Stub Mandrel

THIS is excellent, real world advice.

Oh, I hadn't previously noticed the jazz snobbery. Anyone who thinks THEIR music requires greater 'accuracy' than someone else's is deluded. Now I'll crawl back into my cave and get back to learning to play Sound Chaser properly. Just starting to crack it after 40 years trying.

I think you may be (1) taking me too seriously and (2) have a very narrow view of what opportunities there are for developing bass playing skills. Sight reading has only one purpose- to be able to play something you have no prior knowledge as was intended. This is a great skill and one I regret I will never have as I appear to have a type of dysmusia that prevents me interpreting pitch visually. But for 90% of bass players this is not a significant barrier to their musical development, and the effort and application required can get in the way of developing other skills. For most performance it doesn't matter if you learn pieces by ear, tab or notation. If you want to drop into a jam and join in, being able to improvise a bassline in an appropriate style is probably the most valuable skill. Theory helps a lot with that. The sad emoji was how I felt when once again someone suggested to a beginner that they tackle something that has killed the joy in music for do many people. I can't count the number of times I beat my head against notation when trying to learn various instruments. Thank goodness I discovered you could take the theory from tutorials without having to read the notation (largely by visualising a piano keyboard which makes sense to me in a way a stave never will). Maybe I am biased as I am used to learning things by determination and effort, and musical notation is the one thing I have battered against as much as anything else without success. No doubt you have more expertise than me, most people on Basschat probably do. But I do have fifty or more year's experience of learning music, including lessons of all sorts.

Scored tickets to see Walter Trout at the Tramshed in May.

My B2 solution (I tried 'carbon' wrap, and both blue and silver metallic finishes first...) was 'stone paint'.

I would imagine a bridge mode class-d that had the outputs fully synchronised would be better able to see the advantage?

Sadly I can't read pitch from notation despite fifty years of intermittent effort. Any progress evaporates with a week of inactivity. I fully understand how it works but as my brain refuses to associate note positions with pitch.... I took about three minutes to work out a simple two-bar melody on a napkin the other day. And even then I wasn't sure I got it right. Understanding keys and modes, how chords are built, how harmony works and resolves and a better understanding of rhythm (oddly I can read rhythm readonably well) have all helped my playing develop. It does mean I cannot sight read, but it's never been an issue standing in at a jam night.

This. Remember theory is far more useful than notation.

Reckon you can have some fun doing that up with a wild paint job.

That carpet puts Vulfpeck firmly in the shade!

For bass I feel cabs should be efficient, capable of taking plenty of power without distorting, light and tonally pretty transparent (i.e. without a strong character as with guitar cabs). This does tend towards expensive, but you can compromise on efficiency (if you have a powerful amp) or weight if you are young and strong. I feel that your basic tone comes chiefly from your technique, the bass you play and your amps overdrive characteristics. Pedals might extend your pallette but your cab should be reasonably faithful to what you put into it. You could get one of the ~£25 bass multifx from Aliexpress that has a series of cab sims in it, put it through a hifi amp at modest volume and see if anything particularly suits your taste. But what effect you get could probably be achieved with eq...

🤣

Deep Purple. I enjoyed it greatly. Long guitar and keyboard solos by the youngsters helped the original guys pull off a one and three quarter hour set. Reef were bloody good too (as usual).

Bendricks Rock played the Railway in Llandaff last night. Quite a compact space! I left the setlists on my printer plus we had to add in several songs to compensate for an 8:30 start. This meant some conferring between songs which affected the flow a bit, plus a couple of false starts (no the guitar starts paranoid not the drums...) We had a modest but highly appreciative audience and went down well. Manager very pleased and we got booked again for next year, but outside in the summer. Plus the owner got in touch and has asked us to play a bigger venue he's opening in the valleys where our rock set should go down well.

Yep a TE Elf is so tiny and relatively cheap, ideal backup.

This Friday. Nick has the Mackie powered cabs so I can leave mine at home (hooray).

What I want to know is, why have they got XLR cables up their noses instead of the usual ants and coke?

Yep. Borough Blues Club was a good night. One guy said 'it's great to be able to see a band like yours in a small place like this, I had a marvellous night' which was pretty flattering!

Raffle Time. But making up for last night. For Mickey...

Unless I use I different bass rig, I don't repeat my genre (Bendricks Rock is, classic rock*; Bluesfire is blues rock 'power trio') usual setup each time I post - An Orange Bass Terror with a GRBass AT212 slim. My arthritic left thumb was screaming at me on Thursday when I had a Bluesfire rehearsal, so yesterday I took the Flea signature '63 Jazz and the Sire P10 mainly as they have skinny, easy to play necks. Ibuprofen and paracetamol got me through and using the joint means it's actually feeling better today, which is good as we are at Borough Blues Club tonight. *At the heavier end of the spectrum, even when we play Cliff Richard and Tom Jones 😁

GIYF "Google is your friend" DILLIGAF is an Australian expression equivalent to "I couldn't care less".

GIYF

Deep Purple on monday. A bit late considering I was introduced to them by my Patrol Leader in scouts in about '75. First time for everything...