Doctor J

SHOUTY words make the WORLD a sadder PLACE!

Just flicking through some recent purchases, here is some good, heavy stuff from 2021

Low pitched cowbell, quite high in the mix. Since my ear is really tuned to bass, I usually record a bass track mimicking the click to help me stay listening to it.

I grew up in the thrash era and loved death metal when it came along. The mid to late 90's were a bit of a taste wasteland for what became popular in metal, so spent much of it exploring doom and stoner, all good. I dig very slow, very heavy stuff a lot. I can take gruff vocals as long as there is some character and nuance to it. I don't like someone just shouting loudly, it does nothing for me. Some dynamics are a must. Relentless screaming, relentless blasts or relentless double bass drums are just shite from a musical level and that's the border for me. 

I've yet to hear black metal I liked, too. I mean the Norwegian stuff and the countless clones which continue to follow. Venom and Celtic Frost are the good stuff.

I've just put a set of 135 to 65 strings on a 35" scale Yamaha TRB and tuned it BEAD with a drop tuner to give me low A on tap. 

11 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

Calling themselves Bonnie Prince Charlie would be an unfunny joke that no one would get, but it's the best I can do 😬

They could call themselves The Great Pretenders and enjoy the ire when punters figure out there won't be a Fauxddie Mercury

If this were asked on another forum, I suspect the answer might be

a Leo of bassists 

On youtube with an annoying penchant for cliché it would be

a groove of bassists

However, I would go with

a van of bassists

59 minutes ago, thodrik said:

I might try the D'Addario coated strings next.

Don't. I tried them before and found them utterly useless. A very expensive lesson learned as I ended up buying a replacement Elixir set a couple of weeks later. Elixir own the patent for coating the string as a wound whole, the coating is applied to the finished string which is what stops your biocrud getting into the winds of the string. The crud in the winds is what makes strings sound lifeless. Every other manufacturer, as far as I am aware, coats the outer wrap before it is wound onto the string which is, if not entirely useless, let's say usefully limited. It doesn't stop your finger gick getting into the string like the Elixirs do. 

Asian Metallica tribute, genuinely, Trapped Under Rice

I've played in quite a few trios and a few trio + vocalists as bassist but also on guitar, too. In my experience, if the derrière drops out of it when the guitarist plays lead or stops, the bass is the problem. The bass needs to be full and carry the song whether the guitar is there or not. The bass needs to be the derrière. The guitar is the fluff which works on top of the derrière but the guitar cannot, under any circumstances, be the derrière.

Dude...

Mechanical-radiant-energy-that-is-transmitted-by-longitudinal-pressure-waves-in-a-material-medium engineer?

Wild guess, but you get bad mixes very frequently?

On 24/05/2021 at 11:46, LeftyJ said:

Here's the regular music video:

The guy plays an Ibanez RG guitar here, and it can actually be heard in this version too . They toned it down a bit for Eurovision, I guess to make it less industrial and metal and more appealing to a broader audience. 

 

On the scale of how much they can tone it down, this is pretty impressive

Sepultura
Voivod
Cynic
Living Colour
KXM
The Aristocrats
Killing Joke
James
Ondt Blod
Turin Brakes

Gibson strikes! 😂

There needs to be a drummer called Tom Thomson

26 minutes ago, Sarah5string said:

Is you had to pick a stage name, what would it be?

I once auditioned for a band and, during a break, the singer took me aside, said he really liked my playing and explained his vision for the band - which included masks/make-up and stage names. I get the feeling the guy had become aware of Slipknot and wanted to copy the idea. I was 28 at the time and found the whole thing quite embarrassing, even though I would be allowed to choose my own name and mask, etc. If I was 16, fine. I grew up listening to Tom Warrior, Ron Royce, Tommy T. Baron, Cronos, Mantas, Abbadon and the likes and anything goes when you're a kid. At the age of 28, though, the thought of going to my Ma saying I'm going to be known as Blacksmith Demonslayer or some such nonsense (it was a Metal band after all) just did not work for me at all 😄

41 minutes ago, BoomTing said:

The Fall

 

Yeah, The Fall had a few line-ups with two bassists. Shame they left the interpretive dance out in later years

I'll see your two basses and raise you one

Switch to original music and make her voice a feature of what you do. There are lots of great, great bands making great, great music with singers who would be viewed traditionally as "unmusical" 😀

Yup

I genuinely love that they do the little Zissou hip shuffle in that video too 😂

4 hours ago, LeftyJ said:

Here's the regular music video:

The guy plays an Ibanez RG guitar here, and it can actually be heard in this version too . They toned it down a bit for Eurovision, I guess to make it less industrial and metal and more appealing to a broader audience. 

 

Actually, here's the pre-Eurovision version which is another step removed. Those of us who remember Altern8 and early Prodigy might shed a wee tear at this one 😀