Drax

The Smiths - actively hated and refused to listen to them at the time. Pre internet it was quite easy to never hear a band you thought you didn’t like - truculent teenage me couldn’t get past Morrissey with his gladioli and their bedwetting fans.

Have since realised their brilliance, and even seen Morrissey live a few times..

Quite a loaded question  

If the choice was a straight high number lower paid gigs vs low number of high paid ones - I’d probably be up for playing more than less, regardless of remuneration.

My reality is a mix of the two. And often, it’s the lower paid gigs that can be the most enjoyable.  
 

8 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

But the point is that prices are out of reach for some and if I was 16 now I would only be able to look at Harley Benton’s and Squier if I wanted to buy new.. 

If you were 16 now you’d be buying a laptop & protools .. 

19 minutes ago, Owen said:

Yep. Straight in. No preamp needed to buffer the piezo. Really easy. I ran it through a Bergantino 6x10 which could be seen as excessive, but what a sound!

6x10 ?! Amazing. What sort of gigs?

It’s not an either / or, we can still support independent music shops buying from them online. Matchetts is an online retailer, physical store in Belfast plus full fat e-commerce site. See also BassDirect, The Gallery.. 
There aren’t any bricks and mortar music stores that don’t also heavily rely on online sales. 

Slight aside - noticed you've got 2 x GWB35..great bass, had one for a while. Have you had one fretted ?!   

On 28/03/2022 at 11:05, Happy Jack said:

A single 90-minute set is barking mad ... is that what you actually did?

 

If so, then suggest to the band that you split it into 2x45 minute sets with a 10-minute break between. Have a decent MP3 player (NOT a bloody smartphone) tee'd up to play appropriate music through the PA during the break so the audience isn't sat there in complete silence.

 

Any smokers in the band will welcome the suggestion in a nano-second. If you've no smokers then point out the advantages of a short break for correcting the band's sound, sorting out technical issues, persuading the guitarist to finally tune his instrument properly, and - of course - sending the brass section to the bar to get a round in.

 

Yes! Completely agree on the above, and we'd normally be 2 x 45mins with a healthy break. However drummer (a car less drummer no less, unbelievable) was late, so half time was about 3 minutes.. enough time for me to move my cab..then straight back into it. Alright for the horn players who can share the load between them, but obviously on bass we're playing pretty much the entire time. We finished with Chameleon, can't bring myself to watch the video back.. 😂

Thanks for all the BC advice 🙏

Ended up to side and behind of cab, no feedback and could hear enough to intonate. Awful boomy rumble from the stage as billed, shoved flight case under cab, will get an isolation pad next.. Strange room acoustics with a steel lined roof but once it filled up was fine. 

We'd not played there before but gig went well, great crowd and we've been rebooked , couldn't really ask for more. 

Next up is just stamina. Underestimated how physically tough it would be doing a 90 min set. Even with half the notes I'd play on electric, was just about hanging on by the end 🤪

19 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Obvious questions ...

 

Where's the gig? Are you playing a winebar or a church hall?

 

Will you be on a raised wooden stage or a concrete floor?

 

What style of music will you be playing?

 

What's the band line-up?

 

 

So.. 

Venue is in converted railway arches. Raised wooden stage. 

6 piece jazz group.. Bass drums guitar keys sax trumpet .. 

After years playing electric in groups I should be probably be on upright, made the big move a few months ago. Got my starter bass, loving it so far. First gig .. tomorrow (!) and worried on managing feedback, plus trying to get an acceptable tone.  

Bass has Realist , then Aguilar TH500 into TKS112.. Also got K&K pre which may / may not get used. Gig probably doable with backline, but have option to DI / or mic amp into PA. 

Rehearsed last night with endless tweaking, got good volume with bass rolled off on the pre, but super nasal. Never properly grasped Aguilar's Drive either, but believe it might help here. 

Reasonably lost with this. All advice warmly welcomed.. !

Dan 

Similar here. Bought a Stagg, then a Gear4Music own brand - both shipped damaged, both badly made and nasty to play, lumpy fingerboard and buzzing everywhere.  

Tendonitis is a bastad - light strings do makes a massive difference, as does set up and proper technique - which isn’t always the easiest to achieve on EUB. 

Try a lesson with a jazz oriented upright player. As well as grounding you on technique, you’d get a chance to play their well set up DB with most likely lighter strings - and get an idea of how different / easier this would be to play than what you’ve experienced so far. 

Genuine question - at £320 is this the world’s most expensive bass bridge? 
 

Interesting how nuts the pricing has gone for secondhand vinyl - discogs especially. Albums you can stream for free, or buy £5 CD, going for £100. Not rare Beatles or Zep, run of the mill 90's electronic stuff. It's the sweet spot for those with disposable income. 

A 12inch my mate put out in 2003 had sold a few times on discogs, a few quid each time. As an experiment I 'bought' a copy from him for £60, .. and he 'bought' it back for the same. Just on these sales, pricing and demand shot up, people started advertising it for more money, and suddenly people wanted to buy it, copies were going for up to £100. It's settled down now, 12 people currently selling, cheapest £36.

But this is record that no one wanted to buy before, and no one thought was expensive or rare until discogs told them it was. Kind of like 70's P Basses were once. Fascinating herd mentality at play. 

Fantastic cabs and absolute steal at this price.. Surely won't be here long. 

Side point but lest we forget Fender to Fodera, like any guitar manufacturer, are NOT aimed at pro musicians. 
 

Pros play them, but the lifeblood is amateur hobbyists - more disposable income, and own more instruments. 

If you asked Vinnie Fodera if you were good enough - he too would say, if you can afford it and it makes you happy .. 

10 hours ago, scalpy said:

For instance, I’ve had dB meters trip because of audiences singing along, dancing on wooden floors, somebody telling a funny story and people laughing (that venue a had meter at the bar set at 70dB 🤦), and fights. 

Fights?! With guns? 

***NOW GONE*****

Sessionette 100 Bass Compact 100 , 4 x 10  - powers up but that’s it. 

For a multitude of reasons needs to be gone, giving it one more week on here then it's off to Battersea Amps Home.. 
 

Yours for free - just needs collecting from Beckenham BR3. 

Thanks

Interesting comment @Beedster- ‘finding it harder and harder to play electric’ , in what way? 
 

I say this looking at my rack of 7 electrics having just ordered an upright after 2 decades not playing one.. 

5 hours ago, Boodang said:

This thread is probably not aimed at the rockers among us. I usually play in a piano/bass/drums trio doing jazz groove stuff (think 70s tv theme tunes). Half the set I play an EUB, the other half with a bass guitar for the funkier numbers. When I'm playing the bass guitar I'm the only mobile member of the band but it's not like I feel it's necessary, or appropriate, to leap about the stage, so I just stand there and feel a bit of a tit. Then I thought, just because it's a bass guitar doesn't mean I have to stand, so now I bring along a bar stool, use that and then like the rest of the band I'm sitting on my derrière whilst playing.

I also applied this to a covers band I was in which was mostly a collection of friends who just wanted to play. The stage was crowded, 3 guitarists, backing vocals, percussion, keys, and occasional brass/woodwind, there wasn't much room to leap about, so I started plonking myself at the back next to the drummer on a bar stool and only came out the shadows if most of the band took a break while we did an uptempo rock number.

So the question is, do we play standing up just because that's what's expected / how it's always been done? How many out there play sitting down? I remember Herbie Flower's used to do the Sky gigs on a bar stool.

I'm thinking of taking this to new levels with the trio. I'm going to get a small rug and do the Hellborg thing and play sitting cross legged on the floor. Another option as there's space in the van, is to bring a nice comfy padded lounge chair and do the gig sprawled out in that. I could put a standard lamp next to me to give it that homely feel!

Often deliberated on this. Playing BG standing up in a trio can feel exposed - and I play marginally better sat down, or at least I’m more easily relaxed so it flows better. 

My rule of thumb with jazz gigs is what’s the guitar doing, and what’s the audience doing - if both are seated then I am - horns will always be standing, and they want all the attention anyway. 
 

3 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

 

This letterman performance was the one that got me…

 

https://youtu.be/GK4lD3Uf8_o

Same here.
 

Letterman’s ‘I’ll take all of that you got’ became catchphrase folklore amongst us at the time, great to see that clip

again 

Jeff singing not playing bass? 

On 16/01/2022 at 19:09, merello said:

That's a thought - is he the musician with the lowest 'price of gear" to "earnings" ratio in history?

And ironically now the most valuable bass in the world. 

Just a learning experience for the band isn’t it?

All the criticism of Lars & James, these are the same guys that turned out Kill em all / Lightning / Puppets, and for good or ill , the Black album. They pushed the envelope and tried new things, some of it worked, some of it didn’t. 

People wade in heavy hating on Lars, but if you love Kill / Lightning / Puppets, then you have to accept Lars is the driving force behind these - and has done way more right than wrong. It is heartbreaking we never got to hear Cliff’s songwriting develop but without Lars there would have been no Cliff in Metallica. 

He was right about Napster too