Leaderboard

So, my first foray into playing bass with a band has fizzled out. The band leader has decided she has too much on to keep it going and has put the whole thing onto the back burner. However....... Last month I attended the Jazz Jam in Lancaster and was really impressed by the standard of musicians that showed up. I approached the bass player who spent most of the night backing up all the musicians and asked if he'd consider giving me some pointers on jazz standards. He said he would, and on my first lesson, he said "you can play!". On the second lesson he told me he was intending moving to London in January and would I mind if he passed my details onto the bands he plays in with a view to me being his replacement! The upshot of this is that I have an audition on Wednesday for a jazz band, most of whom attend the jam, and it's jam night this Friday too. So', I'm going to nail four or five tunes from their set for the audition and hope they like me, and play at Jazz Jam on Friday too! Buzzin! Yee har! Rob

We played at The Huntsman Tavern in Salisbury last night, arrived to a fairly quiet bar watching the ladies football and then the darts… Once we’d set up and sound checked what a difference, the pub started to fill up with a lot of friendly faces that (I’m told) follow the band from pub to pub - apparently they were out to see the new bass player….🤣 Lots of singing and dancing from the off had me settled in in no time, it’s my 4th gig with the band and things are nice and tight now, so I’m finding I’m starting to relax and enjoy gigging with them, we did an off the cuff rendition of Radar Love which seemed to go down well. All told a great night and lots of positive feedback ref the new boy - long may it continue 😊

Methil Ex-Services in Fife last night. Glam covers band. About half full which the club said was good under current climate. Dancing from 2nd or 3rd song, lots of vids being taken on phones altho haven't seen any yet. Band sounded good. Backline and vocal PA and the new Handbox WB-100 did a sterling job and all running flat on EQ with master at 11 o'clock. Club was very impressed and have asked if we could do next years Hogmanay 2023. Gave them a price and they will run it thru the committee this morning at their AGM. Feedback from the audience was very positive and everyone had a great time. Band is really starting to tighten up with our new guitarist and band feels a lot more settled. Drive home was a bummer as it was heavy rain / sleet with fair bit of flooding on roads. Very pleased this morning albeit tired. Bed at 4am and cats at 9am this morning. Dave

We played a very small pub last night. The drinking area was 'L' shaped and we played in the smaller section which consisted of a small alcove with part of the bar on the right hand side. No room for a drum kit so the drummer used flats. PA speakers sat on the bar and a piano which sat outside the alcove. 2 guitarists stood side by side which left about 18" to the bar, I stood behind them 6" from the fireplace with my amp (Prometheous 3110) sitting about 4ft in front of me underneath the piano. Our singer was at the front level with my amp, so a pretty small venue but the sound was actually okay. The pub was packed and pretty warm but we went down extremely well, the audience were dancing from the second number onwards and even provided vocal support😁 Happy to say a good night was had by all.

First time at the Cider Press on the Gloucester Road in Bristol. One of those lively student boozers where you play to a succession of different pub crawls. Friendly staff and a happy landlord. Job done.

Played another one last night - second day in a row, new pub for us, it was originally booked when we were going to merge with another group as we were losing our guitarist and they were losing bass and drums, but it didn't happen, so we thought we had it, and it turned out it was theres. A bit of a conversation and their guitarist had hurt his foot and was more than happy to not do it. I see why now, it was upstairs which involved going up an outdoor metal staircase! It was weird, it looked like a fancy eating pub downstairs, but upstairs was this 70s social club vibe with bowling alley and mini bar. thought well, noone is going to come up here, but turns out they do in large numbers. Downside of the evening is that at the end of yesterdays gig, I thought my XVive IEM had run out of battery as it died, but I put it on at the start of this, and unless the tx and rx were touching, there was no function - looks like they are dead Also, the drummer met someone in the town where we did the gig last night and said they were coming to see us tonight, turned out on the facebook poster, although I put the right date, it said saturday! oops. Still, it was busy anyway. After all the gig was heaving and pretty good. Second half a lot of numbers were quick, I guess the drummer had a bus to catch, but it went well and they seemed to like us, and on unloading, it was now raining so the metal staircase outside was wet, that was fun! Oh and there were a group of 4 drunk guys arguing in front of the door that I had to ask to move a about 4 times and then had to shove them out of the way, until the drummer walked into them with the drum frame, then they moved!

Once again, rock’n’roll in a Bristol pub - this time a food pub that had just received a cancellation from a large party. The band playing area was crammed between one of the front doors and the door to the gents’, next to which was a games machine. In the break two blokes came into the playing area to use it, and one managed to trip over the guitarist’s Kemper floor board. I was glad of my tiny but unfeasibly loud BF One 10. The pub closed the gents’ and declared the ladies’ a unisex toilet for the evening. They said they would lock the front door (a fire door) but never did. The occasional gust of cold air at my shoulder told me when a punter was coming in… We started off playing to one (1) person, rising to a maximum of 6. This excluded the dining party in the adjacent room. They kept the door open so they can’t have found us too objectionable. During the last number a few more people came in and, predictably, begged us to carry on. We treated them to one more number before the strict 11pm curfew brought the evening to a welcome end.

I want to see people's faces when I wheel that rack with the four Terror Basses and a pair of SVT4's ininto The Old Dog & Botfly.

After 40 years of playing guitar in bands, and never being without a band until 2016, I've got my first gig on bass! I first picked up a bass last November, so almost a year ago, and I was immediately hooked. I have practiced pretty much every day for at least an hour, until I felt confident enough to start looking for an opportunity to play with others. In the end, it was me who was approached, and we did our first rehearsal last night. It's an originals project, female singer/songwriter who plays guitar and piano and who is also a fabulous drummer (though she's not touching the kit in this project). Her husband is playing guitar, and the drummer is also female. Rehearsals were well organised, lots of info in advance including MP3 demos, in a brilliant live performance venue, proper stage, monitoring, a real piano, and even a house bass amp - Mark Bass CMD102P for me to use. They were pleased with what I was doing and it looks set to continue. This feels like a moment. Thanks for listening 😁 Cheers, Rob

Well we did a large club last night with the Glam covers band with just vocal PA and used the WB-100 backline only. Was definitely a little worried the HB would run out of steam but nope it handled it with ease. Had the Gain at 1 o'clock at the crunch setting with just a little bit of edge to it. EQ was totally flat and master was at 11 o'clock. It was faultless. Stage was a bit boomy but it just meant we felt the bass on stage as well as hearing it. Out front the tone was perfect. No vids appeared yet but hopefully some later. Club was approx half full. Feedback was excellent. Dancing from 2nd or 3rd song all the way thru the night and lots of people taking vids with their phones. We have been asked if we could do 2023 Hogmanay night. We gave them our price and they said they would run it thru the AGM committee this morning at 10am. They were very impressed by sounds of it. Used my Sandberg VM4 (tried the P bass but on stage it was even more boomy so opted for old faithful) HB WB-100 into Mesa SW210/115 rig. A very successful night for us. Only downside was the 2hr drive home in torrential rain with lots of flooding. Got home and watched the F1 Qualifiers with my coffee and biccies before bed 4am. Back up for the cats at 9:30am. I'm now wishing i hadn't sold my Auralex Gramma last year. Looks like i'm gonna have to buy a new one as last 2 gigs have had hollow wooden stages and lots of booming. Dave

Some more slow progress.

Private solo acoustic do in my local, easy enough night, voice held up after a few days off work with the lurgy, otherwise nothing of note. Back to bass duties next weekend, then only one more solo gig for the foreseeable due to my pgce course eating my life.

I have a 1000fm, beautiful basses.

Sept 2018 - I played my last gig with the band I'd been in for 19 years having moved away from Wakefield and it's familiar music scene a few months earlier. Since then I've done some depping jobs with a rock and roll band , played a local fundraiser festival with a scratch band and that's been it. I tried to get a band going here in Notts but I just couldn't get a steady line up - stop start stop start etc. Out of the blue a few months back a guitar player who'd been in one version of the band that never was rang me and he was reforming his old long term band with folk who'd all been in it at various times but needed a bass player. So - off we go again. Tonight is our first gig - I'm not too happy about the drive into Sheffield but I'm glad to be back on stage. Been to see a couple of bands recently and I felt like a spare part standing in an audience. I feel at home on a stage. I swore no more rock bands but a covers rock band we are. 'Age appropriate rock' , I call it ! A lot of the set I was doing 40 years ago ! Anyway I feel a bit weird after so long a gap. I keep thinking there's something I've forgotten about gigging and I keep checking everything like nervy folk do. I'm sure a lot of you seasoned gigging players have either been out of the game and returned or are currently out of it but about to return so I'm sure many of you know the feeling , however alien it is to me. That's it - just a bit of waffle to let you all know that at 61 I'm far from finished yet and I can feel the cocky bar steward inside me fighting to let 'em have it again !

They kind of wrong footed me by deciding that the set for next week's gig would start with one of my favourite songs - as soon as we started playing, I was happy again! Guitarist was fairly sociable and good natured and I completely forgot why I wanted to quit! And the nice guys were just being themselves but that was enough - I enjoy their company and the music, it's just the guitarist… For the sake of being able to play some great songs that I love, I'll put up with him a while longer.

Bit of music video recording today. P bass and V4b rig looking on point 👌

That Joke Isn't Bunny Any More ～ The Smïths

A quick update of todays progress so far... Removed the clamps this morning and then got started with the Shinto rasp on the sides. Can see the fret position markers starting to show along the top edge. Still need to sand level on the sides, slowly getting there, but I wanted to get the new body shape sketched in to give an idea of how it would look and also get the pickup position somewhere close to final location. Hopefully you can make out the roughly shaped position of the pencil marks. Think it works...

Played a social club last night that we last played before lockdown. Not a bad size crowd and we played well with a dep drummer (our usual drummers brother).

That @Woodinblack is rock an roll in a nutshell. Brilliant. Love reading about these crazy load ins. Love doing them a lot less.

I need to do a photo of all of them together and the sunburst Precision now has a black scratch plate but here you go. Top one is a Mexican Fender FSR 70's Precision with custom Jon Shuker fretless maple neck. As standard it comes with US Vintage pickups and all the pots etc. have been upgraded. It's strung with chromes and it sounds and plays amazing. The middle one is a Japanese ESP 400 series 62RI Jazz bass that is from 86/87. It's was made at the Japanese Fender factory and all the dimensions and fittings are interchangeable with Fender so basically it could of come off the production line as a Fender or ESP. It has a Jon Shuker fretless ebony board and Bartolimi pickups. The best bass I have ever owned and I would buy another in a heartbeat. The bottom one is an EB Stingray with fretless Pau Ferro neck and the last one is a Japanese 62RI Precision that I picked up last month. You've had some awesome fretless basses yourself, especially the Wal 😮

Suffolk - Jeff Parker

When I woke up this morning and went out to the workshop/shed for my first coffee and cigarette, I sat looking at the truss rod raised out of the channel in the neck and made a mad spur of the moment decision to take a channel out of the bottom of the extremely hard fretboard. Measured up, 3mm channel needed and this will allow a bit more scope for neck thickness when it comes to shaping. I then decided to roughly cut the top edge of the fretboard close to size, leaving a few mm to be on the safe side. Then marked out for fret position markers along the top edge, cut them with the fret saw and then filled them with a beech sawdust and wood glue filler. Will see how they look after I start sanding the radius and if I am not happy with the result it will be the second option of using thin aluminium sheet. I have also decided to do the fretboard longer onto the body (28 frets) Leadwood is hard going, even with a freshly sharpened chisel... got there in the end, not the neatest job, but level all the way along and a nice tight fit on the truss rod, no gaps between the fretboard and neck. Next up was masking tape over the top of the truss rod and then trimmed to stop glue going in the channel. And then glued and clamped the fretboard in place. Really need to replace those smaller clamps, they are all bent out of shape after being over tightened too many times. I am going to make some adjustments to the body shape, bring the lower horn further back to allow for the extra fret positions and may adjust the top horn joining position for the aesthetics.

No better but a LOT more expensive and with less consistent quality. It would be filled with tone helium though

Here's a very interesting video on the lined/unlined debate I saw recently. I rarely play fretless, and haven't owned one for years, but I always naturally went to lined. More accurate, surely? Maybe not...

Great night. We hadn't played at that pub for many years. Easy setup parked outside, quick setup. Got started but the sound was a bit weird. Had to turn the bass down to half the level of last week, and turn the PA up full, and still the little alto speaker wasn't even showing hte clip light, so not sure what the issue there was. Still, got a good sound in the end and there was much dancing and singing. There were a couple dancing on a table which looks like it was going to give, but somehow it seemed to survive!

Hope you get it back soon. @Jon Read you are a welcomed new member. If you want to buy anything I have for sale there's a 10% discount.

Friday night gig, not as many out as we would of liked, sign of the times I guess. Still the Ashdown rig had a good blast.

Just started up with a new band. Mature people, no prima donna's. It has all suddenly become enjoyable. I still chat with the old rhythm guitarist. They asked him to play bass. He told them where to stick it This is all water under the bridge now and I posted it at the time in part for reassurance. Given so much time I'm firmly aware that it was down to this guitarist and his personal issues. Sad as I put a lot of work in. It wasn't ever about artistic nuances. It was about his inability to play a consistent structure and then having a hissy fit when I politely mentioned it. Peter

I too 'retired' from playing in 2019 - tried again in '21, but nothing came up.... Got the bug again this year - re-equipped, but then....nothing. Getting a bit depressed about various things (life wasn't great), hadn't played in a month or two, and was debating if my time up really had come. Out of the blue, an old contact (who gets very good gigs) messaged me about something new. Kind of chap that when he gets in touch, it's a case of 'where and when' - you know it's going to be good. First rehearsal next week, dates booked next month already. Immediate practice regime suddenly regimented......nice to have my focus back. Good luck tonight, DD - you'll smash it! 😁

Surely no musician wants quiet fans. A bit of cheering and applause is the minimum really.

Hi RB, doin' good ... got about 6 months before I (hopefully) can get off some of the medication & look at what comes next - I'll try and sort the link out - try this - Got it ! 😎

Was he? I can't see anything where he is talking about them - do you have a link? And why does that makes what he says wrong?

Hot Water.mp4

I'm probably the wrong person to give advice since I haven't had an all-analogue signal path for my bass rig since 1989, but... IMO the most important thing is not the try and chase the sound of your current rig, but work on something that still sounds great with the context of whatever band(s) you are playing with. Over the years I've been through 5 significantly different bass effects rigs and each of them has required me to start from scratch building the patches I need for my various musical projects. It has helped that in most cases changing rig has generally corresponded with joining a new band that had different sonic requirements for the bass guitar part.

Got to agree. I currently play a lined fretless, but the fret lines just get you in the ballpark. Your main tuning tool is still your ears.

Bassline is inspired by "Come Go With Me" by the Staple Singers....

Open Up - The Residents

Manucturers - create and maintain a Legacy page on your website, with the history of your equipment, by model, and schematics for repairers to refer to.