TheRev

Hi Ben. I am Bristol based but t'other half's mother lives in Hampshire (Fleet) so we could meet somewhere in the Fleet/Farnborough/Aldershot area next time I'm down that way? are you in a hurry for stuff or is this an ongoing project?

If you do decide that you don't have the space for an acoustic bass, I'll have an Aria SWB lite up for sale soon. It does sound more like a big fretless than an acoustic bass, but with a nice set of nylon strings, a decent DB technique and in a live band setting, most people are hard pushed to tell the difference. PM me if you're interested. Dave

Would you be interested in a guitar? I've got a Japcrap Maya SG copy (thin plywood body, neck like a baseball bat sawn in half) that's been stood in the corner of my hallway for years, waiting for me to do something with it. It's not great but it works. Dave

Another Behringer fan here! I bought a BLX3000 as a backup for a tempramental Peavey and it served me well for 4 years, which is more than I can say for the Peavey or the Hartke that replaced it. It's back on the subs bench now I've got my LMII. Can't say I'm overly keen on the tone of the beast but it was cheap and it worked when I needed it to.

[quote name='Sibob' post='692211' date='Dec 23 2009, 11:41 AM']Cool, have emailed him! I gigged the bass last night and noticed that the E & A strings are a lot quieter than the D & G strings, I've asked Mo whether that's down to the pickup or something else, like strings perhaps!? I believe it's fitted with Spirocores Si[/quote] I had a similar problem on my Aria EUB. On my Aria, there are two pickups - one under the bass side of the bridge (E&A) and one under the treble side of the bridge (G&D). The relative levels of each pickup can be adjusted via a couple of trim pots in the control cavity to allow the user to fine tune their sound. Have a look in your control cavity and tweak any trim pots you find while plucking the string - chances are you'll be able to even out the response. Dave

I've often found that the gigs I dread the most turn out to be some of the best.....

Didn't have a great one on Friday. It's a regular venue for us and we were looking forward to it but the singist had the beginnings of flu and our support pulled out at the last minute so he had to push his voice for two one hour sets. By the end we were tired and really struggling to inject any passion into the tunes. Plus, without a support we had to dig out some of the more jazz-type stuff, which didn't go down so well with the Friday night bar crowd. I don't think we were bad as such, just not a good as we could be... Humph.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='679483' date='Dec 9 2009, 07:57 PM']This bass always reminded me of a Bass Collection, and it sounds stupidly good! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH2Wp_b9COs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH2Wp_b9COs[/url][/quote] That's a Tune Bass Maniac - the Bass Collection basses were pretty much a copy of the Bass maniac.

I think this is one of the original 600 (605?) series. when I bought my 301 way back in '93, there was a top of the range 600 series with mahogany bodies and pudak or maple tops. The hardware was all top end Gotoh which seems to be the case with this bass. The only thing I'm not sure about is the PJ pickus - IIRC, all of BC's 5 stringers came in a JJ format, but the 600 series could have been the exception. A 301 was £400 in 1993, a 601 would have been around the £700 mark. If you're paying less than £300 for the bass in the picture, then it's a bargain. IMHO of course....

I never named any of my basses until I got my Eminence EUB and for some reason I started calling it Barbara. I've since named my other basses but they haven't really stuck so they're usually 'the Sterling', 'the Aria' etc. but Barbara is always Barbara and never 'the Eminence'. Thinking about it, I always use the names when my other half asks which basses I'm taking - maybe it's more of a female thing? I never refer to any of them as 'she' though - people who refer to their cars as 'she' make me cringe.

I'm currently having the same problem with harmonica players.... It's always someone, innit? Generally, it's usually a case of people having the wrong amp/cab setup for the gig. Marshall 4x12s, Fender twins and Fender Bassmans (like the aforementioned harp player's ) were designed to be used in places like the Albert hall without a PA - the result is that you can't turn the buggers up byond 2 without deafening everyone but below 2, they aren't really getting into their stride and sound a bit pants. Most of the seasoned guitards on my local scene use teeny little 30w valve amps as backline which is more than enough for a pub gig. Anyone turning up with huge cabs/amps usually gets the piss ripped out of them.

Only had this once and it was my one and only gig booked through an agent (anyone see a theme forming here?). My band, a sort of folk influenced, acoustic grunge (think the Alice in chains & Nirvana unplugged albums but with Nick Drake on guitar) were approached by an agent, (who we sort of knew) to sign up with him and play a handful of paid gigs. He'd seen us before and knew that we played our own stuff plus a bunch of covers by people like, er, Nirvana, Alice in chains and Nick Drake. We were worried about our distinctly non-upbeat set not going down well with yer typical pub audience. 'No problem' he says, 'I'll put you in venues that will appreciate what you do' Fast forward to the first booked gig - we turn up at the pup, somewhere if the a*sehole end of Gloucestershire and are shown into a decent sized back room. The landlord explained that it was empty now but that it would fill up when the 'do at the golf club ends at 9' Alarm bells begin to ring. We start to play and within 3 songs, the landlady is stood next to us with a face like thunder, suggesting that it might be a good idea if we played something other than what we were playing. We banged out a handful of Green Day, Oasis and Tenacious D songs then called half time. We went to speak to the landlord to see what was going on - his wife wanted us out there and then as 'we normally have that room full of people dancing and you lot are driving everyone away'. The landlord wanted us to knock together whatever we could that people could dance to. We couldn't really do that as we'd pretty much blown our 'popular' stuff in the first set, and we couldn't understand why he'd booked us in the first place as we'd supplied a demo CD and a set list. He then admitted that he hadn't listened to the CD or read the set list and had booked us cos the agent had said that we would play 'a load of covers that everyone would like'. Eventually he paid us but only on the condition that we didn't tell his wife...... We took the money and ran.

That fretless Wal :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: T'was perfect! *sigh*

Blimey - it looks like it just exploded. I'd hang on to that ebony fingerboard, you should be able to sell it to one of the budding luthiers hanging round these parts.

Ah, that's not so bad then. Well done to you for having it insured - I still haven't got around to sorting out insurance for any of my gear. Who are you insured with?

[quote name='Rich' post='669578' date='Nov 29 2009, 10:40 PM']hardly any slap [/quote] And that was all from you!

[quote name='BassBod' post='669800' date='Nov 30 2009, 09:54 AM']Lets have a go.... [attachment=37380:DSCN1099.JPG][/quote] I loved that 36 scale headless 5 string, it's got an amazing low 'B'. Just goes to show what a difference two extra inches make, although I did have trouble reaching that low C. Si, don't suppose you got any shots of Jase's (?) lovely fretless Wal?

Don't mention GAS..... I checked out the Barefaced web site as soon as I got home. I shouldn't have done that.

I hope you twatted the moron? Having said that, double basses are essentially firewood waiting to happen.

Just got in - it took 3 hours to get from Cardiff to Bristol but it was all worth it . Cheers guys for a great day with some great gear (and no slapping...). Big thanks to Si and Drewie for making it all possible. Top moments? The fretless Wal and lifting Apex's Barefaced Compact for the first time... Cheers Y'all! Dave

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='667153' date='Nov 27 2009, 10:43 AM']Yeh yeh yeh..I hear what you're all saying but you don't know our band. Every song goes...intro...harp solo....verse...harp solo....guitar solo....harp and guitar solo...verse...harp solo....guitar solo....harp and guitar solo...break for lunch......harp solo....guitar solo....harp and guitar solo...end.[/quote] Yep - sounds like the blues to me. Seriously, we do the exact same thing and we get away with it. Just keep your humour about you, get Mr Junkhouse to ham it up a bit and engage the audience. Last gig we did was a a rugby club and one of the player's wives wanted to sing Mustang Sally. We let her and she was pretty good but every time we tried to end the song she went into another bloody chorus. The damn thing went on for about 8 minutes and we thought we'd hacked everybody off but the crowd loved it and thought we were, and I quote, 'really good musicians for keeping it going that long'. Never underestimate the power of a free bar to make you sound good. If you go in thinking it's going to be awful, it will be awful. If you go in thinking 'sh1t man, let's play some blues' then you'll have a good time and the majority of the punters will too. As for Mustang Sally, people like it so you will have to play it - accept the fact. Just close your eyes and take one for the team.

Another big fan of Jeff's here! I bought a fretless bass purely because of Jeff's fretless bass parts on Ten and Vs and even ended up in PJ tribute act at one point. Great player and great fretless tone.

Hi Homer I'm in a similar kind of band - I joined as a dep for a few gigs about a year ago and they just kept calling. There's a core of three members with the drummer and lead guitarist taken from a 4 person pool of whoever's available for the gig. As a result we're not especially tight but we're all good enough players to pull it together on the night. As we usually do pub gigs for £30 each, it's not really bothered us. We've recently done a couple of functions and like you, we were worried about how we'd go down but it's all turned out well. People danced, people tapped their feet, people drank and didn't notice the f#*k ups, we played Mustang Sally and got a couple of girls up from the audience to do backing vocals - they loved it and we got paid and re-booked for New Year's eve. Job done. Just relax and play and enjoy it mate, if your band can play with a bit of fin and passion the looseness will only add to the feel. The blues is an easy music to listen to so as long as you keep the beat going you'll be right. Our harp player/singer/frontman is great at getting people involved - going out into the audience with a tambourine and that sort of thing so if you're worried about people just standing around you could try something similar? Dave