scalpy

Big plus one for Happy Jack’s thread, he beat me to the link by a matter of seconds! I’ve found the advice very useful and has definitely helped me with similar issues. A good strategy for me personally has been to run through some walking basslines with iReal pro. Kills lots of birds with one stone and is enjoyable, as formulaic scales/ based warm ups can be dull after a while.

The general consensus is the tube in the LMT500 doesn’t make a huge difference. I use mine set to 100% tube and there is a certain warmth but you’re not going to get any grit out of it unless you use silly levels of gain, and that doesn’t sound amazing. Indeed the tube in it is minuscule. However, through two decent 112 cabs I’ve never wanted for volume and that’s included some decent festival size stages. It’s been totally reliable, I’ve needed to hoover the inside once (I think it’s from doing lots of pit work where the conditions and smoke/ haze create lots of particles) the fan is quiet and the DI is decent. Heard the Casa in the hands of Micheal League- sounded pretty dam decent but what else would you expect?!

No Encores yet? If you started in the late 80s/90s it felt like they were compulsory. Mine was a black PJ my Dad bought me. It served me pretty well, but I sold it the car park of the local sun valley factory to buy stuff for Uni.

Well played sir. Bit of a guess on my behalf and I preferred the second. Just hoping you haven’t bluffed us all with the same bass twice!

Up to 11!

Whilst it gets sorted out, two bass legends for the price of one.

We were playing a fundraiser the other day with our acoustic trio at the local hospice. Halfway through our Ace of Spades I realised the lyric ‘That’s the way I like it baby, I don’t want to live forever’ was coming up, but the vocalist was committed and she belted it out anyway. We skipped the next number, Locked Out of Heaven.

2 I own and 2 on ‘permanent loan’

In the thread about the Scott’s Bass Lessons giveaway Trickfish’s power ratings came up. In a recent thread I was asking about a posh Di and one thing I did consider was getting a very good amp head and using its DI, Trickfish consequently crossed my radar. So I decided to PM them about the RMS and got this reply- ‘We really prefer not to get into those discussions because there are no set standards for how companies come to their RMS ratings and the number Itself doesn’t really mean much on its own. We use the ICE 700 power module in the BH.5 and the Pascal SPro2 in the Bullhead 1K and they both have detailed specs online. I wish I had a more satisfactory answer for you as I know the RMS value is a popular number to use to compare amplifiers. But unless the number is achieved using identical testing procedure the number really confuses more than helps.’ I thought I’d share seeing the debate going on a few days ago. Harry

Strawberry

Don’t broadcast it, I want to increase my chances of winning!

The singer in our band runs the local BMW/Mini garage. He has a golden rule with his staff, never ever comment on the customers existing car. He’s very successful! Meanwhile, back on topic, I really fancy the darker blue cab for pit gigs and rehearsals.

The principle is still the same, just like you’d learn licks that fit over certain harmonies, learn rhythmic cells that fit over the metre. Tempo Advance is a great app for using to practice.

Count groupings if threes and twos. For instance the Take Five standard is 3+2. There are typical groupings, 7 is normally 3+2+2 etc but it’s definately worth a conversation with your drummer, some are more adventurous! After you’ve got your head round that, use the same principle as you would for arpeggios and scales. Work out a set of rhythms that adds up to 2 beats (quavers or crotchets) for starters, then a set of rhythms that add up to three. Then decide on a metre, 3+2 for example, pick a rhythm for each and hammer out a chord change on root notes until you feel comfortable. Then try using chord tones etc and scaffold up from there. In this video the tune is in 5. What I decided to do was reverse the typical Take Five rhythm for the verses so 3 = 3 straight quavers and the 2 = semiquaver quaver semiquaver before using the normal pattern for the chorus. As the drummer has the ability to bend time and space I stuck to this formula a) to provide a reference for all concerned and b) if I deviate I get hopelessly lost!

A plain and simple studio format show hardly warrants any excitement now. Festival coverage seems to be greater, where it being an event carries a lot of the sense of occasion. I do agree that YT is a great source of live music, especially the channels that present a challenge to the act such as NPR. I do miss the ‘old days’ of festivals where artists battled stage volume, rubbish monitoring and a feral crowd of non-paying chemically addled lunatics to produce tribal moments of celebration than the sterile health and safety of today, but I’m not paying the insurance bill so I can say that!

I have an ASAT (really needs a set up) and an LB100 if you’re about in the 3 counties area and fancy trying them.

Same here.

Had it clarified by his engineer of ten years, Macca writes with his left. This thread has also had me trying to play left handed, ironically the right hand job is pretty straightforward but I can't make my left do what I want! (I'm a southpaw that plays right)

Not sure TBH, quite a few photos of Hendrix writing though, I had to go and check!

Hendrix

I'm quite fussy. We sort where the PA is going first, then POWER! Got fed up of everyone acting as individuals, everything being in place and nowhere to plug in. Now we operate a factory line approach. The singer and I sort the PA and power, the drummer puts his mat in place, lights/amps/ monitors go in. Cases are not allowed in the performance space, drives me nuts moving everything three times because the stage is cluttered. I've trained the drummer to assemble his kit off stage, we run the mic cables to him and the bass/guitar mics with the kit out of the way. He then slots his stuff into place whilst we do the last of the lights and we're ready. It's an 8 piece band and too many people helping actually slows us down. If I'm playing with another band that's got pro level players I always astonished at how quiet and fuss free the process is.

Opened with the chorus before seguing into the usual stuff on Saturday. Rationale was we were bound to be asked to play it so we knocked out 16 bars to preempt any drunken punters! Worked a treat- great gig.

Boss tweed is actually, the boss! 😉

I only learnt the bass to play in an originals band with my brother. When that faded I didn’t really maintain playing, then a drum teacher asked me to play the bass part in a grade 8 kit duet. No problem I thought and duly got my butt kicked. Since having to play other people’s material I’ve had to really scrub up, so my sloppy earlier career might have had a bigger part in my originals band’s demise than I would’ve admitted when I was younger!

Normally avoid ‘virtuoso’ bass players but Michael Manring blows my mind.