JPJ

[quote name='fleamail' post='50899' date='Aug 26 2007, 01:45 PM']The chili peppers are the only rock band that I could watch live every day, every show has something new to it with lots of improvisation! That is their philosophy and that is why their true fans love them![/quote]

Thats what I like about them, live, there is really experimentation within the successful formula to the point where you can almost feel the edge, like if they go any further they'll fall off and make complete arses of themselves. I struggle to think of any other established rock acts who step so far outside of the comfort zone every gig?

Any of us who play live know what its like when you are right on it. I don't mean tighter than a gnats chuff on it, I mean sloppy tight when its musical and big big sounding. I'm making a complete mess of trying to describe it, but I played a gig about six months ago when we were like that and people still talk about that gig today, like it was something special. We knew it on stage, but somehow the audience knew it as well, it was special, and it was spontaneous. RHCP seem to be able to produce that atmosphere in every (televised) live show that ive seen.

Nice piece of kit, somebody got a bargain there!

Loved the first line of the user manual

"Shredded, this document makes excellent packing material. In its present form, it makes interesting and useful reading. If you run out of patience quickly, at least read this part to make sure you don’t exterminate everything in a two mile radius by doing something wrong."

Pure class, a manufacturer with a sense of humour!

Thanks John,

PM re address, can the Mods please let me know how they want the monies?

Its that time of year again folks when I get to dep with one of the north east's hardest working rock covers bands.

I'll be playing the following gigs next weekend;

Fri 31-Aug-07 Washington Football Club, Washington, Tyne & Wear
Sat 01-Sep-07 The Pheonix, Cramlington, Northumberland
Sun 02-Sep-07 NOW CANCELLED - Venue no longert putting on bands!

If any basschatters are in the vacinity, come and say hi

Raise you £5, and call it £35

Chris,

Following your advice, I have just put a Phillips Jan 5751 into my SWR750x this morning and the difference is huge. Strangely, there was a Sovtek 12AX7WC in there already so I guess somebody has already changed the valve at least once before.

Loads of warmth from the 5751 and the overdrive channel now gives a lovely warm OD (think Jack Bruce) which means that I now have two really useful channels to play with (previously, the OD channel sounded like a wasp in a beer bottle!).

Thanks again for your advice,

Whey Aye bonny lad

Welcome back to the fold. Just what the forum needs, more Goerdies!

These are the same cabs as I use, and I can vouch for the excellent all round tone and volume these things put out. Oh and the silver chrome grills look great under stage lights!

My day job that supports the wife and family has nothing to do with music.

My hobby is playing bass, as a result when I get to play, I play covers.

Playing covers has developed my playing no end. I am from the 'classic rock' school of bass playing, but still enjoy stretching myself with a Flea workout now and again.

Playing covers allows me two things that I dont think playing in an original band would deliver (at least in the short term, if ever). Firstly, I get paid for my efforts and that it is satisfying as someone is giving me money for playing bass which is effectively saying 'here you go, you are a musician". Secondly, when you get it right and the audience are up for it, I take huge satisfaction from seeing them having a good time. Perhaps the ulitimate accolade is when a punter comes up to you at the end of the night and lets you know how much they have enjoyed themselves.

Ok, I'm probably not the one to ask on this one as I don't get out much for pleasure due to work/family commitments but I'd rather have a poor covers band plinking away in the background than a poor originals band. At least this way there would be a semblence of familiarity about the background noise rather than it just being noise.

The scene for originals bands in my neck of the woods tends to be for the younger end of the market. Covers dominate the thirty-plus pub scene. I accept that there are some talented musicians trying to do their own thing, but equally there are talented musicians doing covers (remember, covers does not necessarily mean note for note replication, look at Robert Plant's version of Hendrix's Hey Joe as an example).

How about another question. When does an originals band become a cover/tribute band? For example, two ex members of The Jam are touring without Weller. Is this a covers band, a tribute band or an original act? Likewise, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band continue to tour long after the demise of the main man. Again, are the Who actually the Who (only two out of four original members surviving). The list goes on and on, and the question remains, are these cover bands, tribute bands or originals?

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='47209' date='Aug 18 2007, 08:24 PM']Hi folks

I've got a couple of away-days next week. We're opening the the [url="http://www.towerseyfestival.com/WhatsOn/Artists/The_Peter_Donegan_Band.html"]Towersey Folk Festival [/url]this Thursday (23rd) and then the following Tuesday we're at The [url="http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/online/online.cfm?flash_detected=YES&mainframe_file=/online/gallery.cfm"]Snape Maltings[/url] near Aldeburgh in Suffolk.If you fancy either of them, let me know and I'll see what I can do...

[url="http://www.peterdonegan.com"]The Peter Donegan Band[/url][/quote]

Jesus WoT, your piling up the miles arnt you? Turning pro yet?

[quote name='Oxblood' post='47223' date='Aug 18 2007, 09:10 PM']Phew! Your relief is palpable. Excellent news that all is behaving properly now. Did the tech have any words of wisdom re. the possible cause?[/quote]

I'd have thought it was obvious? I mean, he took the lid off, looked at it sternly and then put the lid back on and bobs your uncle, everything works fine! So the obvious conclusion is that the guy who installed the US/UK power conversion, also (either unwittingly or maliciously) installed a gremlin as well. Once the lid came off, the little fella scarpered like an eastern european in Dover, and all is fine when the lid goes back on.

Then again, I might just be drinking a little too heavily these days.........hic

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='26699' date='Jul 3 2007, 08:14 PM']apart from the fact that it says "jazz bass" when it's clearly a P-bass body, it's a very nice bass.[/quote]

Oops, Sorry EdwardHimself, I missed your comment.

Your right, it says Jazz on the headstock but is a Precision shaped body. The story is that the neck was originally advertised on eBay as a five string jazz. As a child of the sixties, growing up in the seventies, I am a huge fan of the 'TV' series logos from precisions and jazzes of that era. But with the five string hardward, there was no way I was going to squeeze the full 'Fender Precision Bass' logo on there, so I went with a Jazz logo instead.

I still had to cut the transfer up and apply each letter in turn to try to make it follow the contour of the edge of the headstock!

Hi Bassfan, welcome aboard!

To start with, let me say I have no personal experience of the WorkingPro stuff. I am an SWR user myself, but at the other end of the scale (750x, Goliath & SoB).

But, unless we know a little more about the style of music your into, we wont be able to make much of an informed response. For example, a 1x10 combo will not really cut it in a loud rock band, even if it is DI'd through the PA as any half decent drummer will drown it out. However, it works perfectly in an acoustic situation.

If I was you, I'd be looking around for some second hand stuff, as £300 will buy you a lot of amp these days. Stretch your budget a little further, and you can be looking at some serious kit that will be capable in all but the largest gig situation.

[quote name='douggy' post='43773' date='Aug 10 2007, 02:26 PM']honestly guys , its not going under, they might have goosed up somewhere , but they definitely arnt going under .

if they do ill eat my words but im pretty certain they arnt

doug[/quote]

Good,

Cant speak for the rest of the country, but the lads in Newcastle are a canny bunch and i'd hate to see any of them unemployed.

[quote name='Dudz' post='43995' date='Aug 10 2007, 09:18 PM']Hi

around the 700 mark

best wishes

dudz[/quote]

Steady CK, your valve amp purchase fetish is starting to get out of hand young man!

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='43856' date='Aug 10 2007, 04:50 PM'][size=1]No[/size] [size=2]No[/size] [size=3]No[/size] [size=4]NO[/size]... I will resist from turning this sensible thread into the usual BC farce...
Oh go on then knit me a 40" one!
We are talking chest size for a cardie aren't we?[/quote]

Wow 40"!

Thats almost 'Upright' scale isnt it?

Mrs WH must have large hands, Mrs JPJ struggles with my 'standard' 34", good job yours is only a 4 stringer.........

Well, Blondie got her first gig a couple of Sundays ago, and boy am I pleased with myself!

I intended to use her for the first half and then my trusty East equipped Jazz V DLX for the second-half but somehow, Blondie got both halves to herself. Playing through my SWR rig (750x, Goliath & SoB) she sounded absolutely awesome. Since the build finished, I have modded the switching options so that I now have position 1 as both J's on full (no resistor) but the best position live is definately the P + the bridge J, that position really cuts through in a gig scenario and still has loads of balls.

In truth, the paint job could have been better. Using car spray paints means that they need a long long time to harden fully on a wood base, so I have some marks in the finish where my new strap rubbed against the edge of the body at the bridge end. Similarly, I managed to stick the back of the bass to a cheap tee-shirt transfer thing, and in getting the gunk off, I have rubbed through the lacquer. In time, I will probably have her professionally resprayed as she has turned out so well, she is probably worth it. But for now, she'll do, and as I have more gigs at the end of the month, she'll get plenty of stage time before any respray.

As a 21012 owner, its probably time I chimed in on this thread.

I use mine for small gigs paired with my SWR 750x. As most of you know, the SWR is generally known for having a natural mid-range cut, which may explain why it works so well with the 21012 which is supposed to have a mid range hump. I don't gig very often these days, and when I do, its generally depping with a loud rock covers band.

For smaller pub type gigs, I'll generally throw the Schro in the boot and it has no problems keeping up with a four channel dietzel head on a mesa 4x12. The projection from these things is quite amazing, and it really fills a room. If you are looking for totally flat hifi type sound then I don't think this is the cab for you. Yes, it has a tone of its own, yes it has great clarity, yes it has great projection, but it also is a big sound. Somebody explained to me that because the 12" driver is set behind the tens on an angled baffle projecting into what amounts to be a horn flare, you get a timing issue between the sound coming from the tens and the twelve. The best way I can describe this in practise is that when you are up the dusty end (somewhere I don't go very often) you get what amounts to an extremely mild reverb type effect. It is extremely small mind and I might be exagerating it, after all, once you start listening for something, you generally convince yourself that you can here it.

Weight-wise, its a comfortable one man lift and is certainly easier to handle than my SWR Goliath (or SoB for that matter!).

My other rig is the same amp head paired with the Goliath (4x10) and Son of Bertha (1x15) cabs. Sure, this rig has more balls than the Schro on its own, but it also takes up a lot more car/van space and has more potential to wreck my back in the short term!

If you are in the market for a relatively small but powerful cab for a single cab setup, I recommend you try a Schroeder.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='41520' date='Aug 5 2007, 11:21 AM']The Jazz I have sounds great with the original passive stacked-knobs in. However, with the J-Retro fitted the tone just opens up and has more... life; even with the tone controls set flat.[/quote]

Snap, my thoughts exactly! Both of my five stringers have John East active eq's in them and I love the sound with everything flat (or perhaps a little mid cut depending on the room). My Ibanez Musician fretless is active with a bypass and a passive tone, but the levels between active and passive are just too great to make it feasible to change mid-gig.

As to batteries dying, I dont gig regularly, I dep with a local covers band a couple of times a year so its fresh batteries before each outing. Same for any other deps that may come up. But with the East circuits, you get a ridiculously long battery life so it really isnt an issue.

Some of the modeling stuff (line 6, Fender B-Dec etc) have built in tuners. Euphonic Audio (IA350 etc) also have a built in tuner. Dont know of many others though.

The Newcastle SC must be the exception that proves the rule here. I have always found the staff there to be friendly and helpful, but I have been shopping there since it was Rock City back in the late seventies/early eighties. Never bought anything significant off them, just strings, pedals and the like but I am encouraged to try anything I want (and frequently do!). Maybe its because my guitarist brother-in-law spends a small fortune with them every year on Gibsons and Jacksons, perhaps they think that I'll eventually catch the bug and have to join him.

Nice end to this post is that my fifteen year old daughter (who plays violin and a bit of guitar) went into the Newcastle branch with a couple of her mates on a Sat afternoon. One of the guys recognised her as my daughter and let her try out a USA tele, telling her to fetch me along to buy it for her. Her friends were suitably impressed and she walked out about two foot taller than she had walked in.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='38818' date='Jul 30 2007, 10:29 AM']

Yeah this Trace 1248H cab would be pretty sweet but the only places that have them online these days are rental companies and studios. This cab is also rated at 8ohms where the V8 is rated at 4 or 2 ohms specifically. If the cab was wired in series, I'd see if I could rewire it in parallel to give 2 ohms instead.[/quote]

Kiwi,

I think you'd better get the number of Ped's surgeon, that amp and cab look great but getting them UPSTAIRS!

I've just bought my second one because I bought one, loved it so much I went to the rack version (which isnt 'tuned' for bass, so doesnt work as well in a live situation imho) and now have gone back to the pedal version.

I use it after the Punch Factory compressor. To explain, I use the punch factory live to control my occassional excesses on live gigs. The Exciter comes next just to add a little sparkle to the top end and a little meat to the bottom. Bearing in mind I play through an SWR750x into either a Schroeder 21012 or a Goliath/Son of Bertha stack, you could say that the exciter isn't strictly necessary. However, I think it adds a little something else to the overall sound.

Word of caution though, use both ends of the effect spareingly as it has a huge amount of tone shaping capability.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='22203' date='Jun 22 2007, 11:25 PM']I owned Ashdown gear before it went East and I have to say that I had a mute button that didn't, a VU meter that meant 'virtually useless' and tolex covering that came off quicker than a fat lasses knickers down the Bigg Market (Newcastle) on a Saturday night![/quote]

Most of the fat lasses my er 'mate' has met dont even bother with the knickers these days......