simonlittle

As pretty much everyone has said, it is all about practice. I sing BVs with a good few of the bands I play with and it took a while to get a good method down for learning the parts. Knowing the bass parts to the point where you’re paying entirely from muscle memory is essential. Even in a jazz context where you’re playing walking lines, falling back on your most bog-standard shapes and lines will help you forget about playing the bass and concentrate on the singing. Practising the backing vocals away from the bass at first also really helps. I like to do that in the car. Or on a long walk with headphones. Getting the vocals into your muscle memory will come with time. When you know them well enough away from the instrument I find combining them with the bass parts is way easier. Plus you’ll be worrying less about finding pitches as you’ll have more of an idea of where they sit in your voice. Getting familiar with your vocal range is just like learning the fretboard. I’ve found it very rewarding to really dig into the backing vocal thing and it’s been a real bonus for gigs. Good luck on your adventures @Mokl

Welcome from another Londoner @BombTheBassist!

Sold Luke some patch cables this week. Lovely to deal with and paid instantly. Recommended Basschatter! Simon

I’d also recommend CD Baby if you want to make your music available on all the digital/streaming services. The big difference between that and Distrokid is that CD Baby charges a (very reasonable) one-off fee per release as opposed to a yearly subscription. I’ve released a load of music via CD Baby alongside Bandcamp. Bandcamp is fantastic but operates very much its own eco-system; you’ll make more per download, can set up subscription services and have full control over pricing etc with , but sadly Joe Bloggs on the street isn’t as likely to get on board. Running Bandcamp alongside CD Baby is a good combo I reckon.

I never had a Traveler 102P. Before this setup I mainly used a CMD121P combo plus a NY112 extension cab. I much prefer the sound of the single 102 Energy cab to the old rig; feels a bit more open and round. The combo with the extension cab was plenty loud but could sometimes feel a bit oppressive at higher volumes. Plus the CMD121P had that annoying Markbass piezo horn hiss that you can’t unhear. No idea whether the MB102P cab has that issue (you’d hope not), but I went for the Energy one just in case and couldn’t be happier with it. The MB58R cabs are all very deep (front to back deep) so they do take up more room if space is a problem. They definitely don’t sound honky though.

I was wondering what they were!

(Not counting upright basses/EUB’s) I’ve had three fretless basses over the years; a no-brand cheapo precision bass, a lovely five-string Alembic Orion and a Warwick Thumb NT4. Ended up selling them all as they just weren’t needed on the gigs I was doing. Really do miss having a fretless though. Wish I’d kept that Alembic! I may have to remedy this situation in the near future…