TrevorR

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1449242337' post='2921913']


And that's the point a lot of 2 guitar bands miss. The good 2 guitar bands build a sound where the 2 complement each other, harmonise etc. If you listen to classic Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash and even Quo the 2 guitars are often playing different things. As you say, 2 guys chugging away on the same thing in the same time quickly turns to mush.
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I know that BC doesn't have a "Like" button but I'm pressing my imaginary one right now!

I should preface this post by noting that I have a 5 year old little boy... That's my excuse.

I was sitting on the train this morning with my iPod on shuffle listening to some tunes when a tune came on that wouldn't have been a personal choice. It's one I'd heard dozens of times but never in ideal listening conditions - usually in the car or on the telly. However, as it started I thought, "Mmmm, that bass has a really nice tone to it. Never noticed that before." And then as I listened further I realised it had the most brilliant bass line. Sure I'd clocked the basic line but never heard the subtleties in ther playing. The funky little ghost notes that were thrown in here and there. The contrast between the bouncy, cheerful verse line and the driving straight eights chorus. I certainly hadn't clocked the really nice slap lines on the second prechorus section.

I ended up listening through to it three or four times the really get behind the bass line and verify that it really was as cool as it seemed to be. Frankly I was a bit shocked and stunned. So what was this tune?

"Love is an open door" from the soundtrack of Disney's Frozen! Yup, one of the last few year's top parent tormenting songs is actually a pretty cool bit of playing. See what you think...

http://youtu.be/j6nnoWgbdvg

In fact the playing felt strangely familiar. Some Googling provided the answer. Bassist on the Frozen soundtrack? The mighty Abe Laboriel. One of my all time fave bassists. No wonder the bassline sounded both familiar and cool. Now for a reappraisal of Let It Go? Don't know if I dare.

And for those who don't have preschool/primary aged kids and may not be aware of Frozen... Here's the song in context...

http://youtu.be/TtCXUFImZYE

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1449143731' post='2921020']

Very true, to my ears early Iron Maiden was one of the few band to get a true balance between two lead guitars and bass. Then they went and spoiled it with three guitars!
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Four words... Thin Ash Wishbone Lizzy. Not necessarily in that order. ;-)

Recently resurrected my quarter century old Boss CE2-B to add a wee bit of texture in here and there when playing bass in the band at church. Not using it a lot but loving it when I do.

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1449078390' post='2920629']
I'd have any amp you like and Chris Squire's triple-necked Wal. But I'd still be scared that someone would see me with it!
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Hope that you're washed ashore with a good osteopath!

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1449054662' post='2920338']
Over the years I've mostly played in trios and all you need to do is get a good sound and play your bass lines.

In one of my bands the guitarist can stop playing altogether when he's singing. We just carry on as bass and drums until he comes back in. Nothing is "missing" when that happens.

Don't think you have to "fill in" and/or compensate for a "missing" instrument. It's just a different sound and feel, uncluttered and dynamic, I love it. Learn about "light and shade".

The bass and drums is a layer and the guitar and voice are other layers. As long as you keep your layer "together" it doesn't matter what the others are doing or even if they are there or not.
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Lots of realy good advice all across this thread. I would definitely fall into the camp of "don't look to find a magic solution/magic pedal to solve the problem". Rather just find where your playing/sound might need to alter slightly to make the song sound good in an organic way. Let it happen through listening to how the songs sound in rehearsal and in the gig in the new format. Chances are you will make subconscious changes to the way you play in response to the music/band format anyway.

So the "solution" might vary from song to song and different songs might suit different solutions. Some of these could be a simple as small changes to how you phrase or mute the notes within the bass line. Perhaps with two guitars blasting away you clipped and muted notes on one bass line - in a one guitar format it might fill out the sound to let those notes ring. Of vice versa - play more sparsely or in a more clipped style to add additional dynamics and create a contrast when you come back in playing more. Or it could be that that heavy rock tune is crying out for some OD in your sound, or maybe swap to playing that tune with a pick instead of fingers. Or on that big power ballad play the verse anchoring your thumb over the other pickup or at the end of the neck. Or maybe it could benefit from some chorus on the chorus to enhance the texture. Or... Or... Or... none/all of the above.

Or maybe, as Chris said, a certain song doesn't need any changes to the way you play to enhance it. There won't be a single silver bullet.

However have fun stretching how you play in the new format. And don't be too hidebound by the "I must play precisely what's on the record" philosophy either. Let's face it, if you're playing, say, "Freebird" in a one guitar band you're never going to sound exactly like the record - unless the guitar player can work out how to play three guitars simultaneously and you can double on piano! Of course, the playing must retain the essential melodic, rhythmic and harmonic elements of the song to make it recognisable. If you're playing Thin Lizzy's "Dancing In The Moonlight" and you're not playing [i][b]those notes[/b][/i] it will sound wrong. But throw in some additional triplet beats or ghost notes here and there (or whatever) and it might make all the difference in the new format. But most of all, have fun with it!

[edited for a copmlete unablity to tpye porpelry]

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1448622296' post='2916886']
I was transfixed all the way through. Thought it was brilliant. - and a real eye opener on the man. I thought Wilko came out of it very well.
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[quote name='NoRhino' timestamp='1448811602' post='2918306']
Watched it today. Think it's an excellent film. Knowing a bit about Wilko's life from OCC helped.
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Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it too. Oil City Confidential is one of my all time fave films and this worked really well as a companion piece to that.

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1448963702' post='2919552']
Shame he didnt even give a tiny nod to the debt he owes Mick Green though....
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[quote name='12stringbassist' timestamp='1449032285' post='2920227']
I stuck with it to the end, but I wish they had just slotted in more Feelgoods and Wilko concert footage instead of all the Shakespearean drivel. Overjoyed he's still with us.
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There was a quick, passing reference to Johnny Kidd and the Pirates but this was all covered in more detail in Oil City Confidential so was little more than brief background context for this film - which, to be fair, is about Wilko's post diagnosis story rather than the Feelgood's history. As to the Shakespearean drivel, it's a film about the man. A man who studies ancient Icelandic epic poetry at college and who admits on camera that he enjoys peppering his every day speech with obscure literary quotes and references - add Temple's style to that and intercuts to Christopher Plummer doing Hamlet is almost compulsory... If you want more Feelgoods than OCC comes highly recommended - albeit with a strong Julien Temple Arty Farty direction health warning too!

[quote name='deepbass5' timestamp='1448458160' post='2915574']
I stuck with it and enjoyed the Art house style interlaced clips, strange but thought provoking. I was not aware of his intellect and other interests. So wonder now if he had more to do with the input to what was to be an epitaph to him, If you are to die and someone wants to make a documentary about your exit, My guess is he wanted it to be a poetical statement about his inner self not just dismissed as "another old guitarist died today headline".
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Not had a chance to watch yet but from the descriptions it sounds very much like the style which Julien Temple used for Oil City too - lots of vintage clip intercutting and odd/arty backdrops for the otherwise talking head interviews. Wilko came out of that documentary looking quite the polymath too. So my very strong suspicion is that it's less Wilko trying to get Temple to make him look dead cool and clever in his obit, more Temple's style allied to Wilko's sideways view of life and general level of quirkiness... Unlike others really looking forward to it EVEN more now. I loved Oil City Confidential but I could see how Temple's direction could grate on some.

Been looking forward to this. Oil City Confidential is on of my fave non-fiction films and this should be Temple's perfect companion piece to that. iPlayer here I come...

I use the iPad with OnSong for music at church. Nothing as complicated as a score but using a bluetooth pedal to page turn and scroll up and down is a real boon - I'd say pretty much essential. If you invest in something like an AirTurn pedal I doubt that you would regret it!

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1448234612' post='2913899']

I've got a jazz with a J-Retro and it sounds great but if anything, it perhaps has too much range in the EQ (especially in the bass).

i have another bass with a Tri Logic circuit and that is really good as well but without the excessive tonal variation...
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That was one of the things I loved about the Audere. The levels of the cuts and boosts are so very well chosen. They give you all the scope for sound sculpting you could ever reasonably need but in a very musical way. It really seemed to me that they had nailed versatile boost and cut but without having the controls going to unusable extremes.

[quote name='Japhet' timestamp='1448194777' post='2913539']
Reading through this thread I'm trying to remember when I played bass for Roxy Music. Must have done at some point but........nope, it's gone.
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I know the feeling. I was watching that BBC4 doc about women in rock and when they came to the little feature on Brix Smith realised to my horror that I must be the only person never to have been a member of The Fall.

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1448136019' post='2913300']
... (the sh!t drummer on their first album having been replaced by the rather more capable Ian Moseley) ...

Jon.
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I was getting a bit worried until I read that sentence. Mr M is a drum monster and I couldn't believe it was him you were classifying!

I like Italia Leather straps. I use the 4 inch wide ones on all my basses - which are all known as on the weighty side...

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1448030941' post='2912507']
Alan Spenner fans with good taste should check out the original Jesus Christ Superstar album (there's a myriad of versions, don't get the film OST by mistake which is I believe someone else)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5F8jLt9XiI

Check out Superstar at 1:18:15 and What's The Buzz at 0:09:54.
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And ironically, John Gustafson singing the role of Simon the Zealot.

Ian Gillan as Jesus, Murray Head as Judas and Mike D' Abo as Herod. Not a bad line up!

Three contestants from me... I tend to be very selective with my ticket money to ensure a good show. However, you can't choose the support bands!

In 1983 I saw The Opposition on a festival bill that included Chuck Berry, 10cc, Meatloaf, Aswad and Renaissance. They were just turgid...

Heavy Pettin' supporting Magnum at Hammersmith around 1988. The worst sort of 80s hair metal imaginable. And not even bad enough to be a parody of themselves.

Lastly, a slide blues player called Dave Hole who supported Gary Moore on a load of his blues dates. So bad. A complete widdle-monster whose USP was to play with the slide up beyond the end of the neck of his Strat... over the pickups ALL THE TIME... Horrible piercing sound that just cut through your brain. The (and I use the term loosely) musical version of scraping fingernails down a blackboard. He was support on the gigs that became Moore's Blues Alive CD. You've seen bands that emptied a bar, you've seen bands that emptied a club. Have you ever seen a band empty the Royal Albert Hall. We had seats on the main floor but spent 90% of his set sitting on the floor in the corridor outside along with several hundred other folks!

I would have thought that the best approach would be a decent enough bass amp that gives you a good clean sound (whether valve or not - valve amps tend to cost as others have noted already) and then something like a Sansamp Character Series pedal for the guitar sounds.

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Tech_21_SansAmp_Character_Series_Oxford_U_S_Steel_and_Leeds_Pedal_Reviews

You can get them for about £135 new or £90 second hand on eBay. May give you a more satisfying crunch/distorted guitar sound at bedroom/band rehearsal/pub band volumes than trying to overdrive the front end of a bass amp. The British and Liverpool pedals look like a nice option (Marshall and Vox style respectively).

[quote name='phil.c60' timestamp='1447833616' post='2910696']


That'll be why the output volume is so low when I connect it like that, then, as I said.
Front panel with it all at 12.00 seems to be the way to go - there's only one non switchable input + xlr in on an LM3, so I agree it sees my passive bass as now active which is why the gain and guitar volumes are now much lower than I would normally have used.
I'm sure it would be different with different amps - all part of the fun and what gives you GAS, I suppose!
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I'd approach it's different way. If you are running your bass vol at 2/3 instead of 9/10 then you'll be sending a poorer signal to noise ratio andare likely to be amplifying any noise along with the signal to get the volume you want.

I tend to set up the pedal as follows. I'd have the bass at the usual playing volume - for me, 10. I'd use the drive control to set the input level of the pedal/provide the level of gain and grit needed. Then I'd use the pedal volume to match the effected output with the uneffected output. (Which solves one of the problems you quote). Therefore on my VT DI pedal for me I have bass volume at 10/10, pedal drive at about 10 o'clock position and output level at about 2 o'clock. That's the way I set it up either for just DI straight into the PA or into the main input on my LMII. As others have said, I also run the amp EQ pretty much flat.

How the pedal is set up mirrors how I've always set an amp up. Use the input gain to match the max bass output to the amp (giving the best S/N ratio to the amp before the amplification happens and dialling in any grit I need). Then EQ to taste and control vol with the master as per usual. Hope that is something useful to think about, unless I've misinterpreted the question you were raising.

Just wondeared if you could give more detail on your question. You initially said...

"Instrument > DI Box of choice > Splitter/Mixer/Magical Device > Bass Amp > Ears
And so I'm not sure what the simplest means is to shoehorn the DI stage into the chain!"

Are you thinking more like...

Instrument > Splitter/Mixer/Magical Device > Bass Amp > Bass amp DI>PA

If so then unless you're using a multi amp or switchable EQ setup then I guess that there may be some compromise in tone needed in terms of on stage sound. Unless you meant something else.

[quote name='ikay' timestamp='1447849220' post='2910875']

The Audere JZ3 allows this as well, just drops in to a standard J cavity along with battery and with no mods. It also has an led which indicates when the battery needs changing
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And centre detects on the pan and tone controls... Big fan!

It seems like Jeff's thing is now recording at home and pretty much doing all the instruments himself. That was how he did the completely unnecessary rerecorded Greatest Hits set a few years ago. The Mr Blue Sky doc gives a good account of it (available as a bonus feature of the Hyde Park DVD). Of course I bought that collection (because...) but thought that it was pretty sterile - too much tidied up and Jeff is also no Bev Bevan.

As to Richard Tandy being in the band. He's worked and off with Jeff for ages. There were some duo gigs for US TV/radio - Richard and Jeff - to promote the Greatest Hits (and some of those tracks ended up as bonus tracks on that). Whilst we would all love to see Jeff, Bev, Mik, Richard, Hugh and Melvyn on stage together again unless someone can borrow a Tardis that looks very unlikely :-(

As it was I saw ELO Pt 2 some years ago with Bev, Hugh, Melvyn and the sadly missed Kelly Groucutt handling bass and lead vocals at Guildford Civic Hall. That was one cracking gig!

[quote name='ikay' timestamp='1447405007' post='2907324']
The Audere JZ3 is also very good and worth considering - [url="https://www.audereaudio.com/Pro_JZ3.htm"]https://www.audereau...com/Pro_JZ3.htm[/url]
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Big +1 on the Audere. Put one on my Frankenjazz. Great piece of kit. Great sounds and features.

Rob, that's really kind. You're a gent! PM sent...

So I was playing Rumblefish's wenge MK 1 Wal bass at they SE Bass Bash and he suggested trying flats on my MK 1. My strings are about ready for a change so I thought I would give them a try. Two questions though... Any thoughts on some decent, middle of the road flats I should try - in the £20s region. With the best will, this is an experiment and I'm not going to fork out £50 for La Bella or TIs. Currently I'm playing Picato 45-105 stainless steel and for years played the same gauge of Elites Stainless Steel.

So what are a decent set of flats to try in the £20-£30 range? Should I just go Picato or Elites or is there a better option?

Also, I'm confused with the whole tension difference thing lots of folks talk about with flats. Should I just be going 45-105 or a different set as a straightish swap? Grateful for advice. Ta.

[quote name='spectoremg' timestamp='1447430172' post='2907656']
You have a wonderful daughter. Heart-warming.
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If any of your kids ever need adopting... Great gift! Lovely thoughtfulness.