Dave Vader

Any solo that goes on for more than 8 bars, on any instrument, is pure w***ery. Bass solos are dull, as are drum solos. This is a wild generalisation, though this morning I believe it to be true (I like portrait of Tracey though....)

turn it up

Also for those marvellous moments when your electronic tuner has gone utterly tits up (battery failure, pint inside it, forgot to bring it etc.) it is bloody useful to be able to shout at the nearest musician "Oi, give us an E mate" and be able to take it from there, rather than gawping like an utter muppet and asking if anyone out there has a leccy tuner you can borrow. You will look an utter twat in this circumstance. I spent many years tuning to the aforementioned old harmonica that I kept in my gig bag, and checking that me and the other guys in the band were in with each other before beginning. Not hard to do, only got a leccy tuner a couple of years ago when I realised everyone else was doing it, and the faces I got when I made the E jokes were getting less amused. Also a keen user of the Jimi Hendrix "mid song retune" method when abusing whammy bars on my strat. Worth having the ears still you know.

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290563900579&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123#ht_5626wt_882"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...3#ht_5626wt_882[/url] Check this bad boy out, apparently the neck is "not in fantastic condition"

Favourite electronic tuner moment, about 10 years ago, I was playing guitar with a band, and had dropped my Yamaha SG on my way to the stage (big all day event lots of bands, on and off quick job) tuned it behind the stage with my multiFX tuner, thought phew! Went on played opening chords, thought, cripes this sounds heavier than it should, got to the solo, and then it hit me, my G was an octave lower than it should have been. Still no idea how I managed to do that, but it was quite fun. Retuned quick before next song, but never has Kirsty Maccoll sounded so heavy. Or a solo featured so little of the G, who knew you needed it so much?

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='1225002' date='May 9 2011, 12:39 PM']I think it's a lot like cars, people find nice paint jobs and chrome cool where as if you had a wonky car with no paint it'd look rubbish.[/quote] What are you saying about my car?

Songs I can get excited about playing with people I can get along with and have a laugh. Or vast piles of filthy lucre. Rarely manage either sadly.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1225086' date='May 9 2011, 01:53 PM']10,000,000 string players can't all be wrong. I have to say, I do smile when people say 'wow! its a fretless'. There is a tacit assumption that fretless players are in some way a cut above fretted players. Its nonsense. The 'additional' skills required to played fretless over fretted bass are about 1% of the whole package. The big issue is learning to listen to what you play rather than to assume that becasue you are on the thrid fret, you muct be in tune (I have heard plenty of fretted basses played out of tune. A fret is no guarantee!! ). If you can't hear what you are playing on a fretless, you may experience problems. However, IME, if I can't hear it, noone else can either so it matters not a jot Don't be frightened of it. Its not hard. Just different.[/quote] Don't let guitarists and the general public find out though, it's nice to look like you're clever when you're not.

Oh so many, including the promoter who booked us to play with a stand up, and for some reason put us on after the comedian, at an event that had been barely promoted, and certainly didn't mention an acoustic duo being on as well. Played to the bar, and the promoter. Barman thought it was as funny as we did luckily. Despite having been brought in as a mobile bar and making very little on the night. Worst ever was being asked to stand in on guitar for a mate of mine, at a festival, supporting the Damned and the Stranglers and a bunch of other bands I really like. I was given a tape to learn their original songs (in fact write all the guitar parts as there weren't any) all the songs were at different speeds, so utilised the pitch control, overdubbed my parts, sent the tape back and got an okay for my parts from the guy. Then we roll up at the gig, I get asked to tune the bass players bass (she was the singers gf, and the festival organisers daughter, this explains both her presence in the band, and the bands presence at the gig). The complimentary crate of lager helps me remain calm at this point. We go on, and I discover that that tape is in fact their backing, not sequencers as I had assumed. I have to retune mid song on BOTH numbers they managed to get through, luckily the tiny 4-track they were using crapped out on the intro of the 3rd number. I was glad they asked us to leave the stage. Despite having looked forward to spending the day at a festival I couldn't afford to go to otherwise, I didn't want to be recognised, so I legged it home pretty sharpish, such was the embarrassment. Might well be the worst I think.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1224954' date='May 9 2011, 12:01 PM']Get your bass in tune and then just glue the tuners in that position. Don't listen to the people saying you should tune up mid-set, you would look stupid giving your bass to the guitarist mid-set.[/quote] I once knew a guitar player who drew line on his headstock to show the angle the tuners needed to be at to stay in tune. Guy was a genius, wish I'd thought of that....

Only downside I've had with mine is simple paranoia, whenever my guitarist goes out of tune (and he does, a lot) I find myself sliding out my perfect intonation, thinking it's probably me. It isn't, and the sequenced synth track lets me know, fairly quickly.

As a miserable anti-social git that never gets left alone, I'm going to say me.

[quote name='apa' post='1222362' date='May 6 2011, 04:51 PM']There you go again. Im the same!! Realy dont like the VVT set up on a J. Dont see the point. Realy difficult to get a blend and maintain the volume and visa versa. Im pondering changing it to a mix vol tone (is that MVT??). I didnt know any different when I bought it. Not sure the MM plate would go on that Ryder hmm. But an MM pre would be cool A[/quote] Sorry to hijack, but let me know if you do go MVT on your Jazz, I've been thinking about doing it on my old Roadstar (same problem) but I read somewhere on here that the blend pots give you volume headaches in the middle as well. Rendering it a little pointless.

[quote name='ZMech' post='1222169' date='May 6 2011, 01:01 PM']Got to love outdated tech. Sorry vader but my geek instincts are kicking in, and I can't resist correcting you . Valves are only used for amplifiers, and whilst they might be used for a TV's sound, the bit that Marvin was referring to is a cathode ray tube, which is the bit that spits electrons at the glass in order to make the image. The only CRT (cathode ray tube) TV I see these days is the one in my living room, and that's so that we can use a playstation lightgun. don't worry marvin, i chuckled.[/quote] Apologies, I was unsure as to which type of tube Marvin was referring to. I still have 3 CRT Tvs in the house, they're not outdated yet, thus Marv would have been being a mean snobby type if he'd meant that. (Also have a CRT monitor on my PC, as the LCD one went bang). I think Marv is a non-snob (He does live in Torrington after all... ) So he may have meant valves. Wow, was that post actually worth making? Is it Friday afternoon? That's alright then, worth having a pointless argument, go.....

Sorry, it's a guitar coming with me, my Trigger's Broom fujigen strat. 1st guitar I ever actually owned back in 1989, it started out as an "Oakland" which I assumed to be a piece of sh*te. After a million others, I realised it was actually bloody good, then when I realised I only wanted 1 strat, I put a jap squier neck on it, a weird custom black pickguard from another japcrap strat, and recently put a set of bulldog pickups in it. Oh, it's got a fender 2-point bridge as well. Often known as the "3-in-1 I only need one strat" strat, or the Shitocaster you will have to pry it from my cold dead hands. Or my Sunn Mustang Bass, which I have had a similarly long time. In the other hand.

I've been known to throw on a favourite album, and just play along the whole way through. Don't know if that counts as learning, but I've done Sabbath 4 and Led Zep 1 so many times now it probably does. Nice way to relax and jam and just enjoy it for once.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1220712' date='May 5 2011, 10:14 AM']I have absolutely no idea.[/quote] +1 (But Bilbo meant to say Moondance )

[quote name='BottomE' post='1220029' date='May 4 2011, 04:43 PM'][/quote] Allow me to help, once upon a time, televisions, or TVs as they are known colloquially used to use things called Valves, also known as Tubes (honestly, we should know these things, we are bass players) in order to work. Some people here are old enough to remember such things (not me, I am just historically minded enough to know pointless sh*t like this). Marvin was making a pun or play on words about this very real situation. It was mildly amusing </jokegeekmode>

Yep, flat on everything, stops people confusing me for a guitarist....

[quote name='Gust0o' post='1218736' date='May 3 2011, 03:53 PM']Is it your hands sweating, or elsewhere? I quickly rediscovered sweat bands when playing live. Might gloves work for you? I'm thinking out loud now. I normally have a small golf towel and wipe hands and bass neck as needed.[/quote] Old Beer towel hanging off the mic stand, wipe hands a lot. Seems to be all you can do. The green bass in my avatar is rapidly losing all it's finish due to my sweaty paws. Tried sweat bands, but by golly they made me even hotter, and I'm getting a bit old to be taking my shirt off now. If there are solutions it would be nice, as if I do a double header weekend, I usually end up with nasty sweat rash between the fingers of my left hand, itchy.

Had this with a gotoh, the bridge didn't go low enough for a decent action, answer is to go back to the BBOT (bent bit of tin, quaint euphemism for old style fender bridges) or route a hole to drop the BA into.

[quote name='skej21' post='1212772' date='Apr 27 2011, 04:07 PM']Not after anything. It belongs to a mate and I'm just doing a bit of research. He was just making sure he wasnt holding an uninsured expensive instrument lol. Sounds good to me though. Had a play and it plays alright. I wouldn't buy it, that's for sure lol. Thanks for all the replies guys![/quote] Fixed one of these up for a mate recently, it played surprisingly well after I'd filled the gouges on the back of the neck with araldite, and set it up. Almost wanted to steal it.

wanted a pickup surround for my rick copy so it would look more like a rick, thought I could get it for a tenner, would have been happy. Got pissed, sat in on the end of the auction and spent nearly 60 on it, for a bit of flipping metal. Got worse, as when I put it on, the pickup I had for it didn't fit. Then it made funny clinky noises after I did some alterations to make it fit, and it cut my fingers. I sold it on for a considerable loss to someone a lot less stupid. Ironically I now have a hondo version of the surround on my rickenbastard, and am very happy with it, for a lot less dosh.

[quote name='mcnach' post='1212554' date='Apr 27 2011, 01:02 PM']It does look like one! A Gypsy maybe, or a GS-2 with an added scratchplate. I owned a fantastic '86 GS-1 (same colour as the one in the picture) and a 2001 Graduate 60 (flame top Les Paul type)... I still regret selling that GS-1. Great guitars![/quote] +1 on regretting selling a GS-1, I had one like that too, but sadly needed to eat.

Liked the name, expected a "the fool" paint job on it though, oh well....