BigRedX

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1397122900' post='2420813']
It sounds completely ridiculous, but a bands appearance and attitude can change their popularity completely. I know it should be all about the music, but it isn't.
[/quote]

If it was just all about the music CDs and records would come in plain white sleeves with the artist name and song titles in some anonymous font. Live performances would be conducted with an opaque curtain separating the performers from the audience.

[quote name='Diablo' timestamp='1397083683' post='2420599']
BigRedX - I was worried for a minute that you where the guy in the shorts strangling the guitarist...! I've got plenty of leather jackets, but don't you get too hot in all that kit? One would not be wanting betty swollocks half way through a rendition of teenage kicks?

Cheers,
Rich
[/quote]

If I still had the same elegantly wasted body of my youth I could be persuaded to strip down to my pants too.

Regarding the leather jacket, most of the stages we play are too small and too dimly lit to work up much of a sweat, and besides if it does got a bit hot I can take it off at an appropriate point in the set. The PVC trousers are normally far more sweaty than the jacket. I take a towel and a change of clothing to each gig so I can make myself presentable to any members of the audience who want to buy singles and T-shirts after we've played and of course there's nothing worse than felling cold and damp all the way back in the van.

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1397080442' post='2420558']
No, you are completely misunderstanding me.

I am not the slightest bit interested in the various credentials that you quote above and you certainly do not need to have passed graded musical exams to be a competent rock / pop musician (quite the opposite in some cases)!

However, there are limits and if you don’t know what a scale is the chances are you are pretty cr*p…
[/quote]

In my own personal experience individual musical ability doesn't necessarily mean that you can play competently as a band.

I had a short stint as bassist in a covers band where everyone was at least competent and the two guitarists and singer were very good musicians, but as a band it never seemed to me to come together. The individual ability was there. The songs being covers were most definitely there, but the band performance was not. Certainly not in the same way that my originals band was tight, organised and able to play our way out of nearly any musical catastrophe at a gig, despite have a much lower standard overall of musical ability.

[IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Dick%20Venom%20Live/ScreenShot2014-01-26at190044_zps2a621cfb.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Dick%20Venom%20Live/1969275_832586000090475_1309720978_n_zps338df4ab.jpg[/IMG]

A friend of mine used to work for the company that distributed Parker Guitars in the UK in the 90s and he had one of the early models with the vibrato balance adjustment wheel behind the bridge. It was a fantastically comfortable instrument to play, and I might have bought one if I hadn't been more taken by the even more radical looks of the Gus G1.

Unfortunately these days there are lots of different Parker Fly Guitars and none of them seem to have the features that made the originals so impressive.

I like owning lots of different musical instruments.

I have been selling off those that haven't seen much use in the last 10 or so years, but just because I'm not using them right now, doesn't mean I won't find myself in a musical situation where I will need them at some point in the future.

As someone who plays multiple instruments, bass would be a long way down on my list of instruments to play simply for my own enjoyment.

No-one who hasn't seen them live or on video would know that it wasn't a "guitarist" rather than a "bassist".

[quote name='jazzyvee' timestamp='1396969210' post='2419253']
I played the WOMAD festival in Singapore in 2005, as a guitarist though. I arranged in advance with the manager and airline for me to be able to carry the guitar in the passenger compartment. Most of the bass and guitarists and brass players on the plane there and back from the UK did the same. If you get a yes from the airline, ask them to put it in the notes for the check in clerk that way it is in front of them with any dietary requirements when you check in. When I've been on other tours I've used a mixture of flightcases or a gig bag depending on if I got permission to carry the guitar on board in advance. The only place I had difficulties was flying out of the USA.

We did two concerts and a workshop session at WOMAD and I had to change my strings for each session as the mixture of finger sweat and humidity took the coating off my D'addario guitar strings since then I've always used Elixir coated guitar strings when touring outside the UK.
The only problem the bass player had was a dodgy lead.

Jazzyvee
[/quote]

That's a nice anecdote. However the reality of the matter is that whether or not you are allowed to bring your instrument into the passenger compartment rests entirely with the check staff and cabin crew on your particular flight. Anything that has been "agreed" in advance with the airline holds zero weight at check-in time.

The question you have to ask your self is what are you going to do if the crew will not allow your instrument in the cabin and insist it goes in the hold. Better safe than sorry - get a proper flight case and check it in.

Will do. It's the first issue I've had since I started using the Sony two months ago and at every other gig it's been excellent. I've just watched the video of the gig in question and there's no one near me when the wireless cuts out, so I can't even blame Mr Venom's stage antics for this one.

The only thing I can think of is that the system occupies the same frequency range as WiFi and the PA for this gig was being run through a digital desk and controlled from a phone app, but I don't see how the TRANSMITTER should have been affected.

[quote name='EmmettC' timestamp='1396952231' post='2418978']
All my fivers are 34 inch, but I would like to try a 35. I don't think the extra length would be a problem, does it really make the B feel much better?
[/quote]

Depends entirely on bass.

IME a lot of manufacturers simply add another inch onto the scale length in an attempt to find a cheap solution to getting a good sounding and feeling low B. However this is IME never successful. There's far more to it than that. It's all about the overall construction of the bass, and that is far more important. A well made 34" scale bass that has been designed and built with the needs of the low B string in mind will always out-perform a bass that simply has 35" scale length and a wider neck to accommodate the extra string. TBH any manufacturer capable of building a 35" scale bass with a great B string will be able to do exactly the same with a 34" scale.

Of all my 5-string basses the ones with the 35" scale length are the poorest performers when it comes to getting a good B string.

By all means go for a 35" scale if you prefer the feel of the fret spacing, but don't automatically expect the extra inch to make the B string better.

Before sell any of it, you should use it at your next Jam Café gig.

Somewhere on the Digimart site there are instructions in English for how to get in touch with the retailers whose instruments are listed on the site (or at least there were last time they had something I was very interested in). Be aware though many Japanese retailers aren't comfortable dealing with exporting and people who don't speak/write Japanese, so don't be surprised if some of your enquiries are ignored.

On the other hand Ishibashi are set up to deal with export enquiries (although they do have a minimum order value for these). I've bought 4 basses from them in the past and they have always been extremely helpful. The only thing you need to watch is that because of the time-zone difference and the fact that the instruments on the Ishibashi site are also on display in one of their shops, you may find that by the time they have received your enquiry the bass will already be sold. If you are definitely interested in something on their site make sure that you ask them to reserve it for you in your initial enquiry.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1396909801' post='2418764']
Is the edited version better? (It took quite some work to remove the HTML codes that seem to appear in my posts at random).
[/quote]

That's loads better. I'll have a play with that tomorrow and let you know what I think.

AFAICS most of the devices you are using are designed to be run at line level rather than instrument level. Have you tried wiring them into the effects send and return on the amp rather than in front of the amp input as you appear to be doing at the moment.

I think at some point you are going to have to take everything out of the rack and wire it up without any of the units physically touching each other to find what is causing the earth loop.

[quote name='DanEly' timestamp='1396907620' post='2418735']
Guys, can any one help me source a Fender Japan PB70-US ASH Precision?
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Try searching on [url=http://www.digimart.net]Digimart[/url] and the [url=http://store.ishibashi.co.jp/ec/srDispCategoryTreeLink/doSearchCategory/11933200000/04-05/3/1]Ishibashi Ubox[/url].

AT,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately a combination of HTML codes and my dyslexia have rendered your post incomprehensible to me.

As I said previously, in cases like this you need to proceed slowly and logically to try and track down the problem.

I'm assuming that everything was working fine before you added the Sony EQ?

Can you list all the other equipment in the rack and how it is wired up both with and without the Sony.

It's not on either the Fetish Guitars or Cheesy Guitars sites AFAICS, so not Italian or Eastern European.

Would be helpful if we could see the headstock.

Weird problem with my Sony wireless system at the weekend.

Half way through the set on Saturday it cut out leaving me with no sound. Luckily I had a lead in place as a backup and was up and running before the end of the chorus. Looking at the transmitter today it had switched itself from channel 1 to channel 2. Considering how hard that is to do manually (I've just set it back to channel 1) I'm at a loss to discern how it happened.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1396887303' post='2418420']
To make those kind of informed choices, you are obviously benefiting from knowing some music theory.
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Yes. As I said in my first post in this thread in my teens I worked out the intervals in the major, minor and pentatonic scales, which got me started.

However, I've always used what I can hear in my head as the end point when composing. It gives me tunes that sound good to me rather than ones that are easy to play or fall neatly into one of the scales.

But knowing what notes sound best with which chord depends a lot on subjective taste and the style of music you are playing. I really can't stand 3rds - they always sound "out of tune to me) and usually replace them with 9ths or 4ths depending on what has come before and what comes next.

However these days I rarely think in terms of chords and what notes work over them, but instead listen to the "tune" of the what the rest of the instruments and vocals are doing and fit the bass around and over that.

[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1396856946' post='2417887']
So he needs something like these? [url="http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/IsoTabs/"]http://www.sweetwate...detail/IsoTabs/[/url]
[/quote]

Maybe. But he'll also need to stop the case of Sony unit touching the cases above and below it in the rack, which is why I suggested physically isolating it from the rack as a starting point.

The trick with these problems is to only change one thing at a time, otherwise you're unlikely to be able to track down what is causing it

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1396860934' post='2417942']
Sounds like a great gig BRX, glad the amp is ok :-)
[/quote]

Thanks!

Forgot to mention that my wireless system mysteriously stopped working half way through saturday's gig. Luckily I had a lead set up ready to use. Plenty of stuff to sort out this week.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1396859043' post='2417908']
One thing that's interesting in your post is that you do actually quote a song which has a bass line that can be inspected. Do you have a tab of the bassline to this song, or should I work it out by ear to see what you are doing. (I'm guessing the song is on youtube or similar).

However, your post does seem to suggest that knowing theory is in some way a disincentive to use notes that aren't in the key that is currently being played. Is this an accurate interpretation of your post? And if so, why would knowing a scale be a disincentive to use notes not in the most appropriate scale (if any) for the music currently being played? Wouldn't it make it easier to deliberately choose notes not in the scale, because the player will know which notes these are?
[/quote]

"Invasion Of The SpiderQueen" is available to listen to on [url=https://soundcloud.com/terrortonemusic/invasion-of-the-spiderqueen-1]Soundcloud[/url].

The verse is predominantly E with a chromatic F# G Ab run for the main riff and then adding in the chords Bb and A in the second half.
The Chorus is A, D, F, E, A, D, F (all major chords).

The main intro/verse riff was written first and the rest of the song came from what sounded good to me and the desire to not reuse chord changes from other songs in the set at the time. Incidentally the "shoop be doop" vocals at the beginning are taken directly from another song that is predominantly in G but still manages to use all the notes except Eb and F!

The use of lots of semi-tone intervals is very much a signature of the genre(s) of music we are playing. When I was playing more pop styled rock 15 years ago I would have stuck far more rigidly to the obvious notes in the scale, although to be fair I wouldn't have been writing songs with the same chord changes in them.