thisnameistaken

Not any Parliament song I know. Doesn't quite have their ridiculousness about it either. Sorry, no idea.

[quote name='peted' post='239094' date='Jul 14 2008, 12:54 PM']Hey! I find it has quite a nice finger-style tone. It's doesn't have to be a slap monster [/quote] I don't slap my Thumb bass either. Or at least only very rarely and for ironic purposes. I hadn't actually realised that owning one suggests to people that I might be a slapper. That's a worry.

[quote name='Muppet' post='238297' date='Jul 13 2008, 01:32 AM']So my challenge is - what do I need for playback? A computer or a MP3 player maybe or what and does anyone have any tips for getting it right? I have visions of it all going horribly wrong and us all blaming the drummer.....[/quote] A friend of mine used to do this with his band (synths / samples in one track, click in the other), AFAIK he used a rack-mounted DAT most of the time, unless they had new tunes they were still working on, which he'd run from a laptop. Another band I've done some work with would take a desktop Mac out to gigs with them. I suppose whatever you've got will do, so long as it's not in a lossy format like mp3. The big downside of course is that it means the structure of all your tunes becomes very rigid.

[quote name='molan' post='238248' date='Jul 12 2008, 10:52 PM']spend an evening watching appalling "originals" bands playing tuneless rubbish with little or no stagecraft or even basic musicianship or a classy "covers" band playing superbly written songs with serious ability and genuine stage presence that you can dance or sing along to and have a really great evening.[/quote] To make a fairer comparison, would you prefer a great covers band or a great originals band? How about a covers band or a karaoke night? Covers band or staying in and watching a low-budget biopic about The Monkees?

I've never heard of any of the charities. The auctions haven't exactly been high-profile either - it might be that most visitors haven't even seen them.

[quote name='CHRISDABASS' post='237965' date='Jul 12 2008, 02:50 PM']i'd love to actually see where most of that extra tax goes! im sure there's a big black hole (or someone's back pocket)[/quote] MPs need kitchens, it's a simple fact of life. And whatever else they're claiming on expenses that they don't want us to know about. Procurement's always been a huge source of government mismanagement. Defense contracts are the most high-profile waste of money but in recent years another whole arseload of cash has been bunged at IT projects that either never materialised or ran way over budget and still don't work properly. Many of these projects would be of limited value even if they [i]did[/i] work properly. You don't have to look far to see where public money is being pissed away - it's all around you.

[quote name='lowdown' post='237839' date='Jul 12 2008, 10:46 AM']3 - Louis Johnson.[/quote] Shh!

[quote name='ARGH' post='237752' date='Jul 12 2008, 01:44 AM']I was,but an incident at tonights gigs really ,sort of ,flattened me out.[/quote] Was that the bikers or just being in Malton? Malton freaks me out a bit too - the missus' family is from up there so I end up there for lunch most Sundays. It's turning into a proper little BNP town these days.

[quote name='budget bassist' post='237762' date='Jul 12 2008, 02:00 AM']apart from oil being slightly harder to come by, but surely not enough to increase the price of petrol and diesel by about 30% in the last year or less?[/quote] But the price of oil impacts the price of everything else, due to increased costs of haulage. And of course there's the whole side-effect of biofuels becoming more popular as oil becomes more expensive, which pushes up food prices. The other day I heard the only growth area in the British economy at the moment is in frozen foods and freezers - everybody's looking for cheaper ways to eat.

[quote name='YouMa' post='237715' date='Jul 11 2008, 11:45 PM']surely disco had the best bass players technique wise,[/quote] When I was a tiny kid my favourite songs were stuff like Rhythm Stick and 'House of Fun', probably not a coincidence I ended up playing bass... Anyway, when I started listening to the old disco tunes (after Acid Jazz started putting out their first compilations) I crapped myself thinking there was a whole generation of awesome bassists. Turned out they were all either Verdine White or Bernard Edwards. Made me feel much better about it when I realised there was only really two of them.

It's funny, one of the three partners in my business is a sales guy, and it wasn't until recently that we realised just how good he is. Work hasn't slowed down at all yet - if anything we're busier than ever. This is doing web/IT stuff. I've been doing 50+ hour weeks for most of this year just to keep up. All your second hand basses are belong to me.

[quote name='tauzero' post='237446' date='Jul 11 2008, 04:51 PM']So if you were starving and could have a tenner for playing "Mustang Sally" or nothing at all for playing your own composition, I take it you'd be convincing yourself that anorexic was the look that suited you...[/quote] I'd go get a job, tbh. Anyway I'd rather not get into that particular argument again - I've already apologised for last night's outburst.

I still listen to the first two Ben Folds Five records pretty regularly. They wrote some great songs.

I promise not to post on forums any more when I've been out on the lash. Can't say fairer than that. Sorry.

[quote name='ARGH' post='236837' date='Jul 10 2008, 08:00 PM']To be honest Jase,I think Ive fallen out of love with playing.[/quote] Take your bass to bits, replace the pups, replace the bridge, spray it a new colour. Don't pick up any other basses until the work is complete. This should give you at least two weeks of bass-playing-free time, and when you pick it up again you'll find most of those old bad habits are a lot weaker than they used to be. [quote name='Astronomer' post='236879' date='Jul 10 2008, 09:03 PM']I've read through most of this, and there's a lot of issues. I think I can distill all of them down to this: 1. If you're a professional musician, why are you pharting around on the amateur scene?[/quote] Because when music is a "profession", by definition it means you'll play any old sh*te for the money. "Professional" musicians suck the soul out of music, and should be collectively bludgeoned to death by amateurs like myself who aren't willing (note: "able" is not an issue) to play weddings every weekend spewing out whatever sh*te the unwashed masses are eager to consume. I can't believe people can be smug about playing sh*te for a living. I may not make a living playing bass, but at least when I pick up a bass it's not to make money out of it. I still do it for the right reasons.

[quote name='budget bassist' post='236232' date='Jul 10 2008, 12:57 AM']I hate my behringer overdrive pedal for that, it really takes the high end and definition out of my bass and makes it really quiet. If i turn it off it sounds quiet and muddy, and if i turn it's on it's way too loud, so if i turn it down i don't get any decent gain out of it, it's crap.[/quote] Console yourself with the fact that it's a Behringer and at least it was cheap. Try an EHX Bass Micro Synth - £170 and the bypass is the worst I've ever heard.

It's inevitable that you'll lose [i]something[/i] even with true-bypass pedals. You've got more cable to travel down before you get to the amp, and if it's a long run (or a passive bass) you may well notice the difference. You might actually be better off with a pedal that has a good buffer rather than true bypass somewhere in your chain, just to help pump your signal along to the amp.

TBH if I wasn't such a tightwad I'd be running a 2x12 or a pair of 1x12s by now, but it's cheaper and less scary to lug an Ashdown 410 to the gig. Not so nice for my back though, and I am a proper scrawny weakling, so no doubt I'll cave and buy fancy cabs eventually.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='236065' date='Jul 9 2008, 08:57 PM']3. Anyone who calls any of the virtuoso players "unmusical" is severely missing the point. Is it because you're sick as the proverbial parrot that you can't do it yourself? I hear people say the same about Victor Wooten on here & he is unmistakably the most musical bass player I've ever heard.[/quote] When Victor Wooten's grooving he's really, really good, but it seems that within 60 seconds of him doing anything tasteful you can guarantee he'll launch into some bloody awful 200bpm double-thumbing attack, and frankly I think "unmusical" is actually a charitable description of that noise.

[quote name='mr.sibs' post='236093' date='Jul 9 2008, 09:43 PM']where did you get hold of the new shape microsynth?[/quote] +1

I've always sung harmony vox in all the bands I've done. Now that I think about it that's one of two things that all those bands had in common, the other being that they weren't successful... Hmm. Anyway... If you've ever played piano or drum set you'll be familiar with how "weird" it can feel to be playing two different patterns independently. Playing guitar and singing at the same time can be a pretty similar experience, especially the bass+vox to piano comparison, because you'll most likely be playing rhythmic accompaniment with your hands, and a melody with your voice. I agree with the posters above who've said that you need to have the bass part become somewhat automatic, because if you're singing at the same time the singing becomes more important. Everybody's going to notice if your vocal is lifeless because you're concentrating on your bass. If you've got a difficult bass part to play that is often in rhythmic counterpoint to the melody, try slowing it right down to get the notes in the right order. All the way down to 60bpm or lower if you have to, just to get used to the way it feels when you get it right. Once you've practised it super-slow for a while, that rhythm will begin to feel natural, and you can start to speed it up a bit. I remember practising [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-EeZRBStMNQ"]Love Cats[/url] quite a lot when I first started singing and playing at the same time. I think if you can manage to sing that one all the way through without tripping over yourself you shouldn't have much trouble with anything.