Mottlefeeder

Roots are important to emphasise the chord changes. Between the chord changes you can choose what you play. For example, 1) If the chord changes every 1st beat, you should play the new root every 1st beat. But, if you have the same chord for several bars, you could play chord tones every 1st beat. 2) To get from one root to the next, ideally you should play something that is melodically interesting, harmonically strong, and fits in with the drum pattern. In practice, you compromise, e.g. walking up the scale to a new root note is melodically interesting, but harmonically weak. Playing chord tones for the chord you are on, or the chord you are going to is harmonically strong, but melodically weak. And, what works in one song, may not work so well in another. How you get from knowing this to applying it is something I am still working on! Next...

I'll be travelling from Lymm with a Ford Focus estate, and space in the back. I can detour by Altrincham/Sale, or by Warrington (but not both!) if anyone wants a lift.

[quote name='Linus27' post='133520' date='Feb 4 2008, 12:02 PM']Thanks Birdy but a bit out of my price range. Good luck selling it though. Does anyone know what the Hartke VX115 speaker is like? Its a paper cone, can handle 300W at 8 ohms and is only £165. My other option is the Hartke 115 XL but this is only 200W at 8 ohms. Would Hartke be a better option that Ashdown?[/quote] The Hartke VX115 is solidly built, but not overweight, and when I auditioned it, it sounded warmer and cleaner than a second hand 1 by 15 H&K or a second hand 1 by 15 Peavey for the same kind of money. It takes a low B without problems, and does not seem to suffer from the boom of a big speaker in a small box that you will hear from some smaller combos. I used it in a church and occasional outdoor gigs (without PA support) and never ran out of volume. The only time I did run out of volume was at an audition in an empty club, where the lead guitarist had a large amp, and I only had 200 watts to play with. I stopped using it when I finished building a BFM Omni 12 (£250-ish for the parts + 30 hours work). You might be interested in buying my Hartke if we can work out a way of getting it from Warrington to Surrey without adding 25% to the cost.

[quote name='bassman2790' post='137518' date='Feb 10 2008, 11:35 AM']That's really useful information Alex, thanks. The question is how do I solve the problem? Judging by the information you've kindly supplied, if I had a cab where the roll-off didn't start until about 50-60Hz, I should notice a difference in the 2nd harmonic. Is there anywhere where I can find the specs of mass produced cabs? Or a guide to how I could make a 1x15 cabinet that performed well down to 50Hz?[/quote] If you think you can make a cab, Bill Fitzmaurice designs will probable have something to suit. I'd recommend you consider the Omni 15 as a simple build which will do what you want. [url="http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Omni15.html"]http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Omni15.html[/url] I am taking an Omni 12 to the north west bass bash in March if you can wait that long.

Sennheiser HD485s - sound good, and carry bass well. I chose them by taking a personal stereo into a hifi shop. The 485s were the furthest up the Sennheiser range I could go without running into sensitivity problems. The next ones up distorted on my personal stereo, but not on a mains amp. The next ones down did not sound as good. The only problem with them is that you cannot get a shorter cable for them; a 1m cable would be useful for use with waist or belt mounted units, e.g. Pandoras etc.

An option that has not been mentioned yet is a cheap 4 string back-up tuned BEAD on the basis that you use the B string a lot more than the G. With regard to the "I'll borrow someone's bass" brigade - would you lend a stranger your pride and joy? There have been threads on this before.

Warwick Corvette 5-string fretless - Swamp Ash/Ovenkol Warwick Corvette 4 string fretless - Bubinga/Wenge (if not sold by then) BFM Omni 12 - horn loaded 3-way speaker review [url="http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3324"]http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3324[/url] Hartke 3000 - if needed

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='125634' date='Jan 22 2008, 06:42 PM']I'm sure I've seen these discussed in a thread before, but a search for rocket did not reveal it (perhaps it was on bass world). Anyway, I'm doing a lot of traveling and spending nights away from home at the moment, so am looking for something portable (ie fits inside the bass case) to go between my bass and the headphones, preferably battery powered. The Pocket Rocket is one that springs to mind, but a few reviews on the 'interweb' mention excessive hissing. Does anyone have experience of these or equivalent devices, and if so what are your thoughts/recommendations? Thanks in advance people, Clive.[/quote] I have to start by saying that I am biased - I have a Pocket Rock-it to sell, but I took it off the market just before Christmas [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8475"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8475[/url] They come with headphones which sound fine, - it is only when you upgrade to Hifi headphones that the hiss can get intrusive. They are designed for Fender-type angled jack sockets, and if you have an edge mounted socket, they tend to turn themselves upside down because they are slightly top heavy - not a big deal, but an annoyance just the same. The range of tones is good: practising with chorus sounds really nice, and you have the option of connecting a CD/MP3 player/drum machine to jam along with. I upgraded to a Korg Pandora, which does more, and costs more. I'm looking to sell my Pocket Rock-it for £25 +p&p, and you won't find anything better, new, at that price. Second hand, for the same kind of money, something like a Zoom BFX 708 will give you a headphone output, and a tuner, and a rhythm generator, but it doesn't come with headphones, and it is a lot bigger. For even more money, you might pick up a CD playing Tascam bass trainer. The Mk I does not have a drum machine, but the Mk II does (I think). They are bigger and heavier, and need a PSU and a wall socket. In summary, if you want something small and basic, a headphone amplifier would be good, and there is one readily available. If you want more facilities, it will cost you. If you are interested in the Pocket Rock-it, make me an offer.

The original transistor designs, with bipolar devices, let more current through as they heated up, so in a high powered amp you could get yourself into a destructive cycle where it runs hot, so it lets more current flow, so it runs hotter... then it burns out. MOSFETS let through less current as they get hotter, so they do not go into thermal run-away, and they have become the industry standard for high powered amps. Interestingly (for geeks) bipolar transistors have a smaller voltage drop accross them than mosfets do, leaving more voltage available to push current through the speaker, so for a supply of +&- x Volts, a mosfet amplifier will be less powerful than a bipolar one.

I am interested in adding an on-board preamp to a Corvette, and most of the circuits I have seen fall into one of two camps. a.) An active circuit coming between the pick-up and the pots b.) An active circuit coming after all the pots What difference does it make to the sound of a passive pick-up if you feed it into a hi-z buffer instead of the track of a 250K pot?

[quote name='Beneath It All' post='117308' date='Jan 9 2008, 06:47 PM']Reading music is pretty much like reading the written page - If you analyze what's actually happening,you'll realise that to make a sentence flow, you need to read ahead[as any reasonable reader automatically does]...Great readers tend to read further ahead than average readers; I work with lots of players who read up to EIGHT bars in front[dependent on how tricky the chart is]...I can manage two bars ahead, which seems to be enough...For anyone learning to read music, I would highly recommend starting with a drummers guide to basic rhythms - once you've got the hang of that,reading the actual notes is much less daunting..Good Luck[/quote] Thanks for your input, but I think we're talking about different things, although I have to say my reading probably has this problem too. I read the part and learned all the given variations of notes for each chord in each bar. What I am now trying to do is play them (and others that come to mind) without the page, and without too much repetition, or too much jumping around to avoid repetition. Where I fall off it is usually because I have not thought about which root note I am aiming for, so I try and do it all after '4and', and it doesn't sound too good.

I'm not sure where to start on this, it could be a long post if I gave you all the back story... I have recorded myself improvising over a Band-in-a-box 1451 backing track with its bass muted, using that original bass line and variations as my building blocks. My timing and intonation are a bit shaky, but I am confident that they will improve with practice. Where I stumble, my analysis is that my mistakes tend to be on the 1 beat because I don't look far enough ahead. My plan is to work on that track, building up the speed as I get better, and then move on to other chord sequences, other keys, and other rhythms. I wondered if there are any specific exercises that anyone can recommend that have helped them plot a course through a chord sequence, or does it just come with practice?

Slightly off-topic, but still relevant (I think) - I recently parted from my bass teacher because he attributes my lack of progress to a mental block, which he thinks is is my problem, not his. For the past ~3 years, I have approached bass playing as a series of challenges, and having visited that aspect of melody/rhythm/harmony, and understood it, I have parked it and moved on to the next challenge. My teacher did not pick that up. The current position is that I know quite a lot, but given a chord sequence, and a song style, my first attempt is a stagger-through, rather than a competent bass-line. From my perspective, some people need to be lead by the hand (in my case, guidance on how you incorporate it into your style), and some people need a guru, who gives general direction and they work out the rest themselves. I think it is easy to condem the 'other teaching method', when both are equally relevant.

[quote name='Perry' post='110662' date='Dec 29 2007, 07:57 PM']One of my basses is a Warwick Covette in Bubinga. I really like the look of the same bass in Ash. What's the difference in the sound?[/quote] A bit off-topic, but I have a Bubunga 4-string fretless Corvette, and auditioned the Ash-bodied 5-string version before buying one. It still has plenty of the Warwick sound, but is a lot lighter. However, on a 5-string, that means it is not as well balanced. If you are thinking of a Warwick, check it out with a strap before you buy.

[quote name='TimmyC' post='105486' date='Dec 17 2007, 06:53 PM']Does the Pandora PX4D have a 1/4" jack output? On their site it says "Output: line/headphone dual-purpose output (stereo phone jack)" but doesn't specify the size?[/quote] The casing and front panel markings are the same as the previous versions, so I am pretty sure you will find it has a mono 1/4 instrument jack, a stereo 1/4 inch headphone/output jack, and a CD/MP3 player 3.5mm jack. The PX4B is bass specific, and includes a drum machine which allows you to chain drum patterns together. The earlier Bass and guitar PX4_, had the bass player losing out. For example, the drum kit dropped a lot of drum machine sequencing, and added a 'rule-based bass-part generator'. Having said that, I am using the bass generator on Band-in-a-Box to give me ideas for lines to play, so that function may still be useful to you. The new PX4D model appears to put back in some of what they took out before, however, without a pdf manual, I am not sure how versatile those functions are.

[quote name='stevebasshead' post='103473' date='Dec 12 2007, 06:13 PM']Quite some time back I did the same to my old cheapy. I buggered it up so bad that even the proper allen key had no effect. I thought it was a gonner but I managed to tightly wedge a flat bladed screwdriver into what was left of the two best corners and off it came. I think the reason that worked when the correct sized allen key didn't was because of the taper on the screwdriver blade, I was able to truly wedge it into the corners whereas the allen key had just enough slack to slip out and onto the rounded parts. On mine it was simply a replacement of the allen fitting rather than the entire rod. It was just a small barrel affair that pressed against the end of the neck pulling the rod which was secured at the opposite end of the neck, if you see what I mean. You should be able to get spares from Allparts or Stewmac, but ask your local luthier if he's got any spares. You might just get given one free gratis if you're lucky! Hope this helps, Steve.[/quote] Thanks - there is hope yet.

I have a Yamaha RBX 765, and I though I had a suitable allen key to adjust it. Unfortunately it was too small, and twisted round in the socket, rounding the edges of the hex hole. Firstly, if I get the right allen key, am I likely to be able to use it, since the chewing up of the socket would have been the flat area, not the corners, and secondly, if that fails, how much of the truss rod needs to be replaced, and is that an 'unbolt it' job, or a 'take the fretboard off' job

In 1970(?) as a folky guitarist, and wannabe bass player, I made my first bass as a project at school. The body was blockboard (inch thick pine planks with a veneer each side to keep it together. The neck was teak. It didn't have a truss rod, and it was ever so slightly neck heavy. The fretboard was black formica, as was the pickguard. Pickups and tuners were shop bought, and the bridge was one piece of mild steel, bent to be vertical (bridge) at one end, and sloping (string ball catcher) at the other. Intonation was - measure, drill and screw it on. String height was - it's too high, I need to grind some more off the bridge. With hindsight, I don't think those teachers were particularly musical. Believe it or not, it worked, and I was able to play The Equals - Baby come back - through my dad's Hifi sytem, a Vortexion valve amp and Wharfdale speaker in a corner mounted reflex enclosure. I eventually sold it for the cost of the parts. About 30 years later, I decided to try again, and bought a Yamaha BBN4.

[quote name='G-bitch' post='84912' date='Nov 7 2007, 01:55 PM']I doubt there's any hard and fast rules but I should imagine that the moment you start declaring your income from gigs and have to list your profession or second-job as 'musician' then you are going to have to get professional cover. On the plus side, it goes down as deductable expenses in that case![/quote] I play in a church worship band, and do not (yet) play anywhere for money. When I asked my insurers about covering all my gear while it was being transported, they said - no problem, just list your second occupation as musician, to justify having the gear in the car.