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Joy Division

Here are some real world numbers just to show the bare bones of the actual situation. I don't know why people are so protective of this information, everybody should see how things really are. This is for some original music I wrote and released in 2019 and used CDbaby to publish to the streaming services which cost around $90 to do, if I recall correctly. This is all streaming activity since it was released right up to today. I hope to recoup by 2030. Ok, 2040 😂 Granted, the style of music we play - slow stoner/doom type stuff where our shortest song is 7 minutes long - is exactly the opposite of how to play the streaming game. Ideally, songs should be as little over 30 seconds as possible to register a play, hence why so many albums now feature short songs, short skits and other filler. We're in it for the doom, not the money, though. I have had to go to 4 decimal places to make sure everything gets covered. Pay is counted in US$. To clarify, we're getting 1.05 cents per stream on SoundExchange, for example, and 1/3 of 1 cent on Spotify. Why would you bother, I hear you ask? Well, something is better than nothing, I suppose, but only just. People are going to post your music to youtube and the likes, "share" it on your behalf, whether you like it or not, so you might as well get paid (yes, I know) for it rather than them. That was my logic, anyway, based on it being uploaded to Youtube by several different people unassociated with us. I felt forced into it rather than waste my time finding it and having it pulled down (we did that too, a few times). By contrast, we have around 100 digital sales on Bandcamp, priced at €3.00 and get roughly €2.33 for each sale there. If I ever come across as a Bandcamp fanboy, it's because they are, without question, the only decent digital music provider who aren't ripping artists off. Bandcamp also give you free streaming and downloads for every purchase of music you make. If anyone wants to check out the music behind the numbers, http://witheredfist.bandcamp.com is my shameless plug 😉 If you actually want to support an artist, Bandcamp or direct from the artist is the only way to do it, in my opinion. I'd be interested to hear what people think of those numbers, is anyone surprised by them?

STOMP by the Brothers Johnson - with walk-through of the Bass Solo Located on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuSY5uXA2k Please post if you were able to pick up the solo.

I remember reading in Glen Matlocks book that he and a mate went to see Teenage Rebellion thinking what a great name and how this must be a band worth seeing. The band were made up of 40+ year olds. When they asked about the name the reply was that they were rebelling against teenagers.

I'm sad/bored enough to have done a little research. It appears that any wood used to build a guitar is labelled a tonewood, regardless of any actual tonal properties it may, or may not, have. So as long as it is structurally capable of being used to make a guitar, it's a tonewood. It's as stupid as that. So when adverts/luthiers blither on about magical tonewoods then as long as they've built an instrument with it it's a tonewood, and by default means that every guitar or bass ever built from wood is built using a tonewood. So let's just call it wood. I also found out the best way to get spalting started in a wood is to pee on it and store in damp, humid conditions to let the bacterial growth develop. Mmmm 'Tonepiss'. 🙂

A fan and friend of mine linked the copies of these transcriptions that are on my Facebook page Neil Murray Bass Guitarist to a FB page to do with Berklee music college in the US and their associated bassists. A very respected bass player and teacher, Steve Bailey, who I've met at Warwick Bass Weekends in Germany, saw the transcriptions and quite rightly made the criticism that sometimes the notation is not exactly 'correct' - I assume he means that you’re supposed to see where each crotchet/quarter note starts in each bar, by using e.g. two tied quavers/eighth notes instead of a crotchet, indicating that one of the four beats in the bar lands in the middle of that particular note. In my defence, I would make the following points: Although in certain situations (Gilgamesh 1973, National Health 1976-7, We Will Rock You 2002 onwards) it's been necessary to be able to read music (but not sight-read), for the entirety of the rest of my career playing by ear and not requiring the 'dots' in order to do the job has been the most important skill. I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the bassists who are interested in my playing are more likely to look at the tab, with help from the notation, particularly for the rhythms. Tab is probably banned at Berklee, and mostly I wouldn’t use it much myself, but I didn’t transcribe these bass lines for Berklee students, and if I'd known they would be scrutinised by one of the instructors, I would have made sure they were notationally perfect. For me to do these transcriptions, my abilities are not good enough to use a pure notation app such as Sibelius. I need to be able to hear the notes sounding similar to a bass guitar, and to at least enter the notes in tab, based on the fret positions I used when the songs were recorded. The program that is best for this is Guitar Pro, though certain bends and effects are difficult to notate, even in an app designed for guitarists. Some parts took a huge amount of time, partly just hearing and working out what I played, particularly on the live versions, given that I often haven’t listened to some of these tracks for 35+ years. So occasionally if I got it sounding correct rhythmically, I left the notation as Guitar Pro had entered it, even if I knew it wasn’t 100% 'correct' according to the rules. Given that I am not earning anything from the transcriptions, I feel they're good enough for people’s purposes. The criticism has left me less enthusiastic about continuing with more transcriptions, though anyway at the moment I am extremely busy with non-musical family situations, soI don’t have time. My main plan was that the transcriptions were just an add-on to videos of me replaying these songs, but that’s a more difficult task, to do well, especially as I'm not an extrovert who loves seeing their face on social media etc. Thanks for everyone’s very kind words!

Mines only wrapped on one side with a seam of tape around the edge;

Most Stranglers bass lines.

I was watching a video of Scott Devine interviewing the great, Bobby Vega. Talk turned to his famous ‘shark’, 61 J bass. Scott asked what wood it was made of, Bobby replied, “Brown.” Utter genius.

For sure. I installed a tonebrass nut on a bass recently, along with tonestrap tonelocks.

Eagles of Death Metal

I'm old school and still buy CD's. Only downloads i get are when i buy the CD on Amazon and i get the free album download too. I don't use Spotify or any other streaming. I'm a great believer in the artists should get some of the profits from their own albums. Some of the stories i hear are quite surprising and such a shame really. Dave

It's a bit coincidental that the woods we're told give the best tone are the most expensive and rarest raw materials. Imagine how much less money they would make if MDF or plywood were the best woods for tone.

So after playing Fender basses for 40-odd years I decided to give my back a rest and look for something lighter. After months of waiting, a Yamaha RBX-A2 came up on eBay which I bought and loved, then a second really tatty one came up which I got for £135. I don't have much guitar tweaking experience beyond the odd pickup swap, but on the basis that I had little to lose I decided to have a tinker. This poor bass was quite badly abused although the neck only had 2 dents which I drop filled with Superglue. I filled a much bigger ding on the body edge with epoxy putty. Then I decided to try vinyl wrapping it with a carbon fibre look. I’d never done that before and I’m pleased how it came out, although how long it will last is anyone’s guess. Has anyone else vinyl wrapped a bass? The Yamaha is flat topped which makes it easier, I can’t imagine how you’d wrap a curvy Fender. I couldn’t avoid the odd tiny crease at the edges around the horns, so I covered the edges with car pinstriping tape, which seems to work well and should help to stop the edges lifting. Photos attached. For a £135 bass I don’t think it looks bad, and it plays and sounds great. If anyone’s interested I’ll report back in a few weeks, after a few pub gigs, as to how its bearing up.

Almost anything by the Minutemen. Do Public Image Limited count as punk? If so, anything with Jah Wobble on.

I find the first fret quite easy to reach 😁

That wasn't important on the Moon, anyway. ..

Don't suppose you have any photos of it "the right way up"?? Here we go...

Here's my recent purchase, a Musicman Sterling with a lovely roasted maple neck 😊

Alabama Thunderpussy. No cats, no meteorology, not even from Alabama.

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - What In The World??...” Side note: Over a decade ago I had a short lived p/t job selling instruments (the last time I did anything that resembled a real job really) and I met Colin Moulding / The Red Curtain. He was looking for “one of those old sixties Vox basses like Bill Wyman with all the buttons on it and the skinny necks”. He was quite softly spoken and seemed actually a little shy, initially it wasn’t easy getting a conversation out of him, but we had a chat for a couple of minutes and he was super nice. He was polite and quietly friendly and I was polite, and quietly awe-struck. I’d met plenty famous people before and rarely (if ever) been star struck, often it’s no big deal, they’re just other people. But this was Colin Moulding! Of XTC! So I took his phone number and told him I would call him if a 1960s Vox bass came in. Before he left, I told him his playing was always amazing but especially on “What In The World??..” and he looked a bit bemused* but said, “Oh yeah, er, thanks” and that was it. A few weeks later I’d found a 1960s Vox bass, possibly the Wyman model, but definitely with THE skinniest neck, so I phoned Mr. Moulding and told him. He sounded quite interested when I was telling him the details etc, so I was happy to be able to help out. The Vox bass didn’t hang around long at all though. Pretty quickly I sold it either to Sébastien Tellier or his touring bassist, can’t remember which now, but they were super nice guys. Don’t know if Mr. Moulding ever found the Vox bass he was looking for, but anyway *A few years later I was looking at the reissue of “25 O’Clock” and the notes for “What In The World??..” said the bass was by... eh.?? Sir John Johns..?? Andy flipping Partridge!! One of my favourite recorded bass parts ever! Darn. It was a bit like finding out your dad is actually your uncle, or something. No wonder CM looked bemused when I told him it was my favourite of all his playing 😂 In my defence, my default setting is “bit of a div” but I did feel embarrassed about it later. Andy flipping Partridge though!!! And I still want an Epiphone Newport with batwing headstock. 😎

Thank you, thanks to doug, he is a bit of a star, he is just doing me a flame maple topped ash body for my fotoflame jazz bass, and refinishing the worn out body on my 82 wal, also doing a lacquer crack on my early goodfellow. and his prices are very good too, any repair work needed he is very VERY reasonable, yea give him a bell the bass is now done, as said i went for an antique finish, doug is very perticular about his finishes for example on this he did not just spray the edges black but hand done the finishe in an "antiquey" as he calls it brown and also adds something to the poly to blend in, a bit like a violin finish and its like a mirror, here ya go, thanks doug.

Excellent suggestion.

Me too

And (bar some tweaking) done. Not perfect by any means (well the neck carve is ) but pretty happy with this.

That's probably the nicest looking board I've ever seen! I use the aguilar db751 when I'm not using my tonehammer amp though. I find the low and high cuts and the aguilar drive control enough to get a good warm sound from the digital emulation. Although I can see why you would want your own preamp and combining the hx stomp on a board is where it really shines.

What Dead Kennedys bassline isn't good?

Nervosa from Brazil are more my cup of tea than the oul German power metal 😂

Babylon’s Burning by The Ruts is pretty decent, and worth checking out Booze & Glory - mainly the Chapter IV album - their bassist at the time, Bubbles, was a very busy bassist.

WB-100 definitely! Just drop Leszek an email and he'll give you the current prices. It's a while since I asked and I don't know how recent events have affected the UK price...

I play mostly pick and naturally play sooooooo much lighter than most (all?) of the players posted, except when I’m purposefully hitting harder. Speed is absolutely the easiest thing to achieve if you play lightly. Look at most shred guitarists; they’re no different physically, so you should absolutely be able to achieve that level of picking technique and control - allowing for heavier strings and greater distances to travel - if you practice.

I iPads and Basschat upload don’t mix well .... that and I’m lazy

I wonder if the wood you use gives you colouration

But if they made a guitar from those 2x4 beams then they would become tonewood. I looked up oak as that should have the structural properties needed to make a solid body guitar. It does but it isn't normally used primarily because it's very heavy and hard, and not particularly pretty. But this is the silly bit, and the phrase that keeps cropping up, "It can be used as a tonewood".What do you mean "as a tonewood"? Is it a tonewood or not? Basically if it's made into a guitar then it's a tonewood, but if that same piece was made into a stool seat it remains just plain old oak. It's just a stupid, pretentious load of nonsense dreamt up to make a fairly mundane material appear somehow special.

Hence my original question!

That was exactly the situation we were in and felt pushed into publishing it on the streaming sites. This one, which we gave permission for as the guy is good about publishing links back, was getting almost 1000 plays per day, initially, which was the trigger behind taking ownership of the music in the streaming world. It had gotten to around 14,000 plays before the licencing kicked in, which you can now see in the description. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9mCQ9JXYYA Youtube can recognise the music published to it and will automatically apply a licence like that into a previously existing video. A lot of the people sharing music are monetising it themselves. They're getting paid for someone listening to your music. If they're "sharing" loads of band's music every day, however, it can start to add up. If you want to... not control it, you can't, but at least establish your ownership, setting up publishing with the likes of CDbaby is the way to do it. We didn't get paid for the first 14,000 or so plays of this and, granted, it's not like I'll be buying a speedboat, but I think the people who wrote and played the music should get something out of it instead of someone just putting up music they didn't have anything to do with. I am not a Spotify customer, they are the very worst thing to happen original music, but you're in a corner as an original artist. If you don't take ownership of your music, someone else will do it for you, sadly.

I would have the HB without doubt. As mentioned by ribbetingfrog, the neck and body are good, and that's all that matters because I consider them to be the chassis and the framework of the bass. A bass is after all a collection of parts put together such as the neck, body, bridge, tuners, pickup, preamp and so forth. The electronics are just bolt ons, and you can change them out like replacing the sound card in a PC. As long as the motherboard(ahem, body and neck) is good and you're getting it for a great price, just add the bits you want to improve and save some money. I would much rather have that than paying 3 times the price for a PC with a graphics card, sound card, and slow RAM, none of which I would have wanted. In this case, the Sandberg but it could be a Fender or some other bass whose pickups or tuners I wouldn't have wanted.

One big upside today is bands who wouldn't have got a deal under the 'old' system, can self promote and sell internationally in a way no-one could before, Bandcamp etc. The one constant of the music industry since it started is the musicans themselves are quite far down the list when it comes to getting paid. Rare to come across anyone in the industry who pre streaming felt they were getting a good deal.

Tonewood = generic name for a shed load of woods used to make instruments. Does wood have acoustic properties = yes Will one wood vs another magically transform your instrument into a legendary syren like creature = no will it make you more sexually appealing = no Is there a load of marketing hype = sure that’s what people do to sell stuff. is it still known as tonewood by luthiers and guitar companies the world over = yes

Refuse/ resist - sepultura

Instruments made of the same woods, sorry, tonewoods, sounding very different to each other? What trickery is afoot? We all know that if you take 10 of the most basic and mundane bass out there, the Precision, with ash bodies, maple necks and fretboards, they will not all sound the same. Wood is organic. No two pieces of the same species are the same. To apply blanket characteristics to something which, by its very nature, is inconsistent in cellular structure - before you get into age, how it is dried, how it is cut, etc, etc, etc, is just prone to error. Still no-one can present a list of wood species which are structurally suitable but tonally unsuitable for solid body electric instruments?

More florid obfuscation from the Alembic 'Premium Woods' page: 'Indian Rosewood has a rich look to match its rich tone. As with other Rosewoods, the complex tone is both bright and dark.' So it's, erm, bright and dark? I think the only certain thing we can say is it's Premium, which means it's gonna cost you to find out...ditto Koa: 'Koa has a mellow tone, with big, plump low end response. Better for fingerstyle playing as a slapper will have to fight its mellow nature (but we certainly have heard players who can overcome the default tone of Koa).' Ahhhh, right...better for fingerstyle...unless you slap it, of course...then it's OK, too... These Premium Woods are a right old tonal conundrum...they do look nice, tho...

I use Orange exclusively now and I am not a metal guy, at all! I play across several acts ranging power pop, New Wave, Americana, post punk and 60s Garage rock. I use three different set ups; a 4x10 & 1x15 with a AD200B all valve head for big shows, an SP212 with terror head for smaller venues and an Orange Crush for home practice. If it is one trick, it's the trick I want.

Wow! They are women! They are in a band but they are women! They are playing their own instruments but they are women! They are playing metal but they are women! They are doing what men do but they are women! Whatever next? Maybe we'll have women driving buses, and possibly even women being politicians!

You can probably guess who's behind this. And you'd be right!

To compare size, my 34” fretless and the 27” side by side.

During the first half of a gig once I noticed my top strap button had worked loose in the last song. I finished the song by holding the neck up with my left to take the weight for fear of the strap button pulling out, and sending bass tumbling groundwards. In the break I tried to tighten it but the screw wouldn't tighten properly so I went to the bar and purchased a box of matches, pushed one into the screw hole and broke it off flush. The strap button screw now did up nice and tight, great stuff, now I can enjoy the second half worry free. How wrong was I? All the way through that second set I could hear that the wood composition had changed in that bass. Like an idiot I had not asked for tone matches. What a fool I felt.