MarkW

[size=3][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]So, I was asked if I wanted to play bass in a production of The Full Monty. “Great!” I thought. A bit of Hot Chocolate, Tom Jones, Steve Harley, Sister Sledge, Donna Summer – I can knock all that off standing on my head, so I said “Yes!”[/font][/color][/size] [size=3][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Then I discovered that it’s the musical production (I didn’t even know there was one) and the score bears no relation to the film whatsoever. I’m going to have to remember how to read dots and everything! Better get practicing… [/font][/color][/size]

Thanks people - wise words and encouragement. Much needed after the week I've had! Have a great weekend all.

A little while ago our band decided to put ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ in our set list. After a bit of practice I’m at the stage where I can often pick up my bass and play it straight through without much difficulty – not as well as NW-R obviously, but perfectly well enough for a pub gig. But then there are just as many times when I pick up my bass and my plucking fingers flat-out refuse to perform. The speed isn’t an issue as they’ll move fast enough on one string, but as soon as I need to move across the strings they just seize up. You know those dreams where you try to run and your legs won’t work? It’s exactly the same thing. I’ve tried various limbering-up exercises and also put in some more regular practice, but I don’t seem to be reducing the frequency of duff performances. Needless to say I’m not going to be doing it live until I get some more consistency, so any advice would be much appreciated. The other thing is that I’ve been recording our gigs, and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by how my bass sounded in the mix. For someone who hadn’t played live for 20 years - or even picked the instrument up much in that time – it sounded really good. I even had a (very drunk) punter come up to me after our last gig and tell me with great sincerity that I was an ‘awesome’ player. Bullshit of course, but still very flattering. And then I listened to the bass track on its own. Yikes! There in glorious isolation was every fluffed note, and every inconsistency in dynamics and tempo. Listening to the band I think I had started to believe that perhaps I wasn’t quite as crap as I thought I was, but in isolation there’s no getting away from the fact that I’m one of the few bass players who can claim to have less talent on the instrument than Sid Vicious. Much, much more practice required...

So, this is what happens when you're bored on a Sunday afternoon with a little boy who loves going through the carwash, a dirty car and a waterproof camera: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PrPcjVCE8c"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PrPcjVCE8c[/url] It was originally just a bit of fun for me and Jamie, but I thought I may as well share it with you fine people. Hope you like it! Mark

Yup. And just after I inadvertently inflict some fatal injury on one of my basses I always stand there staring at it, and thinking 'If I look at it long enough, that won't have happened...'

Ha! Thanks guys, although the tone has nothing to do with me and everything to do with those clever folks at MM. It's a '93 Sterling (forgot to mention that one - sorry!) in pearl blue, which is a sort of dark greeny-blue. Quite nice. And that definitely [b][i]is[/i][/b] all my basses accounted for now! Due to not having played with other musicians for well over 15 years, and my legendary laziness back in the days when I did, I haven't really developed on the bass anywhere near as much as you'd expect from someone who's been at it for 27 years. One of the things I really love about being in a band again is that everyone else is a much higher standard than me, and it's a great motivation to get to grips with the instrument properly. I never thought I'd say it, by I actually fancy having a crack at some jazz. Nothing too taxing (obviously), but if anyone can suggest a nice easy introduction that would be great. Cheers all!

Well just to settle the matter, here's my first (and so far only) YouTube video. I got a Zoom R24 for Christmas, so I thought I'd better try to figure out how to mix tracks together before my first attempt at recording the band! In my defence I'll just say that I had to do this in a hurry because I was supposed to be fixing the bathroom at the time, and my eldest son was just off camera to the left hassling me to build a Lego spaceship with him, so it's not exactly my finest work: [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe4oqm_TLSQ&list=FLZbalcHIca8rpkKuMOKeExg&feature=mh_lolz"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe4oqm_TLSQ&list=FLZbalcHIca8rpkKuMOKeExg&feature=mh_lolz[/url] You can be as rude as you like - our guitarist is a professional musician and regularly offers such trenchant and helpful criticisms as "You're crap", so I'm pretty thick skinned.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. This certainly seems like a nice place to spend some time. As for the [i]P. serratipes[/i] / [i]P. chani[/i] question, err… isn’t one longer and the other heavier? I can’t remember. Oh dear – failed on my first outing! I have a colleague in the entomology department of the Natural History Museum I could ask, if that helps…

[size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Hi all![/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Having made a few posts I thought I’d better do the decent thing and introduce myself properly. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]So, boring bio out of the way first: I’m a 39 year old entomologist/microbiologist working in the crop protection industry, am married to the long-suffering Victoria and have two small boys.[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I’m a classically trained musician (piano and bassoon) and started playing bass when I was about 12, with a £99 candy red Precision copy made by a company called Image. I loved that bass, and would probably still have it if a few years down the line I hadn’t tried to make it fretless. That really didn’t work out too well. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]After killing the P-bass I picked up a second hand Guild Pilot, which I still have. I decided to re-seat the neck a while ago, the pocket for which looked like it had been hacked out with an axe. A few careful passes with the router later and that was another goner. Well, not a goner exactly – it just needs a bit of professional attention to rectify my handiwork. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I also have a Cort A5, which my wife bought me about six years ago and made me promise not to tinker with in any way whatsoever. A few weeks ago I bought a 5-string Clover Avenger, and true to form I’m replacing the pick-ups and scratch-plate, so who knows what will happen there. The existing pick-ups will go into one of my little home projects, most of which are too hideous ever to see the light of day.[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Amp-wise I finally attained my teenage ambition last year and got a Trace Elliot rig. Not the most sensible purchase really, especially considering that the head weighs as much as my 4 year old, but it was a case of finally having a justification for buying something I’d hankered after for 20+ years. And with 1200 trouser-flapping watts on tap I can instantly punish our guitarist at the first sign of any of his widdly-widdly nonsense. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I spent years playing in various orchestras as a youngster, and in addition to the usual teenage band thing I also played bass with a couple of big bands. After a lay-off for a few years due to relocating around the country I’m now settled in North Yorkshire and playing in a busy local band, just having fun. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I used to be found underwater quite a bit, being a very keen diver, but this year I decided to knock it on the head and either spend my spare time with my kids or trying to improve my bass playing. I’m also teaching myself how to record our band, and have had some great advice from folks on here already. Unfortunately I can’t offer you much in the way of bass wisdom, but if you ever need to know anything about insects, you know where to come! [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"] [/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]All the best[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Mark[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='VTypeV4' timestamp='1359596940' post='1957440'] I used a Carlsboro keyboard amp as a bass amp once and that was pretty diabolical. I know it could be argued that it wasn't really fit for purpose but it had no balls and when asked to do a bit of low end, the speaker complained with that horrible paper/flap bottoming out sound. [/quote] Just to make the unmitigated awfulness of my Sound City combo come to life for you, I was playing in a youth big band at the time, and the hiss and tone (or lack thereof) from the thing was truly unbearable. In the end the conductor went out and bought a Carlsbro keyboard amp, which whilst still being crap, was a MASSIVE improvement. This has brought back some painful memories. I think I have to go and stroke my Trace Elliot rig now…

My first was my worst - a 50W Sound City combo in the mid 1980s. Hateful thing.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1359139001' post='1950686'] To me,none of the players listed in the OP,qualify as being particularly 'great'. [/quote] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I guess that’s a subjective point dependent on your individual abilities: compared to me they're all great. But then to be honest, compared to me Tony Newton from Expert Village is a bass god. [/font][/color][/size]

Moves Like Jagger. I'd rather shoot myself in the testicles than play that ever again. B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, E, E, E, E, E, E, E, E, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B... etc.

For me it's the Roland G-77 and those Hohner headless monstrosities. Yuk!

[size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Maybe you don’t want anything too spacious: I have by far the biggest car in our band (a Volvo XC90, bought mainly for carting a load of dive kit around) which means that in addition to my gear I also get to cart the PA and lighting rig around, and store it all in my garage [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]It’s a great car – ultra comfy, and with the back seats folded down it’s cavernous, but the mpg is a shocker [/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1355744452' post='1901993'] It's shaping up to be a BC Brum Meetup! Anyone else in the area or planning to come along? [/quote] How could I not? This is the guy who was responsible for me picking the instrument up in the first place back in 1985! Ticket ordered, and properly excited!

Now there's a thought - lightscribe does look nice, especially on coloured discs. Have the drives got faster over the last 5 years or so? The reason I moved over to inkjet-printable was because the LS discs took soooooooo long to do!

What would people recommend in terms of inkjet-printable discs for recording audio? Haven't done this for ages - I just bung everything on my iPod, but if we're handing out CDs we may as well get decent ones!

[size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Many thanks for all the replies folks. After a lot of deliberation we have made a decision.[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]I s[/font][/color][/size][size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]hould perhaps have mentioned that the demo CDs aren’t for anything fancy – just for the few venues that have asked for them prior to booking us, and also for our own use. We’d like to be able to record our rehearsals and gigs well enough to use as practice aids (I’m still not 100% sure what we sound like live to be honest – all I could hear at the last gig was the drums and keyboards, so I guess we need to address our monitoring as well).[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Apparently the drummer has a full set of mics, and I’ll take a look what sort they are when we’re next gigging on Friday. I liked the look of the Red5 Audio set Simon – seven mics for £160, and one of my friends also uses them and rates them pretty highly. If we need to buy new it’s not going to break the bank. If memory serves we have an SM57 to mic the guitar, and I think the two vocal mics are probably the same. Again, I’ll check on Friday. [/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Our thinking is pretty much along the lines Simon suggested: we’ll see the R24 as a convenient starting point on our learning journey, and try recording track by track as well as having a crack at some live stuff. When we outgrow it in a year or two we’ll hopefully have enough basic knowledge to make an informed choice on the next step (the RME Fireface 800 or the MOTU 896 both look like class kit, but they’re quite a bit over our budget at the moment).[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Thanks again guys, and who knows – I may even post one of my efforts on here for feedback![/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]All the best[/font][/color][/size] [size="3"][color="#000000"][font="Calibri"]Mark[/font][/color][/size]

The budget is about £500, and we already have a couple of decent mics and all the cables we're ever likely to need. One of the things that drew me to the Zoom R24 was that it can be used as a DAW controller: using a mouse to move sliders is apparently a right PITA!

Hi all For no reason other than that I am the youngest, I have been given the task of recording our band for demo CDs and our website. I’ve never done this before, so any guidance from some of you more experienced folks would really be appreciated. We have guitar, bass, drums, two keyboards, and vocals - one lead and 2 or 3 backing (depends how hard I need to concentrate on the bass part). I’ve done a little research and either the Zoom R16 or R24 look like they might be good choices: both have great reviews, are within our budget, offer simultaneous recording on 8 tracks, operate as DAW controllers and come bundled with Cubase. At the moment I don’t think the R24 offers any major advantages over the R16 for our purposes, but on the basis that we only want to buy this gear once I’m wondering if it might be an idea to buy the higher spec machine in case we start getting more creative at a later date. Any views? My initial thinking was that I could take the line out or DI output from the guitar, bass, keyboard and vocal amps and run them straight into the Zoom, one per channel. I’m guessing the DI approach gives a cleaner signal (i.e. no other instruments getting picked up on the track), but I have read that miking the speakers gives a more natural sounding result. Are there any pros and cons of each approach? And if I mike the speakers what sort of microphones would you recommend? I see that some are designed specifically for bass drums, but are there also some better suited to guitar or bass? And what’s the best way to mike a drum kit? One for the bass drum and a single overhead? Apologies for all the questions, but really grateful for any advice. Cheers Mark

Fantastic - BP looks like just what I need for practising. I mentioned Cubase because I've been thinking about investigating a DAW for a while now, and from what I saw it looked pretty good. Cheers guys.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1354660272' post='1888949']Just out of interest,why are you re tuning after every song? If you play a song in a different key than the recording,learn it in the required key as well as the original. Transposing is a very important skill.[/quote] Just a time issue really - they gave me a list of 46 songs to learn in about six weeks, and I had to try to fit practice in around work. That takes enough of my time as it is, but I’ve been travelling a lot over the last few weeks so it all ended up being a bit hectic! Cheers Mark

Cheers guys. I hadn’t thought about adjusting the track pitch rather than fiddling with the bass signal – duh! Would Cubase Elements be an option? Only reason I ask is that I know a Cubase user who could give me a crash course when I return from my travels. ATB Mark

Season’s greetings one and all from a new member. After a long hiatus I am just getting back into proper bass playing (i.e. with more than my kids for an audience) and am absolutely loving it. I played my first gig in 20 years on Saturday – four hours solid and still they wanted more! Unbelievable. Gear-wise I have a ’94 Musicman Sterling (my workhorse bass), a Cort A5 and a Guild Pilot of unknown vintage. All go through a Trace Elliot AH1200-12 and 1015H. Anyway, reason for post: Being as out of practice as I am I spend a lot of time jamming along to our set list, and was wondering if there was any electronic gizmo out there that would allow me to change the pitch of my bass without re-tuning. Some recordings are less than a semitone out, and others we do in completely different keys. Re-tuning between every song is a bit of a pain, so if there were some simple way of matching the pitch it would be fantastic. And if there are multiple options, which would you recommend? Many thanks for any suggestions folks. All the best Mark