chris_b

I've had TI flats on my PJ for about 5 years. I love them. A few years ago, I did listen to some LaBella flats but the difference wasn't enough to make me want to change over.

Why would anyone in a regular cover band want to play every song note for note, or even try to get the same sound? What is the point of doing that? I dep with a guy who has a different arrangement to at least a couple of his original songs every time I play with him. Another band told me they liked that I played their songs differently to the regular guy. You want to play hits from the 60's, 70's and other decades? Do you even know if that's the original band playing? Many of those guys had to learn what the session guys came up with!

The gig was in Fleet, Hampshire. The keyboard player and me were set up and waiting. . . and waiting. . . and waiting! At ten to nine the drummer and bandleader turned up, flustered and annoyed. The band leader was driving the drummers estate car, because the drummer was banned. The band leader was a very bad driver. No lane discipline, drifting between lanes, speeding up and slowing down. Really bad driving. I had already refused to drive with him. I asked he drummer what happened and he said they got pulled over by the Police on the M3. Me, what for? Drummer, driving like a ****! Apparently the Police stopped them because they'd never seen anyone driving that badly that hadn't been blind drunk. They breathalysed him because they didn't believe the bandleader was sober.

Apologies. I've misunderstood you.

Same here. Newcastle was the only place we got directions and didn't understand a word! We drove around the corner and asked again and this time we found someone who spoke English! Also in Newcastle, we stopped to ask a guy standing at a bus stop directions to the main road south. He said "Oh that's easy", opened the passengers door and pushed in. The cheeky sod directed us to his front door! As he got out he told us how to get from his place to the main road!

In that case I'd suggest you don't get a 5 string bass. Sorry but you need more than GAS to make this work. IMO when moving to a 5, you need motivation and committent to put yourself through the technique changes required. That's why most players who "didn't get on" with 5's, bail out early. They weren't serious enough about the move and should never have started down that path.

Are you still playing the first 4 string bass you bought, or, after gaining more experience and knowledge, have you found something better? Same for 5 string basses, so unless you jump straight to the Sadowsky level, for instance, you'll almost certainly be upgrading at some point.

Ah. . . yes!! In the "old days" you'd jump into your trusty ex-GPO Commer van and head off anywhere for a gig. I was picked up at about 8am to drive to Sunderland. We did the gig and headed back, getting into the morning rush hour somewhere near Hatfield at about 8 am. Sitting in the traffic jam we saw an old woman walking between the cars. Our roadie, who was a helpful chap, jumped out and asked if there was a problem and she told us she was lost and trying to find her way home, which was somewhere in Lambeth! I know, we didn't think to question that!! We were a helpful bunch so put her in the van and took her to Lambeth. We couldn't find the road, so went to the Police station to ask. They took one look at her and said "Hello Mary. So you've turned up again!" Apparently she was in a old peoples home in Hatfield and kept trying to go back to where she had lived. We left her with the Police and I was finally dropped off in West London at about 1 o'clock! A 27 hour round trip!

My school band did a series of gigs for a guy called Ron King, who worked for Don Arden. That should have rung alarm bells but what did we know? We played 5 nights in a row all over the South East finishing up somewhere in Essex. Ron then told us we had one last gig at a night club in Ashford Kent, so we'd better get going. We'd be paid for all the gigs there. Well, obviously there was no gig and we didn't get paid!! They could have just told us to get lost. The bouncers/thugs had lumps of lead taped into the palms of their hands, so we wouldn't have argued!! Instead they sent us on a 100 mile goose-chase to Kent at 12 o'clock at night! I don't know if there are as many crooks in the music business these days as there was back then, but I don't know anyone who was playing back then, who didn't get ripped off at least once.

The first thing to do is to put your 4 string basses away and don't touch them again until you are fluent in 5. The bass the original version of the song was recorded on is irrelevant. Stop thinking in terms of 4 string bass songs and 5 string bass songs. I can't be bothered to swap basses back and forth. Every song can be played on a 5, so that's what I stick to. Makes life much easier and if you get a good one, like the Sadowsky I play, you just sound so good.

The last wedding I did, the noise of the guests tripped the meter several times and the band didn't trip it once. The drummer just kept playing and when the meter reset the band started up. I'm certain no one else noticed. I have never heard of a band having to audition for the sound meter! Does this mean the venue hires you rather than the couple? I don't understand what an audition would prove to the venue. If the couple hires you then it's not the venue's problem if you trip the meter. The last time i played a gig with a meter the drummer tripped the thing over and over and was a d!ck by refusing to hit any softer!

People boost the bass so they can feel it and boost the top so they can hear it and that's how the mids get scooped.

Fender offered the choice of about 4 different necks. That is the A neck. I have the same on my 68 Precision.

I have a 68 Fender Precision which I bought new at the start of 1969. I'd have to be in a wheelchair, but even then I can't see me selling that bass.

The Word. . . . he's trying to do that D'Angelo thing of playing so far behind the beat that its almost the wrong timing. D'Angelo does it better. The bass line doesn't annoy me, but the producer does.

Don't just learn intervals without any references. Listen to them in the context of a song. Surely you can identify the components of a 12 bar blues, eq 1, 4 and 5, and 1, 2 and 5? Start with those and you are on your way.

Jaco ruined fretless for me. I was getting on just fine with my self de-fretted bass, then Jaco came along and showed what fretless could really do and moved the whole game so far out of my reach that I had to go back to frets!!

Yep. All those guys raving over James Jamerson's sound, also have to thank the Motown engineers.

My preferences for the sound of my bass haven't changed over the years. I'm still after the same thing, but with the advent of modern bass gear, I can sound the same as I did, only much, much better.

The last recording I did was for an R&B, Americana, blues band. I used my Mike Lull PJ5 with TI flats and a lump of foam, through an Aguilar TH500 DI'ed into Logic. What a great sound. Better than any of the bass sounds preloaded into Logic.

Basically, never send anything you can't afford to lose. Meet up for the really "precious" stuff. I've always used Interparcel and Fed Ex as the subcontracter. I've successfully sent several basses this way. The secret of success is in the packing. Can it survive being dropped from the back of a lorry and stood on by a 20st moron? Plan on protecting it from the staff and you'll be OK.

IMO there's no such thing as overkill when dealing with the likes of DHL, the Post Office etc. Especially with large and delicate items of bass gear. I'd put an inner layer of expanded polystyrene around the cab for extra safety, then get a couple of cardboard boxes from a bike shop and fashion a double skin box around the cab with extra protection at the edges and corners. Gaffer the lot together and you're done.

Can't we just ban E-Scooters and fix the problem that way?

If I wasn't a bass player I'd have been in trouble. I played drums at a basic level when I was a kid, maybe I would have developed that. I also tried my hand with singing, guitar and piano and was pretty crap at all of them. Basically I had to be a bass player.