Ed_S

My first setup was a Yamaha BB-N4 and a Trace Commando 15, so if I could nip back and offer my younger self some advice it would be to acknowledge my luck and keep hold of those, buy that BB-G5 that I always fancied, and then just use the hell out of what I’d got whilst waiting for a company called Markbass to emerge on the scene and sort me out with a lighter amp. If I was starting out these days, I’d like somebody to tell me to get a Fender Player Precision, an Ibanez SR-505 and a Markbass CMD121P or a Fender Rumble 500. Fresh strings, decent cables, good bags and cases, wide straps with locks, and a SansAmp are always good advice as well.

My possibly over-simplistic view, for what it's worth Somebody says that listening to music makes them feel something really positive and only music does that for them. They're willing to lay down their free time and disposable cash to experience the thing which makes them feel good. The product they expect to receive for the money they pay is a feeling. That seems to be generally accepted and perfectly relatable. Somebody else says that playing music to an audience makes them feel something really positive and only music does that for them. They're willing to lay down their free time and disposable cash to experience the thing which makes them feel good. The payment they expect to receive for the product they provide is a feeling. That seems to be somehow tantamount to robbery and completely reprehensible. The gig needs a clean, safe venue with tables and chairs and beer and food and toilets and staff and a stage etc. so the audience pay their disposable cash to float that. The musicians need lessons and books and instruments and amps and rehearsals and transport etc. so they pay their disposable cash to float that. The door/bar/catering/cleaning staff probably don't get many uniquely positive feelings from playing their respective parts, so they expect their recompense in cash and they get that. As long as everybody involved is happy enough with the arrangement, then I don't see what the problem is. If, as a professional musician, you can offer that venue owner something special that guarantees a bigger take on the door/bar to the point where they can afford to pay you as contract staff and still make more profit than the free alternative, then offer it and I'm confident they'll take you up on it. After all, as a non-professional musician playing original material, I have to accept that I can't get a gig in a decent venue with 'organic' footfall on a Friday/Saturday night - that's firmly covers and tributes territory for a reason.

Aye, that sounds ace as compromises go - everyone gets at least the gig they want to see and some get two-for-one!

I've seen a fair few established bands touring their latest album by playing a select few of the best songs from it crafted into a gig that, if anything, actually focuses slightly more on the previous album that everybody has accepted into the fold and feels comfortable with by that point but isn't overplayed yet. I'm more than happy to accept that I might be in the minority, but for me personally, playing the entire new album is a real misfire unless you're a new band touring your debut. I can only think of one exception - when seeing a band tour a new album and play a lot of it made me like the album a lot more - which was Arch Enemy touring Rise of the Tyrant. I just didn't 'get' that album until I heard it live and realised how big and epic it was clearly meant to sound but the studio recording just hadn't captured effectively. They've done it both ways, though, as I thought War Eternal was a great sounding recording but they couldn't perform it at all well when I went to see them live. I digress. If Maiden ever announce that they're going to do a gig where they play through all of Fear of the Dark, nip backstage for a fisherman's friend and then come back and play through Brave New World then I'll be down at the front, but otherwise I think I'm ready to accept that I'm just not their target audience and leave them to it!

Totally agree. Also bands that decide to play a full run through their latest album that's only been out a few months and you haven't really connected with yet, followed by a few old classics just as an encore. Iron Maiden have done that to me 3 times now, so they won't be getting another opportunity. On the other hand, album anniversary gigs or full-on performances of concept albums I'm well up for, because you know exactly what to expect and if you don't like that one, you don't go. Well, unless you're dragged along by a mate who bought the tickets and loves the album in question but neglects to mention any details... I remember expecting a WASP greatest hits gig and got The Crimson Idol in its entirety, complete with video projections. Most memorable thing about that night was getting my drink spiked.

I was given a set to try (SB nickels, but 45-125) and ended up using the 45-105 out of the pack as 4 string set since they were all I had around that was suitable to put on a Precision that had come out of retirement and needed freshening up. They felt fine, but the lower tension didn't do it for me on a top loading bass and I ended up getting rid and replacing them with my usual EXL165s. However, a couple of months ago I bought a USA Pro Jazz 5 and the Fender strings that came on it felt like playing the Humber Bridge. I ordered a set of Dunlops for it and the combination of slightly lower tension than I normally like, but stringing through the body instead of top loading, seems to have rounded out at a very pleasing feel indeed. I think they'll be the strings I stick with on that bass, but I just need this set to wear out so I can put a new Hipshot A bridge on next time I restring, because the current Fender USA bridge is a proper knuckle-shredder and needs to go.

I don't like to have anyone else to worry about when I'm going to gigs - I'd much rather go on my own. If I go with friends I'll reiterate my position, make a point of telling them to do their own thing and agree to meet back at the car/hotel/train, because there's nothing worse than group decisions about where to stand and which least-favourite song should get sacrificed to go to the bar, or whether somebody's tired and wants to leave early, or where to go for food afterwards, or whether I'll hold their pint/bag/phone/coat/burrito/whatever while they go for a pee. If I'm not just left alone and allowed to be completely 'in the moment' and absorbed in what I'm watching, then I'm unlikely to be enjoying myself and there's really no point me paying to be there. That aside, it's just people being irritatingly thoughtless and unaware of their surroundings or needlessly aggressive that can spoil it for me. Some of those types have provided amusement or at least decent stories, mind... I recall going to see Motorhead and being stood towards the back when a fairly short lass started back-pedalling towards me, clearly only concerned with getting a better view over the crowd. She literally back-heeled my toes and then stepped up onto my steels, believing them to be some kind of fortuitously placed riser. The height difference was such that - even stood on my shoes - she wasn't actually obscuring my view, so I just stood there amused, looking like a metal penguin for a bit and waited until she noticed. When she did, she must have jumped far enough to get at least a fleeting glance.. of her house. I was on the very edge of a pit at one gig.. can't remember who was playing.. when a bloke flew out towards me and I had all on just getting my arm up to protect my face from his. He obliterated his nose into my upper arm, apologised and headed straight back in, pouring blood everywhere. The next day I was left with a dead arm and a massive bruise, but figured he'd probably woken up looking worse, so I got on with my day.. which included attending a funeral. As I was sat in the service needing to look suitably sombre and contemplative, the nerve in my shoulder decided to un-pinch and I got level-500 pins and needles down my arm and half my face. Cheers for that experience, lad.. hope your nose set at a right-angle! Another edge of the pit experience was at a Megadeth gig where a bloke tottered back from the bar between the bulk of the pit and me, carrying one of those 2-pint plastics in each hand. The crowd surged and knocked both of them upwards, but he kept tight hold of them so they just went straight over his shoulders. Straight over me. 4 pints of Strongbow. I decided that I didn't like Judas Priest enough to stay and watch them headline the gig whilst I was p-wet-through and smelling like a urinal. Ruined my leather jacket, and Megadeth had just played absolutely terribly, so that was an expensive night with few redeeming features. I still spare a thought for the guy who lost 4 pints purchased at arena prices - my jacket only cost a couple of hundred quid!

When I saw Danny Vaughn a good few years back it was one of those gigs that just had great atmosphere and he actually commented several times about how much fun he was having - seemed totally genuine rather than just the usual patter. In the end he gave the audience a ‘cheer for the option you want’ choice - either pretend it’s the last song then go backstage for a bit and come back on, or just stay on stage and see how many more songs he could get through before the curfew. The loudest cheer, and indeed his own vote, was for the latter option. Personally it’s not something I enjoy unless I can squeeze a trip to the bog, the bar or the both of ‘em into the time it takes for the act to do their planned theatrics. I accept it happens, though, just like extended crowd participation and drum solos, which I also don’t enjoy and treat as refreshment breaks.

I always take a spare where it’s feasible. I favour the cheapo backup option to keep the insurance premium sensible, and also because “my jag wouldn’t start so I went in the merc” sounds nowhere near as much fun when drunkenly recounting the tale at a later date as “..so I fired up the reliant and off we went!” 🙂 Our rhythm guitarist is ‘that guy’ when it comes to gear maintenance and associated malfunctions. He had yet another string break and proceeded to change it on stage, mid song. We just carried on playing and he managed to come back in for the last few bars. Unfortunately for him, he had a GoPro pointed straight at him, so the lead guitarist took the footage of the string replacement, speeded it up, set it to the benny hill theme and sent it round. It got the point across.

We're actually a 5-piece but we'll play gigs with the rhythm guitarist missing and our singer only sings, so I'll join in. On those gigs I haven't changed my tone, but I've sacrificed a few twiddly-bits where it's better to just keep the rhythm driving, and I generally don't play super low to begin with; I find that if you're thundering around at the bottom of the B string when the guitar switches from rhythm to lead it's a much starker contrast when the 'middle drops out' than if you're routinely based half way up the E and A strings so there's still plenty going on in the mids to connect everything together and the bass part was just never that low.

I’m quite happy that somebody else has heard of House of Lords! ...but I think the only band I’d be willing to buy a CD from without hearing it first is Amorphis.

I made a bitsa out of a Fender official spare-part MIM body and a Fender licensed Mighty Mite neck that had a dodgy decal already applied to it when it arrived from the eBay seller. I didn’t feel the need to remove the decal for my own use, but I would if I ever sold it as, legality aside, I wouldn’t want anyone to buy it believing it to be something it isn’t. That said, Fender will happily sell you a spare-part neck with the logo applied and must be aware that you could match that with any body and try to sell the results as anything you were cheeky enough to attempt. Certainly if I were to buy one for my Squier VM (as I keep considering) and then subsequently sell the assembled instrument, I’d do so honestly but I wouldn’t be sanding the logo off just because the body wasn’t MIM Fender.

I started off on a Squier P/J which I owned for maybe a day or two before it became apparent even to a total beginner that there was a lot wrong with it. We took it back and the guys at the shop agreed, so by way of an apology gave me a great deal on a Yamaha BB which they said I'd have no problems with - and they were right. Rightly or wrongly, that experience negatively coloured my opinion of Squier and, by association, Fender and anything fenderesque for the next 10 years. But then Fender seemingly upped its game massively and released the revamped MIM Standards so, having read a lot of good reviews, I went and tried one. It was a 4 string when I'd played 5s exclusively for years, it was white/white/maple when my main basses at the time were all black and pointy (a BTB, a Warlock and a Vampyre), and it was light and ergonomic at a point where I was suffering back/neck issues that worsened with every rehearsal and gig. It was smooth and tactile, singularly the most comfortable instrument I'd played in ages, completely honest in all its limitations and just sounded great with both controls on full, so I bought it there and then. I pretty much instantly connected with it and the more I played it, the more it felt like the way forward.. so I proceeded to ditch all the black, pointy, heavy, uncomfortable instruments that I'd amassed, re-imagined all my original bass parts for 4 string and started to really enjoy playing again without always being in pain. So yes, a good P can be a revelation and even dig you out of a hole - probably literally if required!

Genuine and totally un-troll-ish comment here (which I say because I realise it might easily sound like one) but speaking only for myself, if you play by ear and don't actually know any of the notes you're playing - just where to find the next one you want to hear relative to the one you're currently playing - 6 really doesn't add any complexity or take any time to 'learn' at all. Just like as long as the intervals between the strings are 'normal', the note that each one is tuned to isn't that important; just find the start note and work from there. I admit freely the downside is that if you can't hear yourself on stage it doesn't make for a particularly fun gig, and any bass that's drop/open/nonstandard-tuned is just an unplayable, out-of-tune bass, but in most other circumstances it does make for an easy time with the additional strings on 5s and 6s. I imagine it's maybe like a keyboardist pushing the octave up/down buttons - everything is where you expect to find it, it's just either higher or lower - but I don't play keys so I don't know for sure! If anything adds any complexity for me, it's changing the string-spacing as you pack more of them in. It's fine - it just takes a few minutes to adjust, which is why I don't swap and change at a gig, because 'a few minutes' is 'a song' which I'm likely to have multiply fluffed, especially if it's a quick one with a lot of string-skipping!

I was quite pleased with my walnut brown version for £140 ex-demo, so £50 is a proper score! They seem to get a lot of stick as cheapo instruments for beginners who should aspire to 'better' things as soon as they've shown some kind of lasting interest, but mine is (I'm fairly sure..) the lightest bass I own, and the neck is really nicely finished and fretted. Sounds good, too - I find the little bass boost control thingy applied really sparingly just lifts the sound and adds a pleasing bit of weight. Great little basses! And I'm with you on the cleaning, masking, oiling and polishing - very satisfying little job indeed. I recently added to my inexpensive Ibanez hoard with an SR305 and even though it was brand new, the frets were tarnished and the board was looking a bit factory-grubby and dry. I can still smell the Duraglit now...

Learn the lyrics to the songs, even if you don't sing them, as they can sometimes provide the best cue in a sea of repetitive guitars and drums. Especially useful when you've started to enjoy yourself, zoned-out a bit, then crashed back into reality and have no idea how long you've been on auto-pilot or where you are in the song! Maybe that's just me.. but I doubt it 🙂 And for those without IEM systems: Accept that the acoustics on some stages (especially loud ones) will make you sound like you're out of tune when you're actually not, which can be very off-putting. Accept that on some gigs you won't be able to hear yourself usefully at all. Sometimes you can sacrifice your ideal on-stage tone for something that better allows you to hear yourself, but sometimes you just have to be able to play by the numbers.

That does sound great! Probably won’t be a popular idea, but I wonder whether it’d work for venues with bands on all the time to get a decent shell-pack and guitar/bass cabs, and get people to chuck a few quid in a jar for the pleasure of using them, then put that money back into maintaining the kit so that it was always in good order and people wouldn’t mind donating to its upkeep. I’d chip-in to use a decent, well maintained cab that I didn’t have to carry round.

I like that way of putting it 🙂 Some have said "there's nothing you can do on a 4 string that you can't do on a 6 string" or words to that effect, and whilst I fully believe that's true for them, I don't find it so myself. I don't think I'll ever be able (or want) to conflate the way that I approach and feel about playing each, so the thing that I would contend I'll maybe always be able to do on a 4 that I can't do on a 6 is play-like-me-playing-a-4. It's not that I'm massively more used to playing a 4 either; I started there like I imagine most do, but then very quickly moved to 5 where I stayed exclusively for years before reincorporating 4 and now adding 6. Both are fun for different reasons, and 5 is 'home'.

Surprised he didn't want your clothes, boots and motorcycle as well! 🙂 I do sometimes oddly envy people like that, though. I'm stood there in the hallway an hour prior to setting off, looking at a pile of cases and setting everything up in my mind's eye so I know I've got all I need. Meanwhile somebody else is probably just having their tea and a beer before heading out to play the same gig with whatever happens to be in their gigbag when they swing it onto their shoulder. And on balance of probability... they'll get away with it, too! I remember one guy turning up to a gig with literally just a bass - it wasn't even in a bag. He had a strap, but that's because one end was permanently attached using a small screwdriver that had been hammered fully, parallel to the neck, into the hole where the top strap button used to be. People, eh!

Just before the world changed I bought an Ibanez SR506, and I've had a fair bit of extra time to play in general this last year-and-a-half when normally I'd have been commuting, so it came in at the best possible time. I did play it to the exclusion of all else for the first week or two (which I think is normal/helpful if only to tweak the setup and make sure everything works as it should) but now it's just part of the collection and I play it when I feel like it... so no, not addicted personally, but quite happy to partake in moderation. That TRB looks great, btw - my first bass was a BB-N4 and I spent a long time looking at the Yamaha catalogue back in 1999 thinking just how impressive the more adventurous models looked.. but also wondering as a complete beginner how anyone could ever put that many strings to use! Now I know.. 🙂

If you ever see an Ashdown ABM1000 on your travels, I'd urge you to give it a go. Might not hit the spot, but with some decent cabs it's the closest I've ever found to the 'feeling' I think you're describing, just with the basic tone of the ABM preamp and Class D power/weight. The only thing I find different on the dynamics side is that where a valve amp will eventually run out of steam when you push it hard into the red, the ABM just keeps kicking harder. I don't know whether it's that power module or the particular way they've put it to use (or maybe just that mine rolled off the bench as a very hot ship, even for the class) but it almost feels exciting to be connected to that much well-controlled power. Perhaps how those Ferrari owners feel until they run out of petrol 🙂

We suffered a night of that game. Of course, they neglected to let us in on their 'travel light' plan until we turned up, which made for some interesting conversations given that we'd been told to just bring breakables as usual. By showtime everyone was annoyed, the sound was terrible all night, the gig had hardly been promoted either so the crowd was thin, and the touring act went down like a brick. By contrast, we got one where we'd been told to bring everything and get there early, which seemed a bit suspect and we assumed meant another sneaky 'lend us all your gear' gig. We got there to find the headliners doing a meet-and-greet soundcheck with everything set up, then they vacated and we were invited to set up in front of their stuff and given a proper soundcheck. Turned out we were the only support band that night and we had an hour to fill on the main stage, instead of the 20min first support slot in the little room that we were expecting. That gig was a pleasure to play and the touring band were excellent!

That's a perfectly reasonable position. Our guitarists like to use their own cabs and don't mind who plugs into them, so they tend to chip-in our band's contribution and I'm usually the person doing the borrowing and being responsible for having the right cable. 🙂 On the other hand, many promoters won't pass on any more info than "a bass cab will be provided", and many bassists that I've spoken to have no interest in tech anyway and think that a speaker cable is just a short guitar cable. Given that the cab I'm willing to let other people play through is 4ohm and has a single non-combi speakon socket, I expect to have to help at least one person out with appropriate cables and settings every time it leaves the house. By way of compensation, I do get a little laugh nearly every time somebody else uses my S12 and flicks their amp on with the volume control still where they left it at the end of their last gig, though!

I really rate jack-to-speakon converters for getting out of those situations - as long as they're not cheap knockoffs. I take a speakon-to-jack lead and one speakon-to-jack converter since all my gigging amps have a speakon out, but you could make up a lead to cover every combination with a jack-to-jack lead and two converters. Biggest problem, though, is making sure that nobody accidentally forgets that they've got one of your converters in their pocket for safekeeping!

We usually do exactly that, so that each band provides something and is consequently just as captive invested as the rest. Obviously if a band has travelled a long way and needs to get going before the end of the show in order to drive several hours home, then sense must prevail; I'd rather lend an extra cab than send somebody off to pilot a van full of their mates home whilst nodding off. I don't think I've ever played a multi-band gig without some sort of gear share, but it's always been cabs and shells only - rarely stands and never heads unless it's to cover an equipment failure. Bring your own breakables has always been the norm, and combos have generally been classed as breakables.