SteveO

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='557411' date='Jul 31 2009, 09:29 PM']Now with added illiteracy ...[/quote]
Spelling 'My' as 'Mij' is fairly common amongst dyslexics of course he's not necessarily dyslexic, misht just be a lazy t**t. 2 B fair it cld B wrs. at lst e's usng reet prppr wrds*


*It was a pittiful atempt at txtspeak, I know. I had to use an online translator.

What can you do? If you demand they pull the gig the band (and you) will get a bad rep. If they go ahead then at least the promoter will apreciate that you guys will make an effort and adapt to come up with the goods (and I'd really really let him know how much trouble the band's gone to to fulfil the gig.)
Personaly I'd wish them well, hoping that it's a good gig (good entertainment for the audience = more work) yet not too good for the rest of the band (i.e. hard work to play with the dep so they'll be less likely to do it again)

I'd have a word with the guys and give them a load of tips on working your set with a dep... along the lines of 'give him a nod here, here, here and here so he can cope with the changes' even if it's all bull then if the gig goes well you can claim it was down to your preperation. Weren't you good to do that for them? aren't they lucky to have you etc.etc.

[spellin edit]

[quote name='TimR' post='552016' date='Jul 26 2009, 08:49 PM']The drummer is the metronome of the band. Always move to follow the drummer. Guitarists and vocalists can be miles out and a lot of the audience won't notice. The bass and drums have to continue driving together, especially if te audience are dancing.[/quote]

+1 Absolutely. This is what people mean when they say that guitars and vocals are easier to play than the Drums and Bass. It's also what makes the ability to keep time worth infinately more to a bassist than being able to widdle all the way up and down the neck like lightning. I'd go further and say that Vocals and lead guitar HAVE to wander around the beat (within reason of course) in order not to sound too straight and stodgy. The bassist golden rule is to keep locked with the drummer at all times.

[quote name='The Funk' post='540812' date='Jul 14 2009, 11:32 PM']You can pull chicks from playing bass? [/quote]
Oh yeah!

JV's are becoming very, very collectable. I borrowed one when I moved to Norway, and was subsequently given it by the very kind owner. After reading up on them a bit it appears that Fender shipped loads of bits out to Japan for assembly when the Squier range started, so the JV series were essentially Fenders put together by people who could put them together properly. I think the people buying them are asking themselves how much they'd pay for an '82 Fender without the worry about their dubious quality controll.

Last year I nearly sold mine to [b]OldGit[/b]. We didn't get as far as talking money as it's a hell of a lot better bass than my other (CY) Squier and I decided to keep it as the backup bass, but then the market was about £450. I saw one go for £650 in December and one went for Kr 8000,- recently over here (about £800), so £900 appears to be pretty consistent with the trend.

Good luck with the sale mate, I don't think you'll have much trouble getting 900 notes for it at all.

[quote name='agoulding' post='538607' date='Jul 12 2009, 05:53 PM']this aswell.

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/bugera_btx3600_nuke.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/bugera_btx3600_nuke.htm[/url]


3600w anyone?[/quote]
I think Bugera are a Behringer offshoot. My Behringer cabs also have Bugera badges on them at least. IMO they're probably destined for the cheap and nasty end of the market, but as I've said many times my Behringer rig works fine for me, but don't believe for one second that those figures are accurate.

[quote name='lowdown' post='538301' date='Jul 12 2009, 10:44 AM']But when they get to 4 years its even tougher! [/quote]
And when they hit their teens...

Seriously, congrats with the birth of your son and welcome aboard.

I read somewhere that the 'frown' eq is the most useful for live work to fit in with the rest of the band. If I remember correctly the thinking was that high frequencies were being covered by guitarists so cutting these will seperate the bass from guitars to stop them both becoming muddy, and cutting the low freqs was to stop the same hapening with the Bass drum. IMO it's just a generalisation and as such will be ok if you don't have much time, but it's not as good as EQing to the venue. My only tip is to EQ with everyone else playing i.e. at soundcheck and talk to the rest of the band. You don't want to boost to fill a gap in the bands sound to find that the guitarist has also boosted to fill the same gap. Wireless systems make it easy as you can go FOH and hear what you sound like. Of course if you're at a decent sized gig then the sound guy will sort out all that and you just have to worry about the stage sound.

Hmmmm. I've always known that my action was a little on the high side, but never bothered to measure it. TBH i've never been that fussed about fine tuning my bases... as long as the intonation is fine and there is no fretbuzz than I'm good to go. However after reading through this thread I think I'll drop one of them to 3millish to see how much of a diference it makes. Currently the Yamm is set at 6mm, P1 is at 7mm and P2(main bass) is at 11mm!

Many moons ago I got one of Thomann's cheap semi acoustic basses. I was working in an acoustic project in which we just couldn't get my electric bass sound to fit properly, and I thought it was worth a try. For that task it worked really well, but (as reported in earlier posts), the unpluged sound was terrible, not much louder than an unpluged electric bass. IMO i'd advise her not to bother, and to just get used to plugging in. (it's not that much of a chew now is it?)

Apologies for hijacking this thread, but I've ocasionaly played the acoustic against an acoustic guitar (late party, bonfire in the garden, etc etc) and found it terribly wanting, needing some serious digging in to get the level up (I'm talking about grabbing the string with thumb and forefinger and snaping it onto the fretboard to be heard!) Has anyone got any suggestions? My current thoughts are: 1) get hold of a double bass (not very practical for campfires). Or 2) try out a Mariachi bass (one of those huge jobbies usually seen in mexican combo's) Has anyone tried one of these Mariachi's? is it likely to be loud enough? I know I could search the interweb, but I'd rather hear of any experiences of you lot - i.e. people who's opinion I trust (well, a bit more than the stuff on the interweb in general)

[quote name='dlloyd' post='520170' date='Jun 21 2009, 08:03 PM']They don't play all notes equally well. Nor does a Bb clarinet (for example) sound the same as an A clarinet or (God forbid) a C clarinet.[/quote]
+1. The difference is subtle, but noticable. I play trumpet and can immediately tell if someone is playing a concert pitch A note on a Bb or C trumpet. I don't play Clarinet but the feel of a piece is distinctly different depending on which you choose. (although when lost in the orchestra it matters little.) it's all down to resonances and fundamentals.

[quote name='Eight' post='520037' date='Jun 21 2009, 05:30 PM']Granted.

But learning music theory is much easier if you start at chapter one and work your way from there. Not by jumping around topics and trying to pick up concepts you haven't done the ground work for.[/quote]
+1 here too. I understood most of the OP, but I already know it The problem with music theory is it's like language grammar theory. All of that 'i before e except after c... oh and except in these cases... and these... and these... ' It gets massively confusing very very quickly. Kudos to the OP for having a go at trying to explain it all, but I'd recomend anyone to start at chapter 1 of the first AB music theory book and work through them. Very soon you'll be able to recognise which context 'minor' (and all the other multiple-meaning words) are being used just as you can tell in which context the word 'they're/their/there' is being used when someone is talking to you.

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='521132' date='Jun 22 2009, 09:44 PM']So I'll keep droning on and hopefully get people to reply, even if these discussions aren't for everyone.[/quote]
Please do. It's all good stuff, and whilst this particular example didn't open any doors for me I'm sure that It may have helped some people.



... and it beats talking about which brand of roundwound strings is superior to the others

[quote name='skillbass' post='520788' date='Jun 22 2009, 03:46 PM']Hi,

New to this site and just wanted some tips on gettin better at the bass. I am 15 and already pretty good. I would say I am as good as most pros and me dad sais i am the best he has heard. I am looking to get some session work soon, my dad knows some people he sais.

Anyone have any tips for someone starting out playing bass proffessionally?

P.S. I only want to play pop/country stuff.

Cheers,

Zak[/quote]
Deffo shenanigans. It's either from one of our regular japesters, or from the disenchanted finnbass crowd, and not a very good windup at that. Grow up people.

where's my broom?...

Don't stress it. If your stage sound is right for you then you can stop worrying and get on with the show. The house sound is the responsibility of the sound guy. If people say it's crap then find another one who knows what they're doing, they're ten a penny anyway. (wannabe musicians the lot of them. should take the time and effort to learn to make music, them and the MC Discmasterjockeys out there. what's clever about playing a record? my granny can do that. [size=1]grumble mutter mutter[/size].)

Personaly I don't bother with spending time/money on the stage sound. As long as I can hear what I'm playing then I'm happy as larry knowing that all the trouser flappery is happening 10 feet in front of me, but then again our sound guy is a bassist and knows what kinda noise i'm after

[quote name='clauster' post='520393' date='Jun 22 2009, 12:35 AM']That sytem freeze rate makes your PC 60 times less stable than my PPC Mac - One freeze in five years

Regarding the quality of the onboard soundcard - it's all comparative isn't it? With a very cheap A/D box and a couple of DIs, I get two channels of relatively noise free 16bit 48Khz recording with a latency in single figures and my mac only cost £599 - nothing wrong with that. Okay, it's not going to give me the results that a Protools HD rig in an accoustically treated environmet with decent monitoring would give me, but I doubt your system will either.[/quote]

That freeze rate of once a month is for my mac as well as the PC. One freeze in 5 years is good going for your PPC though, I don't think any of my macs have lasted that long. I just wish that it was as easy to recover from a system freeze on the mac as it is with the PC so that i don't loose any work in progress, but such is life with computers I suppose.

I must have my wires crossed, I thought you were saying that your onboard soundcard was up to the task. I didn't realise you had an A/D box. I'll blame it on tired eyes not reading your post properly and offer my apologies.

Ultimately though pc's and macs are essentially the same. They use the same processors, they run the same software (yes, i know some software isn't ported over from one platform to the other, but all the decent stuff is), they interface with the same hardware, they just have different OS's. I am a fan of the mac OS, I just wish they weren't so bloody expensive, I hate the feeling of being ripped off.

I suppose the real point is that I don't think it's worth investing loads of cash on a mac just for this task. If niceguyhomer has one then great, if not then he can get into the world of digital recording and mastering for £0-£50 using his PC rather than spending £600-£700 for a similar spec (i.e. entry level in the world of audio recording) Mac based system.

[quote name='MythSte' post='520046' date='Jun 21 2009, 05:42 PM']Oh, and [b]even if you have a crappy[/b] spec PC just download and give reaper a whirl before you spend too much on a mac, might quench your thirst without draining your wallet[/quote]

There you go , fixed it for you.
You really don't have to spend much cash as even the free stuff is massively more powerful than you need. I recently bought Cubase 4 and sold it within a month as I don't think i'll ever use any of the extra features over and above those in Cubase SE that I got free with a box of cornflakes. I'm personaly not a big fan of Garageband - purely because I learnt using Cubase and fruityloops, and when I had a go at Garageband I found it far too restrictive, it felt a bit too much like my hand was being held if you get what I mean. Saying that, if all you want to do is record multiple tracks and then mix them all down then Garageband does that pretty well. The really important things to consider are: what mic(s) will you be using and what DA interface will you be using. It goes without saying that a crappy condenser mic through your laptop's mic socket is gonna sound terrible, even with 10k's worth of DAW sotware running, but record with a half decent mic through a half decent interface and you can't go wrong.

I'd also suggest getting a copy of [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245612358&sr=8-1"]this[/url]. It'll be the best tenner you spend.

[quote name='clauster']You can achieve the same results with a PC but you will need to spend more time (and possibly money) to get it up to speed and keep it stable.[/quote]
Sorry mate, but i'd disagree. My macbook was about twice as expensive as my pc and all the audio hardware / software on it (i'm not including sibelius here ) it's about as stable (maybe one system freeze per month) and if you are really saying that your mac's onboard soundcard is up to the job then I'd suggest getting the doctor to look at your ears

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='519932' date='Jun 21 2009, 02:26 PM']Gotaa be fairly careful with bands that Shockwave links to, not uncommon for him to be in them.[/quote]
Nah, I've seen pictures, I'm 70% sure that's not Shockwave.

God that was terrible. Not sure what language she was singing in, could only understand the 'Down down down down da da down' bit. Not that I've anything against singing in a different language, over here we get stuff from all over the world, it's just that with the total reverb overkill I couldn't tell if it was english with a bad accent or Romanian. The bit that really made me laugh the most though was that as the intro went on and seemed to be about to burst into a huge chorus with loads of screaming guitars etc, it ended, and I realised that it hadn't just listened to the intro but to the entire song.

Reminded me a lot of that band that shockwave linked to a few months ago... hold on... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtopic=44658&view=findpost&p=442346"]here it is, the shaggs[/url]

The only sad thing is if someone has signed them up to a label in preference to a band that likes to have a bit of music in their songs.

[quote name='paul h' post='519364' date='Jun 20 2009, 04:13 PM']If you can play what you want to play and achieve what you want to achieve on the instrument it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether you use your middle finger, a slice of sponge cake or a Fiat Panda.[/quote]
true, but you might be inclined to suggest he would find it easier if he used a lighter car, or no car at all.

Give the middle finger a go, what have you got to loose. I recon you'll open up a whole vast arena of posibilities that you were struggling with before.

[quote name='Bay Splayer' post='519083' date='Jun 20 2009, 09:59 AM']i do not use the middle finger of my fretting hand [b][color="#000000"]at all[/color][/b], anyone else here the same?

my brother (a guitar teacher) reckons i should

i reckon.....as i am a fairly competent player.....then....if it aint broke, dont fix it [/quote]
Eh? what? how???? are you just playing in the box all the time?

I only use one finger of each hand to type and that doesn't cause any major problems...

[quote name='Tinman' post='504655' date='Jun 3 2009, 01:33 PM']Flyboys??????? I'm groundcrew, not one of the trained chimps we put in the cockpits [/quote]

Ooops. sorry, didn't realise you were a bit touchy about such distinctions. Should I refer to you as 'groundboy' then Pete?

[quote name='Tinman' post='504461' date='Jun 3 2009, 09:39 AM']If we'd landed where we were supposed to, there was a good chance that I'd have had to declare it......I was lucky.[/quote]
Good break there then. I always thought that you flyboys got around all that beurocracy. I suppose things have changed since my grandads time though

OT... here's a thought, if say someone was to take a £10 piece of ebay firewood and come back with something rather special, would the customs people cotton on?

[quote name='Tinman' post='503988' date='Jun 2 2009, 05:04 PM']So I was in the States and stumbled across this in Guitar Center. I just had to bring it home [/quote]

That's one way of avoiding those pesky import duties
Was gonna suggest you start Tinmail (for a commission of course) but if there's a risk of it being kicked out mid-atlantic then this is maybe not such a good idea.

Life's sh*t sometimes yorick, but there's always a gig if you look around. Go to it!

All this reminiscing reminds me of the last time I had to tell someone they were sacked...

Was at the house of a friend of a friend, I mentioned I play bass (as you do) and was asked to dep for a gig. It was all MOR stuff, nothing too taxing so I agreed. It went well but after the gig I was approached by the ex-bassist bitching about me pinching his place. Apparently no one bothered to tell him that he's sacked and was a little pissed off when he went to the pub and saw his band with a new bassist. It probably doesn't come as a supprise to hear that I politely turned down the offer of a permanent spot.

Blimey, only just noticed this thread. Less than one month from first post to arriving in NZ. That's pretty good going. probably beats parcelfarce's record.
Anyway, I would have wished you bon voyage but as you're already there then I won't . Glad to read that you made it over relatively painlessly, and good luck with the jobhunting.
Steve

[quote name='Alun' post='496868' date='May 24 2009, 10:53 PM']My Cort Curbow ( factory fitted Bartolini Mk 1 humbucker and Fishman preamp) has developed a strange random fault. Every now and then it will develop a loud "sizzling" buzz which, if I turn the volume pot down and back up, disappears. Sometimes there is a small "pop" as I turn it down. I can't find any obvious loose connections so any thoughts? Dry solder? Dodgy pot?

Cheers
Alun[/quote]

Sounds like a dodgy pot, in which case [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=25340"]this[/url] works wonders.