KevB

+1 for the Hartke VXL Bass Attack, never gig without it.

A lefty player at my local jam sometimes uses a Shine violin bass which are cheap but it sounds excellent through a Hartke combo, much 'bigger' sounding than I'd expect with plenty of low end for a short scale bass.

As for the digs at Kiss well they're not my faves but they are very good at what they do. When people ask Simmons about 'selling out' he usually replies along the lines of 'Sure, we sell out most of our gigs'. Back to OP I don't mind Argent at all, Russ Ballard wrote Rainbow's Since You've Been Gone which lots might hate but it's a classic of its genre.

Excellent news Alan, if they have a website maybe you could post a link to that? My most recent experience has been quite mixed. I informally auditioned with a guy a couple of weeks ago and he was very enthusiastic about my playing and definitely wanted me in. So I then rehearsed with the three of them last week and it all seemed to go fine, got the impression they were quite impressed at the level I'd got to on a lot of the songs with not much time to learn them. Then I got an embarassed call yesterday from the bloke that auditioned me originally saying the main guitarist didn't want me in long term for no obvious reason. The guitarist didn't mention anything to me at the rehearsal but presumably has some sort of veto, maybe it was originally his band. It was a very low profile pub band doing very safe standards so no great loss. Oh well, time to start looking around again I guess.

These are my favourites at the moment. Bizarre in the sense you wonder what remote interest a 10 yr old Japanese girl would have in these songs and what level of pushy parent syndrome drives them to it. Admirable technique though... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDg_5LziNxU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDg_5LziNxU[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XsYuHbXZUk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XsYuHbXZUk[/url]

I'm going to wait until the cheaper 'read-a-like' tribute version is published ^_^

You'd be popular turning up for a gig in the corner bar at the Dog & Duck with that lot ^_^

That's why you should never, ever, when the guitarist in your band picks up your bass at rehearsal and say's 'can I have ago?' reply 'yes'...

That colour's not far off the butterscotch blonde of one of my current favourite squeeze's;

Having recently walked away from a project that the leader of was becoming difficult to work with I went with slight trepidation to an informal audition with someone else last night. Couldn't have been more different from the last guy - he talked sense, listened and seemed genuinely enthusiastic about my playing. At one point he mentioned that he'd already had someone over but pointed out that I was doing much more with the basslines and filling out the sound much better. Went away feeling quite 'up'. I need to do a follow up with the rest of the band to see if it gels together but the band leader seems to want me in just from the jam we had. Maybe I'll finally get some gigging done before the end of the year!

I may have posted this before on the old forum but a good example of a 'Squier masterclass' is Yours Is No Disgrace. He gets to do a variety of styles and it all fits in with the rest of the music perfectly which is what proper bass playing is really all about. Here's a bloke who seems to have got it pretty much sorted out, wish I could get this close! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsY3AM5rRRU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsY3AM5rRRU[/url]

As has been said you'll probably be OK if you play 5 string. As a 4 stringer only I always ask what key bands do stuff in, last band I was in I ended up taking a 2nd bass tuned a whole step down to accomodate the singer for just one song in the entire set! I guess in a real emergency you can play the bassline an entire octave up if the song has been moved to a ridiculously low key, chances are not a single person in the audience would notice the difference! I hate trying to transpose on the fly, I'd rather be pre warned.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='568753' date='Aug 14 2009, 10:37 AM']If you asked the general public most of them wouldn't even know that Macca played bass. In fact a few years back the answer in a pub quiz to "who was the rhythm guitarist in The Beatles?" was deemed to be McCartney. An argument ensued... Alex[/quote] I'm not surprised, I think technically he was for a while during the Stuart Sutcliffe period. Whether they were identifyable as The Beatles as we know them might be open to debate though. Some of these pub quizzers will argue till closng time if they think they'll get the point they need to come 4th instead of 5th or whatever...

I used to love the weird phased sounds on Tormato, but I wouldn't want it to be his 'stock' sound, it'd be too much. I'd read somewhere he'd used a Mutron pedal on that album but maybe it wasn't responsible for that particular sound. As for an 'in yer face' up front gritty ric sound look no further than the Time and a Word album!

And not forgetting some of those high up the neck fills Squier does on the opening few minutes of Machine Messiah, cracking way to kick off an album!

The singer and lead guitarist from my last proper band now go out as a duo equipped with midi backing tracks to do drums/bass/keys. I have noticed that people tend not to actually watch them perform much but take it as background music in the same way as a jukebox. I think there's some basic law that anything less than three people isn't a band.

If the parts aren't too complicated (ie not too many changes of notes too quick) the other route is to try midi bass pedals and use a midi sound source so you can play them in with your feet in real time whilst still doing the bass guitar thing, taking pressure off the drummer to play with click tracks. If it's full keyboard parts you need I'd agree a proper kyboard player is the way to go but they can be hard to find.

Check out his playing on the Ian Gillan Band albums 'Clear Air Turbulence' and 'Scarabus', slightly jazz influenced and some great bass lines from Gus.

Basses are a bit like women, good while it lasts but you don't want to dwell on it once they are out of your life and you know they've got someone else running their hands over them. God I'm starting to sound like Swiss Tony now...

Like someone just mentioned it sounds to me like maybe whoever was playing bass with them before wants to rejoin or maybe someone in the band's best mate is a bass player who wants in. Band politics can be a strange thing to say the least and there can be some utterly spineless goings on that you wouldn't credit to grown adults. I've recently quit a band that I thought wasn't going to work out otherwise I think it was only a matter of time before I was sacked (see the 'I'm Outta Here' thread last week). Incidentally anyone who contributed to that thread and wanted an update, the 2nd guitarist guy that I'd played with before rang me the other night and said he was disgusted at the way the band leader had spoken to me and had now quit the band himself, leaving just the leader with his backing midi files to get on with it himself. Gotta dust yourself down, look on it as an experience and concentrate on the qualities that made them hire you in the first place, take that with you into your next audition and best of luck.

If I paid a grand for a modern P bass I'd want it in writing that it'd make me as technically proficient as Harris or my money back