atsampson

Don't know if this works for anyone else, but the approach I use: sing through the song a couple of times with the lyrics in front of you. The next day (while doing the washing up, or in the shower), try singing it from memory from the start - when you get stuck, skip forward to a bit you do remember and keep going. Note the bits that you can't remember. Look those up, and sing through them with the lyrics, paying attention to the transitions into them from the parts you do know. Repeat from "the next day" until it all flows properly.

We usually figure 60 minutes from parking the van to starting the first dance. Somehow setup always seems to go a bit quicker when we've arranged to set up, soundcheck, then go for dinner before the gig, though...

I use D'Addario ETB92s on my fretless Jazz -- very happy with them. Edit from a few weeks later: and now on my fretted Jazz too. Dead impressed.

Things I wish I'd known earlier: doing your own bass setup and maintenance is pretty straightforward, and the manufacturer's standard setup is not necessarily ideal for you. Get a beaten-up cheap bass from your local small ads, take it apart, clean it, put it back together, and experiment with different action heights, pickup heights, neck relief, etc. etc. to see what you prefer -- that'll give you the confidence to do the same with your main instrument. Also, I wish I'd experimented with different types and gauges of strings earlier -- if I'd tried light-gauge flats/tapes ten years ago I would have played bass a lot more then!

Bought a bass from Pete - great communication and went out of his way to make transport easy. Thanks very much!

Bought some strings from Loz - very easy deal and shipped next day. Thanks very much!

There are several decent open source DAWs available for Linux - I prefer [url="http://ardour.org"]Ardour[/url], which you might know in its commercial guise as Harrison Mixbus, but MusE and Qtractor are also popular choices. There's also a wide variety of audio plugins for Linux, following the LADSPA and (newer) LV2 standards - the open-source [url="http://calf-studio-gear.org/"]Calf plugins[/url] are particularly useful for processing live recordings, and I find myself using the Calf multiband compressor and EQ on pretty much all the projects I do. You [i]can[/i] use a DAW like Ardour to do multitrack recording at a gig, but I normally like to use something simpler to record to a multichannel WAV file, then edit it with Ardour afterwards. [url="http://nosignal.fi/ecasound/"]Ecasound[/url] works nicely for these kinds of recording jobs. [url="http://libremusicproduction.com/"]LMP[/url] is a pretty good starting place to get an overview of music production on Linux. You'll find lots of advice about configuring your machine for minimal audio processing latency. This is important if you're using things like software synthesisers, but irrelevant if you're just recording incoming audio to disk or editing the recording, so you don't need to worry about it for your purposes (e.g. you can use a large JACK period size which'll give you less CPU overhead).

Most of mine have been listed already (DSOTM, Ace of Spades, etc.), but I'd add Those Who Were by Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen - a recommendation from my double bass teacher originally and still one I listen to regularly.

Up until a couple of weeks ago: bass > graphic EQ with a gentle roll-off above 500 Hz > 4:1 compressor, threshold set for a little bit of gain reduction with normal playing > muting DI box > PA. Now using an RH750 which does all of the above in one box. (Plus a speaker if we're on a big enough stage.)

Went to see this at Frankenstein's today - thoroughly recommended if you're in the area, even if you've read his book! The bit about bass players in the audience was worth the price of admission alone (well, OK, it's free admission but you know what I mean).

Bought a TC speaker cab from Tobie - great communication, carefully packed for shipping, and arrived the next day. Very happy!

A contrary viewpoint: keep the Sandberg! It's a decent-quality instrument that'll be useful for a range of genres and playing styles, and isn't going to give you trouble in terms of setup and maintenance. You've said it's comfortable for you to play on - you'll find it easier to learn (and more fun to play) if you're not fighting the instrument. And if you're not planning on gigging, there are plenty of decent but [b]really heavy[/b] second-hand combos/cabs available for not much money these days, so you may as well put the money into the bass. I'd be more tempted to think about cheaper basses in a couple of years once you've been playing for a while and know what kind of style you prefer and how to set up an instrument to your taste. If you look after the Sandberg it'll have reasonable resale value should you decide you do want to trade down...

It's like a fluffy version of Jim Rogers' JR149 design! https://web.archive.org/web/20140113172642/https://jr149.wordpress.com/ (Made a couple of doors down from Rotosound, behind the fire station in Sevenoaks...)

Can I recommend [url="http://tobyrush.com/theorypages/"]Music Theory for Musicians and Normal People[/url]? The first section is a pretty good introduction to this sort of thing.

[quote name='halibut' timestamp='1502441374' post='3351421'] Do you get much hum with them? I've heard nylon wraps can cause hums because they can't ground your fingers via the bridge ground. [/quote] No, but my usual bass rig doesn't suffer from this anyway - it'd be better to fix the cause of the hum rather than relying on being grounded via the strings (you don't want bursts of hum when you take your fingers off the strings!).

I've found that an ETB92 set fits quite happily on my MIM Jazz and Precision with no modification needed to the nut, and I've been really happy with them, particularly for fretless. The bigger .115 E in Rotosound 88s won't fit without tweaking.

Bought a set of Rotosound 88s from Andy - posted the same day, and now happily adorning my new bass. That's faster than my local music shop can do! Cheers

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1495015690' post='3300412'] Whereas if you listen to the great drum sounds (both recorded and live), the kit sounds like a single instrument - John Bonham always had that sound ... [/quote] What you're hearing on a lot of Led Zeppelin recordings is the Glyn Johns drum mic setup, as demonstrated by the man himself in [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyy55ALu18Y"]this video[/url]. Treating the kit as one instrument is a good way to sum it up.

Bought an amp from Chris, handily just round the corner from me - very happy with the transaction. Cheers!

I'll stick another vote in for the Alto TS210 - we use a couple as monitors for our 5-piece band and I've been dead impressed for the price. They're also pleasantly Not Heavy.

That's correct - the early HCTs don't have binding; the later ones do. See [url="http://www.fuenfhunderteins.de/brandpages/hof_compare.htm"]501's comparison[/url].

Ceilidh for a wedding party on the top deck of [url="http://www.frigateunicorn.org/"]HMS Unicorn[/url]. Almost a perfect gig - early start and finish by wedding standards, local for most of the band, enthusiastic crowd who knew the dances already, and decent acoustics. Then while loading out, the van's sliding side door fell off its rails...

I travel through Glasgow for work every couple of months, and it's usually a good excuse for a trip to GuitarGuitar. I've always found them friendly and helpful, and the new bass room is great. On the offchance that the guy I spoke to there last Friday is reading this, thanks for the Mono strap recommendation - used it at last night's gig and it works a treat.

I've just bought Jon's '93 Warwick Thumb, which he sent quickly, well-packaged in a hard case with plenty of padding, in great condition, and properly set up with a fresh set of strings. Jon was a pleasure to deal with by email and I'd definitely recommend purchasing from him in the future!

Looking through the splendid [url="http://www.fuenfhunderteins.de/index1.htm"]funfhunderteins.de[/url] galleries (there went my evening), I'm wondering if this might be a 65-ish Hofner body (note the two-piece back) that's had a replacement neck made for it at some point. I can't see a good match for the neck's skunk stripe, or the size and placement of the neck plate, or the long fretboard extension, in any of the real Hofners or clones they have pictures of... Regardless of what it turns out to be, it's a nice-looking bass that's obviously got an interesting story behind it, and I hope you get it up and running again :-)