Stub Mandrel

You've moved onto a higher plane of existence. Bite your fingernails and embrace the bass 🙂

Yes! Desperate to play with real people again, but I've done masses of practice over the last year, I pick up a bass for 5-10 minutes or more at least a dozen times a day. I have put serious effort into learning stuff that I was convinced was beyond my abilities. I can learn new songs faster and play more fluently. Have also learned a huge amount about how my playing style affects my sound and how changing pickup/playing position/digging in can be more profound than a bank of pedals. Still can't play Portrait of Tracy or Teen Town, and my slap is still crap, but I can live with that...

For your listening pleasure, I present.... myself! Age about 22, solo, one take. Anyone suggesting mind-altering chemicals can speak to my lawyers.

Brokencyde:

Good stuff.

We''ll be round to steal all his HBs 🙂

I've decided the solution is to keep my basses in the freezer. Can anyone make a suggestion for what I should do with the bodies?

Well get hackin' then Stew 🙂

I use Eagle and they know how to put the rout into autorouter.

And don't get him a Line 6 Spider...

I have a Vox Valvestate modelling amp*. You can lose yourself for hours playing with the different tones, the exact model is no longer available but it impressed my brother (who is rabidly anti-modelling amp) perhaps because the real valve stage gives it a more 'authentic' sound? He has a 'proper' Vox valve combo which obviously doesn't do as many sounds but has a great blues-rock sound. *The Vox sounds are obviously spot on (don't forget Tony Iommi used an AC15 / AC30 to start with! I think the Marshall and Fender models are pretty good too, does a great Neil Young fender twin sound. I haven't got the experience to judge the 'boutique sounds'.

Not sure the exact tone you are after but the Joyo Voodoo Octaver might do what you want, mine is pretty doom-laden. The octave is fairly subtle but doesn't weaken the tone IMHO.

That was pretty much the conclusion my thought experiment was heading for...

I've done some long, boring maths and fair bit of thinking. I am struggling to understand how 'mismatched speakers' in a bass stack can make a significant impact on live sound unless one of them is wired out of phase. Two reasons: 1 - using two identical speakers could actually be more likely to cause worse dead spots as you need two identical signals to completely cancel each other out. 2 - at the frequencies of significance to most bass the path differences between the elements of a stack is too small to cause destructive interference even at fairly close audience distances, especially if they are mounted one above the other. The only mechanisms I can see affecting sound out in the audience are: 1 - Beaming. 2 - refections around the venue 3 - interference with the PA sound if the backline is of comparable volume. But I can't think of any of these that would be made significantly worse by using 'mismatched' speakers any more than using matched ones, other than the extremes of beaming an extreme such as Trace Elliot 'bright box' sending high frequencies over the top of the front of the audience. I'm happy to admit I'm flailing around in the dark with these ideas so if anyone can explain how mismatched speakers cause problems, please do!

Space Truckin' is an epic recording. I just kept getting out of synch with the bass or drums and wanted to find out why, and it seems the reason is they drift apart on the record. I'd be interested if someone can independently confirm it as I'm no expert...

Brother Marc - chef who runs/used to run an upscale pizzeria in Cardiff

Barry's most famous son 🙂 I got asked to played this for a guitar vocal duo. I learnt it... and they said they were planning the Marvin Gaye version. I brought them round 🙂

The one I posted has the Mike Dirnt on page 6, not 4 so may have more variations... 🙂

Again this may be the same file... It worked for me. bass heads-1.pdf

Sounds like you are odds on for a personal best... Well nothing happening for me until the house is sold, and I see where I am after the divorce fallout.

Very pretty! The quality is no surprise, my Squier Jag SS is made by Cort as are both my Hohner headless basses which I would describe as being outstanding.

I've been convinced that the tempo of Space Truckin' wanders around. I've just tried using a tempo app on it, counting 60-100 beats for each 'reading'. The first verse is at about 128bpm, it speeds up to about 130 or a bit more. The drum solo comes in at about 128 but fairly soon slows down to 120. At the end of the drum solo it quite quickly speeds up to around 130 again. During the drum sol I'm sure Roger Glover wanders off the drum beat, which explains why this section is hard to play along to despite being very simple (two notes per bar...)

That scuppers the vast majority of pub/small club bands then... All most bands need is a critical and well-informed friend to help them soundcheck.

I'm a firm believer in not sacrificing the barely competent on the altar of the good...