Painy

It's really cool to finally hear a decent demo. I've really got to get me one of these now - it sounds awesome!

Oh you can have those too - you're a millionaire after all! 😁

Thought this might be a bit of fun if anyone fancies joining in. If you were to win the Lotto jackpot, what would your fantasy bass gear shopping list be? Just to set some rules:- All gear must be available to purchase new currently (so no 61 stack knob jazz basses or original Ampeg B-15s) and be available as standard off the peg (so no 11 string triple necks made from sapient pear wood with unobtainium fret wire). Needs to include 1 Bass and one of the following: An Amp head with 1 or 2 cabs. A combo amp (and an extension cab if you wish). A preamp pedal if you'd be going straight to the desk with in ears. To start off, I quite miss my Warwick Streamer Stage 1 5 string and this one on Thomann looks quite pretty. Amp and cabs I'd go for an Ashdown CTM300 and a pair of ABM810 cabs for a nice convenient modular rig as I'd finally be rich enough to afford to pay for a roadie to move it all. 😁

A couple that I always enjoy are Extreme, Get The Funk Out (one of the rare songs that I'll play with a pick) and Thin Lizzy, Emerald. My band has recently learnt Ozzy Osborne, Bark at the Moon which is good fun too and I also learnt Muse, Hysteria a few weeks ago just for fun. None of them are difficult to play as such but they're all busy enough to be interesting.

Ah that's perfect, thanks! I hadn't checked Bass Direct to see them at that price and I use Dunlop rounds so makes sense to give their flats a go. 🙂

I have 2 5-string Precisions so I've decided to do the classic 1 with flats / 1 with rounds thing. Having tried using flats when playing in my band however it hasn't really worked for me in the past so the flats loaded bass would only really be for home use and any dep work I might happen to pick up that calls for it so I'm looking for a cheap option. Elites Detroit Flats appear to be the cheapest 5 string set on strings direct at the moment so I'm thinking of giving them a go. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of them and what kind of tone they have?

Polly by Nirvana. When I was 14 my best mate, who was heavily into Nirvana at the time, had just been given a drum kit for Christmas and decided that we should start a band playing nirvana covers (despite the fact that I didn't play an instrument - unless you counted not quite having reached grade 1 piano when I was about 7 years old). He suggested I try bass as that way I wouldn't need to learn any chords before we could get started. His dad however was quite a decent classical guitar player so worked out and showed him how to play the bass parts for Polly which he then showed me. Its only a very simple bass line but the fact that I managed to play it correctly at the first attempt and with my mate literally only showing me once before I got it, convinced me that bass would be my instrument. It was the first bass line I ever learnt but it wasn't even on a bass guitar as we didn't have one yet. It was an old steel string guitar with only the E and A strings on it and to be heard over his drums we used to shove a cheap microphone in through the sound hole and plug it into his Goodmans twin cassette home karaoke machine. Good times! 🙂

I'm not likely to be travelling West any time soon in afraid but I am in Norfolk (near Fakenham) if you wanted to get it dropped off to me and its not too late to arrange. I can happily hold onto it until somebody else is ready to pick it up for the next leg of its journey. Not sure if that would actually help much but at least once it's here you'd have more time to plan the next stage? Let me know and I can give you the address.

Any visuals of Rush from this era are always automatically hilarious just because of the way that Geddy's hair looks weirdly like he's wearing a Davy Crockett style racoon skin hat.

There are YouTube videos of Mark Gooday saying it's fine to drive the front end into the red. The ABMs are designed so you can get overdrive from the preamp valve if you push it hard enough.

That's an idea. Maybe even experiment under the pickguard. 🤔

I'd love to relic my 5 string sunburst precision but it's my number one and like an extension of me so I'd be terrified that I'd ruin it - especially as its a fairly thick polyurethane finish so I imagine it would really need to be completely stripped and refinished first which, for sunburst, would really need to be done by a professional.

It's a bit of a right hand workout played with fingers too with 32nd notes crossing strings. Great fun though! 😁

It worked out for the band too having now spoken to them. Apparently the other applicant was very good and they were having a tough time making a decision. I'd have felt bad if the other guy had been useless and they were either stuck with him or had to go through the process again but in the end they seemed happy to go with him and to have a positive outcome without the need for any more drawn out deliberation. 🙂

So in a twist... After the audition on Saturday, my current band had our first rehearsal since the start of lockdown and I had something of an epiphany (as in a moment of realisation rather than the brand of amplification). One of the songs that we learnt for the rehearsal and the first thing we played was Bark at the Moon which, while not difficult, is quite a busy song so really needs everyone to be on the money or it'll just sound a mess. We blasted through it and at the first attempt and it was as tight as a nat's chuff and sounded epic. It was a moment were I realised the gulf in quality between my band and the one I was auditioning for. I've actually decided to withdraw from the running as my time with my family is too precious to waste on a project that would ultimately be purely for the money (and not much money at that). It was a fun experience though. 🙂

How about Babymetal?

It's no secret and nobody famous I'm afraid. 😅 It's a band called Retro who were popular around Norfolk and Suffolk back in the day but they were never signed. Ironically it's only now 20 years later that they actually are retro. 😁

Well the audition went pretty well as far as I could tell and I got some positive feedback from them afterwards. They're going to wait until after the weekend before they get together to discuss it as I wasn't the only person they saw but will let me know early in the week. It was good fun and I enjoyed playing something different. All seemed like really nice people too. Truthfully, as a band themselves they aren't really up to the standard of my existing band (which I feel very lucky to be part of) but still pretty decent as far as a side project would go. I'll be happy if I get the gig but not devastated if not. 🙂

Thanks everyone. All taken on board. 🙂👍 I'll let you know how I get on. 😁

My band has yet to book any gigs since the restrictions were eased to allow outdoor gigs and existing bookings for later in the year have still yet to be confirmed. Despite that I'm really happy to be looking forward to a relatively busy weekend by the standard of recent times. On Sunday my band has our first rehearsal since the start of lockdown. We plan to run through 4 new songs and then have a run through the full set in preparation of any gigs that may come up. It'll be good to see my band mates again and I'll get to try out all the new gear that I bought to ease the boredom of being furloughed. Before that though on Saturday, I will be going to my first ever audition as a bass player (I've only ever auditioned previously as a vocalist - my current band has been going for 24 years now and any other band I've played bass for alongside them I've been approached). I'm looking to join a second band to hopefully boost the possibility of getting a decent number of gigs as we move into a brave new world. The band is a female fronted, 90s indie rock band that are reuniting after 20 years - the original bass player having since given up playing completely. On top of the 4 songs I've had to learn this week for my existing band, I've also had to learn 5 new songs for this audition (including harmony backing vocals for all 9 songs). Fortunately I've managed to get all the songs pretty much nailed and with a couple of days to spare to get them polished. Aside from learning the songs properly, does anyone have any audition advice they'd care to share?

Rolls SX21 Tiny Two Way Crossover. I used one in a bi-amp rig that I gigged with for a while and it worked brilliantly. Also happens to be what Billy Sheehan uses so can't be bad. https://m.thomann.de/gb/rolls_sx_21.htm?glp=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwmMX4BRAAEiwA-zM4JrG3cP2utyrzHky1M62W_1u0X0H5GQdZxGtnRczRHzfKhCKN6cLRJhoCK04QAvD_BwE

Well that description hasn't helped my gas at all - sounds like its awesome! 😁 What I have in mind is something that gives me a little more eq control over my CTM30. I love the core tone of the amp but the eq is fairly subtle. It would be nice to be able to make more precise adjustments when swapping between different basses. A demo would be amazing though if you do get a chance, thanks. 🙂👍

I really want to try the OriginAL as I'm curious about it but for some reason there don't seem to be any decent demos online and it's a bit pricey to take a punt on just to see what it's like.

How skint would I be? The answer is obviously that I couldn't be any more skint than Basschat has already made me. 🙄