Rosie C

Not just basses, but with double bass, mandolin, viola. I've learned the amount I save buying from Thomann more than covers taking a new instrument to a local expert for a good setup. Actually not double bass anymore - my local guy stopped doing basses though I've no plans to buy another one.

I've had similar with mandocellos and octave-mandolins. I had to take a chance mail ordering a Goldtone mandocello as there wasn't anywhere in the country that had one in stock. That worked out well, but I bought a Hora one from Thomann which really doesn't suit me, even after fettling by my guitar tech. I'm currently waiting for a Goldone octavemandolin to arrive - hoping it's going to be good, but I've learned with the Hora and will return it if not. Oh for there to be a shop where I could go and try them all out!

It took longer than planned, and in the end my local luthier did everything except designing the graphics. But it is fantastic!

I had a similar experience in my last band along the lines of "if you don't like it...". I gave an opinion (very rare) and objected to a song being included in our set. They agreed to drop it, but played it at that night's gig. Somehow because I quit I was a the bad person. Anyway, I'm not doing that again, so play in a duo now with my partner and when we have larger gigs there's a couple of local guys who are music teachers, session musicians, etc. who can join us for the gig. I also dep in a friend's rock band, but never consider myself a band member, just someone helping out one a per-gig basis.

My own experience is being able to play a song, and memorising a song seem to be completely separate skills and tasks. There are tunes that I've played 200+ times from a chart, but I couldn't play a single bar without that chart in front of me. Memorising is something I do line by line, looking away from the page and trying to play from memory. Takes me ages, but once a tune is learned it seems to persist as long as a I have a play through every month or so.

I'm a bit late to this conversation, but for what it's worth... I use ACS "ambient" IEMs which act as 19dB ear plugs - so I can still hear the rest of the band and the audience. I plug my upright into a Boss TU3 tuner, which has two outputs - one onward to my amp, then other I plug into a small headphone amp to drive my IEMs. The result is everyone else is a bit quieter, while my bass is easier to hear. NB: this is with an acoustic bass with a pickup, not EUB but I think it should be the same.

and yet, one band I was in everyone else was only in that band. I also played in various community music projects, solo etc. and that really was a problem for them - even though I made every rehearsal & gig, etc.

I had a chance to play a C-griff model a few weeks ago. It felt like a step up in complexity from a piano accordion, but I could see that once I got my head around the button layout it had a lot more options, in a relatively small package.

Today's gig, I'm on the left playing my shiny new mandocello, our new bass player on the right. He's actually very good - better than me. But I'm still playing bass elsewhere, and enjoying the change today on rhythm and backing vocals.

I have been known to play the main melody from 'Eye Level' on double bass, while waiting for the rest of the band to assemble. I think it sounds kinda cool on DB.

He's my favourite accordion player. He did a 3-episode series on BBC a while ago which is on YouTube and tells pretty much everything you need to know about accordions

We used to have someone like that. NEVER came to rehearsal, and would turn up 5 minutes before the service asking where her music was. Fortunately she doesn't play anymore, as it used to upset me that she made me think un-Christian thoughts just as eucharist was starting.

I'm not saying mine are the right hands, but here is me playing (accordion) bass in my friend's covers band. I play recorder too, and viola. I'm a real sucker for unpopular instruments!

I have a WL20 and generally it is good, but once when I activated Bluetooth on our PA the WL20 immediately dropped out. I'm not sure if it was related - they're both on the 2.4GHz band, so possibly. But it did make me wary of using it at gigs.

True story! Though I am married to our drummer 😉 After a six month break I dragged my upright to the weekly rehearsal of our community big band. Generally I was OK, some more challenging syncopation got skipped over. The band leader called 'All About That Bass' as our final number which went less well, I've not played it on upright before and there were some challenging jumps. A slightly sore left hand when I woke up this morning, that'll teach me for leaving it so long!

When I play badly our MD deploys a mixture of muttered instructions and dark sarcasm - he's usually at the piano, and I stand with bass just to his left, so we can hear each other while playing. How the rest of the band manage I have no idea. Maybe they're just following the bass line 😉

I have one modestly priced bass that suits everything I do. I wouldn't want anything more expensive in case it got damaged/lost/stolen being gigged. But I wouldn't want a nice one just to keep at home as I'm not the best player and like to practice on the same bass I perform with. Sometimes hanging around here I wonder if I'm not a proper bass player!

Thanks Mike!

Likewise. I was disproportionately sad to learn the hotel closed in 2020 and still had that phone number Anyway, welcome to the forum!

A new (to me) Albion Band album, including

Some of my favourites are 10,000 Reasons, Waiting Here for You, and the Lord's Prayer set to Paul Simon's Sound of Silence.

@Mike Bungo what brand is your pedal board? I'm looking for something at the moment...

My old choice: and my 'new' choice:

I did a whole week of tribute bands a few years back - Letz Zep, Think Floud, The ZZ Tops, Livewire, etc. at "Rhodes Rock". Personally I was just into the music, and loved how close to the original sound some of the bands got. How they looked wasn't important to me, though some were very good - e.g. Livewire had a Bon Scott for the first set, and a Brian Johnson for the second, which was kinda cool. The ZZ Tops beards looked real, which is a commitment over and beyond!

'tis indeed.