mcnach

[quote name='alembic1989' timestamp='1430143867' post='2758347'] If your pots are noisy...change them. You are just delaying the inevitable by using contact cleaners. [/quote] hmmm, define "delay". If they're really bad, sure, it'll only be a short-lived cure. But I have guitars that I have owned a couple of decades and I've sprayed the pots once or twice when I heard a little scratch... and they're ok.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1430317406' post='2760219'] This is all about the size isn't it. Sort of the opposite of the mental 8x15" cab, what about a 1 x 15" with totally over sized proportions? How would this sound? Like a 6 ft high 1 x 15" [/quote] with a door at the back, so it doubles as changing room...

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1430263438' post='2759718'] Looking at this for my markbass mini cmd 121 combo. I have a couple of questions. How do you connect it to the combo? What is the dial on the side for? I have only ever used a bass combo amp in my recent years, and technology has moved on. [/quote] You connect it with strawberry laces. The dial is the talent booster control. I always have mine set to "stun". (you already got the answer, so I felt I had to make up a different one to confuse you )

This is not the same type of resource, but I find it very useful anyway: backing tracks. I loved backing tracks from my bedroom guitarist days, much better than playing by yourself... but they also make learning songs much more fun, at least for me. If I need (or want) to learn a specific song, I listen to it and figure out the bassline and practice it playing along to the original. From time to time I had access to a backing track that did not have my instrument (guitar or bass), and that makes it more fun to practice. Over the years I ended up buying quite a few "Play with..." tab books, purely for the backing tracks. I have recently found a website that is a pretty good source of reasonable sound-alike backing tracks: [url="http://www.karaoke-version.com"]http://www.karaoke-version.com[/url] The cool thing is that you select a song, and you can choose your mix changing a couple of basic parameters: you can alter levels of instruments, and you can mute them. You can then download the result (it's not free, however, it's £1.99 a pop). The thing is also that once you bought a track, you can continue to download alternative mixes. This means you can get a mix without guitars, a mix without bass, without drums, vocals... etc, to suit whatever you want to play. In addition, you could listen to just the bass alone, or just the guitar alone, when trying to figure out something that's not so clear in the full track. Of course, learning a bassline from here means you learn the bassline another guy played, not the original... They are generally pretty good, but I've noticed a couple of occasions where I disagree. Still sounds good, and it works as a backing track regardless. I found it when I rediscovered my fretless Precision and The Police, and bought a "Play with" book+CD that did not have "So Lonely" in it. Their version was pretty good. It's not Sting singing, but does a good impression! Disclaimer: that site has nothing to do with me!!! I'm just a happy user.

[quote name='jonnythenotes' timestamp='1430083600' post='2757890'] I have decided to go for a P bass, but realise a new or second hand American made Fender for £500 is not going to happen, so what is the next best thing, eiher new or second hand that is as good as or even better? There must be one or two gems out there that are ignored or undiscovered as they have the wrong name on the headstock.. There is the obvious in Squier, but anything else that is worth a squint.... [/quote] Without a doubt: A Classic 50 Fender Precision. Made in Mexico, but nothing like the standard MIM range. I bought one in October last year and I barely touch anything else since. Fantastic basses.

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1430152544' post='2758436'] Isn't this topic [i]thoroughly[/i] done to death now ? [/quote] You're right. Enough of this. Let's try something else now: Jazz or Precision?

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1430227501' post='2759175'] I turned up at an outside gig with my Hartke Kilo and Berg NV610 and the sound engineer was telling me to turn down during soundcheck... he looked rather embarrassed when I told him that the amp was muted because I was tuning [/quote] As I brought my 210 and 212 vertical stack speakers into the bar, the sound guy warned me I was too loud. "Really, before I plug in, you can tell?" He said yeah, that was too big. I said "but my amp comes with a volume knob, they're great!". He went away grumbling. I wasn't too loud, it sounded great, and I could hear myself beautifully. Did your sound guy have a brother in Edinburgh?

Love it! It's beastly!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430172031' post='2758707'] I still view my CDs (and vinyl) as backup for my iTunes library. Back in 2001 when I bought my first iPod I spent a week testing different MP3 converters and bit rates to find what sounded to me the best and then spent the next year ripping my CD collection (as well as digitising the vinyl that wasn't available then on CD). Now that storage is both cheap and plentiful I'm in the process of re-ripping everything as uncompressed AIFFs. However over the last 14 years I've bought quite a few tracks on line when the songs I wanted weren't available any other way and trying to keep track of where they came from so I can add the best quality versions to my new library. I know that I'll invariably miss transferring some over and short of going through around 35,000 tracks to spot which ones I've missed there is no way to ensure I get them all. There will be no problem getting everything on CD transferred across, just the time it will take. I'm still not convinced by the subscription model for software either, and I'm not alone in this respect. Only one of the advertising/design agencies that I freelance for has "upgraded" to Creative Cloud and that's only because they needed more licences and CC is now the only option for adding new seats. [/quote] Same here, almost everything (almost, I still would pay a subscription -price & coverage dependent- in addition to my continuing to purchase music). When I started ripping my collection to mp3, computers were much slower, and I felt storage was expensive... so I ripped at 192kbps (the minimum I thought sounded ok in my mp3 player), and not every song, but only my favourites from each album. I saw mp3 as a supplement, only for music on teh move. After a few months of that I changed my mind... back to rip everything, and at 320kbps. CDs took a while... but vinyl... uf. I have bought many "digital copies" in the past few years, buying only CDs that I felt were more "special". But Amazon lately seems to have many where buying the CD is not much more expensive (and a handful ot times, cheaper!) than buying the digital only, and buying the CD gets you the digital instantly as well, so I started getting a few more CDs lately. I'm considering getting into the Raspberry Pi computer trend, and using one as a server, to have my own "streaming" service, where the server has all my music and I can then listen/download anything I want from my collection. Should not be too expensive and it's great for travelling (or work, I listen to a lot of music at work) But software subscriptions... I detest!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430160905' post='2758553'] There's a service called Pandora (which sadly is no longer available in the UK) which offers this. When I've used it in the past it has been very good at suggesting music I should be interested in based on my tastes and I found my current favourite band "The Birthday Massacre" through Pandora. Unfortunately for musicians it's royalty rate is even poorer than Spotify. [/quote] I heard of it but I arrived too late!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430160686' post='2758551'] I'm quite happy to use a streaming service to listen to bands I've heard about that sound interesting, but if I do find something worth hearing more than a handful of times I'll still buy the CD. I wouldn't want to rely on the streaming service being the only way I could listen to the music and I certainly wouldn't be prepared to pay for it, when I'm using it solely as a try before I buy service. While internet connectivity is a lot better than it used to be it's still not 100% reliable, whereas so long as I have electricity I can alway listen to my CDs, and even in cities mobile data can be very patchy. IME the infrastructure still isn't good enough to make streaming a viable substitute for actually owning a physical copy of the recordings you want to hear. And that's before I even start looking at the huge gaps in the various streaming services catalogues... [/quote] Absolutely, it's not perfect. Gaps in coverage both for connectivity and the music selection are quite big. I still buy music and will probably continue... even if it's only out of habit. But I think one day streaming will probably be good enough that most people would not care about buying. Only us old die hards It's not there yet, but the idea is attractive. Ad even if it isn't attractive to me, it seems that's the way we're going: moving to get people to pay smaller amounts regularly rather than larger sums once. It's even there in software, look at Adobe and Microsof Office 365... Little by little, we pay for a service rather than ownership. Once we moved to CDs, I stopped progressively caring about the physical format. The old records with the big sleeves, the artwork, all the information inside, photographs... thatw as interesting and precious. Then CDs arrived and it's all small, if it exists at all... it's just not the same. I converted all my CDs to mp3 and that's how I play music most of the time, from a hard drive.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1430162276' post='2758573'] I don't like sunburst, but strangely I have GAS for the honeyburst version... [/quote] Don't worry, they only ever did a handful of solid colours

[quote name='cetera' timestamp='1429916046' post='2756441'] Will do, chaps..... just give me a few days as I'm mad busy at the moment and I've given it to my tech to set up/clean up etc [/quote] not good enough. we want pictures, and we want them NOW, damnit!

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1430136198' post='2758229'] Isn't this just like the BBC radio though. Technically you pay a license fee to listen to the radio/ watch TV. If you hear a song you like on the radio, you go out and buy it. I don't know many people who buy songs from previously unknown artists without hearing them first. [/quote] and there's that too! A streaming service that recognises what you play, and suggests "others you might like" has a huge potential. I have spent hundreds on Amazon after buying a CD and checking the "other Cds you might like", discovering some interesting bands in the process.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430127159' post='2758112'] But most people who are older than 6 don't want to watch the same movie over and over again. I'm quite happy to pay to stream a movie once, and if I thought it was any good I'll be happy to pay in couple of years time to watch it again. Songs that I like I will want to listen to all the time. If it's through a streaming service you are totally at the whim of the service and the artist allowing their music to be on that service. At least with a CD ripped onto my computer and iPod I can listen to the song whenever I want. [/quote] ... yes, and that's why I wasn't keen on music streaming. Until it started to become easy for me to find music I wanted to hear at a reasonably low price. I still buy... but I like not depending on having the music physically with me. As long as I have internet connection, I'm set. It's not great yet... but eventually coverage/selection will be better. It frees you from having to have that particular CD with you, or the mp3 in your player or whatever. Enough people like that to make streaming popular.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1430092053' post='2757950'] If you stopped playing in the middle of a number everyone in the room should wonder what just happened. If they don't you're doing something wrong. People in the audience know when the band's sounding good and the band is sounding good because you are, so don't think your sh*t goes unnoticed. Get the best sound you can. And use it a lot. Like Jack Bruce told Clapton; I'm here to make you sound good. [/quote] Oh, they notice! They just don't know it's the bass that they're enjoying. Or who is playing it. Confession time: THAT is why I took up bass! The POWER, mwahahaha! We were at a work retreat thingy, the whole institute, up in the highlands in a hotel somewhere. Three days of science talks during the day, then activities in the afternoon, followed by one night a Ceilidh, another a pub quiz (to recover from the Ceilidh)... etc. One of the guys organising it that year was a drummer and I used to play with him soemtimes (guitar). He said "hey, we have the function room where the bar is available, shall we bring instruments and see what happens? I'm sure a few people can play". I took a guitar and my amplifer. During the pub quiz, in another area, we started making noise in the function room. ONly one guy played bass. After 15 minutes he left to get a beer and did not return. Nobody wanted to play bass! So after a while I gave someone my guitar and I took the bass. I had already been told that I played basslines on my guitar, so I guess it was fate. Because I used to play with this drummer, it was easy to just jam... the guitarist that took over my guitar was REALLY good, and he just adapted to what the drummer, and I were playing. Then others joined, but we remained the core, and people finshed the quiz and came to where we were... We thought maybe it was time to stop and just play music on the PA, but they asked us to carry on, and we tried to play something danceable. THAT is when I realised the power of the bass. I got hooked. A few weeks later bought a bass, and the rest, as they say, is history.

[quote name='ianrendall' timestamp='1430133291' post='2758189'] I do think that the 'Other musically related items for sale' section could do with dividing. Perhaps in to an electronics section and a hardware section? [/quote] I like the bazaar style of it now. When I was little and I had 25 pesetas, I'd run to the tiny sweet store looking at all the goodies "... and 3 of those, and... 1 of these, oh and two more of the vampire cola fizzy fangs! and..." Now, if I have a few £ burning a hole in my pocket, I open a tab for the 'Other musically related items for sale', and see if something inspires me.

[quote name='Coldflows' timestamp='1430130409' post='2758156'] +1 to the music man sub club! Its my fave bass to play with others, you can just get so much punch out of it. Although as has been said earlier you can't go wrong replacing the awfull metal scratchplate. I'm debating about putting on a brighter colour scatchplate on mine, currently black on gray bass. [/quote] The routing for the pickup is very tidy, so it looks good without a pickguard at all. I used to use my wine red SUB (now belonging to cana.dan) without pickguard for a while, and then with a colourless acrylic one (too much space under the strings was putting me off)

[quote name='cana.dan' timestamp='1430075445' post='2757778'] Congrats, I recently reacquired a SUB and am in love with the MM tone all over again! [/quote] Glad you're liking it! It took me a lot to finally decide to let that bass go... But it's ok, everybody, calm down, I still have another!

show me show me show me!

[quote name='MoJo' timestamp='1430045722' post='2757342'] I currently play in a three piece cover band and I try, where possible, to emulate the tone of the bass in the original recording. As you can imagine, this is quite a challenge with one amp and one bass when you're trying to emulate everything from a deep reggae tone for 'I Shot The Sheriff' through Nathan East's polished tones on Clapton's 'Old Love' to Paul Simonon's aggressive gnarly P-bass on London's Calling. I'd be interested to hear what other players in a similar situation do. Do you adopt the 'this is my bass tone, take it or leave it' attitude or do you try to adjust your tone to suit the song? Do you take more than one bass? Thanks [/quote] I personally would not bother with that, but use a bass that covers the usual bases reasonably well. Like a Jazz or a G&L L2000. If I really really wanted to do my best at replicating the tone in a covers band situation, I'd look at a Line6 Variax, or at a way to transplant its guts into a bass I like to use better.

[quote name='bassface2k10' timestamp='1429963136' post='2756732'] A little bit of digging around threw up this extension [url="http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4037-classifieds/?page=2"]http://community.inv...sifieds/?page=2[/url] and this as an example of it in action, parts are ugley but not beyond some hacking of the CSS :-) [url="https://www.pro-bike.ro/forums/classifieds/category/14-motocross-trial/?sort_key=price&sort_order=desc"]https://www.pro-bike...sort_order=desc[/url] [/quote] I have to say I like the look of that... well, the idea of the look (picture, price, blurb, all at one glance), that particular example is pretty ugly edit: on further thought... no, I like it better as it is already