BillyBass

14 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

It was you who said "4 strings: comfort. 5 strings: versatility". As my 5-strings are as comfortable as my 4-strings, and more comfortable than many 4-strings I've played, I wouldn't agree with that. And not everything I said was triggered by what you posted. Like I said, it was a part of the trigger for that post, not the entire reason (otherwise I'd have quoted you). Perhaps you should have read my reply more carefully.

I read it carefully, and disagreed.  

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

Partly inspired by it but I've seen an awful lot of "I had a 5-string once and couldn't get on with it" posts over the years.

So you read part of the post, decided it was an 'I had a 5-string once and couldn't get on with it' post and thought you would ridicule it.

Why don't you try reading it again, but this time read it all and give yourself a bit of time to comprehend what was written.  I'll include it below to make it easy for you.

On 16/07/2023 at 08:55, BillyBass said:

In my previous band the singer had us drop lower than E for quite a few songs, so rather than retuning my E string every other song, I bought a fiver.  I then spent 6 weeks getting used to it and it became the only bass I played.  I really appreciated the versatility the extra string gave.

 

I then joined a punk band and got to use all my 4 string basses again and I remembered how comfortable they are to play compared to a fiver.

 

My first band fell apart and since then, the fiver has been gathering dust and more 4 string basses have been added to the collection.

 

Yesterday, while discussing a few new songs to add to our set, our singer asked us to play one of these new songs in D.  So I dusted off the fiver and learnt the song with that.  I'm of two minds whether to bring my fiver to rehearsals/gigs for just one song but as we are talking about adding a second set of songs the chances are more songs will need D and Eb.

 

My take on 4 vs 5 is:

 

4 = comfort

5 = versatility

On 16/07/2023 at 11:23, tauzero said:

It's a good job that all 5-strings are absolutely identical so that if somebody tries a 5-string and doesn't like it because it's not comfortable, they don't have to try any other 5-strings before deciding never to use one again. And if you never play any notes below bottom E then a 5-string is completely pointless anyway.

Where did I say 5 string basses were not comfortable? or that I don't like them?  Going from my Charvel fiver's 44-45 mm nut width to my Charvel 4's 38mm is an increase in comfort, hence comfortable compared to a fiver, however, I never wrote anything about fivers being uncomfortable.

I am also aware of more than one reason for playing a fiver and certainly didn't write there was only one reason in the post.  I pointed out I find 5 string basses more versatile that 4s.

I do get on with fivers and I love my Charvel 5 string.  I play in a punk band and I generally play a 4 string P or PJ bass.  I missed the Charvel 5er and playing one new song (from a different genre) with a low D was an excuse to get it out again.  

You  misread my post.  Or rather, you read part of it and thought you understood the rest. 

11 hours ago, tauzero said:

It's a good job that all 5-strings are absolutely identical so that if somebody tries a 5-string and doesn't like it because it's not comfortable, they don't have to try any other 5-strings before deciding never to use one again. And if you never play any notes below bottom E then a 5-string is completely pointless anyway.

Was this a comment on my post 7 posts above it?

7 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

If I was you I'd probably stick the 4 string, but install a D-tuner (or whatever they are called) tuning mechanism on it.

 

Will be quicker and more practical than both tuning down the 4 string manually or switching to a 5 string, in fact as simple as just flipping a lever (and flipping it once again to get back to E tuning).

 

If I had one or two gigging 4 strings then it would be worth considering.  I have 8, and though some are more likely to be gigged than others, all are liable to be picked on the day.  I'm not buying 8 bloody D tuners!

In my previous band the singer had us drop lower than E for quite a few songs, so rather than retuning my E string every other song, I bought a fiver.  I then spent 6 weeks getting used to it and it became the only bass I played.  I really appreciated the versatility the extra string gave.

I then joined a punk band and got to use all my 4 string basses again and I remembered how comfortable they are to play compared to a fiver.

My first band fell apart and since then, the fiver has been gathering dust and more 4 string basses have been added to the collection.

Yesterday, while discussing a few new songs to add to our set, our singer asked us to play one of these new songs in D.  So I dusted off the fiver and learnt the song with that.  I'm of two minds whether to bring my fiver to rehearsals/gigs for just one song but as we are talking about adding a second set of songs the chances are more songs will need D and Eb.

My take on 4 vs 5 is:

4 = comfort

5 = versatility

I was overlooked for a band, I believe, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't into the sort of music they played.  I was up for it and I found that the songs I had to learn for the audition I really enjoyed playing.  

I really like playing good music with good bass lines.  By 'good music', I do not mean music that I necessary like.  Certainly, as @BigRedX pointed out above, I get pretty sick of stuff I play myself as I'll be rehearsing the same old song over and over again until its dropped from our set.

I'm lucky in that I'm in a band that covers stuff I like and we are broadening our genre to be more attractive to Landlords, playing stuff from different genres I also like.

I would definitely join the metal band.

34 minutes ago, Bassybert said:

I bet it’s bookmarked now though… 😉

And leave evidence for the missus to see? Are you mad?

This is a Davie 504 video about famous people playing bass.  The bit with 'Barack Obama' had me fooled for a bit but, unfortunately, it isn't him 😪

And just like Davie, I've never heard of Riley Reid and have never watched any of her videos on Pornhub.  In fact, I've never heard of Pornhub either.

6 hours ago, overdriver said:

In other news, and old Stingray is a fabulous bass to have and I wish you health to play it for many years. 

It belongs to @dyerseve, not me.

Happy new pedal day!  I'll be interested to see how you get on with this.

7 hours ago, overdriver said:

I assure you that in Germany, they’re VERY sensitive to stuff like that. 
 

unless they’re not. And there are those who are willfully not.  If you follow. 

I am aware Germans can be very anti racist, and yes, I have heard of the AFD.  I was suggesting that maybe Germans don't care about the Confederate flag so much.  Not having visited Germany in almost 40 years, I have no idea how the Confederate flag would be considered; a symbol of Southern States culture/music...or a representation of an institution that approved of slavery.

9 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

Don’t think people protesting against slavery are woke my friend. 

This is the first paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on 'Woke'

Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination".[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.[3][4][5]

Just now, BassAgent said:

I think you'll find Germany has quite a history with racism and the far right

But not with the confederate flag

40 odd years ago, when I was a punk, Rockabillies in London would all have a confederate flag patch on their jackets.  I doubt if many of them knew what it symbolised, it was a cool thing that Rockabillies wore.  I wouldn't be surprised if the original owner was in a Rockabilly band, or maybe southern rock.

Fast forward 40 years and the flag is definitely not flavour of the month in America and as American wokeism has spread here, people are generally more aware of the slavery connotations of the flag.

The OP lives in Germany though, maybe people there don't care about this so much.

Lovely bass.  I've been gassing for one of these, on and off for a while now.  I'm not allowed to buy another bass before Christmas though.

Congrats.

Welcome aboard Ollie

I have several customers that are professional musicians/singers/conductors/composers.  The only reasonably wealthy one is a singer that does appear on the telly a bit but her husband is/was a doctor so hers is not their only income.  When I say 'wealthy' I mean nice big house in Muswell Hill, North London.

The pit players I know from orchestras in London all seem to have comfortable, though not spectacular lives, that includes a relatively well known conductor, married to a soprano that has a few CDs out.

One of my customers is a multi instrumentalist that does a lot of work in big hotels in London, mainly on the piano, jazz standards, taking requests from American tourists.  He gets his work via an agent and he gets by ok.

All of them were brought up with music, taking exams as kids etc.  Music was their career path from school.

I love playing the bass, especially as my band has started gigging but I am under no illusions about it being anything more than a hobby.  

5 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

I don't think he was listening...

 

Probably looking for the bar

Sold a Tech 21 DI-2112 to Killerfridge.  Very smooth transaction all very quick.  I would not hesitate to recommend him to other basschatters wanting to buy or sell stuff.

I have a Boss TU-3, a Polytine 3, a Polytune 3 mini, a Landlord FX tuner, and also a D'addario clip on.  I don't know why but every now and again, my tuners misbehave and won't work.  At my last gig my Polytune 3 started going funny, that is the letters on the screen just kept jumping around.  I had my clip on with me so I was able to tune.  At the start of the second set I tried the Polytune again and it as fine!  This has happened with both Polytunes and the Boss TU-3, that is why I bought the Landlord FX pedal.

In future I'll take two tuner pedals with me just in case, I don't like clip on tuners.

I sold an RM800 Evo II to Scrumpymike.  Mike organised the postage and it all went very smoothly.  I would definitely do business with him again

9 hours ago, jimmyb625 said:

A very odd one on Tuesday evening. We played at a pub in Erbistock, as they were holding an event to celebrate their recent re-opening. One of the singists is an area manager for a brewery and it was arranged to say thank you to the people who had helped with the renovations and whatever business stuff gets done when a pub re-opens. There were a fair number of people who declined the invitation, some on the day and a few in advance, with the upshot being that we played to about 12 people. 

We played ok, but it was very loose and we were changing the set list all the way through, adding some and dropping more. We're not a covers band and had only put two into the set (we'd not performed them before), which were both dropped and replaced with a different one we've done a few more times.

Still, the few people there were somewhat attentive and polite (possibly because they knew the singist). We were also fed and paid, which is always nice for an originals band! 🤣

I also got to give the new RCF ART 945's a run in anger for the first time, so that was useful.

 

Mosh pit photo below.

 

I hope the dog didn't get in free

1 hour ago, Machines said:

 

Here you go:

 

 

That's quite good.  I listened to 'Lost Boys' on YouTube, definitely a Paramore vibe, as one of the comments says.  Well done.

1 minute ago, Killerfridge said:

I'll take the DI 2112 please!

Most certainly.  I'll message you.

9 minutes ago, scrumpymike said:

One of our fave annual gigs - Porlock Weirfest - came round again last night. Nothing beats watching the sun go down over the sea from up on stage at The Bottom Ship. Glasto? You can keep it 😊

 

Mrs Scrumpy took the video just after nipping into the pub. This was as close to the stage as she could get when she came back. At least you're spared our ugly mugs. Not played SOF for a while but the crowd were hollering for it. Shame we didn't all start from the same place 😐 Watch closely for proof of the curative power of music; the guy who arrived on crutches is now waving them above his head!

 

I'm trying to remember how to do a link that everyone can share...

 

Silverback wrap Porlock Weirfest 2023

The link isn't working Mike.