fatback

[quote name='endorka' post='1188061' date='Apr 4 2011, 06:08 PM']Vance book 1 so far consists mainly of simple folk melodies and nursery rhymes played in the positions. I'm more than halfway through, and while there has been some shifting, there have been no pivots yet. It makes use of the open strings and natural harmonics as part of the melodies to help keep you in tune. Jennifer[/quote] I have to say from a publishing point of view Vance is a disgrace though. Pictures that look like photocopies and, from a beginner's point of view, very poor text. What people get away with in music teaching amazes me. Rant over.

[quote name='51m0n' post='1187868' date='Apr 4 2011, 03:24 PM']Definietly NOT an absolute rule. Do not run phantom power into a ribbon mic, you will release the magic smoke and turn you ribbon mic into a very handsome door stop - there are some exceptions to this rule (Cascade Fatheads are supposed to cope, but I wouldnt put it to the test). Some old electrets can get very grumpy about phantom power too. In general dymanics wont spill your pint if you give them a dose of the old 48 right up 'em, but always check the nice manual that came with to be on the safe side - I know of one person who claims to have received said 48v off the body of a cheap 'n' nasty Chinese dynamic, very nice it was too I'm sure....[/quote] Ooh, glad to learn this. I've got a 2nd input into my EA Doubler for a mic, but the phantom power switch is only a pushbutton. Waay too easy to get that wrong. I'll now be mighty cautious. Thanks for the heads up.

[quote name='Hector' post='1187794' date='Apr 4 2011, 02:27 PM']Also, I'd get a teacher to look at your left hand - that sort of soreness isn't usual. How long have you been playing? Sometimes it's a stamina issue. I'd take some time to work on that, concentrating on pulling your left hand back to stop notes, rather than pinching with the muscles in your hand. This uses the weight of your arm rather than muscular tension, and should reduce soreness. Maybe try playing a bit without your left thumb on the bass? It really highlights the difference between pulling and pinching. By all means go for the bent endpin, but it won't entirely fix your hand issues. If a bent endpin added to ok left hand technique is better, I'd imagine a bent endpin added to great left hand technique is way better![/quote] Sounds like very good advice. On reflection, I had no problems with the thumb and was pulling with the left shoulder very nicely until two things changed: I injured my left shoulder a couple of months ago, and independently I lengthened my endpin. Could be that I'm not using the shoulder as much as I did cos of the injury. Or maybe the longer endpin and higher scroll is putting more leverage on the hand. I started playing with an endpin only two inches or so long (I'm 5.10") because it was so easy to keep a straight wrist that way and easy to pull from the shoulder. It was, of course, bad for arco because i had to bend the back to place the bow properly, so my teacher suggested lengthening the pin. Seems to me there's an uneasy compromise usually struck between pizz and arco pin lengths, something I haven't seen much talked about. I've never been as comfortable with pizz or the bass for that matter since I lengthened that pin. For me it's nearly a good enough reason to drop arco (heresy again ). @ dougal, thanks for those instructions. Still think I might give it a shot. On the subject of Rabbath, as a beginner it's been a revelation. I now regret the time I spent on Simandl. I could have moved much more quickly to playing my band tunes if I'd gone to Rabbath straight away. I do, though, use an extra position - thumb at A on the G string (whatever Simandl number that is), for the stretchiest stuff. My hands just aren't big enough to cope from Rabbath's first position. But the extra position is easy to find, and with pivoting covers everything just dandy. And as Jennifer pointed out, thumb position with Rabbath is not at all scary; it's just part of everything else. From a beginner's point of view, it means you can play three-octave scales from the start. That's a big confidence booster.

In country, I'm wondering why it should matter. The punters will only notice if your guitar looks silly. And who cares what other musos think? I use a fretless Yammy bb400, and nobody complains. imo any precisiony thumpy sound is going to work fine. Rockabilly is a bit different, cos it's a really visual genre. Its gotta be the upright there.

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' post='1139880' date='Feb 24 2011, 01:59 PM']No need to destroy your bass at all. I just have a steel rod that has been welded and bent to a certain angle - bought fro George Vance. There's nothing fancy to it. A local iron welder was able to make me another one, for a different height, out of the same material he uses for making iron railings. Not the prettiest to look at, but so what? As long as it fits in the endpin collar, then you're fine. As well as taking the weight away from your left hand, I find that I hear more from the bass as the body is now angled upwards instead of directly away from. Do excuse the derail Fatback!!![/quote] Gareth, where did you get the specs for the bent endpin, the angle etc? Or did you buy your first ready made? I'd like to try one. I'm getting a sore left thumb no matter how much I try not to use it.

[quote name='Clunker' post='1182007' date='Mar 30 2011, 11:30 AM']"Why do you need a Lutheran?" is another one of hers. I think she's been watching too much Tudors on TV [/quote]

Thanks a lot for the advice. Tricky, this strings business. By 'atm' I just meant 'at the moment'. Sorry. I need to get a life.

[quote name='marvin spangles' post='1179526' date='Mar 28 2011, 02:13 PM']Keep the Spiro E and A and try Belcantos on the G and D . Once you break the spiros in they are not too bad. The Belcantos are very easy to bow and their pizz is pleasing to my ear. The E and A spiro will give you plenty of low end growl.[/quote] How bad is 'not too bad'? atm my strings are hardest to bow on the E and A. Are the belcantos full steel? I need that for my mag.

Thinking of bumping spirocore steels - how would they be to bow? Would detuned solos be better? I'm having a terrible time bowing pirastro jazzers, but I have to stick with steels for the mag pickup. Lower tension would be nice too. Any thoughts?

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1175763' date='Mar 25 2011, 11:50 AM']A fashion model.[/quote]

[quote name='AndyBob09' post='1174779' date='Mar 24 2011, 03:23 PM']Record. No fancy recording equipment is needed but if you're struggling to remember songs the either take your laptop along to rehearsal (most have a built in mic these days) and record that way. If you have no laptop with built in mic, take along a cassette player/boom box type thing and record onto cassette that way. Finally, when you get home, listen back to the band recordings and then record just the bass line. Listen back to it a few times, play it a few times ... A few days later, play what you remember of it, what you don't, you have recorded.[/quote] +1000 Gives confidence, too. I you can then write out a chord chart (not tab) from the recording, you'll get on top pretty quickly. As Doddy says, it's easier to remember a chord sequence (if you know a little theory), because the same sequences come up in a zillion songs. I wouldn't try to learn to read music at this stage. Do learn about chords and chord sequences though.

Been trying for a Guinness endorsement for years.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1172071' date='Mar 22 2011, 01:30 PM']What you need is some blokes in the middle of a mid-life crisis!![/quote] Isn't that jazz

[quote]If you've got the Nigerians in, play them some Fela Kuti.[/quote] Only if they're over 40 I love Fela, but any time I've ever mentioned him to younger Nigerians it's been like mentioning Matt Munro to an 18 year old here. They all seem to be into Nigerian hiphop. Seems even in other people's cultures I'm an old fart.

[quote name='Tuco' post='1168184' date='Mar 19 2011, 01:11 PM']all this talk of 64 bits!!!! LOL, i must be the ONLY person here running good old 32bit XP SP1 [/quote] No you're not. And with an audio setup if it aint broke etc.

A Windows machine gives you comparable power for a lot less money than a Mac. It's also easy to optimise for audio processing, and in general easier to get under the hood. And there's more free software about. Your specs look good, but you need a very clean system if you're to record and mix without glitches. I'd be inclined to dual boot a Windows system, so one system is used only for audio and doesn't have any unnecessary services or progs running. It needn't have internet access, antivirus etc. The other system is for general computing. You might find an external firewire (preferably) or USB2 hard drive a big help. You use it only for data, so the system isn't trying to do too many things on the one disk at the same time. You can use your internal drive to back that up (vastly important). Have fun.

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' post='1165742' date='Mar 17 2011, 01:45 PM']Kolstein Heritage strings have a low tension for a steel string - and excellent customer service to boot.[/quote] Gareth, aren't these synthetic core? Do they work ok with a mag pickup?

[quote name='slobluesine' post='1165765' date='Mar 17 2011, 02:05 PM']i bump Spiro A,D,G with a lambert G, i found the spiro bumped high C too thin gorgeous low tension and huge sound, try it[/quote] Does this setup bow ok? [quote]'Bumping' - not heard the term in this context. Can you explain?[/quote] If I understand right, bumping is fitting each string to the place below, as in G where D should be, D where A should be, etc. to get low tension. You need to find a C to put in place of G. I think. What's the advantage over retuning a solo set, though?

Because I'm going for a mag pickup, I'm committed to steel strings. For lower tension, any suggestions about which would be better, to bump or retune solos? I'm a bit hazy about the whole solos thing. Any recommendations for which way to go and maybe which brands? Bumping spiorocores has been suggested, but whatever solution needs to be ok for arco as well as pizz. I'm struggling bowing Pirastro Jazzers atm. Thanks for your thoughts.

[quote name='fishead' post='1164219' date='Mar 16 2011, 11:20 AM']Hey all, I'm new here, so 'hi' and all that :-) I just picked up a Boss Bass Chorus CEB3 off ebay pretty cheap. Got it out of the box, plugged it in, nothing happened... LED is on, nothing. I had the amp hooked up to output A (mono), so I tried it in output B, and suddenly I get chorus, though even fully mixed in it's not too prominent. Fair to say that something is not right, but I'm trying to figure out if it's simply wired up the wrong way around or whether the mono output is just not working at all... Can someone else that has this pedal let me know if you get any chorus at all when plugged into output B only? Many thanks...[/quote] Output B should give you a dry signal, no chorus, for stereo use. Output A should give you the mixed signal if you're not using B as well, otherwise it gives processed only. Normally, you'd use A on its own. Sounds like there's something wrong.

[quote name='tino' post='1163645' date='Mar 15 2011, 08:33 PM'][quote name='fatback' date='Mar 15 2011, 02:17 PM' post='11631 Since I've gone the mag route, I definitely need to know more about steels. Im told Tommy was a fairly competent guitarist and a whizz on the banjo and that David was pants as a prospective PM [/quote]

[quote name='slobluesine' post='1124179' date='Feb 11 2011, 06:32 PM']if you want low tension steels bump down some Spirocores and get a high C[/quote] How does that compare to getting a solo set and retuning? Since I've gone the mag route, I definitely need to know more about steels.

Learn some theory. Harmony is your friend