Tech

well bollucks to you guys! have been playing bass in south wales for 6 years now... i suddenly move to london and what's this! a south wales bass bash!

have a good one lads

i've got a lovely ibanez sr3006e... not sure of the spacing but it's a very pleasant neck to play, was my first ever 6er and the only one I properly agree with because I too have small hands! lets me do everything from crazy driving ska basslines to chilling back with the jazz/trip hop... and everything inbetween.

fast forward to 50 seconds in this clip to hear some 20 seconds of the bass going through a nice sound system - who said a 6 string couldn't swing? note the fatness of the low B too... very solid. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibeOM7cht3E"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibeOM7cht3E[/url]

just putting in a good word for that pickup combo in a jackson, i fitted a set to my mates RR a couple of years back and it ended up with one of the sweetest tones i've ever heard in any guitar... and i've heard a lot of guitar tones

holy crap! i knew moving to london would pay off. will have to keep my eyes peeled for details!

honestly can not believe this is still here, and a complete steal at that price.

really if I didn't have one just like it I would have bought it at the higher price - no excuses now!

[quote name='nick' post='518893' date='Jun 19 2009, 09:59 PM']Lovely bass there & at not a bad price :wub:

I have a 70's Antoria 335 copy. Great guitar, love it.[/quote]


my mates dad had one of these and constantly badmouthed it. everytime I offered to buy it and he backed down

seriously, a great guitar there that I still wish I'd prized out of his hands.

he plays a lot right by me - the family are swansea based and his brother owns the local jazz club.

quite often he's the in house bassist. what a treat, and what a nice guy!

biggest musical regrets: not going to music college with my best mate a couple of years ago and doing a-levels instead. and as a result turning down a tour supporting the lost prophets in order to focus on my studies.

biggest sale specific regret would probably be my warwick corvette a couple of years ago - sold for a good sum of money, can't complain there - but I had a real connection with that bass, i breathed funk through it and have never gotten the same feel on any bass since.

been playing bass guitar for some 5, will be 6 years in september...

about 3 years ago in school the wind instructor heard me jamming some weather report and asked if i wanted to play double bass with the wind band (never played one before that).. a year later i ended up touring italy with a string orchestra. was awesome.

now I tend to do a bit of both, almost always bass guitar but now and then some hip hop guys from the music college will chuck me a few bob to go in and do the odd doublebassline for a sample. kind of how I like it tbh - I get to whap out the db when I feel like it, and use it just enough to justify having it - but I don't have to go through the hassle of taking it to every gig I play.

plus, playing "lovecats" is a sure way to any woman's pants.

edit: I do actually play with electric jazz funk bands, and a good swing group (we were on bgt for some 29 seconds this year ) but to be honest I almost just bring the bass guitar... granted, nothing swings like a DB - but most of our gigs involve heading down the motorway in my drummers polo, and it's just not worth the hassle to everyone for me.

one of those fancy electric ones would be pretty cool, but for that I'd have to be gigging more to justify buying one.

holy crap. if i've got any cash when i'm back from travelling in august then if there's any tickets left i'm there.

i sent an e-mail to billy sheehan when i was 13 and he replied the next day, had i reached puberty i would have jizzed.

i had a traben phoenix a few years ago... it was pretty schweet. exactly what I wanted at the time, was playing in a power metal band and wanted some flash.

not a bad bass at all - very distinctive sound, there's a bump in the upper mids somewhere that I've not heard on any other bass since, took a bit of getting used to but I miss selling it now. nice round sound on the neck pickup too.

might have been nice to swap the bridge pup to a bartolini or something a touch warmer though. all in all a pretty good experience tho! wouldn't buy one again 'coz tastes change and the such, but definitely worth checking out.

buhmump. so much for the no big gigs , got a couple lined up for august so someone take this off me before i change my mind!!

half a pint before you play, a full pint throughout each set, then as much as you want afterwards.

no more, no less.

headbackonsale-ump.

hump de bump

these are wicked guitars, i've got one similar and it is schweet to play, very fast neck. have a bump on me, someone will get a great guitar at a good price!

[quote name='anty' post='506068' date='Jun 5 2009, 05:04 AM']what would courier be like?

wanting to upgrade from a peavey tnt 115[/quote]

just done a ups quote, it's coming to over £60 for standard delivery to london. no joke.

[quote name='WHUFC BASS' post='506106' date='Jun 5 2009, 09:01 AM']PM'd.[/quote]
replied.

hah wicked pedal! i had one of these some 4 or more years ago now... oh my god i feel so old! i never appreciated it when i had it but in retrospect it was one of the sweetest envelopes I've ever heard, and I don't think I've ever heard something which hit quite the same spot that this pedal did.

well worth checking out, even if you don't get on with it, resale value is always good.

someone will get a blast out of this pedal, if I weren't shifting a load of gear myself it would definitely be me.

my humps, my humps, my humps, come on, my humps, ah, yeah,

these lovely lady BUMPs.

the very same! thanks for the bumps!

and cheers for the heads up merton

i will miss this setup; very loud, very punchy, handles both the low B and the high C very well, incredibly reliable (has seen me through everything from weddings to small festivals to pubs and clubs) playing in everything from loud jazz trios, to heavy metal, to a 7-piece soul band - and I kid you not - has *never* given me any reason to doubt it.

this is a 600 watt cab RMS @ 8 Ohms. speakon and jack inputs plus an attenuator for the horn.


[attachment=26184:IMG_0882.JPG]

oh and the jack plate on the back of the cab was mounted upside down from factory for some reason that I don't think I will ever know.

EDIT: see top of page 2 for details of the peavey head! both for £210 collected from swansea.
mat.

[quote name='Kev' post='403482' date='Feb 8 2009, 04:12 PM']unlucky man, good on ya for getting that far though. Probably best you didnt get any further, talent rarely wins the program ironically, you would only have been beaten in the final by a rather talented dog or other such nonsence, good effort![/quote]

cheers for the kind words guys

and Kev, you're right here... I tell you what, there are some AMAZING acts going through to the semis (which btw are the live, phone-in rounds) including a welsh singer (he's the one with the goatee, you'll know who I mean if you watch it - and he's also a nice guy. we met him at every single one of our auditions, and at the hotel!) and this dance group who toured with madonna...

but there are some utter bollucks acts going through too... like this 80 year old breakdancer. I mean I could understand if he were actually really good, and he's really good for his age I spose, but compared to some of the other breakdancing acts who got rejected he is stupidly bad.

so basically this week I've had the best night of my life and the worst night of my life.

sometime in november, i got a call from the drummer in my jazz-funk band asking if I fancied auditioning for britain's got talent with a big band for a laugh... so I said I'd go for it, and that was pretty much it, didn't hear anything about it until january, by which time I'd assumed they'd rejected our application completely.

I get a call at the start of december saying they want us to audition in cardiff next week... we get up to cardiff for a couple of days for the first time... run through some stuff. it sounds pretty average. we pick a piece (the higgins arrangement of birdland) and run with it. we get up to cardiff for the audition - as our first gig as a group infront of anyone. it's scary; there are countless other amazing acts, some of them are crap, some of them seem good enough to win. [b]the odds of us getting through to the semi finals are 1:2500...[/b]

december passes and we hear nothing. I am preoccupied through this month with a-level modules, university applications, my job (which I quit in january anyway), and various other gigs with the rock band (now basically defunkt as guitarist is joining the navy) and the jazz band. we forget all about the whole fiasco.

about a fortnight again from today we get a call saying we're through to the next round, and they want us to go back in a few days. we all get together again and REALLY practice this time. we beat thousands of other acts for a slot at this audition. it has to be good, and we are unprepared... we take a couple of days of school/work and we *really* work our bums off for this one. we used the judge's reactions from our first audition and noted when he started to get bored... we accordingly abridge the arrangement of birdland, splice it with a few bars from the stripper (read: the PG tips advert music), then finish with the fast coda from birdland with a key change... we add in a dance routine where we all stand up and sway when we break into the stripper, then strut to the front of the stage, bandleader does a cheesy count-in to the end of birdland and we all rock out (quite a fun sight to see a big band rocking out!).

it works. it looks and sounds good. we might have a chance. bright eyed and bushy tailed, we meet ant and dec... we meet simon, amanda, piers... it's in a proper theater infront of a couple of thousand people... the acts around us have all stepped up several notches from before... there are broadcast cameras everywhere, racks up to the ceilings, backstage is bigger than the lunch halls at school, this time it's real...

THIS IS THE BEST 3 MINUTES OF MY LIFE...

we get on stage. the soundcheck went great. i've never sounded so good - the crew for this show are the same crew that do the sound for countless television programs - they know their stuff. ant and dec call us up on stage, our bandleader introduces us... are we nervous? hell no; by this time the adrenaline has kicked in... 1, 2, 3, 4...

the whole thing is a blur... before I know it, we're at the stripper, the crowd are screaming, the judges are laughing, we get to the front of the stage, start the coda of birdland... each tier of the theater stands up to give us a standing ovation, the crowd love us, this is what it's like being famous... they ask us questions, bandleader answers well... we're all looking at simon.

he likes it. 3 ticks from the judges... euphoria. we're through to london, with 100 other acts... and we don't have to audition again; they only want to film our reactions. [b]the odds of us getting through to the semi finals now are 1:2.5[/b].

fast forward to friday just gone. this is an all expenses paid trip to london... for all 15 of us. free train ride, free taxi and tube ride, free night at an expensive hotel, free food and free booze. brilliant. we're put up with all the other acts... there are a couple of other welshies through to this round, all of us gravitated to the pub (whereas everyone else stayed in the lobby/restaurant!) and we all got mightily sloshed and sang all night. the feeling of helpelessness at this stage is unreal; the judges already know who they're going to let through.

the morning comes. we get to the london filming locations. the buildings are beautiful. we are in the same room as the act that will WIN BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT. we meet the judges again. we meet ant and dec again. there are even more cameras this time. it's tense. there are acts from all over the country here, some of them have been performing for years. I guarantee you I will never be in a room with more attractive women in it EVER AGAIN.

it's waiting and interviews all day... our time finally comes; we are all bundled into busses and driven to the secret location where we get told whether we are through to the semi finals or not, and I tell you this; it is f***ing scary. we get told they are ready to see us... we walk down the stairs, and all line up at the bottom... simon is chewing his pen, amanda is not looking at us, piers is looking into my eyes...

"the competition this year was close this year guys..."

WE KNOW IT'S A REJECTION.

"...things have changed from the last round; we have let through some acts we didn't think we would... we have therefore had to decline through some acts that we did not expect we would... so I'm afraid it's bad news..."

THERE COULD STILL BE A CHANCE; BAD NEWS THAT WE HAVE TO COME BACK AGAIN? BAD NEWS THAT WE HAVE TO PRACTICE HARDER?

"you're not through." -[b] this is the worst moment of my life.[/b]

I feel dizzy. I think we met ant and dec again but i'm not sure... they might have filmed us again... i don't care anymore. we get in the busses, we get the train home... I woke up today and everything kind of sunk in.

sorry for the long post, I just needed to vent. it's been tense, and to have beaten the odds when they were so slim - and then to get rejected when they were so in our favour... that, ladies and gentlemen, is not good times. so yeah; if anyone has any questions about the show or what acts are through to the live semis etc etc then feel free to ask, and thanks for reading my story.

clydach's got talent anyone?

wow, I always thought these basses looked lush but too OTT for most band applications...

however some completely random television success with a big band completely swayed my opinion... it sucks having the only instrument which you can't see yourself clearly in!! if this was a 5 string I would probably be all over it.

good luck with the sale effendi

usually half a pint before we play, and a pint to be drunk throughout the course of the set is the way to go, never nervous!

but I am bricking it for an audition next month. 600 in a crowd - no worries. 1 judge in a chair -