The Funk

Sounds like a slightly funkier, more modern version of the original Fleetwood Mac. I like it. I'd love to hear a good singer singing All Your Love I Miss Lovin' on top of that. EDIT: The ending is corny!!! The first half of the 'evil' Star Wars theme would be funny - but just stop there.

[quote name='dlloyd' post='164711' date='Mar 27 2008, 07:13 PM']Why do you think learning how harmony works prevents you from 'playing from the soul'?[/quote] I second that emotion! The advice saying don't bother learning anything is equivalent to saying "don't learn to read - some of the best authors in the world were illiterate". (EDIT: Homer was probably illiterate, but he was a bard, not an author) Learning why things work will help you get across what you're trying to say from your soul. If you don't know how to get across what you feel in your soul then you're not playing from your soul - you're playing from your fingers and whatever they happen to stumble on. So you're actually playing from chance, not your soul. Some people just can't be bothered. If Miss Penguin couldn't be bothered she wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. EDIT: I don't read music (notation or tab). It's a hindrance rather than a help.

[quote name='richy316' post='164744' date='Mar 27 2008, 08:10 PM']No you don't have to daisy chain them, but so i'm told the connection capabilities of a speakon cable compared to an XLR cable is far greater thus giving better conduction through the cable.[/quote] Ahhh! So one cab would get more power or a better signal than the other?

[quote name='alexclaber' post='164596' date='Mar 27 2008, 04:39 PM']Or make him use a single 10" or 12" speaker positioned directly in line with and only a few feet from his ears![/quote] Just to be on the safe side I'd like to do both!

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='164586' date='Mar 27 2008, 04:25 PM']Teenage girls will be flocking to buy them, though![/quote] I'm suddenly seeing these basses in a new light.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='164331' date='Mar 27 2008, 10:08 AM']Doing the usual Stones, Beatles, rock and roll, Van morrison up to present day i dont think any of the songs we play have been played on a fretless (not that they cant of course)[/quote] Bill Wyman claims he was the first fretless player (or one of the first). And the word is that he played fretless on a lot of the Stones records.

[quote name='Beedster' post='164237' date='Mar 27 2008, 05:46 AM']The perception of lack of power on fretless is perhaps a function of the type of lines we acssociate with fretless players/specialists, and not necessarily of fretless bass per se.[/quote] Could be that. Could also be that some fretless basses are designed to have a more double bass style attack and decay. So you end up with no sustain on those models.

[quote name='Scoop' post='164199' date='Mar 27 2008, 12:16 AM']But there's the rub, innit? Your cousin came to fretless from a guitarist's perspective never having played bass before. It was a new instrument and he had no preconceptions and preset ideas. For the likes of me, age 47 wth 33 years of playing fretted bass under my belt, the fretless is a very strange animal indeed. For me, it IS as hard as as niche as people make out.[/quote] That's fair enough. If it's not worth the extra work in your eyes, then don't bother with it. When I started playing fretless about a year ago I found it fairly easy to adjust. I'd been playing fretted bass for 13 years previously. Just play exactly what you'd play on your fretted and keep your ears open to spot intonation problems. The only real difference is the way you play vibrato. Instead of doing a guitar style bend, you just do a long double bass style glide back and forth. If you want to play it, get a fretless version of your fretted bass. I found that helped. I knew where the notes were without looking - but the dots were there for when I could hear I missed. If you try to play Jaco stuff that you can't play on fretted, it's going to take work. Like I said, if you just don't like playing fretless bass then don't bother with it. There are enough other cool bass things to do.

[quote name='Mr Fudge' post='164197' date='Mar 27 2008, 12:14 AM']Keep the ashdown put it further back and push more through the PA.[/quote] Bass sounds better on stage through your amp rather than a monitor. Don't bother changing anything unless you have a specific problem or complaint with your current rig, such as size and portability. But if you're taking a full PA system to gigs, you're not going to be having quick load-ins and load-outs anyway. There won't be a problem of having too much power - just roll down the volume.

[quote name='WalMan' post='164123' date='Mar 26 2008, 10:14 PM']the idea at the time was to keep stage levels down with more controlled monitoring & control over FOH - it just never actually happened[/quote] The only way to keep stage levels down is to remove power amp tubes from the guitarist's amp.

[quote name='kevbass' post='164139' date='Mar 26 2008, 10:29 PM']Yeah I hear those bare knuckle pickups are supposed to be pretty damn good[/quote] I've just had one installed in the bridge of a Fender Jazz 4-string. Once I get it back I'll be able to test it out. I have a feeling it'll sound immense.

My cousin, a very good blues rock guitarist, had a sell-out phase a few years ago where he joined an indie rock band (who toured on the same bill as The Libertines and The Strokes). As he was the only guitarist who could keep time, he got shunted to bass. He picked up a great fretless Warwick Corvette 4-string and just played that the whole time - having never played bass before. It's not as hard or as niche as people can sometimes make out.

You don't have to daisy chain them. You could just plug the XLR speaker out into one 8 ohm cab and the Speakon speaker out into the other 8 ohm cab. As the two outputs are wired in parallel, you'd get the same total of 4 ohms as if you daisy chain them.

Which is why I didn't slate him.

The manual says "Both are connected in parallel." So I guess that's fine if both cabs are 8ohms. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

The guy can clearly play but in those clips you can see he's just having fun - f*ck everything else like "taste". The bits I like are where he takes it easy and hints at grooves. I'd check out his serious playing though after seeing what he does when he's having fun. I play nonsense when I'm pissing around too.

I'm in two originals. I lead one and take a back seat in the other. It's fine for now but the guys in the "other" band know I'm a temp to fill the role until they find a bassist of their own. I wouldn't mind playing some covers function gigs as well with my originals band but under a different name. To be honest, leading one band is enough hard work - especially when you're working full time.

This isn't Bristol-specific but London-specific. What I did with my band was I just looked through Time Out and the listings in the major London and National newspapers to see the venues that always get listed. Then I trawled through myspace for promoters who put on shows there regularly. I put up demo songs on our myspace page and a biog, messaged the promoters and blagged a first gig headlining at a decent venue. Then we didn't have enough people through the door to get a repeat booking but we used the fact of our previous gigs at decent venues to get more gigs at decent venues. Our guitarist also started dragging everyone and anyone he's ever met along to the gigs. It's sort of building that way. Friends of friends are coming back now. The honest truth is that most venues don't give a **** about how you sound so long as there are 20-40 of your paying public there to see you. Then they'll book you again. And the promoters care first about what kind of numbers you're going to get and secondly about whether or not you'll fit stylistically with their night. So to summarise: 1. Get some decent sounding demos on your myspace page. Customise it enough to not look like bedroom musicians who've never played a gig before (even if that's what you are). 2. Decide which venues you'd like to play and find out which promoters put on gigs there. 3. Contact the promoters giving them some basic information about your band and things on your myspace page you want to draw their attention to - also tell them you'd expect an audience of 15-25 people (if that's what you'd actually expect; go higher if higher or lower if lower - but no lower than 10!).

There's also Bare Knuckle Pickups. Those and Wizards are highly recommended British custom pickup builders.

No experience but it looks very interesting. Unfortunately it looks like a complete system - it doesn't look like you should just turn up at a venue and plug one gizmo into their desk and control your own monitor mix from the stage... unless the had the hub themselves, which is not very likely.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='163116' date='Mar 25 2008, 01:16 PM']I wish more gig-organisers would be strict about this so that the bands who are actually wasting the time get cut short, rather than the bands who are actually punctual.[/quote] True, it's not fair, but there's not much you as a band can do about it once an event has overrun. Still, it'd be nice to know your new set length before you're onstage and not to have the plug pulled in a mid-set lull.

It doesn't matter what time they start. As soon as the next band's slot is supposed to start, pull the plug and send the next band onto the stage. If that means they get to play for 5 minutes, then let them play 5 minutes. When I first played The Water Rats, the headline band were chucked out of the venue as we were about to start our set (had to stretch it out to fill their allotted time too). We were on stage and the entire audience was watching. They had to crawl onstage, grab their amps and exit the venue. That's the way a polite headline act was treated by a relatively well known venue - so I don't think tw@ts in support bands who ruin the schedule should be treated any better than that.