Commando Jack

The tone stack may not be flat at 12 oclock for each dial. A five minute sound check of playing with the dials and using your ears (and your chest ) to get the right mix would give better results than eyeballing it. Of course if you are getting phase cancellation from out of phase speakers or wall reflections you can only do so much with the tone knobs.

[quote name='AMPEG' timestamp='1344006330' post='1758633'] I have a Shuttle 6.0 which states in the spec 370 to 8ohms and 600 to 4ohms....i plugged 2x 8ohm cabs in and it blew one (sp212 600 watt rms and an Ampeg 200watt rms.....the latter one blew) [/quote] Well if you were running it relatively high the ampeg wouldn't be able to take the ~300W it was getting, which would blow a speaker.

We can only hope it's a shill bid gone wrong.

The only dent on my tele happened in the studio when I whacked it off the desk.... The neck on my SG broke when it fell of it's stand in my bedroom..... My very first guitar has a massive scratch on its back because my screwdriver slipped when I was taking the back plate off on the day I got it.... OP = true

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1343989365' post='1758211'] Wish I could help man. But I don't use backline. Why not pick up an active DI like a SansAmp, Hartke VXL, even a cheap Behringer, and go direct to desk. As long as you have a PA that can handle bass (which I imagine there will be given the event) you'll be fine, I do it all the time. You need not worry about tone, these little boxes kick serious arse. I remember playing Larmer Tree festival a few years ago, I bought a Hartke VXL Bass Attack DI in the morning, read the little manual on the way there, and set it up during soundcheck. The monitor mix soundguy said I had great tone. I've had a sansamp too, top stuff. I use a POD X3 Live direct to the desk now, never owned a bass amp. As long as you have some bass in your monitors you'll be perfectly fine. I'm sure there's a BCer who could lend you one of these. I reckon every bassist should have one in their bag anyway, just in case their amp goes down. Best of luck [/quote] Good post and good advice. The behringer ones are £35 well spent. Last resort is to get in touch with the organisers and see if you can contact the sound people. I don't know a sound man worth his salt that wouldn't have a spare DI box handy. Yeah your bass would be hitting the desk with no colour on it, but it's better than nothing.

Ok own up, who bought it?

[quote name='silentbob' timestamp='1343865030' post='1756707'] How about getting Mark D Phillips to write some articles on bass set-up and repair.......... [/quote] While you're at it get Elmer Fudd to write an article on Wabbit hunting.

[quote name='kevin_lindsay' timestamp='1343892913' post='1756802'] Hahaha!!! I had the very same thing happen to a band I was in years ago. Knob end guitarist arrives at the audition at the rehearsal room, and before even saying "hi there, my name is xxxxx", he said, "that guitar amp (Marshall head with 4x12" cab) won't get my sound. And, I bet the cab is the wrong impedance. Plus you guys will have to move it to the other side of the room for me". Next thing that was said was me putting my bass on it's stand, walking to the guy to shake his hand and say " thanks for coming. Don't bother getting your guitar out of it's case, you'd be a nightmare to play with". The guy replied "WHAT??? Aren't you going to at least hear what I can do?". To which my response was "to be honest, I think all we want to hear from you is the door closing behind you, you need to work on your people skills. Thanks for coming anyhow". A bit harsh on my part, but saved us a half hour of grief I reckon. The next guitarist who came in was great!! Really nice guy who actually listened to what everyone else was doing and played to enhance our sound. [/quote] More stories like this please

Looks like I'll be the first to point you in the direction of [url="http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/shop.asp?category=Bass"]Wizard Pickups[/url]. I haven't used the Jazz ones yet but I used a P-bass Trad on my bitsa project and it sounds really good, so when funds allow I'm planning to get a set for my Squier Jazz.

He was a great player and the new band I'm in are doing a few tunes with his basslines in. They are tricky because of all the chromatic runs and his tendancy to go places that wouldn't make musical sense normally but really, really work. Very enjoyable to play! Bilbo has a valid point in that he was playing high quality songs with rich harmonic content. I'm sure he'd nail a 4 chord turnaround, but if that's all he had to work with would he be known as the creative genius we know and love? Don't know about the narrow scope as I'm not at that level. Plus things have moved on now - if Hendrix were to just come out today nobody would be interested because his material has been surpassed technically. In the same way the role of the bass has been explored more and there are many players who can do what Jamerson did and more. But in his time he was a cut way above IMO.

Guns 'n' Roses tuned down because of Slash. I can't find anything online from the horse's mouth, but it was apparently because it was easier for him to do higher string bends (i.e 3 - 4 semitones). I was under the impression that it was standard practise for bands to tune down live so that they could play the same thing and save the singers vocals a bit (Bon Jovi play detuned live for example). The other reason might be if you're playing with a horn section it might make it easier for them (e.g. some Stevie Wonder tracks). [quote name='jonsebass' timestamp='1343680068' post='1753677'] Some bands (IE Queen) have done the majority of recordings just a touch out of key - they are all in tune, but its not a standard tuning - try playing along with Hammer to Fall for instance [/quote] Back when everything was recorded on reel-to-reel tape, it was common for producers to speed up or slow down a track after it had been recorded to make it sound better (to them of course). If you speed it up the pitch went higher, and slowing down lowered the pitch. They were never too bothered about whether it landed on key, so sometimes the song ended up between keys. [quote name='Damonjames' timestamp='1343683441' post='1753760'] Bit of a pain if you just want to jam along to a track at home though. [/quote] You can pitch-shift in Audacity. I often shift Eb tracks up a semitone and save it as "Song Title in E" or whatever, and use that version for practise. If you need to do it on the fly you can use Best Practice.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1343673854' post='1753560'] As I keep saying, the visuals are not there to make up for some supposed musical short-coming. The music is already awesome. The visuals make it even more awesome. [/quote] It can work the other way as well. I remember getting a CD of a band off a mate that had minimal artwork and no photos. The music was good and I listened to it on and off for a long time. I remember when I actually saw a picture of the band for the first time it nearly put me off listening to them because they looked like a bunch of twunts. In reality, I had built up an image in my head of what the band were like, and this was shattered when I saw what their true image was, much to my disdain. Of course this reinforces your point that image and music are intrinically linked.

[quote name='bassy1223' timestamp='1343729000' post='1754151'] What Watts is you Hartke Transporter?? [/quote] The 410 is 300W. Not the loudest cabs in the world but definitely well worth the money.

[quote name='Delberthot' timestamp='1343403616' post='1750301'] At which point our singer says "Do you want to sing it?" which usually has them doing a David Copperfield and vanishing to the toilets. [/quote] Be careful with this one, I used to say exactly the same thing until someone called my bluff and grabbed my microphone off me. The disruption to the gig was certainly not worth trying it again.

We're pretty flexible with requests in that, if we know it, we'll play it. If I'm the lead singer (we have a couple of iterations of the same band) then I will say as much early on in the set, something like "We are very happy to play requests, if we know it, we'll play it, but if we don't then we're not going to ruin your favourite song" For most punters this is fine and people accept if you don't know something. They seem to like the attitude of "I'd do my damnedest for you, but my hands are tied" and accept when you can't do it. The small minority will come up with: "WHAT? HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW MY FAVOURITE SONG? IT IS CLEARLY MY FAVOURITE BAND'S BEST SONG AND NOT OBSCURE AT ALL! THE FACT THAT IT WAS A B-SIDE TO A NON-CHARTING RELEASE 24 YEARS AGO IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT KNOWING IT!" They'll then leave, let you play a couple of numbers, and come back to repeat the same request as if you have learned it in the meantime, only to repeat the same outburst when you say you don't know it You can't please everyone!

I've been working through [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Late-Play-Piano-Learn-as-you-play/dp/0571512313"]It's never too late to play piano[/url] by Pamela Wedgewood. It seems ok, but I don't really have a frame of reference except that my wife's piano teacher told her to buy it and used it as a teaching aid.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1343389424' post='1749963'] hang on, can't have been us, we never played sober... [/quote]

I know this is about bass but I can relate to this more with drums: When I was learning I spent most of my time practising along to Tico Torres (Bon Jovi), Roger Taylor (Queen) and Steve Adler/Matt Sorum (G 'n' R), but I play more like Chad Smith of the Chillis. I just find his style easy to slot into. I never really listened to RHCP growing up though so it just seems to be coincidence, or a mixture of similar influences maybe?

I remember going to see a friend of a friend's band for the first time (an acoustic 2-piece). They were pumping out current chart songs and anything in between but had loads of energy and the pub was packed. They were also knocking back drinks between songs. The friend asked me what I thought after a few songs, and I replied "They'd be really good if they weren't blocked!" It turns out that I was wrong - I had several more opportunities to see them, and on the occasions when they were stone cold sober, you got a musically better, more in tune, boring performance. The energy and excitement just wasn't there.

Just bear in mind that if you get a capo, get something with an adjustable tension on it, because it can pull your strings out of tune. I got a G7 capo for the tele for that exact reason, but the Schubb ones are just as handy.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1343382421' post='1749775'] ...You'll not only be able to avoid seeing tab - but you'll also be unable to see your penis; will have no idea where the pavement is; and [s]be able to trip over[/s] [b]have an excuse to kick [/b]small children and dogs. Sounds like a winner to me. [/quote] Fixed!

Jake seems to have it covered, but I couldn't get the link to land on the Keystudio i49, (btw surely it would have 49 keys) You have it spot on MM20 but the only thing I would say is make sure your audio interface (whether in a keyboard or separate) has outputs to send to the desk. Usually your DJ software will then let you cue/audition from the headphone out of the laptop.

[quote name='musophilr' timestamp='1343236852' post='1747588'] I wonder if tab (spit) has become popular simply because you can use ASCII characters to represent it. You can't do that with proper notation, regardless of how much superior it might be. [/quote] Of course, and that would in and of itself make tab (spit) superior to notation (spit, cough, splutter, buggeritall) for communication in a limited digital format. Which is the point of each method - to communicate a musical sequence. Btw I think the other side of the coin is there are loads of poor tabs (done right it can contain as much information as notation but this is rarely so) because any sod with a computer keyboard can tab things out with notepad. The barrier to entry with musical notation is much higher, so you tend to get better quality transcriptions as the person knows more about what they're doing in the first place. [quote name='musophilr' timestamp='1343299724' post='1748450'] But isn't the point about notation without fingering, that you get to work it out for yourself, and experiment with various options? That way you learn more. TAB stops you thinking! [/quote] Speaking from a classically trained point of view, the point of notation is to tell a person what to play. Notation is hands down the most effective way to do this for most orchestral instruments, where there is usually one way to play a given note (I say usually because some instruments e.g. saxophone can have different fingerings for the same note, especially in the altissimo register). In fact, a friend who did her grade 8 piano told me she could play complex music because she couldn't play by ear, so didn't listen/think about what she was playing. She just translated the piece from page to sound. Her colleagues who could play by ear tripped up because they thought about the piece while they were playing it. If I was composing a score that included a bass guitar, and I wanted him to play an E at the 12th fret of the E string (because I found it rounder/mellower than the less bassy 2nd fret on the D string sound), I would need to include some fingering information (of course notation has an extension that can deal with this or a tab can be placed alongside). Of course, the composer/conductor may have no preference, as it has minimal impact on the piece, and the bass player can choose what they think is easiest/sounds best. But the point is to communicate the piece to the player, not give them food for thought. This is just an occasional bonus

This wreaks of that guy who always puts up inflated price vintage....(clicks link)....yep, same guy!

Always liked this version of Word Up [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VlSE4OpKDU[/media]