mike257

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1326290778' post='1494971'] is technically proficient ........But he can't keep time. [/quote] Your drummer is an oxymoron! Does he practice much away from your rehearsals? If something as basic as keeping steady time is evading him, then he needs to put some time in outside of your band activities to correct it really. Unfortunately being a drummer he's probably stuffed for practice time unless he has no neighbours, access to a rehearsal room, or an eleccy kit/practice pads. Metronome work as suggested would be good, and getting tempos together for your set and having him play to a click in rehearsals will also focus his attention on the timing. I guess the single most important thing is this - does he recognise that his timekeeping is poor? Unless he acknowledges and accepts it and is prepared to try and improve, you're on a hiding to nothing and I'd get the 'drummer wanted' posters up quick! EDIT: Eddy made the same point much more succinctly while I was rambling!

[quote name='Wil' timestamp='1326282159' post='1494806'] I've been watching a few amp demos on youtube and it hasn't really helped - my favourite tones so far have been produced by the Vox AC30, and those are a few hundred over my budget at least even used. [/quote] I just missed a nearly-new AC30CC2 that went for £375 on ebay a few weeks ago, and it was 15 minutes from my house. Gutted

An ordinary rack sampler and a MIDI floor controller might work for you - you can probably pick up a sampler pretty damn cheap off eBay or wherever these days, and I think most MIDI floorboards will allow you to send Note On messages from the pedals. In fact, I've just checked and the Behringer FCB1010 can send note on/off, and has 10 pedals, plus Up/Down switches to scroll through 10 banks if you needed more. It's a little more fiddling to set it all up, but might be better suited to what you need if you're only running pre-recorded loops.

Guitarist in my old band went from a DSL100 to a Blues Jr, sounded great and if you're in a band where everybody is sensible with the volume controls then it's got plenty beef to carry through. Used it without PA support for a few small room gigs, in a 3 vocal/3 elec/1 acoustic/drums+bass set up and it was fine. Other guitarists were also using small amps too mind you (Fender Pro Jr, Cornell Romany) so I guess it depends what you're up against!

[quote name='Jacqueslemac' timestamp='1326116854' post='1492461'] ....the guitarist in my band (who has a Gibson Trini Lopez 335 and a Dan Armstrong Plexi) [/quote] A big Dave Grohl fan then? Nice! I've had a blast on one of those Plexi's, one of the nicest necks I've ever had my hands on. Lovely guitars to play. [quote name='Jacqueslemac' timestamp='1326116854' post='1492461'] And a Japanese-made Strat my girlfriend gave me: (It came with a white scratch plate, but I reckon it looks better with a black one.) [/quote] You're right, I think you've just converted me into a Strat fan. Never normally that fussed on the way they look, but that colour combo is lovely!

I like to take elements of other melody parts within the song, like following or echoing the vocal line in short passages.

Used to play with a drummer who had a 24, massive ride cymbals are the best!

It's lovely mate!! And we can all stop holding our breath, tension was killing me!

Great to see all the diverse interests everyone has! When I'm cheating on my four strings, it's usually with the guitar - I've spent more and more time on it as a songwriting tool over the years, although in the last couple of years I've got a fair amount of band hours under my belt on guitar which has done wonders for my playing (and confidence!). Drumming is my secret love - I rarely get the chance to have some time on the kit, but love it when I do. I'm always driving the missus nuts drumming along to things on my legs/table/steering wheel, keeps me thinking about rhythm all the time which is great. It also makes me unbeatable on the Guitar Hero drumkit Also play a bit of keys, and have done programming and samples for a few bands in the past. Haven't done it for a while, but would like to get back into it, even if I do just fall into my old habits of poorly impersonating Trent Reznor. I think banjo might be my next new one, had a quick go recently and loved it!

Looks great - I'd love a kit at home, but I've been told I've got to wait until we get a house with a garage that I can soundproof! Occasionally dabble on the drums, but being a lefty I very rarely get my hands on a kit the 'right' way round for me! The drummer I've been playing with for the last 12 months has a beautiful Pearl Masters MCX (in red sparkle, tasty!) that I get to have the occasional rattle on. I quiet often get bruised legs from my home drumming practice, really should get a practice pad instead!!

One of the guitarists in my ex-band, The Buffalo Riot, blew me away on a weekly basis. He'd been all round the houses and played everything, but in this band he was effectively the pedal steel player. Only he did it with a guitar, a volume pedal, a tiny amp and a dash of reverb. If you closed your eyes you would swear you were hearing great steel playing, the sounds he coaxed out of it were amazing. Made it look and sound effortless too.

Cheers fellas! I promise we'll all play nice in there too. Now I'm off to find out which pedal can make me sound like Slash for under £50.

[quote name='geoffbassist' timestamp='1325789282' post='1487823'] What worries me is that adding a guitar section would have a general impact on the whole. [/quote] This is the objection I don't understand. If it's only visible to existing bc members, it'll be the same bunch of people, discussing a common interest in the same bc tone we know and love. It's not rebranding to bassandguitarchat.co.uk! What's this effect it will have on the rest of the place?

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1325785670' post='1487717'] That's brilliant! Thanks so much for even considering it. [/quote] What he said!

I've got an ordinary Behringer V-Amp (the desktop guitar one, not bass) and have tracked bass through it for home demos - there's a couple of clean 'studio preamp' settings (can't remember the exact name) that I've managed to get a reasonable tone from. You can also bypass the amp/cab modelling completely and use it as a direct in. It 'does the job' in a cheap and cheerful way, and gives me passable sounds for demoing with both instruments. Wouldn't use it on anything I was going to release, but I've had a good 8 years out of it as a demoing tool. It's recently gone faulty, and I'll probably replace it with the same thing again if I can find one cheap on th'ebay.

[quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1325765711' post='1487213'] Only problem with that is if it becomes really popular and attracts a lot of guitarists to join Basschat, who then start asking a lot of novice questions in the bass sections or start taking the micky out of us like they do in real life It's probably a small risk but I'd prefer not to change the feel and vibe of Basschat as on the whole it's pretty excellent. [/quote] But that's the point of making it a subforum that's only visible to members - it's not going to attract lots of guitarists because they won't know it's there! Off Topic is currently not visible to non-members - you can't see it when you are not logged in, and therefore it's not picked up on by search engines either, so doesn't appear in Google search results etc. If a guitar subforum was set up the same way, it's not going to attract hordes of guitarists because only registered BC members would see it existed!

[quote name='Machines' timestamp='1325764674' post='1487188'] I think a subforum that just caters for members here would be preferable to opening the gates to all (personal, not official opinion) [/quote] I think that's all anybody is really asking for. Can't see how it would cause any upset!

[quote name='mrdreadful' timestamp='1325763297' post='1487160'] Nah, circular arguments are way more productive... [/quote] If only we had a 'Like' button.....

How did you get on? Have they introduced you to any exciting new bands to get your head round for lesson two? Hope it went well mate!

I didn't know they had many original bands on there - I'd always known of it as a festival for tribute bands (hence Glaston-budget, because you're getting the budget version of the bands!!). I know a friend of the missus goes pretty much every year and has raved about it being a great atmosphere and a really good time. Congrats for getting picked, and as everyone has said, make what you can of it. If nothing else, you'll have a weekend of music and a good laugh with your band, and playing a fairly well known fezzy like that can only be good for your reputation. Enjoy it!!