TrevorR

Use the Sennheisers at church for BVs. A lovely smooth sound and they work really well. Good price for that deal too! Never liked using SM58s or Beta58s either.

I really like the Beta 57 as a vocal mic. Used one for years.

She sent them over direct. It’s just an independent maker. Ordered via Facebook and PayPal.

Yeah. Also don’t fancy gluing that onto my basses!

My Wals are still my Wals but it's another (very cheap) toy to play with. So much less expensive than some sort of fancy "Motown-in-a-box" miracle pedal or something! LOL!!!

So a while back I fancied having a mess about with a foam mute with the flats. Of course, dish sponges got sliced up as one does. But to be honest, they always looked totally naff and we’re a pain to thread into the tiny space between the bridge and pickup on my two Wals. Fine on the single pickup Aria. Still looked crap, though. Then I spotted these mentioned on a thread here or on Talkbass... https://www.facebook.com/pattonmutepadbassmute/ - maybe it was @wateroftyne who got one and posted about it a few years ago. Unfortunately by the time I spotted them they’d stopped making them. ☹️ Fast forward a couple of years and a few months ago Amy from Patton Bass Mutes drops me a mail saying, I’m starting making them again. So I ordered a set, one for each bass - she makes them individually to fit the dimensions of your bass. They arrived a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been messing about with them at home to good effect. However, last night was my first chance to try them in anger - on my ‘79 Wal Pro IIE. It’s got a slightly more old school sound than my other one so was a great candidate. I was so impressed. It worked perfectly. The custom size and little loop meant it was dead easy to pull in under the strings and gave the perfect amount of damping - also to whip back out for a couple of tunes I wanted to play unmuted. Played a number of songs fingerstyle and with pick and it really did add a totally old school tone. Particularly liked the pick sound on a couple of rocky, funky numbers. Brilliant. And picking without having to palm mute was surprisingly freeing! The big surprise was that it changed the pitch of the strings by about a quarter tone but when you think about the change in the free vibrating length of the string that makes sense. I was doubly surprised that it didn’t completely mess up the intonation which was still fine. The mutes are beautifully made and several cuts above some scraggy bits of old foam both on operation and in how they change the aesthetics of a beautiful bass. If you fancy trying that old Motown, Wrecking Crew style muted sound then the cost of around $15 plus postage for a Patton mute is well, well worth it. And hey, Christmas’s coming soon! Here’s the mute for the Pro Bass in action. Tell me this doesn’t look better than a bit of old dish sponge from Tesco...

Thinking about it, for those not going wireless, I’m always amazed that anyone doesn’t tuck their cable through through their strap...

Doesn’t really address the whole bass suddenly not making a sound in the middle of a song because cable lying on floor issue though...

Can’t be worse than the vids of me...

Hope it was a fab day. Looking forward to your report!

That's OK, he probably doesn't listen to much of your either! 😁😁😁

Have (literally) just handed the bass over to @Bridgehouse in a Westminster coffee shop so it is winging its way up to his neck of the woods in time for his big jam session at the weekend as we speak. Really enjoyed having the bass. I've got a number of CD reviews to write by the end of the week so I will sit down and gather my thoughts next week and post up a review. Really nice to meet up with another top Basschat bass bod in real life!

The cutaway looks horrible but it allowed him to do some astounding bass playing! Absolute “stunt bass” but with great taste and melodic content. Sounded great too!

Way back in about 2001 I saw the late Randy Coven playing in a prog metal band, Ark. They were supporting the UK band Threshold at a little rock club in Belgium called Biebob. Wonder if @Hellzero knows it? Not so far from his neck of the woods! For the whole gig he was playing his Zimmer Silly fretless Bass. What an amazing player! Was doing some amazing stuff on the bass. Nice guy too. Ended up chatting to him in the bar later on in the evening.

Fun to think about. For me, I’ve got a day job don’t need the money (though gig cash is always a nice thought) so it has to be musically and socially appealing to me. Those will probably be the key deciders... I’d definitely be auditioning them if invited to an audition. There are start-ups and start-ups (every established band was a start-up at one point) so that’s not a killer but would be part of the appraisal. Here are my thoughts on how they sit for me... 1. 70'S HARD ROCK/EARLY METAL COVER BAND SEEKS BASS If I had been sitting at home thinking “Oh I never get to play any Rainbow, Uriah Heap, Whitesnake, Nazareth and pre-Bruce Iron Maiden, sob sob sob!” I might shoot them an email with lots of questions. I haven’t so I wouldn’t. 2. BAND SEEKING BASS PLAYER Commuting from London to Milwaukee for gigs might be a drag... but I’ve played in covers, corporate and weddings bands before and really enjoyed it. Yes, I am the person who actually likes playing Mustang Sally. So this one quite appeals. The “no drink” thing isn’t an issue for me. It just says “We will be looking for gigs where we will be offering a professional service (at a premium price) so the band will act with complete professionalism.” In my old band my average booze intake was usually, at most, a single bottle of Budvar at the start of the night and water or soft drinks from then on. Our old BL always negotiated free soft drinks for the band as part of our “rider”. The venue always thought they were getting one over on the band. We just thought “free J2Os and Diet Coke all evening...result!” 3. BASSIS NEEDED FOR ORIGINAL BAND If I was a huge fan of the Cure, the Stranglers and Fields of the Nephelim maybe... I’m not. I’m so very not. 4. SINGING BASSIST FOR POWER TRIO I’m much more of a BV singer but this sounds like a bit of fun. It would certainly would be an interesting challenge to push the edges of my comfort zone a bit. I might give it a go depending on what the other two guys were like to play and hang with. But for all these bands there many many questions to be satisfactorily answered before I’d consider an audition.

Does this count?

This was my fave restaurant... the Blue Duck (in English) https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g274707-d694895-Reviews-Restaurant_U_Modre_kachnicky-Prague_Bohemia.html http://www.umodrekachnicky.cz/en/ Delicious take on Czech cuisine and they seem to have hoovered up all the best Czech domestic wines too. Also find a nice cheap restaurant somewhere and try some knedliky (traditional Czech dumplings) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/foodandwineholidays/4838849/Where-to-eat-Czech-dumplings-in-Prague.html https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB793GB794&ei=IKTtW8WrGcmGgQbAw6igDA&q=where+to+eat+knedliky+in+prague&oq=where+to+eat+knedliky+in+prague&gs_l=psy-ab.3...31854.40410.0.41184.27.21.0.0.0.0.170.1537.10j6.16.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..13.5.445...0i13i30k1j35i304i39k1j33i10k1.0.KNEHngWnC3M The Christmas market... yes, that's always fun to mooch around. I enjoyed wandering around the castle/palace on the top of the hill too.

No need to be rude, we were just asking a question! 😂

You need @obbm to wire you up an xlr cable of the correct length! It could start a whole “fashion”range for Dave!

A Merry jingle by The Greedies!

Will play it at the services on Sunday morning and evening then it’s off to @Bridgehouse next week. On the mix I suspect it’s partly proximity to the amp but we do like a rock band type mix at church, though not loud, but with plenty of bass in it. The Hartke 12 is the bass monitor so I set that to balance against the acoustic volume of the drums then my floor monitor is forvocals, keys and guitar. No bass in the floor monitor. we have some nice subs under the stage though!

Will see it I can send it off to you this Thursday. Can you PM me your address and a contact phone number for the courier. Thanks.

OK, so here are some vids of last night's practice. You'll need headphones to be able to hear what the bass sounds like. The various songs were using a variety of settings on the bass so hopefully you'll hear a difference. Just TBA, these were mostly running through some new songs to start pulling them together so apologies that the performances aren't so polished. Also, we had some of our teenagers having a go on drums and keys so, again, give them the benefit of the doubt - it was the first time Emma, for instance, had ever sat behind a drum kit with a band!!!! Here's where I managed to switch the bass off at the start of the song... Same song with a pick and Emma on drums... First time running through this tune... Finally, noodling with the pick around the Owner of a Lonely Heart main riff and running through all the various settings...

How about a medley of Mistletoe and Wine/The Millennium Prayer? That’ll clear the dance floor and no mistaking!

Purely a case of dodgy “wrap the hand around and hold it like a baseball bat” technique at a couple of points... with thumb behind it was fine! 🤣