Boodang

Anybody else have band mates that think they’re rock stars? I hate to break it to our band but we’re weekend warriors and not the latest mega in demand festival headlining rock stars they seem to think they are! So, the latest epic… I tried to organise a small music gathering with a local organiser, just 4 or 5 bands with some food stalls and some acoustic acts in between set changes. At the start everyone thinks it’s a good idea, now I’ve got one band saying they don’t get out of bed for less 500 bucks, the rest of my band say it’s too much effort for just a one hour set, and another band complaining I’m depping for their arch enemy so won’t play. Honestly! Excuses from my band for not doing gigs now include; the set time is too short, the set time is too long (they won’t do more than 2 hours, so a tight window between too little and too much), it’s less than 500 bucks, it’s for charity (as in I don’t get paid), it’s the wrong audience and two nights on the trot is too much effort. We’re not young, everyone is a reasonable player, we’re not paying the bills by doing gigs, I play for the fun of it but seems to be an attitude with some of the band that money or billing is a sign of respect. I get it but I don’t think we can be that fussy or to be honest primadonna as we’re basically weekend warriors and the result is just less gigs which in my book is just less fun.

Just watching it now, and yep I think it holds up and doesn’t feel dated. Interesting characters and good writing.

Born in the USA (by the end of the song do you get the impression he was born in the USA?!) Other than that we have a singer in our band who just does all the boston punk screamy numbers, but has decided to branch out and do songs that require him to be in tune.... not his strong point. Now, whenever I hear these songs i just hear his vocals and it's completely ruined them for me!

Ooh, Jalapeno drums.... how good/bad do they sound?

At the risk of widening this out to film scores,but for me the Roy Budd 'Carter gets a train's is a stand out. I have a Hohner Pianet but can't play it for toffee, but was in a band where the pianist was epic. The pianet was perfect for this song and live was so much fun to play. Did it at a festival once as an opening number and the audience must have been Carter fans as by the time I'd finished the first bass line everyone was on their feet.

I used to be in a band that played this. Always went down a storm with the audience.

I’d forgotten about ironside! Awesome stuff as always from QJ. Love the soloing in the full version.

Taxi… Bob James

A blast from the past... who remembers the theme tune from the TV series Northern Exposure? Recently bought the series on dvd and the theme tune brought back some memories. Written by David Schwartz it's genius! Harmonica & accordion on a bed of percussion.... but that bass line!! That bass line has been resonating around my head since I first heard it and being a dedicated fretless player I was drawn to it instantly. It's so creative and what a melodic hook. In the context of a theme tune it's just about perfect. What other suggestions are there for perfect theme tunes? Especially ones with cool bass lines.

An active PA speaker might be the answer. I use a LD Systems Icoa 15a. Full range, 15" with coaxial horn and 300 watts. £380 new. Copes with my double bass, 5 string high C and my Ekit all at gig volumes and it's clear sounding.

Well, what ever bass misdemeanors Chris Squire might have made, we can forgive all just for having created the bass lick to 'roundabout'.

A simplified version of my board based on our current set needs. Channel 1 on the tri mixer is just the octamizer, channel 2 is the WA mutation phasor followed by the grape phaser ( I discovered the two together sound super funky. The grape is very mid heavy with faster mod rates and the mutation is more bass heavy and slower), channel 3 is the fuzz followed by the fwonkbeta (together it’s devastating). Channel 1 & 3 thru a double 18 bin will make you evacuate your bowels! Think Gary Numan polymoog on steroids. HoF at the end, also because the toneprint I use has reverb and chorus… nice bonus. Then off to FoH with a Radial stagebug. Oh, and spectracomp uses the Captain East toneprint which is the best comp I’ve heard.

I noticed Gwizdala uses a stomp and, as it happens, sells the preset settings on his site. I've never used a stomp but two things occurred.... firstly that Gwizdala must have got to grips with the thing, and secondly, might be worth looking at the presets to see how he approaches it.

A bit of a left field suggestion but this is the route I’ve gone down…. an active PA speaker. I bought an LD Systems Icoa 15a for £380. It’s got a 300watt class D amp, 128db max spl (although it doesn’t specify at what frequency), coaxial horn and weighs 25kg. Powerful, versatile, sounds great, and not that heavy. Admittedly you’ll need a preamp pedal (unless you already have one), but I think better value than dedicated bass amps. PS they also do a 12” version which is slightly lighter and cheaper.

Yep, Jaco. I love the stuff he collaborated on such as Bright Size Life and Hejira, and let’s face it some great moments with Weather Report, but solo not for me at all. Just sounds like a technical exercise, clever but not melodic. PS I love fretless burpy tones tho.

Funny you should start this thread as had a similar thing with bass bros recently. Nothing dramatic mind, just a slight lack of communication. Saw a Warwick on their site a few weeks ago, emailed an enquiry then noticed it disappeared from their website. Eventually called them and had a nice chat, but didn’t get a reply by email. Not really an issue but I can’t imagine their inbox is that inundated (I could be wrong). And for those that say ‘just pick up the phone’, I live half a world away, so not as easy

…. I mentioned no names!!

Lots of good recommendations and advice on what to get but bear in mind the OP asked ‘how’ it all works not ‘what’ to get!

Two things here… DI (direct inject) is where you electronically match a high impedance unbalanced signal (typically your guitar) to a low impedance balanced signal so you can plug it into the mic input on a mixing desk or interface. Put simply it’s a box where you plug in your jack lead and the output is an xlr mic lead. Used for live to get it to the desk or in the studio. The reason; if you plug high impedance (your guitar if it doesn’t have fancy electronics built in) into low impedance all the top end drops out. Also a good way of tapping into your signal at a gig or when recording. DAW is something different and is just your software / hardware interface for recording. Your interface to the daw will take your analogue signal and turn it into digital so the software can process it. Quite often you’ll use a DI box to get your guitar signal connected to the interface (especially if it doesn’t have a high z input.

I’ve got one of these. Ambient is the only way to describe it! Great pedal.

So, if anything, active pickups have less of a profile than passive pickups in the sense of their response. An active pup will generally have a wider bandwidth (especially top end) and have a flatter response than a passive pup which will have less above 3Khz. If you want flexibility, then active pups is the way to go as they have the greater frequency response. You can use an active preamp with either passive or active pups. For the greatest possibly flexibility use active pups with an active preamp. All you have to do now is try out / listen to the almost infinite combination of both available to you, especially if you decide to add some kind of pedal as well! You could play it safe and go for EMG active pups and Aguilar active preamp as a good starting point. In terms of preamp pedals, well, there's as many opinions as to what to get as there are pedals, so good luck! Personally, in terms of eq shaping I just use a compressor pedal (just please don't ask what compressor pedal to get as you'll end up starting 'that' thread again!).

I did have lots of basses but that was because I hadn’t found ‘the one’. Then, not long ago, I accidentally had a custom made (long story!) and that was it. Now I’ve lost interest in buying new basses. However, gas obviously hadn’t left the building as I started playing drums but I haven’t found ‘that kit’. So I’m back where I started except drum kits are larger and along with the infinite cymbals I obvious need, it seems more expensive.

Buy a B6 and ditch everything?!

Active pickups or passive pickups with an active preamp? A lot of manufacturers install active preamps as it gives you a lot of tone sculpting power.

A quick note regarding pre-amps... these are completely separate to active pickups and you can use an active preamp with a passive or active pup*. A passive preamp can only cut frequencies (typically treble roll off), whereas an active preamp will also be able to boost frequency bands and possible have a line driver as well to reduce the line impedance. An active preamp can be quite useful as you can install one that works well with a specific bass. However you can just use an external preamp (on your amp, pedal or rack) to do the same job. * There are some exceptions; active pups have an op amp so they are buffered. This means that you could blend two active pups in parallel but you can't put them in series. So you can't install a series/parallel switch on a bass with active pups. Also, there are a few preamps that have pickup impedance loading options but again, as an active pup is buffered you can't do that either.