Weststarx

Didnt realise how local you are to me! If you're back this way one day with any band I will come and cheer!

Was it just me or was anyone else scared shitless the way he handled them knowing how expensive they probably are?

People will probably laugh, but for me my favourite bass tone is Mark Hoppus and Blink 182 'Whats My Age Again' and Nate Mendal's in the intro to Foo Fighters 'My Hero'. Both make me want to pick up the bass!

I think it should be a sticky at the top of General Discussion as it works for the photo comp in Off Topic pretty well and its music related and inspires people to be creative. Skol just wants people to get involved and is obviously passionate about it so I don't really understand why people are bashing him for pushing it. If I'm not interested in a thread I don't open it and if it is 'disguised' I move on, I don't understand how people would get irate over it - its the internet, people are going to post stuff you're not going to like or agree with on every website you go on.

[quote name='Mudpup' timestamp='1422201654' post='2669785'] Don't get Fender ones with the white ends, they're pants! [/quote] I've had a pretty good experience with them, all of us in my band use them and not had a problem!

I've never actually tried any of these methods of cleaning the strings, is it actually worth doing or will it just knacker the strings in a different way?

Yeah I would suggest not playing it... If you do play it, go mess around with the guitarists EQ or something or order a round of drinks in!

Rock N Roll!

This is my favourite thread ever!

Yeah I find with bigger bands getting tickets is just a question of luck... I've been extremely lucky to have gone and seen Slipknot last week and also I've been lucky enough to get tickets to AC/DC in the summer. Only reason I got them was because I was sat at the computer at the time the tickets were released smashing the refresh button to try and get in there quickly. I've unfortunately missed out on Foo Fighters, System of a Down and U2 this year doing the same tactic, the big bands sell tickets in the blink of an eye. What really upsets me though is I know there will be about loads of ticket touts that have bought loads of them and I feel there needs to be a law or method introduced to stop this. Smaller/ less known bands I like I can generally leave until the month before the gig to get tickets as they rarely sell out, but I also find that some of the smaller venues have anti ticket tout measures in place. I bought a ticket to see Dave McPherson do his solo acoustic act in Cambridge and your ticket is your ID and bank card you bought the ticket with. Why large venues cant do this I will never understand....

I must admit it really grinds my gears watching bass demos and the player is playing all sorts of fiddly diddly crap when as bass players we are 90% of the time playing basic root notes. It feels like they are trying to impress Victor Wooten sometimes. A proper demo for me is a basic bass line repeated with only the tone knobs being moved around to show the range of tones and whats always a bonus is to see a range of music styles played on it as well.

I'm not one for anything fancy, so an open E when smashed hard with a pick is my particular favourite

[quote name='The Admiral' timestamp='1422386774' post='2672061'] Your post prompted me to listen this and you are right - all over the show. Nicely done, but I can't see it being missed when done live. Pumping out the big shouty chorus without the widdly fills isn't going to be a problem for most audiences. It was played by Flea from the Chilli Peppers on the record, so it was always going to be a nice line. Dave Navarro on guitar too. There is a YouTube video of the isolated bassline for those interested. [/quote] Yeah it certainly is interesting! I guess if you knew your scales it would be easier to just improvise over it

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1422424639' post='2672417'] True story; I remember trying to teach a old girl friend that would come to my shows with me. [i]"I am the guy playing the bass guitar. It's the instrument with 4 strings. Look, you'll see 4 tuning heads. The guitarist has 6 strings, see, 6 tuning heads"[/i] Several gigs later, [i]"What do you play again?"[/i] I'm just sayin. [/quote] I've been with my girlfriend for 4 years and she still asks me that question... I always tell her to go and stand in the toilet and she will notice the bass in there haha.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1422359552' post='2671512'] Sorry missed the 'specific' part. Yes. However, we're doing Boys are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy. That has a pretty stand out walking bass line during the verse. Although, maybe it was only me that thought that because I scat learned it to get by while we trialled it with the intention of fully learning it if we decided it worked. I mentioned this to the other guys and they hadn't noticed and said to keep it as is. I listened to the live version and the whole lot is missing, just root notes. This is due to Phil having to sing and play at the same time. It's always worth listening to a live version of any complex tune. Sometimes a faster, livlier, live version sounds cluttered with a bass line that's too busy. [/quote] I must admit I never noticed the walking bass line in it either... But for me thats a song that I feel nonone cares what the bass player is doing as they are all waiting to sing along to that big chorus.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1422332121' post='2671262'] A musician might notice, a non musician in the audience doesn't even know that your playing bass. Blue [/quote] What Blue said... And like others have said if a song has a distinctive bass line (e.g My Generation by The Who) its probably worth learning but if you're playing anything else I dont think anybody notices or even cares. Bass is a support instrument at the end of the day... I think it also depends on the song and how 'famous' that bass line is...We play You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrisette and I have completely dumbed that down to root notes and octaves as the bass line is all over the place, plus with two guitars it sounded plain messy, so we 'made it our own' and its one of my favourite songs we play. A fellow bassist who knows the song will notice I'm playing it differently but I seriously doubt anybody else does.

Only a bloke would think about this as a problem...

I would just say fix them to a sturdy wall. We live in a new home and if you live in one too you will understand that the walls are made out of paper these days. One our friends who lives on the same estate was woken up to an almighty crash in the middle of the night to find 3 of his guitars tangled round each other on the floor - it must have been heartbreaking. But thats new homes for you...

Our guitarists use them but the prices they paid for them are ridiculous for what they are!! All you need is a few bits of wood, screws and glue and you can make your own pedalboard to your own spec for 10000x less.

[quote name='mike257' timestamp='1420531742' post='2650249'] Not knocking the views of previous posters but I engineer at a bunch of venues and the sight of a band loading Line 6 Spiders in the door makes me want to cry. Maybe it's user error but they invariably disappear in the mix. are fizz city for high gain tones and don't convince for low gain edge of breakup stuff at all. Not a fan. If you want valves on a budget I hear a lot of good things about the Jet City stuff, well worth a look. [/quote] What about solidstate? I might be involved in a band soon playing guitar but not keen on the sound of valve amps (even though everyone says they have the best tone)

I would class a venue either good or bad on two things: The landlord and the crowd. Good landlord > good crowd > Excellent venue Bad landlord > good crowd > Okay venue, but makes me wonder if I want to make that landlord money Good landlord > bad crowd > Paid rehearsal, but dont book too many dates Bad landlord > bad crowd > We don't bother Obviously its really hard to always find the top option, but if we can get a gig with a good crowd that appreciates what we do then thats great. Thankfully we dont get too many bad landlords, we've only had to tell one to sod off once recently. He was one of those type of landlords thats a professional Singer, Guitarist, Bassist, Drummer and Sound Engineer, and tells us what he thinks we should be doing when he hasnt a clue. He was generally the most drunk person in his own pub and tells us he's paying us less than agreed at the end of the gig - probably because we politely ignored his 'musical wisdom' at sound check, which he then proceeds to lecture us with again at the end of the gig... That was a half decent venue, but because the bloke was a tool [i](I would use stronger language here normally) [/i]he even once came to one of our other gigs at one of his competitors pubs and started abusing our guitarist at the end of the gig - again he was drunk. So when he asked to play for him this year we kindly told him where to go!

Mine came after 7 working days which I guess you cant complain about seeing as it was after Christmas and its coming from Germany. It took them 3 days to process the order and post it, but I guess if it was processed and shipped the same day I probably would've had it within 5 working days. Guitar arrived with the box in a perfect condition and had an absolute ton of bubble wrapp inside the box so was really pleased. Will deffo order a guitar from there again.

Mine should be on its way to the UK next week, ordered on Monday 7th. Might sound daft but I wonder if the slow process through customs has anything to do with all terrorist activity recently, everyones on high alert so maybe they are checking everything?

[quote name='andy67' timestamp='1420802769' post='2653543'] Sad to say but not far from the truth unfortunately. I remember being around music shops during the 70s and 80s, was brilliant almost like a social event, people chatting, playing, planning next gig, buying, getting shop credit, swapping. I really miss all that cos nowadays you go past a shop and you see very few people in. [/quote] I never got to experience that because I'm still wet behind the ears, but you do often get stared at by staff of guitars shops sometimes like they are almost in shock someone came into the store... I guess pretty much anything purchasable will eventually all be online and not on the high street, but with the state of the xfactor music industry these days I can see the end of guitar shops coming a lot quicker and its my generation of 90s kids thats destroying it... I always wondered what kids of the 90s would be known for and I think it will be the death of Rock n Roll and bloody selfies....what a sad sad era to grow up in

I must admit I will always go try a guitar/bass in a shop if I can and then go and order it online somewhere cheaper. Some people probably see that as 'bad' but if I can get something £££s cheaper I will, its my money at the end of the day. The other issues guitar shops have is the lack of varied stock, if you want a Fender or Gibson thats great but if you want anything else you're having to order online anyway. Stock of bass guitars is even worse... I wont be suprised to see guitar shops start closing over the years and an eventual end to rock n roll in general.