Bob Lord

bought a markbass LMIII from Will (top one in the picture) Price was good, item was in great condition as described, p&p and dispatch time were excellent, as was communication cheers!

it's fine so far, but I always get someone else to two the head with me. I try to be careful. Hardest bit is hoisting the head onto the 8x10. It's just a bit too high and a bit too heavy. Wonder why on earth i'm dragging this stuff about when everyone else seems to be using super light cabs and tiny class D amps, but when I start playing I always glad I bothered

Hi amp gurus, need your wisdom... The SVT-CL will go down to 2 ohms. There's a switch on the back for you to select whether your load is 2 or 4 ohms. So, no problem plugging it into two 4 ohm cabs in parallel... But what if I have a 4 ohm and an 8 ohm cab? Would they draw the same power? And would the impedance of those cabs in parallel (2.67ohms) be likely to cause any issues if the amp was switched to the '2 ohm' setting? What about the 4 ohm setting? Cheers!

I had one. Sounded great, but was backbreakingly heavy

.

craddock hair!

Funnily enough, mine's played Glastonbury too! I got it off the bloke who used to play bass in The Enemy, and he used it when they played in 2007. Not particularly a fan of them, but it's a kinda cool bit of rock triv

killer horn section

my mum will always be cooler than me, because not only did she see the Beatles twice in Nelson (small Lancashire town, next to Burnley), she also saw the Stones there too. And The Who.

I've ended up in a few punk bands in my time - not because I love punk per se, although I do love loud, energetic rock n roll (which is basically all it is, anyway). And what I've found is that there are always audience members for whom their identity as 'a punk' or an 'ex punk' is really precious to them. Fair enough. But after the gig, they always seem to want to prove their punk credentials to you, the guy in the band. Endless war stories about having seen some obscure band playing some obscure toilet in 1978. And they've always been in a band themselves once

yeah, it's weird that a lot of people don't think most of it is a skill like any other skill, that can be learned and improved with practice. As if you could throw a tuba at someone and they would start parping away amazingly at their first attempt. Some have a better aptitude for it than others, but everyone can do something. I think deep down people know this, but use the 'oh I have no talent' thing as an excuse for not ever trying

there’s never been a time in the history of electric bass where bolt-on necks were seen as a hallmark of inferior instruments

the same chord changes tend to crop up again and again, so it's always useful to have a bunch of different ways to (for example) handle a ii-V-I or a I-IV, so you're not always consciously thinking too much about it as you're playing (unless you want to) I don't think there's anything wrong with sitting down and working out - off the meter - a bunch of different options for connecting chords. Although the ultimate aim is to be able to hang in there as the chords whizz by, you can hamper your progress by practicing in real time all the time - playing with some crazy fast tempo bebop Jamey Aebersold book 43 shizzle before you're ready won't give you enough time to really digest what you need to learn. Sit and really carefully woodshed as many different ways you could outline the chord movements, over really simple changes. Your vocabulary will end up being all the stuff you liked and kept top tips: roots and fifths are good, as are 3rds. being aware of the key and the full chord you're playing under will help you choose the right scale tones Chromatic approaches, especially to roots, are nearly always great sounding. It often sounds good when you keep going in the same direction through a chord - it sounds like you've got a plan don't be afraid to play half-notes don't be afraid to play the same note again over the same chord! remember you're playing a song, or accompanying a melody or a soloist. So what you play should be appropriate, and make sense in that context. If what you play would have been the same regardless of what the other people were doing, or what the tune was, then something's wrong

amps with the fender tone stack can sound fantastic used for bass, through a bass cab. At home, i've played my fender jazz through my 68 fender twin custom reissue into a bass cab, and it sounds great. Lots of low end, and a sweet clean sound. Have tried the same thing with a JCM800 though, and it sounded....well, not crap but certainly a specialist kind of sound. Maybe if you were in a Motorhead trib

part of the fun of being a musician is trying out and learning about loads of different types of gear, but I personally would have saved loads of money in the long run if I'd just gone and got the actual thing i'm aiming for, in the first place

I'm lucky enough to have a Tech 21 VT bass pedal and an SVT. The pedal does that scoopy grind thing really well. I'm not sure I could tell the difference on a recording, but a lot of the SVT experience is the sheer volume, and the way the cab delivers it, and how it stays somehow pleasant to listen to as it gets louder and louder even while sounding (as the americans might say) kinda gnarly. I think that's probably down to the tube power section and the cab, and they're probably about 60% of the equation. I've tried using the VT bass into my ashdown rig, so I could have a more portable and flexible version of the SVT, but ultimately stopped bothering, as the tube drive built into the head (this is an evo iv 600) sounds better than anything I've managed to dial in with the VT bass. Doesn't sound like the ampeg, but it does give a convincing bit of tube warmth, used in moderate doses. Dunno if Ashdown have a pedal that does that though

most of the basses i've had that were a bit crap, I can forgive because they were usually cheap or odd, and I knew that when I got them: Epiphone Explorer - looked cool (if you like that sort of thing) sounded dogger, fell off the kitchen work surface and broke. Low E popped out of the nut the first time I used it at a gig Aria Pro 2 STB - my first bass. Made of plywood. Not a great Aria like John Taylor or Cliff Burton. A cheap beginner one. Looked cool. All white. Sounded crap although I wasn't experienced enough to know just how crap. Was cheap tho. I bought a 'red rickenbacker 4003' from a guy in Wakefield, via Loot in 1997. I turned up expecting a ruby one like Bruce Foxton. But turns out it was an 80s one with all the black trim. I bought it anyway (it was only 440 quid, which was cheap for a Ricky even then) but was always disappointed it wasn't what I expected. Sounded great, but I never loved it - resented its stupid 80s colour scheme. I didn't even realise they made them in such awful colours. And i'd gone there expecting to meet THE ONE

interesting... never actually thought about it I check my tuning using harmonics. Always starting at the top 2 strings (harmonic on G 7th fret and D 5th fret), then work down. Usually that sorts out any one string that's been knocked out. If i know they're all out, and I'm doing it with a tuner, I'll go from the low E upwards If I'm tuning to a bandmate, I usually ask for an A, then go from there. I think that probably comes from being a music student, where big bands and orchestras all parp out a big A to tune up

I can vouch for the 2018 fender player P basses. Superb quality. Came from the factory set up perfectly. Stays in tune like a mofo. Sounds great

Exile On Main Street. And when I finally heard it, it wasn't what I expected. A badly produced, rambling mess, albeit with an amazing atmosphere and a real sense of what the Stones were all about at that weird point in the late 60s early 70s Never listened to any full album by Rush, Yes or Peter Gabriel era Genesis. God knows, I've tried. I just can't get through them Never heard a Deep Purple or Black Sabbath album all the way through either. Am not proud of it tho

[delete this!]

that is great! I'm slightly disappointed you didn't end up with eight 1x10's tho

I generally have to do nothing to the EQ section except pull down all 3 sliders to the left of the mid knob down by a tiny fraction (like 3mm), and have the bass knob anywhere between 9 o clock and noon. It brings out the sound I want from my different basses without having to do anything but tame the low end. Which I don't mind - would rather have slightly more bass by default than not enough tbh. The 'pre-shape' button on the EVO IV generally does enough for me. I think the secret to avoiding heartache (for me personally) with a using a stingray and precision with it, is to accept that they're not really ever going to sound like anything but themselves, and I try to accentuate the differences, if anything, rather than EQ them to sound similar. If I want to tweak for the stingray, I'd rather do it on the bass's own EQ. The fact that the EVO IV seems to accentuate (or at least, not mask them) these differences is something I've noticed too - and I really like that. It doesn't seem to impose its own character on basses in the way an SVT or a GK might While we're on about EVO IV's, one thing that I can't work out is what the compressor knob is actually doing - I know it's doing some compressing! I turn it left and right (and it generally sounds best to me at noon, regardless of what bass) and I can hear it doing something, but it's not clear what's going on... I'm sure it's not just a 'ratio' control. Any ideas guys??

I assume by then he was onto the real ones