Truckstop

It depends on how extreme the band is I suppose. If you play 16ths under the main riffs then you could end up sounding a bit punky, whereas if you play the riffs alongside the guitar parts then you'll sound more thrashy and, depending on the drumming style, quite death or grind. Because a lot of guitar riffs can be quite complex and span many keys, it's hard to put something underneath that's groovy or melodic. Again, the drum patterns can also be quite complex so the bass doesn't really have much room to breathe in metal. The best advice I could give, would be to make sure you're locking in with the drummer properly and that you don't have a bass heavy tone. Depending on how extreme the band is, I'd probably avoid distortion and overdrive and instead focus on having quite a bright, well compressed tone. If the bass AND the guitars are distorted it can be quite hard to listen to!

Always amazed when people say that a single 15 or a 2x10 isn't enough. Even with good quality ones! How loud do people play?! I suspect many people suffer the consequences of unsuitable EQing for the gig and placement issues.

The best crowds are at the pubs that have a good live music following. A lot of pubs just have music on as an afterthought because it's just something that pubs do these days and as a result never pull in a good crowd. The band is responsible for entertaining the people that are already there! You could be the best band ever, but if you're playing the Frog and Twat which is 15 miles away from the nearest town and has bands every two months, then you'll never get a crowd there. In my experience, music fans (in pub covers land) don't travel. They stay at their local because that venue will have a reputation for always putting on good music, they won't travel to see a band at a pub they're not familiar with. Ergo, you need to do your research and find the pubs that have a good live music fan base. Or just do parties all the time. Or, organise your own party and invite everyone. Guaranteed a good crowd then aren't you?

Servisol every day of the week!

Paint it Black. Love the song and I like it when the band plays it but I just know I'm not doing it justice. I can't get the groove right, my hands always ache halfway through and I can't get the slides to sound right. Whenever it comes up I let out a massive sigh and regret forgetting to tell the guys I want to drop it! I'm happy to play standards. I get a massive buzz from a good reception regardless of what the song is.

I've seen plenty of US Precisions for under £500 on BC. Keep your eyes peeled, they will turn up! If you've got your heart set on a Fender, nothing else will do. There are many manufacturers that make good P basses. G&L, Fret King and Lakland make great P basses that'll come in at around £500 used. If you don't mind keeping an open mind, an 80's Yamaha BB or Tokai Hardpuncher would be an excellent find.

[quote name='booboo' timestamp='1430049161' post='2757396'] I reckon about one more page until this morphs into a P vs J/ Flats v rounds / maple v rosewood debate! [/quote] Fingers crossed!

A PJ with rounds covers everything I need to. Bridge pup for disco and funk, bridge and neck for rock and pop and just the neck pup for blues, Motown and soul. Plectrum for specific songs too.

Hello all, I've started a small pub covers band and I'll be playing keys. Up until now, I've been using rehearsal room gear. For pubs I'll just need a combo to keep up with the rest of the backline. Anyone know of any little gems out there? I suppose I'm looking for something that's around 100w 12" or 15" and, as usual, I'm on a small budget: £150. Looking at Peavey TNT115 but looks a bit too big and bulky. I'd look at a single active PA speaker but I'd prefer a full range bass or keyboard combo because there's more EQ options. Any help gratefully received!

I guess the best thing to do is to try as much as possible. Some people like to play loud and bassy which requires lots of power and/or speaker area and some people like a more mid-orientated sound and can get away with less power. I used an 80w 1x10 combo for 100's of pub gigs and was perfectly happy with the volume and never had to push it hard. An efficient 1x10 cab such as the EBS Neo110 would be perfect for me, but you might prefer the spread of multiple speakers or something with a low frequency emphasis. It's hard and takes a lot of time, money and experimentation to find something that works. Best of luck!

Sadly not, I've never owned anything lightweight! As well as TKS and Barefaced, which are well regarded on this forum, MarkBass, AER and Aguilar are also probably worth a look at. I'm sure some more knowledgeable forumites will be along shortly with their thoughts!

My physics is rough around the edges; but in basic terms, in order to double your volume you need 10x the power. 600w isn't twice as loud as 300w. If you had two speaker cabs, both 1x12, one 4ohm and one 8ohm, I'm confident you'll not notice any difference. 8ohm cabs are useful because you can buy another in the future and then you will be louder because your speaker area will be increased.

600w (4ohm) is only 10% louder than 300w (8ohm) so yeah, probably find a good quality 8ohm. You won't notice much difference, honest! Nb: assuming you run your amp at full chat

Why not look at adding a little synth to your rig? I use an E-MU Shortboard for the Micheal Jackson style synth bass lines and its got a few other decent sounds on it. Why bother looking for a pedal to emulate a keyboard sound when you could just buy a keyboard? More specifically, the Akai Mini-Brute or the Novation Mini-Nova might be useful. Small, compact, very easy to use out of the box and you've got a useful instrument you can use in many situations.

Yeah there's a few! I love playing Aretha Franklin's 'Natural Woman' and 'Border Song', 'Celebration' by Kool and the Gang and 'Lost in Music' by Sister Sledge. I used to love playing through RATM's first album but haven't got the time anymore

I like to play funky numbers. He's The Greatest Dancer, Lost in Music, We Are Family etc. Sounds great on their own and there's loads of room to chuck in all the harmonics and dusty end stuff you'd need to play to check out the neck.

Keeping time?

But all of those issues can be solved by simply turning the bass frequencies right down. If it's a poor room, kill the bass. On everything. If the bass has been turned down, then you can cut the volume of everything else because it's not trying to be heard over all the subby litter that's bouncing off all the walls. I actually cut everything under 250hz when I run the desk for my band and it always sounds good. Everything sounds nice and crisp, I can get more volume out of the PA and the vocals sound especially clear and distinct.

I think the whole idea is that picking sounds different to finger-style. Why would you want both techniques to sound the same?

Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique's another hard one to listen to. Most of you wont be familiar with Immortal Technique; he's a rapper from New York who raps about really tough topics like police brutality, rape, war crimes, drug abuse and other gang related material (I think he used to be in a gang). Anyway, this song tells the story of a kid who wants to become a gang member. He starts selling weed, then cocaine and then crack. Finally, in order to become a fledged member of the gang he was involved with, he has to go with a few other members to assault a woman they found. So, it's rather graphic and they assault this woman and end up killing her. In the end, the kid realises that the woman was his own mother and then kills himself out of shame. It's a good song, the wording is incredible and I'd encourage you to listen to more Immortal Technique!

Yamaha BB424, both pups on, tone knob turned halfway. Amp EQ-wise, I turn the bass completely off and leave the mids and treble flat. Gain quite low. I find that my set-up allows me to play expressively. Playing softer or harder for certain passages makes a massive difference to the tone. Having the bass EQ turned up just completely buries all the little ghost notes and kills the clarity of the higher notes so I keep it turned off all the time.

The Yamaha RBX-A2 range are chambered and extremely light. I've currently got a 5 string that I've borrowed off a friend for a couple of weeks and it's easily around the 7lbs mark. Although if you're used to traditional styling it might be difficult to get your head around!

Ha ha "You make me sick"

RB range sounds so much better. They've got the heft and shove that GK are famous for. The MB's sound great, but when you start getting loud you start to notice a lack of depth of tone that, in my opinion, you get with nearly all class D heads. You get so much more harmonic vibrancy with the RB heads. My money would go on a 700 any day. 1001 is very powerful indeed and unless you're playing large venues without any PA support I'd save my money and go for the 700. Ive owned an RB400, an RB700 and an MB500 in the past and the one I'd really like to own again would be the 700.