SimonK

I was following the pipe organ bass line in "Joy to the World" at a carol service last night. Screwed up part of it in the first verse, played it fine in the second, then got to wondering how I could have screwed it up first time round and messed it up again in the third verse! Of course being the bass player no one else in the band said they noticed.

The thing that slows me down (alongside cash) is having enough time to play each instrument. I have extensively gigged all my basses and think that is key for getting to know them. Indeed as gigs vary I would suggest that you need to play something at least ten times live before you get a real impression of what it can do. I've got two guitars (total nine at the moment - so a bit more of a collector of six strings!) that I have had for years but as I've never gigged them remain suspicious of whether I like them. Likewise when you see people on this forum flipping something after a number of weeks (or less) one can't help think that they haven't given the poor instrument a fair chance to shine (or not). There's also the issue of collectors getting in the way of players - if I had a 70s bass I would be playing it live a good few times each year!

This was free but only stayed on Facebook a number of hours. I wasn't quick enough!

...I find threads like these helpful to justify future purchases - although do admit to a certain level of worry for those who seem to have had more than twenty or so - I do like basses/music kit but also need to balance it with spending money on alcohol and women!

1994 - 1997 Borrowed various basses all pretty cheap 1997 - 1998 Hohner (not sure model - owned by a function band) 1997 - 1998 Hohner Steinberger copy headless (again owned by function band although I didn't like the balance/look of this one) 1999 – 2004 Aria Pro II Bass IGB68 (also during this period borrowed some rather lovely basses on occasion from @mowf ) 2003 – present Musicman Stingray Fretless Bass DOB: 20th April 1998 2012 – present Musicman Stingray Bass. DOB: 22nd May 2001 I keep thinking about getting a Jazz, a p-bass, and a five string of some variety just out of principle, but the two Stingrays have become members of the family for me - playing them both at a Christmas gig this evening so had them out just now:

I just tried to find it - and couldn't - but somewhere there is a video of Guthrie Govan being given an out of tune guitar, and then playing something beautifully in tune (at least relative to himself) by bending each note back into tune - the sort of musical performance that makes me want to give up!

...I'm suspicious you are hoping I'd leave a bass cab with you as well! I actually did pick up a TE 2103x cab from up Yorkshire way a few years back while up there with work, I forget where that one was eventually deposited!

That is really cool, although my pedalboards seem to change week by week so I would have a 3D printer going full time! Do you find the printed larger buttons make any difference? I've always avoided them as I feel they make it more likely that I hit the wrong pedal.

Crazy EQ on the Boss GEB - what do you use that for?

I just pulled the triger on the EHX mixer pedal as a Christmas present for myself. My aim is to use it for switching in and out different preamp pedals including the preamp on my Agi & TE heads via the inputs & efx sends. I really like mixing and matching preamps, and this pedal seems perfectly suited to it! @rwillett how's your pedal board working?

Rather than buy lighter and more moveable cabs I've just gone for the option of scattering them liberally wherever I play - I now have three TE rigs (all picked up at similarly low prices) and simply leave one at home, one in the practice space and one at church - no one is strong enough to steal them!

...until they can't get a drummer on some weeks and ask if you can play Cajon instead - which has started happening to me at an alarming frequency despite admitting (and demonstrating) knowledge of only one rhythm that goes along the lines of "thump tapety tapety tapety, thump...."

Only 30 years gigging for me but pretty similar. Thus said I've had a pint poured into a mixing desk, speakers knocked over, amps just stopping working, fuses going, a generator running out of petrol (really embarrassing miscommunication), and on one memorable occasion an extension lead melting... for me cost has been the main barrier to bringing/buying spares of things, followed by room in the van/car.

If you are referring to the Adam Neely video posted at the bottom of the last page, the fact that pitch is essentially arbitrary and A=440Hz was just chosen for consistency/pragmatic reasons is actually his conclusion - he calls the whole 8Hz thing bollocks fairly soon into the video - I did watch the whole thing and found it quite educational.

We did "This Little Light of Mine" this morning which is quite fun on the bass - both slap (verse) and walking (chorus) in one song!

Couldn't help think of this thread as we played this tonight! Granted the bass line pretty much is the tune but loads more notes than I'm used to!!

I had a very cheerful pianist/organist friend who used to say she aimed for about a 75% success rate with notes. Thing is she always played with such gusto and confidence no one really ever minded (and alot of Hammond organ is just leaning on half the keyboard as well!). For bass I swear by ghost notes - as long as you get a percussive attack the fact that you didn't actually play a harmonic note can be forgiven every now and again, especially if you stay in the pocket with the kick!

On bass it was in a pit orchestra for my school doing the musical Grease around '95ish. I'd played classical guitar since I was 9 and did all the termly/annual school concerts up until then, but do remember playing Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" in a school assembly accompanying the choir, and also vaguely remember playing the Shadow's "Apache" in a school assembly possibly before that.

I generally note which fret the worship leader puts their capo on and hiss it at them prior to the start of the song...

I love how many people on this thread have said "passive" followed by something like "I don't twiddle/touch the knobs on the bass" - no shit Einsteins 😀(NB said with humour and affection) - demonstrates why active pickups were created in the first place - precisely so that you could control EQ better on the bass itself! Thus said I don't like the faff of remembering to change the battery, albeit at the moment play two Stingrays both with identical active pickups through identical signal chains, but tweak the EQ a bit on the fretless to get the mwah - currently gassing over a passive p-bass though...

Sounds like time for a car/train crash competition - anyone remember Phatfish's "There is a day"? We did this during the signing of the register at someone's wedding. Bloody keyboardist pressed the transpose button and both he and the singer started in the wrong key. I was playing electric so when I came in with the first chord it was the wrong key and the song crashed. Keyboardist smirks, presses the transpose, and starts again saying a bit too loudly - lets change key for Simon grrr.....

But did you train wreck? There's nothing like that moment when everything grinds to a halt and everyone looks at each other...

My instruments have scars that prove not all stands are equal. Currently I'm using one of these and apart from once when I put a bass on too quickly and it didn't grab it properly, not had any problems:

Yes not a bad thought - so the bass needs to be a bit more scooped with an acoustic guitar in the mix whereas a low-mid boost works better when it doesn't clash with the guitar - but quite a big change achieved entirely due to EQ which makes me wonder why we spend so much on different amps etc. when the EQ makes the biggest difference - although I suppose that's why everyone has started raving about IEM and ampless setups.

...tis a mystery... same drummer but only keys plus vocals this week (so not guitar) which certainly gave me more space in the mix. I have a Genzler Magellan preamp pedal that I bought specifically as it has two curve (EQ) presets that you can toggle between, meaning I can sweep them relatively quickly to find what works (perfect for the zero set up time at church). Three weeks ago "Curve A" at 3/4 sounded great, this morning "Curve B" at 3/4 which is a whole different profile seemed to work, along with cutting around 250Hz on my graphic EQ. But no rhyme or reason! CURVE A (Blue): Provides a variable pre-shaped curve that boosts lows and highs while simultaneously cutting mids. The slopes are fairly gentle which keep the tone shaping very musical. This curve covers a wide range of sounds from flat to classic to modern depending on the position of the independent CURVE A control. CURVE B (Amber): Provides a variable pre-shaped curve with attenuated high-mids and highs, a low-mid bump, and a slight roll-off of the lowest bass frequencies. Again, the slopes are fairly gentle which keep the tone shaping very musical. This curve is intended to provide sounds in the range of vintage amps and vintage cabinets that do not have tweeters. An independent CURVE B control is provided for this filter.