All Activity

I guess you're referring to the Joe Dart/Paul Jackson/Me'shell Ndegeocello/Stuart Zender/just about every other funk bassist trill (I also hear it referred to as a 'shake'). This is the most gloriously silly example I can think of that has trills on almost everything: The thing that I find makes a huge difference is this: it's in the arm, not the fingers. Take your fretting hand thumb off the back of the neck and use your elbow to generate the rapid back and forth sliding motion. Forget trying to be too accurate or polite with it to start with, it'll take a while to feel like you've got it under control and then you can gradually refine the movement.

True. I had an un-diagnosed dairy allergy for 8-9 months, including having to call for an ambulance at one point when I couldn't breathe. But the GP kept brushing me off saying my 'sore throat' was 'just a virus that's going around'. Being overweight compounded the problem of poor medical care of course. My best wishes for a speedy recovery to Mrs.Woodinblack!

Indeed - and maybe they need to push more too as my wife has asked 5 different doctors over 3 or 4 years if she could have her heart checked as when walking in the cold or walking any real distance she got pain in her neck an the top of her chest, to be told it was variously heartburn or acid reflux. For some reasons, doctors don't seem to take women very seriously at all.

I'd play it.... because I'm delusional!

Good call!

The monitor mix

Hey, I have somehow landed a new bass. Was looking at an RBX but this came up locally and I snagged it for a great price. I have absolutely no idea if this bass is decent and know no history of the company. Has anyone played or owned one of these? Many thanks.

Great post.

I wouldn`t say it was diva-ish to want your own sound if it`s a specific aspect of the band, giving JJ of The Stranglers a James Jamerson sound for example is not going to do much for the known recognisable sound of the band, nor for the fans who may really love JJBs tone and feel shortchanged for not getting it. It`s mainly for this reason that I`ve moved away from having a specific identifiable tone gotten from a specific pedal to that of a more generic tone achievable from pretty much most bass amps, I can easily get what I need plus it requires less carrying and setting up as well. I also then can essentially not bother the sound person too much (if at all) and let them get on with the most important bits, which to me are the vocals.

Yamaha BBs are solid workhorses. If you see a bassist with a BB, they know what they're doing.

ordered!

I had one of the SPB4s in a bass I bought for a while, it`s a decent sounding pickup but quite a bit different to the SPB1 - I found that the 1 had a huge mid-scoop whereas the 4 seemed to have the opposite. Re the distorting bit, well in general it`s mids that this seems to work on so I would think that the 4 would take this better than the 1.

I was a sound "mixist" in the late 90s/early 2000s and I can say that there are some useless sound people and some prima-donna d**khead band members out there too. My rule was pre-amp DI wherever possible, but if it was obvious the "sound" was all being done in the amp, I would take it post. A bit of discussion with the band always helped, unless they felt they were too important to speak with you. I can remember the bass player who insisted on using his own home-made preamp thing which appeared to output DC and melted the voice coils in the event's shared backline 8x10, or the guitarists/drummers who insisted on playing all the time when soundchecking. However, I have also been playing gigs where I have had to show the sound person how to operate their own desk, or get rid of some really bad resonance on stage, things like that. As for backline - I was never sure if this was an urban myth or not, but I remember a guitarist once telling me of another guitarist pal who once turned up at a venue with his amp that kept cutting out, only to find the venue had the same one so he swapped them after the gig when they weren't looking and left his in place of the venue's good one!