Franticsmurf

This scenario is familiar - I've just had very similar issues with a three piece project. The guitarist/singer liked the idea of being a lead guitarist in a band, but there was very little enthusiasm to actually get and play gigs. The setlist grew into a list of songs he already knew and which, without fail, had extended guitar solos (or the potential for them). I left as rehearsals with no intention of gigging wasn't doing it for me. This is the second band this year I've left because there has been a distinct lack of interest in actually getting gigs. I'm not ready to give up yet. Maybe you should take a definite break - give yourself Christmas and the New Year off and some time to figure out what you want. Set a time - 6 weeks - that you won't actively look for something so there's no pressure to find the next project. Then start fresh. Good luck.

Yes, this is exactly what I experienced recently. The person concerned loved the idea that he was in a band but when it came to actually stepping up, taking some responsibility and 'doing it', there were excuses and late finishes. He also kept suggesting new songs to add and it became very obvious from his suggestions that they were simply songs in which he could show off his guitar soloing prowess.

The reason I went with the B6 was that I wanted to be able to change effects mid song or quickly between songs. I have a B1-4 but this has sequential effects selection and you have to know in advance the sequence (which in some line-ups I've played in is not always an option). I have the B6 set up so that the patch change gives me four amp set-up patches and for each patch I can have up to 4 selectable effects pedals. For example, patch 1 has a clean SVT with compressor, chorus, flanger and phase 'pedals'. Once I've selected that patch, I can switch to 'Effect Board' mode and engage/disengage the pedals as necessary. In the New Year I may be sharing bass and guitar duties in one of my bands. The B6 gives me two selectable inputs and with careful use of the effects loop I should be able to swap between guitar and bass. In terms of sound quality, my jaded ears can't spot the difference between the B6 and the B1-4 and neither (I suspect) can the PA speakers/room acoustics/audience. I don't use it to record, which is where any sound quality differences would show up.

The Hulla, in its acoustic/unplugged form, is playing at a local homeless drop in centre on Sunday. The usual Xmas set list. I did question whether Fairytale of New York was appropriate given the potential audience but the person who runs the place said it was ok. We do a few events for them and last summer we backed their volunteers choir at the Hullabaloo festival - they were very good (their rendition of 'One Day Like This' was incredible) - and we're hoping to work with the choir again.

Similar. Last year I gave myself a hernia and when the consultant examined me he found a second one hiding on the opposite side. It prompted me to investigate smaller/lighter options for all my kit and resulted in me ditching the Laney RB7 combo (about 25kg) and 15" cab (around 20kg) in favour of two 1x10 Trace Elliot cabs (about 8kg each) and a TCE BAM 200 (some grammes). I also dabbled in making my own small cabs based on the designs published on this site, resulting in two 1x6" cabs which I now use for practice and occasionally as a monitor. I had both hernias repaired at the beginning of this year but I like the idea of lightweight, and the 1x10 cabs sound great with my kit, so overall a win. Indirectly, the search for lightweight kit also got me into IEM and currently I don't use any backline with the Hulla band. In terms of instruments, I avoided the Sterling 34HH for a while and used my Spirit headless and/or my short scale acoustic bass - although in my case the weight of the bass didn't really risk worsening the hernias. I just wanted to be cautious.

A professional set up for my Sterling 34HH (as opposed to the amateur set up I performed) including cleaning the selector switch, which has crackled since I unboxed it a couple of years ago.

My three favourite bass players: Squire, Entwhistle and Bruce. Tony Levin would have been in there had the option been open (instead of Entwhistle).

I'm involved with my mate's 'Rockschool' summer school project for the kids who take music lessons with him. They form groups of up to 5 and a tutor mentors them. It's scary how good some of them are. Last time I did it, the band of 14 and 15 year olds I tutored did three covers, wrote their own tune and, because they nailed it all early (the school runs for a week), they learnt Hotel California, complete with harmony guitar solo. At the end of the school, there's a concert in a decent venue with proper stage, sound and lights and they went down a storm.

I started off with this, although an earlier edition. If/when he's hooked, you might want to try 'The Guitar Handbook' by Ralph Denyer. It may bit a bit too advanced in total, but there's a handy chord dictionary, scales and the first elements of music theory. And as he progresses, there's a whole load of content on maintenance, amps, effects etc. I bought my first edition when I was 16 and I still have a copy that I use as a reference now (many, many, many etc years later).

I know that feeling - I was never actually kicked out of bands but occasionally asked to simplify the bass line a bit. And I've been on the trail of Squire's tone almost since I started on bass. I'm getting closer, but it seems to always be one pedal/amp/cab/bass ahead. 😂

As a Yes fan, their extended live version of 'Every Little Thing' is often playing, and the Daytripper riff appears in the introduction. Norwegian Wood also makes an appearance mid song, and it was this that made me think of doing it myself.

Got my B6 a couple of days ago and I've spent about 3-4 hours over the last few days setting it up. So far I'm impressed and happy. Impressed that it has so many options and that editing is simple (I haven't felt the need to connect it to Guitar Lab). Happy that it lets me do what I wanted, which was to be able to set up the effects so I can go between them without having to cycle up or down. Coming from the world guitar multi FX, this was the norm but I guess bassist aren't expected to change back and forth mid song. I have four amp-based patches set up within which I can select or deselect individual effects (chorus, flange, phase and delay in my case). The simple editing process means that it will be easy to adjust on the fly during practice as new songs are brought in, or old favourites wheeled out from the cupboard. I haven't been able to test it at gig volumes but at home volume (with the neighbours away) and with headphones I like the sounds I'm getting. For the main band (the Hulla) I'll be using it directly into the FOH and I'm hoping to get the chance to try this on Sunday (still waiting to hear if we're rehearsing). Otherwise, with only one gig on the books between now and the new year (and that one is meant to be quiet, so I'll probably be using my acoustic bass) I'll have to wait a while to see what difference volume makes.

In the late 80s when I first started out on the musical dream* our keyboard player was on the music tech course run by a local college. He managed to get us a gig as the 'house band', which students learning about the recording studio had to record. It was fun as we got to pretend to be rock stars and to present the students with challenges over and above getting the sound on 8 track tape. We ended up with a three track demo for free. An additional bonus came as the keyboardist was given the keys (pardon the pun) to the studio for the half term break. We went in to record as much of our original material as we could over the three days we had managed to organise being available for. The keyboard player - the one with all the studio experience - spent most of the first day trying to set up SMPTE (I think) code on the Atari in the studio while we attempted to set up the mics on drums and amps as we remembered them from the previous sessions. On day two we started to record our long, proggy masterpiece but the Atari wasn't playing ball and it took all day just to get the rhythm tracks down. On day three we managed to complete the proggy number but with only a few hours left, the other 7 or 8 songs didn't have a hope. Until we hit on the idea of setting up as a band and playing the whole set live. Drums in one room, vox in the vocal booth, guitar amp isolated in the drum room and keys and bass Di'd. We managed two run throughs and those are the recordings I still occasionally listen to. *may have been a day dream

We often do an extended version of Hey Jude at the end of 'Hulla' gigs, usually because of audience participation but occasionally singer inebriation. At the end, once I've exhausted the main bass part and variations thereof, I will ascend to the dusty end and start alternating between a slow version of the melody of 'Norwegian Wood' and the main 'Day Tripper' riff. Often with full psychadelic flange. 😃 I'm careful not to go too loud and I'm guessing half the punters never notice. But it makes me smile.

I've managed to squeeze a bass break from 'Leave It' (from 90125) into the Edwin Star song '25 Miles'. It doesn't derail the song and it satisfies the prog bassist hidden within me. I remember you saying this a while back, and now I do the same.

Cheers - I think. 😀 I've also been thinking about the B6 but the price put me off. Until now. Should be with me in a couple of days.

My regret is not having followed my original dream of playing bass right from the start. I'd seen the bass in a second hand shop and by the time I'd saved the money, it had gone. My day bought me a guitar and I learned t play on that. I may well not have spent so much time learning had I bought the bass as eventually with the guitar I could play and write songs unaccompanied. But bass was my first interest. The regret comes from the time when I was starting out in bands with my best mate, a drummer. We had a decent thing going but we were always let down by the bassist and my mediocre live guitar playing. There were two specific occasions when I can remember rejecting a 'proper' guitarist; one who came with a decent singer as a pair (both of which we would have benefited from) and another who would have fitted in with the line up we had. Both times, had I been playing bass, we would have taken them on and while I can't say we would have 'made it', I think we would have got further than we did. I have to admit that playing guitar - however badly - got me gigs, helped me write music, taught me more musical theory than had I played bass alone and is a skill I can still practice. So maybe it's not a full on regret but more of a wistful 'I wonder if it would have been better'?

I was always of the opinion that as a band, you should look different to the people you are playing to. I am referring to pub/club gigs here and I think you shouldn't look as if you'd just walked in as a punter. In the function band it was always black trousers, white and coloured shirt (change half time). A tie (or bow) with the white shirt and I would always wear a waistcoat for the first half as I never found a jacket that I liked. We would always try to be co-ordinated as well. For a very brief stint as a trad rock 'n' roll band, we all got bowling shirts to wear with black jeans. Now I have a black jacket I'm happy with and I'll start the gig off with that and a shirt. It may be paisley patterned or coloured. Depending on the gig I'll also have one or two waistcoats to change into - again usually paisley or coloured - and black shoes. I am looking for The Hat but I'm not a natural hat wearer, so it's proving difficult to know what I really like, and indeed whether a hat is really a good idea.

I went to a friend's house with some mates. He was a musician and the house had a music room in which there were drums, guitars, bass and keyboards. I played nothing at the time while the others managed to fill the available instrument slots and I was left with a big bass guitar hanging around my neck, and I was shown the two notes to play for 'Flash'. The 'band' proceeded to jam and sometimes I was able to keep up. I learned to play the guitar while I was in college and when I returned home, formed a band with my best mate (a drummer) and another school chum on keyboards. It was going to be a largely instrumental outfit playing backing to performance dancers. The keyboardist was the ideas man and main writer and he was very good. The ideas were interesting and creative but perhaps a little beyond our means at the time. He went on to be a published writer. We played a few gigs in the local pubs and clubs playing mainly originals penned by the drummer and me. We went through number of bassists and my 20/20 hindsight points out that if I'd taken up bass from the start (I was a mediocre guitarist at best) we probably would have done better with a more stable line-up. I was offered a bass gig by an acquaintance who became a good mate and played bass and guitar in a series of fairly successful (in South Wales) covers/function band. I drifted to becoming bass only and have never looked back.

Oh the irony. During the lifetime of this topic I have come to realise that the three piece 'new band' I referred to in my first post (don't bother looking back) isn't working. The initial excitement of the challenge (I put it together to play a support slot of my main band, The Hulla, in June) didn't really follow through for various reasons - mainly the lack of enthusiasm from the other two members. I suspect the geetard was more interested in telling his mates he was in a band than actually being in a band, (judging by the number of times he asked for links to his guitar solos in videos on YouTube which I'd taken only for us to see what we looked like) and neither of them did anything unless I pushed for it. The final straw was when I took a break to travel for a couple of weeks and I asked them to keep working on stuff like cues, intros and endings and a song the geetard has been 'learning' since July so that when I got back we could start looking for gigs. Shortly after I left, the geetard sent a message on the group chat to the effect 'it's pointless doing anything now as it's so close to Christmas'. I took that to be The Writing, daubed clearly and in big letters on the wall. I had a chat with the drummer (we're mates and we play together in the Hulla band) and sent the group chat my resignation. With hindsight, I had my doubts about a month or so ago and should have acted then but I wanted to make sure I'd tried everything. So, New Year, new project (hopefully) but with a bit more care taken over picking the people involved.

It's the 10"/8ohm with tweeter. I like it as a backline/monitor cab for rehearsals. Plenty loud enough for rehearsal and would be ok in a small pub gig. I have the tweeter dial set at 12o'clock and I get a nice sound that cuts through. Live, I either go FOH or use 2x TE 2x10"s which are puncher.

+1 for that - I have one in white.

+1 for the Hohner jack. Great look and feel and there are active and passive versions (mine is passive but I believe the active version can be switched to passive as required).

First band (as in bunch of mates playing instruments vaguely coordinated and in tune) 1985 when we were writing originals and obviously we were going to be the next Yes/Genesis/Pink Floyd. 4 years and several personnel changes, reality checks etc, we played our first gig with a mixed setlist of covers and originals later described (to our horror) as 'Post Punk' by the landlord. Edit: We knew we were ready because there was no where else to go but gig; we'd recorded, played dress rehearsals, made videos. Playing with a full line up and a goal (gig/recording) is a great way to progress. Playing with people better than you is even better. Good luck.

Patterns certainly make things easier for me - so in answer to your question it would be songs that don't have an obvious pattern or, more sneaky, where the pattern changes. Ironically some of my favourite tunes buck the pattern trend and I like that in a song. I play in a band that has 'Help Me Rhonda' in the list and for no apparent reason I have a mental block on the chorus of that song. Yes, I know its simple but I always have to check my crib notes for that one. I guess it's become a habit now and were I to not check the notes, I'd do ok.