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[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1402307311' post='2471820'] I had always assumed that drums are inherently loud but we've played with the same dep a few times (the best drummer I've ever played with in fact) and he could play quietly while still absolutely nailing any song. It was quite a revelation from the 'thrash-it-and-bash-it' style of many drummers. [/quote] + a million. Playing drums quietly has to be the single most underrated skill on any musical instrument.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1400769320' post='2456818'] Yes of course every team needs reliable centre backs, but they don't have to be as good as the forwards. I think we're agreeing without acknowledging it. ;-) [/quote] It's a different, less glamorous form of "good" Getting back to bass playing and bands in general, I think that on average, bass players are at least as good as other members of the band and that the ability to hold a tight groove together is often underrated. Let's face it, as bass players most of our non-musical family and friends don't have a clue what we do. It makes me laugh the number of times other musicians say things like "that was a really tricky rehearsal today" when the bass player didn't turn up for some reason like they're surprised. It's a bit like football, really.....oh..wait....

But that's like a bass player who spends his/her time noodling around up the neck playing solos. You'd still need an actual bass player to hold it together at the back. Going back to football (which is obviously much more important than music) you can't have a whole team of strikers, and often strikers make crap defenders - you'll always need actual defenders. Your more traditional rock band tends to be more like a standard English club team, where everyone knows their place - defenders don't get up the park that much and strikers don't tackle back. Whereas other genres (jazz/prog/fusion) are more like Barcelona - skills and responsibilities are a lot more evenly distributed around the team. Oh, and drummers are like goalies....I'm not sure exactly how, but I'll think of something

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1400750282' post='2456556'] But you don't need to be a talented musician to do that. That's sort of my point - excellent bassists are 'luxury players' to borrow a football phrase. They are bottom of the list of most bands' requirements. [/quote] I have to disagree - to extend the football analogy, good bassists are like good defenders. They're never going to get the same plaudits as the flashy strikers with all their tricks, but you won't win anything with a loose, shaky defence. At the risk of overdoing the analogy, great bass players are also like great defenders in that the job is usually about doing the simple things well, often unnoticed by the majority of people watching. I think the analogy is now at breaking point, so I'll shut up

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1400487635' post='2454194'] Surely good music or bad music all comes down to personal preference? [/quote] Agreed, although I can appreciate well-played music that isn't in a genre that I'd normally listen to. I'm personally not a massive fan of country music, but I still have an opinion on what I consider good stuff and bad stuff. When I say "well-played" I don't mean ability, it's more about effort and creativity. To me, the worst music is just lazy and this can be a combination of musicians not learning their stuff, the music itself being full of cliches, or the band not bothering to connect with the audience.

Thanks Bilbo - I've emailed Ben and I'm currently chatting with him to see what length to go for, Cheers!

Hi all I'm thinking about replacing my endpin as my current one is too short for me, so I've had a look online and there seem to be plenty about. If at all possible I'd like to keep it cheap and avoid going to a luthier unless it's the only way to do it - but before I do any of this I have a couple of questions that people might be able to help me with. Firstly, if I get an endpin that's the same diameter as my current one, can I just replace the pin itself and leave the bit where it fixes to the bass and tailpiece (the pear?) alone? Secondly, if I buy an endpin that says it's 45cm in length, does that mean the total length of the pin, or is that the maximum that it will extend past the mechanism? Cheers for any help on the above! Dave

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1399409053' post='2444027'] Codswallop! My Monster HDMI cable makes the 1s much more aligned & stops them curving with the 0s. [/quote] I find that gold-plated contacts make my 1s much more...I dunno....'on' somehow?

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1399398413' post='2443862'] Yes, there is a growing market nowadays in audiophile USB cables. Scientists say it shouldn't work , hifi magazines say it does. I haven't heard a demonstration yet so can't vote either way. What I do know is that I recently invested a a basic but decent quality analogue interconnect to link my P.C to my hifi and it is a noticeable improvement on the few-quid-off-the-internet no-name cable I was using before. [/quote] I can see how the analog connection thing could make a difference, especially if you're replacing the often crappy leads that come with PC speakers etc. But for USB and other digital cables, it's not just some kind of subjective opinion about sound quality-it's that digital connections fundamentally don't work that way. The data you receive will be exactly the same each time, otherwise computers, the internet etc just wouldn't work. When you buy an album from iTunes, your copy of it is identical to mine even though both sets of data have taken completely different paths to our computers. The only time this isn't true is when something goes wrong, in which case the errors aren't a simple issue with sound quality, but are usually much more serious, like a completely unplayable file. Sorry, IT lecture over. ....my inner geek gets annoyed when people who write for hi-fi mags don't take the time to learn the basics of the technology that they get paid to write about.

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1399331320' post='2443269']... at least in the non-digital world... [/quote] That's the key to the whole thing - it's at least possible for analogue cables to make a difference to the sound. But once you're digital, as long as the cable is up to the minimum spec (which they just about all are) then a more expensive cable can't possibly make any difference to the sound. Unfortunately, a lot of 'experts' in the hi-fi world claim that they can.

If you have a smartphone you could also keep the charts on that as well so you at least have a backup. A lot harder to read, but probably better than nothing

I'm sure other people will chime in recomendations, but it might be worth considering a Chromebook. These are designed to do everything via the Web, so there's no installing apps etc. Having said that, you can also store and play content on the internal disc like PDFs, music and videos. The biggest advantages are that they are cheap, you don't have to worry about viruses etc and you just sign in with your Google credentials. This last one is handy because you can hand it to kids, guests etc and they can login and use it without touching any of your stuff. The biggest disadvantage is that if you need particular installed software you're out of luck. As a muso you might have a favourite music recording tool that you like, but unless it's available on the Web you won't be able to use it. I have one and it's ideal for the things that you have on your list, but i do also have a desktop PC that I can fall back on. There are various ones available from different manufacturers - the Acer C720 has got good reviews and it's 200 quid so it might be worth a look.

[quote name='ikay' timestamp='1394205275' post='2389162'] This vid is fairly conclusive evidence that the bass itself has at least something to do with it - [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFjA0cshhvc[/media] [/quote] That's a good video - isolated, the basses sound really different. But in the second half when he's playing along with the tune they all sound very similar to me (with the exception of the J basses on bridge pickup).

[quote name='fatback' timestamp='1394029595' post='2387097'] Have you tried turning the Full Circle a couple of degrees? It does change the sound, although how much may depend on a lot of things. [/quote] I bought a Rev Solo 2 from Clarky a couple of months back - it's a lovely sounding pickup but it's incredibly sensitive to how it's seated in the slot. Someone sneezing in the next room is enough to turn it from a nice natural "my bass only louder" sound into a horrible feedback machine. You Full Circle users have it easy

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1393839641' post='2384751'] Funnily enough, I used to do that but progressed to running the fishman into the front input of my little Mark head, and now to running direct into the front input without the fishman. Anyone know if this is legit? Sounds alright to my ears. I use a shadow nanoflex pickup (under Bridge feet) which has a "preamp" included attached on the afterlength, so I'm not sure of the impedances etc [/quote] That sounds like my experience. After I upgraded my amp (from a Roland Cube to a GK MB150) I found that I preferred the sound going directly into the amp. I've tried with both a Bass Max and Rev Solo 2 pickups and I find that the Plat Pro colours the sound too much, whereas the direct approach sounds more natural to my ears. I always bring the Plat Pro with me though in case the room in question doesn't agree with my setup and I need extra tweaking options.

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1392765955' post='2372620'] Thanks, hmm double and triple stops....why not simply say a chord? "I just threw a double stop in" does sound sexier though! [/quote] As far as I know, the term is an old one that comes from the world of violin, cello, double bass etc. Instead of 'fretting' a note, you 'stop' the string on a given note, which kind of makes sense on a fretless instrument. From a bass-playing perspective, if you say that you're 'playing a chord', that could either mean that you're playing multiple strings at the same time, or that you're playing a line over a given chord, so maybe 'double stop' is just more unambiguous? But I agree that it does sound sexier as well....

I quite like the rhythm exercises on this site:- http://www.practicesightreading.com/

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392715146' post='2371809'] So no one thinks it strange that a fretless model was never available from the beginning for existing upright players to switch to? This was my main point of discussion, not the concept of putting frets on as frets had been around for hundreds of years. The instrument may have evolved differently had fretless been available as an option from the start and I wonder if many people ripped the frets out even in the early days? [/quote] I think that you're thinking about this in a modern context - at the time, double bass was the way of fulfilling that role in a band, and Fender came along with a sonically equivalent instrument that could be played by guitarists or upright players. I don't think that the fretted nature of a BG makes it harder for upright players to switch. If anything, it helps with intonation issues when switching to a BG's shorter scale length.

I'm not sure what pickup the Eminence has, but with my previous pickup (Bass Max) and my current one (Rev Solo) I find that I actually get a better sound without the Fishman Plat Pro in the chain - I find the EQ on the GK MB150 gives a more natural tone. But I always bring the Fishman to gigs just in case.

[quote name='fatgoogle' timestamp='1389992673' post='2340446'] Car is too expensive. Under 21 and all that jazz. Any one taken a train in Virgin trains and not had trouble. My emails with them imply they won't play ball and be nice [/quote] What a pain. The only thing I can think of is that you could make sure that your train is at an off-peak time and hope that the conductor doesn't mind/care. As long as you're not in anyone's way I can't see anyone minding, although I'm fully prepared to admit that reason and logic don't always apply to train conductors....

You're probably at a level of consistency with your playing that you still played well even though you weren't "feeling it" on the night. This is a good thing I think....Whereas when I think the music I'm playing is crap, that's because it usually is It could have also been that the sound that you were hearing on the stage wasn't great for some reason, which made it sound like the music wasn't hanging together, even thought it was.

Before I found a bass that I liked in Dublin I considered the train/ferry thing. I think it's do-able but I think that you might want to check with the train and ferry companies first that it's OK to bring the bass with you as a foot passenger.

+1 to what XB26354 says above. One pattern that I use quite a bit is using the first inversion of chords when you're playing the root on the D and G strings. So for example, if you're playing over an Eb major chord, then you have the root (Eb) on the D string on the first fret, the fifth (Bb) on the A string on the first fret and the third (G) at the third fret on the E string. If it's a minor chord, then the third is instead at the second fret (Gb in this case). This pattern will work all the way up the neck. What I like about this is that if you're walking, then you have the first three notes immediately available (root, third and fifth, although not necessarily in that order). Then, depending on the next chord, all you have to do is choose a fourth note that leads to that next chord (either chromatic, scale or chord tone). I'm not saying that you should use this all the time, as it'll quickly sound pretty mechanical, but it's a useful pattern to have available under your fingers.

Congratulations Dave, what a great way to celebrate Christmas! Hope mum and baby are doing well.

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1387286732' post='2310220'] Could you and your brother join forces and suggest that "to make sure that the set is really polished" , that you do an acoustic unamplified rehearsal? If the singer hears the songs and they sound great unplugged he may well go that way live or at least turn down. If the singing is shockingly bad ...well theres your reason why the volume gets cranked up! [/quote] +1. Being able to play well quietly is one of the most overlooked musical skills IMHO.