TimR

I've been playing 25+ years and that was my first failure. I've also broken a string (Back in '87. It was one that I'd boiled ) I've seen another bass player get a lead trapped under a door on the way to the stage and yank it out. Resulting in the plug being ripped off the end of the lead. He threw the lead and plug in the bin. Which I retrieved and soldered back together. I've seen a keyboard player having to rest his foot on a power-strip to stop his keys from cutting out. I fixed that with a screwdriver and wire-strippers before we went on. I've had a drummer's fan causing really odd humming through the PA. Found he was plugged into an extension lead that his rabbit had chewed all the insulation off and he had repaired with insulation tape I've had a guitarist receive Taxi-calls on his amp during sound check. Sorted by cleaning the amp input jack. I've had mysterious bangs and pops from the PA which were eventually traced to a dodgy DI. The list goes on - the more gigs you do the more kit starts to fail and the more important it is to check your gear whenever you get a few moments.

I'll banjax your night. Two years ago on a NYE gig my Ibanez E tuner broke as I was checking the tuning just before starting the first tune. Spent the first verse restringing the bass e-a, a-d and d-g, played the gig with no g string. Bit tricky. I suspect someone will lend you a bass for the night on the assumption it stays in the case except in emergency. Or buy a £50 one off e-bay and sell it after the gig.

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1351427653' post='1851041'] Well you'll be glad to know there isn't any bass in the verse on the original 'All right Now' (I hope I'm right?). [/quote]

There are a few songs you have to interpret because in certain situations the original bassline won't fit. Stevie Wonder's Supertition needs the hook and the funk guitar part. If you are a three piece often the bass will take the hook line. I think the thread is about not deliberately playing something different but finding you have morphed it over time. Mustang Sally is a great one for morphing. I suspect we all originally learned the Wilson Picket or Commitments versions to start with. But even the Wilson Picket version was a cover. I've never heard two bands play it the same, but they'll proudly tell you which version they do???!

[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1351369247' post='1850650'] ... the lead Guitarist came 'round to my house to teach it to me, along with the rest of the set. So, I'd been playing it for a couple of months every week at rehearsal when one day the Guitarist says "You still play that wrong" (meaning the intro), I'd been playing it the exact same why he taught me to play it! ... [/quote] Don't worry about that. I've had many guitarists try to tell me how parts go. I'm sure their ears are different. Their fingers definitely are which is evident when you hear them trying to play bass.

[quote name='Angel' timestamp='1351362867' post='1850597'] Can't believe any punter ever notices when a bassline is the the same as the original - unless it's a feature of the song eg Money, Come together etc. [/quote] I think you're right but often the bass doesn't play roots or what you would normally play naturally. I struggled to get anything to fit Get Back, never really heard it, tried all sorts of lines, it's a Beatles track, how hard can it be? Listened to the original and it's just 8th roots all the way through. One guy spent 30mins telling me that "the bass line doesn't go like that" in about 4 tunes I had played that night. I'm always careful what I say in return as you never know who you are talking to. Turns out he was a bass playing journalist doing a review, so keeping quiet and listening to his 'advice' was the best thing in that case. If it's someone just sounding off my reply is usually "Well it did tonight."

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1351361769' post='1850576'] ... I mean FFS how can you not take the time to learn a great bass line like the one from "all right now" properly (if your thinking "I dont remember it being anything special" then your probably one of the people whos never sat down to learn it properly). [/quote] Indeed, I found the verse so hard, I decided to play cowbell. Which makes everyone look upl when I come in with the chorus.

[quote name='Rebel mic stands' timestamp='1351349719' post='1850435'] ... pressed mic stand base, with blocks of square solid steel welded around the circumference to give the cog / gear effect. ... [/quote] Nice. It looks the dogs cogs.

It's quite important. The band I recently joined played a number of tunes, some chuck berry, status quo, and other tunes with 'standard' 'blues' pattern. The problem was, every tune had the same pattern. At least it did when they played them, it sounded awful when I played the versions I had learned and played in other bands. As I say there's a difference between making it up because 'it's close enough' and gradually playing something different over time.

Nice mic stand. Once you get the hang of building stage props you soon work out that looking at things from a distance is a lot different to close up detail. I'm not sure how the 'cog' base is made, but glueing cubes of wood onto a standard stand and painting them would have similar effect. I don't mean to take anything away from the build, because it's the creative idea and vision that are the hard bit. Build a lightweight wooden box with grills to look like your existing cab to make a superb stack. Loads of pro bands have done it.

iPad.

Not necessarily. I'll learn the part then usually when I get to putt it together with the band I'll have to change it slightly to fit with either the instrumentation; because we don't have the same line up as the original version, or the lines the others are playing; because we don't have the same players as the original version For me there's a big difference between; putting your own spin on a track just because you think you know best, and adding or leaving out a few notes to make the line sit better with your band.

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1349773992' post='1830209'] Vertically stacking two 2x10s is also a good option! Ive only tried it with Markbass (amazing, highly recommended) and Ashdown MAG ones (pretty underwhelmed with the low end response on those) so you'll have to test out different ones yourself if possible. [/quote] Works for me with a pair of Warwick Pro211. Just take the one 211 to practices and small gigs.

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1351153422' post='1847879'] How on earth do fixed-wing bees fly? That, I must see.... [/quote] The same way as a fixed wing helicopter. Downwards, quickly.

You don't need huge amounts of vibration to get something to vibrate at its resonant frequency. You don't even need to vibrate it at the resonant frequency. Any sub-harmonic will do it. The stage doesn't even need to vibrate that much as it's the chamber underneath that amplifies the boom. Sit on your cab next time you play and tell me it's not vibrating!

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1351023241' post='1846410'] This. In our early days I went out and found us gigs only to be blasted by other members who couldn't be arsed to go looking but wanted more cash. ... [/quote] Indeed, getting gigs is a thankless task. You're always too cheap, too far away, on when the footy is on, too a bunch of old people, to a bunch of kids.... Then you get people who want to pick and chose which gigs they can do and leave you to get a dep for the ones they can't be bothered to do. Getting a band to agree on price is only half of it. Getting them to be open and honest with themselves about why they're in a band first helps.

[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1350978888' post='1845673'] Country to prog and many ports in between, just not mainstream and I fear that for 90% of those songs we shall just look like a bunch of old farts (which is what we are). I am also not the one that vetoes the songs, but the one who suggests stuff to have everyone else make a half arsed attempt at it so that it'll never gel and gets dropped. But never mind [/quote] I see. That's similar to what I found. He suggested only certain tunes that we would do no matter what, whereas other people suggested tunes and he refused to play them. I don't think anyone looks like an old fart trying to play tunes like that. As others have said it's all about how you play them. You do need to have a certain 'attitude' to carry off some tunes. There are tunes we avoid because the guitarist doesn't have the chops/attitude.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1350981309' post='1845704'] That wasn't my point at all... My point was that people on here can call shows like X factor and the like as 'pap' and trivial and contrived and because of that they think that is a curse on music as a whole. Well, that is one point of view...which, IMO, has a degree of truth... ... [/quote] The contrived and pap bit is the judges and the way it's fixed. Most of the artists are good, it's not their fault that they're part of the pantomime, other than they volunteered for it and should know that they're being manipulated. With a covers band no one is being manipulated, other than the audience...

I find a spare guitar works best. One new years eve my E-string machinehead broke before we'd even played a note. No spare bass. I had to restring my whole bass moving the E up to the A and so on. Took less than 2 minutes. Then I played with no G-string for the whole night. The band carried on regardless and I joined them in the third verse. They didn't notice the bass player, until I came in! The audience generally won't notice unless you're a three piece and your guitarist sings. In wich case he should practice singing while re-stringing Now I always take my old passive bass just in case, no batteries, old set of strings but works in an emergency. Never had to use it since though.

1. Never trust a man who wears sunglasses indoors. 2. Never trust a man who has a £50 note. 3. Never trust a man who knows what a bass guitar is.

[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1350925430' post='1845142'] ... In response to which my immediate thoughts were[list] [*]Don't recognise a load of them (unsurprising with what I listen to) [/list] ... [/quote] I was in a band with a drummer who had a similar outlook to you. Only listened to a narrow range of music and practically vetoed every song because he had never heard of it (and therefore no one else would have.) It was a real shame and an effort to get him to play anything, including songs that didn't have the same line up as us in the original recording. I struggle to see how anyone can call themselves a musician if they don't listen to practically anything and everything.

[quote name='Dropzone' timestamp='1350906391' post='1844816'] My bands current set list. No Sex on Fire or Mustang Sally guarenteed BORN SLIPPY - Underworld BREAK STUFF – Limp Bizkit LAST RESORT – Papa Roach LAND OF CONFUSION - Disturbed IN THE END – Linkin Park GOD DAMN ME – DZ 30 30 150 – Stone Sour FROM YESTERDAY - 30 Seconds to Mars NIGHTMARE – Avenged Sevenfold HEAD LIKE A HOLE – NIN BEFORE I FORGET - Slipknot INSOMNIA - Faithless BLIND / FREAK ON A LEASH - Korn PROPANE / VODOOO – Pendulum / Prodigy WEEPING SORE – DZ LAST SERENADE – Killwitch Engage CHOP SUEY – System of a Down BODIES – Drowning Pool DUALITY - Slipknot BRICK IN THE WALL - Korn ZOMBIE – DZ/The Cranberries DAVIDIAN – Machine Head [/quote] Hmm. That's quite a specialised list. Do you do many pub gigs?

The x-factor is a bit of fantasy so that the viewers, and some of the contestants, can escape from their dreary lives for a couple of hours and feel good that their own lives aren't as bad as the contestants. Same as Eastenders and Coronation Street etc. The x-factor is not a search for the next big thing. I think the general moan about x-factor is from the people who believe that they're actually looking for someone with the X-factor. Cowell is a clever guy. Everyone gets what they want, even those who want something to moan about. You'll find the people who moan about x-factor also moan about karaoke in pubs.

[quote name='gapiro' timestamp='1350805443' post='1843563'] We go to the pub after most rehearsals. Last time we went in a local had put nessendormer on the jukebox. Can't see many bands doing that [/quote] That'll be those football fan people. Ain't never going to please them.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1350778293' post='1843501'] I got a phone call this morning from a friend of mine asking if I'd dep with his band at a birthday party over in Derby tonight.He'd been told by the bandleader that the gig was worth £150,great.....He phoned me back about 10 mins later telling me to not waste my time-turns out the £150 was for the whole band. He was really pissed off about the situation-take away expenses and the gig is worth about £30.Not cool. [/quote] This is a valuable lesson. If one of you is ill at the last minute you cannot cancel a wedding. You either have to get a dep in or another band. You (your singer) will end up seriously out of pocket.