RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE

Gig bag with decent padding for me . Having a hard case using the underground or bus can be annoying to fellow commuters as well as yourself . Even going into narrow rehearsal rooms can be a challenge with hard cases . Not good for shins ..

I have been enjoying playing the bass through my moog grandmother . The signal while ok on headphones is very low , and iI'm struggling to get the levels up while trying to record on GarageBand . To do this, you need either a good distortion / d I box/ preamp , so I'm led to believe . I have tried overdrive , distortion and even a Zoom B3 . Please advise 😬

Other regret ..learning to drive 🚗 It makes things much more difficult . Even if you are " guaranteed " a lift to rehearsals , gigs etc there were always times when I would have been dropped off at awkward places due to other band mate commitments . Having Psycho , partially deaf drummers in the driving seat can be a bit traumatic 🤢🤮

Me too

I have a few instances of lead singer syndrome . Probabky the one which stood out most ; 4 of us form a new band from scratch through an ad . None of us knew the other etc I had to up my game from basic hobbyist to regular gigging semi pro ( amateur ?) . Drummer was the easiest and most straightforward to ger on with . Guitarist was the band leader ,who often gave me a hard time . Fair enough , I was lacking confidence and faced up to everything while improving albeit very slowly .. However, the singer who was half Irish and half American and quite well off , was full of 'all the talk, but not the walk' . He used to be full of a multitude of ideas , PowerPoint presentations and trying to organise everything with military precision. He even had a fender guitar which he kept under his bed , as ' jimi Hendrix was the best player ever' . I had my Les Dawson moments , but he just could not play it and we all felt sorry for him. He was a lovely bloke , but didn't seem to understand the reality of real life, and why I used to get up at 5am to work . Yes really. He was Harvard educated . He had all these ideas, but he kept saying ," sorry can't make it as I have to go over to Belfast urgently " / Sorry got to shoot off to Boston " . We were all getting frustrated , but wanted to keep pushing for the first eventual gig to see what's what . When we actually did the first gig at the Grey Horse in Kingston , the drummer arrived late and started moaning to the sound guy about the PA . I smoothed that over somehow . Me and the guitarist despite him wondering if I'd be any good , were level headed. The singer on the other hand , was so out of sync with everything and was very nervous rushing everything like Peter o 'Sullivan. Sweating and sometimes stammering , he was shall we say ..poor 😮‍💨🙂 The guitarist said I held it all together . When we had our next rehearsal , singer told us he had to go away again . Drummer quit by email. Singer sent an email to us calling guitarist so many unrepeatable names . In the end , the drummer had faith in me and we restructured a better band ..with better singers 🙂 I managed to up my game very soon after me and the drummer gelled 😬

Thanks for all your help . I’ll leave it as is , as I have other basses in standard tuning . I did have a feeling about the nut needing replacing. I’ve enclosed a couple of pics of the bass in question. Well, some of it 😬

Plodigy, shep seven , take phat , Leann limes

Just curious at this stage. I got one of my basses set up by a tech a while back , and he did tell me it was a challenge to do so. I will probably leave it tbh , but how difficult is it to adjust th3 setting back to EADG ? It has the recommended strings for BEAD tuning , which were new when given to tech to do the alteration. Thanks in advance .

Celtic Frose , Soxx gang , calking heads Hanoi socks

Lemonbelly , ting kings , Hannibal corpse, rot chocolate , Rick ashley

Perry homo , Andy walliams, Tony Bonnett, Jim greeves, Katsey Klein

The four cops , jelly savallas , Ellkie crooks , Desmond pekker , fudge dread ( dred ?)

I used to play most of my gigs without effects . When I got more confident ( and the songs required effects) I used a Zoom B2 1u All good for a time , until the unit decided what sounds should be played , and not what I selected. A tad embarrassing . In answer to the question , a Digitech Bass Synth Wah would be my choice . That should also leave enough change to get pleasantly sozzled ..

A bass player in a friends band used one of these in his originals band . I must say, that he used this in spectacular fashion, more or less changing effec5s for each song . Probabky the best sound from a bass player in a pub band I've seen . . Playing in an almost empty venue may have helped ..

Krankie goes to Hollywood

Peach Boys , loving colour , cheap truck , shitesnake , tangerine cream

Carlock, fizzy Borden , petal church, bio, Heaven and jell, Iran maiden , Fido ,pillage people , Toney M

Atomic Booster , spray, slack sabbath, roundgarden, benpole Tudor , bun lovin criminals ..

Thanks again . I remember somewhere you saying that you went all into software. I admire you for doing that. I've browsed various forums about the subject , hardware v software etc . With all the apps I have on iPad , it's something I do wonder if I'll do it one day . I doubt if I'll do it , as I'm more of a plug 'n' play kind of guy . I used to tend to look at recording as irritating and taking the joy out of something but now am trying to just get something half decent for short soundcloud sounds . Not exactly mutt lange 😬 I think I will get Logic in the not too distant , as you say it's the next step from GarageBand . Alchemy is cool , and I have launchpad mini . Seems a no brainier ..

Thanks @BigRedX I have a 2017 16 gb iMac . I don't know whether to upgrade to M1 MacBook or Mac mini . I do need another external hard drive should it be better to keep it . I use GarageBand , but still find Reason 12 a challenge , and I have ableton live lite ( free version ) . I need to put more effort into learning these properly . I have an iPad mini 6 also, but I tend to just use random apps into the mixer . I understand that straight bass direct signal without effects is the way to go . Is there much if any difference ,of plugging bass straight into input socket and using the x l r input from Zoom B3? It does seem that in the bigger picture that I do have lots of the same formulas of sound in the effects units so to speak. Wah/ fuzz/ chorus etc. :The main go to effects that I do use mostly I are the digitech bass-synth-wah and the Digitech Bass whammy . The Boss Me8-b has a distinct analogue sound but the synth effect is the best thing there. Maybe it's time to sell a few of those effects and the Boss micro cube amp 🤔 I got a bit obsessed about having 'toys' for the bass for home use , but having a couple of synths I seem to be more into them now . I have seen various people on you tube using effects with synths . Just wondering if I did that, would I be better off using synths direct into mixer instead ? It does sound like I could do a lot more by using the effects in Reason . Anymore help,and pointers appreciated 😬

Feline Dion , Brotherhood of Dan , now order, Mercyful Kate, Hoe satriani , Diamond Dead, fudgie, Cartridge family , Jackson dive ..

Can't do you tube links at the moment , but my immediate 3; Scorpions still loving you , Tangerine Dream love on a real train and Anthrax Ballad ..😬