JohnFitzgerald

I only found it through a search as I'm interested in a Streamer Standard, but not a Rockbass.

Are you still on the drink from Hogmanay Jose ?

You can never have too much funk in your life.

I've even managed to squeeze a bit of it into the prog :-)

No worries. Love the Status.
Still interested if I can sort out a deal of any kind to make it work.

Regds

JF

I have a Spector here, but possibly with more strings than you had in mind.
Q6 Pro in cherry red.

Bass plus cash obviously.

Any interest ?

This one.

I have one and a half. The Spector which is all I could call upon and my Yamaha which has been in bits for over a year now.

I do occasionally think about getting a 4 stroing which would probably be a Sterling Sub, and sometimes a fretless which would probably be a Squier J.
Were any of them to arrive, I would find my self looking at the others and asking them tyo justify themselves.

If I could get one of those basses where the turn of a knob made the frets dissapear and a hipshot took the E all the way to B, I'd probably be quite happy.

I'm sure that no such thing actually exists.

This really is a corker of a bass. As the first owner, I can vouch for it being a lovely thing to play and it's even nicer in the flesh than it looks in the pics.

Agreed.

I had a blonde one bought new in the early 90s and a mate had owned his black one as you describe for a few years by then.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1356977186' post='1916003']
Almost paradoxically it tends to be the hobbyists who feel the strongest (either way) about this kind of thing, though why the 'pro-bashing' I'll never understand.
[/quote]

+1000.

In light of all of this, would a doubleneck 6 string fretted / fretless be considered excessive ?
Multi laminate hippie sandwich of course.

Threads like this remind me why I dislike the weird view that you often get in forums.
The bit up above about 5 s and 6s being woefully unfashionable made me giggle.

Guess it depends on your own sense of self worth and your ability to know what's the right tool for the job.

I come from a background that demands you be both an entertainer (functions most of my career) and a musician (taught in the brass band system and spent many years backing cabaret acts sight reading parts chucked at me 30mins before curtain up).

In such situations you get used to the fact that you must entertain (that's why customers pay you) and it's also important to actually be a musician who can be relied upon to do a job.

If I bring at least a 5 with me, it'll definitely go down to the occasional low D or C that the song demands.
If I bring a 6 with me, I might make the higher up notes more fluently without bothering the dusty end of the fingerboard too much.
Anyone I would choose to play with understands this. It's about tools for the job, not pointless jousting on internet forums about the why, wherefores and imponderables of one bass over another.

I can't possibly split hairs on the importance of being both an entertainer and a musician. Everyone who I work with and have worked with knows this too. That's what we're there for. To not be an entertainer is not worth paying money to watch. To not be a musician renders you unqualified to be up there.

For anyone not blessed with this understanding, I genuinely fail to comprehend how you might not know this.

Having speakers at lug height makes such a difference.

Now sporting 2x10 atop 1x15 and loving it.

No problems hearing myself.

At reherarsal the other day, the guitarist was using a Mesa Boogie MKV with extension cabinet.
Nobody could accuse a Boogie of being quiet.

The Trace setup as per sig was more than up to it.

Your 4x10 in an elevated position should work far better for you.

An ickle combo that can't move much air isn't any use for anything other than fairly quiet rehearsals.
If the budget doesn't run to a brand new mega amp, you should maybe consider the stuff for sale in here.
I would suggest a couple of moderately transportable cabs (yes, just like I have).
Not terrible to move but make plenty of high quality sound.

Your PA will do fine for vocals, the drums will live without being mic'd up.

The guitarist will be fine on their own.

You need something around 2-300 watts for a band like that but with enough real estate in terms of speaker capability to actually make some noise.

Here's a short story of trying to downsize and failing.
Many years ago I decided that getting rid of my less than a year old Carlsbro Stingray 1x15" bass combo was a good idea. Our guitarist had a Sessionette which was a fab little amps that did all required of it. Session had just brought out bass amps and the one I bought was the same 100W rating as the Carlsbro, but much more compact.

Guess what ?
You couldn't hear it behind a fag packet.
The speaker and cabinet didn't make enough noise.

If your budget is modest (this, I can more than understand) the marketplace in here will provide you with all you need.

I think this cuts every way depends on who's talking and who's listening.

A friend of mine plays exclusively 6 strings, having a Warwick, a Yamaha TRB and an Ibanez.
His current band is an Alice Cooper tribute where you'd imagine that there would be an expectation of what would be acceptable. Doesn't hurt him in any way.

Or when I did the first gig with the prog band which was a festival. Full of punters who know their stuff and all sorts of genuinely weird and wonderful stuff on display. I was concerned that my tobacco sunburst jazz wouldn't be enough. Nobody blinked an eye, nobody said anything.

Maybe it's the same with amps too ?

Will I ever get another gig with a Trace stack behind me ?

Whyo cares, play on and do what you want.

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1356748831' post='1913285']
To answer the OP, the easiest one of mine to play for any length of time was the Steinberger Spirit. It's the lightest one I've played (believe it or not Budgetneil) & it's probably the easiest one to find. I've had a noodle on a Shergold doubleneck and it was also easy to play, but I preferred the bass neck on my Rickenbackers (I'd probably be in a minority here). I think the Shergold configuration (guitar at the top) is probably preferable to the official Rickenbacker configuration (as opposed to Mike Rutherford's Rickenbacker cut'n'shut). It's not a big difference but having the guitar on the bottom on the 4080 makes some chords a little more difficult (especially some of the early Genesis stuff). The Rickenbacker 12 string neck is rather narrow too, which makes things trickier when you have fat sausage fingers like mine, but I'm sure a person with normal fingers wouldn't notice this. Despite all this, I still think the 4080s are great and I spent a long time hunting mine down (especially the 4080/12 as these are extremely rare). They were perfect for the Rush stuff and had a pretty authentic sound for the early Genesis stuff too.

To answer the other question I saw, 'do people need them?'. Well both in the Rush tribute and the prog tribute band I was in, there were parts of songs where a second guitar part was present and other parts of the same song where bass was required, so there was no time to change instruments. The bass pedals covered bass duties during my guitar moments, meaning I had to get pretty adept at tap dancing too. Have to say that after 90 minutes of solidly rehearsing Xanadu, I began to understand why Geddy Lee said he had no desire to ever use a doubleneck again. The weight really starts to get noticeable. I've no idea how Mike Rutherford managed to use his Shergold for whole concerts.



I saw Comedy of Errors a couple of times in the 80s, once with IQ at The Heathery in Wishaw and then a very short set at an event in a park somewhere in Glasgow (can't remember where, but Love & Money also played that day). A few years ago, someone sent me a recording of the IQ gig in Wishaw & I asked if they had taped the CofE set as well, but they hadn't. I remembered enjoying it (and my girlfriend at the time very definitely preferring it to IQ's set). This old IQ recording made me look to see if any Comedy of Errors material had been released on CD (I'm sure there was something on vinyl in the mid 80s), but I couldn't even see a mention of the band on the internet at the time. This was obviously before Disobey came out. Does any of the material date back to the old days?

Nice to see the band back in existence and I will try to catch a show if you're ever down south.
[/quote]

Some of the material does indeed hark back to the old days. Some of it 'as was' and some of it with augmentation and modern interpretation.
I know all about The Heathery, a legendary venue back then.
The outdoors gig would have been Kelvingrove Park which had a bit of a heyday around that time for summer gigs.

Down outh gigs I know of so far are a support to Haze in Rotherham, which you'll find details of on the CRS website and also the Electric Garden Festival in Blackpool. Not sure of the dates for this one as yet.

Cheers

JF

The Mackie Thumps would very quickly meet their ultimate limit, epspecially with bass drum anywhere near them.
Factor in bass guitar and drums and the singer will very shortly complain that the PA isn't up to the job.

It is up to the job for vocals, but not the use you'r suggesting.

Thumps really aren't intended for this sort of use.

Had your drums been pre recorded with the track compressed to death, you could get away with it in smaller establishments.
Outwith that, you'd need much more grunt to cope with the strong likelihood that either you or the drummer will max them out in short order.

I know I keep going on about it, but we use 2.4kw in small pubs with really really decent quality Logic speakers.
Prior to that it was HK Audio Lucas systems (two of them). If you want drums and bass through your PA, you need loadsa grunt and high quality speakers. Amps and speakers maxxing out is not what you want.

I've used lesser quality.

It doesn't work.

If you want to use a compact PA, the drums and bass should be kept well away from it.

Did this a few weeks back in a tiny pub.

We do carry a big PA though, so it wasn't an issue.

Lovely sound.

Not suitable if I had wanted any dirt in my sound right enough.

[quote name='All thumbs' timestamp='1356775546' post='1913379']
Wish I'd spotted this earlier!

Great job - lovely fretless tone, and overall sound mix wise. Very enjoyable listen.

Scott.

...just enjoying "Twang on you stringy diamond" :-)
[/quote]

Thanks for the kind words.

Would you believe that I played it on fretted bass ?
I know it sounds fluid enough to be fretless, but I think the chorus removed a lot of the sharp edges from the sound.

Twang on was a little bit tongue in cheek :-)

I've asked the usual questions regarding watts in here before. How many do you need, what does it mean ?

I've also read any thought about enough good quality postings I've seen from people qualified to comment.
By this I mean Alex Claber and Bill Fitzmaurice.

For the first time today, I got to give my freshly assembled stack of old Trace bits and pieces as per my signature.


I've had the amp head a while and the 15" cab a couple of months and the 2 x 10" cab came in very recently.

So, I fired it up in anger today and now I get it.

I'll not comment on the actual power of the amp, it's a relatively old Trace rated at 150 watts into the 4ohm load it was driving today, so make if that what you will.

It was just so much more capable of moving decent quantities of air with the two cabs plugged in.
When I used it with the old Peavey 410 it had loads of top and bottom but not a great mid. Then I got shot of the Peavey and replaced it with the Trace 1153 and it got better.

Today was the first time in anger with the two cabs having added the 2102 2x102 cab.

just fantastic. The difference the second cab made was extraordinary.

I'm a convert.

I read recently that a Trace amp head has pretty much given it's best when the master volume is at around 4, so had a go at that level. Not sure why you'd every want more volume than this 150 watt head into two cabs at that level was able to produce.

As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, Alex and Bill are proponents of more cabs being the way rather than more watts.
Now I get it.

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1356564014' post='1911296']
That's not [b]the[/b] Comedy of Errors (as in Scottish prog band from the 80s) is it?

Here are my two doublenecks:

1975 4080 BG--------------------------1982 4080/12 MG


I used to have a Steinberger Spirit 4/6 and a rather unpleasant thing from somewhere around Korea, but both got nicked from the house we had in Ealing in 2010.

Unfortunately I don't play any prog now, but when I was doing the Rush tribute thing, they did get used.
[/quote]


One and the same Comedy Of Errors.
Now having a resurgence with a second album due out in the spring.

Have now done Summer's End with the band and have a couple of festivals booked for next spring too.

This is what turns me into a bit of an unsocial creature.
When people ask me to go on nights out, I have to ask them these two questions.

"So let me get this right. I don't get to bring my bass and I'll have less money at the end of the night than I started with ?"

I'm very often not keen.

My socialising has mostly involved having a bass around my neck doing something I love. A few quid to offset the cost of the gear and everything else it costs to do it makes it the best hobby in the world.
I have friends involved in motor racing. Even at club level, if you can either self fund or be sponsored to the tune of a minimum of around £20k/pa you can't do it. That's why I love it.

I had two of the Steinberger Spirits.
Not at the same time, but over the space of a couple of years.

I didn't even play in a prog band at the time.

I'd totally get away with it now in Comedy Of Errors.

Here's some lighting from 'back in the day'.

As well as 16 par cans ( 8 a side) we had these bad boys too.
Sets of pin spots, used sparingly.

The guitarist ran the colour lights and I did the whites, it was all done on a nod. We would either have all colours or all whites.
We also carried spots that we trained on any available mirror ball.
Right at the end of Comfortably Numb (of course) all lights would be killed apart from the spots on the mirror ball.
Anyone who had indulged usually appreciated that.

Don't know if I could be bothered carrying this much light nowadays.

Bear in mind, as above, there were the lights you see in the pic, plus 16 par cans, 4 spots, two moon effects, smoke machine.

Happy days.

If I might add one last thought.

Pure white light as an effect is excellent if used sparingly with the audience able to see the light source. White pin spots through smoke is mega.

In general though, if you want the stage to be illuminated white, it's best achieved by mixing colours to give white.
It gives a far warmer light.

How do I make a BC donation ?

Sorry, never read properly.

I'm sure there'll be someone who can collect from Norwich.