mike257

Had a run in with (probably) the same person a few weeks ago over an advert for a Gibbo Les Paul Traditional. Seller contacted me via an internet SMS with no phone number attached, quoting an email address to use for communicaion. I was suspicious and googled the email address which turned up a forum thread. Turns out this person has had all kinds advertised, not just music gear, and had rinsed a number of people for hundreds of quid after reeling off crap excuses for not meeting in person and asking payment through UKASH. I've had a fair few good experiences on Gumtree, including buying stuff via Paypal and getting it delivered. The scammers are usually easy to spot and ignore so long as you've got your wits about you.

Borrowed my mate's big Ashdown rig for a dep last weekend as amp is out of action and absolutely fell in love with the tone! I've never owned any Ashdown gear and had mixed experiences using it on shared/house backline gigs, but this rig was stunning. It was total overkill for the litle pub gig I was playing but the sound when I cranked it up was perfect, so much punch in the mids. It's tempting me to change up my current set up for something simlar - the EVOIII heads seem to go for a reasonable price, but I was wondering if anybody who has experience of the ABM810 and 410 cabs could give me a clue if the smaller cab comes close to delivering the same punch as the 'big rig'. Had grand plans of going small and lightweight but this tone was just perfect, a definite plan-changer. Don't know if I can justify owning a big 810 for the small amount of bass gigging I'm doing at the moment. Looks nice in the living room though.

I played my first gig on bass in just under two years last night!. Depped for a guy at work whose bassist never turns up, pub gig with lots of the usual indie pub singalongs in there. Which I've never played. Picked up my bass at about midday and learnt 24 songs in three hours, had a half a song soundcheck at the pub and then went for it. A couple of hairy moments but on the whole it went great, they offered me the full time job after the first set! Had to decline as the function band I'm playing g****r for have got a pretty full diary already, but I was made up to dust off the bass! I've missed it, was good to be home. Oh, and I'd borrowed my mates ridiculously over the top Ashdown rig (ABM900 and 810) as my Ampeg has a blown driver - sounded incredible. I think I'm converted, I might not let him have it back. No wooliness in sight, it just growled with my Sandberg.

Love that LP - I've been eyeballing second hand ones for months, narrowly avoided brushes with a couple of Gumtree scammers in the process. I went out at lunchtime today for a sandwich and came back with this.... [attachment=121999:TeleDlx.jpg] Fender Telecaster Deluxe '72 Reissue - the Arctic White finish was a limited run too, so I'm made up. I'll be sticking the original bridge pickup back in and swapping the 250k pots for 500k ones to open the top end up and she'll be lovely! It's sat behind me at my desk right now, so tempting to stop working and start riffing!

You've picked an absolutely lovely guitar to start out on! I'd say you should persevere with it - I played guitar for a couple of months before I made the jump to bass in my early teens, but in the last few years I've really worked on my guitar playing, mainly for songwriting purposes, although I've now ended up playing lead guitar in a function band for the last 6 months or so and I'm enjoying the challenge! There's nothing but good can come from learning more about other instruments and how they work - even if you never play them outside your bedroom, you'll go away a better bassist with a better understanding and appreciation of your bandmates roles.

We're averaging about £800 after the agents cut for a fairly new 5 piece wedding band, and expecting to push that up with all the new promo material we're assembling and the extra investment we're making in sound/lighting. I'd be having tough words with the singer as you're very much selling yourselves short if the function market is what you're aiming for.

I have a long base high roof Transit decked out with seven seats and a mid bulkhead which can take anything you throw at it. If you don't need to carry band members though, its probably overkill. One option that hasn't come up is a box trailer. A band I used to do sound for would take two cars - the drummer with his kit in one, the bassist, guitarist, me in another with guitars, heads and small bits, and towing a box trailer with subs, tops, mixer, outboard and a pair of 4x12 cabs, plus all the other miscellaneous nonsense you need on a gig. That way, you've got one vehicle that will do for day-to-day use, and you just hitch the rest on as and when you nerd it!

[quote name='mentalextra' timestamp='1349766873' post='1830107'] Just one of those plastic cheapy things [/quote] Quite often cheap tuners will struggle to track the very bottom end of the range on a bass, so you'll have no lick going below standard tuning. Tins if good workarounds already posted though!

Looking good mate! Just wondering, is the cable cut out on the back of those cases just a big hole, or is there a panel to cover it? Just got thinking that you could put a plate there with jack sockets and a mains connection and wire it to your first/last pedals - all your connections on the back of the board for a nice easy set up!

[quote name='Mog' timestamp='1349627006' post='1828423'] I didn't realise Transits could reliably get from A to B either. Transporter Syncro is where its at IME a good MIM is a fine bass. Sound wise they hold up well against the majority of instruments in the same price bracket. On occasion there can be some slight construction flaws but nothing too serious. Despite the differences between the two, at the end of the day the punters will rarely notice. If I were a noob bassist starting out with a new band I'd stick the price difference on a good sound system or transport (the joy of hindsight). [/quote] What are you implying? My Transit is a magnificent beast!

[quote name='Shambo' timestamp='1349555091' post='1827788'] Arguing about which Fender is better than which has always struck me as being a bit like arguing about who's Ford Transit is the best. It's just a tool with a specific task and as long as it reliably gets you and stuff from A to B, it matters not where it was built or if it has electric windows and a nice stereo.. [/quote] Clearly the words of a man who has never been in my Transit van.

I had a crack with the Big One when it was on tour for tryouts a few years ago. Sounded wonderful with my Shuttle 6, didn't get the chance to try my SVT3 with it but sounds like it wouldn't have been a worthwhile effort. Really tempted to change my giant cab for something more manageable to suit the types of gigs I'm doing these days, Alex's stuff is always tempting!

I read the thread title out of the corner of my eye and thought your bass had died. Glad the content is more cheerful!

Couldn't find an existing thread so here's a shiny new one. Bought a pedal off Scott, it was dispatched super quickly, well packed and in great condition. He kept in touch throughout too. Pleasure to deal with, recommended basschatter - cheers mate! Mike

I get this with a guy who deps for the function band sometimes. He's a very talented, classically trained pianist, but when he goes off and learns a song on his own, he learns how to play everybody's parts all at once, and needs a bit of coaxing to dial it down when he gets in the room with us. Recent example would be 'Sex On Fire' (yeah, I know ) where we counted it off and went for it, and he turned out to be pretty much playing the bassline and both guitar parts all at once. I definitely think it's something to do with 'proper' pianists and it being very much a full-range, all encompassing instrument when played solo. Our regular keyboard player (who is also very talented) is much more of a 'band' player and leaves tons of space for the rest of us. So, yeah - don't hire a piano player who has learnt how to play it properly!

Mine has shifted dramatically this year. I've gone from playing bass in originals bands for over a decade to playing lead guitar in a function band. I do feel some frustration at not having an outlet for my songwriting, but on the other hand we couldn't afford to pay our childcare bills if I didn't spend most weekends busting out Mustang Sally at weddings. Luckily I enjoy music in general enough that I get a kick out of seeing people have a great time to the music we're playing and it doesn't (usually) bother me what's on the set. Glad to be playing at all, and to be contributing to people's special occasions and directly impacting on how much of a good time they're all having can be really rewarding! Still miss big dirty riffs though.

[sub]There's a lot of guitars change hands on BC over in the 'For Sale - Other Musically Related Items' forum, why not suggest he posts them in there. Plenty of members here who moonlight on the skinny strings![/sub]

[quote name='Ancient Mariner' timestamp='1348652724' post='1816372'] That's a function of that amp - they just create a HUGE perceived volume, whatever the theoretical output is. I had a 50 Top for a short while and just had no use for it at all (came as part of a deal) because until it hit ear-bleeding levels it sounded stiff and dry, even through a 1X12 Celestion Gold. I'm pretty sure they are really just PA amps with a single channel. [/quote] I wasn't totally sold on mine at first but between a great service and spruce-up from my amp tech and getting the Orange in the mix it's really come to life. Love that bit of grit and breakup on input 1 but find I need to use input 2 for my clean sounds with current gig. Dying to get the chance to really wind it up and see what it is capable of. I'm using my brother's Yamaha SA2000S at the moment, which definitely helps with the tone!

I've got an MXR Smart Gate on my guitar board, does the job ok, although it's a fine balance between having it kill the noise and having it cut off the end of long, sustained notes. Adding a compressor which will hopefully help me fix this! Good pedal though, and fairly widely available on the used market.

I did a search in case I was beaten to the punch but couldn't find a thread on here. Seems to be very little info on it online, not seen any demos yet, but it's apparently for sale in all the usual suspects. Somebody buy one and let me borrow it!

Oh, and back on topic - bass was non-existent for me today. Yesterday I had a meeting with the guys from what will be my new function band, which seems very promising and will get me back into regular bass playing, I've been out of it for around a year now. Not much bass on the immediate horizon but looks to be changing soon!

[quote name='Jack Cahalane' timestamp='1348606499' post='1816001'] Rang up Dawsons to find out that Marshall are going to potentially charge me £30 an hour to fix my amp. Anybody fancy fixing it for free? ...Anybody? [/quote] How far from the Wirral are you? I know a great amp tech in Ellesmere Port who is absurdly cheap too. PM me if the distance isn't too bad and I'll hook you up his number!