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Found this today. "Marie and I had a second fun-filled day at Summerfest yesterday which was also the last day of Summerfest 2018. Bands we saw included Paper Holland, Soccer Mommy, Aleem, and Bad Boy. The day ended with Cheap Trick thunderously rocking the house filled with adoring fans. Surprisingly, they were not, in my opinion, the best band we saw yesterday. That was reserved for the local Maple Road Blues Band. https://www.facebook.com/Maple-Road-Blues-Band-181086306205/ We had never heard of them before, but went to see them because we had noticed that they hail from the same suburban/rural county north of Milwaukee where we live. They played to a much smaller venue than Cheap Trick with hundreds instead of thousands in the crowd. Yet their excellent musicianship and passion for their craft captivated the audience with both original music and standards. I think Stevie Ray Vaughn was smiling down. Sometimes the best is indeed right in your backyard." Nice, I don't see very many of those. I'll take it. Blue

I say bat the ball back into his court. Ask him if he's sure he wants to play guitar, maybe he'd like to play the ocarina instead. Ask him if he's sure he's in his 40s, maybe he's actually 27. Also I'd pull him up on his assertion that he's in Hitchin, because it's possible that he's actually from Croatia. S.P.

Among many other things, I love the trouser choices going on here.

It's just a tool. I play a 5 purely because I get piano scores rather than bass parts and I like to be able to play the low end without having to thing about changing things. Half the time I don't use the lowest notes but I have more positions to play in because I can play across the board rather than up and down. TBH anyone who does the "4 was good enough for Jaco" routine is a weapons grade silly billy. There were hardly any 5 string basses around at the time. There was the 15 fret Fender V 1965 but the first really popular 5 was the Stingray and that wasn't introduced until 1987. The year Jaco died. Wal and Alembic did some before that but they weren't common or affordable. Who knows what he would have done if he had lived longer. But one thing I am sure of - he wouldn't have said - "Oh look! a 3 string double bass was good enough for Bottesini so that's good enough for everyone"

Get some black Fablon type material. Goes on in a one'r,no drying time and no smell. I picked up a 2M roll of white for £3.99 in Lidl, so far it's done 3 scratchplates with plenty left.

Call me age-ist but I don't think you are going to make it big in alt-rock in your forties. I'm mid 30's and I wouldn't be able to put up with the lack of sleep from touring. It just seems like one of those ads from a complete dreamer who doesn't understand what they're saying. Wouldn't be surprised if he's never taken his guitar out of his bedroom.

I totally disagree, 40 is the new 20 so at 44 I am so close to making it big with my electro emo punk jazz funk..... now where did I leave my glasses? ........

Mastodon - Leviathan Off the back of the albums you tried to love thread; it really is superb.

+1. Also, there is much more of a continuum between the 'disowned' early records (Tone Float > R&F) and the 'official' canon than they'd like to admit. Aside from the title track, Autobahn shares quite a bit with R&F to my ears and there are still conventional instruments on Autobahn too. Florian's flute is quite prominent and Klaus Roeder played guitar - although he's been excised from the sleeve notes. I'm not sure if he's still on the back sleeve (inside the car). That picture was doctored anyway. Not only were Ralf & Florian composition students, but Karl Bartos was an orchestral percussionist - also from the Franz Schubert Conservatory, recruited via their former tutor for the Autobahn tour. Only Wolfgang Flur was a rock'n'roller. Ironically, given the flack they took about musicianship, there can't be many successful pop bands with a higher level of formal training than Kraftwerk. It shows too.

Or Messi. Or Ronaldo. Or Neymar. Remind me again, what happened to their teams?

Channeling my best Ron Manager, “Back Home; Esso coins, dad getting the petrol; Banks upset tum; Bonetti the cat; Uwe Seeler; broken dreams; best England team ever; jumpers for goalposts; hmmm, Wembley Trophy football...” Yep, definitely Back Home!

We played Scarisbrick Marina Festival, just outside Southport, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday clashed with the footy and predictably there were only a handful of people there, it felt a bit too quiet, and we drifted toward the end. Better on Sunday - we had a drummer this time, a dep who did pretty well, still only about 30 people but they were bouncing around in their seats and clapping to the faster songs, better atmosphere and we played better. Afterwards an elderly lady came up to me with the sweetest smile, put her hand on my arm and said "Thank you - the bass drives the band, you know." Made my day 🙂

Surely vindaloo qualifies on both counts 😀

Anything where they have to chant, Inger-laaaand. Which is pretty much all of them, well English ones anyway I seem to recall liking a Scottish one with the bloke from Gregory's Girl singing. Early eighties. Talking of Gregory's Girl, Clare Grogan 😍

Here’s mine!

I've always thought the Italian national anthem was a good one.

This thread could equally be called: ”List 99% of the worlds music” Si

Jaco liked 5 strings: That's a Gretsch (or a Guild? can't remember, think it began with a G) and a custom acoustic he specced I think.

You really need to put a clear lacquer coat over the colour coat and then polish it back to get the shine and the strength in the finish, the colour coat alone is not very durable it is the clear lacquer that gives the strength

It is of absolutely no importance to me what other bass players do. Besides the best bass lines on most albums released since the early 80s were synthesised or sampled and played by a sequencer.

Great basses, good call. The two switches are DFA1 and DFA2. Sound guys use them, albeit mostly with guitarists and singers, it's unusual for them to be required by bassists

Sounds about right. A high output but Hi-Z pickup is only "High Output" when it isn't loaded down by a low impedance.

Lemon squeezy ! And of course, if they get scratches, whip it off, respray, hammer it back on - job done. No brainer !

That looks great @BrunoBass I'm trying to do the opposite - I have a white scratchplate and want to paint it black. The prices are daft!

No issues with mine ... and over the course of my ownership I have realised that it is my favourite jazz bass. That is inclusive of my 76 Fender and lakland Darryl Jones. I never expected that!

It's Gibson scale. The body is small, as per Prince's request, which makes it look out of whack a little. Width is what you would expect on an average Les Paul. 42mm at nut. 53 at 12th fret. The neck is a definite C - a bit of a tree trunk, but nice to play. Here it is next to a common or garden Strat. I am getting an ESP Cloud tomorrow (below), so it will be interesting to compare them.

Very true - Blood & Thunder is exactly how an album should start!

Wales, Wales Bloody great fish are Whales ...To the tune of Land of my Fathers - probably the best anthem in the world evaaah and I speak as an English person. Every time I hear it at the rugby in Cardiff it absolutely sends a shiver down my spine.

Now that's a proper dirge. Dull, fawning load of old toss.

I too blame BC for many many things! Especially moments of similar madness / cashflow in the "wrong" direction But hey, Marylin is absolutely lovely, and I'm sure will bring you many hours of happiness As Happy Jack says above - "what's age got to do with it?" And he's absolutely bang on correct, of course. (EDIT: Yes Mrs Happy Jack - it does happen! lol) In fact, the younger me could not possibly have afforded half of the gear I now own Happy NBD to you Mr Staggering on - enjoy

Forgot to get back on this one. Yes, the power cable mentioned in the OP did work

...and nobody wants a wobbly knob!

So this is my effort for this month, I hope you enjoy it ☺️

Ah, thank you.

Heres mine. Loveing the SA stuff especially the Aftershock. Goodbye B3K. Biggest suprise is i can use it as a clean boost as well, set it up to have a parametric mid boost. Still need the analog octaver though.

Outstanding work, sir! And what's age got to do with it?

And they're done, barring another couple of coats of finish:

Yeah, with you on that, really wanted to like it and whilst an improvement on Once More... and possibly The Hunter too, it doesn't do it for me. I am a bit sad that the Mastodon who wrote Leviathan doesn't exist anymore, but I understand the need to sustain a career. Try the Call Of The Mastodon EP - I swear the drums on that are just a constant stream of fills!

Here is my contribution to the July 2018 Basschat Composition Challenge, inspired by a picture chosen by last month's winner: Discreet. A sequence I've been playing around with for quite some years, really, but bent, this time into an abstract form of 5/8 time, at 88 BPM (they looked like eights, to me, so I leaned on the 'five eights' concept...). Brushed drums are Superior 2, in two batches. The bass is my trusty Trillian, a rather buried piano is a very basic 4Front Vst, all guitars are my Xaviere, played as 'one takes' by myself. Little treatment, just a bit of comp, eq and a spot of reverb for one of the guitars. Mastered using AAMS, 'Jazz' preset, otherwise 'brut de pomme' as recorded and mixed with Reaper. Again, it is what it is. Thanks for listening, if you already have; if you're about to, enjoy.

There is at least one person living in France but I say un oef is enough

You have a long and fun journey ahead of you Ben! Since you mention wanting an octave pedal for chordal things, I'm guessing you have an octave UP pedal in mind. There are basically two classes of octaver - analog and digital - which should be thought of as different things. If you want a clean octave up, you need a digi octaver. For octave down, people generally agree that digital sounds wimpy, while analog is awesome (and can get very synthy). NB analog octave up does exist, but for technical reasons it has more in common with a fuzz effect - you won't get a clear sounding octave-up note. A classic combination for synthy sounds is Octave > Dirt > Envelope Filter. Octave can be either digital-up or analog-down. Different flavours... I like using both at the same time ;). Also defo worth playing around with the order of these three effects though. Xotic BB has you covered for dirt, at least for the time being. Fuzz (especially gated fuzz) can work very well for synthy stuff though, so you might want to add one in due course. I personally go Analog Octave Down > Fuzz > Digi Octave Up > Overdrive > Envelope Filter. From what it sounds like you are looking for, I would recommend that you buy a digital octave pedal (as per my first point) and envelope filter to begin with. Combined with your BB, these will give you a flavour of what the octave/dirt/envelope combination is all about. You will probably end up adding an analog octave pretty quickly after that. Followed by a fuzz. My personal recommendations are as follows - DIGITAL OCTAVE: TC Sub'n'up. No-brainer IMO, check my post on page 2 here for why. ENVELOPE FILTER: More than any other pedal, this really is all down to personal preference and playing style. You will have to try a few. MXR Bass Envelope Filter is a decent starting point. Very popular, and very tweakable so you can get to know what you do and don't like. ANALOG OCTAVE: Boss OC2 is the classic, but it has its problems, so a lot of people prefer modern interpretations of this pedal - check out 3leaf Octabvre, MXR Bass Octave deluxe. Those kind of build out from what the OC2 can do as a starting point. Aguilar Octamizer and any of the COG models are very popular as well (but a bit less focused on 'nailing the OC2 thing'). FUZZ: Many many options. For 'synthy' I would start by checking out 3leaf Doom, Darkglass Duality, Zvex Mastotron. NB there are quite a few all-in-one 'synth' pedals out there. My personal preference is to avoid these, because I feel like I get more versatility out of multiple 'specialist' pedals. I'm also picky so I like to be able to choose each element of the 'synth' signal chain. Perhaps others will chime in with recommendations for 'all in one' pedals though, if you want to go down that route. Also, I personally don't like modulation effects, so somebody else will have to chime in for Chorus pedal suggestions!