SteveXFR

46 & 2 - Tool

Sick sick sick - Queens Of the Stone Age

First listen to the new Ministry album Moral Hygiene this morning. They've definitely gone back to their earlier sound, it's a long way from the last couple albums. Not what I'd describe as easy listening! Very political as always. I hope Donald Trump and Kenneth Copeland aren't getting royalties for all the samples of them. Death Toll was the highlight for me, great track and a great use of samples.

Good name for a rave DJ

Escobar's exports Yuppie disco Shoulder pads and leather pants

I just heard something cool upstairs. It seems my daughter has discovered Tool and picked up Aenema in about two hours. I've tried several times and can't get that song right. Looks like I'm the second best bassist in the house. At least I've got the fancy gear.

I have recently picked up an Orange 4x10. Its monstrously loud! It sounds really good as well. I just sold the Trace head and cabs. I'm now bandless so might just stick with the Orange head for now but I probably will look out for a Traynor head.

I think Rex is a really unappreciated bassist. His work with Pantera was brilliant but he was always overshadowed by Dime

Listening to Down this morning. NOLA is a superb album but I had forgotten just how good Down II is, especially the bass

One Hand Killing - Twelve Foot Ninja

Temptations Wings - Down (The greatest metal song to ever come out of the United States)

Just checked Thoman. They don't sell Traynor any more. The cheapest all valve head they sell is an SVT at £1200

I have a compressor with HPF. Would that do the job? I have been considering getting an EQ pedal. I like to run a fair bit of treble and the Trace 12 band EQ allowed me to do that while cutting the noise at the top. I guess it's high mids I really want. Stupidly I just sold the Trace head, I hated pushing it to 90% volume, it felt like abusing it.

I found learning scale patterns more useful than learning the names of notes. It was possibly because all the songs my last band played were either in C minor pentatonic or A# minor pentatonic so I only had to learn two scales! My music theory is pretty much non existent which is probably why I can't improvise very much.

Put a stop to it. My oldest daughter showed an interest a couple years ago so I let her have one of my basses. Now she plays much better than me and my basses and effects pedals keep disappearing! I gave up with learning the notes on the fretboard when I started playing in four different tunings.

That's quite different to my settings. I'm boosting the treble a little, cutting the mids a little and leaving the bass in the centre. I don't go far from centre on anything. I find flat EQ on my Orange head is very different to flat on my Trace head. The Orange seems to have less mids and more bass.

I use a .66 Tortex even with my 5 string on .45 - .130 strings

Thatcher f**ked the kids - Frank Turner & NOFX

I find it odd that the only bass specific picks I've seen are really thick and rigid but that's the opposite to what seems to work best

Wrap it up - Whitey

I'm braced for the inevitable accusations of stupidity for this one so here goes. I'm playing Stingray basses which have an active EQ with cut and boost bass treble and mids. My Orange amp has a similar 3 band EQ. Should I be setting the EQ on the amp with the settings centred on the instrument? Are the EQ controls on the instrument just for fine tweaking as required? Have I got that right or all wrong?

Bounce - System Of A Down

I was going to see Skints in Frome this Saturday. I got my tickets, it's only a 15 minute walk so I got beer money and I got covid symptoms so I can't go 😭 I've had tests which were negative but covid or not, I don't want to give this to people innocently enjoying a good bit of live music so no Skints for us.

Deamon Cleaner - Kyuss