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This is Danny's job. The outrage, the shares, the links and the likes are all generating cash for him and others. (The paradox of pointing out the fakery here is that it'll generate more clicks for the faker, generating them cash too.) It's a job as pointless as most of them (thanks David Graeber), but it's his job. Well paid? Who knows. Emotionally fulfilling? Probably not. What's weird about theYouTube thing is that, from what I can see, it's people performing incredible things on their own in a room. It's the antithesis of what music making is, which is playing with people for people. Basically, social media sucks, people are stupid and bass players should stop double tapping, slapping and showing off, and play the root note.

The bass was upside down, the roller had to sit on the neck itself and the 25mm cutter with roller didn't quite reach even at max plunge. Could have pulled it out of the collet a bit, but then there was a chance I might not have cut the very top (well, bottom, because we're upside down) of the area I wanted to cut. So yes, I did need to use this scary so-and-so...

Sorry, you're using a 50mm router bit? That's nearly as wide as the neck pocket!

Another day, eh? I'm likening this to the "jaGuar" marketing late last year. People were up in arms, because of the totally un-Jaguar woke nonsense marketing campaign, and the tv advert that didn't even have so much as a concept car in it. The truth was that it was a hugely clever marketing campaign which got EVERYBODY talking about the forthcoming new jaGuar and the new direction of the company. And we're all sitting here being outraged while Sapko walks off with his YouTube earnings and that girl continues to mime badly. Maybe outrage was the whole point, because they've certainly got us all talking about it.

Sold Alex a UHX Bass Metaphors preamp/dist pedal. Great comms, fast payment, happy to do business. Hope you enjoy it! Cheers K

It's about £215 extra booze at typical 70% wet margins. Personally I'd go see a decent live band over a solo act + backing tracks, every time!

If you read Beedster's post again, he makes an important point which contributes to the discussion.

My perspective on this topic is you can walk into Fortnum and Mason and browse through all the delicious cheese. If you then walk out with some processed cheese straws and get all bent out of shape because they taste sh1t there is not much to say. Yes they taste sh1t. Choose something better.

I watched Anthony's video the other week. They're undoubtedly good value, and great basses if you want to play in a 60's/early 70's outfit. Nice to see they've fixed the awful bright yellow "vintage" neck tinting they were doing a few years ago, too.

This won't really be news to anyone, but . . . I rehearsed with my RM 800 into my Eden D210MBX in my newish rock band last night. The owner of the basement studio we rehearse in is a bass player and last night he had his Ampeg combos out trying to sort out some gremlins. He asked if I wanted to use one and see if there were any problems, so I plugged into a B600 115. I tried the tube and solid state section, but I didn't have my glasses so didn't spend too much time dialling in a sound. It was nice and warm, but not remarkably interesting at all. After a couple of run througs of our first song, the volume dipped so I plugged back into my rig. Instantly the sound was on a different level. I had to ask the others for confirmation and they agreed without hesitation, the Ashdown sound was just hands down better. I think I need to stop looking for a lightweight replacement for the Eden. It sounded so good.

I mean there was a 10 year period when I was not playing at all, did not even own an instrument. Are you saying it's possible to factor that in for the averages? Already feeling better!

I wonder whether the “professional karaoke” singers are now doing the same to pub bands. Play in clubs and pubs where bands, trios and above, are featured once a month with the other 3/4 Saturdays being “solo singers”. it may also add to the death of good singers in bands these days. Why work with a bunch of musicians who steal your fee? Backing tracks don’t need weeks to learn a new song, don’t fall out and do not want a say in the set list. They charge £125-150 and we, as a four piece, struggle to get £300 between us. However that £150 difference is a lot of wet stock to sell for the landlord.

I mean I genuinely don't understand this sort of a thing... why are you here then, a topic dedicated to this? 😁 To give you an example, I don't care about metal bass or the genre... to me personally it sounds and feels like nothing, so... I don't read metal bass topics, or comment on them, saying I have no interest in this and to me it all sounds like metallic farts. You don't care about the fake outrage... again, why are you here, just to position yourself above other people with some holier than thou opinion? It's not like we open a new topic every time a half-entertaining Sapko video comes up. 😁 "Creating instead of spending time outraging" is hardly a convincing opinion when one then drops a "I don't care but I'm still here commenting" line... or can that be considered part of the creative process? Will all this be in the lyrics of their new catchy song? 😁 Also, what outrage? It's a 5 min video people don't even watch till the end, it's not like the outrage is stopping generations of content and music being dropped, this is something I'd watch on the loo 😁 I just found it funny someone is actually trying to sell guitar courses with a million-view cameltoe spread. I think shit like this should be called out indeed, there should be evidence videos of it indeed, we should have a laugh at these videos and the fools if they entertain us, then we should move on. We should not "outrage" or tell other people what they should be spending their free time on. If not interested in a specific topic: there are many many many other topics and forums where you can be the contrarian just as easily 😂. Welcome to the internet. Absolutely no hard feelings, but I honestly don't understand when someone comes to a topic that's ACTUALLY about a topic and just shits on the ongoing stuff. Well good on ya. I am here because these silly videos entertain me.

If you're at all familiar with Milehouse Studios on You Tube, he uses Frtlzr (aka Fret-a-lizer). While the system is now a sponsored supporter within the videos, he was using the stuff for quite a while before they came on board. https://www.frtlzr.com

That’s just two reasons why wedding bands get paid more money than pub bands though? I spent around 15 years in a pro function band and played probably thousands of weddings in that time. My band would usually play 4 sets throughout the day, starting with a walkabout jazz set when guests arrived, then some cool stuff during the wedding breakfast, followed by two evening sets to get them all dancing. This would mean we’d often have to arrive around noon / early afternoon and finish maybe 12 hours later. All this after maybe a 2 or 3 hour drive to the venue. Factor in hotel managers who saw the band as an annoyance / wedding planners who had no idea how long it took for an 8 piece band to set up / learning first dance tunes for the bride and groom / drunk guests etc etc, then it made the difference between us and pub bands very apparent. In the mid / late 90’s we would get £250 /£300 each, often more for longer sets / far away gigs etc. We certainly earned it , and could see why pub bands wanted to get in on the action. They would seem financially more attractive, undercutting us by a large margin etc. and we did lose some of the lower end of our business to them. However by then our reputation had grown so the bulk of our work remained intact. Scroll on a few years though as finances got squeezed everywhere , pub bands benefitted from this and pure function bands started to suffer. Our band’s work got hit quite badly, so I eventually jumped ship into the rising tribute / theatre band world, and never regretted it. 2 x 1 hour sets, my own dressing room, no lugging gear into damp marquees, start playing 7.30pm and done by 10pm, pro sound engineers / PA, what’s not to like….😁

Hurts So Good - John Mellencamp

...whoever posts and reads the topic purely dedicated to this sort of thing? 😁 NOT you obviously 😁