BigRedX

Joining an established band can be a good way of gauging what they are like in terms of music and commitment. However there is also the chance that you will always be the FNG and never a proper member of the band.

PA system is only really useful if you are based out in the sticks and only want to do gigs there or you want to join a covers band. However a van is useful for any band so long as you are happy to always be the driver.

If you really wanted to be cost effective and/or environmentally friendly you'd ditch your bass rig altogether and either use the PA foldback or IEMs.

The date-stamped photos are all 13 years old...

I wouldn't necessary agree with that. If you have the right attitude and the appropriate level of commitment to suit the other band members IME age isn't really a barrier at all these days. I've been the oldest member of all the originals bands I've been in over the past 15 years (I'm now in my 60s) with the other band members ages ranging from 17 to just a few years younger than me. Most of the time I have been the member least likely to have to turn a gig down due to other commitments. Besides the current image trend means that most rock/metal band members look like they are in their 50s even if they are 30 years younger.

I got my "in" because I was following the band as I was a fan of the music. I also follow a few genre specific groups (in my case goth/post-punk) as well as local gig guide pages, at the moment mostly to get gigs for my bands, and have seen ads for band members on all of these.

However, don't spread yourself too thinly or you might end up annoying all your bands if you are constantly juggling your time between them. Any decent band will be out gigging almost every weekend, which leaves little time for anything else serious. I get away with two bands because both are of a similar genre and if we have gigs on the same day it going to be at the same event (something that has happened twice so far). I'm also realistic enough to know that if either band suddenly become more prolific or popular I'm going to have part company with the other one.

IME the success of any method to join a band very much depends what sort of music you want to play, what sort of commitment you want from your band mates, where you live, and how far you are prepared to travel. However a lot of the time it comes down to networking and not being a dick. If the band you want to join know who you are from previous musical ventures, know that you are going to be ok to get on with and can perhaps bring something on top of your bass playing abilities to the band you are more likely to be offered the place over someone they have less idea about. I currently play in two bands. One of them was a band who I was a fan of and was following on Facebook (see it is useful for something), so I saw their post when they were looking for a new bass player. The other found me through my JMB ad. I had been very specific about the sort of music I wanted to play and what sort of ambitions and commitment I was looking for in a band. However when it came to the actual auditions, the fact that both bands knew who I was from my previous musical activities (my last band had shared the bill at various times with both bands I was hoping to join) gave me the edge over the other candidates.

IME there is no "proper" way of using Logic. It's one of the great things about the program. I share projects with our synth player and also our producer. We all have completely different ways of working with it. I've had to stop attending the vocal recording sessions that the synth player does with our singer because sometimes I find the way that he works compared with how I would tackle the same task incredibly frustrating. Neither of us are right or wrong in our approach. It's just that the program allows both as being equally valid.

Do what I do and just ask questions in Mac section of the SOS forums

When I auditioned for my third band in 1983 it was as a bass player, but we quickly decided that all-synth was the way that we wanted to go. I already had an EDP Wasp synth that had been used for noise textures in my last band but I wasn't really much of a keyboard player. I ended up spending most the 80s playing synths until in 1988 I auditioned for another bands who were looking for both bass and guitar. They preferred another person for the bass playing role, but I really liked the music and mentioned that I could also play guitar and in the absence of anyone else even remotely suitable they asked me to join the band. That was a big learning curve as I hadn't played guitar seriously since 1980 and even then I was average at best. I think I surprised myself as much as many of my musical friends when we did our first gig.

Thanks! This was my first Gus bass which I got back in 2002. It's my main bass for recording when I don't need the range of the Bass VI, and the only reason it doesn't get used as much at gigs, is because the red one looks better on stage.

Facebook is fine for advertising my band activities and finding out what a few of my friends who no longer live locally are doing. I would never consider using it for anything else.

Surely you can tell which is which by the thicknesses?

It's a sad fact that most bands should find it fairly simple to sell a single colour print T-shirt for £10 where at the very worst they should be making 100% profit, whereas their audience is becoming ever more reluctant to pay the same price for their album which has probably cost more to produce than they could ever hope to make back through sales alone.

To the OP who appears to be in the UK. Just go and buy a standard mains lead with an IEC C13 connector at one end and a normal 3-prong UK mains plug at the other, from a reputable source. Then it will have the correct fuse for the lead which is all the fuse in the lead is there to protect. Job done.

In Isolation, along with Chaos Bleak will be supporting The Rose Of Avalanche when they play at The Donkey in Leicester on Sunday 28th July. It's an early gig: Chaos Bleak 4pm In Isolation 5pm The Rose Of Avalanche 6pm Tickets are £11 in advance

I already own two of my dream basses: If I had the money I'd also get Simon at Gus to make me a pair of Bass VIs to this design with the Shergold Marathon 6-string bass neck width and scale length.

Or songwriters. If you look at any list of the best earning musicians from the last 70-80 years you'll find that nearly all of them were responsible for writing their most popular songs.

@Andyjr1515 I completely understand. I did this back when I was still young and even more stupid than I am now, and as a consequence nearly sawed off the end of my index finger. I'll be interested to see your solution.

I don't know what metal-working tools you have at your disposal, but if the stop tail-piece holes were significantly different to the hardware supplied, I'd have had a look at making my own from scratch. In the 80s I was able to do some fairly major modifications to some heavy-duty aluminium rack box sides with only a junior hack-saw, a hand-held drill and some files.

I think we've scared the OP off...

As a fan of aluminium in guitar and bass construction, I'm definitely looking forward to this...

Compared with some people's pedal boards, this is compact and bijou.

I want my money back. The bass doesn't come in until almost 30 seconds through the piece so there's a maximum of only nine and a half minutes (I haven't listened all the way through to see if there are any places where it drops out).