Krysbass

[quote name='Geddys nose' post='684360' date='Dec 14 2009, 07:37 PM']Last gig we did I bollocked up most of the first set and had a shocker remembering any songs went outside drunk a Red Bull and played an absolute blinding second set- Next gig I'm going to experiment with a combination of Red Bull Drinks & Red Bull Tablets [/quote] Exactly the same thing happened to me in the first set of our last gig (not all my fault to be fair, but I still have to hold my hands up). I used the same solution too. Only problem was; I got home just after midnight and thanks to the Red Bull was totally wired and couldn't sleep, then had to get up for work at 06:15 - not good. I think I'll just enjoy getting it wrong next time

I started playing bass in the early ‘80’s using a pick and did OK with it, but then switched to fingerstyle and never bothered with pick playing after that. Having tried both, I’d say fingerstyle is more versatile for different musical genres, but of course there are songs that definitely sound better played with a pick, so the ideal situation would be to keep your hand in with both techniques. But I’m a “part-time bassist”, so I don’t have the time to put in enough practice to keep on top of both techniques – I wish I did! - I'm also a left-hander playing right-handed, so my right-hand needs all the help it can get just to keep up to speed. So, I use the time I have to work at being good at just one technique, instead of being poor or mediocre at both.

My Superfly 500 is still going strong after almost 2 years of weekly rehearsals and around 1 gig every couple of months. I recently removed the outer casing to improve the cooling and put some adhesive rubber feet under it to help the airflow underneath it, as it's the bottom panel that gets hottest. Sometimes just use a small mains-powered household fan, blowing across the casing if I'm playing in a hot environment. Mine was one of the run-out models, bought for just £199 so I've no complaints. But since I'm stuck with two 4 ohm 2x10 cabinets, I'll probably go for a Carvin BX500 next.

[quote name='shippo' post='655673' date='Nov 16 2009, 08:57 AM']Big wide fat leather strap with suede type finish on rear sounds like a good idea too. Anyone know of any decent UK websites that sell wide straps cheaply as some are coming up at about £70+ which is just plain stupid money! thanks Shippo[/quote] "Leathergraft" make a 4" wide leather strap with suede backing - I bought one a couple of years back for around £15 I think. Has cured my bass's neck dive and since it's fairly heavy, has made it much more comfortable to play.

Still a bit of a trek for you, (but closer than Chester) is Beats Ahead Music in Greenbank, just west of Northwich. tel 01606 782538. I went there for a couple of lessons on scales etc a few years ago, but like you I'm otherwise self taught. I'm not sure who does the bass lessons these days, but it may be worth checking out. Their website says they charge £12.50 for 30 mins. Hope this helps.

+1 for Derek Forbes of Simple Minds (now with "A Few Good Men") Also Fran Sheehan ex-Boston. Apparently he's now left the music industry - that's a shame because his busy playing style is a joy to listen to IMHO.

I bought one new back in the '80's and I seem to remember it cost around £130 back then, so they shouldn't be asking much for it now. I bought it because it was compact and had day-glo green graphics, which reminded me very tenuously of the look of the UV-illuminated Trace Elliot heads a certain Mr King was using at the time. But sadly, there any similarity ended. I used mine with a compact 1x12" cab and it seemed loud enough for just 90 watts. It has a compression circuit, but the compression isn't adjustable and I could never really detect any audible difference between whether it was switched on or off. Edit: Just remembered that it has a parametric EQ for the mids which I liked.

The only problem with Westones is/was that they aren't expensive enough for some people. Other people don't like them because they don't have "Fender" printed on the headstock or because the base models were popular with beginners, the higher spec models are perceived as lacking "the right image". But if you cut through all that superficial stuff, don't let yourself be a guitar snob and judge an instrument purely on its own merits, then you'll find that Westones are extremely well made and still put many contemporary manufacturers to shame. They may have been cheep, but they certainly were never low quality. Rant over. My first decent bass was a Thunder 1A and loved it so much that the logical upgrade was to the Thunder III bass I bought new back in 1985 and still use as my main bass today. If you can get hold of a Thunder II or III then I'd strongly recommend you check it out. Just to summarise, you get these sort of features for your hard-earned cash on a Westone Thunder III; 5 different woods used in the construction, including an ebony fingerboard a beatifully constructed laminated thru neck a solid brass bridge 18v active electronics, but with a bypass switch, giving you passive tones too. I could go on, but I'm getting boring now, so I'll leave it there. Hope this helps

When you’re in a covers band and nobody pays any attention to your ideas, whether it’s song choices or anything else. I’d rather not speculate on what anti-bassist prejudices might be behind this.

[quote name='Stingray5' post='536825' date='Jul 9 2009, 09:05 PM']My two Westone Thunder IIA's (see sig photo) both have active/passive switches. In fact, all my basses are active aside from the Jazz.[/quote] I rarely use my Thunder III in active mode, since I prefer its passive tones. But the active circuitry stays on as long as there's a jack plugged into the bass - the active/passive switch is just a bypass, so I just got into the habit of unplugging. I think the active circuit has to stay on because if you switched the power on manually you'd hear a thump through your amp. If the batteries are on the way out I find I get plenty of warning from the bass's tone and I always carry a couple of spare PP3's. I have to replace the batteries every year or so - Westone claim around 200 hours' use per set.

[quote name='4000' post='530965' date='Jul 2 2009, 06:20 PM']+1. For what it's worth, I've never looked at tab or chord charts in my life. Everything by ear for nearly 30 years; I sometimes think if I didn't have such a good ear I might actually knuckle down and work on my theory and reading. [/quote] I'm exactly the same - I never use tab because I pick songs up by ear really easily. And yes, my theory has definitely taken a back seat - I can't even remember what the notes are called on the fretboard, apart from open strings or octaves thereof, which admittedly can be a little embarrassing when the lead guitarist says "this one's in C".

I have a guitar stand, but I only use it at gigs. Everywhere else the bass goes back into its hard case, even if I’m only putting it down for a couple of minutes. I know this might seem extreme, but apart from a couple of very minor dings, my 25 y.o. bass still looks good, so the ends justify the means….

I wanted to see if I could do fretless, so I bought a Stagg BC300 fretless, natural wood finish about 3 years ago. For the price I paid (£99) I honestly can't complain, but after I'd owned it for a while I made a few improvements. The first thing I did was to shield the electronics cavity with conductive paint - this reduced the background noise, so it was well worth the effort. Then I replaced the stock pickups with a DiMarzio P/J set, and this brought a massive improvement in the tone. I've tweaked a few other things too, as the bass needed setting up, but now I'm happy with the result and would gig it if the need arose. In standard form, the BC300 is probably worth a look, and upgrading the pickups later is easy. But I've heard people say that quality is variable, so maybe I just got one of the better ones?

Using a little talc on the thumb of your fretting hand will stop your thumb from sticking to a gloss finish on the back of a bass’s neck. Bad as it can be, I find turning up to gigs with my container of baby powder :blush: much less scary than attacking the gloss finish on my bass with wire wool or sandpaper to make it dull, which seems to be the more widely adopted solution.

Don’t get me wrong – I applaud the idea that the UK has its own bass guitar magazine and I’m in my 2nd year subscribing to it. But it’s become soooo dull – I’ve literally been using the current issue to help me drop off to sleep at night. That’s sad, because not so long ago, they ran an excellent feature called “Weekend Warriors” covering ordinary bassists in locally based bands who invariably juggled their bass-playing with holding down day-jobs. It was absolutely brilliant and added a much needed “both feet planted firmly on the ground” approach. Then some bright spark canned it. Why? Just look at the reviews in the current issue – the only thing priced well under 4 figures is the Ashdown Freebass. Yes it’s nice to dream about owning high-end gear, but let’s have some balance. It’s like buying a car mag hoping for information on competent, affordable family hatchbacks, only to find it crammed with articles on Ferraris and Aston Martins. Dare I say that BGM is becoming a little irrelevant? I’m currently deliberating on whether I’ll renew my subscription, since now BGM is monthly the annual cost is higher and it’s become a luxury I could probably live without.

[quote name='MB1' post='487774' date='May 14 2009, 11:26 AM']MB1. Lot of 80s bands back in the spotlight again!.... Good Thing? or does.......Frankie Say.... "No More!"????????[/quote] Yes - a very good thing in my view, the '80's being my favourite decade music-wise. Seems a lot of other people must feel the same, since if there wasn't a market out there, there wouldn't be much point in all these bands re-forming. I wouldn't like to be drawn on what that says about the current music scene though.....?

[quote name='YouMa' post='487448' date='May 13 2009, 10:31 PM']The fab four used to shop here.[/quote] Apparently so. It's a shame Hesseys has gone - I bought my main bass there back in 1985.

[quote name='Marky L' post='479744' date='May 5 2009, 09:57 AM']To change the thread course slightly, I can never listen to a piece of music now without tuning in to the bass end of it. I just always focus in on the bass. To the point that now, I don't think I properly appreciate a piece of music as a whole because I will always drop back to listening to what the bass is doing. Do others feel that their overall appreciation of a pice of music is now biased? I sometimes wonder what it's like to be able to listen to something with totaly open ears.[/quote] +1 I find it hard to be objective enough to suggest songs for our covers band. Everything I suggest, everyone else hates and I think the reason for this is that I can never resist the call of a good bassline! Fortunately, I’m not too bothered what I play, so I just let the rest of ‘em make the song choices now.

[quote name='The_D' post='471637' date='Apr 24 2009, 02:54 PM']Another dude running a Superfly here. I have stripped all the gubbings off my superfly and now it fits perfectly in my gig bag. I can load in and out in one go without the Marshall Effects in one hand the 2x10 in the other and bass/amp on my back And about the overheating thing. I just switch it off between sets and it cools down fine. It only overheats because it doesnt have a built in fan. Our powered PA speakers heat up just as bad.[/quote] I left the outer casing on my Superfly, because I figured that with the side pieces being cast metal (iron probably) they were probably acting as heat-sinks to take the heat away, but then taking the outer casing off probably helps air-circulation, therefore also improving cooling? - I'm tempted to give that a try now. I also switch the amp off between sets or if we're taking a break at rehearsals. I only have to resort to using the battery powered fan if the ambient air temperature is warm and the amp has been running for an hour or more. - The fan does the trick and even looks quite good, clipped onto the front of my rig!

Using an Ashdown Superfly 500 and a couple of Yamaha 2x10's. It sounds fine and is very portable. The amp gets a bit hot after an hour or so, but a small battery powered fan sorts that out.

I've been using a Neutrik silent jack on the same (VanDamme) cable for a couple of years and so far have had no problems whatsoever. I bought my cable from Award Session, but I hasten to add that other suppliers of very good cables are often recommended on this forum! I now use Neutrik connectors on my speaker leads too - it's nice not to have jack plugs fall off or totally disintegrate, as always happened to me before the Neutrik stuff came along.

I bought a Micro BR about 18 months ago with the intention of using it to record any ideas I had. I have to admit that I haven't actually used it for that purpose much, but have found its ability to create its own mp3 files from analogue sources, or to accept 128k mp3 files via USB absolutely invaluable to store the original versions of all the songs my band covers. From there it's an excellent practice tool as you can slow songs down or speed them up and use the A/B repeat function to work out any tricky phrases within a song. The instruction manual is a bit like War & Peace, but it's easy to follow and it's easy to dip into the bits that you want to use. By the way - it has a built in chromatic tuner too. My only warning is that it eats batteries - I solve this by using high-capacity rechargeables, although an AC adaptor is available as an optional extra if you don't mind the fact that this gives you the hassle of finding a handy mains outlet. Hope this is some help.

And once again; bring back the Weekend Warrior section – this helped keep it real. In fact, what about expanding this a bit? Also, don’t shut out the readers who don’t have the time/inclination to learn to read music, by only printing notation. This seems to be a regular occurrence in the Janek Gwizdala column to name but one. Always include TAB too please. And yes; more mid-price gear reviews too please – the Traben Chaos Obsession review in the current issue was a good start here – I decided not to buy one after all. Having said that; I enjoy seeing some of the top-end stuff and spot where it falls short in some respect or other compared to the ordinary gear I use!

I never cease to be amazed at how irritatingly uncompromising some people are in a band situation. I constantly compromise on song choices to keep other people happy and I therefore expect to see a certain amount of magnanimity coming from everyone else. But no – my last couple of years re-discovering the band scene has unearthed more than its fair share of control-freaks and prima-donnas who selfishly put their needs and aspirations over and above every one else’s. Maybe it’s the way of the world? To be honest, it’s things like companionship, that it continues to improve my playing and that I get to go gigging that keep me doggedly persevering with the constant stream of set-backs. I’m just grateful I don’t do it for the money – but then professionals might perhaps behave more, er, professionally?