4000

Terrible news. Never met or had dealings with him, but who will ever forget “MB1”? I’ll also raise a glass to him tonight…

6 minutes ago, Boom Face said:

Thanks for the review. Have you considered getting a local luthier to put the markers in? It'd be cheaper than buying a new bass

This. It’s not a big job. 

1 minute ago, 4000 said:

Jeez. Every time I try to Edit a post it quotes me instead! 🙄

20 hours ago, Old Horse Murphy said:

Very true but I guess the shorter neck helps a bit. 

 

That's a nice weight for a Ric

 All of my 20-odd Rics have been around that weight, bar the first CS I had which was probably nearer 10lbs. My current 2 feel slightly under 9. 

15 hours ago, Nicko said:

I'm not sure about that at all.  Whilst I write and record to enjoy myself a compliment on what I've done is some kind of acknowledgement that what I'm doing is worthwhile.

Well what I said was that’s it’s nice, and it certainly can feel like some sort of affirmation. But personally, as long as I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve (or as close as possible), I really don’t care too much what anyone else thinks. They may have different tastes or standards. Sometimes people love things that I think are terrible (and that includes things I’ve done). It doesn’t stop me thinking they’re terrible! IMO, the only real measure of satisfaction when being creative should be your own; it’s a dangerous thing to start taking everyone else’s opinions into account as no two are likely to be the same.

14 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Hehe! But tbf on our fellow BC'er whose comment you are alluding to, it's massively easier to hear nuances of (pretty much) solo'd bass tone in a "bedroom" environment. Put a full rock band alongside and then try deciding which bass was which in a blind test without being able to choose based on their looks? Hmmm not so sure many of us would easily be able to.

 

Nicely played btw @ped - my vote went to the G&L; it just has a more 'interesting' / richer tone.

 

It does indeed depend on the situation you’re playing in. But personally I think it’d have to be a pretty extreme situation to not be able to hear the difference between the first couple of basses particularly. Even if you didn’t know what basses were being used, I’d be surprised if you couldn’t hear any difference at all.

7 minutes ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

I showed my other half the vids. She doesn't play any instrument, but said "He just strokes the strings. You just attack them" 🤣

Strokes the strings. That’s absolutely me too. Except when I’m intentionally digging in of course, 

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

I've found that how well received the music I write and play is entirely down to how much effort I put in to the writing, recording, performing and promoting, and absolutely nothing to do with how old I was at the time.

 

The most "successful" band I've been in was one that was formed a few months before my 50th birthday.

I’ve found that how well received the music I write and play is is entirely down to the listener’s tastes and absolutely nothing to do with anything else. 😉

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

In the early days when I was gigging I used to get very wound up about things not sounding right on stage and FoH and TBH a lot of the time because of this I could be rather unpleasant to be around at gigs. In the end I realised that it was not good for me, the band and the other band members or for anyone who had come to see us play.

 

These days so long as I can hear enough to know that I am in time and in tune with the rest of the band and can hear any important musical cues to know where I am in the song, I am perfectly happy. As a result I'm much nicer to be with at gigs and an I put on a much better performance, both musically and visually.

I understand that as I can be the same. But that’s not really what I’m talking about. The whole point of making music, for me, is to do it as much on my terms as possible, because I want to enjoy what I’m doing, I want to have it mean something to me. Obviously it’s nice if other people like what you’re doing, but is that what I do it for? Absolutely not. That goes for the writing, the recording, the playing, the instruments used, etc etc. Obviously there is no absolute, nothing is ever likely to be perfect and more often than not it will be anything but; but ceasing to care, or to strive towards what I’m trying to achieve, is not an option I would be happy considering. I’d sooner give up playing and go back to painting. What’s the point in attempting to do something creative if you’re not doing it on your own terms?

On 12/08/2021 at 23:08, OliverBlackman said:

I liked the stingray best. What would be interesting is how different they’d all sound if someone else was playing them because you seem to have a very soft touch ped. I know that if I played the same stingray with the setup I like it wouldn’t be the same.

If you think Ped’s touch is light, you don’t want to see me playing with a pick. 😂

On 12/08/2021 at 17:50, ped said:

I just recorded this clip. I tried for ages to get it so that the song played and the basses switched between as you go through but I gave up in the end. There's a few mistakes and so on but it should give a fairly good idea of how they sound. 

 

 

 

Surely they all sound the same and you just chose them for their looks? 😉😂

The Ray for me by a long way. I really wish I could find a Ray that suits as I really like the sound of them in other people’s hands. 

I can’t believe we’re back to the “they all sound the same” argument. Yes, it is perfectly possible to make very different basses sound similar, and the differences (or lack thereof) will likely be impacted by the person playing them (by some more than others), but certain basses have a distinct sonic imprint and response, particularly doing certain things or in certain registers, which is something often forgotten when doing blind tests. If you can’t tell the difference, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Maybe your ears just aren’t very good, or maybe you just aren’t as interested in it as someone else is. 

And as in the other thread, “the audience can’t tell” has absolutely nothing to do with why I make music….I guess YMMV. 
 

1 minute ago, zbd1960 said:

Over the years I've seen any number of people seriously panic at the thought of turning 30... The shallowness of some people's thinking is staggering

To be fair, fear of the unknown isn’t exactly unusual……and TBH, speaking personally, my life prior to being thirty was vastly superior to my most of my life since, so I wasn’t exactly wrong. 😉

I was terrified of turning thirty as I was convinced that I had no chance of making it in the music industry past that age.  Nothing that has happened in the 27 years since has made a dent in that opinion. 😂

39 minutes ago, ped said:
 

MARCUS MILLER

I’m now hearing that in the voice of Terry Pratchett’s Death. 😂

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I think that too often we over-obsess about minutiae.

 

It's not necessarily a bad thing, in a great studio with unlimited time and budget, but we also need to acknowledge that there are times when no-one cares or will even notice in the slightest except us and it really doesn't matter.

That’s true, but the trying to satisfy myself is, for me at least, the point of doing it. In the scheme of things, most people wouldn’t care whether or not we were recording in the first place, so it’s mostly for our own benefit that we bother doing it at all. 

On 12/08/2021 at 10:59, BigRedX said:

 

But the majority of those minutiae are lost the moment you drop the bass sound into any kind of band mix, unless you EQ the flip out of it.

They’re not necessarily lost when you’re playing it. It’s not just about recording or FOH.

TBH, I don’t really agree with that anyway. I’ve done numerous recordings where I’ve done a separate bass track using each of my Rics, no adjustment to eq, and they all sound different, so I pick the one that works best. 

On 12/08/2021 at 10:08, ped said:

It must be said that the clips aren't particularly well recorded - a limiter is needed big time... but the woody bark from a 70s spacing is clearly the winner 🤣

 

Maybe it's because I listened to a lot of Marcus Miller as an impressionable teen

 

That's weird - my computer autocorrected MARCUS MILLER to all caps!?!

That’s your computer’s version of “HOW VERY DARE YOU!”. 😂

2 hours ago, casapete said:

Tonight (13/8/21) at 7pm on Sky Arts there’s a programme called ‘Mick Ronson by Gary Kemp’. Not sure if it’s been aired before but could be interesting.

Yes it has and yes it was. Mick was Gary’s guitar hero, apparently. 

Lemmy used a Model One on his white Ric for a while, Please Don’t Touch era. 

That’s very interesting. They do sound completely different; I much prefer the ‘60s version. The ‘70s one is the JB sound that I really don’t like, in every instance. 

On 24/07/2021 at 19:16, AndyTravis said:

My mate Martin was in a band with Nicko before the Maiden days…

 

They sacked him “because he wasn’t any good”.

 

 

TBH, as I’ve said before, I don’t rate Nicko at all, so I’d be in agreement.

12 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

Good advice. I'll be able to sit down for the rehearsal and first gig. Maybe not for the second gig, though. We'll have to see.

I sit down for all of them nowadays. But as we have a cajon player instead of a drummer, I don’t look out of place. 😉

Just one thing; tinnitus isn’t always what it seems (although admittedly it usually is). Many years ago I had really bad tinnitus which lasted about 3 or so (?) years. It stopped, more or less (I still have it to a slight degree) when a chiropractor adjusted my neck. I can only assume it was somehow caused by/related to a trapped nerve.  
 

EDIT: missed Hellzero’s comments, which imply a similar thing. 

this ipad has a mind of its own…..🙄