Dronny

Just bought Adam's Ashdown miBass 550, very nice chap to deal with, very simple and smooth transaction, with excellent communication. Highly recommended! thanks again for a great deal, Adam. Dave.

+1 for Tony Butler (Big Country) and Charlie Tumahai (Be Bop Deluxe), two excellent bass-players who also did BVs and really made their band's sounds.

Sold an ancient Impact valve head to Oli, very smooth transaction, a pleasure to deal with.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1175756' date='Mar 25 2011, 11:46 AM']I have found, as I get older, that the reading allows for a more efficient use of time in rehearsals and at gigs. Less time rehearsing each tune means more work done in the available time. If you have other obligations as you say, this is a massive bonus. Learn to read music.[/quote] Darn it! I had a feeling someone would say that! Seriously, I am open to this if it's generally considered the best way to go. So, how would you recommend I go about it? I know enough to be able to sit down with a bit of (really simple) music and pick out the notes and manually count the time, but I guess I should start from the beginning, assuming nothing. Are there any 'standard' books that would be good to start with? Dave.

hi fellow BC'ers Quick intro/background: I've been playing bass since my teens, now in my late 40s, had a long gap of not playing until I got back into it about 5/6 years ago, now playing in 2 bands (one standard functions stuff, the other bluesy/rocky). I feel like my playing has reached a bit of a limit w.r.t. my abilities, or something... I have a reasonable grasp of the basics of theory, but don't sight-read. I want to improve, but with a full-time job, 2 teenage kids (and a dog!) I don't have a huge amount of spare time on my hands. Oh for the days of my youth when I could spend hours learning Rush tracks ;-) I'd like to put some time into improving my playing, I know this will probably involve scales and modes and such, but I'm really not sure where to start, and how to get the best "bang for buck" out of my limited time. TBH I don't think learning to sight-read will be a realistic goal, so I'm looking for other approaches. I'm really fed up with playing the same few blues fills and want to stretch myself a bit more. I've had "learn to play slap" as a new-years resolution for a few years now and never done it, so my track-record is pretty lousy. But I feel the pressure to do *something* new... All advice gratefully received! Dave.

Just bought Dave's Eden Nemesis RS400 head, very smooth transaction, very easy to deal with, highly recommended! Dave.

Cool, thanks everyone for your opinions so far, it tends to back up what I suspected (and the other band members who probably know much more about this than me), but I thought it was worth asking the question anyway. I guess the answer over is "no" overall.

My band has a few gigs coming up and we think we need a little bit of PA support for the kick-drum (but probably not for my bass). We have a PA with 2 active speakers, but no sub. We do have a spare PA-style power-amp, and I have a spare bass cab (a Hartke 4x10). We were wondering if we could use those 2 to give the PA a bit of extra "bottom"... but I'm unclear on whether the bass cab would be any use for this... Anyone got any thoughts? cheers Dave.

Just sold my Ashdown rig to Bob, lovely bloke, a pleasure to do business with. Dave.

Just bought a lovely over-run Ashdown cab off Ade, a thoroughly top bloke, very helpful and accomodating, highly recommended. Dave.