Leonard Smalls

I remember going to a jazz improv workshop a while ago... The organiser produced sheets of paper "just use these and play" she said. They were just multi-coloured Rorsach type ink blots. Needless to say we all played all of the notes possible, or none of the notes at all, all at the same time. I used lots of distortion and wah...

I quite like the overplayed versions... If only they all overplayed all the time!

I learned reading when I was young playing piano. However, since I started playing bass 35 years ago I've never had to read; all the bands I've played in have either improvised or each player has worked out their own parts from a jam. But I'm glad i know a bit of theory - I've taught other band members the rudiments of modal playing which has definitely made the music we play more interesting. But reading itself has been largely irrelevant to me as I've never really played any covers...

Aye - lots of kits available with mixer and large library of real drum loops and fills with the ability to add, delete or completely programme from scratch. I've got the Jabbo Sparks/Clyde Stubblefield add on as well which is proper funky...

1. Listen to Bootsy 2. Have a good time, all of the time

My Wal is sort of made of plywood...

My mum's a piano teacher - her teacher was the pianist Emil von Sauer who was a pupil of Franz Liszt...

I hope I didn't follow through when I slipped that one out

Proper curved ball!

I've still got my 1990 Marshall Jubilee bass head, together with an 80s Yamaha 15" folded horn cab. Over the years I've added a DBX compressor and BBE pre-amp to the mini 4u rack the Marshall came in. I also noticed how heavy the amp (20+kg) and particularly the cab (40+kg) are, so bought a Markbass 2x10 cab weighing in at about 4 grammes - which I use exclusively for smaller gigs or as a stack for bigger ones. So I got to thinking, maybe I should ditch the Marshall head, as I'm only using its power amp anyway, and replace it with something a bit more old man friendly; I know these are special Marshall watts, but anyone got any thoughts about what type of power amp would be best? I was thinking perhaps Crown XLS1502? I was also going to get the matching 15" Markbass cab as a mini-stack option, unless anyone's got brighter ideas? I like the fact that for a change, my speakers will match!

Unfortunately You tube doesn't allow embedding of this vid... But it's Billy Cobham, Stratus. Currently listening to the remastered 80s version on his Warning LP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_SqtFerjg

I'm always up for new music - anything well-played and/or interesting gets the thumbs up from me...Today I've been listening to Idles, Rolo Tomassi, Magma and Hiromi's SonicBloom. And I'm over 50, but rarely listen to Radio 1; in common with my younger brethren I often discover new (to me!) stuff via the internet or through the medium of modern dance 😜

It's all completely improvised you know!

I've been enjoying a bit of French prog craziness - there's some awesome playing here!

I'd be interested in something groovy and interesting looking - perhaps with LED fret markers...

As recommended by Jamaaladeen himself...

Funnily enough, nor is mine!

Having looked into this recently (see thread!) I'd recommend a refurbished machine as you won't find anything new with anything like the spec you'll need. Google refurbished Mac Pro, or refurbished HP Z640. At that price you might just get an Intel Xeon dual processor 32Gb machine - the Xeons are more robust with bigger L3 cache than i7 so will work better for especially CAD stuff..

If it hadn't been for you pesky kids I'd'a got away with it etc! Anyway, well done Mr Bleat...

I've just sent mine off to the maker - thought it was probably worth £60 for them to take it to bits and test it. They said if it's the mother board that would be another £97... Should find out in 7-10 days.

This is what I was worried about... Knowing very little about recent macs not sure which OS to go for! The pro i was looking at had el crapi and couldn't go any later than that... The HP z640 I was also looking at also had Xeon dual processors, 48Gb RAM but had the option of Windows 10 pro which means support but also a means of deferring updates until they (hopefully) work!

I've had a look at 2nd hand machines... I could get a refurished 2008 Mac Pro with 32Gb RAM and 3.33GHz 6 core processor for £495 with OS of anything up to El Crapitan - food for thought! Not being that familiar with Macs makes me lean toward PC more, but I used to use a MacPro back in the late 90s so it might come back. It is, however, 10 years old. I've also looked at 2nd hand business machines - servers, Avid workstations and the like. I can get a 5 year old refurb HP Z640 with choice of Windows 7 or 10 and 48Gb (!) DDR3 RAM for the same, or an actual Dell Avid with 64Gb RAM and Xeon octacore processor for £695... Problem with the internet is there's so many choices!