lozkerr

At the age of 59, I can still lug most things about and play a full evening with my five-string Fender Jazz, but I do have to be careful moving things like Hughes & Kettner PA cabs and my Eden Metro. I tried to move a Trace combo in a rehearsal studio some months back and felt strain in my back. I took that as a warning to take it a bit easier.

Impressive thread, this. Seven pages in and no mention of bathrooms yet!

9 hours ago, neepheid said:

Before people jump simply to attributing this to malice, it could be a systemic failure - where IT change stuff on the website and neglect to inform the people who maintain that info on the shop floor.

That sounds quite probable, but if that is the cause, it's likely down to slovenly system design resulting in crapware thrown together by hipster brogrammer types whose confidence far outweighs their ability.

I've spent almost my entire working life in IT. Primarily healthcare and life science, but I did have a stint working on a retail and supply-chain management system.

This setup had a central pricing system that used a basic retail price and added markups depending on the store type and (IIRC) location postcode. I think the idea behind that was to offer lower prices in deprived areas - £9.99 in Torquay vs £4.99 in Toxteth, for example. Or conversely, screw a bigger margin out of the better-off. Sounds brutal, but that's how the retail industry works.

For this to work properly, price changes had to be communicated instantly to every store. When a central change was made, electronic messages were sent to the in-store systems notifying them of the change. Cue harassed shop staff changing shelf prices at very short notice.

The reason I know all this is that the main part of my job consisted of testing those messages.

The point of this waffle is that price management is really basic stuff - Janet and John level - when you're managing a large retail operation. The PMT website is just another type of outlet. A price difference of that magnitude suggests a big hole somewhere, which makes asking for either a price match or ordering online at the lower price a very sensible thing to do.

I'd fancied the idea for years without doing anything about it. A friend at uni had been the original bassist in the Dogs d'Amour and he tried to convince me to get a bass, but I bought a cheapo electric guitar instead because, well you know, guitar.

When I moved to Leeds in 1993 and started using dial-up bulletin boards, I encountered someone who had been a session bassist. I toyed with the idea of getting a bass but never took it any further, even when I wished I could play like John Deacon.

Then back in 2015 when my marriage collapsed, I finally decided to give it a go, as I wasn't getting any younger and I thought it might stop me spending the evenings inspecting the world through the bottom of a bottle. I stuck with it, and began to improve first from books and then from lessons from @wilko_66, who is a superb teacher. it helped that I'd played other instruments in the past, as my reading ability and theory came back and after several house moves and a few failed auditions, I ended up in my 80s post-punk band which consisted of people with far more experience than me. I really had to push myself to get up to something approaching their level and we played our first gig ten days before lockdown. Since then, we've gone from strength to strength and tonight we played to a packed venue as a two- band bill along with a 90s cover band. 

My start in the bass world was late and looks like it was unconventional, going by the posts above, but I'm glad I finally got there!

2 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

It's the main reason that people who have bought a 5-string and not found the main reason for having a 5-string have for selling it.

Nailed it. There are two or three songs in my two bands' combined repertoire that actually need notes below bottom E, but I could never go back to a four-string now - I'd have to re-learn the fingering for well over a hundred songs.

Started off in a school choir directed by an old-skool music teacher with wild hair and a fiery temper - even the head teacher hesitated to cross swords with this guy. If you were good, he had your back and you could get away with a lot.

Then a change of school saw me in a marching band, where I ended up as leading bugler and side drum tutor. After that, a trad jazz band with me on trumpet, my best friend on clarinet and a steady stream of others who liked the idea but didn't want to put in the work. Inevitably, it fizzled out.

Then a long hiatus, punctuated by annoying distractions like 'work', 'degree', 'career' and whatnot, until I picked up a bass and realised I should have done that as a teenager. I think I might have had a fairly successful career as a musician, but it's too late now.

But: better late than never. When I walk into a rehearsal studio or step on stage, I know I'm in my happy place.

PM'd.

I'm in two bands and they both have different approaches.

In the 80s covers band, we use a voting system. We're a six-piece band, so each of us suggest two songs. We then cast six votes. The most popular six are worked up and rehearsed a few times and we then decide yay/nay. Obviously, the singers' views carry most weight there. It's worked well so far.

In the punk band, it depends on whether a suggestion is a cover or an original. If it's a cover, we'll try it out provided it fits our overall vibe of angry feminism, making changes as needed. If it's an original, we'll spend time trying out different ideas to see if something workable emerges. It helps that we have two songwriters who work well together, plus a band leader who openly admits that she's a control freak but is careful not to interfere with the creative process. For my part, I tend to listen to the rehearsal recordings and jot down ideas to try out at the next session. 

Both approaches have produced good results.

Mono M80 gig bag for me, unless my bass has to go in the back of a van. Then I drag the Fender hard case out of storage.

Saturday's gig could have been a tad melancholic, as it was a memorial to a guy who passed suddenly earlier this year. He was the singer in a band that we normally do a two-hander with called Rock for Remembrance as a fundraiser for a charity supporting disabled Forces veterans. 

But far from being downbeat, it went down a storm. It was held in Colinton bowling club - a genteel place in a leafy Edinburgh suburb. A kids' birthday party was finishing as we were loading in - I don't think I've ever seen so many Trinity tractors in one small car park before.

We were on first, and I was expecting our whole set to be met with nothing more than polite applause, but we had people up and dancing well before we finished. It got livelier as the evening went on, so all good there.

On the downside, one of the lighting stands slipped as I was setting it up and took a lump out of my left index finger, and the lighting desk was sulking. It took a bit of percussive persuasion to get it to behave. I think it's on the way out.

But all in all, a great night!

80s band: wet-look leggings with Primani boots adorned with fake pearls, plain-colour top, black jacket, Satanic necklace.

Punk band: bottom half as above, band T-shirt rotating between Girls Rock School, Countess of Fife, the Rezillos, London Underground logo and artwork from the Passions' Africa Mine. With a lurid pink jacket over it sporting badges up the lapels. Plus the Satanic necklace.

For me, it's this. Fender Jazz V Deluxe through an Eden Metro atop a 118 cab. This was taken a few days before lockdown - seems ages ago now!

6 hours ago, snorkie635 said:

Ooooooooh! A Metro on top of a 1x18 should = bass utopia. 👀👍

Aye, you're not wrong there! It's seriously loud!

Punk Floyd.

Deep Burple.

Excluding a few small practice amps, I have four that get used for gigs:

Eden WTX-264 - this one is also my practice amp. It's handy for smaller gigs where we're told that the acceptable volume is 'not Motorhead, please'.

Eden Metro - bulky beast but it's monstrously loud.

Eden E300T all-valve head - another plaster-loosener.

Eden WTP600 - nice amp but I'm not 100% convinced it's quite up there with the Metro. 

Four cabs - a 118, two 210s and a 112. All Eden.

I should probably thin out the collection a bit!

In all its emotional colours... this one shows a different aspect to the conventional story:

Hi Vin - is this still available?

If you're on book 3 of Ed Friedland, you're already a long way down the reading road. The edition I have doesn't even mention the t-word until halfway through book 2 and even then it presents it as fingering suggestions rather than Thus Shalt Thou Play This.

This guy sounds like a chancer. If you can't find someone else locally, you might want to think about one-to-one online lessons, if that means you're working with a bass teacher instead of a guitarist who thinks he can teach bass.

3 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

Such things depend on what your definition of "good" is and what the comparison made between yourself and this standard is. 

I'm kinda conflicted about this. On the one hand, I'm still beating myself up because I haven't mastered Paradise By The Dashboard Light after months of trying. Not because I have to, but because I want to. I should be able to do it, but the rhythm changes keep tripping me up. Every time I go through it, I end up convinced that I'm seriously sh!t as a bass player and I should take up binge-watching reality telly instead.

But OTOH, when I finished our last gigs with my 80s covers band and my punk band, I felt as if I was walking on air. The atmosphere was great, people were dancing and I felt like I was where I always should have been.

It might be that I'm pushing myself a bit too hard. But after finding the bass late in life, I feel like I have a lot of catching-up to do.

I usually start with mids up from 12 o'clock, treble up a little and cut the bass until the B string doesn't sound like mush. The HPF sounds like a good idea - I must try that.

Last night in Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar with the Girls Rock School showcase. This one featured some of the students from the spring term that I'd helped teach. 

Girls Rock School is primarily about helping women build confidence rather than become festival headliners, but they put on some pretty impressive performances. The punk band I'm in was supporting the main act - here's a song from our set. Includes profanity.

Boss ME-50B multi-fx unit. Lots of nice sounds that were fun to play with in practice sessions but I just couldn't get on with it on stage. I replaced it with individual pedals to get the sounds I use the most and haven't looked back since.

37 minutes ago, TeresaFR said:

Westinghouse M-25 40 watt phase plasma rifle, if we're talking firearms.

Belt-fed MkII Bren gun with flash guard. You can't miss unless you're blind.

Have you got my recent PMs? I'm still interested in this.