Zenitram

I wonder if this will devalue my original 1978 one.

Also, isn't it great how all these funky, funky instruments are made by very seemingly unfunky people. Yet they carry the funkiness within.

I'm interested in the 80s bass head and the Behringer cab, if they're still available. Can anyone comment on what it might cost to get these fixed? Obviously without knowing what's wrong it's no doubt impossible to say, but if, the problem were a fairly minor one in each case, what might a technician charge?

(And does anyone local to me know how good/cheap the folk at Twang are with things like this?)

Ooh I'd love this. If you're willing to post it I'll happily pay whatever it amounts to.

He might even give some DJing tips.

And several dreadful failures, to be fair, and which proves my point -- it was about those individuals together; think McCartney without the Beatles: you get the Frog Chorus.

It's not about his 'playing', it's about the songs they wrote together, and his contribution to them. You make it sound as though his being in the band was coincidental to the band's success. Or that they would have been successful (or 'good') with another bassist, who would of course have contributed something different to the band. Bands or groups of musicans that work well together are a kind of alchemy. What they bring individually adds up to far more than the sum of all the parts. They don't have to be very 'good' 'musicians', whatever those two terms may actually mean.

Hooky's bass lines are certainly not 'average'; what does that even mean? Surely root and fifths or whatever is an average bassline. Hooky had a different kind of simplicity to his role in songs. It's most definitely not average.

How much JD/NO do you know?

I'm not getting worked up, by the way. It's an interesting thread, and your opinion is just as valid, or idiotic, or misguided, or spot-on, as mine is.

As much as I love New Order, and Hooky's rogueish charm, and his 'voice', I'm not sure I could stomach listening to him bang on about himself at length and ad nauseum.

Stephen and/or Gillian, on the other hand, now that would be ace.

That is a great learning tool. I've learnt more (or memorised more) in the past five minutes than I have in the past two weeks of trying (not very hard, if at all) to remember which notes go where.

And anyway the album itself as a concept is dead or on its way out, isn't it. That's the big difference.

Home taping helped make a lot of music as well, remember that. A lot of hip hoppers started by splicing tape up, doing mechanical mixes and breaks (it can be done; I used to do it on the mechanical tape deck of my parents' hifi, you could mash up beats quite successfully, with [lots of] trial and error).

And mix tapes helped spread the word, etc., blah blah.

I disagree; it was very easy and I did it all the time, and still have those cassettes (which to disagree with another of your points were a lot cheaper than any LPs or EPs), and which incidentally sound AMAZING in comparison with MP3.

I do take your point that downloading is easier, though.

Wow.

lol two different views there

[quote name='bassman344' timestamp='1357411330' post='1922367']
If a person had an old cheap 4 string bass that they didnt mind got wrecked and they wanted to try to defret it.
What tools would they need and how would they do it ?

I remember reading about Jaco Pastorius defretting a J and creating the bass of doom but is it as simple as it sounded ????

In addition to that, while they are at it they might want to remove the black painted finish to leave the wood bare. Whats the best way forward for this ?
[/quote]

There are lots of threads here about this, and online. Have a search. It's essentially very easy, if you take care. For defretting my Stagg I used nail clippers to remove the frets, wood veneer glued into the fret holes, three or four grades of sandpaper from smooth-ish to very very smooth to get everything flat and even, then some wire wool for good measure, and then some Danish oil because I read somewhere it's a good thing to do. That was it.

Meh, ignore that. I can see both sides of the argument. And don't want to argue, er... either way. Or the other way. Or something.

So in the old days you wouldn't have accepted a cassette tape from a colleague with all the songs on to learn?

I thought it was the venue's responsibility. I might be wrong.

http://2003.cybersonica.org/images/eflyers/killing_home_taping_pink.jpg

Right, but that doesn't mean you don't know any theory.

Everyone, [i]everyone[/i] knows some theory.

See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A13_QGMtlRE

It's all semantics anyway.

I'm a professional Spanish translator. I've lived in Spain for many, many years, been married to a Spaniard, owned a business there, worked as an interpreter, blah blah. Am I fluent in Spanish? Most people would say so. I'd say I'm not. Who's right? Does it matter?

(No, it doesn't.)

Anyone can memorise things.

If you can play all the notes in these songs in a pleasing way (in time, in groove, with 'feeling', connecting with the others in the band, etc.), that's musicianship.

Or something.

Can you not try both ways?

All basses sound pretty much the same, don't they?

Why check the harmonic over the 12th fret rather than the actual fretted note? Or are you saying check both? Or something else.

For an interface it depends on what you want it to do. How many instruments will you be recording at once. How much are you prepared to spend. What have you used in the past. Do you mind second hand. Do you want/need midi ins and outs. Etc.

For software, Reaper is free, it does what every other sequencer can do, and is used by very many people.

For drums, do you want to programme them yourself, or use ready-made loops and beats? How comfortable are you with VSTs and plugins and all the rest?