spencer.b

see what you mean about the hire cost I'd just get a cheap second hand PA on ebay and whack everything through it , fair play to you for helping out the whole band

nightmare isn't it, I've heard that the black box marks you down for driving late at night so maybe not so good for us musos

I just bought a streamliner 900 after trying the shuttle as well at bass direct. I play an old P bass and found the shuttle a bit too accurate, a bit too much rattle and clatter where the streamliner smoothes it out a bit. I play upright too and the shuttle was much better than the streamliner for that

good question, I was watching some live gig jazz clips on youtube and it seemed that pre 70s recordings with the bass mic'd up sounded great and the later ones with a pick up sounded terrible. Did drummers play quieter? Did bass players play louder? I remember Jeff Clyne telling me that back in the day sometimes the bass would stand on a little box/stage and sometimes he'd have a mic into the PA

there is no definitive real book but I like the satanic changes

I didn't actually try a K10 before I bought but I did try it thru a big QSC FOH cab and various mackie and jbl powewered speakers and it did seem like you got what you paid for to some extent I bought mine from digital village and got the bloke to blast solo DB from my ipod thru various cabs , not a great test I know and I think I should of got a K12 but it's a bit of a compromise with weight isn't it. I just sold my beloved ampeg for a genz benz bergantino set up for that reason and that sounds pretty awful with the realist as you'd expect has anone tried an underwood/realist blend? do acoustic image amps sound good with a pick up without running into ext. pre?

I've still use a pick up sometimes, I tour with a rock band that are so loud the pick up barely works and sometimes on background functions in town where I can't be bothered to set the mic up I'll use the pick up. The QSC sounds great , really suited to upright,and getting it on a stand above the body of the bass is key with the mic, really detailed true sound although I think I may need a new driver or recone as lately there's a bit of a buzz coming from the cone after cranking it up with the realist thru sansamp (probably to much low end) at a big band swing dancing gig. In hindsight maybe I should of gone for the K12 I would love to ditch the pick up but I guess it's a necessary evil with stage levels being so high these days and certain singers insisting on crazy levels in their wedges , I'd be worried turning up to gig without the option of plugging in but I do think the acoustic instrument pick up combination is flawed and like to avoid where ever poss My bass is 3/4 german czech bass has a tiny bit smaller than average width bouts and I'm thinking of getting a bigger english/italian design bass do you think that will be harder to mic?

I know what you mean about the headway and realist together, I tend to put mine thru a sansamp into the other channel of the QSC what else have you tried with the DPA for the phantom and eq

I use my DPA with the headway QSC on a stand set up I played at Ronnies a few weeks ago and they now have DPA for FOH and a TC for pick up , I was struggling a bit and after a few tunes muted the amp and found that although it was quieter there was more definition and felt easier to play I guess a lot of this down to the realist having no top end and me over playing cos of that its weird how a bad sound gives the impression of the strings reacting differentley Greg how would you describe the sound/frequency range of the schertler ps greg I think I've met you at the corrie tap when I was playing with James Morton and Andy Sheppard

I've been really suprised by how many of my gigs I can use my DPA 4099B without having to blend any pick up in. I was expecting to use it for quiet jazz gigs but I've ended using it for big band, fairly loud quartet and quintet jazz gigs and a rat pack type function band. Admittedley on a rock n roll gig it won't work The down side of the mic actually being usable most of the time is now the sound of my realist does my head in, has anyone tried a K&K like the one being sold on here

I'm with you on the DOOM DOOM DOOM thing, but is McBride not more ostentacious AND swingin than your average bass player

why do you wanna avoid the open string

I've done few shows over the years and I'd agree with Doddy that the musicians were great and the challenge of reading and following the MD is great but I did get a bit bored after a few weeks . Being a dep is great for me but I don't know if I'd take a show full time. I know a few west end guys that have done it for years and are far more interested in moaning about money and getting to the pub than playing music, but then again it's one of the few well paid jobs for a musician

I'm sure he's not suggesting that the bass shouldn't play quarter notes, when he plays his left hand plays very few syncopations there's some interesting stuff in there that us bassplayers can take from as our internal feel of the 8th note must effect our quarter note placement For me ornamentation can swing too, how about Ray Brown on Night Train with fills my rule has always been don't play across the ostinato of the song in the case of most jazz this being 2 and 4 bilbo I know what you mean about Paul Chambers though and I've heard a lot of bass players who's time falters when they play fills but maybe thats because the quarter note placement is less acurate rather than the ornamentation itself not swingin maybe it's also about the dynamics of the syncopation in relation to the quarters i play with quite few drummers who i think comp way to loud compared to their ride and hats and I don't get enough 2 and 4 just loads of syncopation breaking up the groove

my EVR cost a bloody fortune but it's far and away the best one I've had, mine's done 2 years of hard labour and isn't showing any signs of wear, really soft inside too,the one I had before ended up tearing up the edges of my bass a bit

not sure that slap has lost it's way, I don't really do it myself but I hear some great slap on modern gospel, RnB funk etc. I think solo bass show off nonsense is giving it a bad name.

fair play mate thats dedication, I know what the buses are like round here too I'm in stokey

it's a nightmare isn't it, I'm looking for a new bass at the moment and I know what you mean about the good ones not being for sale. There's a guy in essex called Martyn Bailey who makes basses and he imports Jay Haide basses from china and I was very impressed with those, think thy're about £5500, Maybe checkout upton basses, I was really impressed with the one bassace was selling and the hybrid one on youtube sounds great some people i speak to are of the opinion that at the moment you can get more value with a modern instrument particulaly one made where labour is cheap ie. Hungary or china but I'm not sure where i stand on this as I'm currently very tempted by a relatively inexpensive old german flatback all the best with the search

I've found the best way of networking is getting out there gigging even if it's not with your dream band. I play for a living so TBH I end up doing some pretty dodgy gigs for the money but the longer I do it the more great gigs with musicians I really respect seem to come in.

I'd agree that there aren't many pub covers gigs london, I used to do the swan in stockwell and the redback in acton from time to time but most of my well paid wedding and corporate work is in london. I certainley couldn't do most of my gigs without a car, admitedley a lot my work is on upright though

I was gigging last night with a function band that mainly does rat pack type stuff with 5 horns and rhythm section, the last set however is pop/disco/motown stuff so I'll switch to eb. Last night during the last set someone requested mack the knife so I played it on eb and obviously the timbre doesn't sit so well but for me it didn't sit so well time wise. There seems to be something about the right hand that lends itself to walking bass. the ub players that I think really swing tend to be guys that really whack the strings It's very hard to define swing , when you hear Ray Brown playing crotchets on his own they are presumably metronomic in the sense the notes are placed in the same place in relation to each beat but not metronomic in that they are ahead of the perceived beat. Can a bass player playing on his own play ahead of the beat when there is no time stated by anyone else, I'm inclined to think they can but I'm becoming increasingly confused the more I think about this

I've had engineers be a bit sus about flatwounds for before gigs, I wonder if it's cos engineers wanna be able to add top or bottom and with flatwounds they might think they won't be able to add a bit of top to help you cut through,

I saw Julian Lage at the vortex in London a few months back, absolutely mind blowing, lovely bloke too nice to hear a guitar player not just doing the post bop rosenwinkel thing as much as I love that too