bassbloke

[quote name='V4lve' post='592474' date='Sep 7 2009, 09:48 PM']Just wanted to say thanks for such a great forum. In the few months I have been around I have been really impressed with how quick and helpful Basschatters are. You are a great bunch.[/quote] It's only because a lot of the members are very short sighted and think you're female.

I've plenty of experience of auditions from both sides of the table. What do you want from the 4th member? Do you want someone relatively self sufficient who can pick up your songs and learn them from notation or by ear or are you happy to put in a lot of one to one tuition to show them the songs? If the former, knock up some cheap CDRs with 3 songs and give them a week to learn. If you can provide some pointers in the form of chord chart and a few of the trickier melodies transcribed or tabbed, then it's worth making the effort. Advertise in forming bands, gumtree, facebook, twitter, myspace and anywhere else that look shandy and don;t be afraid to poach band members from other local bands. Asking them to 'help out for a bit' is a great starting point.

I play in a band that alternates between standard and drop D tuning. As an experiment I tried dropping the B down to A and the tuning works really well. The set of open string octaves in standard tuning and two sets in drop tuning is great fun. I also found I was resorting to the B a lot when writing parts. Give it a bash.

Maybe some of you should have followed the link before commenting. It was clearly a semi-serious record attempt held as part of a fund raising event for a regional kidney charity. Now who's got a small penis eh!

Possibly one of the most blatant examples of shill bidding I've ever seen. Jumped from reserve not met with little interest to £600 in the last 10 seconds.

Played the unsigned stage at Bloodstock Open Air. Around 8-10,000 people, with a good few hundred watching us. I couldn't drive up with the band on Friday because of work, so I tried to get to sleep as early as possible on Friday and left 5:30am to drive up to Derbyshire from North Surrey. Things started off really well - loaded in, tuned up and handed gear over to the stage crew to set it up but then disaster struck during the line check. The bass tech forgot to plug in my head and vanished and I commited the grave error of using my own initiative and pinching the IEC from the house head to quickly power up. The soundman complained that the DI signal from my head was too hot and insisted on using house head and which point the lack of IEC was noticed. Powered on the head caused such a current draw that the stage power went down - backline and monitors, which also took out all of the midi gear. Luckily, we were only 10 mins late starting, but it would mean shorter set. The nerves and tensions got to us and we seriously fluffed the start to our first song, but managed to limp along until the second verse, by which time we pulled it together and carried on and definitely ended the set on a high note. Shame I couldn't use my head because my bass sounded fantastic for the brief few seconds it was going through the PA. In the end we went down well and sold some T-shirts and handed out well over a hundred sampler CDs. To top it all off, I found out after the set that my mum had to go to hospital, so I quickly packed up and drove straight back home after an interview. Luckily it was nothing serious. 300 miles in one day. Pretty tough. Some interesting lessons learned The sound crew is there for a reason. Let them to do their jobs. Go with the flow. If using the house rig seems easier and it seems like decent kit, go with the flow oh and I really want an Ampeg 8x10. Roll on the next gig on the 20th September.

and sure enough - they've changed the design to use standard tuning pegs rather than locking screws.

I've always had a soft spot for these. Problem was when they stopped making them, you were in serious trouble if the string retaining screws had a stripped thread and it was quite a common occurence apparently.

Fender Superbass. Long taper on the B and E so they pass right through the body before getting thicker. Plenty long enough and a nice heavy E (110) for a solid tone. Not that expensive either.

You said it yourself - you spend hours rehearsing, practising, [b]sorting out gigs[/b] for your band. The other guy is just filling in for a gig you can't do. There's always someone better than you and worse than you. I joined a band recently. Not bragging, but within a few days had perfected material that had taken my predecessor weeks, if not months to sort out. We're playing a festival in a couple of weeks and I dare say that there'll be plenty of players there that crap on me from a great height. It's not how 'good' you are, but how well you fit in. There are bands out there that are constantly on the look out for the best musicians for their band. They're not necessarily god bands though.

It'll be Japanese and very well made - possibly even made in the Hertfield factory. It'll propbably be better quality than a MIM Fender.

[quote name='donhills' post='537353' date='Jul 10 2009, 05:30 PM']Good job you did'nt get as this 5 string only has 4 strings - you' d have been disappointed by that missing B string no doubt![/quote] pedant

One of these was very nearly my first 5 string bass. I'd placed a deposit on it and everything, but sacrificed the £20 in favour of buying a Charvel Fusion 5 string in my local music shop. Supposed to be good instruments and could be an absolute steal [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FENDER-SQUIER-BASS-GUITAR_W0QQitemZ280368957328QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item41474ac790&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1683%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FENDER-SQUIER-BASS-G...%3A1%7C294%3A50[/url]

[quote name='chilisfan16' post='517271' date='Jun 18 2009, 11:31 AM']hahaha priceless BB! and dont think your gonna have many 12 yo's hanging round here.[/quote] Depends if you're talking mental age or physical age.

I would like to get my main bass - a translucent red US Deluxe Jazz - refinished in translucent black. Would any other members be able to offer an indication of expected price?

korg pandora. Works a treat.

[quote name='yorick' post='500301' date='May 28 2009, 09:42 PM']I can appreciate them. It's just from the start, the emphasis was on making good music and the spotlight being on "Dave", so not too much effort was required for the image, but also providing entertainment.[/quote] They changed their minds. It happens. No excuse for not being completely upfront with you about it though and sacking you by e-mail is so pathetic as to be laughable. Doing a Dave Lee Roth is particularly difficult, what with the high kicks, mid air splits and general gymnastics. Now that you've left, begs the questions - was he any good?

As usual, few people on this site will have the guts to be completely honest with you, so here goes. It's a Dave Lee Roth/Van Halen tribute band If you can't appreciate why wigs and spandex might be integral to the look, then maybe you are best out of it.