gjones

Aged 18, for a proper ticketed gig. It was at a local nightclub supporting some art school band or other. We were called Peach Melba.

If you are fine to spend £45 I know a man who can help you out with an excellent, solderless, Volume, Blend, Tone wiring harness https://www.basschat.co.uk/profile/7835-kiogon/content/

You took the words right out of my mouth.

It's this bloke, apparently. Mark King's brother, from the Andertons video reviews, is playing bass (at least for this gig from a month ago).

It may be a midi played line but at least it's trying to sound like a real bass guitar. Many of the songs I hear on the radio these days have no discernable instruments at all, just a background mush of synth pads, a midi drum pattern and an autotuned vocal.

My brother in law is the main guitarist and singer in a few bands. He actually likes playing bass and occasionally does deps with bands but can't sing while playing, to save his life.

I love Hothouse Flowers but the last time I saw them at The Barrowlands they just would not get off the stage. They went into some weird trance like jam thing, at the end, that went on forever. They looked like they were having a great time but, after about three hours, I had to leave them to it and say goodnight

I agree about skipping entry level. Buy a good brand secondhand and you'll get most of your money back if you ever need to sell. Whatever you do don't skimp on the speakers, as they are the weak link. If the speakers can't run loud and clean, it doesn't matter how posh your amp is, you'll still sound rubbish.

On the other hand...... I was chatting to the drummer in my band, after we'd finished our set at my local music bar. The band on after us were starting their soundcheck and the bassist started playing. Both my ears and the drummer's pricked up and we spun around at the sound of the bass guitar. It sounded amazing and I immediately tried to identify the bass he was playing. I could see it was a WAL mark 11, which I'd never seen in the flesh before and it had the best bass sound I'd ever heard. Now that's an objective opinion, as I didn't know what model of bass it was before I turned around to look. After hearing one in the flesh, and now knowing how great they sound, would I ever buy one for the many thousands of pounds it would cost me to do so? Nah......

I played a festival a few years ago where the backline was an Ampeg SVT through an Ampeg 4x10, which would normally be a decent rig. But it had been limited in volume somehow and I couldn't get any decent level out of it. I had to stand right next to it in order to hear myself at all. I played the same festival a year later and they had a ratty old Ashdown Mag head with an Ashdown Mag 4x10, when I saw it my head drooped but, surprisingly, compared to that Ampeg the previous year, it actually sounded great.

I've only ever bought a brand new bass once in my life, which was a Fender Elite Precision. It cost me just under two grand. It's a nice bass and is put together well but the stereo jack input (which is a cheap looking plastic thing) only lasted a couple of years before it developed a fault and had to be replaced. Saying that, I'm happy to subsidise a company like Fender and it's American factory and workers, if it prevents the company from having to offshore their production to find cheap labour abroad.

So if Ed Friedland calls you to dep for him on the next Mavericks tour, I assume you'll be washing your hair? 🤣

After countless rehearsals one of the guitarists in the cover band I was in decided to tell us, two days before we went into the studio to record a demo, that he hated half our set. The singer tried to be diplomatic about it and get everyone to vote on a new set. I just grabbed my bass and headed for the door. What's that joke about how a guitarist changes a light bulb.....

I'm assuming the secondhand prices shadow the increase in the RRP of basses in the shops. For example, new prices, for Ernie Ball Musicmans, have gone through the roof.

Do you have the problem when you play without the band? If not, line up each member of the band and get them to start playing one by one, starting with the drummer, then you, then the rest of the musicians. When a musician starts to play and at that point you cannot hear yourself clearly, sack that musician. Problem solved.

It was similar to the Peter Cook one. It had P and a Jazz pickups, a tone and a volume and a mini toggle switch. The body was sunburst mahogany and the neck maple. I don't know who it was put together by as I got it secondhand from a guy in a London reggae band. I got rid of the body, as it weighed a ton but I still have the pickups and the hardwear. The P pickup is in my Squier Precision and the neck is on one of my Jazzes.

I very nearly bought one in 1984. It would have been my first 'proper' bass. They cost £140 new, which was exactly what I had in my piggy bank at the time. In the end I bought a Mighty Mite, Fender clone (the neck of which I still have attached to one of my favorite Frankenfenders 38 years later).

I would feel the same as you if my playing had been tampered with, or not used at all in your case.

This is your best option. Straplocks are fiddly and need to be removed when you want to remove the strap, or when you put the bass in it's case. I have a few Fenders with straplocks and I've removed them and replaced them with the bottle washer option. They're cheap as chips on ebay. Fender actually sell them too.

I play there regularly and I've noticed the bass amps sometimes have some very extreme EQ settings, when I first plug in. I assumed that a cleaner had just given it a good scrub and had turned all the knobs in a random manner. By the way, in room 7 the Ashdown 4x10 has an ever so slightly farty speaker.

They look like something a kid would make in a woodwork class 😂

I bet it weighs the same as a small planet. Do you get a free roadie with every combo. I owned the Tweed Fender TV15 (which was issued a dozen years ago), that gave me a hernia lifting it, and that was solid state. It didn't help that it had just one handle at the top and my flat was on the 3rd floor of an old tenement block.

Played a large music bar in town last night which is a regular gig. I thought we were sounding pretty good and the guitarist had a great sound (he's changed from a Les Paul to a Telecaster and the sound is now much clearer than before). He was playing through the venues Orange Valve head and a 4x12. In fact after the second song I actually shouted over to him what a great sound he had. That was probably the wrong thing to do, as it fueled his egotistical guitar brain and he went straight for the master volume! At the break the sound engineer came up to us and said that one of the barmaids (it's a big bar with a capacity of 900, over two levels, and she was working at least 50 feet away) had complained that she couldn't continue working as the guitar was so loud. He said the guitar sounded fantastic but it was the loudest he had ever heard a guitar being played at that venue and the guitarist had to turn down before he sent the bar staff deaf. For the second half the guitarist turned way down and I had to listen to him through the monitors (which sounded, in comparison, like a ukulele played through a cheap transistor radio). Next time he plays I've told him to bring his 15 watt Fender pro junior, which is what he usually plays through, and he'll not be able to make anybody's ears bleed.

Having played bass through a Marshall head before, due to faulty rehearsal room bass amps, I found them to be pretty bass light, even with the bass knob at max.

Dave Swift has one too. He said because he uses IEM he missed the feel of a bass rig playing loud behind him. The vibrating plinth gives him the illusion that he's standing in front of a cab full of speakers.