Japhet

In his spare time, Van Morrison is a delivery driver for Sainsburys.

You never said you were one of quads.

Not exactly underrated, but with the amount of adulation James Jamerson (rightly) gets, I often think Bob Babbitt deserves a lot more acclaim than he gets.

TRBX 305 or, if you can find one for the money a Lakland 55-01 is a cracker.

Another vote for the GK500 Fusion or the Aguilar Tone Hammer. I use a Streamliner but also get a nice warm sound out of my Tecamp. The Puma 500 would be worth a listen if you get a chance.

Don't know anything about them other than their one hit 'Christmas Rapping' but the bassline in that song by The Waitresses was pretty epic in my opinion.

Not clear yet whether you've altered your own EQ settings Rob. What sounds awesome on it's own often becomes a mush in the overall mix. You'll find that cutting some bass and boosting your mids will bring your sound to life with the rest of the band (I hope). Pay no attention to how it sounds on its' own though because you'll go straight back to your usual settings. Give it a go - you might be surprised.

Absolutely Conan. Used to have a rhythm guitarist who insisted on playing a LP through a Marshall and it just bludgeoned the sound to death. Eventually I got him to play my Telecaster (admittedly with humbuckers) and the difference was amazing in a 'heavenly' way.

What kind of volume do you practice at? Do you set up as you would live or do you face each other at all? If your guitarists have a 'big' sound (e.g. Les Paul into Marshall) they can hog a lot of the frequencies. You may need to cut some Lows and boost the Mids to be heard in the mix. All from my own experiences.

From my own experience; Genz Streamliner is a very warm, 'tubey' sound. Very nice EQ with valve driven mids. Preamp can be driven nicely. Can sound boomy if not EQ'd proprerly. Tecamp Puma is a cracking amp. Solid state but sounds as warm as you want but can do a nice driven sound. Sits very nicely in the mix.

Tecamp are always worth a look. Super light cabs and very good tweeters. There's a 4 ohm 1x15 in the For Sale section (nothing to do with me!)

Struggling a bit at the moment with John Mayer - Who Did You Think I Was? It's not particularly hard to play but the whole song has a very 'loose' feel to it which actually needs to be tight as a gnat's chuff. Hard to have it not sound a complete mess in the band context if that makes sense.

Used to use a Trace SMX head through Ashdown mini 1x15 and 4x8 cabs. Also used an ABM 300 head. Very small footprint but sounded monstrous if needed. Only got rid of it to go light-weight.

Ditto Looper is good. If you fancy a few effects as well the Zoom B3 multi effects has an easy to use looper onboard.

Anyone mentioned Living for the City yet?

Maybe I should start 'relicing' some amps. If anybody has an SVT they want done I'm ready with my orbital sander, Stanley knife and assorted tin of noxious substances to decorate it with.

Can't say for sure but I think being 10 feet away from Phil Lynott on stage at Brunel University probably did it for me.

I don't think a covers band is obliged to try to replicate a song at all. I love putting your own spin on a song. For example, a band I used to play in did our own version of 'Come Together' by the Beatles. It was quite a heavy sounding band, and when the singer announced the song there would be a bit of a groan from the audience. They soon shut up when we launched into it in a drop D tuning. Sounded wicked and we used to get asked to play it over and over.

Sorry, but just don't get it. Start with a nice new bass then knock the crap out of it, maybe leave it in a damp place for bits of it to go rusty or could probably drag it home from a gig tied to the back of the car. Is it to give the impression that the player has been around the block plenty of times or is there something I'm missing? Don't see people throwing bricks at their new cars so what's the attraction when it comes to a guitar?

Practice on a bass with a high action and heavy strings if you have such a thing.

All subjective. Don't particularly like Kaiser Chiefs but Oasis always sucked in my opinion.

Songs in the Key of Life. Love's in need of Love Today was fumbletastic!

My favourite is to hook everything up, plug in, tune up and then check the sound..........nothing. I'm really good at not connecting the amp to the cab and don't notice because it's out of sight.