EliasMooseblaster

Have you tried the "bass shift" switch on the front? I tried that a couple of times and went back to having it turned off, as it was too bassy for my tastes - but you and I may have different ideas of "deep" in our heads!

I can't remember the year, but the venue was the grounds of the Tower of London. The headliner was Jeff Beck; the support was Buddy Guy.

It's not that Jeff Beck was bad - he did his Jeff Beck thing perfectly well, his guitar playing was lovely, and the band were really good. But if you're doing an entirely instrumental set of jazzy, soft-rock numbers, it's going to feel a bit flat when the chap before you is not only an original Blues legend, but also just radiates charisma from the second he wanders onto the stage. Guy's performance was still up there with the best of them, but his rapport with the audience was superb. He was engaging, he was funny; his manner was warm and he clearly loved what he was doing. Poor old Jeff managed to mumble a "thank you" into his mic about twice, and that was the totality of his interaction with the audience. His music might have been more technically interesting than Buddy's, but the vastly greater passion and energy of the old bluesman rather trumped the sight of four guys staring at their shoes while noodling away in a much more subdued groove.

That sounds like a pretty solid recommendation to me. In which case, I'd better get along to Tk Maxx before every other Basschatter in SW London gets wind of this advice, and strip the shelves bare like a swarm of bass-playing locusts.

Good god, that's much better value. Now, I have been warned that you have to be careful about the type of lemon oil you wipe on a fretboard - apparently if it's too concentrated it can damage the wood - but judging by the label on that bottle, I assume it's safe to apply to your basses.

I might have to take a trip to my local Tk Maxx - in the meantime, do let us know if your fingerboard shrivels up and falls off, there's a good chap.

22 hours ago, Graham said:

Because of a podcast, I've listened to Danzig IV, V, VI and VII recently and wowser, some of that is bad.

I'll have to go back and listen to the earlier stuff at some point, as I understand that's a lot better.

I went to see Danzig in Brixton last year, and was very glad that most of the set drew on the material from the first three albums. You can probably dispense with everything after those. (Good gig, though!)

29 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Is protesting about lynching people and hanging them from trees... political?

If you could take the song and its subject matter purely in isolation, then I imagine you could make a case for it being apolitical.

Unfortunately, there's too much baggage attached to it, and the context around it. The song was clearly written as a protest against the way black Americans were being treated by the majority of white Americans who held the power - not just the angry rabbles who saw fit to blame the nearest black guy for anything that went wrong in the town, but the authorities - local, federal, governmental - who turned a blind eye to the fact this was happening.

When the song was released, Holiday experienced a furious backlash from white record label execs and commentators, who were utterly livid that she should sing about such a thing (their point being what?, you wonder - "Yes, we know this is going on, but don't tell people it's going on"?). One of the other well-known versions was recorded by Nina Simone, who was a very active and outspoken supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. And if it's not clear from her associations, it's clear from her chilling performance that Simone had a point to make when she sang it.

So whilst it may not political in the sense of party politics, and whilst it may not have been as much of a turning point as Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus, it's definitely a bit of an "event" in the story of America's racial tensions.

Ironically, I think the best solution for @AdrianP is going to be the same consensus that we reached on a thread about Conferedate flags a couple of years ago. Which is to say: err on the side of caution. There's an argument for saying that it might be timely to revive the song, but with all due respect to your band, I don't know whether a mostly-white covers group at The Trout and Kettle Plug are the most appropriate people to undertake that job.

On 26/01/2020 at 12:23, rubis said:

Mmmmmmn, how right you are, I wonder if they will damage to order?

 

Ah, you'll be after the Roadworn series for that...

12 hours ago, Obra said:

I've never liked the way they look. That PJ combination is like a Frankenstein for me, a ruined perfectly designed P bass.

I can see where you're coming from - they don't look like a "pair," in the same way that they do on a Jazz or a Thunderbird, for example. I've often wondered why P/P didn't become a more popular combination.

On 28/01/2020 at 16:48, dmccombe7 said:

WOW that's bright and jumps off the page at you. 

Yeah, I think I must have got one from a different run - mine has a much more subdued colour scheme, I'm glad to say...

On 27/01/2020 at 08:32, dave_bass5 said:

Just remember not all P basses sound the same anyway, its a case of use your ears to see if you like it. A change of string can make much more difference than having a second pup on the bass and not using it.

^ I'll second this. My Precision copy sounds subtly different from my P/J with the P-pickup soloed, but then the former has a Fender '62 pickup, and the latter has a Duncan SPB-2. Worth noting that the P-pickup is very slightly closer to the bridge on my P/J as well. Next to one another, you'll hear a difference, but I don't think you could listen to either of them and declare that one didn't sound like a Precision.

Not a dedicated headphone amp, but another candidate for the "smaller budget" shortlist is the Hotone B-Station. It's a preamp+DI pedal, first and foremost, but it does have a headphone jack amongst its numerous output sockets. 3-band EQ, compressor, and drive stage built into a small box that will run off a 9V. Doesn't offer as many features as the Zoom, but it is certainly easy to use: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/26141-hotone-b-station-review

Plus it's a DI box, in case you're ever out gigging somewhere without backline, or want a quick means of doing some "silent" recording at home.

15 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

I do t know the science behind it but to me, with my basses and my playing, I like having two Ashdown RM 15 inch speaker cabs. I sold one of those cabs, realised I didn't have as much oomph for function gigs, and bought a 2x10 from the same range.

My drummer said "that's great, 2x10 = 20, which is more than 15 so it should be louder, more cone area." This sounds plausible in words, but not with a bass running through it from my experience.

All other variables being equal, greater cone area would be expected to create greater air displacement. 2x10 isn't necessarily a greater cone area, as the depth of the cone also dictates the surface area. And, of course, other factors such as sensitivity cone displacement can have a huge impact on the overall "loudness" of the cab.

Regardless of overall SPL, the RM 2x10 probably favours different frequency ranges from the RM 15. I've heard some vague suggestions 'round these parts that 10s can often sound a bit mid-scooped, whilst 15s are good at reproducing the lows and low-mids, but don't always get the highs. Not that this is a reliable theory, as a good builder can design a small cab to sound like something much bigger, and the frequency response of the cab can be counteracted with the amp's EQ, to a greater or lesser extent!

But in short, it might just be that you need to push the low mids a bit more on your amp.

If you have an afternoon free, take your amp head along to one of the bigger music shops in or near the capital, one that carries plenty of different cab configs from different manufacturers. You may be amazed by how much two 4x10s from different manufacturers can differ in their sound, let alone two cabs with different driver combinations!

Are you sure it's Manzarek's left hand on the studio version? I can get pretty close to that sound on a Precision with a bit of overdrive, and the tone control opened up to "angry goose" levels.

In a partial echo to what everyone else has said above - it's worth a try! Personally I take the approach that as long as you get a "safe" choice (i.e, R/3/5) firmly on the 1 of each bar, you can get away with being more melodic and colourful through the rest of the bar.

Just as a couple of common examples:

- for a chord built on G7, you can happily walk down the mixolydian mode from the root, i.e., G, F, E, D (R, 7th, 6th, 5th);

- for a Gm | D7 change, walk up the minor scale: G, A, Bb, C | D (R, 2, 3,4 | 5) - the 4th isn't normally a "strong" choice, but it creates a tension which is resolved perfectly by leading you up to the root of the next chord.

Ibanez make a bass version of their famous Tube Screamer. Personally, I find that the TS-9B was exactly what I wanted from a bass overdrive. Most of the other ones I tried seemed to gobble up my low mids; if anything, this one gives them a bit of a boost!

Probably worth adding the caveat that I use mine as a boost for soloing, but I think it's versatile enough that you could experiment with it for more workaday purposes.

Not a local myself, but I did head down to Dereham for three consecutive summers, when Cherry White played their local blues festival. That was always well attended (obviously one has to enjoy blues or blues-oriented music), but I got the impression Dereham was quite lively as far as music was concerned. The Cherry Tree seemed to have a pretty busy programme of live music throughout the year.

On 15/01/2020 at 23:27, Quilly said:

Using this set up at reasonably loud rehearsal tonight.  The amp is a CTM100 through a since discontinued 2x15 Schroeder cab (one of the speakers is at an angle hence it looks smaller than a 215) the cab is rated at 800w, far in excess of what I need but it has a good SPL rating of 103 (if you can believe that specology) anyway amp only up at around gain -5 volume -6.  I was told to turn it down . It has a lovely edgy tone. The ‘mellow’ button made the room vibrate 😂

 

Sounds relatable. The last time I gave my CTM100 a proper workout, it was into my Berg 2x12 at an outdoor gig without any PA support. I was also asked to turn down!

I believe they developed an 8-string in the '70s - John Entwistle played one of the prototypes on The Who's Success Story. Whether it made it to market, I don't know, but I think it was based off the 4005 design. In any case, this sounds like quite an exciting development!

54 minutes ago, basskit_case said:

Later at night, its a little bit loud for home use, could I use a powersoak with this?

How quiet do you need to be? I dare not use mine after Mini-Mooseblaster's gone to bed, as it would wake him straight back up again, but if you've no small offspring to worry about then you can get a bit more clarity at lower volumes by flipping the "bright" switch. It'll never get down to the sociable volume levels of your PC speakers, for instance, but it should be pretty workable as long as it's not right up against your neighbours' walls.

3 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

...there's been an explosion of utter bilge on terrestrial TV over the last 5-10 years, much of it mercifully confined to minor channels such as ITV2, ITVBe, Channel 5 etc? Have the general public become that more stupid or is it a case of TV production companies bunging a load of cheap-to-make sh01te against the wall and hoping some will stick?

I think you've inadvertently answered the question yourself - whereas ITV, Channel 5, etc only had to fill one schedule back in the day, someone at the top of their respective operations clearly felt they needed to expand to remain competitive with other channels. Unfortunately, more channels means more schedules to fill, and a need to try and attract an audience to each of them.

Of course, they could have gone for arty and highbrow content instead, but I presume the same people who gave a green light to these new sub-channels, simultaneously glanced at the viewing figures for BBC Four, and decided that brainless, low-brow cobblers was the way to go...

I'm surprised by the paucity of true "pop" artists in this list so far - does nobody get requests to play Kylie Minogue, for instance?

(I mean, nothing gets a crowd going quite like Where the Wild Roses Grow...)

10 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

7 - Silks on strings. Surely there must be a way to colour code the silks to make the strings immediately identifiable. eg: EB Cobalt flats come in different coloured packaging depending on the guage - why not make the silks the same colour as the packaging? Maybe a combination of colours to give a striped effect could be used to make each set unique?

I believe Rotosound do this, at least to some extent - the "standard" stainless steel RS66s have red silks, whereas the nickel ones have light blue. I've not heard about anybody varying the colour for the gauge of the set, but...

...D'Addario, and more recently Rotosound, put different-coloured ball ends on their strings so it's easier to keep track of which string is supposed to be 1st, 2nd, etc. I wonder if anybody's thought about extending the colour scheme to denote lighter/heavier gauges.

13 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Musicians :

Always somebody's else's fault

"You wouldn't know what it's like because you aren't a musician"

"I struggle for my art" (so much I don't get out of bed)

If they worked on their art 9 to 5 like an office job, their level of musicianship would be a lot higher etc etc...

"Poor me, poor me."

I agree with you - I've seen (and been guilty of) plenty of laziness, and - my god - have I ever seen the above martyr complex writ large! But I wonder whether Andy's situation is one part laziness to two parts ignorance. He mentions that the band are all mid-30s upwards (not that this is a problem in itself), but I have observed that the older some musicians get, the more wedded they become to the "old model" of doing things. Their drummer clearly thinks that if they plough time and money into re-recording one of the songs with extra unicorn dust, they'll be able to waft it under the nose of some publicist or booking agent who'll pluck them out of obscurity and make sure the whole world hears and adores them. Which, as plans go, is obviously cobblers.

But then, our drummer insisted that the only reason we weren't already filling stadiums was that "our show wasn't good enough." I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but he was the oldest member of the band; in any case, he believed dogmatically that if we just quit our jobs and toured more intensively, our fortunes would just magically reverse one day, and we'd rolling in it*. He scoffed at the idea that I was making better progress by pushing it to audiences via social media. When I pointed out that I'd sold more CDs that way than we'd at all of our gigs that year, it obviously stung: he grumbled that perhaps we should stop playing live altogether. A few weeks later, he tuned back into the same old channel and was banging on about how it was high time we quit our jobs and hit the road.

It can't just be an age thing, because I know there are plenty of people on here who are older than him and far more savvy about this kind of thing. But it did feel like there was an aspect of Old Dog / New Tricks about it.

*Also known in some circles** as "The Underpants Gnomes' business model."

**me, when he was out of earshot

14 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

Drummer is now wanting to blame the lack of “production” on the EP as to why it didn’t set the world alight. 

And wants us to Chuck a grand at recording one song. So some guy can say “add some shakers on the second verse, and play acoustic guitar on the intro”.

Your drummer sounds exactly like ours.

Andy, you are completely in the right in this case: the music will not market itself. The "build it and they will come" mentality is a surefire recipe for ensuring that your EP remains ignored. It does not have to be the most "professional-sounding" record for people to listen to it and, heck, maybe even buy it. A fraction of that sum spent on well-thought-out advertising will do far more for the band than retreading old ground in the confines of a more expensive studio and arguing about when the backing vocals should come in.

Get that EP in front of an audience, and use the knowledge and experience gained to improve your next recording. If you can market it well enough, you may even be able to raise some capital to go towards a producer for the next one!