people like this can easily make you bitter if you let it. My advice would be to go for some auditions and watch some bands in pubs. You don't have to accept the gigs if offered but there's no problem with paying in several bands. What you will get a taste for is whether the drummer is that bad or whether you need to run away very quickly before you become bitter. It's what I did and ended up playing with several bands and in the end the descision to walk away from the first band was not a hard one to take.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1417648775' post='2622772'] ... [size=4][font=Arial]This thread is not really for the, [i]" I have a job, I don't need the money"[/i] guys, however please chime in with your 2 bobs worth.( I'm a Yankee and I have been on this forum to long. I'm starting to talk like you guys )[/font][/size] ... [/quote] It's Tuppence worth. 2p Anyway. I'm unsure of how much creativity there is in successful songwriting. If you understand how most popular songs are put together there start to be very few choices once you have come up with a melody for a verse, the chords are fairly obvious and a chorus should lead on and not sound out of place. I can see how people can get frustrated when their baby doesn't become a hit but a lot of original material I hear has the basic elements wrong under the guise of being creative and original. Depends on what you want to achieve with a song. I wrote a ton of stuff when I was 17. At the time We were all going to be famous but I listen back now to maybe 30 or 40 tunes and I think maybe two or three of them stand out as hit material that I might consider getting some musicians to play now. But our fans loved it and we packed halls with 300+ people at a time. I depped a few years ago with a band who had a reasonable local following. Their material was very good but I would have changed quite a few of their tunes. They would have then sounded more commercially viable but probably lost a lot of the creativity. Don't know. It's tough and always a personal thing. While you write music for yourself you may only have an audience of one. What's more important? .

You can run a bass through a guitar amp at bedroom volumes.

[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1417633999' post='2622533'] I remember reading that our perception of volume varies by audio frequency such that you need a lot more power to achieve the same apparent volume between bass and guitar so a low wattage bass combo isn't going to match the same wattage guitar combo - I guess that when you factor in the heavier duty speaker and a bigger power stage (more/larger valves?) then you'd exceed the £200 limit pretty quickly? The key thing here though is your assumption of mass production involved - a low wattage bass valve combo has less flexibility than its guitar equivalent and probably less appeal meaning the production volumes couldn't be that large. [/quote] Fletcher-Munsun curves.

You can play your bass through a normal stereo given the right pre amp and connections. Just won't be very loud.

Depends if you want the 'click' or the 'thump'. I went to a small gig a few months age where the bass guitar was really well mixed and defined. However, by the end of the evening it was very tiring to listen to as my ears became fatigued. Of course this would happen to the bass drum too. I think we have to be careful.

You both missed the point about the mid/treble frequencies being cut to make way for the other more important frequency components?

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1417610757' post='2622177'] Please explain further. IIRC distortion devices work by boosting the signal in one part of the device so that they get clipped further down the signal path. Surely this is just the same? [/quote] Mic Pre amps and line level inputs use OP-amps and are expecting a specific voltage and the feedback gain is designed differently. OP-amp distortion does not sound like and is not the the same as transistor or tube distortion which compresses before you get to full distortion. OP-amps just suddenly saturate and make a horrible screeching noise.

It's not the act of clipping that destroys the preamps it's the excess power that is causing the clipping that destroys them.

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1417545695' post='2621582'] I'd even go as far as say not only does a drummer have to be tight there also has to be that chemistry between the bass player and drummer as the two often work within a boundary that the other band members just don't get ? If its not there, your talking to yourself [/quote] Excellent post. A point of view I thoroughly subscribe to. If you're fighting with the drummer it's never going to work.

So reading it again: The wages and expenses were for employed musicians to back the duo. It's not a 'band' as we would normally understand it. So the Duo actually made a loss and didn't get paid wages or expenses. That puts a different slant on things.

You can get a second hand iPod mini from cash converters for under £20. Other MP3 players are available.

It's a process of elimination. Do you have the same problem using a different iPod etc? Have you tried changing the lead? Does the phone have separate ringer/music volumes? You've definitely got the music volume turned up? Are you using a regular 1/8" Jack or combination of plugs to get what you need? Are they all ok?

[quote name='spacey' timestamp='1417516924' post='2621130'] The bigger kit they have and the worse it seems to get. Best drummer I ever played along with had one Tom kit and two cymbals buy boy could he play it. [/quote] Sometimes if they have a really big kit it can take them 4 1/2 beats to get round it all.

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1417514372' post='2621077'] Isn't the whole point of the drummer to keep the timing? If he can't do it then he's no asset to the band. yes, I've quit over drummers like that. Having said that, I've played with some pretty poor drummers with a good sense of timing. G. [/quote] No. It's everyone's job to keep time. If the drummer is losing time compared to everyone else then he's not a musician. I stayed in a band with a bad drummer for far too long. Eventually it destroyed me. I will never join another band where the drummer is not a musician. It will stop you getting gigs. Even if the audience don't know why it sounds sh*t, they'll know it sounds sh*t.

[quote name='spacey' timestamp='1417514360' post='2621076'] ... They always start, we prefer a DI, I bet you do, over done, raw sound of the bass, same sound as everyone else gets every gig, job done, shut up your just the bass player... ... [/quote] That was covered earlier. If you're that concerned about your tone you need to invest in a speaker simulator. The soundman can take that as his DI and everyone will be happy.

It's very simple. Bass is not absorbed by people. It effectively washes over them and bounces round the venue. The bigger the venue, the longer the reverberation time for bass. Soft objects like seats and people absorb higher frequencies. The louder you make the bass the more it will reverberate around the room. As posted several times, it's not the other instruments making it an inaudible mush it's the echo from the bass itself. Sit near the front you get more direct sound which has less of the reverberation and more of the high frequencies which define the note. Often the high/mid will be cut to make way for more important components of the music. Another thing to touch on is overplaying. The more notes you play live (and lots of musicians adlib and overplay in a live setting) the more cluttered the sound will be. But we all know this, so why are we always overlooking it?

[quote name='spacey' timestamp='1417468853' post='2620746'] ... Just DI the bass straight in the desk, where there is no compression and very poor limited EQ. ... [/quote] I've not used a pro sound guy for about 15 years but the guy I used had an array of pre processors for each channel. I agree if you're plugging straight into a desk you'll get maybe hi-cut, lo-cut, bass, treble and some swept mid as a basic. I can't imagine a big venue relying on those limits.

Just to clarify. The aim is to find out what songs are most played by BassChat members. So the songs should be songs you are playing that you think other Basschatters are playing in their bands. If what people say is true Dakota will probably end up being number one...

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1417436408' post='2620251'] Very true. Years ago, we had a gig in a little Essex bar, known for the usual Mustang Sally / Alright now stuff. We were warned that the place would be empty when the club opposite opened at 10pm. We gave them, Room 335, Sylvia (Focus) Peg, Black Friday, You might need somebody and even Manhattan. No-one was more surprised than the owner when we still had them all there at 11.30pm at closing time. It's not just a matter of playing well, it's also a matter of not under-estimating the taste of the audience. Give them some credit for music appreciation. [/quote] There is more going on there than meets the eye. Those songs are very well known Classic Rock tunes. They're tunes if people don't completely know or can even name, they'll recognise them. Also if you're playing those tunes you are obviously good musicians. No one is going to do a half arsed 'those chords are close enough and we'll miss out that hard bit in the middle' hatchet job on Steely Dan tunes. I would have a good guess you've got the appropriate volume level as well.

[quote name='Si600' timestamp='1417439563' post='2620306'] We're only doing a few that I think others would want to do. Pretty Vacant and American Idiot are the obvious ones, Kids in America, All the Small Things and She Hates Me would be my next suggestions of popularity. Do you want the rest as well, or will those 5 suffice? [/quote] Just the ones you think other bands would do. If someone puts up a tune you do then just add a post saying you do it as well. That should create a simple shortlist.

I played a few pubs in our disco/function band. People were actually dancing in the street outside because the pub was so rammed. We didn't get paid much. We could make £650 minimum from a birthday party and weddings sky's the limit. That should tell you why Classic Rock and light Jazz are the staple of Pubs.

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1417428274' post='2620105'] I don't often get to big gigs but I'm seeing The Who at NIA on Sunday. Hope the bass sound will be good. Don't even know who's playing: is it Pino? [/quote] I assume it's Pino. I also assume (pure conjecture) he may well not be playing John's lines. So there may be a few disappointed people on that front.

I'll start with some of ours: Brown Sugar All Right Now All Along the Watchtower Purple Haze Superstition Jumping Jack Flash I'll add more as I remember them.

Inspired by another thread and the festive season I thought we could have some fun creating a traditional End of Year Top 40. The thread will be open until New Years Day when I'll collate all the replies to our very own BassChat top 40. So: What tunes does your band play (any genre) that you are sure loads of other bands play? What standards do you play?