TheRev

Try not to be downhearted - you can take away a positive lesson from every experience. The next time you answer an ad on gumtree your first question must be 'Are you the guitarist?' If the answer is 'yes', put the phone down. *edit* I've send two emails to a chap advertiding a double bass for sale - not a beep out of him. Perhaps it's just something about people who advertise on Gumtree?

A few years ago over on Talkbass, lots of people were replacing their SVT rigs with a Sansamp VT pedal and a Mark bass combo.

Favourite Sigur Ros track: This has to be experienced live to get the full power of this track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQsPv4FMyLg And, especially for SteveK - post-rock from before post-rock even existed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZnXg0vNs0

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1358868110' post='1946285'] I know I'm finding it hard to keep up with all these genres but 'dace music' sounds a bit fishy to me. [/quote] It's not for everyone - probably because of all the scales....

It's not technically 'pay to play', as there's no mention of a financial penalty if your promised 20 mates don't turn up.... just as there's no mention of how much you get paid for lucky punter 21. Look, everyone knows that these showcase gigs are a waste of time, everyone knows that these self labelled promoters are nothing of the sort. Stuff em! Instead of getting annoyed, put the effort into putting your own night on, that's what we do. Hire the venue, get your band and 20 of your mates. Get another 3 bands plus their mates. Charge 3 or 5 quid on the door and split the cash between the 4 bands and the venue gets the bar. No-one gets rich doing this but no-one gets shafted either. Even if the night makes no money whatsoever, as long as you've covered the venue hire costs, you get to have a nice little gig without lining the pockets of some patronising, deluded 'promoter'.

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1358857319' post='1946021'] I read the wikipedia entry, and now I'm wondering what post-hardcore and math-rock sound like I must get out more... [/quote] Math-rock (horrible Americanism that it is) is usually pretty fast with odd time signatures and time changes. There's often a dollop of glitchy type dance stuff in there as well. 65daysofstatic are a classic example [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dDvpZvmZbk[/media] Also Battles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EAzZKLe5nc I reckon these guys got into guitars after spending their teenage years lisening to lots and lots of dace music....

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1358798181' post='1945296'] Ok, I've got to ask... what is 'Post Rock'? [i]'Slow melodic themes', 'Seemingly ambiguous chords'[/i], you've got me interested. I'm an old geezer who doesn't get out much - humour me... any youtube links? [/quote] The big guns are Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor (a.k.a GY!BE). GY!BE are undoubtedly the grandaddies of the genre, although they were predated by Tortoise and, would you believe it, Talk Talk. yes, that Talk Talk, the one from the 80s. (If you don't believe me, listen to the' Spirit of Eden' album). As mentioned above, And So I Watch You From Afar are well worth a listen, Red Sparrowes and Mono tend towards the heavier side of things. Two of my favourites are Thiswilldestroyyou (esp. the Young Mountain EP and the first album) and Grace Cathedral Park. Grace Cathedral Park are particularly interesting as they're all acoustic. (post folk anyone?)

[quote name='phil.i.stein' timestamp='1358801610' post='1945404'] but i'd say .. use the fretboard like a painter uses a pallette. [/quote] Nicely put. Post rock is all about building a soundscape and drawing the listener in emotionally. At the risk of drawing a lot of flak, I'd suggest that post rock and jazz aren't that far removed in terms of the aim of the music. The guys I used to play with had an interesting way of writing material. There would be a clock on the wall of the rehearsal room. below the clock they'd put a long strip of paper with a graph on it. The x axis was time in minutes, the Y axis was intensity and the trace was the desired sonic pattern of the track, The clock would be set to 12pm and off we'd go,following the trace of the graph with the music. There'd be peaks and troughs for loud/quiet bits and so on. It was actually a lot of fun,

I'm a massive post rock fan, but I don't get to play in that style very often. When I have played, I've tended to play little melodies, working with the space to keep the feel of the track going. Drone notes work well too. To me its definitely more about 'playing the song' rather than 'playing bass' if that makes sense. It's all about the space.

I go ampless on support gigs - usually beacuse 1) as a support band you either have no time for a proper soundcheck or no space for your amp, or 2) The stage is too big for your amp to be heard. I've also gone ampless on a wedding gig...because I frogot my amp! . It wasn't disaster - the out front sound was good but our monitors were farting out a bit. If the sound guys know what they're doing (or are prepared to listen to you telling them what to do) then it's not a problem. We do regular supports for The Wurzels and their sound guys know our setup and have the settings saved on their digital mixer, so I never take backline for those gigs. If the sound guys don't know what they're doing, then it can be a miserable experience - feedback and boomy sound, which usually add together to give an unholy mess of bassiness with no note definition whatsoever. I guess what I'm saying is that if you have your own PA (or a tame sound engineer), with decent monitors and you know a bit about sound, then there's no reason why you shouldn't just plug your preamp straight inot the desk - that's exactly how your front of house sound is done.

There's a well known punk covers band round these here parts called Loud, Ugly & Crap - they're all old enough to remember punk from the first time round. In the last year I've been to see The Dead Kennedys & SLF - none of those guys are under 40 and the gigs are packed with punters of the sane age. There's plenty of old punks out there, so you should just get up there and do it.

I've also been using the Christopher bag (PV502?) from Thomann for the past year, 2-3 gigs a week with no problems. Very happy with it. They're £160 at the moment - well within your £200 budget.

Root - Fifth (below) Repeat. Job done Welcome to the big boys club, Mr Bee!

Mine's about two inches off the floor.... ;-)

I sold Pete my BFM Omni 10.5 (and now have seller's remorse....... ). Quick and easy transaction, lots of communication and a nice bloke to deal with. Dave

D'adarrio Helicoresare quite popular and a good all round string, dunno about Preludes. Spiros & Helicores are good strings and a good place to start your string quest. I'd also consider Innovation Honeys or super silvers.

Damn. I want a set of spirocore weichs now. Bloody string GAS....

I recommend you give Innovation super silvers a try when you change strings, they're lower tension than yer typical steels and the shorter sustain works well with EUBs IMHO.

It's sorted now. I changed the Velvets for a set of Daf's super silvers and at the same time gave the nut and bridge slots a good clean, cleaned the gunk off the fingerboard and checked that the bridge was seated properly on the front. However, I suspect that the main issue was that I'd been spending most of my time playing my narrow necked DB with low tension strings, so when I picked up the Eminence, I simply wasn't man enough to stop the notes properly on the E string. So, partly a bit of minor set-up work and partly sloppy technique.....

Okey doke, finally got round to sorting out a recording of these strings. [url="https://soundcloud.com/magners-1/silvers/s-FU6Dx"]https://soundcloud.com/magners-1/silvers/s-FU6Dx[/url] This is my 50s ply bass with a K&K Bassmax recorded straight into a Tascam DP004. These are pretty nice strings. They feel a bit higher in tension than the Rockabillys and have a bit more complexity and a brighter tone than the Rockabillys. (I've also popped a recording of the Rockabillys on the Rockabilly thread). Although I liked the sound of the Silvers on this bass, I missed the 'bounce' I get with the Rockabillys so off they came and on they went on to my Eminence EUB, which I use for jazz. I normally like Velvet Garbos on the Eminence and these Silvers are actually a pretty good substitute - not bad considering the Velvets cost more than double the price of the Silvers. They're a touch lighter in tension than the Velvets and although they lack some of the harmonic detail, they work very well with the less resonant Eminence, giving a rather nice woody sound. The G in particular, sounds great - clear and defined but not nasal. I'm beginning to think that I prefer the Silvers to the Velvets on this bass, so, until the next Basschatter comes along or Daf asks for them back, these strings are staying exactly where they are.

OK, it's taken me a while to record these (and a bit longer to work out how to upload them), but here's the Innovation Rockabillys on my East German ply bass. The pickup is a K&K Bassmax, recorded straight into a Tascam DP004 [url="https://soundcloud.com/magners-1/rockabilly/s-ahDbG"]https://soundcloud.c...kabilly/s-ahDbG[/url] For comparison, I've also recorded the Innovation Super Silvers. [url="https://soundcloud.com/magners-1/silvers/s-FU6Dx"]https://soundcloud.com/magners-1/silvers/s-FU6Dx[/url]

Welcome, Bob. As Bilbo has said, there is a wealh of information for beginners lurking in this forum and. as with most things, there are no right or wrong answers, just advice.... Bob Pickard is spot on with his budget advice. £800 - £1500 will buy you something very useable, either used or new. Your budget should also include around £100ish for a set up to get the bass (new or used) working well for you. Then there's pickups, preamps, strings.... though some of that can wait until you've got a few months playing under your belt. Regarding new vs used: Thwaites in Watford has a grerat selection of laminated basses around the £1000 - £1500 mark and is well worth a visit. You can get the same basses for less by buying privately, but unless you know what to look for in terms of potential damage and defects, spending the extra money in a shop which will have sorted these things out for you is probably money well spent. There are a couple of reasonably priced new basses that are well regarded. The Thomann 2E hybrid bass is a rebadged Strunal for a smidge over £1000. I'm very tempted to get one of these myself as the carved top will (hopefully) provide a bit more tone and sustain than my lovely old laminate. If you are looking at theThomann hybrid basses, make sure you go for somthing with a carved top rather than 'solid'. A solid top is a sheet of solid timber which has been steamed and pressed into a curved shape. This is cheaper than carving a top to shape, but it's much more likely to want to return to being a flat piece of wood at some point in it's life. The Thomann 1E basses are laminates, but could still serve you well, especially the Tineo wood model, which is apparently very resonant for a ply bass The Gear4music 'Archer' basses are used by a few people on here (Bilbo?) and have a good reputation. Of course, the problem with buying new from the big superstores is that you can't try before you buy, unless you're willing to travel.

Top player. I was having a little noodle along to 'So what' this morning. Lovely.

First NYE off in 5 years. Guitarist wanted a break this year so I'm sat at home. Rather be gigging though...

1) Country/rockabilly. 2) About 8mm on the G, 11 on the E 3) Innovation Rockabilly 4) K&K Bassmax 5) Markbass LM2 with a BFM Omni 10.5 or Acoustic Image Ten2 Bass is a 50s or 60 laminate, probably one of the Musima factory basses.