12stringbassist

If I was to go anywhere without a backup, sods law dictates that is when an expensive catastrophe would happen. It takes less than 5 minutes to pack and unpack another bass and so I never get screwed onstage. "Hang on lads, stop the song - I have to dig into my bag for my spare strings and change one of them. We'll take a quick break." I think not. People who don't take a spare (when they have the option) deserve it when stinky poo happens. I still wake up sweating sometimes, remembering when that bloody awful Blackstar bass rig I had crapped out on me (again), 5 minutes before we were due onstage, meaning I had to go home and get my Hartkes and we had to start 45 minutes late.

No it's not.

My Gordy XR fretless has an XLR socket on it.

Nothing else since yesterday...

My guitarist plays a few different guitars.

This is just great. I can hear Alice Cooper changing the words and doing this. The video is a total hoot too.

The regular album version of this. I am in love.

Not for sale, unfortunately.

All three of those can sing, but it's not exactly a pleasant listen... Dylan has a grating tone, but some love it. Rotten was perfect for what the Pistols did. Anyone else wouldn't have been half as good. McGowan was also just right for The Pogues. The guy I was talking about couldn't decide about sharp or flat on any given note.

Book one taster bass lesson with a tutor and hopefully that playing technique problem will be sorted out there and then. Putting a quick video on here would sort it out even quicker. If you do end up buying a new bass, the Fender Player Series Precision Bass or jazz Bass are an excellent bang for your buck. I have a few of them.

A guitar wearing the wrong decal is: An attempt to deceive the audience. An attempt to make the owner feel better about his guitar. A potential fraud upon resale. A bit stupid, really. If the owner says it's not really a Fender, what does it make them look like? I'll happily go out with a Squier bass, though I have several Fenders. And its logo is untouched. People who rebadge Rockinbetters as R*ckenb*ckers make me laugh the hardest. I will happily own up to getting this TRC for my Retrovibe, though...

Similar to my story above.. Another guitarist mate of mine has a local band with two local mates and he is an exemplary player. He's a bit backward at coming forward, ridiculously modest and not very pushy at all. Instead of getting his face out there and doing what he does best (a perfect tribute to a well known 70's mega successful UK rock band), he is a bit lazy and has ended up settling for two mates on bass and drums. he's taken the easy option. He confided to me that he wasn't happy with them and was thinking of letting them both go and getting more suitable players, but of course, he's too disorganised to arrange rehearsals and auditions and doesn't want to go through the angst of upsetting his mates, so while he could be back in theatres, he's occasionally in pubs, stuck with players who make mistakes around him and a bass player who can't keep a solid tight rhythm going. The band isn't up to his level - it is down to theirs. He's going to look back in a few years and curse himself for his laziness. A band is only as good as its weakest link.

I was invited to audition for a band once, over in Oldham and a guitarist that i knew was putting it together. We all learned a few songs in advance and had goes on the night. I was a known quantity to the guitarist and was sort of 'in' as a result, but he was very keen on this keyboard player. The keyboard player was really good (apart from her having a proper strop at me for not knowing Riders on the storm by The Doors off the top of my head, as it wasn't actually one of the songs we'd been asked to learn). She was reliant on the guy who was singing that evening for transport. He couldn't carry a tune in a paper bag. Listening through the evening, I seemed to be the only one who was distressed by his warbling. I rang the guitarist later - he had serious designs on getting this excellent keyboard player in and if the singer was part of the deal... well, so be it. He was mortified when I told him that I couldn't be in a band with someone who couldn't sing in charge of the lead vocal. They lasted another two rehearsals. The singer and keyboard player started to haunt a number jam nights in our local area and, while she glared at me, he insisted on getting up singing and trying to chat people up into taking him on. It sadly never worked. A band is only as good as the people in it. If you have a lead singer who can't sing, you're knackered.

I'd love to take all of this out again.

I've got 4 4003's in different finishes. They are a bass on their own and if you amplify and EQ them right, they cut through with a tone like nothing else. And they are a big talking point, too. That said, I am into my Fenders at the moment.

My take on vocal pitch correction is that you can either do it or you can't. I'd rather see a colostomy bag attached to a singer than a computer that makes their singing acceptable.

I did say a couple of posts above it was usable in the studio.

The vintage sound thing is just a pointless bass cut. Fortunately, it can be ignored.

Yo cats Frank Zappa

If you watch Kay Mellor's TV programme 'Girlfriends', that's where the shot is from (on the set - we were the band in the show). I am now worried that I may have inadvertently caused a slight continuity error with that bottle, as I don't think it was on the rig when I had to play through it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyt1TSe6jXE They picked a song from the 'on pain of death' section of our setlist. The additional guitarist in the middle was an actor. Gerrard Fletcher.

This is what I normally use: This is my backup rig:

This is a sales blurb from a site I just found at https://reverb.com/uk/item/7087494-hiwatt-b300h-300w-bass-head-solid-state-maxwatt-series-brand-new-boxed "HIWATT B300H 300W Bass Head Solid State Maxwatt Series DESCRIPTION The B300 Head puts out 300 watts into a 4-ohm output or 200 watts into an 8-ohm output. The Head includes: passive and active inputs, gain control, master volume, shape control (push/pull flat/boost) and a 7-band EQ with push/pull - on/off control. There is also a built-in LIMITER with ratio and push/pull - on/off controls. Outputs include XLR balanced line out and a headphone jack. This amp, again, is a tried and tested solid state modern classic. This is the most popular and the only solid state head that we make for bass in this price range. In fact, some bass players swear by this for full on LOUD! The pre-amp has high & low sensitivity switch. There is simply no better sounding, looking or engineered solid state bass head amplifier in the world in this price bracket! FEATURES Front Panel Controls: INPUT, PASSIVE/ACTIVE SWITCH, GAIN, BASS, TREBLE, ON/OFF EQ, EQUALISATION, MASTER VOLUME, LIMIT SWITCH, MP3 IN, PHONES INPUT, MAINS SWITCH Back Panel Features: LINE OUT, 2 X SPEAKER OUTPUTS, XLR OUT, AUX IN Output Power: 300W. Please note this amp can be used for keyboards as well. Dimensions (Unboxed) L x H x 😧 59 x 32 x 26 cm Weight (Unboxed): 19 kg" ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As for the guitars in the picture, it's an old picture that I took of the HiWatt rig, before the lockdowns started, so I honestly don't know if they still have those in. They have lots of weird and wonderful looking guitars.

I have four 4003's and the neck pickup never gets solo'd on any of them, simply because the overall sound of both pickups is what I am after. I'm generally one of those people who will just leave all the tone controls in one place (fully on) on the bass and sort my EQ on the amp and I'm good to go on stage. The neck pick up has a very good sound but needs boosting. The bridge pickup always sounds nice and trebly, but it's the mix of the two that I will always use. In the studio, it's a versatile enough bass. The vintage pull out pot they have added now is a waste of time for me in a live situation, as it just sucks all of the bottom end out of the bass and I could only see a possible use for that in the studio, but I would just EQ around that on the amp to get the sound right, anyway..

One thing to remember with a 4003 is that the overall sound that everyone seems to love (unless, of course, you don't) seems to come from the balance between the pickups.