Leaderboard

I so much agree with this observation that I wish I could lay claim to its genesis. In the fullness of time, perhaps I will. Moreover, I would contend that the pasteurisation of rock music has been one of a number of factors which have contributed to its decline in popularity. Let us consider the two most currently dominant genres: rap (in all its forms) and pop R&B. Are the pre-eminent practitioners of these styles "over the top, flamboyant, tastelessly rich and contentious"? Why, yes, indeedy. These people are - to coin a phrase - absolutely fabulous. They exude excess, reek of sex and they are coining it in. Contrast the rappers and the pop-stars with their po-faced, middle-class pygmy cousins in Rock, weeping their bitter tears of empathy, flaunting their jejune isshoos and their terribly-worthy-but-oh-so-dull causes. In particular the British end of Rock reminds one of the sort of vicarage tea-parties one attended in one's youth where disapproving drabsters sat around in a circle, sporting faces like a cat's bottom and droning on about the fragmentation of society and how simply awful everything is and patting themselves on the back about knitting socks for the poor black babies in Africa. Of course, Metal's different but then it always is and always has been. Thankfully there exists still in Metal a spark of free-booting rebellion and roaring non-conformity. Metal fans are rather like Millwall supporters, I suppose; everyone hates them but they don't care. I digress. What it really comes down to is that by embracing the mimsy-ish, pursed-lipped sort of attitudes that would have met with the nodding approval of my Great Grandmother the rockers of today have utterly p1ssed on their own chips. At some point in the 1990's Rock (and its audience) turned its nose up at strong liquor, recreational narcotics, indiscriminate fornication and public urination; perhaps it's what genres do when they enter middle age. Rock entered a spiritual winter from which it is yet to emerge; as Mr David Coverdale once remarked: 'Dark days for a cocksman; dark days indeed'. With fun out of the window, Rock needed to find another driver; sadly, it alighted upon 'hope'. Brandishing a rag-bag of causes such as sub-Saharan drought, gender oppression and that awful woman in Burma who turned out to be a wrong 'un (told ya) the prosing rock bores and their ghastly celebrity chums ultimately laid the foundations for the anodyne little squirts who currently prance around rock, tearfully unburdening themselves of matters of conscience while studiously avoiding giving offence or frightening the horses. Commercially, around about 1996 rock cut off its own balls and it's been on the slide ever since, and no wonder. For while today's young people may very audibly bang on about their 21st century snowflake concerns I suspect that behind their masks of passive conformity they secretly yearn to lay beside a sun-drenched pool, counting their millions while an exotically tattoo'd midget shovels the purest cocaine up their surgically enlarged nostrils, this even as a giggling bevy of naked beauties of the opposite (or same) sex disport themselves in the jacuzzi, every one of them off their shining, youthful little faces on Kristal and ketamine, and frankly gagging for it. And that's why Rap and R&B sell and Rock doesn't. Rock doesn't seem to realise there's no money in being a boring prude. So f**k Rock; Gene Simmons can try to keep the fire alive but the faux-rockers have taken over. There are filthier, more sporting musical genres out there if one knows where to look. I leave the last word to Mr Richard (Little Richard) Penniman. In his autobiography he describes a post-gig dressing-room encounter with Mr Buddy Holly. Does Little Richard expiate upon Mr Holly's social views or his politics or his privilege? Not at all. For while Mr Holly engages in athletic coition with a proto-groupie upon the dressing-room couch Mr Penniman observes that Buddy has 'the biggest c0ck I ever saw on a white boy'. That, my dears, is Rock (and Roll).

I remember a few year's ago we auditioned a singer, we gave him two weeks to learn six very well known songs, anyway, when he turned up, he had his girlfriend with him who sat in the corner of the rehearsal room, we asked him which of the songs he wanted to start with, he hesitated and after a long pause, he finally suggested one but then said he would have to have listen to it on his phone first to remind him how the song went, obviously we all looked each other fearing the worst, and sure enough, he didn't have a clue how the song went, so we then suggested trying one of the other songs and exactly the same thing happened, luckily for us, his girlfriend stood up and said to him, "come on, let's go, you haven't even learn't the songs, have you? you are wasting these guy's time", she then apologised to us all and proceeded to march him out of the room, I don't think I would have wanted to be him on the way home.

So I finally got my Elwood custom! It was a long 16 weeks but wow is it worth it - everything about it exactly as I wanted! Some specs 32"Medium Scale Haussel pickups Series/parallel switch Seafoam green with matching headstock And of course, here's a picture

Bought the acg-eq-01. Spent an evening fiddling around trying to fit it inside the bass; completely changed my mind the next day and in a couple of hours, with a little bass surgery (dremel, sanding disk, lots of Padouk dust) IT'S IN!! Now have a bass with EIGHT KNOBS (and three switches which do nothing but fill holes). The suprising thing is the bass frequencies - I'd expected clearer high frequencies (passive setups load the pickups' inductance and lose high frequency content) but what really stands out is the extra and clearer bass, and the control of it via the filter gain adjustment. Also, even if you go for a lot of bass and high frequency cut, then high frequency pass-through allows harmonics and "pick attack" to come through. I honestly reckon that the acg-eq-01 is better than the much fabled electronics in my Wal .. and would love to hear what a Wal would sound like with East tronics in it ... not that I'm about to vandalise my own one to find out!

I am so lucky right now. After years of really quite deeply unpleasant personalities I've found a keeper. I turned up at the audition and she met me at the car and started to help carry my gear into the rehearsal. Brought me drinks, paid for food and drives the band to gigs, has zero ego I can detect and rehearses every bit as hard as any musician I've ever known and considerably harder than most. Buys lots of expensive equipment, organises rehearsals, books gigs, helps pack down, works really hard on stage. Despite having the vocal ability to be the absolute focal point of any band she sees herself as the equal of us all. Even the drummer which I think is being unnecessarily hard on herself.

An empty guitar case will often get you into a gig for free.

I don't know if this has been posted before, but I found it interesting. Yes, I'm sure that there are other basses that could've (should've?) been included, but it does what it says on the tin. For my part, I thought the P was the best all rounder, YMMV.

Those Wilsons don't sound any better than many speakers at 5% of that price, if not less. They're not marketed to people who know what good sound is, they're marketed to people who equate quality with price and don't know that the one doesn't necessarily give you the other.

You may jest but I expect that Mr Jeff Bezos is even now contemplating opening a distribution warehouse somewhere in South America, this to be staffed by indigenous Amazonian headhunters. He will doubtless pay them with cheap trinkets and gew-gaws as did the colonials of old; the natives in turn will fête Bezos as a God and erect fetishes in his honour. It will all go swimmingly until Bezos one day oversteps some arcane, unspoken religious rule or observance; then - sickened of their labour and his exploitation - Amazon's Amazon Indians will rise up as one and hunt Bezos down, tearing him to bloody rags with their spears and their sharpened, pointed teeth. Capitalism's not all beer and skittles, you know.

I don't play guitar either, but I suspect that I'm just weird anyway.

Great donner and chips from Peter Pans and a great gig at Wangies pretty much next door to each other in the parish of Eccles has restored order to the universe. A dead light and a speaker handle needing repair couldn't dampen our spirits with not having to go to McDonalds for apres gig feasting.

What I do is find notes in the phrase where the vocals and the bass match up (timing wise). Then practice the bass line whilst hitting those vocal notes. Then fill in the gaps. But yes, lots of practice as well.

for a start, he opens with "respectfully", so he's not being as much of an chocolate starfish as people are making out. It's just his opinion based on his (no small) experience. I like Kiss, as they're a band with a mid-level talent, but great showmanship who have undoubtedly left their mark. I wonder if the Kiss naysayers are a touch jealous a la Adam Clayton.

I think you would be better served with a pre-owned Ibanez or Yamaha

I was at my daughters house the other day and asked her for a newspaper. ' Blimey get with the times Dad' she said as she passed me her iPad thing..... .....I'll tell you what, that bluebottle didn't know what the **** had hit it

People using band rehearsal to learn the songs

Important to note two specifics here. Guitar case and guitarist. Not bass case or bassist. 😜 Which leads me nicely to another tip; An empty banjo case will often get you into a gig for free - as long you inform the bouncer that the case is actually empty.

If you have to hide bass purchases from your significant other, walk out with an empty case saying you're taking a bass to the tech to look at. Come home with that new bass you wanted that she who must be obeyed had denied you

He always struck me as a colossal bell end.

My wife turned me on to this last night. Monster groove.

I believe the colour is California blue. It looks the same colour as the dismantled Fender P Bass in Tony Bacon’s ‘The Ultimate Guitar Book’.

I wear odd-coloured socks, with rules about which colour goes on which foot. I also forage for wild mushrooms. I can identify pretty much every petrol engine configuration by sound. I got my forum name because I didn't eat my crusts! There's a few for starters...

They sound awesome! No need for a sub when you have monitors like that

My first gig was Kiss at Hammersmith Odeon 1976, great show. Simmons was particularly good at being centre of attention. I remember thinking throughout the show "how can he move in those boots?" & "those shoulder pads look very uncomfortable" I know.......all the important stuff.

No, think that track was from the mid 70's H&O period before T Bone joined them. Not sure who played bass on it TBH, possibly Leland Sklar who did some of the H&O stuff I believe.

Choosing to hang on for the new versions depends on what you plan to use it for. If you plan to use it to control an external synth via CV then the current Convertor is pretty good. If, on the other hand, you want it as a stand-alone synth then the Squaver does more (2 oscillators, pulse width modulation, ring modulation, variable state filter). Personally if going for the Squaver I’d wait for the new version for the improvements to the filter envelope response. It was a really nice-sounding filter on the original but the envelope control didn’t give much in the way of shaping options so it wasn’t possible to get a really fast sweep. Currently I’m using either my Doom+Octabvre or my Octo-Nøjs into the Wonderlove. Or the EHX Bass Microsynth. That’s giving quite pleasing results but I really want to get a dedicated 4-pole lowpass filter so will be checking out a Xerograph Deluxe this week. If that doesn’t do it, my remaining option is to get the Moog MF-101 again but get a CP-251 to go with it to have finer control over the sweep. It’s a bit of a big and cumbersome setup though. The best thing I’ve encountered for synth bass sounds though is… synths, unsurprisingly. I recently acquired a Behringer Model D which gives exactly the sounds I wanted, hence my desire to pickup a midi bass and simply hook the two up.

thanks Grangur , my knowledge is scratchy, thought it may be a cause

A Trace cab would be fine for me. If you carry it.

I think that was N.E.M.S.

Sorry, @bazzbass, but no earth to the bridge won't cause it to cut out. We don't know how tidy this circuit wiring is, but a good, quick solution would be to buy a new harness from @KiOgon. That would almost certainly sort it.

I put my vote on the Shift Line Olympic Tube Preamp. It’s a great unit and sounds really awesome. It does the pushed tube amp unbelievably good but it doesn’t do overdriven sounds. It’s the best “clean” preamp I’ve ever tried, and I own a bunch. Le Bass, Tonehammer, SCR-DI, Vintage Ultra & A/O, Hartke Bass Attack I &II, MXR M-80, 3Leaf the Enabler, Verellen Meatsmoke, Noble, Rusty box and probably a couple more. It takes dirt really good and the cab sim, especially the 8x10, is fantastic. And the headphones is dead silent, perfect for silent practice. And the whole unit breathes quality. I wouldn’t hesitate buying another if something happened to this.

Before and after. Fully disassembled, cleaned, polished, chipped paint touched up and reassembled. No idea if it works yet until my new speaker lead arrives 😂

That looks an unusual shape body, nice wood.

That title has already been used for Steve Wright's biography.

Some of those cheesy rock anthems have good bass lines, if they don't, its time they did!

Here you go lads, this should help.

Heres my O serial number silver series a great bass

No - we had it installed. Here it is fairly soon after installation (with a diddy 1x8 cab I knocked together) ...it has dulled down and gone silver/grey now though. Bloody heavy stuff!

I recently had this arrive for a clean and setup as a friend was wanting to sell it. I have really gelled with it, so much so that I'm keeping it! Just a Stagg, but not bad

Some of my favourite hacks: On my pedalboard, my IEM receiver is on there (got a Cioks DC10 so plenty of power!), and my pack is always in my bits box. Hey presto, instant monitoring wherever I go. On the sides of the pedalboard, one side has a PowerCon and a jack output socket hardwired to the Cioks and the output of the pedals, and I've got a 6m loom in proper sheathing and heatshrinked at the ends - one simple coil end of the gig, also neat and tidy on stage. Other side has jack in and XLR in, jack goes to signal chain, XLR wired to the IEM receiver - keeps everything neat on stage. Entire board is self contained too! Not done it yet but will be, each side of the board has a spare space on the plate for another socket, so another input is going with the inputs, and an XLR out on the output side too - under the board I'm installing a slimline DI box - acoustic bass goes into one side, signal to PA the other back down the send loom - neat and tidy on stage, everything contained. On tour, I carry microporous tape everywhere in the bits box, and another in my clothes case - tape my IEM buds cable to my back with plenty of slack - stops it sliding down my back and pulling, and also makes changing basses much quicker and easier. Silent jack on the acoustic bass - means I can plug and unplug it as I wish on stage without relying on sound engineer to mute / unmute. At home, I've got a compartment of my wardrobe (big IKEA Pax system) where my tour gear all goes when I'm at home. Basses in the bottom (double and a single Harvest bag), stand up next to each other and a perfect fit. Cases go on the shelves above - neat and tidy!

Great idea. It also really confuses people when they borrow your amp - they sound terrible! Bonus.

I use a compressor to make my bass tighter, and to keep the level even so if I try a little tapping I don't have a massive drop in volume, and if i beat the hell out of the B string I don't blow everyone off the stage 5im0n's response pretty much answers your question perfectly