Huge Hands

I sometimes think the best things are found by ignoring rules or what should be, so I would never stop someone trying it. However, in a band setting, I think adding reverb would not help the clarity of the bass from cutting through the mix, and if your playing is fast or busy, you could just end up with a boomy mush.

"....they did it their waaaaaayyyyyyy...."

Some bands don't use it solely for timekeeping - they have extra instrumentation or vocals tracked to give a bigger or different sound. I used to do sound for cabaret shows where the normal drums, bass, keys, gtr house band would gain a trumpet/sax and trombone for solos/the look, but there would be much more brass tracked to give that Glenn Miller/Frank SInatra big band feel. There might also be sound effects such as police sirens or stings for the show's story too, which would then lead into a song.....

I found those ages ago. I want royalties......

Indeed. I love Pharrell/The Neptunes, but as soon as I heard that rhythmn I assumed he'd sampled the Marvin Gaye track.

I hope you don't mind, but I've just copy-pasted this from a post I wrote in a similar thread recently: As a former drummer, I tried it for the first time in a studio setting back in my uni days. I thought I would need to hear the click really well and got them to turn it up and up - til it was almost bashing my ear drums across my head into each other! Suffice to say, it wasn't great playing or a great track. A few years later, when working as a live sound engineer, I spoke to one of the pro drummers about it and listened to his click during a rehearsal, it was much quieter. He had it at a level where you barely heard it, then if you started falling behind/speeding up, your brain would suddenly notice it and concentrate on it. When I then tried it a year later at these sort of levels with my own band, it worked really well for me. When on time, the click almost disappears and you are able to enjoy the music. As others have said, depending on what is on the track, you may not need to hear it [the recorded backing track parts] at all, especially if it is washy strings or effects. I'm saying this because in my opinion, some drummers will never get their heads round playing with a click. Some may just need some adjustment on their levels and then get it fine.

Another huge Dee Murray fan here!

In my experience, unless you're driving a van - whatever size car you drive, the DB will cause some sort of hindrance, whether it is touching the windscreen, stopping you pulling on the handbrake or comfortably putting your arm down with your supersize fizzy pop...or all of them. The size of car dictates which of these hindrances you will suffer....

I play bass guitar with a concert (woodwind and brass) band, so on average: 40:12:0:0 I've surprised myself by not being able to think of anyone I really, actively dislike, in all of those people. However, in my relatively much smaller last gigging blues band, the ratio was: 5:2:0:1 I really struggled to deal with the drummer's odd ways. His drumming was fine though....

Well, thanks @alexclaber, you're on. Shame I had to go as far as ranting on here to get a response to this saga. I'll try and get a day sorted next week and bring them down to you.

I can't really help you, but just wanted to chime in to say hope the gig is good, I love Susan Tedeschi's (singing) voice and love her hubby's slide playing. It should be something that gets boring to me very quickly, but not with him. Massively jealous!

Sorry, I wasn't trying to hijack or start a war. I have bitten my lip so many times when I see BF bashing threads on here out of respect for his fan base but I am sick to death of "can we wait til after..." replies from the official BF email address, so I assume this workshop guy is aware too. I have been really poorly and housebound over the last couple of years so have not managed to prioritise chasing it myself but I've never had even an inkling of a date from BF so it's not like I caused the problem by postponing dates to bring them in myself. Anyway, today I just felt the need to rant as I've recently got back into playing and rehearsed with one on Monday night. It looked a lot more poor than I last remember, so must have flicked my switches a bit...... I'll shut up now - as you were....

Maybe it's because his customer service is non-existent. I bought Retro 210 cabs serial number 9 and 10 and experienced the peeling Tolex issue to the point where they now both look like cheap, worn, poorly made Chinese toys. On BC, last time I mentioned it, he openly suggested giving them back to him so he could strip and recover them, but ever since he has just fobbed me off saying they are too busy and can we wait til after the next rush. This has been going on for over 3 years. I only live 30 miles up the road, so I can take them there whenever he wants. I have never said anything on here before as I remember him on here as a budding university graduate full of ideas, and that was one of the reasons I went with him to try and support BC talent. However, I handed over a lot of my hard-earned for these, and now they look crap and worthless, not the premium product I thought I was getting. I got the impression he had tried recovering someone else's cabs and realised it was too difficult so was avoiding it, but if he'd been upfront and offered to look at them, I would have been happy to discuss options to get them looking slightly better such as trimming back the edges and painting, finishing strips or...., er....., whatever else there might be. In summary, he's amazing when talking theory and selling you a cab, but not so great with keeping you onside if you have a genuine concern with his product. It's such a shame, because I love the tone of the cabs, they just look toytown. ...and before you say anything, the Tolex peeled off both of them way before I ever stood on one.... P.S @Happy Jack - yes, I did mean comb filtering. I remember Bill Fitzmaurice talking about it at length which is why I mentioned it. I think it was along the lines of where with a PA speaker, you're putting bandwidth filtered audio through various sized drivers to use each driver for a frequency range. With a bass cab setup, you're running the same full range through each, so you don't get the same optimisation. I seem to remember him saying that just because you have one small driver cab, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get more punch or top end or whatever. Anyway, I'm probably trampling all over his theory, so I won't keep digging a hole!

You may prefer it. There are plenty of experts on here (and much more qualified than me) that will warn you off mixing driver sizes (such as your current 15" and 10" setup) due to cone filtering effects etc. I know I used to have a 2x10+1x15 setup and loved the cabs on their own but always struggled when using them together. Each to their own and all that, you won't know what is right for you until you try it.....

If it helps, and I shouldn't really admit this - I am a little over 20st and I stood on one of my Retro 210s at Christmas to take down our outdoor Christmas lights as I didn't have a ladder and it was next to the front door. It didn't even groan. As a smaller box, I would imagine the 110 will be even stronger?

I've never understood the full story on this - I know the movie shows Nate trying to play it on his back as per the legend, and I have seen the amazing footage of Jamerson playing it live, but I thought the original recording was Bob Babbitt? I haven't tried listening to it originally, but last time I listened I thought the original sounded more Babbit-esque? I thought I remembered Bob trying to claim it on another clip, but maybe he was referring to the album as a whole.....I've always been confused on this point.

Might be worth mentioning that if you store lots of it in a poorly ventilated room, it starts to stink badly of rubber petrochemicals We had some in our store at work and I spent 10 mins in there - had a massive headache afterwards for hours....

Weirdly, I'm a meat and potatoes J and P man and don't like boutique basses, but there is something about that wood finish that made my trousers wobble....

I have one and mainly use it in passive mode, but I when I got mine, I thought the range between fully cut and fully boosted was massive, so even a slight turn made a huge difference. I seem to remember someone mentioning a mod where you could change some resistors or caps and reduce the range of cut/boost so it was more subtle, but I never felt the need to do this.

Are you talking treble, or bass clef? To me, as a bass clef reader, the C that most Concert band music plays (my 3rd fret on the A string) and nearest the middle of the bass clef is pitched (in terms of a tuba and other instruments) as a C two ledger lines below the stave. I assume by saying the 17th fret on the G string, you mean the one in the middle of the treble clef? I am terrible at music theory other than being able to read bass guitar music, I just thought it best to post this question for context as it may be confusing the OP as it probably would me. I would call the C two spaces up in the bass clef as middle C, as that it what it means to me (but I know not theoretically right). I think Jakester is suffering from exactly the same as me - what I was trying to say in my edit was that when reading these notes on the fly you always naturally want to fret in the same place - Bb is 1st fret on the A string, C is the third etc, but once the runs get higher, you get to the G string and then have to slide all the way up the string to get the higher ones. Quite often, the best way is to start higher up the neck but on a lower string (i.e. Bb at 6th fret on E string, C at 8th) which means you can keep your hand much more still and get a lot higher. Sounds obvious and simple, but you need to know the whole neck in terms of what notes are where back to front and I don't - although I'm getting better. This is down to my poor training (mainly self taught) than anything else! Most sting bass parts are written for 4 string DBs and there are very few Electric bass parts that go outside of a 4 string range other than a couple that go for low B string notes. My summation is, you don't need a 5 or 6 string for the job, but if you want one, try one!

Hi Jakester, I play in a concert band too. You'll find a lot of older music (i.e. not the latest pop/movie music arrangements) don't have string or electric bass parts at all and you'll end up having to read tuba parts. These are tricky because they're usually an octave lower than where you're use to reading (i.e.several ledger lines below the stave) and you'll have to transpose up an octave (hence people saying the BG is a transposing instrument). I still find sight reading and transposing quaver and faster runs tricky when it's low G and Fs 4-5 ledger lines below the stave, especially when you're in a key of several flats or sharps! We once had a guest MD who was a bass player and told me just to lift all tuba parts up an octave, but I like to pick and choose as I play a 5 and it is nice to make the band rumble with a low C or D note for effect. I would advise trying a 5 as Chris_B said as some of the more modern arrangements even with bass guitar or electric bass parts tend to throw in the odd low Eb or D. Once you learn the neck more. as he also said - it does give you more options for fingering notes without moving when trying to sight read runs etc. My two other tips are: The string bass parts will have a lot of held notes that are intended for arco playing with a bow on double bass. I do occasionally drag my DB out but am not a "bower" so will try to ring the string as long as I can and re-pluck on the first beat of a bar to try and make it a subconscious pulse and less obvious it's not just a constant note. The tuba parts often have string/electric bass cues in them, but there won't be any tuba cues in the string parts. If you have no tuba, you may be sitting resting whilst everyone is wondering why the bass is missing. I often have to keep an eye on both parts in complex arrangements (we rarely have a tuba) as there may be some nice pedal notes in a quiet bit, or a little tuba solo that is not in your part and it needs covering. I don't know why they don't put the cues in, maybe they think such bands will always have a tuba.... EDIT: I would add it is rare that in my experience I have seen for parts to go dead high in concert band music. There are a lot of pieces that seem to sit more naturally with fingering around the 5th - 9th fret, so playing Ebs and F's on the A string around fret 6 and 9 allows you to easily do runs up to high Eb's and Fs, but it's not often?

Ok, so I've just watched the Hootenanny on catch up as I was at a friend's house on NYE and they insisted on not watching TV until the fireworks, then we got the rest of the Madness gig. My observations: It appeared to be a show of two house bands, Jools big band and Rudimental. I preferred the latter, which I am surprised to hear myself say. I really liked the Hot 8 brass ensemble but it sounded like Earl was struggling to fill his Sousaphone with air, the bass seemed to drop/slow at times. I was really impressed with Jess Glynne's vocal tone. Marc Almond reminded me of someone's Dad trying to look cool with a load of hair dye and hoofing it through a karaoke. I still don't like Gilson Lavis' drumming style to the point it bugs me. Why they didn't let Dave Swift play bass but kept Gilson on Chic astounds me. Micky Bubbles is a cliche I shouldn't like, but he does have a great voice and makes it look effortless. I liked the raw energy of The Record Company, and the way they got the crowd going on their second track. I could feel myself switching off whenever it went Boogie Woogie, which this year seemed to be more than ever (every time Jools' band played). I would like to add, before I get shot down in flames, these are only my personal opinions. I don't doubt Gilson Lavis is a much better drummer than I ever hoped to be, but I would have loved to have seen a drummer like Rudimental's get a shot on that gig. I also loved the original Tainted Love by Marc Almond, and I've never attempted to play anything bigger than a trombone, so imagine Sousaphone is quite difficult to play well. I'm sure (and hope) these people are not losing sleep over what I think. In summary, there were a few things I didn't like, but plenty that I did. I hope the show manages to continue in some format, but with less indulgence to Mr Holland's favourite style of music. Having said that, if it was my show, I'd probably use every excuse to play my favourite stuff too...

I watched it assuming it was their attempt at a Spinal Tap or Office thing, and enjoyed it. I thought some of it was a bit odd though - a (I presume) joke where he kept going "don't tell me it's Mum" for ages before saying "it's not your Mum" (cue me laughing) - only for him to go "it's your sister" and mention the untimely death of his sibling. I am still not sure how much of that was real and how much was scripted......probably just how they want it, so good on them.