Franticsmurf

Fortunately, it's rare that I have to learn new songs quickly - I'm rubbish at it. Repetition and crib notes work for me in those situations. The crib notes are mostly the chord/root notes of anything I'm not too sure about (an instrumental break, solo or key change for example) that doesn't follow the 'normal' structure of the song in question. I find listening to the originals when driving, walking etc helps familiarise myself with the song itself - even if I know the song I'll listen to it with my bass player ears. And watch your fellow musicians to spot the changes and chords (I've done this a lot with a guitarist I used to work with). Be up front with the band and tell them of any songs you're having problems with. And good luck. 😄

Don't worry, the Basschat emergency first responders are on their way. Just breath normally and try not to panic - you'll be fine. 🤣

I'm glad it's not just me. 😄 If it's been more than a couple of weeks I have to run through them just to get the details right although it's surprising how quickly the muscle memory kicks in once I've started playing them.

Love the video. 😄

Our sound guy has just set up a router so he can use his iPad. At the last couple of outdoor gigs he was out front wandering about and sorting the sound from the audience perspective.

In the Hulla band we use an X32. We have a sound guy who has put the time in at rehearsals and on his own to learn the desk. The band has 13 members and everything goes through FOH so with vocals that's 18 channels, and when the drums are mic'd an extra 4 or 5 channels. I'm not familiar with the XR18 but the X32 has snapshots of the settings (I think they're called scenes) and we have several set up for various regular venues. Without a dedicated sound engineer I think it would be overkill, or at least too complicated to run properly but for our set up it's brilliant. I have my own IEM monitor mix which means I have done away with back line for this band. The desk also records audio directly to a USB stick so we have a rough demo for practising to.

The last one we had knocked politely on the door and announced itself before commencing the shake. 🤣

I do this before a couple of songs, but I use the mute function of my tuner pedal so that no one else has to hear me.

Tuner (for that 'in tune' effect), EHX Bass Clone chorus, Behringer Phase Shifter, Laney Digbeth pre-amp. This is the pedal line up I use for the Hulla Band, although I'm actually using a Plethora X3 for the chorus and phase because I also occasionally use flange and I have an always on compressor in the line.

If those are accurate representations of the material, it will be an interesting album. 😄 My influences are probably as varied (though different) but if I was looking for musicians to work with, I'd try either and focus it down to the specifics that the music resembles ('Early Peter Gabriel meets Animal Kwackers'), or a more general 'rock', 'classical', 'EDM' label. I would keep the wider influences for the next conversation, with examples of the material.

I was in a band where the guitarist played the riff from a song we didn't play between songs and the audience started chanting for the song. The chanting continued after each of the following few songs before we ended the set. The rest of the band were not pleased with him and he left shortly after. I've been in several line-ups where the guitarist (in my experience always the guitarist) either noodles between songs and/or during the set up, sound check and even when the rest of us have left the stage for a pre-performance beer. It is extremely unprofessional, usually unwanted from the audience and very annoying. It always seem to be to be an attention seeking thing.

You have to have the bad ones to appreciate the good ones. Most of my 'bad ones' (and there have been more than a few) have turned into anecdotes and stories we now laugh about. Even if it is a kind of hysterical 'glad that's over' kind of laughter.

And still not my choice of music to listen to other than to learn the styles. But yes, so much fun to play. A particular eye opener was the Abba stuff. I'd heard it, of course, and everyone says how good Benny and Bjorn were at writing, but only when I started listening carefully did I realise how complex the arrangements were and how cleverly they were crafted to end up sounding simple. And some great bass lines. I learnt how to play the classic disco octave riff so that I could play Does Your Mother Know and Gimme Gimme Gimme. Now I slip it in to other songs if we're having a laugh. Sadly that band didn't last for various personnel reasons but the trio I'm with now are getting a lot of pressure from me to play Does Your Mother Know and Waterloo.

Between you and me and while no one is listening, I brought out my VBass because the three piece I'm working on now is looking to do some more adventurous stuff and it would sit along side my normal board during the rehearsals and arrangements sessions. Ideally I would not have them both on stage but they may co-exist for a while until I get an idea of what I actually need to play the songs we decide on. Incidentally, I played guitar in a duo and for several years I used the VG8 guitar version as my only effects. It was great as I could switch from electric to acoustic and the occasional strings. Hmmm, there's an idea for the bits of the set I play guitar on... 🤣

Yes, it is. Hence the little laughing emoji after my comment.

Blinkers kept me in a blues rock band for years until it folded. Then one of the band suggested playing a set of Abba/funk/disco stuff and I gave it a go. What a revelation - songs that I would never normally listen to other than on the radio were so much more fun to play. Interesting and challenging basslines, great songs and some good gigs. I'm still not a die hard fan of Abba/funk/disco music in general, but I'm glad I widened my horizons.

That's great - I probably miss out on such bargains being too cynical. 😄 The floor unit is a bit big - you're going to struggle to fit it on a commercially available pedalboard 🤣. I've got some time on my hands as we have a break in rehearsing and gigging so I'm going to start playing around with mine again. I can't comment on a lot of the emulations as I don't own the original instruments, but the Ricky sound is close to what I've been after and the other emulations are good sounds regardless of whether they're accurate. Some of the synth patches are nice, too.

Join a band. Or form your own. I'm in a band that I joined when I was 57 and at 59 I've just put together a 3 piece in the last couple of months, as the first band doesn't play often enough for me. Have a chat with your guitarist mate and see if there is common ground for you to become the pair around which the band forms. Be prepared to compromise a bit. The 3 piece I mentioned has me (a certified prog rockist), a guitarist/singer (very much a heavy blues/80's metal-ist) and the drummer (from early 70's via big band and jazz). If I'd gone with their genres, I would never have through they'd fit with what I wanted to do but with a bit of wiggling and some subtle hints, we're working on a bunch of tunes that we all like and which, because of the way we've arranged them, seem to work together.

I agree - would also class myself as a bit on the introverted side of average but as @Crusoe said above, I can play a part on stage. I find I am driven and motivated by the actions and reactions of others. In other words the energy I receive from a good reaction to a performance feeds back into the performance, and to my enthusiasm and motivation. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. I find the same with any group activities of which I am a part. Most noticeably, when trying to get a band going, get new songs into a band or try some new ideas for the stage act. If the other band members are keen and show it, I get a boost and I'll be the most enthusiastic there. But if they don't care and/or want to leave it just to me, I find it difficult to keep going and may even lose interest completely.

I have a Peavey Minimax 600, a TCE BAM200 and a Vox VX50B mini combo. In one band, I have recently taken the plunge and gone DI only, but only because there is someone that knows what they're doing looking after the FOH sound and my IEM mix. The other band is a three piece and there's no intention of going ampless there as we only want a small PA for vocals to keep things simple. For those gigs I'd use the Minimax as it has a more comprehensive pre-amp section and the headroom to cope with small venue gigs. The BAM200 would come along as a spare. The Vox is surprisingly loud and easily copes with rehearsals. I have gigged with it a couple of times and it's doubled as a monitor for me on several occasions.

I have everything I need to play the gigs I anticipate in the next 6-12 months. However... Having recently been using my Ibanez EHB1000s at gigs, I really like the sound and design and quite fancy one of the long scale models. The EHB1500 series is rather nice. I've also been thinking that to complete the line-up, it would be good to have a semi-acoustic bass. And for some strange reason I've been gassing after a Telecaster style guitar - I occasionally play guitar on one or two numbers and have depped on guitar with a mate in the past. I'm always on the lookout for interesting pedals but nothing specific come to mind.

I wish I'd started playing bass earlier than I did. For the first few band playing years I was the guitarist in an originals outfit but I was mediocre at best (the drummer and I were good at writing but my guitar skills limited the final results on stage). Our band struggled with keeping bass players, so all the clues were there. With the clarity of hindsight, I should have played bass from the outset. I doubt we would have made a bigger impact on the music scene than we did (think small ripple in a puddle), but the experience would have been a more enjoyable one and the band would have lasted longer. When I finally did start playing bass, I found it came naturally to me in a way that playing guitar didn't. The rhythm side of things in particular I found easy to get and as I was best mates with the drummer from schooldays, we made quite a pair driving the music. But that line up didn't last (ironically by then we had problems with the guitarist) and I ended up parting company with my mate and playing in a covers band/duo for 20 years.

Step away from the source of GAS - is it online? Move on to the next page and tell yourself you'll revisit it tomorrow. I find that a day or two usually lessens if not removes the temptation of GAS as common sense/logic kicks in. Talk it through with band mates who understand the situation (and who have experienced GAS themselves) and that you know will give you an honest opinion. Could you borrow a similar guitar to try and satisfy the GAS without the 'A'? Good luck from a fellow GASer. 😄

Another vote for the MS60B. I bought it as a stop gap and a means to try out effects types before investing in a dedicated pedal version. It has been the one pedal that has remained on my board throughout the changes I've made for various projects. I now use a Plethora X3 for compression, chorus, flange, phase, octave and delay but the MS60B supplies most of the overdrive options, amp sims and all my filter sounds. I have specific patches on the Zoom for songs like 'Sledgehammer' and 'Dakota' which require a quite specialised but one-off sound. In rehearsals, I can use the MS60B to quickly approximate a new sound before fine tuning it later.

It takes me ages to learn a specific bass part to play to the point where, pre-lockdown, I got in to the habit of accepting a simpler version that was quicker to learn. This was partly to do with the nature of the band I was in at the time (I have posted elsewhere about the singer who would 'wing it' through most of our songs). There was never an incentive for me to learn the accurate part (or an interesting variation of it) because we rarely played the song properly, or even consistently. During lockdown the rest of the band left the singer and as soon as we were able, began a new project and sure enough, it was still taking me ages to nail the bass parts. As the OP and others have said, things that some people pick up instantly I had to work hard at (and still do). I have a particular problem with playing riffs and runs that use a mix of open and fretted notes around the first three frets which for some reason take me longer to get right than the same pattern all fretted. But I learnt that it was worth the effort for the end result and I feel I became a better bassist as a result of learning those parts. I can't read music and have no interest in doing so (I'm not dismissing the skill and I admire those who can). I can improvise over basic chord progressions (the random arrangements, keys and even songs our singer would introduce during a gig taught me to be confident in the basics). Playing with other musicians made me better, and playing in a relaxed and 'safe' environment (rehearsals and jams with people where I felt comfortable trying new stuff out and making mistakes) meant I could learn along the way. To the OP - I wonder if you're a bit too self critical? Forget what you can't do, get into jam sessions with like-minded musicians and see what you can do. Jam along to backing tracks, a drum machine, the radio. I think playing for fun, without the goal of being perfect, is a great benefit. And play the instrument you feel most comfortable with. But, this being Basschat, it would be wrong of me not to add my voice to the growing mass encouraging you to buy a new bass. It won't make you a better bassist (I know, I've tried it). But it's new... 🤣