Leaderboard

Sometimes good things come from bad auditions. I've been trying to find a band desperate enough to want me, and had some ...interesting... experiences. Audition 1: answered an ad on JMB for a blues group. I tell them how long I've been playing - not all that long - as I want to be honest up front. I do a bit of recruiting in the day job, and know how narked I get when confronted with bovine manure. Better to be straight with them from the off. Anyway, he replies, telling me that there's a drummer lined up, plus someone on blues harp and maybe keys too. Could I learn a couple of songs and pop round for a twang? Rightio. I turn up at the BL's house and am treated to half an hour's talking about his guitar collection before we get down to business. He's provided an amp - an ancient Vox gee-tar amp that didn't look much younger than me. Hm. I'd have brought the Eden if I'd known. But I crank the low end and off we go. He's hunched over his chord chart and doesn't look up. With no drummer to lock in with, some eye contact might have been helpful. He then chases me out of the house before his wife gets back. Hmmmm. Then about a week later, I get a 'thanks but no thanks' email. Meh. Think I dodged a bullet there. Audition 2: answered an ad on JMB for a rock covers band. Again, I'm up front about my level of experience. I get their set list - wow! Fabulous! - and learn half a dozen songs, as requested. Then the audition's brought forward a week. Great. But I rock up at the appointed time - to a studio this time - to find that the BL was struggling with one of the songs I'd learnt and had to teach the singer one of the others. Oh dear. But the rest sounded good, although at the end of the evening, they said they thought it was beyond me to learn everything on the list before their next gig. They were quite decent about it though, so fair enough. Audition 3: answered an ad on JMB for another rock covers band. As before, I make it clear how much I do and don't know. I learn the requested songs and turn up to a slightly less-than-ideal studio - bare wooden floor, no sound insulation and a PA that didn't look much more powerful than my home stereo. As I'm getting set up, a guitarist walks in; he's being auditioned too. He sets up his backline - a lovely Marshall valve amp. Then the BL arrives and sets up his backline. Then off we go. The PA just about copes, but after the first song, the BL says to me, 'it needs much more bass'. Well, I was standing in front of the amp and I could hear it OK, which meant he certainly could from the other side of the room. But no sweat, up went the volume to just under half and we launched into the next song. Jesus. My amp was making the room shake. I went to turn it down and the BL said ‘no, leave it, it’s just right’. The guitarist turned up his amp as it was being drowned by mine. Not wanting to be left out, the BL did the same and we went into song number three. This time, the weedy studio PA was completely overwhelmed; all I could do was lock in with the drummer and hope for the best. Then things started to go south when the BL started playing something a bit different before stopping to tell us that we needed to follow him. By now the volume was up well past 11 and the only way to follow him was by lip-reading. The next song fell apart when he missed out an eight-bar sequence from the intro. By now, the negative vibes were starting to creep in. At the end of the evening, the BL thanked us for coming and said ‘we’ll have a chat and we'll let you know’ in a sarky voice. So much for that, then. The guitarist and I compared notes outside and we both reckoned we wouldn’t hear from them again. We swapped numbers though, and decided we’d look at doing something together if it didn’t go anywhere. After a week of radio silence, I pinged the guitarist a text and as expected, he hadn’t heard anything either. He then asked me if I was still up for getting together, as he had another guitarist and a singer who were interested. Oh, was I ever. So a few days later, the three of us (the singer couldn’t make it) assembled in a very nice studio in Cranfield. What a difference! No attitude, a lot of fun and some great songs to play. The Stooges, Black Sabbath, the Undertones, Tears For Fears, the Cult… all good stuff. Plus some originals that the guitarist had written that needed basslines added. I had a whale of a time, and when we decided to make a go of it at the end of the evening, I was on cloud nine. So I did join a band from a terrible audition. Just not the one I originally went for!

I have several spare ones. If you PM me name and address I'll pop one in the post.

With this potential project, there’s obviously an element of ‘walk before you can run’, professional quality audio etc etc probably isn’t an absolute prerequisite at this stage. As long as things aren’t too messy, and everyone is audible and understandable, it’s more about interesting content, everything else is learned along the way. I’m always happy to edit audio, that’s easy enough. Skype is just an easy way of getting started, means you’re not restricted to people who are able...and willing...to record audio via a mic into a DAW themselves.....but maybe that’s a good thing at this point?! Don’t know. Si

RE: getting sponsorship. Don't approach any potential sponsors until after all the snags have been ironed out, the podcasts have been running successfully for a while, there's some firm audience stats, a planned 'broadcast' schedule for the next 3-6 months and some quality material available to be cut down for inclusion in a sales pack. One blows one's best chance if one goes to the market too early or unprepared

Oh, what a shame. It was my elder brother the expert on these matters, but I'm afraid he left us just over a year ago. He had some remarkable pieces of rolling stock and specialised in sub-miniature mining shunter locomotives, similar to this ... Twenty minutes wouldn't have been long enough, of course, except for the briefest of overviews. There's still time to get the lowdown on armchairs, though (but don't delay too long; I'm not getting any younger ...).

I'm finally in a band with a great drummer AND a guitarist who can play quietly and I'm very grateful for that. Those who say they have to play loudly 'to get my sound' are talking crap, basically. Even rock bands can sound 'heavy' without being really loud. My view is that some people like to be loud to direct attention away from their playing, paradoxically.

Commenting on and discussing music and bass related stuff is surely what the entire forum consists of, isn’t that what we are all doing here? Perhaps we should rename the site Basschtum.

Totally off topic, but Rietveld does a beautiful solo here:

Thats some great question/answer playing with Miles and Foley on the first vid at 4.00. his playing is just wow onwards. really enjoyed that . cheers.

Yeah, some lovely stuff.

It looks like this might be a thing folks, I'm going to try and put decent pilot together with @SpondonBassed by the end of the month, so we'll see where it goes from there. I'll PM people individually to sort out the specifics. Thanks to everyone for showing an interest in this and feel free to keep posting any ideas in the mean time, but it's not the end of the world if this thread sinks, I'll be sure to bump it once the episodes out! 😁

Music for musicians. Yeeeuch. I wonder if the bass player dresses in stage gear when he's out sweeping the streets during his 9-5?

The guitarist in my country band was ousted, due to being a bit of a git (and having atrocious BO). The replacement is not as good a guitarist as the guy he replaced but a much nicer person. Harmony has replaced discord and the band is in a happy place.

The best recording session I ever did on DB was a couple of years ago now. I was (and remain) far too inexperienced to modify my technique as between live and studio work, so I just played the bass. The professional sound engineer knew exactly what he was doing, and my playing has never sounded so good. He close-mic'd my Andreas Zeller with a microphone which cost roughly twice as much as my bass. It all seemed to turn out alright.

Done, as best as I can.

Practice practice practice. It always pays off. Heeheehee

Ah fair enough, I think I'm just defining slickness with a different threshold but I totally agree with that. I'm a freelance audio engineer on-top of my part-time day job, I'm not just a hobbyist, the last job I did was for the "The 8th Asian Awards" and I've done a tone of audio restoration work and production on different podcasts. Plus I'm a fairly eloquent and charismatic fellow too on the sly, 😜🤣 so i'm up for putting a pilot together if folk are cool with that? Personally I think https://appear.in/ is the way to go for the first punt, it's like Skype or google hangouts but with less delay and better audio. That's if everyone's cool with me capturing all the audio at my end to minimize fuss for this first pop at it. If we want to go for better audio after then; we could use something like http://www.pamela.biz/ and everyone capture audio at their ends and we comp it afterwords but that means we'd have to use Skype. If no one objects to me kinda taking the rains for the pilot would you @SpondonBassed be up for co-hosting? We could do a few segments and then interview @Chownybass? Providing your still up for it Chowny? Then once its all recorded I'll do a rough edit and possibly pass it to you @project_c to do a QC listen through to catch anything I've missed? Then if you'd pass it back to me I'll master the audio and bosh; post it up here and see what folk reckon, get some feedback on if we should/how to proceed with it? If it get's "green lit" then figure out who's going to run the Libsyn and the admin side of things. What do folk think? I by no means wish to dictate what should happen to everyone, I want it to be BC's podcast not mine. You just posted this after I'd typed up my previous gambit so for the record I'm up for traveling too if in-person would be a preference but it's definitely less doable if we'd like to make it regular. I'm in Manchester not sure where everyone else is?

You should update your above-avatar job description to full time!!

Took the TKP to band practice last night, it plays like a dream and the pickup sounds terrific. A P bass with tone that looks stunning - what more could you ask for.

A lot of gigs I play these days (and for the last dozen or so years) are under the cosh with neighbours complaining about excessive noise. My solution would be that if the neighbours complain about the noise, the band causing the nuisance would have their gear impounded. Sold for charity, crushed or just set on fire, I don't care but IMO inconsiderate bands should be the ones suffering rather than another gig losing its licence and everyone else suffering as a result.

I once discussed joining a band with someone - their precise requirements were that I play exactly the lines they told me to and also drive him and the singer to and from gigs as neither of them drove. That was a tough gig to turn down!

It would really be quite amusing if any profanties were overdubbed with the same swear filter as here

Have you come over from GuitarChat to insult us, or what..?

Negativity on a gig night. beaching about various gripes with the band is fine, do it at rehearsal or a meeting, don't do it while I'm out trying to have a good time and DEFINITELY not while we're on stage you massive grumpy "£$£&%^*%&^

Forgot to say Dave I don't scoop with the contour, it stays all the way off, anti clockwise. Presence I run midway or all the way up (latter case if I use the 700rb head plonked on a random cab when rehearsing), my own stuff has the GK bi-amp so the tweeter brings in the highs; I either use a 700rb 2x10 combo and 115rbh ext or 700head for rehearsal / backup. I've said ad nauseum, and this isn't a slight against Ampeg as I've owned '70s SVTs and V4Bs and persevered, that much as I like other people playing them I get the sound that suits me best with GK. Other than a brief left turn with Ashdown ABMs that didn't work out I've used GK RB heads/ combo for 7 years now. Settings aside, the RB heads sound better with an aggressive touch I think. I suspect that they get their volume from not having a great deal of extreme low end or mush, I appreciate that characteristic and tend to go with the innate sound of the amps rather than trying to eq it out. They are great amps the RBs and cost next to nothing for the quality of sound they have. The quirks are getting used to the juggling of vol/ boost/ woofer and crackly jacks (don't forget to jump lead the fx loop if the amp starts acting up!) and pots. As I always say, my sound gets way more compliments than my playing! All the best

Ah well,; at least you missed my Blue Meanies

Does that make them above being discussed then, "on TV"?

I didn’t, so that’s exactly what I did, turned it off.

Give the trio Back Door a listen, features our local world renowned bass player Colin Hodgkinson.

DHA addiction I would guess

My current fave is Broughton's Terraformer. Breaks up nicely, from light OD to pretty gainy stuff, no low-end loss, and so many tones hence its 3EQ, blend and gain combinations. The tricky part is setting the blend on the fly as it has a major effect on output level. But it doesn't sound 'layered' at all. Nice form-factor too. Second one would be Grizzly bass, Swell B-Peg too, which is less flexible, bigger and has specific power needs, but sounds damn right !

I know that its not answering your question, but I've owned a MIJ Mustang - I felt this had issues, for less money than the JMJ Mustang I bought a Supro Huntingdon II - which in my opinion is a better instrument - better playability and has tone for days.

Agreed. I made my first visit this year and while the shop is small they have some unbelievable stuff. I also found them very kind and despite it being busy they made lots of time for me. Unfortunately the girlfriend won and I came away with nothing but in the spirit of Arnie, I’ll be back!

He’s standing in front of a cabinet with rubbish dispersion. The backs of his knees are getting a great volume, but like everyone in the audience it will sound sharp and scratchy. He needs to move away from the cabinet and point the cones upward directly at his ears. its a common complaint. Off Axis, I.e stand above the cabinet, you will hear less top end and clarity. Guitarists will crank the top end, gain and ultimately volume to compensate for these shortcomings. It will start to sound nice where they are stood, but the volume and top end will be searing to those in the audience and on the other side of the stage, on-axis with the speakers.

As said above, "don't gig" isn't the same as "don't use". I'll probably never gig my EB2, but I get great joy from playing it (and it improves my technique) and so do my son and his musician friends, so I'm satisfied that it's well used and appreciated. I don't gig my fretless atm, because I don't play it well enough yet, but I'm working on that and its time will come. That reminds me of a lovely story from Matthew Crawford's wonderful book The Case for Working with Your Hands - he's a specialist restorer of vintage motorcycles, and tells of a friend who had ordered a beautiful new bike and invited his friends to be there when it was delivered. To their horror the first thing he did was to pick up a handful of gravel and throw it at the gas tank. When asked why, he said "I don't need to worry about it getting its first scratch now!".

Just listen to a normal one, but with the treble and mid turned all the way down...

Unbelievable!

I didn't read the whole thread so I might be guilty of repeating. I started playing at 38. I am now 54 and gig regularly - have done for most of that time. Here is some random advice that springs to mind. - Set up your bass so you can pick it up, flick a switch and practice. Reduce the number of impediments to practice to the absolute minimum. - The first few weeks and months is the bad bit. There is a 'hump' to get over. If you want to do it you will but you'll need to dig in. Eventually it starts to make some sense and you can play stuff. - There are loads of good books, YouTube videos and stuff in these forums. You should use them all but when you are starting out and you will be overwhelmed and clueless a few quid spent on a teacher is a good investment. - If in doubt, learn the bass parts from LOTS of existing songs. Try to do it by ear. Apply the theory I hope you have learned. Choose different genres. - You don't have to buy expensive equipment but buy something half decent that you actually want to play. Equally well, expect your tastes to mature and you'll want something else/different in time. - It doesn't matter if it's a P/J/MM or whatever. Equipment will never make you better but practice will. "Your tone" is a luxury. In tune will do. - Aim to find a band and play some gigs as soon as you can. It's terrifying to start with but nothing will teach you quicker. Don't be ashamed of being a beginner - if you need time to learn the parts, say so. - Some people really benefit from open mic nights and the like. Some people (me!) can't think of anything worse. - Always aim to find musicians better than you not worse. - You don't have as much free time at 40 as you would at 14. Pick your battles. Aim to practice every day but you can't and don't have to learn everything. If you don't want to learn slap then don't learn it. - Dedicate some time to learning music theory. It's good for you! - Buy a tuner - You're probably going to meet some strange people you wouldn't have done otherwise...

Jeez, a real ding on a fake dinged up bass...

I have joined a couple of bands from it, so I still use it, but yes, it is full of the sort of bands that will never get anywhere, although they are easy to spot, and yes the search engine is so frustrating, I always have to do a look at both counties that I straddle the border from, even though a search by distance would be good. But it is the most popular so the busiest. Bandmix never seemed to me to be something that knew what it was - it has a geographical search by distance that is very stupid. Yes, bandmix, Cardiff is less than 35miles from Yeovil if you ignore the huge expanse of water in the way

These are moving on okay - I'll post some proper details later. At the moment, there are two bodies and lots of holes... And a neck for the spalted top one...

I don't think there's such thing as too good to be used. It's made for a purpose ultimately. Now, there's different gear that I would take to different gigs. But, I've got a brand new (well it was in October when I got it) Aguilar rig, and I've got an Alpher in the process of being built at the moment. That'll be my touring setup, both are pieces of incredible gear so they'll be used to their true purpose. However, I probably wouldn't take them down to a local pub gig. I'd take my Jazz Elite or the P for gigs like that.

My first DB, a Thomann Europe 2TN, its as exciting as when I bought my first car.

That sounds like one of the better ones!

Here go the opinion police again...

I don't currently, but have a strong desire to start an Ian Dury tribute - as the vocalist