fatback

Sounds like it should have been called a jam, not a practice. And certainly not an audition. Practice should mean what it says - work to get better.

[quote name='Balcro' post='760688' date='Mar 1 2010, 01:13 PM']Try gak.co.uk They've got a Kramer for £139. You might find the odd ESP bass somewhere as well. Balcro.[/quote] Yamaha bb415 on gak for £299. ok, a bit dearer, but quality.

[quote name='Cygnus x-1' post='760690' date='Mar 1 2010, 01:13 PM']Apart from active electronics and 120 quid or so, what are the differences between a BB614 and a BB414? Because if it's just active difference, is the price premium worth it? Also is the pickguard the only difference between the old 414 and the new 414x? Quite fancy a Yammy for a vintage 'thud, thud' tone to compliment my more 'hi-fi' sounding Ibanez sr500. I know the BB Yam's are well respected on here, any thoughts? Nick.[/quote] There might be an argument for getting the passive and spending the savings on a quality outboard preamp 2nd hand. Worked for me.

[quote name='OldGit' post='759179' date='Feb 27 2010, 03:22 PM']It depends.... Old Git's Top Tip: For right handed players, stand to the left of the drummer. Look at your neck then look up a bit and there's the front person and the drummer and, just beyond the front person there's the audience.. Just a little change in your angle of looking and you can chack your fingers on your board too..[/quote] And you're less likely to bash a cymbal stand or whatever with your headstock while leaping about. Often a nasty consequence of not looking at the fretboard.

The General Midi sounds you want to play are called Soundfonts, and your card may have them. If you want to use Cubase to play and record, you need a vsti or DX plugin that wil play soundfonts, so you can use that as an instrument in your Cubase track. The good thing about using soundfonts is that you don;t have to find a sound for every instrument, and the thing about General Midi is that you don;t have to work out what MIDI channel should link to what instrument. Here's a list of sound font players (you'll need to check which ones are vst1 or DX, some may be neither). [url="http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-vst/soundfont"]http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-vst/soundfont[/url] Have fun

[quote name='endorka' post='758034' date='Feb 26 2010, 11:37 AM']Just to present a different point of view: I am not entirely convinced that starting on a 5 string bass is such a good idea, one reason being that the vast majority of method books and teaching material is for the 4 string instrument, and learning that is complicated enough without adding other factors in. Adding another string adds significantly to the complexity and size of the instrument - as Kyle says, bowing becomes trickier (and it is tricky enough already!), and it can often be difficult to figure out how to integrate the B string into exercises based around a 4 string instrument. I would be wary of assuming you require a low B from your experience of bass guitar playing, as the fundamental frequencies and tone produced from notes on a DB are far more resonant, especially when amplified. An amplified low B on a DB is outrageous, indeed most bass speakers cannot reproduce it well at all, and players often end up using them sparingly, or for special effect. I've certainly rarely come across situations requiring a low B; you get the occassional notes in classical music, often when reading parts written for cello, but it is considered acceptable to play these an octave higher if you have a four string. In jazz the low B is just not a requirement at all. Of course, your needs may be different! My main concern is that with a low B, you end up with something that is occassionaly useful, but a pain in the backside most of the time. Jennifer[/quote] Hmm. Thanks for that Jennifer. It didn't occur to me that I mightn't need the B string in the way I feel I need it for the BG now. Mabe it wouldn't be so smart to complicate somehting that's already going to be a challenge.

[quote name='JTUK' post='757621' date='Feb 25 2010, 09:46 PM']5 st DB's make perfect sense to me, so if you can handle it ...?[/quote] Great info, thanks. Can a fiver be bowed normally?

Planning on starting DB in a couple of months (can;t wait!). My q is: i'd definitely have use for a low B, but would learning DB on a fiver be a bad idea? I'll be having lessons. Thanks for yr thoughts. fatback EEK! posted in the wrong place. Sorry. Dear mod, can you please move?

[quote name='Basska' post='756770' date='Feb 25 2010, 09:24 AM']scales! scales! scales! mon frere! Learn every scale you can get your hands on and then use em Improvisation is all about knowing where to go next without thinking about it that much and when you know all of your different scales going all the way up the neck you can do exactly that. Your solo improv will get better and better rather quickly which you and your teacher will notice Chris[/quote] +1 and exercises using intervals and sequences.

[quote name='HMX' post='755577' date='Feb 23 2010, 10:06 PM']In my opinion, you really need the sonic space to be heard. For example, Muse, Rage Against the Machine, etc. all have this in common. It worked well in those bands.[/quote] Good point I think. Some person of taste posted this link to jackshit a while back: fuzz sounding great, but as you say, a lot of space. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbIvoYyzm8k"]jackshit[/url]

[quote name='tombboy' post='751714' date='Feb 20 2010, 12:39 PM']Pretty sure I read somewhere that he was an English slave. [/quote] He was Roman-British, probably from Wales somewhere. The Irish had big colonies in Wales, and raided the coast there all the time. Yup, we have a colonial past too, but they don't tell us that in school

[quote name='john_the_bass' post='750514' date='Feb 19 2010, 08:35 AM']I think it depends entirely on what you think a rebel song is. Bear in mind that a lot of the political songs go back to the 16th Century pretty much up until 1969-98 and there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't play.[/quote] I agree. There's old rebel music and contemporary or recent political music. 'The wearing of the green' is one thing, 'the men behind the wire' is altogether another. The first category is, I suppose historical, the last is tribal and divisive imo. Paddy's Day should be inclusive and altogether a laugh. I mean, hey, he got rid of the snakes didn't he?

Wow. Lovely. Thanks for posting.

[quote name='gilmour' post='750430' date='Feb 19 2010, 12:37 AM']IIRC Boudica (and the Icenians) was local to where Mike is based, so AFAIK it's referencing local history.[/quote] nice one

Boudicca on Bass? Any other British tribes in the range? Anyone for the Trinovantes fretless V? What was he thinking of?

Matching fretted and fretless fivers, some kind of jazz. And an upright (please, please, please...) Somebody please create a GAS emoticon? I need several.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='747936' date='Feb 17 2010, 01:40 AM']On another note, there's plenty you can do to change your tone. New amp, graphic EQ, FX, different strings, different pickups, different techniques, amp sim (line 6 or the like). There's loads of options and most of them are a fair bit cheaper than buying a new bass and almost all of them won't require you to sell one of your current basses or risk pissing off the missus.[/quote] Have you though of a valve preamp for a little old-style grit? Maybe then you could take some mid out of the ray without feeling it's too smooth at the bottom.

[quote name='HMX' post='748484' date='Feb 17 2010, 02:23 PM']Interesting. I don't see colours, but in my head I can see an ascending line or descending, depending on the direction of the bassline. If you get me. Probably not unusual.[/quote] No I don;t see notes as colours. My band might say I don't see them as notes either

I got an outboard sadowky preamp from a nice chap on this forum, and it's been a stunning success with my passive yamaha. It has treble and bass boost as well, so I use that for eq and leave my amp flat apart from taking out the extreme low. Sounds a bit like you have an amp problem though.

My mum took me to see Thin Lizzie do a lunchtime gig in Dublin, long before they went off to get famous. It was the first gig I ever was at, and I never got over how cool that man was. I wouldn't have known what a bass did, but I knew that whatever it was he was holding was the thing you had to have.

[quote name='silddx' post='748393' date='Feb 17 2010, 01:26 PM']If you look good while you play, and really get into the music and move around, the punters will notice you. Trust me. But it won't be for your playing. I've seen bands with bass players that just stand, limply concentrating until they make a mistake which is the only time you'll see them smile, albeit weakly, and usually at the drummer. What is the point of seeing a band that dress drably and stand stock still? You may as well stare at Stonehenge for an hour with your Skull Candies on. Ask yourself this question, is listening to the bass good value for money when you see a band? The way I see it, the rest of the band directly interface with the audience in a way they can understand, with frequencies, rhythms or words. Bass is not a direct interface with the audience, it is a glue binding all those haircuts together. Therefore, get a yourself a good haircut too, wear some fancy clobber, and bloody dance. You'll get compliments, but it won't be for your gorgeous minor second accent in the first half of the breakdown.[/quote] +1 to this It's showbiz and showbiz > music and music > bass ps. some wise person on this forum I think observed once: you don't play for their ears you play for their feet (or somthing like that, apologies if misquoting but you get the gist).

I honestly think most people can't hear the bass or at least couldn't pick it out if you asked them to. Takes a bit of ear training. I have the opposite problem, it's all I hear well, joking, but it's what I hear first.

[quote name='discreet' post='746172' date='Feb 15 2010, 05:54 PM']Just because we've got tone paranoia doesn't mean our tones aren't crap... [/quote] lol

[quote name='EssentialTension' date='Feb 15 2010, 10:50 PM' post='746648'] How about some pics? SELMER TREBLE 'N' BASS 50 SV wow forgot about those things. Had one before I gigged. pure nostalgia

First gigging rig was a Peavey Centurion through either a fender 4 X something or a Peavey Black Widow 1X18 (monster). Played a 68 Fender Jazz through it, then a Wal. Now, no gigging rig, all borrowed until I can splash out on an LM something.