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My experience is similar, but I put it down to imagining - especially if I attempt anything noodly - that I run the risk of looking like a plonker in front of shop guys who are likely to be immeasurably better musicians than me. So I just plod simple notes to get a feel for the bass or amp or effects pedal or strap or whatever.

Not a fan of solos myself, although I do admire some of the stand-alone bass compositions of Victor W. Don’t know why I feel that way (when I was learning to play, I dreamed of being able to pull off an amazing solo) but these days I think it’s down to appreciating musical subtlety. You’d never think of All Time Low’s Zack Merrick as being a seriously talented bassist, but I think he gets the balance right. 90% of the time his playing is almost featureless, but then he’ll put in a little run that fits perfectly into the context of a song and it reminds you that he can actually play very well. To me that’s more impressive. Maybe it’s a personal, selfish thing. When I hear a long flashy solo it reminds me of what I can’t do, so I don’t connect with it.

In the early days of incorporating [b][i]You Can't Hurry Love [/i][/b]and [b][i]Valerie [/i][/b](Amy's version) into our set I had huge problems selecting the right rhythm for each, compounded by the fact that bass comes straight in for both.

I had a Line6 and, as mentioned above, the belt clip was dodgy and broke after a year or so, so I moved to an AKG SR40. It's brilliant - uses only one AA battery and you'll easily get 8 hours out of it. I have a Hiscox 'shaped' case with an inner compartment and everything fits comfortably in it, even with a Tech21 box and extra cables/strings.

OK. Just wondered if the signal would be an audio one (don't mind if it isn't stereo) that headphones could handle. Don't really want to experiment in case it blows something up!

Lovely 400W combo which I've just brought home. I notice it doesn't have a headphone output but there is a 'tuner out' jack socket. Don't want to run the risk of damaging anything, so does anyone know if this serves as a line out for eg headphones?

An Eden Nemesis 25W for me but I have neighbours downstairs so I have it up to about half power but through headphones - it does the job pretty well and doesn't suffer too much if I also route MP3 files through it. I've also used it to monitor small gigs and it copes well enough.

The jetlag is slowly wearing off now, but I just returned from 3 weeks in the Okanagan region of Canada, staying in the little town of Vernon. For its size it has an amazingly vibrant live music scene with enthusiastic audiences, so much so that I see myself moving there (I was born in Canada so it’s pretty much a walk-in, plus my job allows me to work anywhere without having to find new contracts – I can keep all of my existing UK work). Have you visited places whose music scene has made you want to up sticks and emigrate?

Always a favourite of mine although the one that edged in front (for me) was Keep On Movin' by Deodato, lovely summery feel and funky - but easy - bass.

If it's any consolation, bassbiscuits, it even goes wrong for Kingy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FA73eliAUU A mistake caused by mishearing the sequencer on Hot Water. On the studio recordings of Lessons In Love I think a fair bit of the bass is sequenced anyway - not sure of the extent to which it's used live though.

Incidentally, on the choruses - unlike the man himself - I like to play all the roots on the E string. Anyone else do it that way?

Funny thing about [i][b]Hysteria [/b][/i]is that when you finally master what the notes are doing it’s not quite as tough as you think. The hardest bit for me was working out the downwards progression in the D root part of the verses (there are a couple of occasions when you do the same on the E) but it’s simple once you crack it. The replacement hard bit for me is the double F hit as you work downwards in the A root riff – very difficult to make my thumb play those two notes smoothly, so occasionally I just hit the open A in the hope it’s close to inaudible.

And there I was expecting this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ThulqDmKc

Thanks Stu. Had a look but didn’t find what I wanted. Unfortunately there’s a minor weakness on the ‘for sale’ part of the forum in that posters tend to just supply make/model without saying if they’re selling head/cab/both/combo, so I have to open each to find out what’s up for grabs – bit of a faff, especially since my browser (despite 17Mb connection) tends to be as sluggish as dialup.

Oh, all right then.

What - the grey bit below the question title?

…and have my eye on the Markbass CMD15P Jeff Berlin. There’s one on Ebay although by the time I have £875 together I may be out of luck. Has anyone got/used one? Opinions?

If mods consider this inappropriate please remove. It’s sort of an ad for a leftie but not mine – spotted in a music shop. The shop is Sounds Great in Heald Green (South Manchester) and they have dark blue Dean Edge leftie, used, at £199 – they’ve just brought it down from £299 as it’s been there for some time. I’d have it myself but I’ve got one, albeit the sunburst-ish version. It’s a great price for a solid workhorse of an instrument and it’s in excellent nick.

We’ve had difficult, easy, and the ‘not as easy/difficult as you think’ categories, but it just struck me that from time to time you get those basslines which are just beautiful to play regardless of difficulty. Checking on comments to something I posted on YouTube, I noticed my channel throwing up a recording we did of the Ki-C & JoJo ballad All My Life: [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmsk18uv-s"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmsk18uv-s[/url] Absolutely nothing spectacular about the bassline, but for some reason (OK, maybe because our guitarist has mixed it well enough for the thick bass sound to cut through) it’s just perfect. We only did it once – a first dance request – but I remember how good it felt to play. Do you have basslines that stand out simply because of what they are, regardless of difficulty?

A band I auditioned for did a cover of Somebody Told Me (Killers) and I fancied the idea of dropping the E to Eb for the mid section where the vocal is “Pace yourself for me”. Gave it a fair bit of practice at home and found that visualising the tuning peg position made the job pretty quick – I’d need no more than about 10 seconds before the start of the song, whereas it would take a good couple of minutes to switch basses.

An interesting end (apart from occasional deps) to my time with the band last night. Booked to do a wedding anniversary at a functions venue in Macc, had to turn up around noon to begin an extensive setup – client had hired rather OTT lighting and floor-level stage paraphernalia for a DJ whose space we were sharing – so we had an enormous amount of dead time. Thankfully I got whisked away for Father’s Day lunch with my daughter. Did the first set. Not a huge reaction but set 2 is traditionally where things liven up, but after the first song we were asked to pack it up. Nothing wrong with us apparently, but it turned out the DJ was the client’s son and because the whole event had run behind schedule our second set was going to cut into his. So we ended up loitering for a few hours after we’d finished as he was running through our PA. We got paid in full, but it was a pretty crap way for me to say my farewell.

[i][b]Thinking Of You[/b][/i] by Sister Sledge. Once you're happy with your timing it's far easier than a first listen suggests. It's also generous if you want to play around with a few fancy runs in the verses, almost as if it's harder to play out of key than in. We don't actually rehearse this one very much so I've only got one or two recordings. As I'm doing backing vox I tend to listen to how those are sounding, but I can't help noticing these crafty bass runs in the background which sound quite impressive - in truth they're not far from random.

My apologies for that. I'd just been wearing headphones and they made a bit of a mess!