Boodang

Valentine's gig with our punk band tonight, we billed it as 'my punk valentine', don't know why, just sounded good! Anyway, great gig, lots of energy and the audience were really into it. Afterwards, I'd been asked to put on my 'funk/groove' playlist to see out the night... after a while someone came up to me and asked if we could put on something that they could dance to, James Brown was playing. I looked quizzically at them as to be honest if you can't dance to that then you have a neurological issue. In the end I handed them my phone and let them search Spotify for what they wanted. They typed in hip hop... nothing they liked as they all had sampled James Brown beats... they typed in hip hop remix and got the result they wanted which is apparently hip-hop with the James Brown beats replaced with duff duff rhythms (if you could call it rhythm)... depressing! Modern generation (am I being age-ist?!) can't dance to James Brown.. very sad.

I've owned my xr18 for nearly two years now and very much enjoyed it. To make recording gigs easier (as it has built in SD recording) I just got the L20. Tried it out this week with one of my bands and have to say very impressed. Straight away the rest of the band thought it was a clearer sound.... pristine was the most used adjective. Many moons ago I bought one of the first zoom products, a result of which I haven't touched them since, but boy have they come on. This was an intuitive desk to set up, it doesn't have the plugins of the XR18 but initial impression is that it's a cleaner, and to my ears, nicer sounding desk. Recording a gig with it tomorrow, will be interesting to see how it performs both in terms of a live desk and recorder. Will report back. Anyone else have thoughts on these two mixers?

I bought an xr18 for our band and now I couldn't go back to an analogue desk. It's so flexible and we use it for gigs and home recording. Plus we can precision EQ, comp, reverb every channel for a gig and get a great sound using the plugin emulations which would otherwise be impossible. A studio sound at a gig. I did have issues at a gig with WiFi so now we take no chances and I use the xtouch universal controller. Not cheap but apart from piece of mind at a gig great for hands on control in the studio setting. Can't recommend highly enough.

Play sitting down?! Depends on the music genre I guess (still, could be a novelty in a punk band, you could have a steam punk chair!). I don't play standing up anymore, I literally can't be @rsed. But then I'm not playing bass in a punk or metal band. Still, since playing only sitting down I've had zero physical issues associated with playing, and I have two crushed disks in my lower back.... which is also the the reason I play drums with a back rest on my throne. Other alternative, play an eub, then zero wait on your body. I've got an NS Design, which actually just sounds like a giant fretless so good for other than jazz, and I have that on a stand and play it standing or sitting on a bar stool if I'm feeling lazy. Looks good on stage as well, always gets comments from the punters.

It seems to me that drummers are having a bit of a resurgence when it comes to being featured in videos (I play drums as well as bass, so narcissistically I quite like that) .... maybe it's because they're not doing statue impressions when on stage performing?!

As it happens I'm moving to Riga later this year. Which is of course completely irrelevant to your plight and of no help whatsoever!

PS found the Pye Audio website.... $4,850 for a stereo rack unit. Might almost be worth it! Neve rack do a kit which comes in at about $400 that might be worth exploring.

I've got all the usual compressor plugins but until now this PWM one had bypassed me. Got it on a whim as it was a freebie and now it's my favourite comp. Works great on drums, bass and guitar. Have tried to find a hardware version to use live but DIY seems the only option (originals are rare and probably knackered!).

Should we not be supporting our local music shops whenever we can?!

Nightmare!! Always happens when you least need it. Many moons ago I was doing a gig when the guitarist's pedal board failed. Rummaging in my gig bag I had one of those early zoom pedals which I quickly reprogrammed for his use. Currently the backup is a pod bass express which runs on batteries.

They sound good! I put one on our vocalist (also the guitarist) in our blues trio. After the first number he insisted we go back to the sm58. I asked why and he said because you could hear his vocals too clearly. He's now singing through a green bullet and he's much happier, although we do sound like a recording from the 20s (1920 that is).

Currently started using the Warm Audio wa-19, a modern copy of the akg d19. The design apparently eliminates the proximity effect. Also has a built in hpf. So far it's shaping up to be one of my favourite mics. Almost condenser like and good feedback rejection live. Also good on the kick drum apparently so quite versatile.

These are probably the same engineers that make kick drums sound like hand grenades.

As for ride cymbal, definitely times when it can be overused (or not used with enough invention/variety... think of all the signature ride patterns used by jazz drummers in particular) but also not a 'one or the other' scenario... heel splashes on the HH plus a ride cymbal can add a lot. I definitely find being in a trio gives me space to be inventive and creative. As @cheddatom says, so much you can do. As for bass, one thought just springs to mind. I've always been a finger player until recently watching a video of Bobby Vega's very rhythmic playing with a pick. I've worked at it and now I find myself switching to pick playing when I want that extra rhythmic element, especially with damped strumming and ghost notes.

I'm currently in a blues trio, this time playing drums. The drums is as much to the answer of the sound of a trio as the bass. Rhythmic inventiveness is the key.

I know it’s a 20 year old bass (originality and all that) but how about putting a graphtec nut on?

You should have swapped the body as well.

The professional bass player in question back in the day used to tour with some big name acts.... and that's the problem as he approaches everything on that basis. What he doesn't consider is that this is a band playing covers for pub money. Quite ironically, the biggest issue I used to have with the guitarist is that he was always upset about the lack of money being offered to the band for gigs and complained he was being disrespected but such paltry offerings.... well, from now on he's going to be paying a lot of respect to their bass player! Hopefully it'll make them appreciate what they had a bit better.

Correct! Such a shame!

A bit of an update as it's quite amusing... at least for me. I got invited to a gig the guitarist of the old band was doing with a completely different outfit not connected to the old covers band or the new derivative. Was talking to him during the break and as I'm organising a spring festival, and enough water has gone under the bridge now for me not to care too much, I said that the new covers band (the one they replaced me with another bass player) should play. The guitarist informed me that they wouldn't be able to do it as the new bass player had left. Such a shame I thought, but it has to be said I have given in to a bit of schadenfreude and I went home and celebrated by opening a bottle of good wine. Fortunately they had the sense not to ask me back! Turns out they have another bass player lined up but he's a pro, who I know, and he will even charge them for turning up for rehearsals... such a shame! Plus, he's currently on tour for at least the next 6 months so they can't do anything until then, and that's if he doesn't get another good paying gig... such a shame!! In the meantime, the guitarist is helping out a few friends with this new band but two of the musicians are new to gigging and, although good considering they've only been playing their instruments for a year, are in every other respect dreadful. But they're having fun, learning and fair play to the guitarist for helping out. But then he doesn't have any other band to play in at the moment... such a shame. Anyway, not bitter and twisted in the slightest. The thing that I am pleased about is that over xmas we all got back together and friendships seem to be healed. Although I doubt I'll play with them again, to be honest that means less chance of us falling out over stupid musical differences, so all good really.

I'm of the opinion that 2 x 10 can't push enough air to keep up with heavy hitting drummer (no matter how many watts you stick up it). A 1 x 12 is ok for jazz upright and that's about it. 4 x 10 has punch and 1 x 15 depth, I like both but mostly a 1 x 15. I had an SWR Redhead once, lovely combo, great sound. Went to a rehearsal with a new band, the drummer averagely heavy hitter, the guitarist had a Fender 1 x 12 combo..... couldn't hear the bass. Got another 2 x 10 SWR cab, a bit better but I've found two 2 x 10 cabs not as loud as a single 4 x 10. A you say, bass requires you to push air. I've got an old Peavey TNT 1 x 15 that sounds nasty but does the job (speaker size over watts in this case) and I've had two TE 300watt 15" combos; one with no ports, smaller but not loud enough, the one with ports did do the job. My SWR Baby Blue II I still have and use in the studio but recently out of sheer laziness have been using it on small gigs. 2 x 8" and was at its max to cope, but cope it did until it just died mid gig one night and the amp section is fried. Still a good valve preamp though!

Get the book ‘Standing in the Shadows of Motown : the life of James Jamerson’. There’s some absolute classic stuff to learn and absorb in it. Plus gave me an appreciation of why everyone says JJ was a genius at what he did. As for an individual song/bass line, the biggest influence on me was Bennie Maupin’s song ‘it remains to be seen’ with Paul Jackson on bass. I came across a cassette tape that was just labelled 70s groove with no track listing. This was the first track. Pre internet days and took me ages to find out what the track/artist was. That set me off on a journey of jazz groove bass fascination. Put a band together and this was always the first song in the set list, could go on for 15 mins or more if we were on it. Super funky.

PS the other thing you could try is a mixing desk with build SD card recording so no daw/pc required. I’m tempted by the Tascam model 16 or Zoom L20. That way it’s quite old school. Plug in the desk, press record then mix down.

I’m an IT idiot, hate trying to set up software. When I bought an xr18 I thought I’d better make use of the recording facility so tried various recording software… went thru Ableton, Cubase, and Acid but found the learning curve too steep. I just want to record, plug in the band press record, then mix, nothing fancy and very old school. I’ve just downloaded Reaper and bingo! It enables me to just do that. Didn’t even bother doing a tutorial, it’s quite intuitive. Can thoroughly recommend.

Well, if you just want a pedal you could do worse than the line 6 pod express bass. Ampeg, GK, Aguilar, Fender plus cab sims all rolled into one.