Leonard Smalls

Fan of George too... Here's one of my favourites:

Now this is what I call a good drummer - you should hear his versions of Summer Bries, Camembert Feel The Noize and Relight My Gruyere!

I suspect I'm not one of the Zombies, but I may have a touch of vampire in me... Because I can't be doing with any flat pick'ey P bass tones, or that Danelectro Eurovision tone, or Flea's horrific Maggot Brain sound, or anything at all by Future Islands apart form CrazyMan Dancing!

Perhaps we should merge this thread with the worst bass sound thread, as one man's "this is awesome!" is another's "f$$$ me wot a racquette!"

Our new drummer (if 7 months is new!) wears industrial ear defenders due to tinnitus; however, he's right on time and listens to the rest of the band enough to produce fills and grooves that are actually musical, as opposed to neanderthal!

Slightly odd gig - 'twas a benefit for a local community enterprise in a village hall. Place was full of kids and felt like a house party! However, despite the tiny 400W PA they'd provided (could barely hear vocals!), a real effort had been made making the place look like a haunted castle (including papiere mache autopsy room next door!). We played very well, I was very happy with my bass sound and loads of people danced about - apart from 1 kid who stood at the front telling us it was too loud. We had to do 2 encores before they'd let us leave so all was good!

I'll give this a go! I change strings about every 3 months, depending on how much I play, and I've got 4 basses I use regularly...

I've still got my copy! And I've still got my copy of the Bunnymen's 1st single, from when they had a drum machine. I remember seeing them at Chester Arts Centre, with Teardrop Explodes - £1 to get in iirc, and there was a huge punch up afterwards for some reason, but we managed to escape with inflicting or being inflicted!

Funnily enough, in my 1st band back in the ATs our "drummer" programmed a basic beat into a Roland 606 (or whatever it was) which was strapped to a stringless guitar body. He jumped about with it live, and played stuff over the top. Worked surprisingly well! And last year, after our "real" drummer left, I programmed drum parts from all our songs into Ableton using EZ Drummer, then outputted onto my phone which we plugged into the PA to do a number of live-streamed gigs... And that also worked very well indeed.

Do you mean tunings or standard pitch? As in DADG, or perhaps Just Intonation, or using Equal Temperament relative to A-above middle C being, say 430.54Hz ("Scientific Pitch")? Me? I just stick to A-440 Equal Temperament. Not even a drop D from me, though I have been known to tell folks I'm playing microtonally when my fret position isn't quite right on the fretless!

My effort... I fancied a bit of Dub, so here it is! Sounds best on big speakers with serious bass handling... For those that like that sort of thing, bass is an ACG Recurve double tracked with Bassroom and Voxengo eq. Guitar is a trusty Strat, FX and keys all IRIS 2. Drums programmed from Sample Magic dub kit, cymbals through Jabo Sparks vintage on EZ drummer. All smeared liberally with Dubstation 2, Raum and Phasis, mastered with Ozone 9. Vox by Lee (apart from BG shouts - me!), cheers m8!

Having loved the Chillis from their 1st UK show at the Clarendon in Hammersmith (RIP!), at 2 or 3 quid, all the way up to 5 or 6 paand at the Astoria with blagged after-gig party and quick puff with Flea, I'd go and see them again if tickets were reasonable. But £200ish is far too much for me, especially as it'd involve a hotel too and the fact I don't like any of their touch-feely-attempty-tuney stuff since Californication. I'd prefer to buy a concert DVD, fire up the hifi and sit there comfy with my glass of wine, pipe and slippers, all safe in the knowledge that the only things likely to bash into me are one of my dogs jumping on my head, or my Mrs' elbow objecting to a loud fart. Still very happy to watch bands in small venues though, where you can actually lick the artist's sweat off your own face!

He's known as a fine mimer... He doesn't actually play any of the stuff on the records, it's all Pino on his fretless.

Indeed! We were all rather mortified at our ineptitude...

Talking of learning songs, my band once did Stanley Clarke's School Days, which was to segue into Bootsy's I'd Rather Be With You (North Sea Jazz Version). It actually took us 2 goes to get note-for-note perfect, including both solos, using my ancient Kawai Sleekline and tape-wound strings. And funnily enough it was possible just by using the correct finger technique to reproduce all Bootsy's octave, distortion and qtron fx.

I'll have nowt said against Eydie! I finished every disco I did with this song for years:

Mine appears to be just a little bit dubwise...

Got this album on at work - I suspect not many garden centres will be playing this sort of thing!

And we're back to the Fender Turntable!

Indeed - most home folks would buy the bb5 se over the bb6 simply because it's got a nice bit of wood on the sides. But some no doubt go the whole hog; I know a bloke who has 2 sets of TAD 15" main monitors in his heavily sound-trapped "living" room!

There's 2 schools of thought - ultimate air'n'space and feeling of being there - almost unnaturally so - and reproducing the actual recording studio exprerience. The 1st lot will buy an Ongaku-on 8w SET amp with loads of colouration going into an enormous horn - Klipsch, Tannoy Westminster or bigger. The 2nd lot will but PMC BB5s and Bryston 14bsst (like me, 'cept I've got 14bsst and Leema Xaviers, which are a cheaper option but still made by an ex=BBC mate), or ATC SCM 150s. And they tend to hate each other, though secretly love each other's sound...

Indeed - Neve mic pre-amps are different to Focusrite! Klipschhorns are far more coloured than ATC speakers; Lumley valve amps less valve-y than Quad 2s, and Clearaudio TTs tend to be "more hifi sounding" than Linn LP12s... And you're right about high-end being capable of astonishing realism; Frinstance a set-up I once heard with 4 Martin Logan panels plus Genesis subs multi-amped with Mcintosh valves had far more of a sense of "being there" and slam than the Radio 1 main studio at Maida Vale - mainly because hearing everything was what the PMC Bryston set-up was designed to do, rather than creating an illusion of actually being at the gig!

Aye - my Recurve is a beautiful thing! However, as I'm a bit worried about taking the neck off (never done it before - have terrible thoughts it will be like the time I took the side off my Yammy TR1 engine and there was a wormgear and host of springs came bouncing out) and in the spirit of Shop Local I've contacted my Friendly Local Luthier - Manton Guitars...

Luminlay looks best... However, with my relatively meagre woodworking skillz I'd probably be wise not to take my powerdrill to the neck of any of my basses, specially not the Wal or ACG! Anyone got a vague idea how much a luthier would charge for side dots?