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And I got the gig! Only 30 more songs to learn now

Well, shirley an envelope filter would be .....The Sorting Office? I'll get my coat.

- how did you work out / stumble on what sound you were after? Was it a particular bass player or a bass line on a music track (if so, who / what?) = Was told to go and get a Jazz bass for a gig I was doing at the time by a band member. Did so to solve an argument and found out THIS was the bass that made all the sounds that were in my head. Bass players on a lot of records I grew up listening to used a Jazz so I'm guessing that's how the sound got in there in the first place. - if you know your sound, how would you describe it? (May be a tricky one to put in words, I guess!) =Not "my" personal sound but borrowed. Back PU gives me a tight and defined Jaco type thing.(the yanks call it burp?) Both PUs gives me Marcus Miller slap thing or deep and round for grooving. Then there are other variables but mostly its these two simple settings that work over just about anything. (that I play on or bands I play with. Covers mostly.Pop.Funk.Soul.Rock.Indie) - what are the key ingredients in your signal chain that are essential to delivering 'that sound'. (Hopefully we'll get some great suggestions for combinations of strings, PUPs, EQs, amps, cabs and pedals, depending on which are the most important /really key bits of the chain for you). = Recording or low volume - Passive Jazz straight into desk or amp. Tone all the way off. PUPs back or both depending on tune. Gigs - Passive Jazz bass into sadowsky preamp pedal into EBS HD350 amp then EBS neo cab/s. In descending order of importance in the chain: Passive Jazz bass My fingers and where I pluck. Usually over near the bridge side near the back PU regardless of PU setting. Regardless of the bass I'd probably always do this anyway for finger style. That's how I get "my" borrowed sound. Strings by D'addario because they are nice to the touch and less effort due to low tension. From there its a preference but not essential. EG: I prefer the EBS stuff but its not the only amp that can achieve what I'm going for. I like the simplicity of it more than anything. There is a plug and play element to it that appeals to me. I know quickly if I'm going to get an ok tone or a great tone depending on the room so I can get on with accepting what its going to be on that gig and get on with it. The Sadowsky preamp pedal is more to give a signal boost than any major tone shaping. I use a touch of bass and treble boost. It works like that so I stick with it. I also use a Chorus pedal when I want a bit of sparkle for a riff or maybe in a solo if it fits with the tune.

I barely had time to photograph it, never mind upload pictures last night, it's too good... However, now I am at work I will be sure to take some better composed images at some point soon to show off how well this has been put together, but for today this will have to do. As you can see, it is bog standard, apart from some extra feet and a rotated badge to allow for portrait and landscape (default) orientation. 12 mm ply, and ceramic magnets in case anyone was wondering. An easy carry (scurry!) from the post office to home!

The nastiest drum I've ever heard is a piccolo snare. As a non-drummer, if there is one contribution I can make to this thread, it's DON'T LET HIM HAVE A PICCOLO SNARE!!!

I think this is accurate. For the record, I hate ‘acoustic nights’. Usually some over-earnest scrotter with a beard and unbuttoned lumberjack shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a Jack Daniel’s tshirt underneath playing ‘his take’ on classic rock numbers.

Hi All Lots going on at Chowny at the moment. So am sponsoring a thread to put you in the picture We've new offices in Bristol (in scenic Lawrence Hill) and would love to invite anybody who fancies it to pop by and have a play on our basses or pedals. Just give us a heads up when you want to come. So first stock updates: Stock in of all of the following: Retrovibe EVO Davie504 Basses Retrovibe EVO Retrovibe Volante Retrovibe Vantage Fuzzster Pedals Pitchcraft Pedals Stock incoming over the next month SWB Pro SWB-1 CHB-1 and CHB-2 (2018 editions) We've added a new video studio and are adding new videos to our Youtube channel twice a week. They will be a mix of things (jams, talks etc) Here is Scott Whitley and I talking about the SWB and how we came to make it. And here is Danny Sapko playing on the very first ever CHB that we made. Finally we are releasing our new Bassmosphere Pedal soon. It's boutique designed Chorus/Reverb pedal. Manufactured in China and sold for the price of £62 (plus the usual "basschat" discount). Anybody who wants to come and play some bass (and drums) or just bring your band into our studio to do a song - get in touch. Thanks! Will add to this thread as new stuff happens.

Whilst I`m not exactly keen on bands playing for nothing, sometimes, when starting out on the originals circuit it`s one of those things that has to be done. You either get 5 paid gigs a year, or you take a punt on a few more unpaid as well, knowing you`re expanding your audience/merch sales/fan-base. Additionally, and in regards to the op, they agreed to play for nothing. Now irrespective of whatever any other band is getting, if you make an agreement you should stick with it imo. Again, not wonderful but you can gain a reputation as trustworthy, which can work in your favour - it`s how we`ve done things. An example of this is we were playing Gateshead on a Friday night, Blackpool on the Sat night afterwards. A big gig in Glasgow was offered to us at very short notice. So we did all three, doing an early afternoon Glasgow set, we wouldn`t bin the small Blackpool gig for the better Glasgow one. It was knackering, but in honouring our commitments it further cemented our reputation as a band that can be trusted.And the band is now self-funding, we don`t take any money from it but it pays for all recording/merch/hotels/flights/ferries/van & driver hire etc. But if we`d binned all the early unpaid gigs I wonder if we`d be in that position now.

You know I’m just messing with you Al

This is looking very tasty Ref the headstock veneer - if I get time tomorrow I'll do a quick A-Z of how I iron on veneer rather than clamp. Great thing is that it gives pretty much instant results and you can see what you're doing. I did a live demo of the technique at the Midlands Bass Bash.

I essentially picked up a yamaha gigmaster kit for about £60 (gumtree - parents desperate to sell a poorly thought out xmas gift lol) and a yamaha electronic kick, hihat and ride cymbal from ebay for £55. The module I use is a Megadrum which I use to trigger Superior Drummer on a laptop. To convert the toms I used some cone triggers i picked up from ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-pak-drum-trigger-replacement-DIY-foam-cone-Convertible-Percussions-/152148530322 They're nothing more complex than a piezo and a little foam cone but thery're really very good. I followed this technique The cymbals are pretty simple with two piezos on each, some thick clear 3m sticky back plastic (the stuff some people put on their cars to prevent stone chips) and a little plastic box inside which I wire the piezos to a jack. There are some far more advanced ways of doing this to allow cymbal choking etc. Try this for an idea (sorry the guy is pretty annoying but its a good demo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npnuaguzq6Y Any questions just ask. I'm really looking into a 2box drummit 5 module so we can work live without the laptop but it might mean a bit of work needed on the cymbal set up and a better hihat system. More often than not, if we have to use it for gigs we use a real hihat and ride cymbal as they are so much better than any of the edrum conversions I've been able to sort.

I took a picture of it for someone else, and it seems to work ok visually. So I did some other stuff, I got some veneer, spent a bit of time fitting it, overnight glueing etc, and then removed the clamps to reveal: Ok, so that didn't work and I peeled and sanded it off again! I finished the holes, and redid the lower horn as a friend of mine pointed out the angle was wrong, even though it didn't really matter (it isn't a clone), I decided to route it out a bit more: I bought a bit of rosewood as I decided I wanted a bit of contrast for the electronics cover. Not done that perfectly but I am pretty happy with it: And finally, bought some Stunning Stain from Crimson Guitars in crimson red and a black concentrate so I can mix them. This is what the red looks like after a coat, so I think that is what it is going to be done in, maybe a bit darker at the edge

It's the way things are going certainly and round our way there are a LOT of acoustic om nights. A lot of the bedroom warriors need to learn how to project a song and entertain an audience, but I've seen some stand out performances from singer/guitarists or on one occasion a ukulele duo! If it keeps live music in places that would otherwise not bother, I think it's a good thing as long as the quality is there

With no pay there's no Contract. I wouldn't play

Ron's answer to the question at 45:59 reminds me of a passage in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance where Robert Pirsig wrote that when on the road he would check the bike over every morning . He had done it so many times that just the act of laying out his tool roll on the seat had become the ritual that readies his mind to see the state of the machine as it really is . With peace of mind gained about the equipment he is then able to enjoy the moment .

It's the same material (3mm cast Acrylic). The flipside to having great optical clarity is that it does have some reflections but not that you'd notice in any of the playing environments my screen protecctor has been in over the past few months - indoors with lots of stage lights and outdoors. I'm just finishing off the design for the Helix Floor model as well ready for prototyping

An excellent thread! For me the sound I like comes almost entirely from the bass itself. Pedals to some degree too, but that’s only to provide sounds which would be impossible to achieve with the the bass alone. I never really found “the tone in my head” until playing a Yamaha BB1025x a couple of years ago. It was grin inducing in a way that I’d never experienced from a bass before. Since then I’ve made sure I have at least one P-style bass in my arsenal. A recent discovery is that I have a lot of love for MM humbuckers too - they seems to cut through certain mixes better than a P, yet retain a degree of fullness often lacking from soloed Jazz pups. I’ve found my MTD Super 5 (dual coil-switchable MM buckers) to be the perfect Neo-Soul/R&B machine. Smooth and deep yet defined and cuts through a mix surprisingly well. Once upon a time I might have been in the camp of having “my sound” and sticking with it regardless of the context but now I think of myself as a bit more of a tonal chameleon. I’ll play the bass with the tonal configuration that works best for the music at the time. As has been said, though, the goalposts do shift if you’re in a covers band vs an originals band. I’m not in a band at all, so I suppose I play covers by default! In summary, I guess I don’t always know the bass sound I want immediately but I do know that I want the bass itself to be the primary factor and that I don’t want the amp to be colouring the sound at all. Those are the only two constants.

I bought one of those new years ago for £365, couple of surprising quality issue with loose pots and wobbly input that wouldn't tighten... That tone though! I've never been as satisfied with a tone before or since that bass...

+1 to the above as starters, just to get the principle established. Nylon-tipped sticks won't help (they're what I use exclusively, but they're no more quiet than wooden-tipped...). Another 'ruse' might be to get him to use Vic Firth hickory sticks. If he's a hard hitter, he'll soon get tired of 'em busting..!

Good, dynamic drumming, at any appropriate volume, is largely a question of technique. The real solution, if the bloke is up to it, is a good, competent drum prof to teach how to get the best from the kit, in all styles, at all volumes needed. It won't be over-night, but it' the 'real deal'. Meanwhile, there are solutions that work, but always, as usual, with a downside. Hot rods..? A very useful tool, indispensable in some styles, but a 'heavy hitter' will probably trash 'em pretty darned quick; they're not the strongest sticks around. This could cause budget issues, as they're not cheap, either. Worth a try, but not much to gain, without restraint from the fellow, I'd say. Drum screen..? Excellent as a solution, but very expensive, much stage footprint lost and one heck of a 'faff' in intimate venues. Worthwhile if the cost, weight and space are not an issue; I fear it'd be tiring over time, though. When I was playing in folk-rock bands, 'back in the day', I made up a set of covers from linen sheets and knicker elastic (don't ask how I acquired that..! ) to slip over the drum heads, a bit like a shower cap. That certainly muffled the drums (I've never been a 'lumberjack', but we were rehearsing and playing in very quiet venues...). The sound of the kit was, of course, radically changed, so if big, expansive 'Queen'-type toms are required, it won't fit the bill, but it may be worth trying (cover the heads with a cut-up tee-shirt to see if the tone is workable..?). Drum lessons, though. That's the secret. Technique, learned, as quickly as possible from a good teacher, that's my 'top tip'. Good luck with it; it sounds as if he's worth it. Keep us posted as to progress, please..?

Kept it simple last night. My 1974 Precision straight into a 1966 Ampeg SB-12. Beautiful beautiful tone

Squawk box, surely!!!

If you're thinking of mixing black with red to darken it down, do try it on a test piece first. Black can be quite unforgiving. You might get better results with a very dark brown, or dark blue if you fancy dragging it slightly towards the purple patch of the spectrum

Decided to take the original screws out as the were only 6mm long and replace them with longer to give a bit more grip and include a flat washer and a spring washer rattling has ceased

A Roland SH101, I believe.

There's doing it for free for a good cause or a good promoter then there's doing it for free for a womble promoter for free when all the other bands are being paid. The promoter might ask the band to all write "mug" on their heads before they go on at whatever time he decides on the day.

The decal arrived today, so I applied that this afternoon. Rothko & Frost have again supplied a high quality product at a fair price and with good service. I know others have had less successful experiences with them but I have no complaints, perhaps I’ve been lucky or they’ve been unlucky? Anyway, it looks great. I chose silver for the main part of the logo as I knew I’d be putting a mist coat of amber tint on it which would golden it up a bit. I signed and numbered the back of the headstock again too, as with the Bruno bass I recently completed. My little daughter Dulcie for whom the bass is named didn’t sign it, like her big brother did on his namesake instrument; she can’t hold a pen yet! I don’t think I’m going to bother clear coating or polishing, the nitro has buried the decal and hidden the edges well and looks nice and vintage, so I think I’ll just leave it as it is and see how it wears / ages naturally. In retrospect it’s just slightly darker than I’d have preferred; next time I’ll do fewer coats of tint before adding the decal, or use clear nitro for the final coats. I’ll let it rest overnight, give it a very light sanding tomorrow, reassemble the bass and hopefully give it a go at band rehearsals tomorrow.

Hi, Christine I've used that bridge in a couple of my own builds so if you hit any stumbling blocks, just give a shout. This is one of them:

The 'bedroom' tone I love is a mellow scooped P with no finger noise, just cutting mids on the head (or rolling the tone back 2/3) and low gain/higher master. Useless for a gig, where I'm playing with guitar/sax/harmonica/keyboard, and need the high mids and treble back - so I'll cut the bass below ~120Hz to favour those, which also leaves room for the kick drum. For any slow/mellow numbers the tone control does fine. One or two numbers where I'll crank the gain for a bit of grit.

Yes, mid-September. Sorry you missed it.

On the gigs we've played when everything is too loud, our drummer used to put foam rubber discs inside his drums. They were 2" which and cut just larger than the diameter of the drum that they were pushed into. Worked a treat! Mind you, all the drums only had single heads so made it very easy. The snare just had a tea towel over the top head, that worked well as well. Now however things are different. He recently got one of these. Absolutely brilliant!!! Loud enough but not too loud and so easy to transport. Recommend every drummer to at least give them a try, they'll be impressed!

Exactly - this is classic 'but it's exposure' con. People die of exposure. It cheapens your trade and demeans your self-worth. Unless it's a charity gig and everyone's doing it for nowt, you have every right to be paid for your time. Obviously people think 'artists' don't need to be paid much because it's just some tunes, or a painting or a pot - but it neglects the hours and hours of practise, the expense of gear, the overhead costs of getting to gigs and promotion etc. You wouldn't tell a plumber they ought to fix your leak for free because you'll tell all your neighbours how good they were!

Is as far as I got before I'd decided. but it gets worse and alarm bells.. (I won't quote the rest) Cancel because of the catalogue of incompetency. Yes you wanna support a fanzine, so tell them why you are out of this debacle and thank them for their help. However, "Promoters" like this should be weeded out. Call this person out for having no clue and messing you around. You are better than this. Every musician is. Oh and you are worth way more than 'no money left' and certainly more than £100.

Boom tish!

I think I'd heard about a "Live at Leeds" pedal which might have been Tech21's doing...are we thinking of the same model? Still, your homework shouldn't take too long as I can only think of two tracks on which he used an 8! There's Success Story off Who by Numbers, which I think might be a Rick 8-string prototype; and Trick of the Light from Who Are You, where he played a (very overdriven) Alembic 8. I don't know whether he crowbarred the 8s onto any tracks on the post-Moon albums, but then I don't know those ones so well (because, let's be honest, they're not very good).

I've always loved the tight,authoritative low end and grinding, biting top end 80's/90's rock tones of bassists like Eddie Jackson (Queensryche), Rachel Bolan (Skid Row), Kip Winger (Winger), Bruno Ravel (Danger Danger), Pat Badger (Extreme) etc etc. What did they have in common? The classic EMG P/J loaded Spector NS2 bass.... Having found one at the old Bass Centre in Wapping (the good ol' days) and LOVED the sound, feel, and look I then purchased various Spector basses! I was almost there, but there was still something not quite right (playing through Trace Elliot, Peavey, Ampeg, Ashdown etc) in my quest for the exact tone I was looking for.... The missing puzzle piece turned out to be the classic Gallien Krueger 400RB/800RB series heads from that period...... A friend invited me to try my Spector through his 800RB and the quest was complete!! So, to summise..... Active EMG p/J loaded Spector (with roundwounds) through old GK400RB or 800RB head and a suitable full range cab (in my case - currently a GenzBenz 2x12 Neo). Add in a little extra grit when needed from my Tech21 Dug DP3X pedal and I have aural bliss!

Given the scale of the bass it shouldn't be too much of a problem. It is quite thick compared to most, but as long as you get your geometry correct it should be fine. Especially given the skills you've already demonstrated

Yes, the Sting/ Shaggy record.

It does, doesn't it. It was di'd which always sounds good on a Wal.

I have very little technical knowledge about how to get a particular tone from amps and I’ve just twiddled about with whatever amp and bass I’ve had and never really got a tone I was really happy with, until now. i never plug in any instrument I’m going to buy, electric or acoustic, I always judge it by how the instrument sounds unaided by amplification, it’s half stupidity, half Luddite tendencies, but this approach has led me down a road of dissatisfaction until I reached an AER amp with a Rob Allen Mouse 30 plugged into it. This combination has everything I want from a bass sound. I have all the tone controls on the AER at 12 O’clock and the RA Mouse only has a volume pot (it has a ‘passive high trim’ control in the back plate but I haven’t adjusted it since I got it as it sounds just right) so all the tone control really comes from my fingers. I always rolled my eyes at the ‘tone is in the fingertips’ camp but I have to say, suddenly, having discovered my perfect bass and amp I now understand and completely agree with the statement. What I assumed was the search for the perfect bass sound for me turned out to actually be the search for the perfect bass, the sound i was lookin for is a blend of this instrument and my way of playing it.

Well that's a great point! Our sound is as much, if not more, about "us" / how we're playing as our gear, for sure. I certainly have a long way to go in terms of becoming a better bass player! But I already know that I like certain sounds from my range of basses more than others. I guess probably the single biggest influence on "my" sound (to the extent I have one) would be the growl I get from the Nordstrand pups on my Ibanez. That bass seems to cut through whatever rig I am playing through and I'm guessing that those pups would deliver something similar whichever bass they were on? So for me the 'foundation' to my sound has to be a great set of pups. However as a covers band player I also know as much as I like that sound, that slightly aggressive growl is not going to be appropriate for a lot of the material we're doing, so immediately there's a 'stop' to how far as a covers band player I feel I can take it. I'm glad, however, that this thread has cured you of GAS!

I think he'd had enough. He just wanted it to end. He was hoping he'd get sacked if he did a shocking bass solo. It's the equivalent of musical Hari Kiri.

Yes - I would also happily take the dust for a bit of that space I would like to take a photo of mine, but I can't move away far enough from the walls to focus the camera Looking forward to seeing the builds progress

Here's mine again...

A Merry Jingle by The Greedies. Has the added bonus of everyone already knowing the words 👍

It's bad enough seeing the first Christmas ads on the box in September, now you've gone and started it in May I'm tempted to lock and hide this thread.

Aye. It's tuneless, derivative, poorly played and entirely lacking in emotion or creativity.

OK, my journey seems to be going somewhere. I now seem to be the type of person who is genuinely excited be woken up early on a saturday morning by the postman delivering this: (you will never know how many times I rephrased 'wood', 'morning' and 'postman'!). So yay, now all I have to do is glue it together and start cutting (after first making sure to make a pickup cable hole. I bought some pickups yesterday too, turns out musicman style OLP 5 strings have a 15.2mm pickup spacing, which is ideal, so I got some of those. Still wondering about a narrow bridge but it is looking like individual monorail style. So glue - what glue do I use? I see people just glueing these things together and then carrying on. Is there really nothing else that holds the wood together than glue? I read a book on the net that said about having dowels as well, but I have never seen anyone do that.

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1509630355' post='3400430'] I don't pretend to know the figures, but with those 3 brands they've probably got over 50% of the market covered (though suprised no yamaha in there). [/quote] Very few of the London stores have any stocks of Yamaha - it's much easier to go to Yamaha Music London in Wardour St, they have virtually everything in stock there, even a BBNE2.