shoulderpet

It went ok-ish, I played a really bad bum note on one song, another one I played the last note of the  song as a G instead of an E, singer/guitarists guitar was out of tune for an entire song, everything else went fine

Thanks for the replies, 2 days till the gig and our rehearsal last night was like an italian soap opera, it was all out war. 

We managed to get a couple extra rehearsals book but everybody is now getting annoyed and to further agitate matters our singer has hired a keyboard player now who has done a couple of rehearsals with us so he is having to learn the songs as he will be at the gig as well. 

Fingers crossed for this gig

Ok, the promoter has confirmed that we are on for an hour , a relief but still a lot of ground to cover considering we only have a couple more rehearsals. 

Frustrating thing is that in the time since my last post on this all of the band members have complained about the arrangements changing, i thought maybe we had got through and then this morning I got a message from the signer/guitarist changing 2 of the chords in one of our songs, frustratingly this is the song we spent 2 hours on in the last rehearsal, I have messaged him making my frustration clear, fingers crossed.

If we make a pigs ear of this gig due to the constant changes then I will leave

Thanks, yes the others are finding this very frustrating also, as I rarely see them outside of rehearsal we havent really had much time to talk about it but I think I will message them both about this , I think to make a difference I need the others on board with me as well
 

Hi all
Have been playing bass in the band I am in for a few months now and up until now we have been playing short sets of originals and covers at open mic nights, song competitions etc so we have been focusing a lot on covers.  We are a 4 piece (Singer/guitarist/songwriter, Singer, Bass, Drums)

We now have a gig at a rock night coming up in a couple of weeks where we will be expected to play all originals, there are a couple of other bands on and as we are the last band on and with the bar closing 2 hours after the start of our set we have to potentially fill 1.5-2 hours.  When we accepted the gig I thought as we had about 4 rehearsals of around 3 hours each that it would not be a problem getting enough material up to scratch for the gig, now I am not so sure.

The problem is the singer constantly keeps changing the arrangements, every time we rehearse a song he changes something, we spent 2 hours last night rehearsing a song  that we have played several times before because the singer wanted to change the arrangements of every instrument and also wanted to add a bridge section, in total we only played 2 songs throughout the entire rehearsal due to this.  Sundays rehearsal was a very similar situation, a couple of songs we played several times before and he wanted to change the arrangements so we spent ages rehearsing these songs.

To make it clear it is not the changing of the songs arrangements that I have an issue with, its the fact that that with a gig in 2 weeks time and with less than 10 hours rehearsal time left it is not the time to be changing things and spending 2 hours on one song when we have potentially 20 or so songs we need to play to fill the time slot, we need to rehearse hard and nail the songs not spend entire rehearsals changing the arrangements.
I have tried to get this through to the singer but he doesnt seem to get it, im at a loss as to what more i can do to make my point clear.

I want to continue with the band as the songs we have are good songs, we have good musicians and I like the fact we play some originals but I really need to sort this, suggestions welcome, thanks

if you don't like honk avoid the Seymour duncan hot pickup, its pretty much pure mids, the SD Vintage is like the complete opposite, scooped in the extreme, as you can probably tell i'm not a massive SD fan

Picato are good strings, good old school thumpy flats, as long as you are not expecting a bright flatwound I think you will be perfectly happy with them, as with all flats I would go a gauge lighter than if I was buying roundwounds

1 hour ago, knirirr said:

I've got a 15w one which is pretty good for practice and was wondering about upgrading to one which would be loud enough to play jazz gigs/jams, e.g. in pubs. Any idea what size would be sufficient? The weight of the 100 looks good but some of the reviewers on Thomann complain of the low volume.
I used to use a Trace Elliot BLX130SM, which was fine by itself even in loud pubs, but the ~25kg weight is a bit too much these days.

I would avoid the 100 and go for something more powerful, I used to play in a 3 piece band that did rehearsals in a rehearsal studio that had a 60w Fender Rumble, my bass got completely buried in the mix , ended up going DI into the PA instead 

Hi

Am considering the below combo's , wondering if the below are any good , thanks

Ashdown rm c115t-500-evo combo

Ashdown rm-c210t 500 evo combo

Laney R500-115 combo

Sorry, im not up to speed on Fenders, what am I missing here? Is this an MIM or something?

On 06/04/2019 at 10:32, chris_b said:

Ringo wasn't a technical wizard on drums, but he changed the concept of the instrument for every drummer that came after. He introduced the idea of "lead" drumming. After Ringo, drummers could play anything.

Listen to Steve Gadd on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. There is a direct line from Ringo to the drum pattern on that song.

Great point, I never thought of Ringo as a lead drummer but he totally is, Ticket to ride, Come together, Tomorrow never knows all great examples.

Just had a listen to 50 ways and I totally agree

Hi all
Have in the past been lucky enough to have played many gigs that had backline provided, in the band i am currently in I will need to supply my own amp etc, the guitar player drives so will be helping to transport equipment, just wondered what the general consensus is on fuel costs etc and how they are split , how do you split these costs in your band ? thanks

53 minutes ago, JellyKnees said:

Another vote for La Bella LTs... have 'em on my Lakland,  and I get a pretty good fat sound out of them. I would say they are marginally stiffer than the TIs, but there's not much in it...

Have you considered half rounds? The D'addario ones are very nice, and the light gauge set is not too stiff. They definitely cut through better than flats IMO...

No, not considered half rounds as of yet but maybe something to consider, only thing im afraid of is that they will sound like dead rounds once broken in, I tried a set of the Fender pure nickel strings once and they sounded ok initially if a little bright then pretty much as soon as they broke in they just sounded like dead rounds, I took them off as soon as they got to that point

43 minutes ago, walshy said:

If you're near me ( Newcastle ish) welcome to come and try my P basses with the low tension flats on mate

Sadly I am not near but thank you for the offer, I appreciate it

Ok so things have been further confused, played the GHS flats at rehearsal last night and whilst the thump was nice I found that in a band situation there was zero articulation to the notes, I was really struggling to hear the pitch of the notes so I think what I need is a flatwound that is low tension with some definition and some thump (but not cobalts) , I am thinking maybe ordering single Chromes and putting together a custom set.

Wow that is a beautiful bass , i cant be of much help with the year but the logo changed from the raised one to the decal in 68 so this will be 68 or later but definitely earlier than mid 70s

1 hour ago, walshy said:

I’ve recently gone to the La Bella Low Tension Flats from the FL, they’re brilliant. Not flappy and the sound is killer. 

I tried the FL set once, I couldn't believe how stiff they felt to fret, I read on another forum that despite Labella saying these are their light set they are actually around 185ibs of tension 

16 hours ago, franzbassist said:

How about La Bella nylon flats?  Lovely medium-low tension and the standard gauge set sound full and fat.

I tried these a while back and passed them on as I found I got buried in a live situation, maybe I wrote them off too quickly , I may give them another try, shame strings are so damn expensive otherwise I would buy a few sets and try them all out, I cant remember the tone of the nylons, are they thumpy like flats? 

Hi all

hoping you can help, I have recently after using TIs for a long time become a little dissatisfied with their tone, the feel of 
them is great but I feel the tone is lackign something, after trying GHS flats on my bass it became clear that the TIs are 
a bit of low mid thump, the GHS flats sounded so much better its not even funny, no contest at all, which brings me to my next
question, is there any flats that feel close to the flexibility of TIs? GHS in the light gauge are low tension but still 
noticeably stiffer, they are not uncomfortable to play by any means but I just love the flexibility of TIs.
Can anyone recommend a flatwouand that is close to TIs in feel, I am thinking of maybe Labella 760fx but maybe the 
Labella low tension flexible flats would feel looser? Thanks

Thanks , I will give Gear4music a try

Hi All

Just wondering where people get their strings from and where is good to buy from.  I see Stringbusters seems to have dissapeared, Stringsdirect has a decent range but the prices are pretty expensive

4 hours ago, steve-bbb said:

fsr tension feels fine on these and setup has matched the setup on all my other basses and tbh doesnt really feel like a massive difference when you are concentrating on slightly differnt "acousticy" technique compared to playing a solid body with rounds - although he did say that the truss rod is pretty much maxed out because of the increase in tension and too much relief beforehand

Fair enough, I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to string tension, if it feels ok to you then thats what matters

On 24/03/2019 at 12:11, hooky_lowdown said:

Scrap the Colbalts (modern sounding flats) than. Going from rounds to old school flats is going to be a very big difference. Anyway, if you want low tension and old school warm thump than Labella 760FS is what you require!

 

Lovely G5440LSB by the way.

I realise this may be subjective but the 760FS have always felt like solid iron bars to me, not sure what the actual physical tension of them is like,  I would personally go for 760FX for low tension 

14 minutes ago, shoulderpet said:

I wonder how the 208 fares, I am edging towards the 115 for space reasons (tiny home  ) but I wonder if the 208 would be a good compromise or whether it would lack low end

Ok, have done a little research and it seems the 208 is worth skipping

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

The TC is an amazingly good value combo. I also had a 115 that @Pat2019 now uses as my first bass combo. The 210 and 208 came out soon after I bought mine and I suspect if I was starting over, I'd go for one of these two instead now, just for the tighter punchier bass tone they seem to deliver. 

I wonder how the 208 fares, I am edging towards the 115 for space reasons (tiny home  ) but I wonder if the 208 would be a good compromise or whether it would lack low end