Leaderboard

First gig with my new band, The Spacewasters last night. At a charity fund raiser for cancer in The Fiddlers Elbow in Camden. Seeing as our drummer has had two brain tumours, and had a kidney removed, and still had cancer of the renal gland it was close to the bands heart. Got there 5ish as had to work, fortunately there was a backstage room to store the gear whilst we waited til our slot at 6:30. Went on, provided amp stack of Genz Benz Streamliner with matching 410/115, so all I had to use was trusty Precision & Sansamp. Went really well, didn’t feel nervous at all, was just so happy to be back gigging. Lots of compliments afterwards about how my playing held the band together which was nice. I had a blast, I’m back!

I have just completed the build of a new twelve string Thunderbird bass. The entire build process is documented here: https://www.enkoo.nl/brooks-tb-12.html Brooks TB-12 - Mahogany body wings - Nine ply Mahogany/Walnut set neck. Neck through - Opaque white (blonde) high gloss finish - Abalonoid binding - Ebony fretboard - Circle position dots - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - Three ply black/white/black pickguard - ETS twelve string brass bridge set - Two spokewheel double action trussrods - Carbon reinforcement strip in the neck - Lace Alumitone Bass Bar in the neck position - Lace Alumitone DeathBar in the bridge position - Allparts stacked pots (volume/tone volume/tone) - Mullard capacitors - MEC on-on switch for coil split (humbucker-single coil) - Gotoh GB 350 lightweight bass tuners - Gotoh Stealth ST 31 guitar tuners - 2 x Pure Tone Multi Contact jack output - d'Addario EXL 170 - 12 strings - Weight: 4.25 kg Wiring was done by BQ Music.

Ok. Unlike sound limiter systems that cut power after the music has exceeded the threshold (usually for 3-5 seconds), these in-house systems work with a brick wall limiter (think 20:1 compressor if you understand what that means) across the LR outputs that feed the amplifiers. How a band sets up for such a gig is usually pretty straightforward. So in this case, the wedding band are expected to turn up with a silent stage setup - this means modelling systems for the guitars and an electric kit. Keys and additional instruments should be direct or if that is not possible (eg for vocals, horns (ha! Don’t even bother)) miced up if required. (So yes to vocals, no to horns as they’ll be (too) loud enough already. All mixing is done by the band mixer, and then the L R is sent to the venue system. All monitoring needs to be done via IEM, which the band provisions. (So if this isn’t a normal method of monitoring, lots of bands will immediately be faced with a nightmare playing such a venue. Why? Because there’s the cost of the IEMs themselves - but also the need for the band to have a mixer that can provide enough IEM mixes for all the players) So once you get your mix sounding lovely, it then goes off to hell to be processed by the venue system. So let’s look at what is going into that system. All the instruments that are going in have a huge dynamic range. So as an example, when playing your bass, you may have a 12db difference between playing softly and digging in, or hearing the attack when playing with a plectrum. Now it’s not unusual to have a compressor on a bass, but what happens, is that it’ll be set at a much lower ratio and set to release quick quickly, so all it’s doing is squishing the extreme initial transients while retaining the overall sound of the bass. Again, on the vocals, you’ll have a softer compressor, smoothing out those transients. So in general compressors are generally good at “smoothing” the intruments so it’s more pleasant to the ear. But the key thing to remember is that the compression in these situations are low ratios with quick release times. (For those still not understanding compression and what I’m stating, here’s a rough guide. On a compressor you set a threshold at the point you want the compressor to act. The ratio states how much you want the compressor to reduce the signal. So for example, for 3:1, every 3db above the threshold, the compressor will only allow 1db through. 5:1, every 5db above the threshold it will only allow 1db through. The compressor will also have attack, hold and release. Attack is the time it takes for the compressor to act, hold is how long the compression is held for - and the release is how long it takes for the compression to stop acting upon the signal. So for example, for a a snare, or vocal plosives, a compressor will tame the transient associated with both those extreme initial input levels - but once that initial transient falls under the threshold, the compressor will naturally let go. The key thing is that the compressor should sound pretty natural and still allow all the instruments to breathe. In recorded music, say in the studio, you have the advantage that you have the programme material in advance (in that it's pre-recorded). You can run the signals through multiple compressors, automate faders and really spend your time controlling the output of each channel and the final LR for mastering. You can’t do that with live music. You haven’t got that level of control or a crystal ball (although if you know the music well enough, you can ride VCAs like they do in the west end to ride in those transients - but again, that’s not practical in this situation). So let’s talk about what is happening when it goes into the venue PA. When the venue has the venue PA installed by the suppliers, the system is fed with pink noise (which gives you a flat output at every frequency along the audio spectrum) - and this will be heard in the venue. What should happen is that the PA is tuned to the venue so there are no hot nodes/frequencies. Great. Next, the amps are set so the maximum output of the system with this pink noise is 96dB. Great. So every single frequency that is output is maxed out at 96dB. Now onto the bands desk - its a fair assumption that the bands output from the desk is not exceeding 0dB on the fader. Ideally that output should be skirting around -12 to -3dB. Now remember what I said about transients, well, it should come as no surprise that bands don’t play pink noise. Band music has transients that occur at different frequencies. Let’s talk briefly about traffic light sound limiters now. Imagine your band playing at 96db RMS (the average sound level shall we say), there will be times that it’s below 96 but also times that it’s above. The limiters usually have a traffic light system that will warn you that you are over 96 - so that snare hit may flicker the orange or red lights - but as long as it’s not for an extended period of time, you are good. So in short, you can have a band playing at a nominal level but still enjoy a level of dynamic range. OK back to our crippled venue with it's own installed PA. Remember that I said that maximum volume output is 96dB? Well, that your maximum spl that you transients can hit. So if you want your band with some level of dynamics, you really need to be playing at 88dB. To put that into context, that’s lower than that of a hairdryer. (And also take into account that a hairdryer output is more akin to pink noise (so naturally sounds louder) than the RMS of music). This is where the problem starts. So as far as the venue system goes, 88dB does not get a party started but does get you the maximum dynamics out of the system. What you then get is people complaining that the band isn’t loud enough. So what can you do? Well, you could push your LR fader. Immediately you hear the band get a bit louder… but what is happening in reality? Well, your transients start to get super squished by the brick wall limiter on the front end. This causes a number of things to happen, your dynamic range is reduced, so whilst the RMS is higher, the music becomes less exciting. It causes the transients to become clipped (more on this later), which can then be heard as audible distortion if pushed too far. Clipped transients actually tires your ears - meaning listeners ears will get more fatigued… so as the night goes on, the listeners ears perceive the mix to be getting worse. The result is that they usually ask you to turn up. So as you’ll probably see, turning up actually makes the problem worse. Right, let’s get back to these clipped transients. As I’ve alluded to, the front ends of these systems are protected by a brickwall limiter. The installers know that bands are going to keep pushing up the output to the point where clipping will happen. So either the instructions will tell you to not give any more beans from your desk if a clip light is being observed… however, it also doesn’t look good on the company if the system is both clipping on the input signal (hence introducing distortion) and clipping the transients - so it's also heard as audible distortion. So what do the installers do? Lower the gain so that the front end doesn’t clip as easy… net result, your real world desk dB is down the number of dB they’ve introduced as additional headroom on the front end of their system. So all in all, it’s a complete disaster for those expecting a decent sounding band. Meanwhile, any prerecorded music sounds great as it’s been stripped of any excessive transients, and has been mastered and limited in a super controlled environment. But of course the punters don’t understand that and want to know why the disco can be louder than the band. Oh and for those wondering where the measurements are taken? Well… 1m from a speaker is not unusual (when being calibrated) - and anywhere within the room when the venue get their own meter out. Anybody else figure out what the problem is with that?

There is strong chance that this is the final one…. for some time.

First pub gig for me in about 8 years and first gig with new band. For those who know the expression it was a bit like the Curate’s egg. On the plus side my Sadowsky Metro UV70 sounded great through the Ashdown Pre-DI and Bose L2 PA. I had one of the speakers next to me for monitoring plus Backbeat for bass and Eich stool for drums. On the negative side I’m finding it very difficult using pre-recorded drum tracks compared to a live drummer who I can watch and communicate with. At the moment I have no trust in the drums, a bit like getting up with a novice drummer at a Jam night. Timing is fine, just a bit erratic. The most recent tracks are fine but some were created by the band leader during the first Lockdown when the bass parts were played on his keyboard. We’re on the case and will be addressing the issue this week. It’s good to be back.

The thing is that all these factories that build guitars for multiple "brands" will build to the price set by the customer, and will differ in the quality of materials used and the amount of time a QC spent on any of the hand assembly and finishing tasks. That means, two extremely similar looking instruments from the same factory, but made for different customers may well have nothing in common other than the basic instrument shape and the fact that they were made under the same roof. Ultimately knowing which factory an instrument comes from is a complete red herring.

I’d quite like a plush toy to cuddle please if there is one available. Please could you send it to… Man with a significant amount of hate 238 Easily Triggered Mews Eaton-by-Nugent Oxfordshire B3L 3ND

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I’ve been playing my new to me P bass a lot this week, and yesterday a had a bit of an epiphany. I’ve played in many bands over the last three decades, always on guitar, bass is a new adventure for me, but I’m seeing playing now from a different perspective. Over the years I have had the pleasure and honour to play with some of the greatest bass players, Scott Whitley (latterly Big Country), Roberto Ruiz ( Jake Stigers, The Animals) and many more. Some of the guys could be described as “busy” players, others just sat right in the pocket and grooved, keeping it simple but jaw droppingly musical and appropriate. What I’m finding now, playing bass myself, is that I am tending to over play, too many notes, too fast, and I know I’m doing it, and I want to move past it. I think with me it comes down to my lack of confidence in my own abilities and I’m over compensating by playing too much. I want to reach a point where I can play the simplest of grooves which absolutely serve the music. I feel some of the busy players I’ve gigged with over the years similarly lacked a degree of self confidence and held a degree of self doubt, even struggled with their mental health, and perhaps used bravado on gigs to mask it. The Bass players I most admired playing with, were more relaxed individuals, confident in their abilities, and therefore could just relax, listen, and lay down the greatest grooves and bass lines without ever getting “busy”, overplaying, or deterring from the material. Roberto Ruiz was/is one of those guys, and now I’m playing bass, I have a new found respect for how he managed to achieve this. I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that personality and self confidence is a factor in how one might approach playing bass, and affects how one’s bass lines either sit perfectly or subtly work against the material. So, I’m determined to understand the instrument and the fretboard on a deeper level, try to be more relaxed whilst playing, so that I may one day become that guy who just grooves, doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb, and doesn’t over play. What do you think? Rob

I don't play busy at all. That's nothing to do with confidence, it's that I've no idea what I'm doing.

I think perhaps the meaning of 'Rock and Roll' has shifted over time and now means different things to different people. 'Popular Music Hall of Fame' is perhaps a better term for what the institution was actually set up to celebrate.

Samick makes everything for everybody. It's the only guitar factory in the world. Everyone else is lying.

Technical ability and musical ability are very different mistresses.

I don't know if this will be of any interest to anyone.... After watching a fella on YouTube make his own cnc machine, Me and my dad have decided to build one which is going to have a 700mm x 700mm useable cutting area we we're going to try and go a bit bigger but there is lack of space in the workshop but I've worked out I will be able to do a bass neck on it going diagonally from corner to corner we've worked out the parts will come to just over £400 I'll be using it for guitars and possible signs and stuff and my dad will be using it for his model railway stuff With that in mind I've started trying to design some 3d models that I can convert to gcode and cut on the cnc, I haven't got the money to buy a copy of rhino or fusion 360 so I've started doing the 2d svg designs in Inkscape and 3d modelling in freecad which is still a steep learning curve! but to make life easier someone has designed a dedicated workbench for building guitars its called Mars Guitar Designs and as long as you label the parts on the 2d drawing body and headstock eg. contour, midline and pickups/control cavity etc correctly you can easily do design like this...... (This was just a bit of messing around doing a Meteora style bass) And once its like that you can adjust the parameters of the neck eg. Scale length, heel and nut dimensions, amount of frets etc I'm still learning so I'm still trying to figure out a few things like how to add arm and belly carves and how to radius the top edge.........👍🏻 We are ordering all the parts this coming week so I'll post updated pics as we go along.....

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And that’s why we have a “modest” collection of basses to cater for every whim and situation…

You dont have to be good at anything to own anything you want. Spend YOUR money where it makes you happy. There's no laws on that.

If you type 'bass player' into Google images, nearly every picture shows a professional bassist with their forearm resting on the bass. Hence most basses having a forearm contour. It's not that hard to understand is it?

I’m not good enough to play a Squier Bronco - never stopped me 😂

Yeah why not, if you've got the spare money might as well get something that sounds/plays/looks how you want. It's a refundable deposit after all: If you can buy either a £500 or £2k second hand Bass and play it for 2 years then sell it - either can be sold for about the same you bought them for so it doesn't really make a difference financially in the long run, but you'll have had 100s of hours paying a better Bass by getting the £2k one. Saying that though, I think there is a fair bit of jealousy/reverse snobbery 'he spent £2k on that and can't even play X which I can play on my £500 Bass'. And I think some good players revel in playing cheap Basses well and letting everyone know about it - subtext being 'I can play that well on this cheap Bass imagine what I could do on an expensive one' (and the answer probably is they wouldn't sound that different with the more expensive Bass but it might look better or be more comfortable to play).

I can honestly say it has never occurred to me. I buy what I like and could care less whether anyone else thinks I’m good enough.

I think if you can justify it and get pleasure out of it then go for it. It's definitely more important it does what you want it to playability-wise and sounds how you want it to for me 👍

Should be with me Tuesday/Wednesday. 😁

I don't think TC Electronic make an envelope filter, but I have plenty so it's not a problem. The Plethora for me was never meant to be an all in one. It's a part of a pedal board, 5 effects and a tuner, with the ability to change those 5 effects, and to customise each one as much or as little as I want to. Given that they add effects and improve the functionality with firmware updates, I think it's excellent value.

For a Fender-style instrument there absolutely no reason these days why one factory can't churn out instruments of exactly the same standard over and over again and to exactly the same standard as any other factory in the world. After all the wooden parts are all done by CNC machines, the design of the hardware has barely changed over the past 70 years, and the assembly is only marginally more complicated than fitting together a typical bit of flat-pack furniture. The price differentiation is done to the quality of the raw materials and the standard of QC control that is applied to those processes that require the hand assembly and finishing. That's set by what the client who's brand name appears on the headstock wants to pay per unit. That's why the factory producing these instruments is irrelevant. You'll find that to only people who want you to care about the factory itself are those selling instruments at the budget end of the range who want you to associate them with the kudos that goes with the instruments from the premium range from the same factory.

This Shuker Uberhorn is currently for sale on their site at £3400. Looks gorgeous and has a tri tone colour finish that changes in different light conditions. Interestingly it lists this as having the Headway Snake piezo installed which is Headway's budget piezo model. I'm sure Shuker know what they're doing but I'd want to know the reasoning for that before shelling that kind of cash. Shuker basses do look the mutts nuts tho.

Frankly, unless you are at an audition, if your goal is to impress people on a bass, you have picked the wrong instrument!

Time for a flick through this....

Nice surprise when I got back yesterday afternoon - some more updates from Mike. More work on the neck and he's now starting on the body too. Definitely shaping up now: The mahogany core is going to be faced up back and front with paduak - to give that authentic Wal vibe.

I actually bought 3 of these basses. A sunburst '61, a white refin '62 (JE did it himself over sunburst) and a '53. The '61 was really not a good one! Still, it only cost £575.

Let me put it this way. If this bass was a guest on the Jeremy Kyle Show, it would be a suitable candidate for a DNA test.

The biggest has to be Ibanez , they have never had a factory of their own. Peavey closed their guitar plant in 2010 so everything since has been subbed out. Others I remember are. Cort have built for Squier, G&L , Ibanez and PRS. Saein built for Epiphone and Peavey. Samick did Squier, Epiphone and Peavey. Zheng'an build Tagima and some Ibanez. NBE Corp build the Spector Euro line, Esh and NS Design. They also do the Peavey HP-2 with yet another Cirrus reissue in the pipeline InYen Vina built for ESP and Peavey.

Not necessary - the bride and groom won’t have been informed of the implications of the setup. They’ll just have been told that the venue has bands all the time and even have a top flight PA system for every band to plug in to. What they won’t mention is the lack of volume to create a party atmosphere or the fact that the music sounds dull due to all the dynamics being sucked out of it.

I always thought the sign of a great musician, on any instrument, was to play for the song, not to get all their chops out.

Really enjoyable! An enclosed, heated rooftop bar "battle of the bands" in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We were the old guys playing with a bunch of much younger bands. Our singer entered us in the contest on a lark. We played rings around the other bands and then the judges chose the band that had three very attractive young women in it. So it goes!! It doesn't matter; We had a lot of fun. The venue's management and staff, the sound crew, the video crew and, especially, the members of other bands were all really, really nice with no exceptions. It was a very fun crowd and a nice scene to fall into. Hopefully we'll play with some of these folks again.

Quite right. We save it for the likes of despicable and dangerous muppets like Nugent. The midwife should have kept the placenta and tossed Nugent away

I'm not big on the club thing, but I've owned three Ibanez Riadster basses; back in the 80' an original Roadster (happy memories), then another one (awful) and I picked up one as a project (neck, body, bridge, machines) last year. It's had a stripback and respray, new guts. It's wired into the switch and then the volume, so three of the knobs are just there to fill the holes. Sounds fine to my ears.

Take the Jack socket out, bend the pins in. 2 screws, 30 second and job done. Better than waiting days, or even weeks for a new bass that might have the same problem.

Plus some interesting finishes, including a thin layer of stone (some kind of slate apparently) which they can put on as a veneer on the body top.

The unprofessional part of all of this is expecting a band to turn up on a separate day to soundcheck against a sound meter because you aren't on the 'approved list' - whatever that is. In all my decades of playing in function bands, I never heard such utter tosh. As previously stated, your contract is with the bride. Tell her the sound check cannot happen and she then either has to sort it out or lose you. Her problem, not yours.

With most people - including me, although it doesn’t actually bother me - it’s more the forearm. I don’t float my arm so much, I often rest it on the body. I guess it depends on the position of your right arm, how high/low you wear the bass (maybe if you wear it very low it could affect the wrist) and possibly whether you play with pick or fingers.