TheRev

Love that solo - it's probably the only bass solo that I actually perservered with bothering to learn.

Andy Fraser is a legend and one of my three big influences when I started playing bass. He was only 17 or 18 when he recodred 'all right now', which is frankly bonkers. 

My band are loud... this is my recipe for feedback free playing.

1) Krivo magnetic pickup (available from promenade music in the UK)

2) HPF. I also have an EA doubler, but find the HPF a bit feeble. I *think* the EA HPF is a 12db per octave roll off, wheras Fishman and the wonderful Fdeck HPF is 24db per octave, but the EA will be better than nothing..  A phase inversion switch is also useful.

3) Plug your f-holes. I use F-its. www.f-itsfeedbackblockers.co.uk

4) Raise your cab up of the ground, as close to ear height as possible so it's not firing at the body of your bass and making it vibrate.  I use a folding keyboard stand. Also, putting your cab to yor side rather than behind you can help as youre pesenting the ribs of your bass rather than the whole back (i.e a smaller & less resonant surface area) towards the amp.      

Dave

Me! Me! I'm in Bristol mind, so not uber close to Chard. I have a gig in Cerne Abbas on Saturday, which is a bit closer.

I'd be interested to hear how it compares to my Mike Arnapol cabs.

3 hours ago, pete.young said:

A Caravan album from the '70s, probably why you've never heard of it!

The excellent Dreadnoughts are currently made up by:

• The Fang, Guitar and Vocals
• Wormley Wangersnitch, Violin
• Leroy "Slow Ride" McBride, Accordion and Vocals
• Drew Sexsmith, Mandolin, Banjo and Vocals (sometimes known as the Dread Pirate Druzil)
• Squid Vicious, Bass
• The Stupid Swedish Bastard, Drums

Except that Wormley and The Dread Pirate Druzil (his real name is actually Drew Sexsmith) have left and been replaced by Aled Jenkins (ex Smokey Bastard) on mandolin with Leroy (aka Seamus O'Flanaghan in previous incarnations of the band) covering fiddle and acccordian duties.

Fang (AKA Uncle Touchy) occasionally plays with my band as Vinnie Blue (on accordian or mandolin or whatever he's into on that particular day) and stepped in on guitar for a small USA tour when our guitarist flounced off in a huff 10 days berore the tour started.   

Auralex Gramma pads.  I bought one, used it a buch of times. left it backstage at a festival somewhere, never bothered to replace it.

@BigRedX

🤣

Good point...luckily anyone we've used has been happy to dress up and neck cider.

3 hours ago, ubit said:

Why do you need a settled line up? Surely you can just use session players for recording and touring.

Yep, this. If you have paid gigs and a professional approach then you can find professional musicians to get the job done.

When our guitarist threw his toys out of the pram 10 days before a small tour in the USA, we called up a guitarist that we knew in New York, sent him the songs and flew him to Portland, Oregon to start the tour. This wasn't even a big money tour - it was classic punk style, relying on mates & other bands to supply gear and drive between dates, sleeping on floors and in s**tty motels.  It can be done.  Stop worrying about a stable lineup and look for people who actually want to play gigs (money helps...).  In the circles my band moves in, there are bands who have had 6 different drummers in 10 years, or will have 3 bass players who know the songs and they use whoever is alailable.

I usually refer to them as 'FOH sound' as in "Is James doing FOH sound on our stage again this year?

I've also used 'sound bloke/dude' (when it's a bloke/dude) and 'that grumpy c**t' (when it's a grumpy c**t).

I quite like having a stage name - it's like an alter-ego that gives you that allows you the freedom to be a different persona on stage, cmpared to your day job.

In a previous band I was The Rev (hence the user name), in the current band it's Magners O'Magnersson:

http://skimmityhitchers.co.uk/who-we-arr/

Rothko had two, possibly three.

After 30+ years of playing in bands, I am still surprised at the number of people in bands who don't actually want to be in a band.  The trick is spotting these joy sponges before they rip all your enthusiasm out.

1 hour ago, leftybassman392 said:

Depends on the circumstances I guess, but don't be surprised if you encounter resistance to the idea of using your own mic, unless it's been set up on its own stand with its own mixer channel (which in turn would mean it being done as part of the initial setup and routed through whatever outboard the engineer routinely uses for vocals).

We've done a handful of gigs in the past year, each time we've been asked by the promoter  to bring our own mics.

Before plague, when I've worked as a stage manager at festivals, there would be people wanting to use their own mics for hygiene reasons. The FOH and monitor engineers didn't have a problem with that, as long as the mic wasn't cheap rubbish, which yours isn't.

Asking to use your own mic in the current situation isn't an unreasonable request - the promoter might even insist on it.

Ohhh, that is nice.

I hadn't even heard of Oceansize until 7 years after they split up.  Still don't know why they passed me by, they were exactly the sort of music I was listening to in the late 2000s.

The Ovations

I have a set of Velvet Garbo and a set of Velvet Blues.

The Garbos are pretty old and have been on and off various basses many times. The Blues are on better condition.

The green silks are the Garbos, the blue silks are the Blues.

2 hours ago, Doctor J said:

I've never had a subscription to have the satisfaction of cancelling 😪

I may subscribe just to have the pleasure of unsubscribing.

Longview by Green Day?

Down in the tube station at midnight by The Jam. (Are The Jam mod or punk?)

Has anyone on here actually benefited from the exposure of 90,000 (or however many) plays in terms of more punters at gigs, better paid gigs or better festival slots?

I could suck up the pittance per play if it actually translated into more gigs or better paid gigs.

Lovely looking mic - I occasionally wander into the Talkbass Nadine thread and then have to remind myself that I don't to buy a mic that costs more than my bass.

XTC - Making plans for Nigel.

Apart from no-one born in the last 20 years being called Nigel, 'he has his future in British Steel'.

Thwaites in Watford and The Double Bass room in Kent both have stocks of old eastern European basses around the £1000 mark.

If you're buying new, then Stentor, Strunal and the Thomann '2' (actually rebadged Strunals) basses are all perfectly decent basses for the money.

I use a Stentor Student 2 in our rehearsal studio and I've played one of the Strunal/Thomann basses - I'd happily have either if I didn't already have enough basses.

I'd avoid the £500 laminate basses you see on Gear4music, etc. Our singer's missus has one and it's not great. It can be made playable, but the sound is pretty insipid.

That was fun - kinda like a Bob Ross episode but with a headstock instead of a painitng.

4 minutes ago, casapete said:

I remember those Judson’s, absolute rubbish instruments. Sunburst with white plates, dreadful pickups and hardware including a feeble bridge and tuners. If someone pays £300 ( or any more than £30 TBH) they need to have a good word with themselves.

https://www.themusicinn.co.uk/bass-guitars/electric-bass/jedson-short-scale-bass-pre-owned

https://reverb.com/uk/item/578786-jedson-telecaster-bass-1969-75-sunburst

https://reverb.com/uk/item/1701501-jedson-short-scale-telecaster-bass-sixties-3-tone-sunburst

https://thebassgallery.com/products/jedson-short-scale

All £300 +

Although, no idea how much much the Bass Gallery one went for, but the fact that it sold means that someone paid actual money for it, which is still ridiculous.

My first bass was a short scale Jedson tele stye thing that I paid about £40 for in 1984.  If I could have bought any other bass, I would have, but it was all that was available in my remote corner of Ireland.  It was bad- so bad that when I eventually replaced it with a Marlin Swidewinder, it was a significant improvement.

Those Jedson basses regularly go for £300 plus on ebay and gawd knows how much more on Reverb. Utterly bonkers. You could spend a third of that on a new Harley Benton and get a bass that was three times better.