tauzero

I take a spare bass - if I'm not taking two main basses, I'll stick the Hohner B2AV in the car. A bass is a bass, I can happily play anything in our set with either a fretted or a fretless bass (although I do prefer fretless for a couple of songs) so I can use anything for backup. I've also got a backup bass amp (small and lives under the passenger seat of the car) and I use two 1x12s, plus I've got a few spare leads in case the wireless or some other lead packs up.

Duck Dunn and Bill Withers collaborated on an invention to indicate when a waterfowl was sufficiently cooked.

If you've taken a financial hit from this (and it sounds like you have), it could be worth trying to reclaim it via the small claims court.

[quote name='DiceSociety' timestamp='1433330698' post='2790122'] I may be wrong about this, but the room acoustics and where you're standing in relation to the speaker could well have a massive bearing on the sound you're hearing (I'm sure the bods at barefaced will correct me if I'm wrong). My understanding is that lower frequencies have longer wave forms, and therefore it takes more distance from the speaker for the lows to reach their fundamental frequency; so if you're standing 20 feet away from the cab (as an audience member in a pub may be for example), you'll perceive more bass than if you're standing 6 feet away from the cab. Assuming the cabs you're using are capable of reproducing the fundamental frequency. It's probably worth standing as far from the cab as you're lead will allow when doing a comparison to give enough distance for the low frequencies to establish themselves. Apologies for my lack of scientific rigour, it's possible that I'm completely wrong about this [/quote] I don't know if it's worth saying that you're partially wrong about this because it risks skating near the thin ice of the "I know better than you" technical brigade that Jennie is so opposed to, but the stuff about establishing waveforms is rubbish. Sound is a compression wave that starts at the speaker and finishes, as far as you're concerned, at your ear. The intervening distance for that direct sound serves only to diminish its intensity. The stuff about room acoustics isn't rubbish, That's because a room is almost invariably a less than ideal shape with little resonant chambers here and there, and with different acoustic characteristics in terms of which frequencies will get absorbed or reflected - some of that is pretty much unchanging (curtains, furniture), some will vary through the evening (people, of which one would hope there would be more than zero). Sound travels both by a direct and by an infinite number of indirect routes to your ear, and it's those indirect routes that are the problem. So having a wander out to listen out the front is a very good idea. You can find, for example, that the sound on stage is very boomy and bassy, but out front it's quite thin and middy (and then the guitarist will whinge at you that it's all boomy, and you can tell him it's because he insisted on you going in the corner - sorry, rantette over).

[quote name='Jenny_Innie' timestamp='1433344007' post='2790295'] You think I dance my way into the middle of the crowd on occasion with my upright bass? [/quote] If it's good enough for Tony Levin...

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1435131047' post='2805658'] Build guitars based on an established heritage and by listening to what the consumer wants? Ok... http://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/1012/-gibson-unveils-2-million-eden-of-coronet-diamond-guitar/51396 [/quote] My word, that's hideous. Two million dollars worth of utter tastelessness. Does Lewis Hamilton play guitar by any chance?

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1432981408' post='2786719'] Mert, I'm not sure I'd get away with basses on the living room wall. You're much braver than me to try that one on. [/quote] Mrs Zero loves the seven basses adorning our walls...

Get one of the other bassists who isn't feeling so precious about it to do it instead? It's a song in a different key. No-one dies. As an aside, we shifted "Midnight Hour" quite a long way for Mrs Zero, from E to B. I pitch-shifted the track in Audacity for practice purposes. It sounds like Pinky and Perky. Excellent.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1434813365' post='2803025'] It's all in the fingers. That's where the sound is created and if the sound coming from the way you strike the strings isn't right you cannot fix it with strings, pickups, tone woods, FX, special leads, amplifiers or speakers. You can dramatically change the sound coming from the gear just by changing one small aspect of how you strike the strings. [/quote] A little while ago, I went to see Janek Gwizdala at the Academy of Sound in Stoke. He was playing his Fodera through TC gear, something like a RH450 and brace of 2x10s. The sound of the combination of bass, amp, speakers, and player made the words "glassy" and "brittle" come to mind - I think because there was a lot of detail in the upper frequencies. Then, at the Moffat Bass Bash earlier this year, there was a Fodera (I've forgotten the owner's name, despite, or perhaps because of, spending several hours chatting to him over drinks at the local pub). I had a play on that, listening through headphones via an amp whose identity I also don't recall, and the combination of player, bass, amp, and headphones produced a pretty much identical tone. So I can only conclude that I'm Janek Gwizdala's twin.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1435092072' post='2805455'] Apparently there's a lovely new clause in the photography contract. If you break the rules of the contract Taylor Swift's management are allowed to break your gear. Although having read it, it seems to refer to the memory cards and any other storage device the images are kept on rather than your camera and lenses. [url="http://petapixel.com/2015/06/23/taylor-swift-photo-contract-break-our-rules-and-we-can-break-your-gear/"]http://petapixel.com...reak-your-gear/[/url] [/quote] Well, I can't see that being of relevance except to section 1, which says what the limitations are on the photography - no flash, no sneaking round backstage, etc. It would be pretty stupid to destroy a memory card after the photos had been downloaded from it and then put in the cloud. And no-one's mentioned the bit that says "Without written consent from FEI or the artist and/or her authorised agent(s), the photographs will not be duplicated...", which to my razor-sharp mind, implies that if the photographer were to say "Can I sell the photos to The Sun?" to FEI/Taylor Swift/her agent then they might well say "Yes". The time for him to start whinging is when they say "No".

Presumably it's inadvisable to keep your bass in the fridge as it'll become difficult to spread. Unless it's utterly butterly, of course.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1434532729' post='2800430'] wow a clip on tuner that actually works... [/quote] Oh no it doesn't.

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1434701713' post='2801911'] I did win some Nigerian money but it hasn't arrived yet, I'm starting to think they've forgotten about me ! [/quote] As long as you've given them your bank details, that should be OK. They'll get to you eventually.

[quote name='Mickeyboro' timestamp='1435044121' post='2804817'] He is not bring commissioned though is he? He is a freelance whose trade is being restricted [/quote] Yes he is being commissioned, as a cursory read of the article shows: "Sheldon told [i]Amateur Photographer[/i] that he was commissioned by a regional newspaper to shoot a Swift show in 2011, and that the contract issued by Firefly Entertainment Inc (which is affiliated with Swift) stipulated he had to agree to a single use of his images." So it was all up-front and open, and he could choose whether to take up the commission, knowing that there would be no future income from it.

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1434999539' post='2804622'] [url="http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/photographer-hits-back-at-taylor-swifts-letter-to-apple-54363"]http://www.amateurph...-to-apple-54363[/url] Double standards? [/quote] Hardly. The photographer is being commissioned to take a set of photographs for Taylor Swift, which then become her exclusive property. He can turn down the commission if he doesn't like those terms, or ensure that whatever fee he negotiates compensates him for the potential loss of future revenue. Apple, OTOH, were going to give away somebody's work as a promotion but without recompensing them for it.

I put Planet Rock on when "Thought for the Day" comes on on Radio 4 and on the odd occasions when the poetry reading comes on.

With a micro amp and two 1x12s, my gear is small enough to stick in the Ka and take along. If the provided house amp isn't much cop, I'll use mine. Then again, I can count on the fingers (possibly the thumb) of one hand how many times I've played gigs at which there's been a house bass rig.

I thought it was rather dishonest of Apple to decide to pass on the "loss" bit of their loss leader to others rather than taking it on themselves.

Just bought an SSD from George, all went well. Thanks George.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1434817036' post='2803058'] should be 'plays' like butter [/quote] Well, that's just silly, isn't it? I mean if you were to grab a bass-neck-sized length of butter, you'd just end up with butter all over your hands, whereas butter makes at least two noises, that sort of squidgy one when you drop it on the floor and the sizzly sound as it melts in an omelette pan.

What does it mean when a bass sounds like butter?

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1434557441' post='2800776'] However the one I nowadays cringe at playing is Sweet Home Alabama with its Deep South attitude towards racism and support of violent put down of black protest - cringeworthy in my book, in a similar way to a couple of 70s British sit coms which only get shown as clips to demonstrate how society has changed since then - but Sweet Home Alabama goes down a storm presumably because no one takes the lyrics in. [/quote] I can't find anything like that in the lyrics. If anything, it's anti-racist, or at least anti-governor, the governor at the time being the racist George Wallace.

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1434353044' post='2798761'] Bad luck Modman, we've had the usual double bookings but never actually on the day. Pubs closing down and not telling anyone is really common too. [/quote] We had that a year ago, we found out when we stopped by to drop in posters. But the worst we've had was last Saturday. A very good friend of Mrs Zero suffers from Crohn's Disease, and one drunken evening in the pub the idea of a fund-raising gig came up. A local venue said they could host it, and provide PA and drumkit, and another three bands agreed to play. Then a couple of days before, Mrs Zero sent a message to the venue asking about dropping off the bass cabs on the Friday. This prompted the venue's manager to send a message to Mrs Zero's friend to say that due to electrical problems which had arisen a few weeks before, they weren't able to have bands in, and anyway she was moving to Birmingham and would be at Download on the Saturday. So two days before the gig, we had four bands and no venue. Fortunately, one of the other local venues was able to fit us in (ironically, it was a venue that said manager had been managing before the one that let us down, and she'd run that into the ground). We finished up having to supply PA and drumkit but that was a small price to pay. As it happened, the evening was very successful, with four good bands, and the pub almost running out of beer, so the landlady was delighted and would like us to do it again some time. And Mrs Zero was about to unfriend the one who'd let us down on Stalkbook, but I told her to keep her friended so when we find out where she's gone to manage next, we can tell the owners just what an incompetent and negligent manager she is.

I've just emailed myself to tell me to do it.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1434664839' post='2801750'] In fact, haven't I asked the very same question and got the very same answer before, or did I dream it? [/quote] Quite possibly, I'm a great prevaricator.