Leaderboard

Sunday's venue posted some lovely words and this photo.

Not a bad one for the final before one guitarist and vocalist jet off to sunnier climes. New bar opening down the road and a big puller just out of town so I held out little hope for the usual noisy night for our venue, but it was reasonably busy and they were up for it…so go in glass half empty and be pleased by half full worked. A couple of us suffering from the start of this *****y cold doing the rounds but didn’t affect us too much. The odd fluff, but “no one died” and I doubt the crowd noticed. next up for me a couple of deps at the end of January and rehearsal/get together to make some noise pre-Christmas for my first band from 45 years ago (unless any more deps come in the meantime)

Unlike @Lozz196 I prefer a bass without an "f" on the headstock.

Saw them support Napalm Death once I think. It’s also possibly given the OP an idea for their next thread.

Somebody Get Me A Doctor — Van Halen

I picked up an Aria CB1000 about 18 months ago and it's been my go-to since then. Absolutely adore it. Sounds massive!!!!! Feels like a much, much more expensive instrument. Easily one of the nicest basses ive ever owned. Im on the lookout for a second one now as a backup. And a red Pro Ii CSB is still on the must-have list.

Also made a few pics of the bass without the pickguard

She is done!

Completed the build of the Brooks EB-TB-IV today. - Neck through with mahogany body wings - Nine ply mahogany/walnut neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Tobacco burst gloss transparent acrylic finish - Rosewood fretboard - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Handcut bone nut - Three ply white-black-white pickguard - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop - Spokewheel trussrod - Thunderbird style pickups nickel. - Hipshot Ultralite tuners - Output Pure Tone - d'Addario EXL170BT Balanced Tension strings - Strapnuts: Dunlop Straplok Nickel Dual Design - Weight: 3.5 kg I'll post pics of the build process in posts below

A bit of a get-together down by the Tyne today. Lots of it spent messing with a Kemper and a mad Russian plastic bass from the 80s.

I can already only hear that as "I sought The Lord, and The Lord won" and I have not even listened to the song.

I've stopped using the brown stuff as its a nighmare. I used to use it to hold screws in thumb screws for my astrophotography business but have moved to a gel super glue instead. I don;t worry about expansion any more but I do glue myself regularly to the office desk instead. I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near anything like adhesives, power tools, solvents, chemicals, glass, flammable objects, gas, petrol, alcohol or guitars. I'll either spill it, break it, inhale it (accidently), adhere myself, drink it, set fire to it or try to play it badly. One day I'll tell you why I'm not allowed near white spirit...

Oh dear. I think you'll find that not all of us are the same. I'm pretty sure both myself and @cheddatom are not one of the engineers/producers you refer to. Pile through my website and none of the songs there were quantised. Just punch ins and maybe some small edits. However, things are all relative to the material. I don't do pop at all, but I appreciate what's expected of different genres. However, to quote myself. I recorded a band and the singer said that he wanted the vocals to sound "perfect." After clarification, he suggested basically quantising and tuning the life out of them. I always say "You can have perfection or personality. You can't have both, so choose." Virtually everyone always chooses the latter option.

A quick update is that there is no real update I've printed off two pieces of the updated V2 of the guitar and two more test pieces are being done as I speak Hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll have this lot printed, though the neck module and bridge module are test pieces to check the support needed. This is an area of compromise, I want the top of the neck & bridge modules to be printed face down as that gives a nicer finish, but that means that the horizonal sections in the middle need supports. Support provides support for overhangs as the printed material won't just stay up. The green below is a honeycomb structure that supports the middle of the bridge, neck pickup and neck modules. I'll cut out the green and discard it once printed. This is a far chunk of printing though. Out of seven hours, the support printing is 1hr 55min. Still got this to print The astute will notice that there are no mounting holes in the neck module. That's because something went wrong in the design and I have no idea what Also need to put pickguard screws in. I have been testing Flopast (https://www.floplast.co.uk/product/solvent-cement) and it's great stuff. I cannot separate the parts once glued. I'm going to try and find out what the strength of the bond is. I suspect the bond is stronger than the 3d printed material itself. £9 a bottle, doesn't seem to have a bad smell, though as I have no sense of smell due to something happening 10 years ago (no idea what), thats probably not a good recommendation. Easy to apply, doesn't expand (I'm looking at you Gorilla Glue), doesn't dry immediately. Whats not to like? Once this is done, I'll dry assemble and check fit. Things might be out by 0.5mm or more or less or not at all. Printing can vary depending on time, temperature, filament, sheer bloodymindness of something or the other. The glue is kept well away, but at this point I can measure things for the wiring harness. House of Tone are just waiting for me to finalise things so they can get it built. I did look at the finish and I'm tempted to look at coating this in an epoxy resin finish. https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/xtc-3d-high-performance-3d-print-coating-24-oz/sk/M3KW1WX0 However thats for another year. Rob

Branding on the body.

because it's Trace Elliot watts, they're a lot louder than normal watts 😀

Maybe some George Ezra? The problem with playing music from the last decade is that in order to select what to play, one of you needs to subject yourself to music from the last decade. Perhaps allocate two years apiece so with any luck you'll all come out the other side relatively intact.

At this point I'm just going with witchcraft as the answer.

I use mine with a Barefaced Two10 (which they suggest is the equivalent of a "good" 4x10) in a band with drums, guitar and keys, and I've never got the volume knob past halfway, so I reckon you'd be fine.

Speak for yourself bud! The big difference now is that you can get the same results from a PA that you can easily fit into a small hatchback, whereas before you were packing a transit to the roof. Everyone from that era can remember lugging huge amp racks and Martin bass bins up fire escapes, etc. It all sounded great, but today's gear is so much better in terms of efficiency, size and weight.

Agreed, but bear in mind that the other half may be the bride & groom and their friends? A few good recent tunes can help please everybody. The real gift for wedding bands is when old songs become known by younger audiences, often when used in films etc. I’m thinking of all the Blues Brothers / Commitments stuff which made classic soul more popular, all the Glee stuff, Shrek (I’m a believer), Peter Kay ‘500 miles’ etc etc. These songs work on multi levels, ideal for weddings.

It's a bit of a weird setup, very little chance of any spillage

My prejudices are: Basses that aren`t Fender (tho Squier acceptable) I like many other basses but for some reason I feel disloyal if considering them. I`m also not keen on basses unless they`re black, white or sunburst.

I use mine with two Elf 10" cabs and it's its own beast. Not the same as my old Trace gear but very good in its own right.

Aye, it's a fantastic piece of kit. The sounds are first class and something Zoom never gets enough credit for is how simple and intuitive their multi effects are to adjust on the unit itself. Absolutely vital for live work.

I don't think it would come across rude - your control room, your rules. Don't like it, go record somewhere else.

No idea that @Dad3353 sang bass in a Welsh choir. 😁

Being in a wedding band involves having a set list to cater for probably the widest audience demographic you’ll ever encounter! As you point out, the most often played stuff is in the safe zone of classic pop/ soul/rock which appeals to the widest section of the guests, but IMO you shouldn’t ignore some newer stuff for the younger people ( maybe even the bride and groom!) as well as having a few old tunes up your sleeve for the older folk or those guests who may want to show off their ‘Strictly’ moves. This is especially important when there isn’t a DJ to cater for these guests. In my old function band, we’d maybe start with a bit of Sinatra ( so the older guests could have a dance or two), then go into the pop stuff for the rest of the first set. Second set would be gradually getting more current as the younger guests would often be the only people left, and usually hammered by this time! We used to get a lot of wedding work because we catered for all ages, which many bands could not. It helped being an 8 piece with a brass section, enabling us to authentically cover most eras. For us the hardest stuff was often the most current, but done in the right way we managed to pull it off. With the majority of couples getting married (and their friends) being late 20’s to mid 30’s it would be foolish to ignore their preferences.

It is difficult to fight the Physics. I guess that the answer is to be happy to play up an octave or more for when we want the synthy goodness. Obvioulsy this is sub-optimal, but physics is physics, and the reality is that a sound that is not bass guitar needs to be played differently anyway. I would be happy to play a normal guitar in some situations if there was a patch on there that "just" did a good, solid, believable bass guitar sound. Classic self-inducing GAS post from me here. On another note, I think they might have used the synth to pitch Nate's voice down a bit

Watching Nate is never going to be good for taming GAS.

Our sound guy wanting everything miked and setting up a video camera is a frustration for me. We should start on time not wait five minutes for the video to get started.

“ELECTRIC GUITAR 4 str. semi-acoustic art. 426 r PCT RSFSR 508-75 MAA 1987 The price is 125 rubles. 197061, Jlerun pa, 33 ECCA he is Chapaeva, 15 r. coch T. Lenuprizdat” The body is a strange ‘composite’ type plastic. As you says It doesn’t look plastic, it also doesn’t feel or sound it. 30” scale The translation of the company name is Marya or Maria.

We`ll never rise up, we stand at the back and try not to be noticed.

Sat here with a large coffee, after a morning session with my (current) favourite 3 basses. Regardless of price…. these Arias are absolutely my go to basses right now. Lovely players, comfortable and awesome sounding. It does make me wonder why I still hanker for expensive gear, when instruments like these are around for peanuts. I hunt around for the Korean ones mostly, or the Japanese ones if there’s a bargain to be had. The 5er at the top is an IGB68 and was 200 quid. Awesome tone, beautiful fretboard, crap tuners, I intend to change them. The Integra on the left was a 100, fabulous tone, the pickups are brilliant in these, nice neck…. and the GTB on the right was 50 quid….. absolutely ridiculously lovely bass, again great neck, great pickups. I put Gotoh GB707s on both of those basses. It massively improves the playing experience. To be honest, between the three basses, I really don’t need any of the others, they’re that good, in my opinion.

+1. Some 90% of GB can be driven to from any other place in GB within ten hours. Some 95% of Canada cannot be driven to within ten hours from any other place in Canada. The province of Ontario alone is five times the size of Great Britain.

More pics here… https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0HT7D3T6aqnnZFxWePC6qq6doTQQdS7SfX2r7NZcNb5Y2MddMEANAdm6fS58rUbU6l&id=705595859

Off the top of my head (and I will think of more): Don't like single P pickups. Don't like 2 pickups & 3-way selector - & hate it when there's only a single volume, so pickups can't be blended. Don't like singlecuts. Don't like neck-divey symmetrical doublecuts. Don't like w@nky high-end custom basses when they're just some poxy fake-reliced Fender knockoff. Don't like fat baseball-bat necks. Don't like dreary please-don't-notice-me finishes. To be continued...

This is the problem for me. Playing the guitar or bass opens up a completely different type of expression from playing on a keyboard, but using pitch detection most of that expression either gets lost or has to be filtered out of your technique to get decent results. One of the other things I'd like be able to using a bass guitar is fast sequencer type synth bass lines, but latency, tracking and glitch notes all conspire to make that nearly impossible, or at least never sound as good as an actual sequencer driven line.

A long trek through the semi-snow from Nottingham to Gateshead on Sunday to play at The Black Bull with In Isolation, for a final night of the Dark Side of the Tyne "festival". It looked pretty grim in the morning, but it turned out that the worst snow was in Nottingham and once we were on the M1 it was fine. Unfortunately because of the weather it was a smaller turn out that the promotor and we had hoped, and hadn't been helped by Westenra having pull out of the opening night gig due to being snowed in at Whitby. However we played pretty well including all the new songs and to an audience who had mostly never seen us before and more importantly stayed to end when we sold a few CDs. Here's a couple of photos from the gig: Next one is on Friday at the Sal in Nottingham.