Dankology

Well, Squire VI to be completely accurate. I bought mine a couple of years ago on a bit of whim from someone local for about £120. Judging by the comments on his Facebook page after it sold, I suspect it had been an object of derision in his band and, to be fair, in its then state really wasn't much of an instrument. Since then I've picked up one of the Staytrem bridges, shimmed the neck and switched to the fab Newtone Bass VI strings - I'm still pondering upgrading the pickups and nut as well as ditching the whammy bar but for now it is a useable bass and occasionally got used for overdubbed parts on the odd song. But for the last few weeks I've been using it almost exclusively at rehearsal and it's been a bit of game changer. We're a guitar/bass/drums three-piece and using it for octaves, runs against open strings, chords and high register melodic stuff etc has allowed the guitarist and I to blur our roles and the jamming has lead to more bits of new music than we know what to do with. I'm also using more effects than ever before, which is fun. It weighs a ton and the low end is a bit lacking for it to take the place of a normal bass but it is fast becoming one of my favourite instruments. So, is there anyone else in a similar position? These things seem to get very little love online (other than in the dedicated Facebook group!) but I suspect that that is more to do with the crappy bridge and strings that the Squires leave the factory with. On the downside it has made me want one of those Hagstrom 8-strings...

All seems good!

You've obviously never watched me shopping on Ebay... No, I have not considered this at all. In fact, my only process here has been knowing someone with a similar set up and assuming I could do the same with my amp. This is the cab: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Trace-Elliot-4x10-Bass-Guitar-Speaker-Cabinet-/165322491861?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0 And the amp is the aforementioned GP12 SMX combo. Have I done something daft here?

I've long wanted to supplement my 15" GP12 SMX combo with a 4x10 cab but have never quite managed it. Last night I fell into conversation with some folks on the Facebook Trace Elliot group and someone recommended a 2x10 - I went looking for a photo and accidentally found a fairly tidy looking 4x10 on sale at Johnny Roadhouse for £100 - which seemed silly to ignore. So, vomitty child permitting, I'll be picking it up tomorrow in good time for rehearsal later in the evening. Given that the combo on its own loosened every light fitting in the house when I first bought it, I am really quite excited about this addition. Do pray for my lumbar spine though.

This is something I've long fretted over, and moreso on the odd occasions when I use a pick. But... we record all our rehearsals and most of our gigs and every time I listen back the bass sounds fine (other than all the bum notes, of course). It's almost some weird psychological/aural trick in the moment that makes me more conscious of the higher frequency content and somehow filters out the low end. But it's definitely there when listening back later on. This is with a US standard with JVX pickups. I do fancy having the series option though - is there a sensible way of doing this given the EMG solderless/plug & play system?

If my Squire VI is anything to go by, a new socket will end up being the tiniest and most trivial on a long list of mods and fixes. Love mine BTW.

Aside from the potential rights and wrongs of the recruitment criteria (and the seemingly random use of capital letters), that sounds like a band I'd really enjoy not being a member of.

Yours is also presented the most prettily... Really appreciate the time you put into this. These are my thoughts exactly. I really like the way the run sounds and as much as any flurry of quiet, low end notes might have done the trick, it was really bothering me that I couldn't identify what was being played. I've always had a thing about wantng to get my fingers (and ears) around tricky passages, even if it's a song I don't particularly like - just to have another tool in the toolbox, as it were. I was pretty far off as it happens. In my defence, while I was fighting with it I did think that it reminded me of Neil Young's Old Man - and it turns out that it is the same guy on bass. So I may be tone deaf but not entirely cloth-eared 😀

Thank you all for your sterling efforts. I'm looking forward to working my way through these latest versions tomorrow. Fascinating how much variation there is here, latter-day rearrangement aside... 😉

Second gig with our new band on Friday night! The sorry tale of how we were reduced from a 5-piece to a renamed trio is recounted in another thread but the new band is shaping up very nicely indeed now. The gig was a free-in in the bar at a small local theatre. We all know virtually everyone involved in some way so the preparations were very relaxed and informal. The guitarist had been in touch with the venue engineer a few days before to sort out the set up and had explained we were 2 x vox and wanted at least some of the kit in the mix so we could use some effects on it. All was ok'd and it was arranged to meet him on the afternoon of the gig - no show... As we loaded in we were greeted by what I can only assume was a volunteer/work experience bod and the "desk" photographed below. (In case the photo doesn't attach properly, imagine something you might give to child who wanted to pretend they were doing a podcast.) We resigned ourselves to just putting the vocals through the PA but soon realized that there wasn't even a basic built in reverb so rushed back to the rehearsal room to grab the XR18, modem, tablet etc. Amazingly, it all went well from there on: really decent crowd by the end, many of whom seemed to be happily bopping along. All our giveaway cds were nabbed and we even had a girl come up at the end to ask for a setlist - although I wonder if she had anticipated something like the very pretty one that our guitarist had shared on Facebook rather than the crumpled, beerstained plain A4 printout I was standing on. Oh, how I have missed playing live. (a free live EP from our first gig is available here: https://deadtenantmusic.bandcamp.com/releases )

I'm not sure I said that. But as an outsider he perhaps had a degree of perspective (and freedom to speak his mind?) that others that others did not but he chose to bullishly pursue his own agenda.

I'll have to agree to disagree on this one as I reckon his tenacity almost certainly contributed to the toxic atmosphere. But I suppose that's an eternal conundrum: how much does the observer change events merely by observing them? Or by continually punting daft ideas, of course.

In this context I think so. The editing here admitedly emphasises it but I think his insistence on pushing the live show aspect when the band were clearly in the midst of an existential crisis shows a complete lack of emotional intelligence. I'm not sure he comes across at all like a benign or even helpful influence. And that's not to mention his utterly outlandish ideas for the show itself or his pointless desire to use codenames for the individual Beatles.

So true. The proof of the pudding being that, once they removed the self-imposed time and creative restrictions, they crafted Abbey Road out of essentially the same pool of material. I do feel they were just short of one person pointing out how needlessly destructive the whole idea was but between the dead Epstein, apparently disillusioned George Martin, clearly star-struck Glyn Johns and the imbecile Lindsay-Hogg there was no-one to state the obvious and gently guide them right. Complete aside: I absolutely love the fact that history's very first "shut up, Yoko" jibe seems to have been cracked by McCartney himself, aimed at Linda

I suspect it's actually a hymn.

This was exactly the example I had in mind. Seems bonkers to me that such an iconic part could be considered not to be an integral part of the song.

I reckon it's horses for courses with the key being to get a solid agreement in place *before* the millions start rolling in... I always liked what Madness did: for each song the main songwriter got 50% and everyone got a 1/7 share of the other half. Somewhat smooths over that disconnect between a contribution (that could subjectively be large or small) and what might traditionally be seen as "songwriting". Although that does seem generous in a seven-piece band. I truly hate the situation that frequently exists in which the writer of an absolutely key part/riff/etc gets no recompense as it doesn't form part of the traditional top-line/lyrics view of a song. Then again, I'm sure what appears in brackets after a song title and how the income is actually split can be two very different things. My last band fell apart largely because one person wanted to do (and be seen to do) all the writing. Current band is very much a whole-band credit - which I'm slightly uncomfortable about as the singer contributes all the words and main melody even though the backings are fairly equally contributed to.

Apologies for a slight thread-jack but are there any pointers on a surround set up that won't break the bank and/or give the living room an unfortunate air of singleton's masturbation dungeon? I seem to have amassed loads of 5.1 discs in boxsets and I never get to listen to listen to them.

We've just put this up as a free Bandcamp download ahead of an imminent small local gig and to have something to send promoters while we mix our recent studio tracks. I'm quite happy with the mix and I hope I earn brownie points for not correcting a couple of clangers I played on the bass 😜 https://deadtenantmusic.bandcamp.com/releases

It might be interesting to read "The Inner Game of Music" by Barry Green which is aimed at getting over the sort of psychological blocks that get in the way of performance. I've only read the first few chapters so far but there are definite references to the sort of issues you mention above, including the ability to play a part flawlessly when not concentrating on it. I have to say though that the book is quite irritating in places - I've owned it for about three years and can only bear to read a few pages at a time... https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/848522.The_Inner_Game_of_Music

No experience to contribute here but happy to be a follower if we need to experiment and see what happens when you go significantly over 100...

I saw PJH on that tour and I think the same song had to be restarted because Eric Drew Feldman seemed to start it in the wrong key. Makes me wonder if it was part of some ongoing in-joke, although the facial expressions in this clip would suggest not. I think the bvs are the most egregious element of this performance though.

You are presuming a degree of common sense that may not be justified here. I can't quite remember the sequence of events but I suspect my LP came with Dunlop buttons and my Ric with Schallers, which I then adopted for my Fender basses (or did they just arrive with compatible buttons?) plus there are the various instruments that have neither - and enjoy various bottle washers and cheap plastic locks. One day I'll get them all the same. Or maybe not, now that I've learned this wonderful life hack.

Genius. Why have I never thought of this before? All that time spent messing around stretching eyelets around straplocks, not to mention the chaos of needing a quick swap and discovering a strap/button incompatibility.

I'm so glad I'm not alone in being unsure of this...