leftybassman392

Spent some time in Newcastle earlier this year but never came across him. Pity.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1323712487' post='1466139'] Get this. I`m locked in a war of attrition with the drummer, who owns the P.A but has no idea how to use it. So one week I said, these LD tops bark a bit when you push them, maybe a graphic EQ across the rig would help to smooth it out. So he fetches a stereo graphic eq, mid range Peavey one. Fine for the job of pulling a few of those upper mids that were spoiling the vocal sound. At first he let me set it up,as I know how to use one and slightly pulled a few freqs and declared myself happy till we heard how it went later. He moaned like a bastard about how his kit sound was now ruined and why was I EQing the rig around the vocal only? He uses a Roland TD20,stereo output. I flattened the EQ , shrugged and walked away. Fast forward two weeks,I haven`t gigged but he has. We set up, I hand him my XLR cable from the D.I and he turns me up. f*** me what a dreadful weak sh*t sound. "Your lead is no good. It`s your lead." sez he. OK I think and fetch another,plugs in, same sound. WTF I`m thinking.Then I glance at the Graphic tucked away behind the desk, and he`s pushed 40 and 60Hz all the way up to the stops,cut EVERYTHING else apart from 8K10Kand 20k which were again right up at the stops. So there`s nothing between 60Hz and 8Khz.. So I went mental, asked why he had effectively halved the power of his rig,and ruined the tone and how the f*** were the vocals ever going to work? He said it worked for his dub reggae night and that was that! Won`t let me touch it. I nearly walked there and then.He`s basically EQd the rig to make his Roland kit sound more dubby and f*** everything else. So now my stance is, OK your P.A sounds sh*t, but it`s your band, your gig and now it`s your responsibility. Whenever he gets stuck I remind him I just play the bass, end of. There are many more like him with all the gear and no idea. Some of them even manage to get gigs... [/quote] Your call of course, but I'd be tempted to walk unless there was an overwhelmingly good reason to stay. Last but one band I was in I did own the P.A., but reasoning that I'd be a bit busy to ride the faders during a gig I taught a mate and fellow muso how to use it. We gave him 10% of the gig fee and never, ever had any problems. He even worked out how to get a decent sound from it eventually.

All the above sounds horribly familiar, but just to make the point that it sometimes works the other way round: The first decent band I was in (as a guitarist I should add) was a covers unit doing the usual round of pubs & clubs in the Northants area. 5 piece with 2 guitars and a singer who didn't play anything (despite holding a harmonica to his mouth from time to time ), and for a couple of years things went smoothly - plenty of gigs, nice venues, etc. Then the second guitar left and we had to recruit a new one. The guy we chose seemed fine with the band ethos, appeared to know what he was there to do and could play well enough to do the job. So far so good, but once we started gigging it all went horribly wrong. It quickly became clear that he had no real comprehension of live performance, sound balance or band dynamics. He never turned up to consecutive gigs with the same instrument, and on one occasion pulled out a Flying V - only he didn't realise that this particular model hangs differently on your shoulder from most other guitars, and went the entire gig anything up to 2 semitones off key. During his (mercifully short) stay with the band we spent some pre-booked studio time doing a demo, and as luck would have it he had no clue about that either - the sound engineer was pulling his hair out trying to get him to stop constantly fiddling with the amp settings. A session that should have been finished in around 8 hours wound up taking 14! The last straw came at a festival gig we were invited to. Nice P.A., Marshall stacks, etc. After the set the drummer and bass player had to be physically restrained from lynching him. I was around 30ft away on the other side of the stage from him and kind of busy with my own job, and was a bit confused about it all. When the other guys had calmed down enough to talk coherently they told me he'd cranked his stack up full and flatly refused to turn it down (this was a 100w Marshall stack remember, sited next to the drum riser and pretty much right behind the bass player), despite several interventions from one of the sound guys. is parting words were 'That's ok, I've moved on from you guys anyway...' Moral? For a band to work, everybody involved needs to know why they're there, and work at making it work.

The OP presumably asked about approaches to tapping because he's already decided he wants to learn how to do it. I have great respect for your musicianship and integrity Bilbo, but I'm not sure that trying to talk him out of it is the right approach in this situation.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1323449214' post='1463584'] LOL probably some weird stuff more suitable to guitarists - but their 6 strings are puny and tuned stupid [/quote] Steady! I used to be a guitarist (still am when the moose descends), and I used to have a corresponding view about bass players, generally centred around the number of strings they use. I have since seen the light and now consider myself a much more balanced and calm person. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1323434945' post='1463316'] What hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that changing temperament is a challenge to the listener as well as the player (on a fretted instrument). Many keyboards have settings to do this at the touch of a button and simply put, it sounds 'out'. Psychology experiments in this area suggest listeners can and do make the transition between what sounds normal but it's not instantaneous. A less radical version of this approach to accurate tuning and temperament on a fretted instrument is of course Buzzy Feiten's system which I think is standard on MTDs and some other brands. Similar principles but applied to overcoming the problems of fretted instruments. Then you've got Frank Gambale's bent 1st fret guitars of a few years ago... [/quote] Yes, very good point. I know it's done on keyboards (IIRC Wendy Carlos kind of pioneered the idea in the '70's with her synth pieces - is that right? Not sure...). I have a friend and former bandmate who had one of his guitars altered using the Feiten system. I haven't seen him since he had it done - I'll be interested to know what he thinks of the conversion. To be honest there's so many ways of playing out of tune on a fretted instrument without meaning to that I sometimes wonder why people go to all the trouble. I tend to take the view that it's a part of the instrument's uniqueness, and all these clever technologies are but a glorified (and expensive) way of p***ing into the wind. Or, to put it another way, you need to be a spectacularly precise player in the first place for it to have even the remotest chance of being beneficial - which for most of us just ain't gonna happen any time soon.

That's excellent! Definitely a labour of love. And a fair bit of work by the look. Now watch someone ask if there's a page with tab for a 5-stringer!

Rush Hour by The Yellowjackets. In case you don't know it here's a Youtube link to a live performance (appalling sound quality but you'll get the idea): [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5VNa2stGkQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5VNa2stGkQ[/url] Don't forget to restring your bass upside down before you start! I used to have the notes at one time, but after moving house a year ago I have no idea where they are now?? If you like it I can go look though.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1323344988' post='1462181'] only 3 at the moment, but I have various guitars too. For me it's a space issue more than anything [/quote] Oooh! Can we include guitars as well? Right, let me see now... that's, er, 7.... plus 10.... take away 3... carry the 1,............... 15!

7 here as well, down from (I think) 9 at it's peak, and about to go down to 5 once current offers are snapped up. (I mean, how many basses does one person need, really? )

[quote name='jjay69' timestamp='1323253245' post='1460989'] If budgets no problem theres no point asking us you need to get out there and try some, some will feel horrible, others much more like it. You could be a Fender man, Gibson, Warwick, wide neck, flat, thin, It's personal ! Anybody know motorbikes ? your either an Aria fit or a Shoei [/quote] With respect, surely the whole point here is that a beginner is in no position to make an informed choice, and no amount of tryouts is going to change that fact. You might as well tell him to go out and buy the one with his favourite colour scheme, or with the shiniest knobs, or any one of half a dozen other criteria that have nothing to do with the technical or aural qualities of the instrument. Nobody with any knowhow buys a £1500 bass just because it's a nice shade of blue. If the buyer wants to spend that much just because he can then fine, but let's not kid ourselves about it.

Looks like a nice desk, and should give you plenty of options plus scope for future expansion (such as live multitrack recording). It will be worth your while planning how you can get the best from it before shelling out your hard earned, as it will save you both money and unnecessary headaches later. For the time being 4 monitor sends should be plenty with a bit of careful grouping. As to the guitar/keyboard competition, use it as an opportunity to practise your leadership qualities and diplomacy skills! From what you've said I would think your keyboard player might be your first port of call - perhaps you could ask him why the built-in speakers need to be on after you've spent so much money on getting a properly balanced sound, and work from there. If all else fails, try offering him a monitor mix to himself. That should do the trick.

[quote name='jim_bass' timestamp='1323246542' post='1460886'] Thanks for all the replies. Here is a bit more information about our band/gear. On a average setup we are an 8/9 piece band. Drummer, Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Keyboard, Electic Guitar, Lead Vocals and up to 3 backing vocals. Our desk has 2 aux outputs plus 2 FX sends. We can't use wireless systems for in ear that mo because were already using all of the 4 free channel 70 frequencies for wireless mics. The long term plan was to put the backline (drums, bass, keys and acoustic guitar) on wired in ears and set up a wireless system of in ears for the rest of the band (when we can afford to move our wireless mics over to digital to free up some frequencies). So without going out and buying a new desk with more aux channels, were stuck with only 2 auxes. Also the system needs to be simple to set up as we have a limited time to pack up / tear down, so I don't really want to start putting extra stuff on stage such as small mixers for band members. [/quote] Tricky. A band that size with only 2 auxes free and limited radio capacity has to either bite the bullet and invest, or put up with a compromise setup of some sort - some options have already been mentioned above. If it helps, there are some things you can do (most of which you're probably doing already, but hey..):- 1. Bass players and drummers work as a team so they can share one feed, and with luck your acoustic guitarist will want this feed as well. 2. Electric guitarists are a bit of a law unto themselves I'm afraid (I know this 'cos I used to be one!), so let them choose which mix they want. 3. Singers need to hear other singers (as does everybody else BTW so make sure you give the Bass/Drum feed a decent vocal level), so optimise your main mix around that. However you do it you won't please everybody, so get something everybody can live with and try to leave it alone for the rest of the gig. (Once you start tinkering with it your life will get harder very quickly!) If you have plans to stay together a while you may want to consider having a simple onstage mixer setup for monitoring, and give someone (probably you yourself by the sound of it) the job of running it - it's a hassle but if a good monitor mix is important to you then sooner or later you're going to need to do it. Edit: headphones are the best solution for avoiding feedback, but (as mentioned above) other options are available, especially with an onstage mixer.

[quote name='algmusic' timestamp='1323215165' post='1460791'] I'm in function band where we all have our own mix.. the mixer has for aux, so we're sorted as we're a 3 piece.. The singer gets 1 to his in-ear via wireless transmitter, I have 2 via my small mixer into my in-ear (i'm on drums so that's ok), the bassist has the 3 going into his mackie 350 monitor. You should ask yourself one question.. could you all really just get the FOH? Is getting all your own mix that important? I've had it for years I guess you could all get a small 2/3 or 4 channel mixer each to save on the money, but like leftybassman said it's costly [/quote] Actually I like that as a solution - not only has everybody got their own mix, but the setup gives each band member their own preferred format as well. Nice. Gets harder with more band members though, especially if lots of them want stage monitors to strut on.

I actually gave essentially this same response to another thread earlier in the day that was similar but, er, different. Glad I can now put it to good use: The most efficient way to do it is to use the auxes on the desk - however many you have, that's how many different headphone mixes you can have. The way you're doing it right now is good in the sense that you can eliminate feedback (of the unwanted variety), but the downside is that you've only got one monitor mix - and as sure as eggs is ovoid, somebody in the band ain't gonna be happy with it. What you need is some way of getting:- a.) separate mixes for different band members, b.) some way of getting them to the ears of their intended recipients Auxilliary outputs from the desk are your friend here; the more you have the better. If some of your Auxes are being used for other things, try to find a different way of doing those things so you can give them to the monitoring system. (Any desk worth it's asking price will have separate aux send level controls for each channel, which means you can better accomodate 'give me more of me...' type requests - which you'll get a lot of once they realise it's available. ) You can get them to the ears of the band in one of two basic ways: 1. Run the signals along the cable snake if you have enough channels left and provide a set of individual headphones links/amps stageside; or 2. Invest in a set of wireless transmitters that can take the signal wirelessly to the band via beltpack receivers. 1. is cheaper but messy; 2 is more expensive but more elegant and a damn site easier to use. If you don't have enough auxes currently, decide who's most important in the band (good luck with that BTW), and provide them with custom mixes. Then tell the rest of the band to work with one of the available choices (good luck with that as well). Oh, and start saving for a desk with more aux outs. And while you're at it, feel free to dream about the day you can afford a dedicated monitoring mixer stageside with it's own dedicated tech. Having direct outs on your current desk is a good start. [b]Edit[/b]: the auxes need to be pre-fade of course. A lot of desks label post fade sends as auxes, when strictly speaking they're effects sends.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1323194473' post='1460452'] Eh? I meant me. [/size] [/quote] I know, but I got it round my neck in the first instance, which I think may have caused your confusion. (Still think I made a good point though - just on the wrong topic is all... )

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1323179233' post='1460151'] Sorry to appear dim, but are we talking about ear plugs or in-ear monitoring here? Or both? Confused. Edit: Right, got it, thanks! What an arse. [/quote] My bad. Sorry.

It also depends a bit on your monitoring setup. There's plenty of stuff on the market that will take an output straight from the desk and connect to the headsets via RF transmitters (assuming you have enough monitoring channels that is). I produced a young band a few years ago that did it that way, and they all swore by it - they could hear their own preferred individual mixes, and I didn't get constantly bugged about FOH levels. That, in turn, depends on having everyone connected to the P.A. - IMHO a must for all gigs (worth it even if you never need it out front as you still have the monitoring facility).

£1500 on a beginner bass? This is a joke, right? (And before anyone comes up with the 'oh well you're just jealous' line, my lineup includes a £2000+ Sei, a £2000+ Zon, a £1500+ Roscoe... I could go on...)

[quote name='daz' timestamp='1323002680' post='1458086'] Good question about its relative minor. I think i will do as suggested and just use Eb. ) [/quote] Think about it this way - you'll find it easier to make friends with horn players.

Get a tutor - simples!

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1322911228' post='1457160'] Frankly, I wouldn't write it down as D# but as Eb where the third is G. I recall that there is an argument that D# major is different to Eb major but I think that is generally archaic and less relevant today (please say if you know different). The fundamental thing is that, in normal scales and i order to make it write/readable, you have to have a ABCDEF and G. So D# major scale is D# E# F## G# A# B# C## D# - really cumbersome and an appalling read. [/quote] In Just Intonation they are two different notes - most obvious in the key of A, where D# would be noticeably different from Eb (exactly how different depends which system you use - using Pythagorean tuning gives (I think) the worst result, being some 24 cents different in pitch). In Equal Temperament (the one most of us use) they are the same because of the way note pitches are calculated. [/pedantry] I'd certainly write it as Eb, and suspect most would. Edit: just to be overly pedantic, Pythagorean tuning is not quite Just Intonation strictly speaking, but since the same basic method of note generation (simple ratios leading ultimately to pitch discrepancies) is used the basic argument remains valid.

I'm sure Doctor of the Bass can speak to this better than me, but I think Jaydee prices are still quite volatile (which I've always found odd considering the quality of the product). I bought an '80's Mark King Supernatural a few years ago on eBay for a little over £300, and traded it a couple of years later at closer to £800. Trading partner and I were both very happy with the trade, even though I was a bit confused...

[quote name='bassatnight' timestamp='1322903327' post='1457075'] ...might just hold out for a Wal Fretless if I can get it passed the wife! [/quote] Good luck with that (on both counts!). Not many around, and they're all expensive (as I'm sure you know already). If that's the goal though, have you tried Wal Basses Naturally on Yahoo groups?