Ed_S

I was once told by a guy behind a mixing desk that I should change all my gear for whatever would get me "closer to the ideal of a perfect sine wave". He'd clearly been smoking a lot of assorted garden clippings, so I just nodded and smiled. I have, but I did it in line with the 'if you want me to use it then you can provide it' sentiment. Our last singer turned up with a Rode M2 which did her voice no favours at all and really didn't behave well in a loud rehearsal room, so I offered up a selection of others to try and we arrived at a Beta 57a for rehearsals and an E838 for gigs. At no point did I suggest that she needed to spend any money.

The valve amp I've got has no fans and a row of six EL34s quite close up to the back grille, so when I pick it up by the top handles with the back facing me (it balances best that way) it ends up at zipper-height and the whole experience is a bit 'Kings of Leon' if I've not let it cool down first. I tend to point my floor fan at the back of it while I'm packing other things away, which speeds the process up acceptably.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I've had an occasional negative experience with just about every music shop I've ever frequented; BD, PMT, GG, G4M etc. all included, but I know I'm not in a great mood at work every single day and I'm certainly not beyond making a mistake, so I try to keep things in perspective. There have been times I've not managed it and stores I've never returned to because I believe them to be fundamentally dishonest, but if it's an interpersonal issue I tend to just chew the person there and then rather than walk away seething. I wonder whether BD get more attention partly because of the kind of stock they hold. When you've finally decided to treat yourself to a bit of expensive, speciality kit that you've been building up in your head, which you've potentially travelled a fair distance to try/buy, and then the purchase goes wrong or you don't get the attitude you'd like from the salesman, it often seems to go down like a brick. Lower value commodity purchases that people make more frequently from whichever box-shifter is local / has stock / ships cheapest, perhaps have less to go wrong with them in the first place, and raise less emotional responses and negative reviews when they do go wrong?

It's not that I don't enjoy or see the value in that side of live music, but raw newness and mistakes whilst listening to material I've never heard before is why I go and see local original bands and pay a fiver to get in. Or why I make sure I'm there at doors to catch all the support bands for more established acts that I've paid a higher ticket price and possibly travel/hotel costs to go and see. A workshop-esque show from an established band commanding a high ticket price wouldn't do it for me.

Just a beer-fuelled thought in isolation without too much concern as to how well it'd work in practice. I guess on reflection it would work best for artists that are already held in some regard, have a few albums out and aren't yet jaded enough to not be bothering with new ones. To provide context, there I was, stood watching Iron Maiden (who were, at least at the time, very into touring a new album and playing it in its entirety and then doing a few hits at the end to wrap up) and I realised that I was just stood there paying a lot to drink and shrug my shoulders because I clearly hadn't diligently done my homework and learned to love their new material end-to-end in time for the show. I wasn't really considering streaming vs radio etc. - just that at that gig, I'd have really liked to hear something I knew, and would have cheered much louder afterwards had it been forthcoming. Indeed, when they played the few older tracks at the end, everybody did. Afterwards I considered that, had I been given more time to naturally assimilate the 'new' album into my listening, I could have known it and would have enjoyed the gig much more. However, if I'd been asked right then on the way out, I would have said that they needed to just give it up and play greatest hits shows to give the people what they want.

I've walked out of a few shows having paid upwards of fifty quid a ticket, usually because the sound was so bad that it was impossible to tell whether the artist was past it, but now and then because it was all too obvious that they were. Given the ease of recording videos with decent sound and distributing them on youtube, my suggestion would be to announce the tour and put out a very candid and un-doctored live track from the rehearsals or warm-up shows. That way, people would be able to get a feel for what they might expect to see if they go, and can make a decision based on something. The "if you don't want to go then don't" argument is only any good if you can actually know whether you want to go; how are you meant to know whether this is the time that you'll be disappointed if all you've got to go on is the fact that you weren't disappointed 5 years ago? Show us what's on offer; some will buy tickets no matter what, some will think the preview sounds ace and buy their tickets, and some will avoid paying to be disappointed. The artist can then reduce venue capacity and/or retire when they can't legitimately sell the tickets any longer on the back of previewing the show. If that never happens to them... great! The new material question is one I've contemplated over a few pints and came to the conclusion that bands tour albums too soon after their release. People haven't had time to work that material into their listening and think of it as a favourite by the time they hear it live, so the crowd reaction is lukewarm compared to the older material and that reinforces the idea that crowds only want a greatest hits tour. In an ideal world, I think bands should only tour their first album when they've released their second, then continue out-of-step like that, so they're always playing material that more people have had some time to feel a connection with. As an added bonus, if there's an album at the end that never gets toured as a result, that's leaves a great opportunity for a tribute.

Also, some of the digital modelling preamps I've seen seem to lure guitarists towards creating patches that in isolation sound like the entire guitar content, sometimes including bass, of a fully produced and mastered album. Very handy if you don't have the other musicians there, but risking a real mess if you do. In a similar vein, sounding better because there's less to sound bad is one of the reasons that I went back to playing 4s. I was sick of certain house engineers making a mess of the low end so, rather than keeping on trying to bring it up and at best being ignored (at worst, 'offending' them and risking the vindictive mix), I just deprived them of the raw material to do it. Instant improvement.

I bought a cheap job-lot of Warwick Red nickels and, aside from being a bit rougher than I'm used to, the sodding things try to epilate my arms! I guess it's a peculiarity of the way they're wound, and the B strings are definitely the worst offenders, but the E and A have a go as well. They sound alright but they're pretty much unusable. Hopefully the HBs just let you be hairy in peace.

Sounds totally relatable - I sometimes describe a bass as demanding a certain physicality to get the best out of it, and whilst I don't fancy the idea of playing full sets on them, I do like half an hour at home now and then. Used to have a Yamaha TRB-1005J which was a really good example of that. As for switching allegiance, I seem to do a 7 year cycle with a 3 year thinking-about-it period. I did three years initial getting into playing followed by seven of black-and-pointy 5s, then three years making sure I wanted a change and discovering Precisions followed by seven of predominantly P and J variant 4s. I'm just currently coming to the end of three years changing over to Ibanez SR 5s, so I should be set for the next seven and just starting to fancy a change by 2029 with a view to being fully kitted out with the latest and greatest in 2032.

Mono Vertigo and Gator Pro-Go are my personal favourites for conventionally shaped basses at the moment - Mono for the Ibanez SR, and the slightly roomier Gator for the Spector (because it's 35" so a bit longer) and Fender (because it's got 4+1 big tuners sticking out). If you've gone with a more expensive Ibanez SR, then the Mono is a really nice fit. I'd advise against the 'sleeve' version as it doesn't do very much to protect an angled-back headstock.

I've topped and tailed my collection over the last year to remove the cheap ones and the expensive ones, leaving just my favourite 'go-to' instruments in the middle-ground. They cost somewhere between about £850 and £1250 new, which seems to be the smart price range for me to get an instrument that feels right, looks good, is well made, is durable and hopefully sounds alright as well. Pay any more and I'm just lining myself up for a huge drop when I inevitably want a change. Pay any less and I'll start to fiddle with upgrades until I might as well have just bought the one I actually wanted. Obviously we all have different circumstances, commitments, priorities and budgets, so I'm only saying what's true for me and absolutely not trying to tell anyone what I think should be true for them. As a nod to the original question, I'd say that no, I've not seen many professionals at decent size gigs playing obviously budget gear. I've seen a lot of vintage gear being played by older artists, a lot of flagship new gear being played by artists with endorsement deals, and then a lot of stuff that falls in my middle-ground (ESP E-IIs, PRS S2s, Fender MIJs, Spector Euros, Ibanez Premiums etc.) being played by younger/aspiring/jobbing artists.

I used to use whatever music I could read to play an instrument, whereas now I use an instrument to play whatever music I can hear. Maybe that's similar. Or not! 🙂 I wonder whether any of that stems from comments made by people who've conflated their experience of learning theory and reading, with a parallel experience of learning an instrument and being persistently told by an authority figure that they're wrong for playing anything other than what's on the page, exactly as it's written. Absolutely, but I think a lot depends on how you get started. I learned to read music as a kid because it was presented as a mandatory part of playing violin, and whilst I won't say it did me no good, I would much prefer to see aspiring learners of all ages told by their would-be teachers that it can actually be optional depending on their aims. A lot of people who started sawing a fiddle in half at the same time I did ended up quitting completely because they didn't get on with reading but had been led to believe that you can't have one without the other.

A guy in a long-since-closed music shop told me that there were some manufacturers who wouldn't let their dealers put certain products into sales, so instead they would call any such products that had been hanging around for too long 'mint condition second hand' and sell them off that way. I don't buy second hand gear as a rule, but he pointed out an amp and a guitar he thought might interest me and quietly mentioned that although marked second hand, they'd never actually left the shop. I did wonder, since I'd clocked both of them when they were 'new' the weekend before and found it odd to think both had been sold and traded back in, in the space of a week. Fender weren't one of the manufacturers involved or mentioned to me, but I wouldn't exactly be scandalised to find that some shops still use similar strategies to move stock that's sticking to their hands. Perhaps that's why there are so many instances on here of people ordering 'B-stock' and excitedly exclaiming that they've checked it under an interrogation lamp and can't find a thing wrong with it. As to whether I'd pay for a CS, I hate relic jobs and nitro finishes so that probably limits my interest in a substantial number of them that are out there to take off the wall. Ordering a pristine one finished in poly sounds a lot like ordering whatever the current USA flagship production model happens to be, but writing "...and if I slip you another two grand, please can you send me a nice one?" on the bottom of the invoice, when in reality it should already be nice enough. More recently I was in a shop trying a Ray35 out when an older bloke came up and asked if he could borrow the amp for a bit to test out his new CS Precision that he was collecting. He was massively excited, telling me that he's wanted one for his whole playing career, finally decided to go for it, this was the one and he'd moved everything else on. I was happy that he was happy, but it looked like a P, sounded like a P, none of the wood grain looked spectacular, and the orange fluffy-lined case (which he'd opened like a big treasure chest in a Zelda dungeon) just looked a bit cheap. He offered to let me have a play on it, which don't get me wrong I really appreciated given how much he clearly loved the thing, but fortunately I was able to honestly say that my sweat seems to make nitro feel sticky so it was for the best that I didn't even touch it! I say 'fortunately' because I reckon I'd have been significantly underwhelmed and unable to hide the fact.

If it only needs to pass from a distance, you could just try getting somebody to make you a custom one-piece pickguard that doesn't need to modify anything about the original bass but has the missing visual cues that separate a J from a P, which to me are the straight line between the pickups and the tail at the bottom. I would use the existing screw holes and sub in with a bit of double-sided where required, and not try to move the pot or jack positions either - just swap the Jazz knobs for chrome domes. Literally do it as a completely reversible cosmetic nod to the P and see how it turns out. Might work...!

I've seen a guy play electric upright fretless at a metal gig for no other reason than all his stuff was in the car from the previous gig and he didn't want to go home and swap gear. Nobody seemed to care and the band sounded pretty much as they always did, so if you can make the right sounds then I don't see why it should matter. I might be a bit cautious if I was setting up a new band and the prospective fretless player lacked experience of playing live, because stage fright and no frets sounds like the perfect storm to me as a fretted-only bassist. Another way of looking at it might be how much do you want to play in the band Vs how much do you want to play only fretless? If somebody said that I needed to play fretless to be in their band, I couldn't, so that's me out of the running. If somebody said I had to play a 6 string, even though I knew I wouldn't need it, I could still do that so I'd just weigh up how much I wanted to get my foot in the door (and maybe have the conversation about dropping back to a 5 later on) against how much I wanted to have the argument right now and throw away the gig.

If he's using the authentic vocal exercise from the film, it might explain why his singing isn't improving and he was an hour late to rehearsal.

For clarity, when I say that I ask for exactly what I want, and say how I want problems to be resolved, I really hope I don't do it in an entitled way. I've worked my entire life being the IT guy who gets ignored when things work and kicked when things don't, so I know all about cutting people a little slack. I just mean that rather than saying "this is wrong..." and then waiting for the gush of apologies and offers of reparations, and then being annoyed when instead I get "ok.. so what do you want me to do about it?", I get in there first and say "this is wrong so please can you sent a courier to collect it in the next two days and process a refund? I've sent you an email that says the same.", to which I'm probably going to get "ok", which is all I really wanted.

I've had overall positive dealings with BD and I like having a chat with Mark, even when we have differing views on something. I admit I've felt a little less connection with some of his staff over the years, but rather than rude I've actually tended to think of them as maybe just a little socially awkward. Of course I have no idea whether that's true or not, but my rules of engagement are that I don't stress politeness principles, ask concisely and plainly for what I want, don't assume anything is implicitly understood or a given, and if an issue arises explain exactly how I want it resolved. If I'm wrong and they are, in fact, just rude... then they're getting the benefit of the doubt and I'm still getting what I want without any requirement to feel annoyed.

Didn't know Liam Lynch worked there! 🙂

Aye, never say never and all that, but I'm willing to go as far as saying that where revisiting playing from dots is concerned, I passionately don't want to and can't think of any opportunity so enticing as to change my outlook. On the plus side, I reckon it's been so long that I'd be in born-again territory and could focus on bass clef without any vestiges of treble confusing me. Conversely, though, I reckon I'd resent it so much it'd be the beginning of the last 6 months of me playing.

I could, but I ran out of uses for it when I stopped playing violin, and I haven't looked back in the last 22 years.

There's definitely a genre divide to observe, isn't there. When I played in orchestras we had one very showy conductor who got away with limited on-stage antics, but it wouldn't have done for them all to act like he did. Then when I played acoustic singer-songwriter stuff in small bars and coffee houses the norm was very much to sit and play with no requirement for a visual beyond that of real live people playing things instead of a CD. There were some elements of stage-wear for those with a thread of activism running through their performance, but still nothing major. The rock and metal scene round here does demand a bit of show, unless, of course, you make it your trademark not to have any; I saw one band who turned all the stage lights off and replaced them with a single bedside lamp on top of one of the PA stacks, and they stood still throughout their set. It was different, so still created an atmosphere. Totally the right approach, I reckon. For me as a punter it's all about being able to get 'in the moment', for want of a better term. Like when you're watching telly and you only really notice that you've zoned out everything else that's not on the screen when somebody knocks at the door, punctures the little bubble, and the telly that was your entire world suddenly becomes really small because now you're aware of the room. Being at a really good rock show should be like that, so on stage I try to add a bit of the sort of thing that would help me to engage to that degree were I in the audience.

One of our guitarists is very fond of the darkened spaces in the back corners usually reserved for bassists, so my spot is downstage left, gurning and posing with the singer and lead guitarist. Lead's a lefty, so from our respective positions we can meet in the middle to do shoulder-to-shoulder posing during solos without risk of guitar entanglements. Nobody has ever told us it's not cool. You can go too far, though. There's a local band with a bassist who shoots off round the venue mid-song, doing quite violent body-popping movements uncomfortably close to people. Fair play to him, I couldn't do that while playing (or at all for that matter), but on the other hand it just makes for an uncomfortable half hour of ignoring his band and hyper-vigilantly looking after your pint and your teeth lest he hit you with his rhythm stick.

Aye, broad agreement on all that, just with a different album - 'Get A Grip' for Aerosmith and 'Live At Donnington' for AC/DC. Ozzy is the same deal - I'm not really a fan, but 'Live at Budokan' is great, and it's a double-whammy (or is that wah...) because I don't like Zakk / Black Label Society at all. Except for House of Doom! Wahey.. found another band with one song I don't mind 🙂

For me it's "Rock and Roll" off The One With Stairway On. Everything else I've ever heard by them just irritates various anatomical features off. There are many bands whose career I could condense into an EP and a lot I find unlistenable in their entirety, but bands with just one decent song is a proper ask - good one!