jazzyvee

Yes well put, the band temperament and dynamics and personality clashes are another consideration. From my own experience, In the early part of the 2000's I did about 4 years of touring with a well known UK artiste using a local band as his backing band and I was called in to play guitar. At the start it was fine but as time went on things soon started to go astray when the artiste started asking the band for creative input to his music like different styles, different endings solos and stuff like that. Now my taste in music was much more open and varied than the other members of the band and so I had many idea's that could work but the rest of the band resisted virtually everytime and a number of times the artiste overruled them and went with my ideas and as it happened those were the ones that audiences really responded to more positively than their ideas. Anyway the end result was that there developed a barrier between me and mostly two members of the band to the point where things started to happen like removal of my stage monitors from the stage plans that went to venues, sabotaging of my gear and giving me wrong times for load in and leaving times for hotels & travelling when we were touring abroad, complaining to the manager to get me sacked. They even had band only rehearsals with another guitarist behind my back etc. But thankfully the manager and the artiste, liked me, saw through it and refused their requests. It did take the shine off but im not easily ruffled and wasn't gonna let that spoil my fun. Eventually the artiste realised he really didn't like touring and now does PA's for his live work. The point I'm making in a round about way is that when you are a hired hand doing a job, sometimes you will not get on with the whole team you are working with but you have to find a way to do the job you are hired to do regardless of that and try not to be drawn into an heated arguments.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1480367721' post='3183834'] 'Professional' is often used to mean that they play for money (sometimes?) It's not the same as earning enough to live on......... I wish you luck, I hope this works for you. [/quote] Yep, in the early 90's I was hired to play guitar in the band of a UK artiste who was doing well with a few albums released in the USA. The band had been touring there virtually 6 - 8 months per year. I did 3 months in the states with them when they released a new album and took a "unpaid" leave from my day job to do it. I knew the pay would be less than my day job but I wanted the experience so that was my driver. At the end of the tour the USA management company that represented the artiste and the band leader asked me to join the band properly. But they couldn't guarantee me even half of what my salary was at that time and made some good faith "promises" of getting me other work in the states with other touring foreign artistes they represented to make up my money. However I had a mortgage and a good career ahead of me to think about and as much as the romantic notion of being a professional musician was an attraction, practical considerations had to be taken. In the end I didn't take it, and few months after the tour the band had a massive number 1 hit record in the UK and opened for Sting on some dates then they split up. The artiste made some good money from it and is still working and living in the USA but the backing band didn't benefit financially from it at all and now are doing their own individual thing with different bands. I'd say if you can do it and it ticks the right boxes it's a great thing to experience! With the right band and right money I would do that again in a heartbeat but then I'm older, wiser and have less financial constraints now. "Blue" gives good advice, the money is important after all it is the Music Business. If the management get their sums right and you undercut yourself, guess who gets the extra. It is a good idea to join the MU and seek their advice.

I was depping on guitar in Corringham Hall Essex with a band called AllSkas. Bass player was solid.

Yeah hmmm.... the jury is out on this at the moment. I took it out with me on a gig on Thursday night as I'm in the house band for a weekly jam session so it would have a variety of music to deal with. I used it with a Mesa 2x10 powerhouse cab and I have to say whilst it sounded clean and hifi there was no WOW factor.

Hi George, I think you must mean this is one of only two in the UK? I think i've read on the alembic forum there are about 30 in total made so you are in an exclusive club.

Strings still on my bass and sounding great. Still got a good tone and the top end is still nice and crisp.

Via a roundabout route I now have this head and taking it out on my house band jam session tonight to check it out.

I use this quite often to help me price up gigs so I don't lose money and it's free. [url="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gig-fee-calculator-v1.00/id981262493?mt=8"]https://itunes.apple...d981262493?mt=8[/url]

Have you had a look at mesa boogie cabs? There are a couple for sale on the forum here. ( not mine). http://basschat.co.uk/topic/291937-mesa-boogie-600w-rig-will-now-split/page__fromsearch__1 Great cabs I have one of those cabs myself.

[url="http://www.harvest-guitar.com/Bass-Bags/"]http://www.harvest-guitar.com/Bass-Bags/[/url] Not cheap but great quality and well padded and protective. I use mine all the time and rarely use a hard case.

Shame the offer didn't include prosteels.

[quote name='Skybone' timestamp='1479666336' post='3178287'] Like a few others, I've always stretched new strings after putting them on. Put them on, tune to standard, give them a good stretch, tune up again, stretch again, tune up again. Is it beneficial? Good question. I think it is beneficial, tuning stability is achieved almost immediately, great if you're on the road or in the studio. Does it effect your "tone"? I've never noticed any detrimental effects from doing it, so no. [/quote] I do this whenever changing strings or taking existing ones to clean the bass. I always restring my basses and guitars with the strings under tension. In other words I grab each string near the middle and pull it towards the bridge so that they fit round the tuning peg tightish. Then tune to pitch and pull them up away from the fretboard and retune until it stays in tune. For me it's as much about taking any slack out of the string around the post as stretching so that there is less chance of any string slippage anywhere the first time you start playing. Once i've done that the string pretty much stays in tune. As for tone affects, i've never noticed any problem with tone from stretching strings nor longevity issues.

Neo in the genre name of any form of music means absolutely noting to me musically, it only appears as a way of rebranding existing music to make it seem new and different. I have heard singers describe themselves as neo-classic-soul singers which leaves me no wiser about how they may sound. Hopefully you can let me know what that term means to you to aid my understanding.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1479394890' post='3176210'] That's not stereo at all, but 2-channel. Stereo requires you to have to ability to be able to "pan" each sound source two any position or mix between the two amp and speaker sets. [/quote] [size=4]Quite! [/size]

I've used "Stereo" on a couple of occasions though my implementation does not use a crossover to split frequencies, my bass has the option of a descreet output from each pickup. This allowed me to use a separate outpbuard preamp for each pickup which then went into a QSC stereo power amp. The sound engineer decided to get DI outputs from each pre-amp and also mic'd both cabs a 4x10 and I think a I used a 1x15. On stage I can't say It sounded dramatically different to a mono implementation but out front the engineer had a field day. For convenience I prefer a mono rig but if I someone else was to carrying the cab's and rack I would try it out more. :-)

If I could play double bass I would have that without a doubt.

OP: I don't know either of those basses mentioned but would it make sense/be possible to swap the hardware over to the bass you prefer so you have the better quality of hardware on your main bass?

I bought a QSC PLX 2402 used and it is fantastic powerful and clean. Apart from the weight it is a fantastic power amp reliable and you can use 2 x 4 ohm cabs per side should you wish.

I'm gutted he was a giant talent and such a shame that he has gone.

I'm with the original poster on this, Jazz funk/fusion is my favourite genre. Unfortunately up where I am in the midlands we don't get too much of that live at all and most of the big names bypass us and go further north. Although I'd listened to a few artistes like Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington Jr, The Crusaders and heard of others mainly from watching the Old Grey Whistle Test, the first album I bought of the genre was Soft Space by the Jeff Lorber Fusion. https://youtu.be/qSAN2gdwONU The first jazz rock fusion I heard was Romantic Warrior by Return to Forever and that is still one of my favourite albums to date. https://www.youtube....h?v=giup9k87MMo I remember Herbie Hancock's Headhunter album was really popular in my neighbourhood especially with the musicians who used to rehearse in a studio on my street.

Great review Walbassist, Ive just bought one tor using with my alembic bass. Generally I use a mesa boogie walkabout for most of my gigs. I have a backup/spare, peavey Tour 450, that I bought in a hurry when the mesa was out of action for a while, However i find it less clean sounding than the mesa boogie and now i have the mesa back i can put it up for sale and replace it with the PJB M300. I have a PJB Briefcase that I use mainly at home, small gigs or rehearsals in small places and I'm really impressed with the sound so looking forward to getting my mitts on the m-300

[quote name='Bobthedog' timestamp='1478545237' post='3169799'] PJB Bighead for me too. Superb bit of kit. I am not too sure re the headphones and agree better can be found. If you want to splash the cash, go Bighead! [/quote] I tried the headphones and whilst the sound was very hi-fi, i found the bottom end to be too light and distorting at moderate sound levels. I even tried them on my ipod and home hifi and they didn't give me any bottom end meat at all. I now just use my old £19.99 sony headphones which whilst not hifi or neutral sound great at the bottom end.

I try to keep my instruments in pristine condition but so far I have not dinged any but there is some light scraches in the area of the body where my fingers touch when playing. I'm not bothered about those as I thing they might be able to be polished out. If any got dinged scratched etc to the point it annoyed me I'd just take it to someone like Jaydee and have it refinished.