Jean-Luc Pickguard

Anyone who thinks the sh1te whipes are blueprint for the the future of rock n roll should be given the opportunity to listen to Clatter. Some bands have guitar and no bass and some have bass and no guitar. I remember the 80s when drum machines heralded the death of the drummer. Lazy and stupid journalism just makes the journalist look lazy and stupid.

[quote name='Musky' post='57330' date='Sep 8 2007, 10:59 AM']Thinking about it, that night was a jam night rather than a O5B gig - I think your guitarist was missing. I love your regular set though, so different to most other covers bands. Any gigs coming up? Just took a look at your website and there weren't any listed.[/quote]
Oh yes, It must have been one of Robin's jams at the Windsor, so it would have probably been the o5b rhythm section of myself & Mark with Sandy and a few other jammers I think I may have been playing the Dean pace upright that night.

The whole band be at the Grove Tavern oposite South Wimbledon tube next Sunday 16th Sept for a charity fundraiser they're hosting. I'm not sure what time we're on, but there will probably be a several bands running all afternoon & evening. I'll put it on the o5b web site & myspace when find out the running order.

Samuel Pepys wrote about his Bass Viol in his diary.

The LEDs are a nice feature, but the cats eyes and silly little pickguard would make me keep my cash in my pocket (at least if I had any).

Not only do I use the open E & A strings very often, I tend to slip in a low D by flipping the hipshot D-tuner to go lower than the open E on a few songs.

Teachers (not specifically music teachers) sometimes present opinion as fact without backing it up withthing resembling common sense.

Sometimes its nice to play both the open A and the A at the 5th Fret of the E string within a line because of the different feel it lends at different points of the line/riff.

[quote name='Musky' post='57017' date='Sep 7 2007, 02:59 PM']Obviously 5 belivers! I've caught your band a few times (including that jam with a digeridoo player on Whole Lotta Love - classic ) Hats off to you sir. Very impressive.[/quote]

Well, Thank you very much, not sure I remember that one. We must have been there with my mate Sandy - He's played didj with Rolf Harris as well as with Plant & Page, but he sometimes has trouble playing in different keys for some reason.

I like to keep it simple, I tend to use just a cheapo Behringer bass limiter pedal on the floor to tighten the sound up a tad. Its cheap & cheerful but sounds good to me. If it went kaput I probably wouldn't miss it too much before counting out my loose change to get another one.

It sounds like you may benefit from trying "economy of movement". Turn the amp up and let it do the grunt work. Hammering into the bass probably doesn't do your speed, tone or accuracy any favours.

I play fingerstyle only these days, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about regarding pick playing, but I used to get bad cramps in my hand towards the end of the second set at every gig. I could play for much longer at home or at rehearsal without this happening. I cured it by playing with a lighter touch (as well as excercising the hand/fingers and using different strings). You'd think this would give a wimpy less agressive sound but this is not the case.

In response to a PM about this thread here is an example of a song recorded recently at the Boom Boom Club in Sutton when we opened for Stan Webb's Chicken Shack. It was recorded using the Zoom H4 with its built-in mics on a camera tripod pointing at the stage about halfway back next to the PA engineer on the left side. I'm playing the NS CR5M upright through my bassamp, two guitarists with amps and the drummer was not miked up. Only the vox went through the PA.

Normally I'd run this through some mastering processors before distributing it but here it is unmastered as an example of the H4's raw sound quality. It was recorded on the H4 as a CD quality WAV and converted to MP3 just to shrink the file size.

Our version of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl:
[url="http://www.o5b.co.uk/mp3/o5b-cinnamongirl.mp3"]obviously 5 believers - Cinnamon Girl[/url]

[quote name='gilmour' post='55193' date='Sep 4 2007, 12:23 PM']Has anyone got any experience of using the Tascam MP3 bass trainer.

I've had a look for reviews but can;t ind any som I'm assuming it's a pretty new piece of kit.

I've read reviews on the CD version and they're all very positive, other than the fact that the seem to eat battteries. I'd assume that the MP3 version goes through a lot less batteries than the CD version - is this the case?[/quote]

I use the guitar version, it is a little bit fussy about MP3 bitrates and the user interface isn't going to give the ipod any sleepless nights, also the 1Gb memory which cannot be added to is a bit of a downer, but it does allow me to charge it via a usb socket (or an old blackberry psu) and it allows you to get some headphone practice in at the drop of a hat (as long as your songs are already loaded). I don't use the guitar fx as I just want to make sure I know the notes and it sounds very good without any fx. I don't know how useful the bass version's fx will be, but I'm not going to upgrade mine.

Regarding the batteries - It has a built in rechargable battery and comes with a PSU/charger but more usefully also charges from the PC/Mac via a USB cable

Leroy Hodges & Howard Grimes

I wouldn't use anything but the trusty zoom H4. Set it on a camera tripod and press the big button. Then connect to a PC via USB and drag the wav file across for editing. Nothing could be easier, well nothing I've found. The sound quality is good enough for a live demo CD.

[quote name='Hit&Run' post='54867' date='Sep 3 2007, 06:20 PM']Come on guys, someone must know something?[/quote]
Apparently Not

Only fingers for me

maybe I'd use a pick if we did a song that required the bass to go "dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga", but then again I'd probably just use my fingers

I do use pick on geetar though.

Its crying out for a thin coat of off-white car spray, then let it collect natural mojo.

I bought a "stripped" musicmaster bass for £100 a few years ago for my daughter's birthday and promised we'd paint it any colour she liked as the alder used was not very well matched in colour & it wasn't very pretty.

At a larger branch of halfords, she flicked through the colour books & chose a lilac used on some model of honda that I'd never heard of. The chap there mixed the paint & filled two cans (that was interesting for her to watch). I also bought some cans of white undercoat and clear lacquer. The paint job is nothing like a pro job as I did rush it a bit, but from a few feet away it looks fantastic and cost very little apart from a bit of hassle.

One semi-unrelated tip: If the pickup on the musicmaster (either a 6 pole strat or mustang guitar pickup) is a bit noisy and/or weak sounding, the humbucking Cool Rails strat pickups for £30 from brandoni guitars fit perfectly and sound excellent, the black enclosed version looks exactly like the bass's stock pickup. The hot rails is similar but sounds a bit clanky to me.

This sounds like what you need - MP3 Bass trainer. I use the guitar version of this as the bass version wasn't available when I bought it.

[quote name='Sibob' post='40101' date='Aug 1 2007, 05:35 PM']I've always worked by the 'rule' of thumb that you should have the bass at the same height standing as when your sitting with it on your lap.
That way you're not playing in two completely different ways.

Cool
Si[/quote]

For this reason I hardly ever play sitting down.

I find that my different basses each need a different length strap to feel right, so each bass has its own strap optimaly adjusted. The time to adjust shouldn't be an issue as once its set as you like you don't have to do it again - Iyou should usually be able to get the optimum length for any leather/suede strap within a few minutes.

Note: If you get a thunderbird bass, you really should adjust the strap as long as it goes, as they don't look cool played high up.

[quote name='OldGit' post='54135' date='Sep 2 2007, 11:48 AM']Tbird neck dive fix is here
[url="http://www.lysator.liu.se/~wizkid/music/thunderbird_mod/"]http://www.lysator.liu.se/~wizkid/music/thunderbird_mod/[/url]

Cant help you with the weight though [/quote]

Ha! that's exactly what I did to my "sno-white" epi t-bird. It certainly cures the next dive.

I don't notice any weight issues - mine doesn't seem any heavier than any of my fenders once I moved the strap button.

If it was in or near Surrey/South London I'd be interested, but I think I'd get sick of the A3 trekking down to Portsmouth.
Good luck with your search.

[quote name='Bass_Junkie' post='53791' date='Sep 1 2007, 01:01 PM']aparantly those basses are quite bad sounding, though i love the look of them![/quote]
It appears you have been grossly misinformed about the sound of epi t-birds.

You should try one for yourself before repeating such nonsense.

You should have received Cubase LE in the box in addition to Gigastudio. I think that could be what you are looking for.

I bought one for £50, then realised I didn't really have a use for it so sold it for £85. I guess I should have hung on to it for a while.

It could be that (for example) your maximum bid was £10 higher than the bid currently shown the winner put in a bid £11 higher than the current bid, which was £1 higher than your maximum bid.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='51923' date='Aug 28 2007, 08:09 PM']Think Thunderbird... great bass I'm sure but horrendous balance issues.[/quote]

Not if you know where to locate the strap button.