Beer of the Bass

On the cheap guitar/expensive amp vs expensive guitar/cheap amp advice in the opening post, I'd agree as long as we're talking about guitar. I'd much rather gig with a well set up Squier strat through a good valve amp than a Custom Shop Fender strat through a budget solid state amp. The guitar would need to meet a certain minimum standard though, which most Squiers easily do. I played in a band with McNach for a while, so heard many of the basses mentioned in his post above. I can confirm that the J&D and Squier J basses and the Sue Ryder P absolutely hold their own from a listeners perspective and while I never heard the OLP, the SUBs and Stingray didn't sound discernibly different in a live context.

This is very much a personal taste perspective, but I've never liked the HA series very much when I've plugged into them, whereas the LH500 sounds great with very little fiddling. I'd go for the LH500 given the choice, although your pair of 4-ohm cabs may not be the best match.

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1411724573' post='2562237'] Having been in this position before, I would agree with the sentiment at the end there - take your time and be picky. Don't rush into stuff and don't join the first band that comes along if it isn't right for you, just for the sake of being in a band again. [/quote] In between my other two projects (one very quiet acoustic quartet with double bass, one livelier band where I play guitar) I'll still get my being-in-a-band jollies, but what I don't do in either is play bass in a full band with drummer. That's probably something I'll miss at some point, but I think I'm happy enough right now. As well as the stuff I've already talked about, one of the things that got me thinking about leaving this band was that a few weeks ago I had some very enjoyable gigs both with the Forgotten Works ( the other link in my sig) and a one-off reunion of a free-improv collective which I used to play with 10 years ago. When I played those gigs I felt really good both while playing and afterwards, and that reminded me what it feels like when something is working musically. A couple of pub sessions with a guitarist friend who visits for the Edinburgh Festival each year did the same thing too. It's been some time since I felt like that playing with the band I've just left and I don't think I would have got that back, whatever it is.

I don't think a bridge wing pickup can ever sound like a microphone, as a lot of the character of the sound is down to the position the pickup is in. It can be an interesting experiment to take a stick-on contact pickup and listen to it in different positions, as certain spots invariably have certain qualities that you can recognise from other pickups fitted in that position. A decent bridge wing pickup can still sound good and be useful though...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1411722910' post='2562218'] Pity that things got that way... but if it's not fun anymore, what's the point? Where are you playing this weekend? I'm reasonably free and would love to see you guys play one more time [/quote] It's next weekend, Saturday 4th at the Blind Poet. It's a low-key gig and usually fairly early in the evening.

OK, I've had the conversation and I've left the band. Singer seemed sad, one of the other two was surprised but understanding, the other one I'm fairly certain had seen it coming. I've not burned my boats with anyone though, as I was quite determined not to do that. As I result I held back a little about some of the aspects that were annoying me, but I think I got the message across well enough. I'm kind of sad about it as it has been a fun band in a lot of ways and I've put a lot into it, but I think I needed to do it. I'm doing one more gig next weekend which I'd agreed to weeks ago, but after that it's done. Things are a bit weird as now I don't have an electric bass gig at all, just an acoustic project with the double bass and a band where I play guitar. I'll probably seek out another project to play bass guitar with, but possibly not right away.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1411656283' post='2561621'] I'd be first in the queue to maon about unpaid gigs, but have I got all this right..? They want to 'make' it but will consider doing a festival date ( which I presume is to impress and advance the band etc etc ) without a bass player and not advise the promoter/booker.. ? I can't see the promoter/booker being impressed by that and that is not giving said gig much respect. And if the gig doesn't warrant it...why are you doing it anyway? I'd be asking for more deatils on the London gig.... I'd be doing that on everything else the guy put up as well, as it happens, but if I wasn't convinced the London gig had a LOT going for it.. I'd be saying I was unavailable for that...on the basis that time off work, loss of leave, monies etc etc ...all on the back on the fact that you weren't asked. I might even be washing my hair that evening, as that seems to be as much respect that is forthcoming from one or two in the band coming your way. The way things seems to be presented and organised is just one big disaster gig waiting to happen, IMO [/quote] Yes, it's one long stream of "what the hell are we playing at" sentiments at the moment. The gig for the festival organiser ended up being cancelled at the last minute BTW, as without their only driver available (me), the band realised they couldn't get themselves there. I'm sure they made a great impression! I'm meeting up with the band in half an hour, I'm fairly definite at this point that I'm done, but I'll post back later just to report how it went...

Well, I'll be charitable and accept that it [i]could[/i] be a communications mix-up between the singer and venue. But even so, I feel like I've taken things as far as I wish to with this band, I've just been waiting for a face-to-face meeting to discuss that.

An update; I'm meeting up with the band to discuss things later today. In the meantime the singer appears to have signed us up for an unpaid gig at a tiny venue in London next month (we're in Edinburgh, so massive effort and expense involved) and only asked the rest of us after the venue had already listed the gig. That's not going to help matters!

Just as a bit of a game, there are three tracks on this EP. One was tracked to a 1/4" 8 track Fostex R8, the other two were straight to digital. Same signal path, same live room, same day. Guess which one was the tape! [url="https://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep"]https://jenthegents....um/right-now-ep[/url]

Is he going to join basschat? The banter between the two of you might be quite entertaining!

I though I'd pop these up here for people to check out; here are three tracks which Jen and the Gents put up on their bandcamp page this month. [url="http://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep"]http://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep[/url] If anyone is curious about the bass sound, I'm playing home-built gear on this one, my five-string bass into my valve preamp box for a tiny bit of grit, plus my Superfuzz clone on Right Now. I had D'Addario tapewounds on at the time, and the bass is DI'd via a BSS AR116 DI box. We had to do a bit of creative EQ-ing to make the DI fuzz sound work, but as we recorded the drums, bass and guitars live in one room we were trying to avoid mic-ing a cab.

There are a few older valve amps which are the right width to sit on top a Super 12. I've had both a 40 watt Dynacord Bass King T and a 100 watt Carlsbro CS100/4 PA which were 50cm wide or less. Both were very simplistic old fashioned amps, but for the price of a new amp you could probably pick up something along these lines and find a good tech to build your choice of preamp into it. Or a Peavey Classic rack-mounting power amp with a separate preamp in a 19" rack case?

I'm not sure how useful my feedback is as at is was around four years ago that I installed a set of the 766 steels on a bass, but out of the packet the E string was somewhat darker than the other three and didn't have the zing expected from a new set of steel strings. It wasn't extreme enough to make me think that they were faulty and it seemed to even up after a few weeks of playing, but players who are looking for that brightness might not be massive fans of them.

Don't those TC combos have a mute button? I'd use that during the speaking parts of the sermon.

I spent this afternoon recording a couple of tracks with a friend who's been visiting from the US for a few weeks. I had a look at the studio's choice of house amps and ended up playing through an Ampeg Micro VR and 210AV. I'm rather surprised by how much I enjoyed the sound of this rig, as I'd thought they looked like a bit of a gimmick like those miniature solid-state Marshall stacks. The head has the EQ centres in useful places, as I can turn the mids up without it sounding boxy and the soft clipping when the gain is turned up is nicely done, but I suspect it was the cab which I was really getting into. The interesting thing for me was that while I could hear the low end roll-off that comes from a small sealed cab, it didn't sound like I expected it to from having heard it described. Rather than sounding thin, it came across as pleasantly tight and even and had plenty of lows for the type of sound I go for. The upper mids and highs were cool too, I presume there's some sort of presence peak going on which it turns out I find pleasing. I don't know what the drivers in there are, but I guess they're relatively humble ceramic jobs. I'm not about to dash out and buy one at the minute, but it was educational in figuring out what my low-end requirements really are...

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1411322791' post='2558423'] Couldn't you put thin metal strips, about the height of dimples, along the fingerboard, where the notes are..? That should sort it... [/quote] Hmm, with ideas like that you should be making a beeline for the patents office!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1411322088' post='2558417'] Imagine someone playing the accordion. They can't see what their left hand is doing, can they..? You don't need to look (you shouldn't even [i]want [/i]to look..!); just do it, and listen..! [/quote] If I'm remembering this correctly they do get a couple of buttons with dimples in the top so they have a reference point without looking though!

Yes, some of the threads did get nastily personal and that's a shame. I will point out that there's nothing to stop anyone from following his listings on eBay in order to appreciate his inimitable selling style though, as he's still very much in business! A quick search for "Wide neck guitar" will invariably turn up some of his work...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1411088180' post='2556430'] Oh no That's a pity... I love that band! But, yeah, when you don't feel like you're "needed" it's not so much fun :-/ I can't believe they just went ahead and played without bass. The bass is so important in so many of your songs! I don't like using deps in bands like Jen and the Gents, or SBK, etc. I feel that using a dep is not representing the band for what it is (no matter how great the dep is!). But in SBK, I (rarely) have someone else playing bass, if it's a gig we consider "important" and we really don't want to miss it. My view is that if it's really that important, all the more reason NOT to use a dep! But it keeps everybody else happy, and as long it's not used to book any regular gigs, I'm ok with that. It's been ok so far. You know my dep... it's Pete, now in NUF He is someone I trust, is known to the band, and he may end up playing a couple of gigs a year perhaps. If your bandmates are worried about your availability, maybe that's an option... although your availability issues are more than reasonable and I'm surprised they didn't understand and support you. Working on new material... I'd get bored if all we did was play the same things over and over, without seeing a progression. I wonder if the fact that you changed drummer first and then guitarist made the band slow down a bit. I know that when we changed drummers in SBK (first in early 2011, then in early 2012) it felt like it took ages for us to move on... As for which gigs to play... I love playing so I say yes to nearly all. Nearly. I'm not interested in playing lots of multiband gigs where you get a 30 min slot, 40 if lucky, that end up eating all your evening and give you little back. We don't always charge, and the amount we charge varies... but we tend to balance it so that we can play for free (or food and drinks and some petrol money) if it's fun and we don't require to bring much equipment and/or it's local, and we want more of a cash incentive if the logistics are more complicated... There are many gigs around Edinburgh that would see you playing to a handful of people for little or no cash (if you play often in a small city, you can't expect your followers to be there at every gig)... I'd rather not do those. Henry's Cellar? No thanks. It can be good if you organise it yourself, but it generally sucks when we join someone else's bill. I think being a bit choosy helps a lot. One thing that helped us a lot was getting regular slots at Whistle Binkies (one of the main music bars in town). WE started being offered 45min slots on a WEdnesday or later a Thursday, then we moved to better slots on better days... You get seen by a lot of people, and I think your band would do well there, but until you have a 2x45min worth of decent material you won't get the decent slots... I don't know, sorry I just rambled... it's late, I'm tired and trying not to think about the referendum I hope it's just a low point and that it gets better. That band would not be the same without your bass! [/quote] We haven't sat down to have "The Conversation" yet and there's only so much I want to do via facebook messages, so I'm not out at this point, just leaning in that direction. What I have done is to make it clear I'm unhappy about the band going out without bass, to be told that the band will continue to do it anyway. The band are playing without bass this Saturday for a gig which is being run by the organiser of a festival in May, in the hope that we get offered a gig at the festival. They haven't told the organiser that it won't be the full lineup which she's seen before. But they'll be playing without any bass to an audience of hippies who want to dance, and I don't see how that's going to make a good impression. Without wanting to big myself up, I have put a lot into building the sound of this band and consider that without me it is not the same band. I don't think I'd be easy to replace without the band sounding very different either (not because I'm that great technically, but I think some of my idiosyncrasies are part of our sound). This band was a bit of a departure for me as prior to us forming I'd spent much more time gigging on double bass than electric and had never done anything as overtly pop as this, so I think my current playing style on electric bass has developed around the band to some extent. But the willingness to gig without any bass suggests that there is a perception that the band equals the singer plus whatever backing musicians are available that day, and that's not what I thought I'd been doing for these past few years. You have some good points about venues - for a while we organised our own monthly night at the Banshee Labyrinth where we booked the bands and there were some satisfying gigs there despite the dinginess of the venue. We haven't tried Whistlebinkies for some reason, though 2 x 45 minute sets is something we can do as we've had quite a few pub gigs that ask for the same.

This website has pictures and details of many of the Hofner models through the years. You might have some luck browsing through and trying to match up the model. [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/contgal1.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/contgal1.html[/url]

I've seen someone doing that, but I've never managed to make it work!

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1410962013' post='2555068'] That looks good - I'm not clear about how it attaches to the bass though, it. If I understand correctly, you put the bass in its case, slip the collar end of the strap over the neck, then attach the clip to the tailwire - is that it? If so, how do you prevent the collar end from slipping back up the neck towards the scroll? Or does the friction do the job? Sorry for the (possibly stupid) questions, it's just that the straps on my case are all broken and generally crap so this looks like what I need! [/quote] Friction, combined with the noose-like action of the strap and the length adjustment. On mine I added a small loop of cord to slip over the endpin as that seemed a better idea than trying to clip to the tailwire, and I have the length adjusted so the neck part of the strap sits a few inches above the heel. They're not great in place of handles for manoeuvring in and out of cars etc, but excellent for carrying the bass in a vertical position and walking with it.

Whichever bag you go for, this type of strap feels much safer and more confidence inspiring than relying on the ones stitched to the bag. When I'm not using my wheel I can carry the bass behind me with the strap over one shoulder and a lot of the weight across my lower back. It's a lot kinder on the wrists than using the handles on the bag. Mine isn't this brand, but a similar one: [url="http://www.contrabass.co.uk/shoulderstraps.htm"]http://www.contrabass.co.uk/shoulderstraps.htm[/url]