Leaderboard

A bit Stingray heavy after getting back my beloved & long lost ‘95 Ray, 25 years after I originally bought it. So the bottom 3 are the only ones put out to play now that it’s back.

Viz Morrison the other main drawback if he's somewhat of an a-hole.

Played last night, wedding with 30 guests. New members in the band, new sound guy, new songs in the set, so bit of a risk but it was so enjoyable to be playing and the happy couple partied hard.

Treating this as a learning experience, so as I had a pretty straight grained ash offcut and some thin strips of walnut veneer, thought I might as well have a bash at a multi laminate neck! Not jointed yet, just a mock up with the cut pieces.

Well, that was good gig! First one for more months than I can remember and the release of all that pent up energy was incredible. Good audience up and dancing (and yes, we played only Grateful Dead music - the Dead used to say they were first and foremost a dance band). Only complaint - too short - we only had a one hour slot and it was gone in a flash.

Break Wind and Fire....best I’ve ever seen and some 25years ago before tributes were called tribute bands.

It’s funny isn’t it, with today’s so-called much better designed, much more efficient equipment we now need all these filters to get the perfect sound that we heard people in the 60s/70s/80s achieve from the supposed sub standard gear around at the time that wasn’t scientifically any good.

I've got to agree with this. Great music but I just can't get past the over-wrought fake emotion vocals. Sounds like he's having his balls squeezed in a vice.

Talking about what we do and don’t know about the universe obfuscates and deflects the issue, we are not talking about universe misconceptions, it’s Compressor misconceptions and I am pretty sure more than 4% is known about it (not including myself in that btw) The article is interesting, but the key points were: Control your sound Dont let the FOH be the one to ride faders and control too much for you. In certain situations he can see its use despite being not for him. Focus on your own playing (universally agreed by everyone) Learn to use your compressor properly Despite being not for him - he has pretty much agreed with what the ‘fanboys’ have said

I went out today, to get a guitar and bass. I had in my mind to get a Telecaster and either a 4 or 5 string bass. I did try out a couple of nice Teles but came home with a 4 and 5 string bass, instead. I already have a very nice '61 re-issue Jazz Bass, so didn't need another JB. But I picked up an American Original 70s Jazz Bass, in vintage white and got rather wowed by it. Really gorgeous and very smooth to play. Well, it has different pickups, positioned slightly different and different body wood to my '61, so that's my excuse for getting it. I also tried a couple of Cort 5-stringers. A GB75JH which is incredibly good, for very little cash. But the one that came home with me was an A5 Plus SCMS, which is a single cut bass, with a through neck and multiscale fretting and really excellent spec. Bartolini Mk1 pickups, Hipshot hardware and some beautiful woods. Including Ash body, with a spalted maple top and a maple and panga panga neck. The pre amp works really nicely with 3 band EQ, vol, pan and a passive/active switch. 2 very different basses, in pretty much every way but both are a real buzz to own and play. The Jazz will be more for band playing, the Cort for noodling and recording. Though I may take it to band practice, for some fun.

1962,1963 jazz

we had our first full pub set gig last Sunday for 15 months, with a newish guitarist after a couple of crash rehearsals, bit ropey, but as Basil would say "I think we got away with it"

Thanks to all who have given their advice on this. I added to 100mm port today. Also lined it and changed the speaker for a very good 16ohm SICA that I picked up on ebay for £40. It is ideal. The idea is to run this as a 16ohm small combo that I can hook up to an 8ohm 210 with two of the same drivers and with the same tuning. Very happy with the result. Next job is to upgrade the tweeter. It is certainly a fun project

If Motörhead are the Bourbon of rock music then Coldplay are the Horlicks. I am sure they are nice blokes but a visit to IKEA is more rock and roll. Edit: Apologies if I have offended any Horlicks drinkers with this post. Any members of Coldplay if you feel offended please just check your latest bank statements then just laugh at me. Your clearly doing something right.

There's an Indian guy who does an Elvis tribute called 'Patelvis' 🙂

Just ask them to send you empty pickup covers, faux pickups is all the rage.

I know a guitarist who depped a gig on bass. He said he found it very tiring, because he had to be playing all the time and couldn't take any breaks!!

My first gig of the year this evening. Just a 45 min spot in a multi band event, but at least we can get together and play for an audience again.

Compressors? I'll get my tin hat out 😀

And there you go. Dynamic control is not the only job of a compressor. Its also a timbre control, and a transient control, and a means of making space in a mix. Even on a pedalboard.

Aye I was bassist in that band for a bit and came up with the name 😂 There is/was also Bon Geordie up here if I remember right.

Yeah, if guitarists are so great how come nearly half of them are below average?

They weren't a tribute band but I always liked Frankie Goes To Holyhead.

I think they were called Cliff Richard and The Shadows 😉

Thanks for the heads up. I have one now. Great sounding little combo it is too.

Carve it out from the back like the Psilios bass...

My wife works for an electronics components company. Their factories are currently operating on leadtimes between 4 months and 13. Yes, over a year on a lead time for a tiny little crystal for your digital circuit timing, worth $0.02. They are but a tiny part of the massive puzzle which @agedhorse has discussed above. It’s just one of those things right now, sadly.

After four refresher get togethers, our first gig back tomorrow night audience seated, drinking and distanced but we shall try to pull out our best performance. Have birthday gigs booked, a wedding and various pub gigs to look forward to between now and Christmas around Lincolnshire.

@Mace has a band called Fighters Foo I believe.

Looking forward to tomorrow (30th) when I'm off to see my old drummer's rock covers band play the afternoon away in a village pub garden. Fine ales, decent music, good company. Lovely. It's been way too long. Let's hope this is the start of getting back to what we love doing.

First one next Saturday, outdoor festival socially distanced of course. About 30 in the diary now so keeping my fingers crossed it all goes swimmingly!

Take the neck off, set the body on fire, stab it with the weedy neck, then burn the neck sorted

Well, after this thread I dusted down my very dusty P bass and tried it in my new amp. Just after I had decided to sell it... It sounds amazing with the Tech21 amp. Damnit!

Along.

Not even one tiny Beatles tune?😊. I can't abide their twee mop top period but once they discovered the joys of LSD etc, grew their hair on their heads and faces they produced a wide variety of tunes. For me more hits than misses. The Doors are generally woeful but I do like LA Woman. Have to agree with you viz Rod Stewart. To me he's a repulsive man of little talent and can't be forgiven for travesties such as the Great America Song book albums, Merry Christmas Time Baby, Still The Same, Great Rock Classics of Our Time and Soulbook. He's a vastly inferior singer to all those who did the original songs on these albums. Weird thing is they all went platinum in many countries.

Sure I heard of a DS tribute called Dire Strats.

Love that song, thanks... Captain of your ship - Reparata and the Delrons

At band practice last night I had to travel light so only my bass, no pedals, and used the rehearsal rooms amp. With my band I use a touch of compression and I really noticed not having it last night. It just seems to sharpen up the notes, or because it does that and they’re sharper and more defined that then makes my playing more accurate.

A Rutles tribute Band. Oasis

Not sure if it's true or not but I once heard of an AWB tribute called Average Height Band.

Separate pedals on a board => multifx unit multifx unit => separate pedals on a board

I find this list a little odd. I’m a big fan of all of these bands and although some of the songs you have selected are OK, I think each band have done better - I mean a LOT better. Aerosmith a poor man’s Rolling Stones? I don’t think so.

I'm with @Chienmortbb on this, probably. you won't get the theoretical 6dB extra as the Elf won't deliver double the power into 4ohms but you will get close to that, around 5dB is likely. That's the equivalent of almost four times the amp power but sharing the task of shifting air between two cones means each won't be working so hard. You already know that the speaker will distort if you just double the amp power, do it for any length of time and they will break. Generally speaking two tens will get you where you need to be, but i don't know your band of course. There are two ways to go on this, put your bass through the PA and just use your 'rig' as a monitor for you to hear or if your PA isn't up to bass then you need to get your sound levels matching the drummer. You have the luxury of a drummer with a volume control. It's nice to have the second option as you can always turn down from maximum but you can't turn up if your system is already flat out. Adding a second identical 10 is going to preserve your sound and give you much more headroom for the lowest cost and preserve the sound you have. Anything else will change your sound and be more expensive, then you are into auditioning different gear and looking for a new sound. If you are newly back to this I'd keep it simple, within a year you will have a much clearer feeling for what you want to do and the same GAS for new gear most of us here suffer from If you don't like your sound then...... have fun looking

Two female tributes - Shania’s Twin Amy Housewine

Dingwall and Darkglass.... You too can sound just like every other metal bassist!

Yes, this is absolutely part of it. I did explain this to Dave over on TalkBass but I think it might be good to include the same information here. 1. It has nothing to do with Gibson period. The decision was made everybody involved because we are having great difficulty getting parts in sufficient quantities to fill the large number of orders we already have. Not just orders outside North America but also within North America. It makes no sense to try to ship a couple of amps at a time overseas, that's how products get lost and damaged. Especially tube amps. 2. Why are we having challenges with parts? It's not just us, it's the entire manufacturing world that is experiencing these shortages. Raw materials are delayed getting to our suppliers, our suppliers are delayed in their own manufacturing and some of our component manufacturers are experiencing delays from their suppliers. It's not our fault, it's not our supplier's fault, it's a global problem and no matter how much we wish it wasn't so, throwing money at it makes no difference when the parts simply do not exist. 3. In our case, we don't use a lot of generic parts. Many of our parts (like transformers, PCBs, pots, switches, sheet metal, speaker components, enclosures) are custom parts and have longer lead times than generic parts. These have been delayed by our suppliers, and not just suppliers from any one region but suppliers from France, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, Germany, China, the US and Canada (I'm sure I'm missing some, but you get the point). This is mostly related to COVID, but because there are many steps in the manufacturing process, each step's delay adds to the total delay. 4. Then there's shipping delays... never have I seen the delays throughout the shipping world. Of course there's the shortage of containers, this was expected, BUT what was not expected was the ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal. It's not the week or two of direct delays, but the resulting suspension of operations at the ports because the ships they were waiting to unload and reload were all sitting out at sea waiting for passage. All those ships loaded with hundreds of thousands of containers that should have been unloaded and ready for their new loads. Combine this with the number of cancelled sailings (where a ship scheduled to depart is cancelled and waits for the next scheduled cycle. If you had containers scheduled for that ship, you were struggling to find alternative passage but often the logistics and global paperwork make it impractical. Containers with perishable goods, as well as livestock have priority, that's how the maritime laws are (and it makes sense). Then, the port delays, the inland shipping, the transfer companies, the rail companies, EVERYBODY is delayed. Oh, and the costs are out of sight too. This has not improved in the last 3 months, and may actually be worse. 5. We had our own factory delays, almost all of last year we had to operate in specialized "safe work cells" with all the necessary isolation and PPE gear. Because of the county we are located in, there were many weeks where we couldn't run ANY production due to stay at home orders. This applied to many of our suppliers too, and not just here, but much of Italy has been locked down pretty hard. Italy and the US are where many of our speakers come from, and THEIR suppliers were also locked down. Some of our suppliers simply didn't survive, we had to use back-up vendors and test sample parts in order to re-qualify the parts (especially where they are part of a safety agency approved assembly)... oh, and the safety certification agencies were also impacted, so there were delays in certifying the new parts so that the entire assembly could be re-certified. This impacts the EU specifically because of the change in EU market standards for legacy products (that do not apply to North America). It's a lot more complicated than "we just didn't want to ship outside of the US". The decision was more of what is practical, and promising something that we have almost no control over doesn't help the situation either. Nobody is happy about this, everybody shares your frustration and disappointment (including me) and we are all very, very sorry. When I know more, I will communicate it with you. Fortunately, there are a lot of good choices in bass gear these days, and if a manufacturer more local to you has stock, it may make better sense to move on for now and maybe revisit this at a later time. Hope this helps.

My favourite has always been Bye Jovi.