Boodang

Aaaaahhh, what a painful Oktoberfest gig! Used our trusty xr18 and my trusty tablet, but as the gig was just around from where I live I didn't bring any backup. All setup, great sound, muted the main outputs before taking a break... then as we're announced the tablet decides it wants to do an update, I press 'not yet', it loses sync with the xr never to return. Now we have no sound! We had a small old desk with us, so a quick repatch, awful mix, half the monitors not working and that was the first set. My wife went and grabbed my laptop from home so all restored for sets 2 & 3, but still very stressful. So, lesson learnt, always have a backup but after tonight I can feel an x touch coming on so we're not dependent on software.

Nah, just hard core metal!

The board itself seems to be a sofa... do you not have problems fitting that on stage?

Brilliant! After Janek's last album which was based around pedal noises, I'm loving the return to the classic trio format. And he has such a lyrical voice when he solos. I got his Giant Steps book and in it he talks about all the Pat Metheny solos he transcribed and how much of an influence he was on his playing. I've always thought of Gwizdala as the Metheny of the bass.

Unfortunately that flipping Killers song goes down so well it ends up getting played most gigs, but... the audience reaction is so strong it always puts a smile on my face. Worse for me is the colour tv/ microwave oven song, so I've turned it into a challenge to make it as funky as possible without the audience noticing.

Until recently I've never done covers, nothing against it but it's always been jazz standards (a covers band I guess but with a small audience) or originals (even smaller audience!). Now I'm in two covers bands and loving it, the audience loves it and we definitely do not feel parasites when everyone is having fun. I think also the thing a covers band brings is the variety you wouldn't necessarily get from an artist and if you pull it off (hard work as a musician to get all the styles covered) there's something about live music, as opposed to just pressing play on spotify, that is very powerful and satisfying. PS was in an originals band once, getting nowhere, small gigs, no audience. So instead we marketed ourselves as a covers band specialising in obscure tunes (it was the same stuff, we just lied). Because people believed it wasn't originals they liked it. We never kept track of who we said did any particular tune so it changed every gig but either no one noticed or cared.

Out of interest, and a bit of a variation to the original thread I realise, but have you considered getting a custom 4 made so it exactly matches your GAS (sorry, I meant 'needs')? I got this done by my local luthier, cheaper than a fender and to my exact needs.... until I want something different.

Ah, but by endorsing the OPs GAS you can spend his money vicariously, which is great fun!

Dearie me, standard tuning is so last century! Tuning in flatten fifths of the pythagorean system by a quarter of a syntonic comma is all the rage these days.

It gets worse! 5, 4, miss out 3, then 2 gets a mention!!! I'm currently a 3 string bass player but that's mainly due to having broken a string.

The fact that 3 string basses have been totally ignored in all of this is a tragedy. All 3 string bassists should be mortally offended.

After damaging my hearing when young in stupidly loud bands, it's now too painful for me to have excessive volume on stage. I used to wear decent earplugs but recently I bought an XR18 and now the band have gone in ears, with the exception of our new singer who's not used to them and uses a monitor. However, a second band I've just started up are still in the old 'valve amps' stage and while it's not that loud, the overall volume is out of my control. So what I'm doing is running a signal to the XR18, even if it's not going from there to FoH, and then creating my own monitor mix to my in ears and thus can now control the volume to a certain extent. Overall benefit though, apart from reducing volume, is the quality of the monitor mix I hear which is totally under my control and makes a huge difference live.

If I wanted to play a 5 string I could pretty much buy anything I wanted but I haven't found one that can do the job. Imho 31hz is just too low and the tension on the string, no matter the scale length, makes it feel wrong (bearing in mind my upright is 41" scale and just about right I reckon for low E, although the full scale 44" is better!). Actually my 5 string high C is a custom Sei bass and originally I strung it low B... for all of a week! After which I discovered the joys of the high C, Gwizdala style but without the talent. Which all reminds me of a bass Overwater made ages ago which was a 4 string 36" scale where it was tuned low C, which felt good but not if you tuned it down to B (actually quite fancy that bass now as it would be different). Also, as @Dan Dare says, how are you going to reproduce 31hz?! Do you take folded double 18 bins with you to gigs? Most bass cabs, or at least ones you can carry and fit into a car, start going -3db at 80hz and -9db at 41hz let along 31hz, so you're struggling with low E let alone B. So for me that's another issue. Even if you're happy with the way the bass plays, you still can't really reproduce the bottom end properly. Bag End used to do a system with a dedicated processor and speaker which they reckoned could do it but obviously not cheap, and outside of a big PA system I'd say you're struggling to get a speaker to do anything but fart at those frequencies.

I play a 5 string but it's high C. For me low B doesn't play like the other strings, undefined and basically just a giant fart sound. The rest the time I play a 4 string fretless or an EuB. I certainly don't feel the need for that lower string. Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that I centre myself on C of the E string (8th fret), which I put down to mostly working with piano players rather than guitarists. As a result I naturally feel like I have a lot of lower notes to choose from rather than starting at the lowest note on the bass and the only way is up! So basically I think you'll be fine going standard 4 string, you just need to rethink your tonal centre.

I reached a similar position recently. To cure this, I took up drumming and now we've started all over again!

What's the specific set?

Ah, but many hours of practice mean that drummers hit things with more style!

Actually, as a side note to this (and as a drummer myself), the drum forums that are out there are not very active compared to the bass ones. I put this down to the fact that drummers are too busy practicing and improving their art rather than talking about it. Which reminds me, I should go and practice!

Ooh, a 3 leaf Enabler, you don't see one of those often.

It's a really nice 1176 style comp and preamp. Range control is the mid range and it has lows and high eq.

For Status to make a graphite bass!

Age isn't relevant, it's whether you have something musically interesting to say. Not particularly a Stones fan but had a listen to Angry and was pleasantly surprised.

Drybell Unit 67 might fit the bill except it's not cheap and you lose the DI.

BGs have it easy, try strings for DB.... currently I'm using Obligato's which are about £250 a set. Admittedly you don't have to change them very often but you do need a spare set as well. For BG I use TI flats and Galli Synthesis, about £45 a set. For me strings are an essential part of my sound and feel, so price really isn't the issue. Cheap or expensive, so long as they sound and feel good, although it seems to be the not cheap ones that fit the bill.

The mxr has gain and volume attenuation so could work to tame the signal level. I like using a small mixer as you have meters to show what the signal is actual doing. The small behringer I use cost about £30 and is so useful.