Muzz

Shamelessly copied and pasted from a post of mine years ago, but, I hope, worth a revisit: Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 40+ years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

@Frank Blank - Jabba short scales, fretted and fretless, Ibanez SRC6, QSC K12.2, Grace Design preamp. @rwillett - Ibanez short scale, Fender Jazz bass, Fender Mustang bass, Telecaster, Westone six string, 3d printed guitar, small practise bass amp, small practise guitar amp, Mod Dwarf, various guitar/USB interfaces and quite a lot of software and a fair few laptops as required. I live next door Probably cake as well. @ossyrocks- '73 P bass, '73 J bass, '78 P bass, '87 MIJ P Bass, Fender Bassman 50 (rebuilt from the ground up by Gartone), Bergantino Forte D, TE Elf, Barefaced Super Compact and One10, Fender Rumble 100. @sifi2112 Vigier Excess 4, Mas26 (x2) sfx D3 preamp Koch ATR4502 poweramp @neepheid - Some and hopefully all of Epiphone Jack Casady, G&L L-1000, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, G&L Tribute LB-100, Sire D5, Reverend Triad, Yamaha BB1200, Harley Benton HB-50, Soloking MJ-1, Epiphone Explorer, Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV, Markbass NY 121 cab @ead - ACG SLG 32" 4-string; "Lee Sklar bass"; Ibanez Grooveline GS104; Yamaha Attitude Special; SBMM Pete Wentz Stingray sig bass; practice amp (with headphones) @Muzz Three or four various Shukers, Dingwall ABZ4, modded BB414, modded Rumble 100, modded Westone Quantum, Helix Stomp, possibly Walkabout and BF cabs if I've got enough room in the car...

No gig last weekend, and the other proto-band collapsed due to lethargy/inertia on the part of two of the members, but the good news is I'm starting Satdy on a run of 8 March gigs with the 'busy' band...

Looks great Rob, and a very very interesting exercise in using new technology...I'm sitting on a sofa scattered with popcorn awaiting the results under, erm, tension... 🙂 The design aesthetic would to me suit a headless based around a certain carbon-fibe/graphite-centred design from the UK but hey, that's just me. And now the inevitable Basschat question: what sort of weight is the body (I know there's more to add) at the moment? PS When I'm putting strings on a bass with a bridge slot that's reluctant to hold the string in place when slack, I follow JohnH's method for the first turn on the peg/post, then put the ball end in the slot and use my right hand to lift the string for some tension under winding (near the nut, using my right thumb to keep the string low around the tuning peg/post) and wind until there's enough tension to keep the ball end in the tuner slot. Sounds awkward, but it's pretty simple.

I'm gigging all the time now (8 gigs in March coming up) with inears/P2, but fortunately the BL's desk has individual Monitor mixes, otherwise I'd be miserable: my mix has a smidge of/guide vocal and guitar, plenty of kit (snare, kick, toms) and me, and no percussion whatsoever (it's an oddish lineup with singing guitarist, me, drummer and percussionist). Works a treat for me, but I'm sure the BL's mix wouldn't.

Dirty Honey at the Academy 2 (the best of the 4) in Manchester...quality band, tho I've seen them three times in the last 18 months, so I'll wait a little before seeing them again. Of note, though, was the rarity of a well-engineered bottom end to the sound: in fact, I went to the desk at the end to congratulate the SE on NOT making the kick sound like a cannon and the bass like rumbly mush...

A quick phone call to a Mr Shuker in Derbyshire: 'Hi Jon' 'Hi' 'Can you make me a 6lb P-Bass? In black, my normal spec neck, Hipshot hardware and something like the old East P-Retro?' 'Yeah, sure' 'Smashing. I'm going on holiday with a grand I suddenly have spare, I'll ring you when I'm back'

Friday night was a bar gig in Burnley, late start (first set start 10:40), late finish, and as you play on the dance floor in a corner, the second the band finishes and the club music comes on (after 1am) you're breaking down kit surrounded by pisht dancers...an hour home, too, was late night. I played a Paddy's Day afternoon/early evening gig in a pub in Manchester town centre once (an, erm, 'authentically organic' place (aka 'murky dive'); there was a bloke selling meat from a shopping bag at half time) where the band was split (drummer and me one side, singist the other) because the place was corridor-shaped with bench seating and the bogs were at the back...very disconcerting to have people just walk past backwards and forwards between us during the set. One older bloke went seven times in the first set, and was eventually rewarded with his own dedication to Should I Stay Or Should I Go...

This is exactly what my (slightly modded; just tuners and bridge) 414 is: it's my most-gigged bass, ahead of half a dozen basses that cost several times as much, and it just does the job. If it were a pound lighter (I'm getting very fussy about weight these days) it'd be perfect...I love the sound of a P, and the 414 does that a treat...

I'm here for this one, but especially for an even lighter (overall) v.3 Headless...

I've got a 3-knob/2-switch Uni-Pre squeezed into an Epiphone-bodied Thunderbird, and they're not exactly big in the cavity; IIRC, you can buy the East Pres as individual pots/mini boards, that might work, given that bend in the cavity...

These days* I hear with my lower back... When I switched to BF cabs, I made an effort/commitment to re-EQ, and made a leap of faith to consider the cabs as capable of producing anything I put in...and it worked. * Well, not so much these days; I've just mentioed in another thread that this weekend I realised I've not used my 'big' rig (Mesa/BF) more than a couple of times since before lockdown: I'm all IEMs and DI'd Stomp...

Was chatting over the weekend, and realised it's been pushing 3 years since I used my Mesa/Barefaced rig, and that was for two auditions, prior to that it was 2019...I've only used the small combo for monitoring a few times in the last year, too...both bands I'm in I only need the Stomp and inears, and I'm not convinced I could go back to hauling a (admittedly pretty light) rig around any more...

I've watched that bit of the video, and that intro to Am I Evil? is definitely musically, let's say martial, and an adrenalised performer walking to it in that way for a couple of seconds can very easily be conflated without context into all sorts of personal belief systems...as Loz says above, sometimes things ain't what they seem - ask Roger Waters: lots of still images from his last tour could (and did in some places) be taken in isolation as proof positive he's a raving Nazi without the context of the song. Not to say he's a bloke without some iffy tendencies and sympathies*, but the Nazi thing is part of The Wall, and context is everything... * And he's a cantankerous old git, tho the involuntary 'ooof' through the mic when he sat down at the piano did make me smile...

I still look adoringly at Les Paul basses, even though they all weigh the same as a small planet and would last about 20 minutes in my house after I'd stood up with one on a strap...oh, and headless Statii...I've had one, and didn't like the sound at all, but I do like the shape...oh, and yes, Stingrays, despite me having had three of the things (great basses, but everyone else sounds better with them than me), if I faltered in the wrong place at the wrong time I'd have a fourth...

Back in the days when I was in an originals band that played places you could actually walk on the stage (usually from some diseased/condemned back room), we had the first minute of this as our intro - big and arresting, but nothing like the music we were going to play...and it was in the same key as the opening song... Every time I hear it it still makes me a bit giddy... 🙂

I'm in Chris's camp here: nowadays I don't own anything over about 8lbs (and with my busier gigging schedule I use the heavier ones less and less), and I've been looking for something a lot lighter. Something really good around 6 1/2lbs would be ideal for me.

Oh my, a Kawai Sleekline...haven't seen one of those in an age...there was one in A1 Manchester for a lonnng time, but I was in my Rawk n Roll phase, and if it wasn't an Explorer/Thunderbird/Something Pointlessly Pointy, I wasn't really interested...

Meanwhile, on the Bax-Shop...

They look nice, just been looking...with my main criteria being 'What does the thing weigh?', and, as ever, it's not easy to find out. The PMT page in particular clearly couldn't give a flying...erm, whatever:

It's not a weight I would even tolerate these days, mostly because I'm gigging more now than I have in a very long time, and I'm older than I've ever been...I had a 78 Jazz about ten years ago which was pushing 12lbs, and I never gigged that, I moved it on pretty quickly. Then again, it was just a Jazz, and not a very good one at that. If it helps with perspective, I'm still on the lookout for a light main gigging bass, and I'm not even considering anything over 7lbs...

If all the band are in-ears (and even if not, but it's easier to sell the idea if it's to everyone's benefit) then to reduce the feel of isolation (tho you do get used to it) you might want to consider an ambient mic on the stage, just for a 'room sound' - also helps with those moments when you need to talk to each other: it always seems to happen the minute you get your inears properly in and settled... Doesn't have to be anything posh, just something that'll pick up the room...

The only stuff of YYNOT's I've heard is live, I'd imagine in a more controlled environment like the OP's vid the actual sounds might be closer...

Musically bang on, tho the singer sounds like he's right at the very top of his comfort range - here's a different approach that I like (tho IMHO, YMMV, etc) - again, musically bang on, and a girl singist works for me...

As a callback to my list above, I'd concur with the advice to try if you can - that 2024 I tried was a surprise (hence the 'sleeper' thing) in that it was so good, so, for want of a better word, alive...I'd hope the BBP34 is of a similar level...they don't look very exciting, but in hand it's another matter entirely... Sadly, the weight (I'm very weight-aware, more than 8lbs and I'm out) and neck profile (again, I'm very specific, and 40mm is only any good if it's a slim 40mm) rule me out.