Franticsmurf

Many, many, many years ago, I was briefly a Blues Brother with a vastly more talented singer/guitarist. As he was taller than me, I was 'Jake' to his 'Elwood'. In the act we played about a third of the set as the Blues Brothers, with various other disguises that covered the Beatles and various rock and roll stars.

I've always said my Spirit headless will be the last bass to go.

My Steinberger Spirit has a bolt on neck, but the body size may not be what you're looking for.

A diagnosis of an inguinal hernia in April prompted a rethink of all things bass for me. I decided lighter kit would enable me to continue gigging so I ditched the Laney RB7 combo and 15" cab in favour of, initially, a TCE BAM200 and two home built 6" cabs (initial designs on here). In fact, the research for lighter kit and in particular the small class D amp heads was why I ended up on Basschat. Once I'd figured out what I could or couldn't do, I got a couple of TE 1x10" cabs. I wouldn't go back to big cabs now. My main bass was a Sterling HH 34" scale - a little on the heavy side. Fortunately I have my Spirit headless bass (it's been with me for more than 15 years) so I turned to that for rehearsals and a couple of gigs, also using my Gretsch Electromatic shorty. Both a considerably lighter than the Sterling. Recently I invested (purely on medical grounds, you understand 😃) in an American P Bass which is also lighter than the Sterling. As time has gone on I've found I can do more than I initially expected although I still know about the hernia after a gig or rehearsal.

One band I play regularly with has a permanent sound engineer and so with them I'm now going down the IEM/DI route and gaining confidence with it. The set list means I can get away with a simple signal chain set up. Bass (Sterling HH, HB GuitarBass VI and/or P Bass) into a Behringer tuner, then into my Zoom MS60B (with patches for chorus and a defretted sound for one song but which allows for other effects should the need arise) and finally into the passive input of a Laney Digbeth pre-amp, where I have a clean and a gritty channel plus I will use the bypass occasionally. This feeds the FOH desk, from which I take a personal IEM mix which I'm still working on but currently has my bass, my backing vocals, the two guitars, the keyboard, drums and main vocals. Left out are the brass (which I can hear without monitors), three ukeleles, a banjo, percussion and two backing vocals (which are usually a bit ropey). I can also take a signal to an onstage amp from the Digbeth if necessary as the drummer isn't on IEMs and likes to hear the bass. The IEM is a Gear4Music transmitter and receiver with a pair of Sony noise cancelling earbuds.

Hi Bob.

Welcome to the site Simon.

Unless it's simple root notes on the beat, I can't sing and play bass. The exception (for some reason) is 'Lets Work Together', where I'm harmonising the chorus with the singer. The bass line is repetitive enough and the lyrics simple enough that I'm not overloading the brain but I agree, it feels like someone else is playing the bass. And if I make the mistake of listening to the bass, everything goes free-form improv. 😂

One way to look at it is to turn the question around. Imagine your band has a prestigious gig coming up but one of the band members is unable to make it. You need a dep at short notice. What qualities are you going to look for? IMO playing ability is just one of the skills. I'd want someone that I can get a vibe off while performing so that the gig is more than just a bunch of songs - so some ability to get on with people would be essential. I wouldn't mind them using notes to work from during a performance, but I wouldn't want them to be buried behind a music stand for the whole gig - I'd expect them to know the standards. And in return, I'd be expected to tell them of any changes to arrangements of standards that the band does. I'm sure most deps would turn up if they said they would, but I wouldn't want to be worrying about it as the start time looms, so agreeing a time with the band leader that meets his/her needs, not 'I only need 5 minutes to set up so I'll see you at 8.55'. For the gig, the dep is part of the band and any behaviour or attiutude (good or bad) he/she shows will be reflected on the band. It goes without saying that the kit has to be up to standard but some consideration to the nature of the gig when planning what to use (don't bring a Marshall stack to a relaxed jazz gig 😃). All these things should be discussed and agreed before the gig. If the BL is not experienced, I'd expect the professional musician to discuss and get agreement on these elements without being prompted. Of course, everyone will have their own criteria that they would use to measure the suitability of a dep. And that's the key thing to remember - as a professional musician looking for work, you have to be flexible enough to be able to meet all the criteria that the client requests, or be realistic and honest enough to say no to something that you don't agree with or is not within your ability. I'm not a professional musician but I have depped and I'd like to think I brought a professional attitude to those gigs.

+180 - As a budding guitarist in the early 80s I loved all things prog and hated to varying degrees anything that was pop (disco, funk, New Romantic most of the top 30/40 etc etc). With hindsight I think it was largely because of peer pressure rather than actually disliking stuff. Now, as a gigging bassist, I love playing disco and funk and pretty much any genre that comes my way (whether I can do some of them justice is another matter 😃). But while I enjoy playing most styles of music, I still wouldn't consider myself a fan of disco or funk and I really don't like Country and Western. And prog remains on top of the list. although the definition of prog has changed over the years. 😃

Ciao Ollimac. Welcome to the site.

Welcome to the club, Jon.

I think that goes a long way in any profession. I've always tried to be professional in attitude and approach at gigs - it shows respect to the venue/manager and these days (it seems) makes you stand out above other bands who don't feel they need to. Unfortunately I've been in bands where the same attitude isn't shown by all the members and it can get embarrassing.

Welcome Jack. A fellow converted guitarist here, who saw the light/grew up/realised everyone was better on guitar than me. 😃

I would definitely have a back up. If a string or battery goes, you can swap mid song and carry on, changing the offending wire or battery between sets. If the tone/look is essential to the band performance, then decision made. If not, I'd go for something different, my justification being that it just for emergencies so the facts it doesn't look or sound the same is acceptable. Also, with the different bass, you might find songs that work better with it. My current back-up is a Steinberger Spirit headless - looks and sound much different from the Stingray HH or American P Bass I usually use, but small, light, always in tune and easily to hand.

If I can do it, then you certainly can. 😃 Start simple and like @lidl e says - go for it. Even if you do decide to get someone to build it for you, you'll need to tell them where everything is going, the type of effects and the signal chain so you'll have to do some experimentation first. You may as well try putting your own board together. Start off by deciding what is going on the board and in what order. There are plenty of ideas on this site and plenty of people who are willing to share their experience. Initially you can try out your 'board' on a piece of wood or cardboard without velcro. Get something you're happy with and measure the footprint of the resulting 'board'. You can buy or build your own board base (I made mine from offcuts of plastic fascia board from B&Q covered in black gaffa tape). Get velcro strips (mine came from Amazon) and transfer your template board to the real one. You can get power supply blocks or a wall plug and daisy chain leads (better than individual batteries) and before you know it, you have a board. Then you'll see someone else's board on here and want to change/add/swap pedals. 😃

Count me in. Hopefully those three little words will help me save money and learn to play better with what I have. Please do your laughing here.... 😂

Last year was the first time I put a proper, thought out board together. Before that I didn't use effects much. I've thoroughly enjoyed the process. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I've been putting the 'final version' of my board together for several months (see above for the latest 'final version') and none have survived more than a couple of gigs. 😃 (To be fair, I've played with 4 bands this year, each with different sound requirements). I've learnt much from this thread but I've also been given GAS from many of the photos of boards shown here. Be warned! 😂

Great news! Don't forget, the secret to being a lead guitarist is VOLUME!

Welcme to the site TCee. Happy new year. 😃

I think it would have been better if they had been. 😃 It was just boring.

Hawkwind in the mid 90's at Cardiff University. I used to see them often - I loved the show element, lights, sound effects etc - and my first originals band was looking to do something similar. But they started going off and on this particular night they were awful. There were three support bands on and all three were much better at doing what Hawkwind used to do really well. Hawkwind came on and it was bland, flat, uninteresting. It sound like they were jamming a lot of the time, but were bored as well. It was the last gig of theirs I went to see.

The latest iteration of my 'do it all' board. I belong to two bands and I often dep with two others. This board will cover the two deps (a wide range of genres and styles) and the blues band. It is subject to change without notice. 😃 I am contemplating a separate board for the blues band with Behringer pedals - the Tube Amp Modeler would then go on that board. The Glowplug and the compressor are always on. I'm still fine tuning the Glowplug but it's close to what I'm after - warmth rather than overdrive. This goes into a Peavey Minimax 600 and a pair of 1x10" Trace Elliot cabs. The Hulla band board is much simpler, partly due to the songs and arrangements and partly because it's a large band (12-13 in total) and space is often limited. The Zoom gives me a chorus, a spacey flange patch and a defretted sound. As we add new songs or re-arrange existing ones the Zoom will provide most of what I may need. The Digbeth goes straight into the desk for the main sound and I take a feed to my TCE BAM200 into one of my 1x10" Trace cabs. With this band, I'm slowly moving to in ear monitoring and the backline is largely for confidence/back up. Both boards are home made from plastic fascia board off-cuts and copious amounts of black gaffa tape.

For free - I'd like to give one of the Ibanez headless 4 strings a go. Nothing against Fender, but I have a P Bass and as this would be costing me nothing, I'd want to try something new.

This years it's been 4 in: HB Fretless Jazz HB Guitarbass VI Fender Player Precision Sire V5 And 3 out: Signature Les Paul copy Cort Jazz copy Sterling Stingray 5 +1 for me.