TimR

Goldwave is a free package that will slow down audio and a whole host of other things too. download helper doesn't rip the audio from the video AFAIK. PM me if you want to know a cheap MP3 site.

Sometimes I wish I could get in a band that didn't have to reinvent the setlist at every bl**dy gig! <rant> Just because we've heard and played the songs a hundred times, putting them in a different order will not. 1. Make it more interesting. b. Make more people dance. It just makes it harder to keep my pad in order! </rant>

[quote name='Mr Fudge' post='973265' date='Sep 30 2010, 09:58 PM']Now you are talking my language ...[/quote] I saw It Bites in Reading at Christmas. It was the same but smaller and there weren't any teenage sons. There were some women there though. I think.

OK. I'll play. I've checked my wife's sewing machine. It has a 0.75mm2 cable that goes straight to a speed controller that is rated at 1A. It has a 3A fuse fitted at the plug top. Now before you reply please go and physically check the sewing machine mentioned in the above post before jumping to any more conclusions. You are supposed to be a qualified electrician FFS! My amp has the same size wiring all the way to the transformer. Which is rated at 3A on the plate but as it's a transformer pulls up to 10x the current on start up. I'll keep a 13A fuse in it if that's OK with you.

A night with the O2 filled with blokes over 40 and their teenage sons?

The incompetent PAT tester took out the original 13A and put a 2A in. He looked at the machine rating not the cable. I'm not getting bogged down in this as we're talking about PAT testing in a band environment and this is derailing the thread. The PAT tester will spot damaged cabling and badly earthed gear and prevent it getting used. Usually portable band gear is not left powered on and unattended for long periods of time. If it does burst into flame there will usually be someone to spot it early on. In the real world of gigging the most likely fault is a cable that has been cut trough by the drummer's stands or had a heavy amp dropped on. This will cause a short and blow the fuse, or trip the RCD pretty quick. Essentially its all about managing risk, not just a paper exercise. I'm sure we all know a musician whose power cables are in a state and keeps promising to "get it looked at". Annual PAT testing gives him a reason to. Its a good idea to always put your own RCD on your amp as well! And get one of these: [url="http://www.martindale-electric.co.uk/index.php?products_id=225&osCsid=4daa3b72ca2550a9bc875dc9c7a085f8"]Buzz It[/url] to check the dodgy wiring of the pub before you plug your amp into it.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='973157' date='Sep 30 2010, 08:28 PM']Utter Rubbish! I know what you are thinking and if the first thing the cable goes to after the kettle plug is its own fuse (which it will state what size clearly like most of amps) but if it does not or is a fixed lead item it needs the right fuse. House fires are a bit of a "pet hate of mine" mate and seen plenty because of your wack a 13A in attitude many resulting in death! This is why as some of you have said earlier that its a bit of a farce unless carried out by a proper sparky. TimR do you know the rating of .75mm flex? I will give you a clue Its not 13A. And have you ever tried to see how many amps a 13A fuse will take? Its about twice as much for plenty long enough to set a fire going.[/quote] I said leave the fuse as it is. Not "whack a 13A in". A proper 'sparky' will fit the correct fuse, assuming he reads the spec. that the electrical engineer gave him. Read the post properly.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='972976' date='Sep 30 2010, 05:38 PM']And Im not sure who was on about a sewing machine but if it were an industrial one it would not have a 13A plugtop,I would of thought maybe a 5A fuse should be OK to cover the startup surge but I agree with him on removing the 13A that you usually find in everything.[/quote] This is a pet hate of mine. It seems prevalent amongst electricians. Leave the fuse as it is! The fuse is there to protect the cable not the equipment and sized as such.

I think one of the problems is that many people don't keep their gear in good order. We had a keyboard player depping with us for a dinner and dance once. During the sound check his keyboard kept cutting in and out. I traced the problem to 3 plugtops where the cables were practically falling out. Everytime he moved, the cables would move and pull out of the plug. Once we found the problem he said "OK, I'll just keep my foot on it all night to hold them in". I rewired the plugs in about 5mins and we were good to go. At another gig we soundchecked. All OK. We went on and there was a terrible buzzing. It turned out that the drummers rabbit had chewed through the extension lead that he was using for his fan. But it was ok because he had fixed it with insulation tape. There was also a stage (before cheap Chinese lighting) where people were making their own stage lights. I've seen some incredibly dangerous things! I found a local PAT tester who did all our gear for 50p an item. Visually inspected all the IEC leads, plugged them into his box of tricks, stuck a sticker on them with his signature and a expiry date. He only did one of the tests on the amps, lights and keyboard as they contain sensitive components. Gave us a book with his card and a list of all the gear tested and the dates.

[quote name='51m0n' post='972572' date='Sep 30 2010, 12:24 PM']I was replying to blackmn90, talking about whether you can tell a bassline is improving a song, he stated you would have to mute the bass (ie mute the track). Nothing to do with muting ringing strings here (which falls under my technically capable of playing umbrella IMO!)[/quote] OK, I misunderstood. "technically capable of playing" is a pretty big umbrella. Similar to "What makes a bad driver?" "Someone who can't mechanically operate their car." as opposed to someone who doesn't look at signs, hasn't read the highway code and takes no notice of other road users. A bit of a general answer.

[quote name='thunderbird13' post='972479' date='Sep 30 2010, 11:02 AM']· Playing over the 12th fret ( some people really hate this)[/quote] You ACTUALLY did that in an audition?

[quote name='51m0n' post='972450' date='Sep 30 2010, 10:35 AM']OK, so a bassist isnt a musician? Thats daft, to be a good bassist you first have to be a good musician. Every comment on here about what makes a bad bassist also applies in the more general sense as to what makes a bad musician, since all bassists (good or bad) are to a lesser or greater extent musicians. .... Personally I often find that the situations I'm tlking about the bass mutes itself! It literally does nothing for the track. 'Muting' it is unnecesary. There must be occasions where a bassline ruins a track, but I actually think this is rare as the rest of the band usually get to tell the bassist to stop being so daft! ...[/quote] Correct, but I will clarify exactly what I mean by muting. All musicians must be aware of note lengths. It's not just related to bass players. It's something I've noticed amongst bass players AND rhythm guitarists. Often they will leave the notes ringing until they play the next note. Often this is not a problem but will destroy the feel of a song and make the song sound cluttered if notes are not kept to their proper length. This may be a self taught thing. My son (6) is learning trumpet. The first thing he is doing is practicing playing quarter notes. With a trumpet you have to keep blowing right to the end of the note or the sound stops and you must stop blowing or the sound continues. With a bass or any plucked instrument you have to mute or you end up playing a dotted quarter note or worse...

[quote name='Bassassin' post='972268' date='Sep 30 2010, 12:49 AM']Schoolboy error - no they won't. Two of them will attend, while Peart stays home moping around and writing interminably dull, long-winded & self-important books about how much he hates this awful, awful job he has, and how much he prefers riding around on his motorbike. Jon.[/quote] Well he is Canadian. You DO know his history don't you?

[quote name='Conan' post='972359' date='Sep 30 2010, 09:18 AM']Let's not forget that not every member of this forum has been a member since the start. There are many of us who have never partaken of "the AC argument", so to stifle their input seems rather rude and unfair. Again, I'm not a massive U2 fan (I used to be, back in the eighties though). I like the simplicity but solidity. I like his tone and how selective he is. If fans leave a gig or switch off your CD and they are singing the bass line - I guess you could say that you are not a "bad bass player". A lot of this is motivated by jealousy I guess The "I could be doing that job" mentality...[/quote] Because this is the "What makes a bad bass player thread", not the "Adam Clayton is a bad bass player thread". I think he was cited just to spice things up a bit as any mention of U2 does in any thread. The thing about playing 8ths is they may not look very exciting or, to the untrained ear, sound very exciting on their own but its all about the groove. Are those 8ths on the beat, behind the beat, ahead of the beat? Where are the accents? There's a BIG difference between someone playing 8ths badly and someone playing them solidly and in the right place. 8ths on their own don't make a bad player but they do make a not very entertaining player who won't get much camera coverage on the TV. You have to do some dynamic acting like Flea or Harris to make up for that.

Not the AC argument again..... The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is something a lot of lead singers fail to see when their band makes it big time and they go solo. Only to be never heard of again.

More than 10 mistakes in a song. Fret Buzz. No muting. No dynamics. No little finger.

Shouldn't that have all been sorted in the converstation on the phone. You say "We play X type of music." He listens and thinks "Well I better dress the part to either fit in or not stand out then." If the person being auditioned can't even think that far ahead what hope is there? Imagine turning up for an interview in an office in t-shirt and jeans because that's what you usually wear. I depped with some guys in a thrash metal band, I don't dress like that normally, but at least I tried to fit in with the image from the first meeting - even if they knew me from other bands I had played in and were asking me on my ability (or at least that's what they told me )

Oh yes. Nice!

[quote name='Wolverinebass' post='969334' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:16 PM']... It's possibly a style thing too. I basically taught myself to play bass by learning stuff like Quadrophenia and RHCP stuff. I don't know if that quite comes across in my playing, but that's all bass driven music to a degree, so maybe it has. The ultimate irony (and I have no idea why this is at all) is that my own playing style doesn't translate on my own material too much, which always has quite simple or functional bass parts in comparison with what I've done with or for other people. Maybe I subconciously do that to give other folk room to fill out. I have no idea why it's the case. Maybe I feel deep down like if I sit back, I'm insulting the person who has written the song by not coming up with something really good when possibly simplicity (or just slightly simpler) might be what they want. Possibly I'm just trying too hard and it's coming out in a different way to other people. ...[/quote] There are two ways to come up with a bass line. Start busy and refine or start simple and build. I prefer the second. Start with roots and add passing phrases, licks, unison riffs or whatever you need to add interest to the SONG not to add interest to the bass line.

[quote name='the_skezz' post='969326' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:14 PM']I don't like playing the root note when I reckon something else would sound better, but I'm happy to do it...if the guitarist will let me tell him what to play on the guitar for any songs that I write. Of course, trying to get them to understand this can be a difficult matter. Me: "Right, I've got an instrumental that I've written, nothing fancy but I reckon it could be good. I'll show it to you at practise on Saturday if you want." Guitarist: "Awesome, you play it and I'll start soloing over the top of it..." Me: "Erm...it doesn't have a solo in it..." Guitarist: "What?!? Really?! Alright then, I'll just come up with some other riffs over it..." Needless to say, it never came to frution I'm happy to play a bassline that someone else wrote for their song (my current band doesn't see me slapping a solo into Blitzkreig Bop) but for me it has to be a two-way street. I know there are plenty of bands out there who are all the better because one person pretty much dictates the songs, but I myself wouldn't feel happy in them...guess I'm just awkward that way [/quote] Its the note-for-note dictation that is bad. Why get a bass player in who is expert at playing bass lines then tell him what you want him to play. Asking for a style, then saying I don't like that bit and asking if you can you change it is no problem. Two way street. I'd have no problem telling a guitarist to play a different inversion, rhythm or use a different effect. It's a band and supposed to be a co-operative. Singer-songwriter is different. You just need to be clear what you are in.

[quote name='Alfie' post='969322' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:10 PM']I don't think its unreasonable to dictate what type of instrument to play if it is integral to the concept of the band. People forget that being in a band is a visual performance as much as an musical one. ...[/quote] My Jackson-Charvel went into retirement because I was playing functions and weddings. My choice entirely. Nothing wrong with the sound of it at all.

If I was playing for a singer/songwriter who expected me to play lines he wrote I would expect to be getting paid. Maybe a beginner wouldn't.

[quote name='Lozz196' post='969095' date='Sep 27 2010, 07:57 AM']... Too often, in all walks of life, people want to change things, without learning the original part in the first place, be it basslines, work processes etc. Its ok to show initiative, but in order to change something effectively, you have to know the original part back to front in the first place. That's the area most fall down on. ...[/quote] AND WHY the part is being played like it is. I've played with original bands where the previous bass player has written lines or played lines that the guitarist has told him to play. I've learned those lines and played them exactly as was requested. Occasionally those lines have had musical "flaws" in them. I've pointed out what was wrong and why and asked if I can show them a "better" line. Usually they've said OK. The problem then comes when they say No, they prefer it like they've always done it. You then have to play a line that you wouldn't have written yourself. In an originals "band" that means you could be being perceived as playing a line YOU have written and written badly at that. It's not as bad if you are supporting an originals singer/songwriter "artist". However, if you play the lines as they want, at some stage they will write new material and it's unlikely that they will write the bass part. They will, however, be VERY vocal if they don't like your lines then.

I've got the ER20s and when I first put them in I thought they weren't working because everything sounded exactly the same. When I took them out to check, I found everything had been the same but just a lot quieter. Could even hear the birds singing in the garden.

This thread in the Equipment section is a sticky: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtopic=533&view=findpost&p=958996"]Ear Plugs[/url]