Krysbass

Despicable - but I daresay they are in some sort of denial as to their situation (low-paid gigs etc) and the true causes of that.

I left a classic rock band last year because too many of the song choices were driven by the self-indulgence and preferences of the two guitarists. The last gig I played with them was a disaster; as the audience clearly wasn't familiar with much of what we were playing - we might as well have been an originals band!. The great, well-known songs that I'd originally joined the band for had one-by-one been arbitrarily dropped by the two guitarists.

That's something to watch for if joining a classic rock band; because there are so many good ones out there and it can be tricky to find the right balance between playing all the same crowd-pleasing songs as everyone else or ending up being too obscure with your song choices. We had great difficulty getting gigs and the few we did get never seemed to win us repeat bookings - the standard of playing was high, but we definitely hadn't got the song choices right.

By the way; I'm in my 50's too and last year started a mostly 80's band with my son; who's a drummer; that seems to be taking off now. Hope you find a new project soon.

Stay with it.

I started a band in March 2016 - all was going well until in our first proper gig last September we discovered that our singer was snorting coke, .

That; coupled with a couple of heated, throwing his toys out of the pram incidents and I had no choice but to tell him where to go and find a replacement.

I was gutted to have the project set back to almost square one, but it had to happen as I didn't want the band to be tarnished with any drug-related activities; or a raving diva in our midst.

Found our replacement singer 3 weeks later and we played our first gig with the new line-up last night - the band is sounding better than ever; everyone is fired-up and the future is looking good.

By the way; the vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist all joined through Joinmyband.

As said - a micro-fibre cloth is great, but for getting dust out of the bridge, under the strings on the headstock and other hard to reach places; I use a synthetic-bristled half-inch wide paintbrush.

As has been said before; if playing in a tribute band where a particular bass is synonymous with that band then yes; there's a strong case for following that.

But other than that; my view is that sound, playability and the personal preference of the player out-guns image every time!

That would be my 1984 Westone Thunder III.

I've owned it from new and admit that because I don't play it that much; I've considered selling it a few times.

But I could never let myself go through with it largely because of its ringing piano-like tone that none of my other basses do so well; and also because accepting the paltry amount of money it's worth, even in its almost unblemished condition; wouldn't leave me feeling that I'd made a good decision.

In the interests of international appeal; could I suggest that weights are also given in Kgs?

I'm in the UK and in my 50s; but even I went metric a few years ago.

I'll set the ball rolling with these 3....

Westone Thunder III = 10.18lb / 4.62Kg
Ibanez SR600 = 7.49lb / 3.40Kg
Spector ReBop DLX FM 5-string = 9.56lb / 4.34Kg

In my case; the 2 bands I've left in the past few years have been for different reasons.

I left a band in late 2014 having been with them for just under 3 years. The problem was that the drummer and to a slightly lesser extent the guitarist were making the same old mistakes at gigs. Yet it became clear that they were both happy with the standard of their playing and that they did not see any need to raise their game. And so, at one particularly bad gig we were asked to leave after the first set! That was the final straw for me, as I take my playing seriously (especially if I'm being paid!) and turn up to gigs well prepared. But at this gig I'd been inwardly cringing as the errors from these two came thick and fast and out of the corner of my eye I could see venue emptying during our set.

I left another band earlier this year - again having been with them for almost 3 years. When I joined, the standard of musicianship and the song choices were both great. We played our first gig at a festival in 2014 and went down a storm with the audience. But sadly; it slowly went downhill from there as a gradual lack of enthusiasm and commitment from certain members of the band crept in. So at rehearsals we were wasting time re-learning stuff that had been nailed at the last session, because one or both of the guitarists clearly hadn't played a note since the last session. Then the guitarists (who started the band) began arbitrarily dropping songs from our set and replacing them with obscure stuff from the 60s and 70s that at gigs; it was clear that few if any of our audiences had heard before.

In summary; I play bass mostly because I enjoy it - it's my escape(though money is of course welcome if its on offer). Because I want to enjoy this, there's little point in me remaining in a project that I'm not happy with. Yes - I do believe in loyalty and sticking at things up to a point, but when it becomes clear that all members of a band are no longer on the same page and that this isn't likely to improve; there's little to be gained from prolonging the agony.

About £150 sounds right to me too.

I have a mint 1984 Thunder III fretted that I love but rarely play. A key reason I keep it is that it wouldn't fetch more than £300 - £350, so I'd only end up hating myself for letting it go.

Westones are a contradiction; they are much higher quality in materials and build than their prices suggest.

I have an SR 600 and this tips the scales at an extremely light 3.4kg (7.49 lbs), so I'd guess that the SR300 will be close to this.

My SR600 has been my main bass since I bought it in 2010 and I'm amazed that Ibanez don't mention the weight of their basses on their website. The SR basses weigh less than most and for many players (including me) - this is an important consideration/selling point.

I've never been too bothered with effects, but just bought a B3 for a new project where I'll need mild distortion, or chorus effects on some songs.

The B3 is much easier to switch between effects in a live situation than the Korg AX3B I bought a few years ago for similar reasons, and it's an altogether higher quality product. One feature that really sold me on the B3 was the built-in looper function, as I thought this this would be very useful on one particular song we'll be playing at every gig.

But I've found a problem here, as before buying the B3 I had assumed that the looper would store whatever I recorded on it - even when the unit is powered off - as seems to be the case with stand-alone looper pedals. Sadly; turning off the power on the B3 erases the loop, which means that I'll have the hassle of re-recording the loop before the start of each gig we play and will have to make sure the B3 stays powered up after that.

That's not an insurmountable problem, but it's a disappointment on an otherwise well-designed product.

My sympathies on this, as I've had a related experience. In our case the gig wasn't cancelled, but we arrived at the venue to find it packed and to be told that the football match everyone was watching had had a late kick-off - so we'd have to wait until the match had finished before we could set up.

This meant standing around for nearly an hour; which for me personally was torture, as I have so little interest in football that that I could use it as a cure for insomnia.

Once the match finished, the place emptied on mass, but thankfully by the time we'd set up a few people had arrived so we weren't only playing to the bar staff. So it could have been worse I guess, but music taking second place to football just goes against the grain with me.

There are plenty of older players out there, so it's just a matter of finding and connecting with them. I'm in my mid-50s and have just started a new covers/tribute band project through JoinMyBand.

When I placed the ad on JMB, I was up-front about my age but I guess another thing that may have helped is that my project is very biased towards 80s music - so has appealed to people of "a certain age".

I recently left another 5-piece band where the lead guitarist was in his mid-60s and the only band member younger than me was the singer - still in his 20s - so I think the definition of what age is "too old" has to be a personal thing where each of us decides for ourselves when we feel we're ready to call it a day with the band activities.

Some great ones already, but a few spring to mind...

Split Enz - I Got You
Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
The Adventures - Broken Land

I pretty much agree with the original post. I own 4 basses; (2 x fretted 4-strings, a fretted 5-string and a fretless 4-string), but it's rare for me to take more than 1 bass to a gig.

This is mainly because I mostly play pubs and even though my rig takes up less floor space than any other band member's gear; there's usually not enough floor-space left for me to have another bass on stage without risking someone tripping over it; (probably me!)

So my most versatile, workhorse bass is my Ibanez SR600 4-string - it does a wide range of tones to support all the songs we play.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say, so basses with plastic scratch-plates, solid paint finishes or maple fret-boards leave me cold, but for others, clearly these things are the essence of cool.

Plenty of visible wood-grain and black hardware are where it's at for me - but that's just me.

When I first began appreciating music and buying records in my teens, my dad had a half decent Ferguson record-player that, unlike many; actually delivered plenty of low-end.

When I was around 16, that record-player became mine and by this time I found I was always following the bass-line in any music that I heard. The low notes really inspired me. I'd never even seen a bass guitar up close at this point, let alone actually tried playing one, but my cousin was a keen guitarist and I remember being unimpressed at the tendency for guitar strings to break at the least provocation. So guitar was definitely not for me - far too fragile!

I bought my first bass back in 1981 and been playing on and off ever since.

I suffer bad circulation in my hands/feet too, so I also recommend fingerless gloves and wearing as many layers of clothes as needed to keep warm.

I think the guitarist in my band has even worse circulation than me as he insisted on having the heat on in the rehearsal room at yesterday's practice.

Unfortunately winter rehearsals are a bit of a worry with my band, as the primary method of heating the workshop loft we use is one of those paraffin/electric space heaters that looks a bit like a jet engine - the fumes/smoke are awful and after a few sessions last winter I was convinced I had mild carbon monoxide poisoning. I've bought a carbon monoxide tester to take to practices this winter, as much as I love playing bass, it's not worth dying for!

Been playing bass since the early 80s and I can honestly say that I have never had any urge to do vocals - not even BVs.

I'm only a "weekend warrior" bassist and these days my bass literally stays in its case Monday - Friday unless I'm taking time off work. So playing bass is my escape and is a pure pleasure that would be heavily diluted by having to do vocals as well.

Also, because my practice time is so restricted, I need to make every moment I spend with my bass as productive as possible and having to learn/practice vocals too would compromise that.

Also, I've seen too many covers bands where the bassist doubles on vocals, but to do so is simplifying the original bass-line of the song - having to do that would really irritate me.

For home practice I tend to leave the tone controls on both bass and amp flat and the pickup blend in the middle, as this sounds fine when playing over backing tracks.

However, in a band situation, whether at rehearsals or a gigs, the above tone settings invariably result in the bass being swamped under a sonic deluge of guitars and drums and I struggle to hear myself. My solution is to either boost the mids and/or slightly favour the bridge pickup both of which help the bass to cut through.

I also tend to make the above tone changes on my bass (active electronics) rather than on my amp - I only tend to change my amp settings to reduce the low-end if a particular venue sounds too "boomy".

I left a covers band last year and whilst this was mostly due to the drummer, who would always bash away loudly and incessantly before both rehearsals and gigs and had numerous other shortcomings too - the guitarist was almost as bad.

What really annoyed me about the guitarist was that he would use band rehearsals as his opportunity to do endless knob-twiddling on his effects board, at deafening volume; so having an intelligible conversation with anyone about the band or getting the detail of a song right was often an exercise in futility.

But it doesn't have to be like this (and nor should it be).

I was in a band a few years ago (which sadly folded due to a bad case of lead singer syndrome) where certain ground-rules were agreed at the outset. A key one of these was that both guitarists actually volunteered (yes; honestly!) that they would not start messing around with their effects at full band rehearsals - instead they hired a rehearsal room separately to do all this stuff, so that they weren't wasting anyone else's time!

I left a covers band last year mostly because of the drummer - he was incapable of any dynamics or subtlety in his playing and was just deafening all the time. Being too loud was unfortunately only one of several shortcomings in his playing and it had reached the point where the band was not getting repeat gig bookings, so the writing was on the wall for the future of the band.

We mainly played pub gigs and one of his worst traits was to set up his kit and start bashing away loudly and incessantly before the gig, thereby frightening away much of our intended audience.

I can only say that it doesn't matter how good the rest of a band is - if the drummer isn't any good, the whole band is on a hiding to nothing.

I think that even if there'd been a miraculous appearance of The Ox on stage at Glasto, the camera would, sadly, have given him minimal attention.

I think there's a dumbed-down tendency for the camera to focus on the members of a band who move around the most - and as we know; The Ox and indeed Pino are from that school of bassists who let their fingers do the talking, rather than jumping all over the stage!

Watched it on I-player and I agree with the comments made about the lack of footage on Pino.

OK - I accept that, great as he is, Pino is never going to get the same attention on camera as Daltrey or Townshend, but even the drummer and the other guitarist were on camera more often than Pino!?

Also - (perhaps I missed it); but when Pete Townshend introduced the band, was Pino mentioned?

[quote name='lowhand_mike' timestamp='1430124329' post='2758069']
nice one, exactly my thoughts
which one did you go for? the gloss or matt?
and need to see pictures
[/quote]

I went for the gloss black stain version - absolutely beautiful finish on it that attracts favourable comments from the guitarists in my band every time they set eyes on it(praise indeed!) Will post photos of it on BC as soon as I can, but first need to get my head around the technicalities of how to do that.

By the way - before buying it I was dubious about the lack of a mid-boost on most Spector basses, as on my Ibanez the mid-boost is so useful in making sure the bass cuts through when there's too much sonic mush from the guitars and drums. I really needn't have worried, as this Spector ReBop DLX has a naturally mid-rich tone - especially when favouring the bridge pickup slightly.

I now have GAS for a ReBop DLX 4-stringer, but maybe it's just as well that I can't find a new one on sale at a similarly discounted price anywhere.

I always take a spare amp to gigs - both my amps are lightweight class D, so it's minimum hassle to do this and well worth the peace of mind. I also carry spare strings, 9v battery, a selection of internal fuses and mains-plug fuses, nylon cable ties and a few other small bits and pieces that may be useful for an emergency repair.

However - I've rarely bothered taking a spare bass to a gig - largely because most venues I play are too small for there to be anywhere where I could safely leave this bass.