Leaderboard

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

Sometimes things go well, and occasionally they go very well. I was "depping" this morning with another band at church. Normally my son plays bass and his wife plays flute in that band, as they were away I was on bass, the normal keyboard player dusted off his violin, and we had another keyboard player who is really a classical pianist. So apart from the BL on rhythm guitar it was all new instruments. Everything clicked, it was the most enjoyable service I have ever played, and the best I have ever played as well. There was pulse when there needed to be, space when required, eveyone worked seamlessly together. The keys and piano interwove beautifully as if they had been playing together forever. I still messed up in one song, but as I dropped out the piano filled straight in as if it was planned. More importantly the congregation thought the music was good and really sung well. It was a completely new experience for me, I hope it's not unique! Have a blessed week everyone.

True story: At school I told my careers advisor in front of my whole class I wanted to ve a session musician. She replied, “That’s all well and good Daniel, but what will you do for a real job?” In your face lady! My bass has been solely paying all of my bills for many, many years now and has been my obsession for over 35 years (as those who have seen my reviews know!)

So, no need for wire wool. Gave it a buff this morning after a weekend of it hanging up and it looks great. I'm really chuffed with the end result. I am going to apply some wax to the final finish for a final buff and some extra shine so it will be ready for a reassemble on Friday when I have some spare time. New strings are ready. Will post some final pics of the bass back together. Thanks to everyone who commented and followed and especially to @Andyjr1515 who furnished with me with some excellent advice, recommendations and guidance. Without Basschat - who knows where I would be with this! What a great resource. Carl.

When A Child Eastbourne ～ Johnny Mathis

Wrong. Compression simply lowers the amplitude of the signal. It reacts according to the level (averaged / RMS / peak depending on the unit) and not to the individual waveform. Except if you set it up badly eg fast attack/release times on a frequency corresponding to a longer time. Typically this might occur using very fast attack / release on the low notes of a bass guitar. But that is basically a user error (unless going for special fx) and will be obvious. A simple compressor simply detects the signal level and lowers the gain when it is above a threshold level. Typically by altering the dc control voltage into a Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA). The VCA does not discriminate wrt frequencies. It's just an amplifier with a nominally flat audio band response. You could, in concept, control a motorised pot or fader in the same way. Don't try it though ! - for various reasons it not practicable. Compression can indeed 'dull' the sound but it's not because it specifically removes overtones. It's simply due to the energy in an audio signal being a lot more at lower frequency. So, depending on the signal and the compression parameters, the low end can dominate the operation. So you get a large low frequency event and that causes ALL frequencies to be attenuated. The low end may then still be loud enough because it was too loud without the compression but higher frequencies that were not too loud to begin with may now be too quiet to be audible in context. Solutions to this include "Split Band" compression - anything from the Trace Elliot SMX type compressors to sophisticated Multiband Compressors (typically used in mastering) and their plug-in equivalents. Basically they allow the bottom end and top end to be compressed differently (or not at all). So a bottom end thump doesn't wipe out the highs.

I spoke to my band mate Pete to see if he'd got the Piccolo Bass at home but it's out on loan to one of his friend's who's recovering from a knee operation, so it will be just these two I'll be bringing: Clearly, the one of the left is the Camphor Singlecut and the one on the right is the SWAPAATBWADS fretless (Same woods and proportions as a Thumb but, wisely, a different shape) The Camphor Singlecut is the one that needs a good home. Offers around £1500 will secure. This was the 'No Treble' Bass of the week it was awarded in 2016: https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2016/06/20/bass-of-the-week-ajr-guitars-singlecut-bass

The Cave in Paisley Glasgow 6-9pm with the punk covers band. Start was fairly quiet with just about 12-15 people there but as we got intothe first set more people came in. Not what i call busy but an appreciative audience. 9pm finish means kebab shop on way home and back in the house for 11pm. Job done mmmmmmm. Dave

Wonderful jam night in the old dive we call The Land of Dreams , it’s really called Bearly’s House of Blues. Nice players and visitors from away. And the regulars … A good night !

That's cool if it's a band where everyone gets an equal shout but (unfortunately) it doesn't always work like that. If you are working as a sideman or a sub, you might have to play a different instrument than you want. I got offered a ton of decent gigs with a busy band (some of the gigs are with members of a pretty legendary band), and the condition was that they wanted me to play a black Precision. So guess what? I leave the F Bass at home and take out my black Precision.

Ok. Just been informed that being a full time musician isn’t a real job. Along with other selected classics over the years “Covers/functions gigs are not real gigs” ”Doing that means you have no integrity..” ”You must be dead inside to play that stuff” ”It’s easy…” ”But you play… (insert genre, add the disgust)” add yours at leisure… The £300+ I just chucked in my account a few hours back was not ‘REALLY earned’ 🤣🤣

Back after a lengthy hiatus, finally got around to posting a few pics of the finished item, which I finished almost a year ago.

It's a confirmed non-gig weekend and Mrs Rev has given approval, so I'm there. If anyone is interested in having a go on double bass, I'll bring one, otherwise it will be the Italia Rimini and the Chowny SWB fretless (which is also for sale...), plus my MAS45 cab/Techamp Puma/Fishman pre gig setup. For the raffle I have a Tech21 BassCompactor compressor. Dave

"If you can play guitar you can play bass"

At our service yesterday our pianist called in sick, so our assistant pastor filled in on semi-acoustic guitar at the last minute. My wife was on oboe, and I was on bass. We had two female vocalists. The small church was full (around 120 people), and the singing sounded great. I hit most of the right notes in the right order and the whole thing worked well. Sometimes an impromptu situation can produce good results!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/remembering-ronnie-james-dio-decent-man-rock/ No idea about some of this stuff, amazing He was for the downtrodden’: remembering Ronnie James Dio, the most decent man in rock Dio had a voice that could blow mics, yet he preferred reading and cooking to heavy metal excess. Now a poignant documentary tells his story ByIan Winwood30 September 2022 • 11:37am Ronnie James Dio at home in Los Angeles, 1987 CREDIT: Getty Prior to the start of the British premiere of the documentary film Dio: Dreamers Never Die, on a Monday night in September, bowls of tissues were placed on the bar of the Curzon cinema in Soho. Bound in black vinyl, each parcel was adorned with a photographic image of the late heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, whose life the film celebrates. Confused, I asked one of the event’s organisers to explain. “Oh,” I was told, “it’s so people can have a good cry at the end.” Directed by Don Argott and Demian Fenton, the film is certainly a poignant creation, not least when the apparently indefatigable 68-year old was at last silenced by stomach cancer in 2010. His death came 52 years after the release of Conquest, by Ronnie and the Red Caps, the single with which the teenager born Ronald James Padavona made his recording debut. Forget about Led Zeppelin and Blue Cheer – Dio was a contemporary of Jerry Lee Lewis. As one of Dreamers Never Dies many talking heads notes, “He was singing before the Beatles. How is that possible?” He was singing before the advent of heavy metal, too. In the lobby of the Curzon, the genre’s creator, Tony Iommi, with whom Ronnie James Dio appeared as a member of Black Sabbath and, towards the end of his life, Heaven & Hell, is on hand to reminisce about times that were not always smooth. Despite critical and commercial success, Sabbath’s second incarnation broke apart as a result of Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler being cranked out of their craniums on cocaine. Not their singer, though. Asked to nominate a special memory, the guitarist’s answer speaks to the sense of wholesomeness that pervades Dreamers Never Die. “When we were doing Heaven & Hell [the Black Sabbath LP from 1980], we stayed at Barry Gibb’s house [in Miami] for about… I don’t know how many months,” he tells me. “Ronnie used to cook a lot, so I have this image of him standing at the oven with his shorts on making his pasta for everyone. Meatballs and God knows what else.” Ronnie James Dio first met Tony Iommi at the Rainbow Bar & Grill, the famous and infamous rock-biz hangout on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Invited to join Black Sabbath following the sacking of Ozzy Osbourne (not to mention his own departure from Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow) the singer had his doubts about whether the fit was right. “I don’t know if I love this music,” he told his wife Wendy. “We have $800 left in the bank,” she replied. “Believe me, you love this music.” Seated at a table in the cinema’s subterranean bar, 44-years later Wendy Dio is Dreamers Never Die’s executive producer. Her husband’s manager from 1982, she retains the no-nonsense air of one who was required to make her mark in an era when the transatlantic music industry was ruled by American men easily affronted by the prospect of doing business with a platinum-blonde thirtysomething from Epping. Certainly, a cheeky question about what it was she fancied about Ronnie James Dio phases her not at all. “I was invited to go to a party up in the Hollywood Hills at Ritchie’s House,” she says. (Ritchie is, of course, Ritchie Blackmore.) “Ronnie was following me around and Ritchie said to me, ‘He likes you’. Too short for me. That’s what I said, ‘Too short for me’. But we talked and we chatted and at six in the morning we went for breakfast at Denny’s… and then we went for a drive to Malibu. After that I saw him for a couple of weeks, during which time I think I fell in love with his brain.” Pleasingly, Dreamers Never Die portrays its subject as an intelligent and serious man. In a film packed with fascinating details – the now ubiquitous “devil horns” hand sign popularised by Dio was handed down from his grandmother, for example – the revelation that “life began when I saw my first book” is a welcome inclusion. Dio's commercial peak, after all, coincided with a period in time in which it was acceptable to believe, and to say out loud, that people who made and listened to heavy metal were stupid. 'He was singing before The Beatles': Ronnie James Dio in the 1950s CREDIT: Courtesy of Wendy Dio More than this, though, the film is a portrait of an unstoppable force. Never mind being a dreamer, the man was a doer, too. After launching his own band, Dio, in 1982, he and Wendy re-mortgaged their home in order to fund the recording of his debut album, Holy Diver, and its subsequent world tour. When the LP racked up more than two million sales, creative single-mindedness joined forces with autonomous financial muscle. Agitations for a more equitable share of the profits from wunderkind Vivian Campbell led to the guitarist getting the sack. “It was Ronnie’s band,” Wendy Dio explains with a steeliness that could intimidate even Sharon Osbourne. By time I first saw Dio, on the Sacred Heart Tour in 1986, this determination to plough his own furrow had (to my 15-year old eyes at least) rendered the whole thing stale. Sitting in the bleachers at the Birmingham NEC, the sight of a 43-year old man doing battle with a fiberglass dragon for what seemed like three or four months left me bored and dismissive. Driven to distraction by a set sagging with flabby solo spots for drums, guitar and keyboards, I guess I knew that I was only passing through on my journey to an untameable new variant spearheaded by Metallica and Slayer. At once, and forever, "heavy metal" became, simply, "metal". It got worse. By the time Nirvana upended the tables in 1991, it looked as if the game might be up for Ronnie James Dio. In what for me is Dreamers Never Die’s most devastating moment, the American DJ Eddie Trunk recalls one of the programmers at the east coast radio station WDHA handing him a box filled with CDs he was no longer allowed to play on the air. Alongside fraudulent rubbish from the likes of Poison and Warrant, this musical revolution had made victims of honourable artists whose only crime was to appear at once out of step with the earthquake weather. “Dio was in the box,” Trunk says. Ronnie with his wife Wendy CREDIT: Courtesy of Wendy Dio It’s even possible that I bear my share of culpability for this. Age 22, as a writer for a long-forgotten rock magazine, Ronnie James Dio became the first artist to appear in a feature I’d created in which notable music-makers were asked a series of deliberately provocative questions purposely designed to impugn their relevance. Come the day itself, however, I was so deep into second thoughts that I considered praying that he wouldn’t show up. Certainly, I was keenly aware that a man who had been in the game for more twice as long as I’d been alive was well within his rights to knock me out cold. Instead, he remains one of the kindest and most decent people I’ve ever interviewed. It seems obvious now that I was missing a point. Because while I’m not sure if I quite endorse an opinion expressed in Dreamers Never Die that Dio “was a messenger for people who lived ordinary lives”, I am willing to consider the notion that his deeply passionate but entirely sexless performances gave true outsiders a sense of genuine inclusion. Speaking to his widow, I made the point that while her late husband was mocked for his lack of height – and likely still would be were he alive today – it would (rightly) be considered bad form to make mention of, let alone poke fun at, the physical form of the noticeably heavyset man who had just left her table. A strange distinction, no? Ronnie James Dio in 1970 CREDIT: Getty “But that guy is exactly Ronnie’s fan,” she answered. “That is Ronnie’s fan. And those are people he cared about, because other people don’t care about them… He was for the downtrodden. That was his whole life, making somebody feel good themselves.” In other words, forget what you might have heard about the death of musical tribes. When all else is gone, metal will remain. What’s more, I can easily imagine that it always will. Certainly, Ronnie James Dio stuck it out. With a voice that was the equal of Joe Cocker or John Fogerty, the singer’s appearance in the Jack Black and Kyle Gass comedy film Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny, from 2006, revivified a career that had been in retreat for more than a decade. When it came to recording a song for the soundtrack album, after blowing out three high-end microphones, the singer produced a mic he’d brought from home that just happened to be the only piece of equipment on the market capable of preventing his vocal takes from driving the studio’s needles into the red. Best of all is the footage in Dreamers Never Die from the final tours with Heaven & Hell. Once more reunited with Iommi, Butler and drummer Vinny Appice, in his final month on the road Ronnie James Dio was at last returned to the kinds of venues – the Greek Theatre in LA, Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver – ideally suited to broadcasting his stunning voice to the people in the nosebleeds. After so much decline, everything seemed perfect. And maybe it would have been had the singer not been bent double in pain before and after each and every performance. “Towards the end, he used to come to me and say that he had these pains in his stomach,” says Tony Iommi, himself a cancer survivor. “He’d asked me for some Tums, so I’d give him some Tums. But I told him that he ought to get that checked out. But of course it was too late by the time he did.”

BASH NOTICE I hesitate to bring the (new) 'c'-word into what is meant to be - and will be - a joyous occasion BUT... It's getting to the time of year when we can expect the covid numbers to go up again. If you're not feeling right, please consider taking a test before coming to the Bash as a precautionary measure. Mentioning no names (me!), some of us are getting towards our 'best before' date, so RESPECT please 🙂. We'll make sure there's ventilation and plenty of sanitizer on hand, so you can put some on YOUR hands. If you want to wear a mask, please bring one. Anyone who's pre-paid but doesn't attend cos they're not feeling well WILL get their money back, no questions asked. OK, that's my last word on the subject, I promise.

At age 66 I’m still trying to decide what I’d like to do for a living…

I do agree.... but only when your right hand only has 1 job. If your right hand has to swap between fingers, pick, and slap then no amount of hand control will get those things to work in the same dynamic range.

Village Hall benefit gig: not my village but playing for free. Completely knackered and felt I was a couple of BPM slow on everything but I think the lead guitarist had been drinking RedBull all day: he was hyper, so maybe he was pushing the pace more than usual. First time I had gigged with new (to me) Warwick Gnome iPro/Barefaced Two10 rig. I also decided on a whim to use my Vox Starstream instead of the usual P/J. I also use a Boss wireless system. Half way through the third number I started cutting out. It wasn’t clipping: Gain and EQ at 12 o’clock, Master hardly on. I did a quick round of pushing all the jack plugs in, checking I hadn’t accidentally engaged the tuner pedal, etc: still cutting in and out. Finally I turned the wireless sender in the bass’ jack socket. Normal service resumed. I can only assume that it hadn’t quite seated enough for the little battery saver switch to engage fully. It was a relief, as I had feared the iPro (I had bought off fleaBay) had an intermittent fault. All was good for the rest of the evening, so it seems to be OK 🤞. The gig was well received, so all is well that ends well.

Redonizm was back on "The Rock" (aka Canvey Island) Saturday night. A new venue for us, and first live band for them. The venue next door frequently has live music and this one was losing customers, so they've decided to bring some competition to the market, which is a good thing for everyone. We went into it expecting it to be a little quiet, but we got a decent sized crowd, including some friends and family and it turned out to be a fun evening. We were a guitarist down, so the other guitarist who usually doubles on keyboard just played guitar all night (making him happy bunny). He added a boss synth pedal to his rig for some extra texture, and loaded up a few samples, chords and sounds to an Alesis sample pad that one of the two singers triggered. This solution worked great and meant we could still play some of the pop and dance tunes we normally play when we have the keyboard. Otherwise, the set would have been more rock orientated. The only potential issue was being informed about the dreaded decibel meter upon arrival. It was installed by the council after complaints from someone who had moved into a flat above the bar (this really grinds my gears - it's not as if someone was living there already and their flat was jacked up and slid the bar in underneath!). It was quite a sensitive meter too, I reckon just a heated debate could set it off. Luckily, only one socket was wired into it and after some furniture rearrangement, we plugged in elsewhere. Sorted. Oh, and a well behaved audience this time. No fights!

I’ve never been told what instrument to use, but once when recording a track on guitar I did most of it on a Les Paul, adding a few bits on a Strat, and the producer subtly asked why I favoured the Les Paul when I played the Strat better. So we did a good bit of it again on the Strat and guess what, he was right, vastly improved it.

Good work! Enjoy it - playing bass live is where it all makes sense.

That's just wrong. Compression doesn't remove anything from the top and bottom at all. High and Low Pass filters do that. Compression just moves all the information into a smaller dynamic range. It doesn't slice anything off. It just squashes it. All the information is still there, including the overtones you seem to be obsessed with. In fact - overtones that are naturally quiet so would be at the very bottom of the wave have their volumes INCREASED with compression to get them into the compressed dynamic range that has been set.

Welcome, fellow Scottish bassist. Not saying Aberdeen is full of suspicious yokels, but if Hutton hadn't asked "furry boot ye frae?", I probably would have

I gig and rotate about 7 different bass guitars. Not one band member has even made a comment. I don't think most guys know one bass from the other or even notice what bass your playing. I actually think I could show up with a Fender Stratocaster and they wouldn't even notice. Blue

In my band I am the bass player therefore - as the bass specialist - I choose the bass. It's non negotiable. If you don't want my expertise you don't want me and I walk. That's where I'm at.

A Westone Rail bass popped up on our local kijiji the other day , ad is still up , trying to talk an old friend into picking it up.

SM58 and SM57 are regular cardoid, Beta 57A/58A are supercardoid, unless I'm reading the Shure website incorrectly? https://www.shure.com/en-GB/products/microphones/sm57 https://www.shure.com/en-GB/products/microphones/sm58 https://www.shure.com/en-GB/products/microphones/beta_57a https://www.shure.com/en-GB/products/microphones/beta_58a

Informed by whom? A school career officer?

Yes. I don't think anyone here is advocating dynamics processing as a substitute for technique. The issue is what compression does to the sound in terms of harmonic balance etc.

Used mine at a gig on Saturday. Touch of compression and the amp sounded amazing on its own. Didn’t even need to/want to use any effects as the tone was incredible. Didn’t want to spoil it.

I bought this, in a trade, just before lockdown 1 (about then) and had it in the lounge. I moved last december and it hasnt been out of its case since. Lovely thing, almost mint and light too

I must admit the ABM 750 really peaked my interest as the latest incarnation of ABM's. It appears to be a bridged under voltage version of the old school ABM 900/1200 amps but running 'cooler' and safer at 750 watts RMS. I'm sure it will be ultimately very reliable in use and the idea of a quality, British made BIG power class AB amp that's not running over voltage or stressed to the max to satisfy the sales reps power stats really sounds like Ashdown are on to something good. Saying that, I recently responded to a mail shot by Ashdown asking what my three favourite Ashdown products were and also what I would like to see Ashdown produce in the future amp wise. My three fave products were ABM's, ABM's and ABM's. I also specified a compact class D Ashdown Digital Magnifier or ADM if you like in the 500-800 watt range, with the ice blue paint job of regular ABM's, a standard ABM tube tone stack and comes with rack ears for rack mounting as standard 2U size. Hey, if Markbass can do a tube 800, why can't Ashdown do it better? I'm sure there are a ton of bass chatters waiting for such an amp. Anyway, until I have the option of a coolio lightweight ADM I will stick to my faithful old skool ABM EVO II 300 & 500 heads that despite the weight, do everything an ABM should, ie supply copious amounts of HEFT😁

More like last weekend than last night, but anyway... a reunion of sorts. One of the bands wot I'm in used to be fronted by three brothers, but they haven't performed together for seven years. They got back together for a one-off. The venue is a 250-seater, and I'm happy to say it sold out in a few days. Drummer is used a percussion kit thing to keep the stage volume down, but it sounded great. I used my '71P, flats, HandBox R-400 and TKS 2x12 with a mic on it. Hopefully we'll do it again sometime. Here's a song from it.. bear in mind these front three are all knocking around 70. They've still got it.

Sacrilege but he elevated "Heaven and Hell" to the best Black Sabbath album in my view. Great album

We're an easy target. I remember getting blamed for some weird feedback at one gig, turned out to be the hearing aid loop.

If the band leader can't compensate for a slightly weaker signal from one of the instruments then why is he in charge of the sound? You set your sound on the HX stomp, he is then responsible for the level, if it needs more, he just needs to boost it. Sounds like he isn't changing any settings between different gigs which is worrying, every room is different! Bassists tend to get the blame a lot for their volume, I've had guitarists who have too much bottom end, keyboard players who aren't used to full band situations so add in all the lows... it's always the bassists fault though!

I was once told not to play a 5 string as it wasn't a real bass.....