Muzz

I do like that...sums up quite a lot of basses I've owned and played... 😁

I had a ZZB - in fact I've got one at the moment stashed away, because it needs lots of work, but although they're not heavy (they're a 32" scale, too) IIRC there was some neck dive...and that's from a Fenderbird lover... I've played a Buzzard, and (again IIRC) it wasn't light; it had that Warwick Brick Outhouse Build to it, tho...unless you tuck it right up under your right arm a la Entwistle, the nut can get a lonnnng way away... +1 for the Dingwall D-Bird/D-Rocs; not heavy at all, and the body curves and balance are exemplary...

Having left the last three big stadium-type gigs* mid-concert, you couldn't persuade me to part with the best part of £100 (or more) for the experience any more. I saw the fantastic Robert Jon and the Wreck at Night and Day (250 capacity) for £12 the other week, and I'm going to Cadillac 3 at the Academy for £22, this sort of gig invariably sounds better, looks better, and has a much better atmosphere, for a fraction of the nose-bleeding cost of the stadium stuff. The Ritz is my favourite venue (the O2 Leeds is good, too) for slightly more well-known bands, and I can't recall a bad sound in there, ever. The only big-capacity gig I've enjoyed in the last few years was Ennio Morricone in Dublin, but that, as you can imagine, was a seated affair...and given there were 198 people on the stage, a big venue was pretty much required... *The Foo Fighters at Manchester Cricket Ground, the Hollywood Vampires at the MEN, and Alterbridge at the MEN...all because of truly dreadful, gig-ruining sound...well, the Hollywood Vampires were a joke musically, as well, but the sound was very poor, too...

When I first dipped a toe into these waters (pre-Stomp days), I used my iPad and the Positive Grid preamps/effects into a Markbass F1. I'm not that keen on the LM heads, but I thought the F1 was very 'quick and clean'...plus it's a lot smaller than the LMs... You'd have to find a SH one these days, tho...

A shot from last Friday: 414 with Fender bridge and Hipshot Ultralites (inc D-Tuner)...the perfect 'Don't worry about it' gigging P-Bass... 🙂

Yeah, they must have reformed with younger members; they were the youngest band by a looong way last weekend...Jay's a great drummer, too...

Yep, Jay was running the whole thing, as well as smashing it on drums and guitar - they're a great band, especially since I've got socks older than most of them... 😃 Edit: I've just checked, and Jay's Status Quoing were a much younger lineup than the one I've found online...

I've had better nights, for sure...

A bit of a curate's egg of a weekend at the McVention Quo festival in Glasgow. We (the originals band) played the Friday night, and went down well for the only non-Quo-Trib band on for the weekend. I cocked up badly on the energy front, tho; I got a Greggs at about 8 in the morning on the way up there, and then with all the faffing of a multi-band lineup, I didn't eat before we went on at 8pm. I'm still recovering from the nasty flu&Covid thing I had a couple of weeks ago (though I've been fully negative for more than a week), and just didn't have enough in the tank, so three songs in I went off a cliff in terms of energy; I honestly thought I was gonna collapse, and I don't remember the last three songs. If it'd have been anything other than a gig, I would've gone and laid down, but hey, the show goes on... I felt better after a Maccy D's after I got off stage, but I was in bed in the hotel for eleven... Was OK for the next day - I stuck around to roadie for/watch State Of Quo, the band our drummer and geetarist are in (they were the best band of the weekend, including John Coghlan's bunch), and we went our for a curry after, but it was hardly the Bacchanalian debauchery it could have been... The supplied Markbass rig (LMIII and 2 x 410HFs) reminded me why I sold my MB stuff years ago, but I made the best of it, and apparently it sounded good out front... This is the first number, before I felt like lying down on the stage and expiring...:

Like BRX, my Stomp is now 'my sound in a box' (and yeah, that includes amp/cab sims, compression, etc) which is invaluable for the different varieties of gigs I do, from tiny pubs using minimal gear to big stages with supplied backline. All I do is amplify it differently. I also use it for a pretty wide range of sounds I need in the covers band (and yeah, Muse is part of that), and also for pitch shifting (I have several banks of sounds, each one shifted down, from E to Eb to D to Db to C). So the short answer is, for me, yep.

😁

I do quite a few varieties of gigs, so I have a few setups; for the pub/function trio, we have a small but good quality PA (we use triggered drums) which we take to every gig, so why wouldn't I reduce my load and take the minimum kit and go into the PA? I'll either use IEMs or, for simplicity in small pubs, I have a Rumble 100 which I cut all the bass from and use as a small monitor, and let the PA do the heavy lifting. I also have a bigger rig for use in the 'traditional' Rawk Band, which isn't set up for IEMs, the geetards use Marshall 100s/412s. My sound comes from the Helix Stomp, so my amps are mostly flat; the only time I EQ is for the room. I'm playing a big 'shared backline' gig at the weekend, there's a MarkBass 2x410 rig provided, again I'll just set it flat, use the Stomp in front of it, and let the engineer worry about the FOH. Edit: TLDR, I guess the short answer is 'both'.

Not a gig last night, but the last rehearsal (of two) for Red Sky, the originals band we brought back from the dead for a 30th anniversary gig in 2019 - we're playing the McVention in Glasgow on Friday night. It's a Quo convention, we're the only non-Quo band on, our singer/guitarist and drummer play in State Of Quo, and they're doing the Saturday night, but the organisers are fans of Red Sky, and asked us to play on the Friday. The keyboard player and I will roadie for State of Quo on the Satdy night. Looking forward to a weekend in Glasgow immensely... 😃

So a man who owes a good deal of his business success to Wood Woo-woo writes an article espousing Wood Woo-woo? Well, that's convincing. Sequere Pecuniam...

Reminds me of a quote from David Hepworth: 'The world is divided into two types of people; those who quite like Van Morrison, and those who've met him...'

I've got a Shuker with a neck I had made to match one of my other Shukers in terms of size (verrrry slim) - it occasionally needs a tweak, but the original never does. I've accepted that as a small price to pay for a very slim neck profile. The one which needs a tweak has a maple board, the original's ebony, but I'm not convinced that's the defining factor - the original is also 6 or 7 years older than the newer one... My Dingwall, on the other hand, is all maple, and hasn't moved a thou in at least a decade.

Dunlop Nylon 88s...I might find something better, then again, it's been 45 years with them exclusively so far, so maybe not... 😁

I thought we'd had a lot of this at all sorts of gigs until we started playing regularly at a 'proper' Irish bar in the city centre. The requests for obscure Irish songs* are pretty constant (think Father Ted's Mrs Doyle), as is the look of affronted amazement when you tell them you don't know the song in question...then they forget and just enjoy themselves anyway... * Including the Irish classic Dirty Old Town...you know, the one written by a bloke from Salford about Salford (we do do that one, tho)...one of the bouncers told me he wins twenty or thirty quid in bets every week from hammered punters convinced it's Irish. He has the Wiki page as a shortcut on his phone for proof and everything... 🙂

I mentioned this sat the time, but a couple of weeks ago we had a gig in a bar-above-a-bar for a 40th, full of, let's say nasally-imbibed punters, and three songs into the second set one hero just stood right in front (like, a foot in front - there was no room for him to get round in between us, or I'm sure he would have tried) of the singer repeating 'I'll sing the next one' over and over as we were playing. Security were apparently busy downstairs in the public bar. Singer stopped the band, we packed up, got paid, and were back in the cars by 9:45. After so many idiots at so many gigs, we have zero tolerance for them these days. Sadly, the huge increase in the aforementioned nasal stimulants as the core of a night out means there's even more of them about...

Mesa Boogie Head, BF cabs. Took a while to get there, but it's been that for a long while now, and I'm not inclined to change anything. That's when I'm not using inears and a Stomp...although I use the Stomp all the time... The last matching head and cabs was a Markball LMIII and the 410, about ten years ago...it was OK, but a little too cultured for me. I'm playing a festival in Glasgow in a couple of weeks where the supplied backline will be all Markbass, I'll be using my Stomp, so I doubt it'll sound very cultured once I've finished with it...in fact that was the reason I moved the LMII on; I found I was using a pedal in front of it all the time to perk it up, so I went on the hunt for a better head (for me)...oh, and the 410 got nicked... 😕

Since I got my ST (a few years ago now) I've not looked at another cab, nor have I ever felt it wasn't enough to keep up with (actually annihilate, but that's not the point) the daftest of drummers (and two 100w Marshall/412 geetards)...even with a 300w head... They're simple to move, light, and they have wheels. I've even had the drummer offer to help move my gear since he worked out how light it is...

Dunno about the 424, I kinda missed that one out, but the 414 is a shallower neck than the 1024 (and the 3000A, and the 1100S). And it's a lighter bass, too...I need a white BB for a particular band, this is about as good as I'm gonna get, and, bonus time, it's not cost me much at all... 😃

Yup, I did exactly the same. I have more precise criteria tho; light as poss, neck slim as poss. I don't think the 2024 would be light enough or have a slim enough neck for me to part with four figures, especially now I've replaced the bridge and tuners on my 414...

I had three AE112s, which I loved (with the tweeters off), but FONBLE* meant that, rather than take one or two most places, I'd always take all three, which meant 90lbs+ of cabs, even in three lumps, so I moved them on. * Fear Of Not Being Loud Enough...it's a turrible thing...

Awwww, poor Peter...he was very much the Ken* of the band; the worst makeup, too...and then there's that solo album...eeeeek... * As in the famous Viz 'Matt, Luke and Ken' thing when Bros started...