Franticsmurf

Hi Pete.

Welcome Greentext.

This reminded me that a mate from school, Robert Perry, was briefly associated with The Enid. He played a part in getting me into playing in a band when we wrote the odd (very odd) song or two together while still at school. I used to borrow his synthesisers (a monophonic Yamaha CS10 and a Korg Delta) and for a few months we were working on a line-up that would have been our first band. The idea was to play backing music for a modern dance group. Rob was the creative genius but he moved away to work for The Enid, initially writing copy for album covers. IIRC he wrote a few lyrics and played bass drum (!) with The Enid at a gig in London. Apart from one brief appearance at which he recited poetry at one of our gigs, I lost touch. So just now I looked up The Enid on Wikipedia to see if my memory was correct and found he was listed as playing keyboards with them in 1988. Following through I see his main claim to fame now is writing and script editing. He has worked with Mike Tucker, also a school mate, who has done a lot of special effects work for TV and film.

Jedson (short scale tele bass - I thought I was the only one but there at least two in the lists above). Colombus (J - with matt black strings - it had a great sound for recording) Fender (J - borrowed for my first bass gig) Hohner ('The Jack') Aria (short scale) Ibanez (GSR200) Ibanez (ATK) Steinberger Spirit* Steinberger Spirit headless twin neck (bass and 6 string)* Tanglewood (fretless) Epiphone (EB3) Cort (J) Gretsch (Electromatic)* MM Sterling (Stingray 34HH)* Fender (P)* Sire (V5)* Artisan (acoustic)* HB (GuitarBass VI)* HB (Fretless J)* * = still with me.

I started off learning and practising bass to the songs from bands I like - alas, as a confirmed prog-head I found a lot of it intimidating and difficult to master and, more importantly, hard to use in the cover songs the band I was in were playing, which was not a prog band. For a new band project I recently started listening to songs I'd originally dismissed for various reasons (Abba and disco in general, funk and modern dance). While they aren't my favourite genres, they certainly have great bass lines that are interesting and satisfying to play and also taught me a number of bassic (yes) techniques, licks and runs that have improved my playing and make it into the songs we're doing. In other words, regardless of your preferred style, listen to any and all of the suggestions above and (no doubt) below to get a good grounding in bass technique.

Hi Oliver, nice collection there.

Ciao Camarillo.

This has never happened to me. Ever. 😬 And its not happening now, held in check by the through of failing the Gear Abstinence pledge I made only 1 month ago. Nope. Not at all.

About a year ago I started with a new band consisting of friends I'd played with before. We had come together with the initial idea of taking Abba songs and rocking them up a bit - but this quickly morphed into a general 70's and 80's funk thing. As we were all of the same general thinking we got together one evening, went through a load of song suggestions and ended up individually listing our top 30. The set list was made up of songs that got three votes, plus a few that got two. There was flexibility within the list but as we had already agreed on a general direction, very little disagreement. It was a good set and more importantly, as we had all had a say, there was no one in the band thinking 'I don't want to play that' or 'I've been left out'. For our first gig we had to borrow a singer and although she was already singing similar material to us, she brought a few songs with her. There was compromise as her stuff was more modern than the 70s & 80s stuff we were doing, but it was no bad thing and opened us up to new ideas. We retained the original idea of rocking up funk, but now applied it to more modern material. In my experience, a combination of similar directions, flexibility and the willingness to listen and consider new ideas is the key to getting the set list right. I have found that with this approach, there are not too many wasted practices. Personally, I find it hard to motivate myself to practice without some goal so learning new songs works for me, even if we ultimately don't play them. With the specific example above I had to learn to play funk and disco style and that has opened up a whole new genre to me that I might have missed otherwise.

Don't tell anyone, but I still enjoy playing guitar as well. 😃

Hi BB, come on in. 😃

Hi Woolly.

Hi Steve - I'm also a reformed guitarist. Same as you, on reflection I think I should have been a bassist from the beginning as rhythm and locking with the drums has always been my thing. Started off listening to Chris Squire and my best mate in school was the drummer in my first couple of bands. I was never naturally gifted on guitar and I drifted into bass when recording my own songs. Meanwhile, in bands there was always someone better on guitar than me and eventually I got the message. 😃

Hello Havok, welcome to the site.

58 also, and I agree. The problem is we only really remember the good stuff, so the past seems to have been all great songs, just like every school summer holiday was sunny and warm. In my case (and many others I suspect) songs from my past are associated with memories, too, so that clouds my judgement. I do agree with the OP that songs that are on rotation on the mainstream radio channels are lacking in individuality and I struggle to hear anything that would pass my own version of the old grey whistle test. But I acknowledge that it might be my bias, too. I do get annoyed when I'm told that songs must be good because they sell well. With downloading and streaming now the norm I would argue that there is little or no effort involved in purchasing them and that many songs are downloaded on a whim, to be discarded equally quickly. When I started buying music, I had to save up for a single and the purchase was anticipated and enjoyed. Albums took even longer to fund. I still have albums (now on CD) that I originally bought on vinyl when they first came out.

So far so good here too - plenty of temptation, mainly from this site. But... "Hi, my name is Dave and I'm a gearaholic. It's been 38 days since I last bought something instrument related." 😃

I've got 2x TE1x10 cabs but I'm using them with a Peavey 600w head. Not sure how much difference they'd make with the Elf head but you wouldn't have to worry about headroom. They sound great - full with lots of punch - with the Peavey. My take on it would be that with the 2 separate cabs you have flexibility to use one or two as the gig dictates.

You can suspend them from a short length of wood and hang them in a doorway to provide bass wind chimes to compliment the jangly rhythm wind chimes.

The duo I was in used to use this website. I like the ability to drop any tracks to customise the arrangement. We also used it occasionally for practice when in the band so that we were all working off the same version of the song.

I've got that sound set up as a patch on my MS60b because one band does it. 😃 Maybe I should just 'forget' to switch it off afterwards? 😂 The sound I'm tinkering with is more subtle.

I'm the same as you. I love the phaser but haven't been able to find an appropriate place to use it in the setlists I'm playing. However, I've been experimenting with a very subtle 'always on' phase sound recently - the intention is to use it on songs where I would default to chorus. Sounds good (to me) in isolation but I have yet to unleash it on the band sound. I watched a YT video a while back where delay was used to thicken the sound during the guitar solo in a three piece - I dep in a three piece occasionally so that's something else I'll be working on.

Many moons ago I was involved in recruitment and promotion boards and we were always impressed with the candidates who took the initiative and made the effort to visit and check out the job or promotion they were going for. Surprisingly few did. Good luck. 😃

No problem. 😃 Edit: Not related, but a couple of months ago I mistakenly powered my board with a daisy chain cable linked to the supply that normally runs my powerblock. So 18v instead of 9v. I didn't realise for several days of practice - perhaps 4 hours in total. There were 5 pedals including my Bass Clone. I only realised what I'd done when the Clone stopped working. All the other pedals survived but the Clone refused to work (although the LED came on and off when the switch was engaged). I even tried batteries but no effect, just the LED. I decided to wait until after Christmas to get another one (as I love the pedal). For some reason I gave it one more go and somehow it was working again. No idea what had happened. It's back as a permanent board member now.

I'm assuming that nothing else has changed since it was last working correctly. Have you tried taking the Clone out of the loop to run it directly into your amp to confirm the issue lies with the Clone?

If I get cramp while I'm out on the hills, I usually try and add a tiny bit of salt to a mug of water. It usually fixes things quite quickly. But prevention is better than cure and keeping hydrated is good practice.