Tim2291

Do it! Go for the crackle paint, i'm debating either that or a hydro dip on my cheapo explorer!

Hi Gary, First of all, welcome! With regards to gear, you can't go wrong with Yamaha, my first bass was an RBX270, light, plays amazingly (I have had it professionally set up) and the tone is good enough for most gigs, plus you avoid paying the Fender premium! Nothing wrong with Squier or Fender obviously they are solid guitars! Ibanez make some great gear as well. Ashdown make some great amps that will be good for practice and for as you start to improve. If you have a budget of £500 and you are more than happy to spend that on your bass gear, buy second hand and get good equipment! You can get a brilliant set up in that budget that could last you years. The joy of second hand is that unless you trash the gear, you're unlikely to lose a huge amount if you decided to sell! For example, I bought an Ashdown cab for £80, it's not the best but I could sell it for exactly what I paid with no issues! The buy/sell section of this forum is great because it is unlikely that anyone here would sell you anything dodgy knowingly. You can always post questions on bass chat and the hive mind will always be on hand to help if we can! Whilst buying a £15,000 guitar won't make you a better player obviously, there is a hell of a difference between the very cheaply made unknown brand guitars and the trusted (yamaha/ibanez/fender and their subsidiaries) brands "beginner" ranges! Some of the budget gear is horrible to play and could put you off rather than encourage you to continue playing.

If they don't understand the first time, point more aggressively and shout louder and slower.

The singer who voiced Simba in the Lion King chose to take the percentage rather than the $100,000 fee! He's made over a million off the movie now!

Very definitely, although I don't think I'll be cracking out my Explorer for any Jazz gigs 😆! Weirdly though it would probably have a suitable tone, single P pickup!

Spotify is a necessary evil, if they hadn't done it someone else would. But bands make barely any money from the music any more which is partly why merchandise and ticket prices have become so expensive! I think the artists get around 0.0035p per play but obviously please correct me if I'm wrong! If a track is played 1 million times... the band gets £3500 which may just about cover recording costs!

You mentioned in a previous post that you wouldn't pay to go and see a local band... How are they supposed to move forward with their career if people can't be bothered to go and see them? A local gig is what, £5 a ticket? You may see some awful music, but you may also see something spectacular! Even the Beatles started as a local band! As @EBS_freak has pointed out above though, we are targeted at all levels to play for "free" and "exposure" so we aren't really talking about the just starting out local bands here. I stand by it, if the promoter wants them to play they should be paid. If they are trying to get exposure, go to open mic nights etc.

And on tour with a bassist who doesn't know what strings he has on the bass...

Completely agree, it's amazing gear, most of what they make is brilliant! It does really seem that the fender popularity is down to marketing rather than actual quality!

Audiences don't care, as you say, you could be playing a twanger from rainbow and they wouldn't care as long as there is some kind of low note. It's generally the other musicians or producers! I've pulled my 5 string Ibanez (flamed maple top, really boutique looking bass, bit like the Yamaha TRB's) out on an acoustic gig before and was asked to put it back away because, and I quote, "Ibanez make guitars for metal"... got the jazz bass out and they were happy. I mean, my Ibanez is a great metal bass... if I want it to be, but it is also far more versatile and useable than a Jazz bass in any situation!

Genuinely the reason I have a Jazz bass is because it's what people expect you to use at gigs, probably because the marketing team put one in the hands of 90% of touring bassists!

We once got told by a guy we stayed with whilst on tour to help ourselves to his wine cellar... he regretted that pretty quickly... the worst culprit was his son who was the tour manager 😆

Totally agree with you, to earn money in ANY industry you have to provide what the customer wants.

And herein lies the issue the OP of this has highlighted. Musicians are arguing that musicians shouldn't be paid for their work and are therefore devaluing their own craft... almost suggesting that it isn't a real job. My comments aren't necessarily to do with originals bands, covers band regularly get asked to pay for free as well. I've been asked to do weddings, parties etc for free in the past, I politely declined. My overwhelming experience when I was playing originals on tour was that promoters will do anything to not pay the bands. We played sold out shows, 250+ people paying to get in then buying drinks at the bar and have been told that they can't afford to pay the bands... clearly not true. That was the common theme throughout most of the UK. If an originals band is struggling to get known, then they need to evaluate why, like any business, if nobody is buying their music then like any product, it needs to be changed for the market.

Pro musicians are essentially tradespeople, their trade is playing music, we aren't talking international megastars here, we are talking normal people who are hired by others to play for them, be it a wedding band, a session or a teacher. These people work at their trade and deserve fair pay. Most musicians do need to think about what genre they are playing the next day, session people get called in for anything at a moments notice, the people playing on musicals can go from a rock tune to jazz in the space of 5 minutes. Pro musicians aren't just the world famous guys or the people trying to make it as one of them, it is the people supporting their family using the tool they have worked at for many years. Are you suggesting that session musicians, cruise ship musicians, function bands, teachers etc are not professionals? They are directly comparable to builders.

It would be amazing if being a musician was like any other person selling their time and it should be 100%. You wouldn't expect a building tradesman to turn up and work for "exposure" or even £50 and lets be honest, most gigging musicians who are trying to earn a living spent a lot longer practicing their trade than a builder does (not many builders start their craft before their 10th birthday)! Sadly a lot of the people hiring musicians are opportunistic snakes that want to exploit them for their own gain! It drives me insane when I see local bands accepting unpaid gigs, this takes the income away from those who rely on it!

I 100% agree with you! Anyone who plays my cheapo RBX comments on how well it plays! Tonewise it could be better... but I am comparing it's tone to my Ibanez with Bartolini PUPs and preamp so maybe not a fair comparison! I'd probably be saying the same if I had an entry level Squier tbf!

Maybe Prince hired them as they were a little different? This is a valid point! I assumed maybe it was that he started playing on a right handed bass that was strung normally?

This is the kind of comment I was hoping for! Yamaha are a far older company who have been manufacturing things far longer than any of the "big" guitar brands so they obviously know what they're doing. I had always suspected it was down to marketing but was interested in the opinions of other bass nerds!

Still wondering Why Sonny T strings his bass upside down

We all know how great Yamaha gear is, there's an entire thread about the BB range. But why are they not more celebrated (talking to the level of Fender etc)? Is it down to the traditional view of "American is best" or is there another reason they aren't considered up there with Fenders etc? Could it be that they make a lot of "entry level" or "beginner" equipment and never separated them with another brand name like Fender did with Squier or Gibson did when they acquired Epiphone? Are they just not as well built? - my experience this is obviously not true, my RBX 270 and BBN5 are just as well built as any equivalent Squier or Epiphone.

You're not just encouraging a new member... I'm trying to work out how I could convince my wife that I need this as well... I mean this one has a maple fingerboard and mines rosewood, would be rude not to have both right?

I am pushing to try and get my income from music to be more than it is currently, I'd love to have a 50/50 split as you have but do lack the confidence a lot of the time! Something I am working on, after 20 years of playing, including tours and numerous high end wedding bands (have to keep reminding myself of these to keep confident), I feel I am finally getting somewhere. My biggest issue currently is that the band I am in has some awesome people in it that I wouldn't want to lose, but they do not have similar aspirations to me!

Precisely the issue! That figure sounds a lot more realistic, unfortunately that does then mean that based on the UK average house price of £286 K in June... people are earning 10 times less than the price of property.

Definitely, because once you have the Fender twins, you'll need to try a 5 string, and maybe a 6... and then a short scale, and then maybe a fretless... and then...