cytania

Even once you get the habit I find it just takes an interrupted practice and you'll be cursing the next morning when you see the cable still in. I'm sorely tempted to get my Ibanez SRX400 rewired as passive, particularly as both pots are real crackley now...

>Unless the amp had a fault< Most likely. > Were you going direct to the amp with a single cable? No boxes in between?< Yep, I live a pedal free life, changed to my spare batteries, used the spare cable too... >Were the speakers fukt?< Possibly, although my guess would be input-stage of amp or interconnect cable. >play relatively quietly< Nope, not getting you there... strange concept... ;-)

I am now resolved that no matter what I'm going to take my SWR amp and BFB cab to all rehearsals from now on. I know studios provide a bass setup but some are so manky! Last night I was only able to get a sound by taking out the batteries on my bass and setting the dratted Trace's input-stage almost to zero. I spent most of my time overplaying to compensate and inject some zing into the dead/distorted sound and still couldn't be heard... Of course the guitars didn't notice much was wrong but our drummer knew things sucked. Should have got it switched but that room's regular bass amp was being repaired, so this was clearly the studio's stand-in dog :-( I used to think studio amps were an education, you can see alot of past makes and models. However even when the bass amp is decent it can take plenty of time getting used to the controls, working out which are mute switches the previous band helpfully left on etc. So now even if they have some all tube wonder lined up I'm going ignore it and roll my own...

Which Ibanez Youngie? Bridge and Neck pickups will always vary somewhat. Could be so you can blend the sound. Or could one be a blend control? Was there a 'Boom!' tag under one originally?

>So it may have been a tin badge of some sort? Long gone now though. Just the holes left. What a strange thing to do to a guitar!< Australian maker Maton still applies a discrete badge between the neck and pickup that bears the model number. Also Tokai comes to mind for applying a small numbered oval silver sticker to the base of the back of the neck that indicated price in thousands of yen in the 70s. Germans have a thing for 'stocknagel'. Little tin badges sold by alpine resorts to go on hikers walking sticks. Could have been similar?

I remind myself how I don't want a Ric, how old ones are knackered and over-priced, how the glassy neck feels all wrong... and then KT Tunstall's 'Suddenly I See' comes on the radio and the GAS is all back again!

He's also a martial arts master in his own right and Bruce Lee's top biographer. I think the new book is the 2nd or 3rd one he's produced on Lee.

Seeing alot of very purist devices here but I would recommend a pod with some form of tweaking. Pure sound is all very well but it can be frustratingly dead. Being able to up gain, add a smidge of reverb, a smidge of compression, etc makes practice more real and fun. By Behringer V-Amp is just the guitar version but I find the Fender Bassman simulation pretty decent with both my basses, just dirty enough IMHO.

You anticipated me correctly Jack. Song choice is crucial. Alot of standard's are particularly forgiving, voice and chord change in unison, lyrics proceed uniformly. Standards are fine but once you get into songs you can sing and want to sing you find new obstacles, lyrics that suddenly sprint, chords that change ahead or behind a signficant vocal part etc. Stuff I've been up to recently is with acoustic 6 string guitar not bass but it's ruffled my thoughts enough to realise that singing and bass playing will take work on both fronts. Glenn Matlock advised bassists to sing along with the words in a recent interview. You can see him do this in vintage Pistols videos. Good advice, it keeps you locked into the song and you don't get lost grooving and miss parts. But he's not miked, it's not singing to push the tune forward. What I've been finding recently is just like with bass playing, where I had to make sure I was pushing the song forward not riding the drumbeat, I need to make sure I'm not simply intoning over a guitar sequence. If anything a strong vocal with a simple finger-picked line underneath beats wobbly singing over bashed out chord strumming, no matter how energetic. With songs and bass there is a matter of if the vocal changes and bass parts marry up at all. Some basslines are really quite isolated from the main song. They muscle along nicely, in fact they're like a voice in their own right but they don't tally with the main vocal. No wonder it's a tough act. I'd appreciate your selection of songs that do work well for bass and vocals Jack. Could help me alot. Ta.

I had been frustrated at not being able to play bass and sing at the same time when I thought I could do it with my acoustic guitar... Well a few weeks ago I did a singers night at a folk club. No big disasters but alot of learning. I've been reassessing the songs I thought I could sing ever since. I now seem to spend alot more time working on my own right pitch and right phrasing of the words than I ever did before. Completely changed my working songbook. Songs I thought were duff are now my easy-starters, songs I though I had nailed I realise are just too rangey for me. So my tuppenceworth to the singing/playing bass debate is that singing chops need sharpening too. At least for myself...

Only one answer, he stubs it out on the jack socket and uses it as a plectrum. By golly this is musicianship at a high level...

JPAC, key thing is learning the ways in which salvage a song from going wrong. Things happen on stage, the singer knocks you, a stand falls over, the drummer flings a stick. Part of the bass job is to find the beat and keep plugging away, no matter how simple. So you can't work out a fiddly bit, develop a simple bit you can just attack impressively. In practice don't let a mistake derail you, make sure you get back in quick just like at a full band rehearsal. Make sure you are generating the energy of the song not just merely keeping up. Takes alot of doing to be horribly ahead of the beat, if you are making those chord changes just a fraction ahead of the guitars you are in the right place.

Not found anything as amusing elsewhere. Got to hand it to Ibanez they've gone for taste free fun this year.

Like Oliver North on Fox it's sort of boring too. Dean do this sort of thing better.

Yep Ibanez have banned good taste (no more Sakura black) and gone for ectoplasmic graffitti.

OK so Ibanez's website makes it tricky to link but check out their Spring limited edition JetKing.

So I'm struggling with phrasing. Two instruments I always think of are congas/bongos and tuba/trombone, and it helps. I've never played any of them but thinking about the sounds they make helps me remember my bass playing should be percussive and expressive in a way unlike twangy guitar. When I think congas I pat the string more, when I think tuba I make the string rasp more like a brass player's lips would.

Get Ed Friedland's 'Blues Bass' book, unlike the rest of his Hal Leonard series it has actual real songs in it and he really knows this subject. Be careful not to think 'ah this is easy stuff' getting the tight feel and keeping repeating the blues groove is hard (Pinetop Perkin's version of Kidney Stew lasts over 7 minutes).

Twenty first century bass.

You want to look through what they want to play and find a simply root noter. This should give them an early idea of 'I can do it'. The other thing is to show them breaking a song down section by section, figuring things out. Bassists aren't spoilt for tab so being able to take stuff apart and fake a bit is part of the skill. Finally if you've got any drum loops/machine/PCM metronome show them how to work along to drums without melody concerns, just grooving.

Classic rock bass sound is 'pumpin eigths', you know 'ba-ba-ba-ba-ba'. Sixteenths is double that, a real fast rocker or punk type song. Playing these is actually harder than it sounds, your fingers sort of get bored and deviate. When I started bass I quickly latched onto boogie-lines and other classic rock'n'roll stuff but rock eigths seemed obvious, easy. How wrong I was. Getting that rock style consistent and on-the-beat has taken alot of the last year...

Nothing's best but the most modern bridges are a big improvement on Fender's original turn over a bit of mild steel and attach 3 brass barrels on screws affair. Having said that the light fender bridge is a crucial part of their original sound. Other key thing is through the body or through the bridge end. Some basses give you a choice of sound but it's not vital. When setting intonation be sure to fret the strings with the same touch you'd use while playing. Clamping down can really affect pitch, so can being mister light-touch when setting up when you're actual material is going to be mister hammer-down. Make sure you strings are played in before setting intonation and set aside plenty of time/cups of tea.

What actives are promising is more versatility. This isn't always the case, my Ibanez has a single tone control that just cranks up big balls bass from a natural 60s type sound (PhatEQ in Ibanez speak, look for a 'Boom' tag in store). However on a passive bass the tone control just diminishes making the sound muddy, rarely useful. Active is simply like having a really basic EQ pedal. It boosts the signal if long leads are sapping it and allows you to boost low/mid/high. So scooped and big mids become possible. My Spear S2 doesn't really whack out active so I use it in the passive socket of amps, volume rolled back a bit. Allows me to raise it if the band loudens up. Not really a technology war it's just that those who stick to passive basses never get caught out by a dying battery.

When I bought an electric guitar last I made the mistake of picking a real ultra-clean machine*, real strong sound like a celestial harp. Would have been perfect for playing over ambient new-age stuff, however in a band context it utterly got lost next to a telecaster. Bedroom tone vs. band tone. I reckon all would be electric guitarists should get a cheap pod/multi-effect board and play, get all the silly stuff out yer system. Beware if tone-sculpting becomes your main occupation you should think about getting into synths! Clearly I wanted to retreat from sound-twiddling even more and found bass a blessed release. Getting a good band sound - endless subject. Main thing is for everyone to listen and work for a group sound. Sometimes I've been told to turn down other times I've been told I was the only audible part of the mix keeping a place-marker in the song... *Part exchanged for second bass, would be prog merchants PM me and I'll tell you where it now hangs.

It's an easy call on recording studios, the writing was sort of on the wall in the 70s when the Mobile got going. I feel he's way off on live music though. Discos will persist but I think we've seen the peak of the wave for electronic dance music. Stadium gigs serve a purpose for those who have 'bands to see before I die' lists. Outside those goldfish bowls live music has a vibe you can't get from recordings. A huge number of Youtube clips I've seen have been awful sound and camera wise, fine for punters to say 'Look I was there with my mobile' but unless gigs sprout Greateful Dead style bootlegger zones then I don't expect them to improve. I'm making a promise to myself to seek out more small gigs and open mics this year.