Muzz

Having auditioned various band members over the years, singers have been the most...polarising, I'd say. The bad ones can be really, really, clenchy; the good news is you'll know pretty much straight away*. A relaxed atmosphere is always the best, just another rehearsal kinda vibe. If you're looking for a frontman, though, I'd be looking to see that from the word go: if the prospective singer can't do it in front of you, he's (or she's) gonna struggle in front of a room full of strangers at a gig. Conversely, if it's range and quality of voice you're after, then a little shoegazing can be overlooked. * A pal of mine still drags out an audition tape from years ago for laughs, whereon a chap had turned up with a strong Irish accent, a rather high-pitched register bordering on Squeaky, and a constant sliding vibrato like someone playing a musical saw...his rendition of 'Triller' by Michael Jackson has quite literally to be heard to be believed.

Ran a jam night last week, a couple of actual musicians got up (one drummer*, one guitarist) but the low point was a mithering singer who wanted to do Mustang Sally. I hate that song for the very reason which became apparent: "I know Mustang Sally" "Really? All the words?" "Errrr...yeah" "How does the second verse go?" "Errrr..." Nevertheless, and in the absence of anyone else getting up, we let him. He'd got his phone out for the words before we'd got the intro over, failed to read it properly, failed to listen where the music was up to, you name it; he was halfway through the chorus before the first verse had ended - he just launched into the lyrics, line after line, without pause, and the worst, the very worst bit was him looking round at us like we'd done something wrong. Quite the worst version of the song I've ever heard (and I've heard some bottom-clenchers - see 'I hate that song' above), just half-arsed karaoke with his mates cheering him on. We stopped it after the second chorus with a very definite Big Finish. He didn't notice. If I'd have slipped a piece of coal down the back of my trousers, I'd have had a diamond by the end of the song. I'm never, ever playing that song again. I'm considering very hard whether I want to host or even go to a jam night again. Bad ones are like being able to hear the adverts on Joinmyband... * Well, he ended up playing drums, but he got up and we said "What do you play? Drums? Guitar? Bass?" and he said "Ohhh, I play everything." So the singer said "I've got an accordion in the boot of the car, d'you wanna give that a go?" You won't be surprised to hear he wasn't very good.

I use a plectrum, I sweat (tho my hands are always clean) and I like a bright aggressive sound (mostly). I have Elixirs on all my three main gigging basses, I generally take two to a gig and I'll switch between them randomly/on a whim. I've had the same Elixirs on them all for pushing a year now, so that'll be kinda twenty to twenty-five gigs each bass. Plus several hours a week noodling. Only now am I considering replacing the oldest set, which have been on that particular bass for nearly two years. I find EXLs go off after about ten or a dozen gigs, tops. NYXLs are nice, but don't last anywhere near as long as Elixirs. It'd be worth one shot to find out, I'd say...YMMV, etc, etc...

iPad with Jamup, input box and headphones. Digital modelling amps/fx, play along to iTunes library, the lot. Job done 😀

We do Killing In The Name on a regular basis, which is never an issue in a pub late night (tho the singer does preface it with "This one's a bit sweary, brace yourselves" 😀) and we played an afternoon festival gig the other week. We still played it, but the singer censored himself with 'Fluff you I won't do what you tell me' and best of all, 'Motherfluffer...' Went down even better than usual... 😁

Mine arrived this week, and yep, it's certainly heavy: beautifully photographed and presented 😀 Have to agree with 12 String above tho: there's some interesting interviews, and it's quite wordy, but John Entwistle's collection and book is much more eclectic and interesting, despite being almost infuriatingly low on text...Geddy's feels much more nitpicky and conservative; much more box-ticky. Maybe it's because there's only a few basses in Geddy's collection I'd actually like to own, where John's is full of them...

Drop your string height, and/or hit the strings harder...that'll do it 🙂

My Dingwall...I've had it nine years or so, probably 300+ gigs... Look at this...the horror, the horror... 😕😀

Whilst agreeing with the comments about what 'cutting through' might mean and it being dependent on the sonic spaces of the band in general, I've found that using both pickups on a P/J tends to scoop the sound, and move it away from the Dark Side...I almost exclusively turn the bridge pickup off (I dunno why I have them, to be honest). Other than that, I'd agree with Roundwounds and a pick. Embrace the low mids; they are your friends... 😀

Our PA has combi inputs, so I just use a jack to jack, tho I have an adapter juuuuust in case I'm depping...

I have FS3 set as the (muted) tuner all the time, and if I needed an effect within a patch, I'd just create a second patch with that effect added. I use FS1 and 2 as Patch up/down...so taking the above example: Patch one: Core clean tone Patch two: Core clean tone with envelope filter added Patch three: fuzzed up amp Patch four: SVT rock tone Patch five: SVT rock tone with overdrive. I have probably half a dozen core tone patches, and I also have them duplicated in drop Eb, D, and even C. It's very very easy to copy, paste and reorder patches as you might need them...

I use inears all the time now, especially when within two feet of a drummer, but I also take my backline on gigs we haven't played before, because we're a trio with a small PA (two RCF 12" tops and a 12" sub) which has the enormous benefit of minimal gear, but if we turn up and the room's larger/more problematic than we thought, I sometimes run my rig to take the load off the PA. I still DI from my amp so I can get a feed to my inears (we just don't push the bass as loud through FOH), so I'm not really hearing my rig per se. If the PA can serve the room, it stays in the boot of the car, and I DI straight from my Helix. And yes, I know the proper answer's just to get a bigger/better-and-lighter PA, but we're not in the cash position to do that, and my backline weighs <50lbs total, soooo... 😀 Then there's dep work, and not everyone's seen the light, so I still need a rig...mostly just in case. Just to reiterate, I'd always have my inears in, because, you know...I like to annoy Joe 'Speak Up!' Bonamassa... 😁

Yep, I'd agree with the above - I played it twice over the weekend in two different pubs: in the first, it went down well, in the second it was met with blank indifference. It's nice to have in the arsenal, but it needs the right audience. Oh, and I've got the sound nailed with my Helix Stomp 😀

Well, that's all respect for JB out the window, then. The worst type of guitarist mentality, and an admission of his failure to do what so many contemporaries have done, and that's make modern technology work for their sound. Here's some quotes from a guitarist who is a peer of JB's, Paul Gilbert, who has spoken a lot about his tinnitus and his onstage headphones: "The purpose of my headphones is the same as the more common ear molds: to block out the stage volume while giving me a controlled mix and volume from the monitor desk...Do you wonder why concerts are always too loud and sound crappy? I wondered until I realized it’s me! Sorry!...I would definitely trade some head-stuffed-into-the- 4x12-moments in exchange for getting some high-end back into my ears." Now that's a proper (and better) guitarist... 😀

That's gonna look awesome down the Fox And Gynecologist...

I spotted that, so I just went and bought it for £20 on Amazon. I'm looking at it as £40 saved... :0) I once happened on a Terry Pratchett book signing at a small independent bookshop in Lancaster*, when I had the brand new book (in hardback) under my arm, having bought it earlier in the day from Waterstones or somewhere. On shuffling into the shop, I picked up a cheapo PTerry paperback (of The Unseen University Challenge) for him to sign...Terry grinned at my plastic Waterstones bag hastily shoved under my coat, took my paperback and wrote "To Muzz...your starter for £3.99..." 😁 * Full disclosure: I saw a queue lining up out the door, and joined it on spec, then asked what was happening afterwards... 🙂

Whenever someone gets on their hind legs to make a pronouncement like this, I always think it reflects more on them than any actual phenomenon they might think they're seeing...

...but not necessarily play...

I'd agree that the very worst communications I've had are from the lowest value items, the absolute nadir being when I offered two pretty good sofas for free, the only condition being they were picked up. The number of 'Will you deliver?' messages was in equal parts annoying and depressing. Other than one protracted conversation, the gist of which went: "I'll have those two sofas" "Fine, when do you want to pick them up?" "I haven't got any transport, you'll have to deliver them" "I'm sorry, they're pickup only. Like it says in the ad." "But I haven't got any transport" "Sorry" "But I really want them, i just haven't got any transport." "Well, you haven't got two free sofas then, either." That one was alllll annoying...

That Forty Eight...eeeeek 😀

If you're after a chunky amount of power, I'd look at the heads with the current generation of power modules (the Quilter, I think, falls into this category) which are around 800w; I had a TH500, but never really liked it all that much, and thought it was a bit gutless in comparison, and I agree completely about the MB heads being competent but a bit bland. My favourite (that I've owned, which doesn't include the Quilter, but includes an awful lot of other Class D heads) was the Magellan, which I'd say is the most flexible of the lot, tone-wise - it's got effectively two channels which cover a lot of ground, plus the power is...plenty.

Just a thought - if you wanted to tidy up the gaps around the pickups, I bought my covers and rings from here: https://www.crazyparts.de/mounting-rings/pickuprings/index.php Black with chrome pickup covers and rings? Ooooo.... 😀