BigRedX

Having had zero interest in any kind of music for the first 11 years of my life I went Scout camp where Radio 1 was on all day every day and was completely taken by the sounds of the emerging glam rock bands - T. Rex, Slade, The Sweet. My parents were horrified as pop music was not considered to be real music and did every thing they could to dissuade me from listening to it. I finally managed to persuade them to let me go to folk guitar evening classes when I was 13 and then to buy me decent (read playable) acoustic guitar for my 14th birthday. That was the end of their support though. The following year I formed a band with three other like-minded friends from school, writing and recording our own weird compositions. We were very much a DIY band, I even built my first solid electric guitar at school while I should have been studying for my "A" levels. None of us owned a bass but a couple of people in our year at school did and we would borrow one for a few days during the holidays when we were recording. I finally bought my first bass - a heavily modified second hand Burns Sonic - while I was at university in 1981. 

In many ways the disapproval of my parents only made me more eager to play, write and record music. On top of that there were two pivotal points in my musical career that pretty much set me on the route I'm still following today.

During my first year at university which I was not really enjoying. I spotted a news article in the NME which mentioned a band called The Instant Automantons and the fact that their second album was available for free to anyone who sent them a blank C90 cassette and a stamped, addressed envelope. Intrigued, I sent off my cassette and a few weeks later got it back with the album recored on to it along with a printed A4 sheet folded to form a cover. I found the music variable, some I liked and some I didn't. What did impress me was the fact that if The Instant Automatons could do this why couldn't my band? We already had several hours worth of music recorded that had mostly been done for our own enjoyment, so during the Christmas holiday we assembled a C60's worth of recordings and I sent off press releases to all the weekly music papers. I didn't really know what to expect, but both NME and Sounds featured our news article and over the next few months I received a steady stream of blank cassettes which I only just managed to keep up with. By the end of the university year I had received over 100 requests for our album, which isn't bad for a band no-one had heard of and that didn't even gig. Not only that but people seemed to like our music, and as a result The Instant Automatons asked us to appear on a vinyl compilation they were putting out. A proper record, how could we say no? We even got played on John Peel's Radio 1 programme.

We made another 3 cassette albums and contributed a track to another vinyl compilation. However with all of us being at different universities and only getting together during the holidays to record, it was getting difficult to keep the band together. Myself and the percussionist moved to Nottingham where we started a new band with the express purpose of playing some gigs. Again people seemed to like what we were doing and we were building up a decent local following. By being in the right place at the right time we got our newly recorded demo track included on a sampler that BBC Radio Nottingham was putting out to showcase local bands to record labels. Then out of the blue CBS records got in touch and seemed to be very interested in signing us. This was just the push I needed to drop out of university (to my parents on-going horror) and try and make a go of being a musician and songwriter. Eventually the band was passed over in favour of a much more commercial proposition - Wham! and as a result we folded. 

There is a good chance that without those two opportunities I would have at some point knuckled down and got on with my university course and gradually stopped writing and playing music. However I'd had a glimpse of what was possible and that set me on the course that I'm still following today. 70s glam rock got me into music, but it was the post-punk and electronic bands of the late 70s and early 80s that have really shaped the musical path I've followed when it comes to writing and playing and the sorts of bands I've been in over the past 45 years. If I didn't still love what I am doing musically I wouldn't be doing it. I no longer expect to be rich or famous out of it, but it's been a fun ride and I'm still having a blast gigging and recording with my current band. I even owe my current day job in graphic design to being in bands and needing to produce posters for gigs and cassette covers for our demos.

My taste in musical instruments has been eclectic from the start. With glam rock I would see bands with outrageously shaped guitars every week on Top Of The Pops, and that's what I wanted. The bass players in my favourite bands all seemed to be Rickenbacker and Gibson players, or they had something custom made by John Birch. Fender was never really on my radar. When I made my guitar in the late 70s it was unconventional in both shape and electronics. Even when I was playing keytar in a synth-pop band in the 80s it sported a number of different custom paint jobs to fit the changing image of the band. When I saw the first Gus prototype guitar in a musical instrument magazine in the 80s I thought that if I ever had the money I'd have one. And now I have the money I have 3 (a guitar and two basses). My latest bass acquisition is an Eastwood Hooky 6-string bass which was bought specifically for the band I currently play with. When the guitarist left early in the band's development I suggested that instead of immediately advertising for a replacement that we see what it would be like with me play Bass VI instead. It appears to work fine. Six years later we still haven't felt the need to add a guitarist to the line up.

And that's probably way more information than you wanted...

But Liszt was also a good looking man who knew how to dress stylishly. Something I'm not detecting in any of the "bass virtuosos" being discussed here. 

19 minutes ago, Amando said:

Unfortunately I live in Manchester 

If you've got £2.5k to spend on a bass the surely you can find the time and means to get to the best shops for trying out the widest range of basses.

Almost impossible to say. What suits one player may not suit another. There is no one size fits all.

The things that matter most to me are: construction - a well constructed bass will always produce better low notes than extending the scale length alone, by all means pick a long scale length because you like the extra space between the frets but don't automatically assume longer equals better.

Everything else IME is down to playing technique. If you play hard, like I do, you'll probably find that you'll want a taper-wound B (and maybe also E) and you'll also probably want to move the pickup(s) away from the lower strings slightly. If you have a light touch these things may not matter and something else (I don't know what) will be more important.

Spend a couple of days out at Bass Direct and The Bass Gallery trying all their 5-string basses including some outside your budget just to check that you don't need to save a bit more to get the bass you really want.

The material the pick is made out of will make just as much difference as the thickness. If you are still finding your way playing with a pick get a load of different ones in a variety of shapes, sizes, thickness and materials and try them all. There is no right answer when it comes to using a pick, and in fact a lot more variables to deal with since different thicknesses and materials can make a massive difference to the sound. And again there is no right answer to what EQ to use. It will depend not only on all the factors above but also how you want the bass sound to fit into the mix of the other instruments.

One of the things we seem to have lost sight of is that for nearly everyone on here, the people who watch the more than 10 seconds of any of the videos being discussed in this thread are not our audience and are unlikely to ever be our audience, so lets stop worrying about them and maybe put some of that outrage energy into producing some great new music and performing it in a way that will get people excited about both the music and the performance.

1 hour ago, Supernaut said:

Sure, dude. Aren't you the guy who will not attend gigs if over 30 people are there? 😂

TBH these days I don't attend any gigs that I'm not actually playing, because I'm simply too busy with my own music.

The last gig I played had about 350 people in the audience, and while they hadn't all come specifically to see us, most of them were watching the stage while we were on rather than at the bar.

I might possibly go and see The Birthdays Massacre when they play at The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham but I'm still hoping that my band will land the opening slot.

2 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

It's disturbing and worrying that genuine musicians seem to have given up when it comes to defending the art of playing and writing songs. Sad day/times. 

No we haven't.

Those of us who can just get on with creating, and don't bother getting worked up over fake internet outrage.

Next Hurtsfall gig is in Newark on Saturday 23rd August:

The Facebook event page is somewhat misleading, but according to the info we've had from the promotor we'll be on at 6.00pm.

Some photos from Thursday's "Twister Firestarter" gig:

Last night was probably the biggest and best gig of the year so far.

We played "Twisted Firestarter" which is the InFest Festival warm-up party at Rebellion in Manchester. Six bands all in a post-punk/Goth/Electronica style from various parts of Europe. I did this last year with the other band I was at the time and with drums and noisy guitars we were very much at odds with the rest of the line-up. This time we were the only band that wasn't all synthesisers, although my Bass VI is pretty heavily processed, and musically we were definitely in the right genre.

We played second and I was a little worried that the event wasn't going to be as popular as last year when it was noticeably busy from when the doors opened; but this time the venue looked a bit sparse during the first act. However by the time we were ready to come on the bar area was heaving, and there was a noticeable rush of people to the front of the stage as we launched into our opening song. Excellent sound from the foldback and the large stage allowed our singer to really get into the performance. Even though our set was heavily biased towards new songs that have yet to be released, the reception was excellent with plenty of people down the front dancing and singing along, and even managed most of them to light up the room with phones and glow-sticks during "Calling Out".

Surprisingly we didn't sell a lot a merch afterwards, which  suspect was partly down to the fact that most of the people who liked us already have CDs and T-shirts and the strange decision for the merch table to be cash-only; this year the vast majority of our merch sales have been paid for by card.

The promotor seemed to be impressed so hopefully we'll get some more gigs from him. There were a couple of professional-looking photographers in the audience so hopefully some shots will surface soon on Facebook.

Next is a bit more down-to-earth as we'll be playing a small-scale multi-venue "festival" in Newark in just over a week's time.

Go half way to a gig in Coventry (from Nottingham) when I suddenly released that I hadn't packed the case which amongst other things held the floppy disk for the MIDI files for our backing. We could have managed without the other stuff in the case, but without the MIDI files we had no synths, samples, or patch changes for the effects. We had to turn round and go back for it. Luckily the headlining band had taken so long to soundcheck we still managed to arrive before we needed to set up. After that I took two back-up disks in other cases that were less easy to forget.

In my synth-pop band days in the 80s I was using a Korg MS20 semi-modular synth live. Each song had long intros that allowed me to patch the next sound. Even with cheat sheets, I would invariably get one lead in the wrong place at some point in the set which if I was lucky would result in silence when I started playing or if I was unlucky something loud and atonal while I frantically tried to work out which patch lead was in the wrong place.

More recently two problems with my Helix and wireless set up. Luckily they occurred in rehearsals rather than at a gig so have the advantage that I now know to check for both. Firstly plugged the receiver into the Aux in instead of Guitar in. Proceeded to tune up and then couldn't work out why the sound wasn't being sent to the PA. That's when I discovered that the default settings allowed the tuner to be active on all inputs irrespective of whether they were connected to the output or not. The second one was when I got the transmitter and receiver the wrong way around and again had no sound. Receiver has now got some brightly coloured tape on it so I don't make that mistake again.

Fender-style basses.

I'd been playing bass for almost 25 years before I felt the need to try one. I dabbling with the idea of playing fretless bass with the band I was in at the time and the Squier Vintage Modified Fretless Jazz had been getting great reviews in the musical instrument press (remember that?) and on the forums. Seemed very nice in the shop but once I actually started using it with the band there were all sorts of short-comings. Compared with my other basses it felt over-sized and awkward, even next to my Overwater 36" scale 5-string. It hung weirdly on the strap in such a way that I couldn't easily reach the G-string machine head and it sounded weedy in comparison with all my other basses including my 60s Burns Sonic. The £60 Wesley acrylic bass which it was supposed to replace was for me a superior instrument in every respect.

2 hours ago, Bassassin said:

If I was forced to choose just one bass for the rest of my life, it'd be some variety of Jazz. Not much you can't do with a J.

By Jazz do you mean something with the same body shape and neck width or something with the same pickup configuration and electronics but any shape? Or does it have to have both to be considered a Jazz Bass?

I have ambivalent feelings about music shops. In the days when they were filled with wondrous and exciting (to me) musical instruments I had no money to buy them, and when I was finally in a position to have a decent amount of disposable income for musical equipment, I found I was no longer interested in what the typical music shop had to offer. I was lucky at this point in that one of my very good friends worked for pro-audio dealer and could usually manage to get me anything I was interested in to try out for a week or so at home which was far more useful than any amount of playing in a shop could tell me about a piece of gear.

The last time I bought a musical instrument as a result of browsing a local shop was in 1993...

The internet in the form of first eBay and more recently Reverb has pretty much killed off the second had market for interesting instruments in shops, and then along with forums like this one have opened up a far larger range of options for anyone looking a bit further than a Fender P or J or a copy of one. It's hardly surprising that typical bricks and mortar stores are in decline as simply can't compete with the scope of the whole of the internet.

Surely all that dust needs to go back with every particle back in the same place as before, or you'll change the sound of the bass when you put the neck back on?

My prejudices are all completely rational.

19 hours ago, TheGreek said:

We wouldn't be where we are without you...

Yes we would. It would just be a slightly different place.

9 hours ago, rwillett said:

.... unless you have a headless bass or guitar

 

I actually do have this stand, and the portable one and the three headed one. They are great stands but do make rather a fundamental assumption about your bass/guitar (apart from the small portable one).

Rob

All stands have to make some assumptions about the design of your guitar or bass. It's up to the player to pick the appropriate stand for the instrument that they have.

I've owned a lot of different stands and don't think any of them would have been suitable for every single guitar or bass I have owned. The one that came closest was an incredible fiddly K&M stand with two adjustable cradles for the bottom of the body, but I'd worry about using it for some very long scale bass guitars due to centre of gravity issues.

That small travel stand is only good for guitars with symmetrical lower bodies. Every bass I've tried it with made the centre of gravity too high for it to be stable. Also whist it was OK for home use, I wouldn't trust it to hold up any instrument securely in a gigging environment.

5 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I've been using Ultimate and Hercules stands for a while.  My current squeeze is this one (GS402BB).  Assuming you have a regular shaped instrument, it works a treat:

I've got one of those. I wouldn't trust for any other than home use with a symmetrical shaped guitar.

DHL whist seemingly decent in mainland Europe are very poor in the UK. Have a look at any Thomann returns thread for more details of the lack of service.

Ultimate are still making stands. If you liked it why not get another one?

I've owned both Ultimate and Hercules stands, and while the Hercules is probably slightly better, the Ultimate was much more compact when folded down which may be an important feature.

18 hours ago, fretmeister said:

I've been using it since the day it was available. I have run multiple paths, different EQ and compression settings etc etc.

It still can't do a good Fuzz Face - and that's at full guitar volume, let alone the way a FF reacts to guitar volume being changed when it's first in the chain.

 

TBF I don't think any modeller has cracked that yet.

I think this very much emphasises the difference between us and indeed the difference between myself and most other people who are dissatisfied with modelling technology...

I have no idea what a Fuzz Face (or any of the other so-called classic distortion pedals or amps) are supposed to sound like. I've never owned one, I may not even have heard one, and the pedals and amps I have owned in the past I don't own now so I can't do a direct comparison. And TBH I'm not really interested in doing so. That's not withstanding the fact that everything I have owned is unlikely to be a prime candidate for inclusion on any modelling device. AFAICS, there's nothing on the Helix that might be trying to emulate any of the pedals and amps I have owned. What does interest me is whether or not I can get a sound that is right for the composition/arrangement/production I am working on, and the Helix has not yet let me down.

2 hours ago, fretmeister said:

Well, the HX fuzz models are not very good, and really the filers and synths aren't great either.

Depends whether you need any of those things.

There's well over 100 amp and distortion pedal models on a Helix. I'm sure there must be one that will give you the sound that you want. Remember that can run them in parallel with a separate EQ. I've never had a problem getting a distortion sound I like out my Helix.

The only filters I've come across that were any good were MIDI controllable and really what I should heave been doing is playing a keyboard synth and no wasted my time trying to make a bass or a guitar sound like one.

Depends entirely on the circuitry of the pre-amp and power-amp sections.

For solid state amps generally you want the gain as high as possible without introducing distortion and then adjust the master volume to give you the overall level you need.

For amps with a valve pre-amp and solid state (or Class D) power amp the gain control will usually also act as a drive control. To get the right balance you really need to set it up in the band context as IME bass guitar can nearly always do with a bit more dirt in the mix than you would be comfortable with when playing solo. Have a listen to some isolated bass tracks to see what I mean. They are always more distorted than you would imagine from the overall mix.

For all valve amps it's almost entirely down to taste, provided that you haven't got the settings introducing too much noise.

Use your ears to get a sound you like not the numbers on the controls.