musicbassman

Played a private function at Southampton on Saturday with an 8 piece band.

Venue is called Roddington Forge, which was a new one to me. But a nice place with a decent sized stage - shame it's upstairs so a bit of a haul for equipment.

And the second outing for my newly acquired '96 Stingray - seems to be a good 'un.

Cabaret included a magician who performed seemingly impossible 'mind reading' tricks - audience was....... errr...........spellbound.  😉

Hi, can you give the weight please?

Rand Forbes, who played a fretless bass in the late 60's in a band called The United States of America. And this was before I even had a bass - I was still a spotty schoolboy fumbling about on a skinny stringed thing then.

And this track in particular - the way the bass dances around the main vocal line yet always supports it. Still sounds good today.

A dep gig from hell last night.

Playing with a late 50's - early 60's band - I've played with them before and they're pretty OK with the material they do.

But last night they had a dep singer, and he was an elderly crooner, who told me proudly that he normally sung at care homes and used " a cassette player with backing tracks"

It was appalling. I was already a bit concerned when we did a soundcheck (don't really know why they bothered) and played a bit of 'Blue Suede Shoes' and instead of singing the word 'one' on the first beat of the bar ("Well it's one for the money" etc) he tried to sing with the word "Well" on the first beat of the bar...........

It didn't get any better. But in fairness, in some songs he started off in the same key as the band, so that was an occasional bonus.

The crowd was fairly well oiled and there was some polite applause after every number, but maybe that was just with sheer relief that the singer had managed to get to the end of the song.

At the end, the singer asked for my number as he "could sometimes do with a good bass player"  Unfortunately I forgot to give it to him.  🙂 👍

Worked with quite a few different drummers at dep gigs over the past months, and I've experienced -

- a drummer who doesn't seem to know that using a ride cymbal has a time and a place, and that it should be used sparingly, not almost continuously in every b****y number.

- a drummer who refuses to play a straight four on the floor when that's clearly what's needed.

- a drummer who doesn't seem to understand that shouting a 1,2,3,4 count in for the band is supposed to be setting the tempo for the number, and is not just some random timing.

Rant over !!! 🥺

10 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

synth players tend to approach things in a way that wouldn't naturally occur to a bassist.

This is the key point - getting the right sound is only half of it - getting the clipped sixteenths and the swing and syncopation right is the other half.

I love taking 80's and early House synth bass lines to pieces and playing them- yes, a different approach, and an education for me, anyway.  🙂

When you get a bit of spare time, take a listen to Rick Astley's Never Going to Give You Up  - this has the mother of all synth basslines

Just run through the 'How Long' track - I find it pretty straightforward to get the right feel using a pick, but I know I'd find it quite tricky with fingers.

And the little fills he ornaments the bass line with on the old audio track of 'Yes We Can Can' are really excellent!

Anyway, I'm off down the Foam Shop this morning !  😁

3 hours ago, JJTee said:

That is a stunning performance!

Absolutely - and just look at the size of the piece of damping foam on his P !

That is a serious bass line - never heard this track before.

I would suggest that it's all played with a pick, loads of damping and compressed to within an inch of it's life, and possibly partly double tracked/overdubbed as well.

I shall have a crack at this tomorrow, don't know how far I'll get but good fun trying, and thanks for the heads up.    🙂

Can I refer you nice people to this thread I started on the Accessories and Misc page on this site back in September?

My rather poor opinion of the XT strings hasn't changed, but I've also become a bit disillusioned with the NYXL's fitted to my standard P - having done a few gigs with them I've realised they have a decent bottom end on the E and A strings but sound a bit thin and lifeless on the D and G strings, and really lack any middle at all.

For comparison, I also have NYXL's of similar vintage fitted onto my active PJ bass and they sound really good there - the bridge pup picks up the mids well whereas they are completely lacking on the standard P.

What a heartwarming story 🙂

Jeez, I think we all need a bit of uplifting at the moment................. 😳

Maybe these threads should be linked  🙂

2 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

It's an amorphous blob with the ugliest headstock I've ever seen, and those stupid big flat elephant ear tuners should be melted down for scrap.

How very dare you!  😲

I'll have you know you're talking about my favourite bass ................!!!

"those stupid big flat elephant ear tuners"

.......but that's one of the best bits !!!  😥

Typical bass players - thinking about the technical aspects and the mix !  🙂

Actually I was also thinking that the type of music being played would have zero relevance, recognition or emotional connections for 90% of the TV audience.

Hi peeps,

I bought a set of D'Addario NYXL rounds about 4 weeks ago for a P bass and was pretty pleased with them, so I thought I'd use D'Addario rounds again for my other P. Only this time I bought a set of XT coated rounds, to see what they were like.

Big mistake. The XT coated sounded like grunged up 5 year old roundwounds straight from the pack, and haven't got any better , so they're off again after just one gig. Big disappointment.

Anyone else tried these ?

Played at The Stage Door in Southampton on Friday. What a great little place!

All PA and lights were in house, so just had to bring a backline.

A really helpful and knowledgeable sound engineer helped create a great sound for the band and the place was really busy.

First pic is from my phone after we'd soundchecked, second pic is a still from a video taken during the show.

6 hours ago, moley6knipe said:

Starting to gel nicely. Now need to work on removing the drummer from BV's

There, fixed it for you !  🙂

5 minutes ago, nilorius said:

I felt the slime of hand made quality

I think auto-translate has let you down today, @nilorius  🙂

Really long gigs seem to be a pretty standard US thing.

I played on the USAF bases in Spain in the late '70's and the resident band were contracted to play 6 nights a week (in the same venue)

Mon - Fri it was 5 x 45 minute slots per night......

And then, as a special treat on the Saturday night, it was 6 x 45 minute slots............

I really don't know how my fingers survived - must have played about 25,000 notes each night ................ 

1 hour ago, ambient said:

It looks good for its age.

Suspiciously good ?

I heard about this tool a couple of years ago - below is a description for those who are curious.

Would you consider having this done to correct a favourite bass that's started misbehaving?

Are there many/any luthiers offering this service in the UK ?

I'm guessing it's really not going to be cheap  😲

https://sfguitarworks.com/the-plek/

Just returned from an afternoon gig with a decent 7 piece south coast band who were playing outdoors at the New Forest Pride Festival.

Considering the train strike, event was well attended and a good atmosphere.

Unfortunately the band were struggling with a rather poor PA system and a soundman who gave the distinct impression that he’d rather not have been there at all. Only 3 monitors instead of the 6 requested, and no DI for the bass available, (‘sorry mate, it’s broken’) so I had to crank my Vanderkley/Hartke rig way up for the bass to be heard, which in turn meant that it was way too loud on stage. And as there were no monitors for bass player, drummer or keyboards, the backline had a real job trying to hear what was going on.

Apparently it sounded good out front, but on stage it was a real struggle. I was trying to lip read the singer to see what she was singing.

Remember guys, you can submit a technical requirements sheet for a gig to the stage manager, but when you arrive at the gig and find the PA hire company haven’t brought the right gear or some of it is broken it’s a bit late to do much about it.

Interesting and knowledgeable discussion.

We're talking about skinny strings here, but same principles apply.

1 hour ago, Thunderpaws said:

Big Wreck. Amazing musical skills and song writing. They’ve been around so long that they split up, Ian Thornley went solo, then they reformed again. 
 

Only reason I didn’t listen to them previously though is that I hadn’t heard of them😂

 

 

Wow!  - bass players opening licks..... 😊 .....he's been listening to Doug Johns - and that's no bad thing :

Spinal Tap in skirts.