Muzz

I play with a The 'Singer's Name' Band, and it isn't an issue at all - I've played in other, more obscurely named bands where ego issues have been much, much worse...on the plus side, if there's any mither from punters or the people paying, you can point to the named bloke and say 'Dunno, ask him; it's his band...' 😁

I'm a bassist largely* because when we were 13, a friend said to me "Let's learn to play - I'll be a guitarist, so you'll have to be something else...you can play the bass". Seeing as it was his idea, I didn't contradict him. He stuck at it for about three months, I'm still ploughing on 45 years later... 🙂 * That and, as I've mentioned before, the gloriously unholy noise Jean Jacques Burnel made 14 seconds in to Hanging Around...: 'What's THAT?' 'That's the bass.' 'Maaaan, I'm doing that...'

This reminds me of why I loooove Bobby Vega...whatever he's doing with his thumb... 🙂

A friend of mine, (who's worked in the industry all his life) they make everyone sound a bit better, and it's true it's hard to sound exactly bad with one...once said I had one (with a MB 410) for a while...I found that putting a Sansamp/BDI21 in front of it made it growl much more the way I liked...until the drummer (of all people) said "You always have that pedal on, why don't you just get an amp that sounds like that?" So I moved it on, and did... Again, those filter knobs aren't exactly intuitive with their 0=Flat thing, but even playing with them, I was never really happy with the sound...

Y'see, I'm the opposite; I've always wanted to try those Quad pickups, but the big fat a$$ on the bass makes them an immediate No, Ta from me... Still, as has been said, it's always a shame to see a UK luthier with obviously top quality output cease production...

You know those EBay listings when you're frustrated because the pics don't allow a zoom? Well, in this case, I'm very grateful...

Ooooo, me back, just reading that...

Actually, I should qualify that; even the idiots have lessons to teach: 'Don't bring a double-kick kit with 17 cymbals, 8 rototoms and your bloody gong to the Dog & Duck on a Wednesday night' being a particularly valuable drummer-supplied one... Edit: that's the lesson that's valuable, not the drummer. He was an industrial-grade pillock...

Oh, and I forgot another big thing in the Plus category for more than one band; the more people you play with (as long as they're not idiots), the better you get... 🙂

We supported them at Jillys in Manchester back in the day...yeah, it was a wild one... 😁

Now, where's that pic? Ahhh, here it is... 🙂

I've used a few (OK, a lot - I've bought and sold more amps than cabs, which says something in itself), but now (and for the forseeable) I have a Mesa Walkabout into a Big Twin or Compact (or, when I'm feeling particularly epic and stacktastic, both)- the cabs put out what goes in, and it sounds fantastic. And I love them especially when loading out at 1am...

I think I'd be responding around the subject of how I wasn't keen on their haircuts/the cut of their jib generally... 😕🙂 If your gigs are variable in size, then the backline/lack of should be variable, too...here's mine - IEMs/Stomp, Fender 100 combo (uprated speaker, juuust in case), and Mesa/BF half stack/stack. The heaviest chunk is 38lbs... Oh, and I use it these days in roughly that order; I've only used the full stack once...

Oooooh, I'd love to fling a far-flung gig...best I managed last year was Glasgow... 😀

That Fenderbird (well, technically a Shukerbird) has been waiting a long time for that sort of gig. It gets used in the Rawk band, but some Skynyrd would be nice... 🙂

Yup, I like the buzz of playing something new for the first time - the non-rehearsing band is a trio, and the other two are better musicians than me, so it's always a challenge. It's made me a much better bassist than all those interminable rehearsals with nit-picking numpties... 🙂 I pick up gigs wherever and whenever I can; the main band used to be out every weekend, and apart from the fun (which can be variable; we did 40+ weddings one year, and there's only so many vol-au-vents a man can eat), you get used to the money...well, I did...

I'm actively playing with four (soon to be five) bands, although two of them involve the same singer/geetard; one's the main pub/function/wedding band, the other's a very occasional originals band. Then there's another, revived-from-30-years-ago originals band, which is also very occasional (no gigs on the horizon, but if a festival calls, we'll play it, sort of thing). There's a Rawk band which plays pubs maybe half a dozen times a year, and is mainly for the nostalgia of the music. The new band will be a busier pub band, to take up the slack from the lack of gigs of the main band (the singer/geetard is doing a lot of solo stuff these days)...it's these last two which will produce gig conflicts, which I'll have to manage. All the bands know I'm in the other bands, and I have a Google Calendar just for gigs. They're all pro-minded people, so no-one's taken any sort of offence. So far, no issues...I'd rather juggle a calendar than sit at home twiddling my thumbs of a weekend when I could be out earning money... We don't rehearse with the main band (been together too long to bother now, plus we have a very very good reading drummer), the originals bands we only rehearse if there's a show booked (i.e. very occasionally), the Rawk band are a little more rehearsal-focused (but I'm trying to wean them off that particular crutch), and the new band I'm braced for a few rehearsals. I've been doing this too long to be a fan of lots of rehearsals... The biggest issue, tho, is keeping hundreds of songs* in my head at the same time... * The main band songbook is 150 or so, of which I could get a 50-song setlist at any time, the originals bands 30 or 40 each, the Rawk band the same, and the new band I'm expecting a few more...very little overlap, to be honest...

Well, I've taken it to him each time...and it's an older bass (possibly 12-15 years? It's an early Horn; there was a pic of it on the site up until a few years ago, but even then it was a good scroll to get to it...), so I would doubt it.

I like a Jazz width nut and a slim neck...that's about as close as I get, figures-wise - I suppose I could take lots of measurements of my favourite one, but these days I just take the bass to Jon and he copies it...simples 🙂

Jon will make the neck profile anything you want - every bass/neck he makes for me I take down my favourite-necked bass (a Shuker, too, as it happens; I like a verrry slim neck) and he makes one based on that. He's even slimmed down a neck on an existing bass to match it...and I have a JJB sig on the way from him, this has 'my' neck profile, too... TLDR: Jon can make owt... 🙂

NYE was a small local(ish) bar; minimal gear (we used the venue's speakers as tops, brought our sub, drummer used a kick trigger, I used my Rumble 100 as a monitor, guitarist pedal/DI, one small monitor), we weren't too loud, and it was a revelation (again). Punters had a great night, and I was tapped up for another busy band as a part-time/dep. All good. LFTs before and after, all clear.

I'm a simple creature; after years of faffing about, I've found Elixirs make all my basses sound better...

I've got a couple of BBs (and I've had a few more, too) and a Dingwall ABZ, and I've played a D-Roc (the Far East version), and I'd agree with what's been said above about the more modern sounds from the D-Roc. I put a Dingwall Split-P pickup into the neck position of my ABZ (and it has an East Preamp) for that very reason - now it can do the modern sounds and the more traditional ones, too. The build quality and 'sing' of the Dingwall is better than pretty much any of the BBs I've had (with the possible exception of a 2024 I played at Bass Direct a good while ago), then again it's better than pretty much any bass I've owned, and that includes Alembics, Statii, Seis, Overwaters, etc, etc... It is a Canadian Dingwall, tho, and they're that bit better than the Far East ones... It's just a shame it doesn't get played much any more... My BB of choice these days is a mildly customised BB414 (yeah, the cheap one), which is as good a P/J bass as an awful lot I've had/played for three, four, five times the price.

Being a fan of slimmer necks, I made several bitsas with P bodies and J-width necks, then when I stepped up to the luthier domain, I found I could ask for anything I wanted, and get it made (by Jon Shuker, as it happens, but other luthiers, as they say, are available) for much less than the Fender CS would charge me for reaching across to the other shelf for a different neck and bolting that on... I've even got a Shuker JJB in the offing with a slimmer-than-Jazz-width* neck... * I have all my Shuker basses (including the neck for my Shukerbird) made to the same profile as my favourite neck (which also happens to be a Shuker, but I bought that one secondhand, so it was kind of a happy accident), and that's Geddy Jazz-slim...