All Activity

Hi Phil, Many thanks. See you soon. Mike

Vid is missing from this one Rob. ? Just wondering if there was one to be honest ? Dave

Done. Good luck with your thesis.

Really like that and I do like it when a P bass sounds slightly darker

Macbeth, opera by Verdi. Because nothing says “Scottish tragedy” like storming a castle to the sound of bel canto 😖 It might not be cultural appropriation but it's annoying!

That really is a very unlikely Basschat response there @Jonesy

Sounds ideal as an all in one bass. Just need another one as backup…… But seriously it sounds great, ideal for a covers band and for studio work having both sounds at your fingertips.

Sounds like a fun project, and makes for some encouraging reading after browsing through the Auditions in Hell thread!

Just shows that the best things sometimes need time & perseverance, keep us all up to date on this.

Thanks Jimbo, appreciated! I've played around with the high and low gain/mix settings, which obviously helps somewhat even out the volume drop. It's just the jump is so stark! I almost certainly do need to play about with a bit more.

Damn shame they didn't include a Jazz.

So I thought it would be interesting (decide for yourself how interesting!) to document the setup of a new band... Read on if you want to, or don't if you don't. I've always wanted to have an 80s covers band. Ideally I would be the lead singer and bassist, alas my vocal chops just aren't there. I tried once in the past to set up a band using people found on joinmyband and other sources and it wasn't a great experience but a valuable one. Earlier this year my main band, a 2000s covers band, had a hiatus and the drummer and I cooked up a scheme to do something as a side project. This is one of the big lessons I learned a few years back: work with at least one person you already know! Well, that makes bass and drums... I contacted a guitarist I was in a band with four or five years back, I love his style and attitude and we have remained friends loosely keeping in touch, he was excited to join in. In the middle of August we met up with a handful of songs to bash through. I found it a real struggle to sing and play, my voice was knackered at the end of it, but we agreed we had something that worked and if we had a singer and ideally a keys or sax player we could really have something worth progressing. I got too excited and advertised for a singer much earlier than I had wanted to. I got a handful of responses: a guy aged 28 who sings modern metal, a classic rock vocalist in a covers band id heard of, a female singer who recently left an indie band, and a lady who only wants to do backing vox as she doesn't want to fully commit. I have not yet met the singers, we want to get the songs tight first. But we have rejected two of them already! Now, the lost of songs we are working on is a handful of "male" songs and two "female" songs. The classic rock singer contacted me to say words to the effect: "you do realise that Holding Out for a Hero is written for a girl??? You know it's about a Man???" That told me all I needed to know about this person. Didn't say "hey I might tweak the words" which I'm happy with, just basically came across a bit old fashioned and hinted he could be difficult to work with. Luckily, the recordings of heard of his vocals weren't great so I was comfortable saying we had better fit singers already. Also, he didn't notice, or at least raise, that "I wanna dance with somebody" is also a female perspective song. I have no issue if a man or woman wants to change the gender perspective of a song, or keep it. But we had not at this point said we want a male singer, or we want a female singer. We just wanted a good singer and to do good songs, so we have a mix. Anyways, onwards and upwards. In the meantime we wanted to get the songs tight but also I kept hearing sax in a lot of the great songs of the decade so I advertised for a sax player. I got a great response from a guy local to where we rehearse who plays sax and keys. I sent him the long-list of possible songs and five mins later got a reply of "f me that's my childhood!" And I just knew he would do for us. This week we met up again and invited our sax and keys player. We also had a friend come along to sing so I could concentrate on bass and arrangements. Magic happened. We did two or three runs through of each song, had a ten minute break for a chat. We instantly bonded with our new multi-instrumentalist: a decent person, a proper musician, and he LOVES the genre. There are still details to work out such as better transition to solos, proper endings of all these fade out songs, but we were really solid and the keys and or sax just really added something. It felt special. We will meet again in a few weeks' time, now with a handful more songs that really prominently feature the sax. Our best candidate for singer isn't available until mid October so hopefully we can be really tight by then and ready for him. I'm getting quite excited about this side project! Playing with a drummer and guitarist I know really helps, and striking gold with a chap who plays sax and keys is just sheer good fortune. More to come soon....

What we call "culture" - any culture - is a snapshot in time. It didn't start out the way it is now and it will continue to evolve and develop in the future. All art and music borrows/steals from and builds on what went before. That borrowing/building process crosses all boundaries - national, geographical, racial and so on. Once a style of music or art is out in the world, nobody can claim to "own" it (I appreciate there is such a thing as copyright, but that's to do with the melody, structure, etc of a piece, not its origins). So as long as you play a piece of music sincerely (you don't take the p out of it, obvs) and to the best of your ability, I don't see an issue.

If @ghostwheel you had experienced my moment of joy at the discovery of two iconic bass sounds in one nice instrument you would not call me a rationalist These are my settings, switch set to passive, three knobs to right are the active control (my p bass approximation) hope this helps someone two knobs to left are jazz bass approximation (tone is stacked on volume)

Lewis bought a Pedaltrain Metro16 from me - paid over the weekend for me to post on Monday. Top notch, easy comms, great guy to deal with

Lovely. The Chapparall weighs less than the regular B12 that I own.

Downstrokes with a pick get the very best out of a 12er when the drones are uppermost. Fingerstyle tends to / can be muddy. It loses the attack and clarity, but then again you do get a nice thick sound. Basses with the fundamental bass string on top are awkward, as you may not hit the drone strings when playing.

Bass Direct have two used 5 string Maruszczyk basses @£950 each currently. Guess which two colours each pickguard is? 🤣

Onboard patch management is now working!

A jam night PA playlist