Muzz

I've played with plenty of people who thought they were the dog's do-dars...didn't seem to help most of them, tonally, or otherwise... 🙂

There's a thread/article somewhere on the other place with a blind comparison of a chunk of scrap wood (pine, I think? plywood?) with some bits slung together vs a real bass. It's like the Zapruder film in tonewood terms...worth a look, bring your own popcorn... 😕🙂

While we're drifting past bass names, it's worth mentioning at this point that an anagram of 'Fender Precision Bass' is 'Reinforced Penis Bass' Just sayin... 🙂

Yeah, that's about it - the singist gets the ultimate veto, tho there's at least the pretence of democracy about it all... 🙂

It's always the singist's prerogative to choose the songs. It's easy to forget how personal a challenge it is to stand up and sing in front of people, and there's enough beaching and moaning goes on on here about playing songs folk don't like when we're mostly standing at the back, and don't have to invest as much of ourselves in the process*. Also, before anyone gets all het up with the person getting the gigs and getting all the band members to commit to and actually turn up to them, I'd suggest trying it...herding cats is slightly easier... * With all due credit to singing bassists here...double points, chapeau, etc... 🙂

And another haul back onto topic: first rehearsal in several months with the Proper Rawk Band. Shedbuilding, Cosy-Powellesque* drummer, two Marshall 100w heads on angled 412s, stoooopidly loud. None of the clever FRFR/In-ears hoohah from the other band(s) - Bass(es) into Walkabout into BF Super Twin. Gain around midday (juuust before it starts to squish), nothing extreme in the EQ, other than my usual -15db at 30Hz cut, Master at 9 o'clock. Massively loud. And I mean massively. If your Walkabout isn't loud enough, it's definitely the cab that's the issue. I was cursing that I'd forgotten my attenuators, and my ears are howling today. I've said it before, and I'll say it again... 300w my a*se... 😁 Oh, and it sounded absolutely fabulous. 😁 * In terms of volume and, erm, brio, rather than talent. Unfortunately...

Went into PMT Manchester on Satdy with high hopes of giving one of these a run out... "Sorry, we haven't got one. No firm date yet, but we'll drop you and email when one turns up..." 😕

1) Nope, not at all: only a tiny, tiny percentage of bass lines are recognisable by the 'audience', and an awful lot of songs could be played with root notes and no-one would notice 2) In pub rock bands, possibly, but in music in general? Nope. 3) Again, that completely depends on genre, gig and audience. I've seen a gig where the bass player had a total rig failure, the guitard cranked up the bottom end from his rig and they got away with it. I went to see Cadillac Three recently, and presumed because on their vids there's just drums, lap steel and guitar/vocals they'd have a bassist live. Nope. They were epic.

I managed a minute, nowt happened, gave up...it's a seven minute vid, I'm guessing he has time to hit everything twice each...

Like 99.9% of bass solos...

Doesn't take much on that place... 😕🙂 I think the definitive definition (eh?) is the patent application from Clarence L Fender from 1953 that says 'Guitar'...

Not really negative (OK, the example I gave was an extreme one, but to be fair, he was a d*ck (and a hammered d*ck at that)), if you gave me the choice I'd rather people complimented the band rather than me, because I know I'm an integral part of the band (we could blather on about degrees of this till the end of time) and its sound, so a compliment on that is also a compliment to me.

Noel Fraser's band(s). We were down there a couple of weeks ago for the jam hosted by The Lottery Winners* - Noel lives round the corner. I was in a band with Graham decades ago when he was mainly a drummer. * And man, what a talented bunch they are...

I like people to compliment the band, I like to see people enjoying themselves and having a dance. If I get buttonholed by someone talking bass, it makes me squirm a bit, although the last time it happened, it was a p*ssed punter complaining that I had the wrong neck on my Shukerbird. He came up to me three times: "That's neck's all wrong." "I like it." "But who would do that?" "John Entwistle. Leon Wilkeson*" "Who?" "Yep." "What?" * OK, OK, technically the same bass, but hey...

They want to hear a good band. If you're doing your job right, they will. That's all they want from a bass player, tho you'll very very rarely hear it expressed as such. If you want to be noticed individually, buy a Bootsy star bass, but brace for everyone calling it a guitar...

Wouldn't have been the Half Moon with Graham, would it? We were supposed to be doing that one, but singist/guitard had a late work commitment...it's good down there, tho we got bounced from a double-booking the other Sunday, so keep the landlord/lady, erm, focussed 😕🙂. We're back there on the 21st...

That's great news, thanks very much; well, given that I'm making do with the slightly warbly Zoom at the moment, I'm sure it'll be an improvement - it's only for one or two songs with the function band, but I've a side project with a band that's been reanimated after 29 years for one final gig next year, and the singist is struggling with the vocals, so we might have to drop the whole thing a tone to do it. Nothing Dave Coverdale doesn't do on a regular basis, obviously, but a good pitch shifter would make things much simpler 😀 Thanks again ...now to find a secondhand one... 😀

Fantastic, thanks

You can add quite a few Dingwalls to the 'stealth' category - Sheldon makes a 'P-Tone' pickup that's exactly that, a split-coil in a soapbar - see below. Oh, and my Shukerbird has a Dingwall P-Tone underneath the chrome pickup cover..kinda double-stealth 😁