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I think my first audition made the band giggle. They're a covers band that will cover anything from gossip to audioslave to GnR. I had never been in a band before, and was terrified turning up to the audition. I'd played the bass for years, at home.... When I get there the bassist before me was just tearing down his 2 4x10 rig with Trace head and I immediately thought "shi what am I doing?" I place my 25 watt peavey practice combo next to it and tell the other bassist I was ready to bring the thunder - we have a laugh. I take my guitar out of its bag. Did I forget to mention I didn't actually own my own bass? It's my sister's that I stole years ago and it still has pink ribbons on the case. Anyway... I play my heart out and barely get heard over the thunderous drums. I place my tiny amp in a corner at head height to allow us to just about hear me and somehow I get the gig! We've just booked our 8th gig in July in front of 200 festival goers.

Limelight 00218 has finally arrived and what a beauty she is. I asked Mark to do as light a relic as possible on a '57' precision. She looks great, sounds great, and plays great. What more can I ask?

Ok, heres my real world experience of using x3 types of set up this year. First Set Up - markbass 500w evo head & barefaced super compact gen 3 (giving 8ohms - so approx 300w). gig types: - a couple of large functions - 200 people + and a few smaller gigs - all with pa support. opinion: firstly the portability is phenomenal. believe the hype. you can easily carry in one hand. foot print is small and cab can go anywhere. i was able to get some gorgeous tones out of it, as well as some really nice gigging tones and volumes. Only occasionally on some songs did the volume become an issue and i had to really dig in to hear. I was convinced this was my set up for ever. the amp was running fairly full on, with a little headroom, but i didnt really need much more volume. Second Set Up - markbass evo head and 6ohm markbass 610 - so approx 400w. gig type: my current set up - did beer festival in fairly large social club - around 300 guests. i picked his up on a whim at a bargain price as our band was starting to do much bigger gigs, and i always fancied a 610. So .... i was 100% happy with the super compact, this 610 was just going to give a bit more volume.... WRONG!! Once i hit the first note i just sounded SO SO warm, full, powerful and suddenly lifted all the band. Volume nowhere near half, and everyone could hear it crystal clear without it being loud. I think the thing is, the super compact is perfectly acceptable, brilliantly portable and loud for what it is. However, the 610 is just back to what bass is about - full, warm, powerful, punchy and never needing to be over loud. Suddenly the super compact had been brought back down to earth. Fair enough - its not meant as a competitor to a 610 but the difference is there. Think of a soloist compared to a choir - just so much more full and nice. Third Set Up - ashdown evo 900w head and ashdown 8x10 4ohm cab. gig type: one off large out door festival. large stage. large pa support. rig supplied by the festival. i used this at the weekend - and i swear its a wonder the whole band didnt get blown 200 yards into the crowd. Absolute ridiculous power. Ridiculous. i think it was on half volume and i had to turn my bass right down and still all you could hear was bass. Not a particularly nice sound, but thats more to do with we only had a 10 minute window to get set up. I cant even compare how the super compact would have been in comparison. Probably a whisper to a scream. In conclusion, it doesnt take a genius to see that thicker, better constructed wooden cabs, with more speakers have a phenomenal effect on everything - volume, tone and presence. However they also are x amount heavier, bulkier and more awkward. In my opinion, can a super compact compete with an decent 4x10? - only just, and thats if the band dont need you playing full out. If your a smallish pub band the super compact is the way to go, absolutely. /itll be great for you. Just as loud as a 4x0 in a small space, nice sound and SO easy to move around. However, in a medium sized gig you can cope with a super compact, but dont expect it to have great presence or much headroom, regardless of whether you are using pa support or not. It becomes more of a monitor. In a large venue its 4x10 upwards all the way.

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Rhythm sections don't play solos EVER!!!!!

The last time I saw a performance like that of the poor old gentleman to Jack's left was when we played a bank's office Christmas party. The CEO's secretary who booked us was there to explain that her boss fancied joining us on stage. For the whole set. And he'd already set up his stack. And his pedalboard. And he had some song suggestions. We'd just finished setting up on the periphery of the CEO's square footage when this perfectly pleasant, slightly porky chap wandered over with a PRS round his neck and asked us if we were ready to go? We were and we did. After a couple of numbers I looked round and this chap was pulling all these guitar faces and widdling away like a nutjob - in total silence, his amp being turned to zero. Our guitard looked at me, I looked at him, we both looked at the drummer and we smiled. After we finished he shook our hands, fulsomely complimented us on our playing and asked if we'd like to do it again some time. I said yes, certainly then wandered off to talk to his secretary away from the main party and ended up boffing her across his desk. Funny old world, eh?

Added this nice one to my arsenal Arpege six SeNr 026

I've said this before, but BC is one of the most polite, friendly and supportive forums I've ever come across. Mind you, what would you expect? - we're bass players aren't we ?

Honestly, didn't expect any of this, as i've said on the other thread i initially started, just to warn people of the fact there was a scammer out there. Great community here. Thank you so much

He only committed a bit of fraud - not murder, for Christ's sake!

If he does time, that won't be necessary.

The specs for the TKS 1126 are available online. http://www.tks.se/ The F112 specs will be similar enough to get a general idea (except the high frequency range will be around 20khz due to the tweeter). Specs won't tell you too much given, for instance, that the stated power handling is quoted at 450watts and Ed Friedland in the review is using a 2kw amp. I'm using 450/500w @8ohms into my TKS but a lot of Fearless users are using a lot more. The more important factors in tone will be the crossover points and the sound of the mid driver used. As with the Barefaced cabs there is a lot of user chat/reviews out there regarding the Fearless line. The Greenboy website states this about the DIY fEARFUL cab A 12/6 is almost as loud as most 210 cabs with one watt input, and more extended in response. When driven fully it can get nearly as loud as a good 410. The fEARFUL will sound fuller while maintaining clarity, and will disperse wider. It will not lose its punch when driven hard.

The bass version compromises by combining attack and release into one knob, but adds an ace up its sleeve in the form of the HPF. This lets you filter out the low end from the part of the circuit that detects the peaks, and with it dialled in you can negate the issue that many single band compressors have where if you hit a low note hard, it makes the compressor clamp down so hard that it audibly impacts your overall volume until it recovers and swells back up again (depending on how fast your attack/release is set).

Surely that should be … irregularly?

Musical masturbation. Please do this in private, not on stage.

There might be huge technical ‘evidence’ as to why one ‘thing’ (wood, pedal, make, mode, bass) is better than another but in the end I think the majority of people make their decisions according to something far more mysterious, the vibe or the feeling they get from whatever ‘thing’ it is. There are endless threads on here (extremely helpful threads I hasten to add) on the merits of all sorts of ‘things’ that go into huge technical detail but I remain convinced that the final decisions we make about what equipment we choose is based, usually, upon highly subjective and nebulous criteria that it’s difficult to name, let alone define.

So basically the other guy's made a £60 profit on a voided transaction, the 'justification' being a couple of vanilla set-ups. Nice work if you can get it. Really, everyone needs to learn how to fettle their own guitars. It's not difficult; the basic tools are dirt cheap; forums like BC are full of helpful people with bundles of experience; there's tons of information and vids out there; and even a little practical knowledge helps when trying out prospective purchases.

Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 35 years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

I've lost count of the number of bands I've rehearsed with or auditioned for at that place. Scuzzy as it was, I'll miss it.

The DG M900 has been out for a couple of years now and remains the goto amp for a number of BCers. I have relatively recently got mine and here’s a short review based on what I’ve found so far: Clean channel The clean channel is awesome and provides all the headroom (and that 'heft' folk refer to) you are ever likely to need, delivering up to 900W, and will cater for pretty much all venues that don't have an in-house sound system. The EQ section is perhaps the best available on any D class amp at a similar (or cheaper) price point on the market today, with very usable and versatile EQ centre points: Bass - 80Hz Low mids - toggle switch optionality centring at 250, 500 or 750 Hz High mids - 750Hz, 1.5kHz and 3kHz Treble - 5kHz If I was to find any room for improvement in the above it would be to have a toggle switch for the Bass to also give the option of centring at 60Hz; but hey really starting to split hairs, right? DG have pretty much nailed the EQ. This clean channel alone IMO makes the amp worth getting for the price (particularly if you can get a mint condition one second hand - which I was lucky enough to do; there were several that came up in the latter part of last year and seem to have all been snapped up). Drive channel - B3K/VMT I'm not in a metal band which is the caricature of M900 owners that is often assumed. I’m actually playing in two covers bands, but Like many of us I’ve been on the lookout for that elusive dirt pedal. The amp allows you to select between two overdrive voicings: B3K mode delivers a more ‘aggressive’, percussive sound while the VMT will bring up the mids for a warmer, more neutral character. I initially found the DG dirt to have too much top end fizz (which was not massively dissimilar to the Channel B dirt on my Two Notes Le Bass), however this was partly down to bright / aggressive Nord pups (which I love) on my Ibby SR combining with a very articulate and responsive VK 210 which has a tweeter. The DG dirt has a 'Tone' control which is essentially an LPF and allows you to cut out the top end fizz, and that combined with adjusting the tweeter crossover on the VK cab got me 85% of the way there, and has allowed me to move on several dirt pedals including my 2Notes, One Control HGBM, TC Mojomojo and SA OFD, all of which I’d regard as being very decent pedals (taking their relative price into consideration). What I've found interesting is that for cabs with a warmer tone e.g. my Markbass 1x12 which has a tendency to roll off the high-end or with a P-bass rather than a J bass, the high-end fizz disappears entirely and actually the high-end presence of the DG dirt comes into its own and becomes a plus rather than a minus. The drive channel (which is not a standalone but feeds in seamlessly to the clean channel and clean EQ) also has a clean blend to allow you keep as much 'clean' bass in the signal as you wish which is very helpful in maintaining the low end. So having come to the amp as someone pretty sceptical about the DG dirt sound (but convinced that it had one of the best clean power-amps and EQs on the market today), I find myself being pleasantly surprised by the dirt channel (which is effectively £400 worth of DG pedals) too - always nice when that happens! (For completeness, I should mention that I have currently settled on the very versatile SA Aftershock to complement the DG dirt options in the amp). Passive/Active switch Allows you to switch from passive to active mode bass. Intelligent foot-switch Really handy to be able to engage dirt or mute via a compact stomp box foot-switch which is included in the price. I personally also like the fact that (IMO!) it's been beautifully designed.

Likewise. The various steps and industrial bits nearby were very handy for moody photos, particularly the classic 'up the nose' shot.

Wow - that's a product of a failed Woodwork O-Level and lots of optimism. Solid Black Ask. Would that pass CITES?!

Barefaced Big Twin T and Super Twin T, both with a hefty power amp and pre-amp, never had a problem in rehearsals, even with a very hard hitting drummer and guitarist playing some filthy rock. Big Twin is a great gig cab too, light and loud and very easy to hear onstage, it's easy to move around (designed to fit in the boot of a Honda Civic according to Alex...) but it's not cheap. Can't recommend them highly enough.

I can't believe people can have such closed minds towards any musical form...except Country

I want to take down the entire Wikipedia entry for Jazz and replace it with...

Great idea... I'm in! Can I request that any surplus is put towards breaking the futhermuckers kneecaps?

Haha - my main motivation here is not to create a funding stream for your BMS sale (and I love the way you snuk in a shameless plug for that!)

Ok let me know how you get in and give me a shout when you’ve done them. Sorry about the problem, as I say it looks like they were posted during a database index or similar when we were moving servers

Well for starters there are entire genres that have developed around synth bass… Drum’n’Bass, Dubstep, UK Bass, Miami Bass, Future Bass, Bassline and not forgetting the imaginatively named Bass Music. It’s a big part of the dance music scene for obvious reasons. One performance that always sticks in my mind is LFO at the Sheffield Octagon sometime in early-mid ‘90s. When they played their titular track, ‘LFO’ (below), it caused some of the bottles behind the bar to shake loose and smash on the floor. All rather exciting at the time. And you don’t get that with a 4-string playing Sex On Fire

Perhaps, but all that suggests that they're readily available and "everybody's playing them"... Neither of which is true...

Ha ha.. 'tis a fair cop :-)

Done.

I think you were looking for www.asschat.co.uk

I think @mcnach might be able to help with this one...

can you fix some kind of wood bar to the existing holes over the pickup and have it extend backwards ? You could paint it to suit Or just strap your hand to the bass in position and use it as an excuse to never put the bass down again ever

Fleet (Hampshire) A bit of a departure, this one. Week #1 DDD is the singer who wants to put together an Elvis Presley / Buddy Holly band. Now I've been here before, and I know (from bitter experience) that you can't put together the band and then look for Elvis ... a bit cart-before-the-horse that way. So here I am with the Elvis I need, he already has a drummer, I play bass, all we need is a guitarist, how difficult can this be? DDD says "let's catch up after Easter". I ask him for some YouTube of his own performance. Week #2 DDD sends me YouTube links of him fronting a serious holiday-camp-style 60s tribute act, full matching silver suits, the whole thang. There's not much of it, but he can certainly sing. He can't find a guitarist, do I know anyone? The email ping-pong continues, I suggest we meet face-to-face and have a chat over a beer, maybe even jam through some of the proposed material. Week #3 DDD wants to hook up but can't do so for a week or two. He starts copying the drummer on the emails. Have I found a guitarist yet? I'm currently chasing FIVE of the buggers. Week #4 DDD circulates a short list of a dozen songs, six each by Elvis and Buddy. I've found just one guitarist who seems to be up for this. We all agree to meet the following Friday. Week #5 My guitarist is up for it, but needs another week to prepare. Week #6 My guitarist is no longer my guitarist. He's decided to stick to bedroom widdling. At least he has a more realistic view of his abilities than most guitarists I've met. Week #7 DDD says he will try again to find a guitarist. I make supportive noises whilst quietly thinking "Game Over, move to radio silence". Week #10 (yes, 10) Things get surreal. DDD emails out of the blue - would I be interested in playing a charity gig on Sunday during the BH weekend? My reply was, and I quote: Deano can apparently bring in both a guitarist and a keyboard player. It's a MacMillans Cancer support gig at a big pub in Fleet. That's all I know. There's nothing on the Web about it and the pub is closed for refurbishment. Several days of email ping-pong follow between the three of us regarding whether or not there will be a PA, will there even be microphones, is back line provided, etc. What could possibly go wrong? Halfway through, Deano adds a fourth person to the email trail - who he? Is he a guitarist? Is he a keyboards player? Week #11 Silvie and I drive down to Fleet. We're taking no chances ... we've left the van fully loaded from Friday night's gig, with complete PA, bass rig, etc. in case we turn up to find a child's karaoke set being used as the PA. And yes, I've seen it done. At the venue we are greeted by the sound of very loud, very live music. There's a large beer garden alongside the car park, a very serious PA is in use complete with proper sound engineer, and the band before us are a professional functions band. Hmmmmmm. Whatever next. I meet the others for the first time. Deano and Roy (the drummer) are relaxed, the 'guitarist' is laid back to the point of limbo-dancing under toilet doors. I say "You're the guitarist, right?" and he replies "Actually I'm a bass player who dabbles in guitar". Oh dear. I ask him if he's worked through the set list. He says he looked at it briefly last night. "But what about the key changes and so on?", I ask him. "What key changes?", he says. Oh dear, oh dear. "Are you going to be OK?", I ask him. "I'll be fine" he says, "I can play anything, and I play harmonica too, and of course I'll sing a few of these. If I'm in doubt, I'll just copy what the other guitarist does". Oh dearie dearie me. We set up on stage and - inevitably - the layout requires me to stand between the two guitarists. In the event it probably doesn't matter, since the sound guy turns down the guitarist as soon as he hears him play. So, how did my audition go? Judge for yourselves - here's the edited highlights with all the cockups skilfully and surgically removed:

Yes, to be fair, after posting that sweeping statement I did decide it was high time I revisited the two Kenney Jones-era albums. I'm coming to the conclusion that I should give It's Hard more credit than I have done previously - it does have a lot of the elements that made me think Endless Wire was a surprisingly good album, except that the latter didn't have Mr Entwistle on bass.

Got an Update..and thanks to all your advice which I passed on to him, he stuck to his guns and has got the dealer to agree (very reluctantly) to swap back the guitars on the proviso that he pays £60, 30 quid for setting up the chapman before he advertised it on his FB page and £30 to put back the strat to its origional set up when they re-swap guitars, seems a bit harsh but I told him probably best to bite the bullet on that one and just get your axe back. Thanks for all your advice folks, love this forum, helped me out so many times

No harm in asking IMO. We have something in the pipeline, just got to wait for rick to tie the ends together. Hopefully more progress soon.

Bloody good too......Close your eyes and it's like Neil is in the room!

Machine Head - The More Things Change...

...in Dobbly, presumably

Gorgeous looking bass, haven't tried one for sound though. Here's mine ;-)

I bought a Mono Vertigo gig bag from them in August 2016. it had travelled hundreds and hundreds of miles with me, on trains, buses and the Eurostar across Europe. The strap broke a couple of weeks ago, as luck would have it just as I was getting on a train for a gig in Bristol. Anyway I managed an emergency repair using my teeth to squeeze the broken buckle bak together and continued my journey. I emailed Mark on the Monday morning, he got straight on to Mono and the distributors, and within a very short space of time had negotiated a return and a replacement bag for me. He even offered to post the broken one if I could get it over to him. That is why shops like Bass direct should in my opinion be shown more appreciation, who cares whether they sell a set of strings with mismatched silks? We should ensure their survival in what must be a very difficult market, with so many apparently great deals available on-line. Can you seriously imagine Amazon who, although well known for their great customer service arranging a return on an item almost a year and a half after purchase?