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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 😍

Just to let you folks know that the first pedals from Malcolm Toft's Bassics have started to ship to UK retailers and have a are RRP of £199. They are made in small batches with loving care. All Bassics pedals* and are road friendly …they have a unique feature in that they will work with any power supply from 9-18 volts, A.C. or D.C. and any polarity. We'd love to hear what Basschatters think. Visit http://bassics.co.uk for more information Bassics Cruncher Pedal The Cruncher distortion pedal can be switched to 'hard' or 'soft', with the hard setting adding extra harmonics, and could become a favourite with guitar players as well as bass users. Bassics Omni Pre The Omni Pre preamp/bass switcher is just the right foot stomp to instantly change from one instrument to another, say from fretted to fretless, or upright. Heck, Malcolm Toft has even done the unthinkable and put in a mix switch to run both channels at the same time! RRP £199 Bassics Squeezer The Squeezer compressor pedal is a studio quality VCA with a sound much like the revered dbx160. The controls allow the player to control the levels of drive, compression and overall gain. RRP £199 Bassics Tone Ranger The Tone Ranger EQ pedal is a three band preamp with sweepable frequencies. The illuminated controls come in to their own on a dimly lit floor! RRP £199 *Excluding the daddy of them all, the BPA-01 Floor preamp which is AC powered only.

Here's my Aria also from the same era (modified with bridge pickup and the original scratchplate was white). The body is made from Sen I believe.

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

Thats what I thought! Nice and understated!! 😁

Subtle!

Just thought I really struggle to like anything by lamb of God music is great but when randy starts wailing like a stuffed pig then it spoils it for me

Yep cheap spray paint will do it. Couple of passes of it. I usually do it to cheapo guitars. Just adds something else to it.

The best bass players (pro or otherwise) are the guys playing the best bass lines. Who cares what instrument they used. Do what the best pro players do. . . make your own decisions and resist following the herd.

When the singer says "mate, can you do something about your tone?", you simply hit the "vocal enhance" switch (DFA1) and say "How's that?". S/he will love it. On the other hand when a guitarist say's you're too loud and s/he can't hear the nuances of their '57PUPs, you hit the "guitar enhance" switch (DFA2). S/he will also love it. I have a few such circuits in stock if anyone would like to buy one, they're lightweight and require no expertise to install, but don't come cheap.

There are many pro players that use a five string in the studio but not live (or not often at least). Flea - Red hot chili peppers Stuart zener - Jamiroquai Jamareo Artis - Bruno Mars Off the top of my head.

From this: to this: with a few coats of Halfords finest black... It's heard up really well over the last couple of years too..

As are such simple hardware issues as knobs. My fret ends were ok, but I replaced the knobs with shiny ones from fleaBay and the tuners with some nice Hipshot ultralites (thus shaving a good half pound off the overall weight of the bass). Oh, and I replaced the bar string retainer with some Hipshot string trees. Twisted necks and duff finishing and dodgy woodwork are all problems, and as far as I know they are absent from Sire instruments. Tuners and knobs are just niggles.

I painted the scratch plate on ‘51 style bass I was modifying. It was black and I wanted white. I couldn’t find a white one that wasn’t a stupid price so I spray painted it with aerosol craft paint. I roughed the scratchplate with 2000 grit paper and built up light coats. No issues whatsoever. I doubt it would stand up to much abuse before scratching through, but it’s been ok so far.

Hearts Alive isn't a bad way for it it end either! I know, Joesph Merrick actually finishes it, but that is very much an outro

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

I went to see FORQ recently in Manchester. Fantastic gig and met Kevin afterwards ... he’s a top guy as well as a great musician.

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https://www.red5audio.com/ The RVD30 is perfectly adequate for most applications you might use an SM58 for, and if you ask Red Audio nicely they will normally do a 'four for £100' deal.

I made the switch in my main covers band about 2 years ago, mainly due to complaints from other band members about general on stage volume. I agree Chris, it's a total revelation when you get your mix right. We also use a Behringer X mixer, but ours is the X-18. I agree totally on that too, it's a fabulous bit of kit for not a massive amount of money.

You would think that, and i did as well, but it’s a bit more long winded than that.

There's a couple of FIs going on Gumtree for £270.One has an M2 thrown in. I love my FI, still feel like I've only scratched the surface. The Soleman makes a big difference but only had that a week.

The Heil is defo where it's at out of the two. Plus extra cool points for being the Hunger Games mic...

My old Epic looked like this. Wenge top, unlined fretless five. I have lost most of the good photos I had of it, and the ones I still have were taken with an ancient camera phone (it would be close to ten years since I sold it). However, I can still remember the furterbil.

Are you using your FI and SYB-5 in a band / live performance context? If so, would love to hear them in action - e.g. a video or audio clip on this thread would be great:

I’d save for 3-4 years and get a Fodera or (insert uber priced brand here) Si

If you used the Terror with your own bass and own cab and loved it, getting one has to be the answer.

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!

Yes theres a venue near me that the singer checked out (but I knew the score there anyway) where they want you to play before they give you a gig. Fortunately it's not a full gig, they just want to look at bands they don't know at their open mic first to check them out. It's fair enough if you are an unknown quantity. Unfortunately 3 band members live so far away from the venue that the chances of them making a midweek open mic are pretty much zero. I recall its not a well paying venue anyway which is one reason I've never played there.