OldG

Make it groove! Play your bass so that the audience can dance to it. If you mess up - keep going! Just come back in on the beat as soon as you can. Wear earplugs, you could get to play on a much smaller stage than you are used to in rehearsal - much closer to the guitarists amps and the drummer who will probably be hitting harder due to ecxitement/nerves /adrenaline/dutch courage (delete as applicable). I found my first gig quite a shock volume wise..... Have fun! Don't drink too much and good luck!

My Tokai pickups gradually faded over time - maybe yours have done the same ( magnets got weaker?)..... and yes.white is 'hot'.

An easy test... take a litte screwdriver and hold it loosely above the polepieces on the pickups of both basses, I'm betting the Lakland will grab the driver and the Fender will a lot weaker. Same thing happened to my Tokai Jazz (pickups approx 25yo) - a newer set of pickups restored the volume, dynamics and tone in one go for £20 from the for sale forum.

Shim the front of the neck pocket to raise the neck joint angle - then tweak the truss rod to suit...

My first 'real' bass amp was one of these - want it back!!!!

A cheap mixer would do the job fine - maybe something like [url="http://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Behringer-Xenyx-502-Mixer/6PE"]this[/url]?. Could also come in handy for band use and/or recording... I sometimes use mine for amplified jams in the lounge, plugged into the stereo. then again, we don't have to be too quiet these days as my youngest is 20 now - and plays music much louder than we do! edit: ahpook has the perfect solution there.... What a grand offer! - I use a Phonic myself and well pleased with it.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1351009' date='Aug 25 2011, 08:58 AM']I'm looking for a VSTi for strings. I don't need the world's best sounds, just something better than the microsoft MIDI voices. Is there anything free?[/quote] The most realistic free string VSTi I've come across is [url="http://freemusicsoftware.org/553"]Cellofan[/url] - sounds less 'midi' than most imho... edit: recording with Cellofan in use [url="http://soundcloud.com/mick-hastings/miss-you-rc"]here[/url]

Just bought some pickups from Rob , very nice easy transaction with no hassles in any way. From purchase to playing in three working days - Excellent!

Shipping is not as bad as you might think - work it out on GFS site, it calculates the shipping for you..

Check out [url="http://www.guitarfetish.com/Humbucker-Sized-Guitar-Pickups_c_26.html"]GFS pickups[/url] - cheap but definitely not nasty.... I've used several in guitars and have always been impressed..

[quote name='51m0n' post='1342916' date='Aug 17 2011, 11:23 AM']Reaper has an open ended try before you buy license (and only costs ~ £25 for non-commercial use) Its superb....[/quote] Oh yes! The best £25 I've spent in years.... it just works - no dongle or copy protection, starts in seconds, unlimited tracks and routing,extremely customizable etc,etc - all this in a 6mb download! Gotta be worth a try...

Tried everything I could think of to cure the neck dive on my Tokai Jazz, including moving the buttons and weights... nothing worked for any length of time (the neck would creep downwards throughout the set). I was at the point of adapting to play while supporting the neck, when my wife bought me a strap with a sheepskin type underside - this kinda locks the strap to the fabric of your shirt or whatever you wear to stop it slipping round. Works perfectly!

[quote name='wez' post='1289480' date='Jul 1 2011, 07:54 PM']Seems a lot of peeps started on kay, me too £14 from woolworths, shortscale sg copy. the neck bent so much i ripped the frets out and used it as a fretless before selling it for £10.[/quote] Me too, My mate gave me his old Kay ( SG style) for my first bass. It was truly,truly bad.... upgraded to an Aria Cat and a cheap (at the time) old Sound City Bass 150 with an 18'' Fane loaded cab. The Sound City sits high on my list of things I should never have sold

Did a couple of jam nights as the' house' bassist... It was quite a buzz not knowing what was coming next - a few guys would want to play their own songs amongst the usual Johnny B Goode,Green Day,Oasis,All Right Now,Hey Joe etc,etc. With the unknown material I used to keep it simple... get the chords from the guy/girl and play varying combinations of root,fifth,octave with a few runs for interest.If you can't get to speak before the song, get in view of the rythym guitar and follow the fingers. Most of all have fun and don't worry if you bum a note, you are only ever one semitone out - just slide until it sounds good

Watched both videos to make sure..... I don't get it either - but then I like at least a [i]bit[/i] of rythhm with my music.....

[quote name='KiOgon' post='1212889' date='Apr 27 2011, 05:25 PM']EZ test - hold down each string 1 at a time at[b] 2nd fret[/b] - then tap each string onto 1st fret, there should be only a very small clearance = a fag paper between the 1st fret & string. If strings are too high at the nut you'll be struggling down the rest of the neck. Cheerz, John[/quote] That'll be the 3rd fret for anyone setting up a nut and reading this thread... fret at the third and tap (with your fingernail if you can) the string directly over the first fret (onto the actual fretwire) - if all is good you should just feel/hear a click as the clearance is taken up between string and fret. Any discernable movement - lower the slot/nut.... or no click with string hard against fret - pack and raise the nut. Totally agree on shimming the neck after setting the truss rod to get the action down though.

[quote name='thebrig' post='1172351' date='Mar 22 2011, 05:33 PM']I'm not sure the older laptop would be up to recording the amount of tracks I want without problems. In your opinion, do you think I would I be able to record 8 tracks, simultaneously via USB on the i5 machine?[/quote] I can easily record 8 tracks in 24 bit 48000khz WAV on my dual core laptop with firewire... I wouldn't be so confident with USB until I could test it out. Ask around on some recording forums - you should get the pros and cons of both to help you decide.

[quote name='fatback' post='1168372' date='Mar 19 2011, 03:44 PM']No you're not. And with an audio setup if it aint broke etc.[/quote] I run 32bit XP on my recording laptop with no problems at all (until I need to use more than 2gig of the 4 installed) - I am about to partition to dual-boot W7x64 to be able to access the rest for memory intensive VSTi's etc...

[quote name='Tuco' post='1168696' date='Mar 19 2011, 07:42 PM']singing from the samre hymn sheet squire i had trouble with sp2/3 as it goes.... i got no internet (or even the capability) on my "music" PC ,so i downloaded sp2 & 3 from the microsoft website on my wifes laptop,installed them (in safe mode),defragged,rebooted etc etc and when i ran ableton i had SO many pops & crackles no matter how i set the buffer i reformatted back to sp1.. i toyed with the idea of reformatting again (yeh i love it!!) and installing the service packs BEFORE id installed my audio software but i bottled it lol its a shame because theres a certain couple of freeware vsts i wanted to check out (ignite amps NRR1 and TS-999) but they only run on sp2 or later (something to do with the VC++ compiling software used in the vsts design being a 2010 version or summat.........? WAY over the top of my head!!)[/quote] Care to try an audio optimized stripped down XP32 with SP3 slipstreamed into the install? It runs like lightning for most people that use it ( many thanks to Dux over at the Reaper forum) - you'll need all your own drivers for motherboard,sound,video etc.... [url="http://fallofarcadia.com/Reaper/WXPSP3AO.iso"]XP audio optimized ISO[/url] Use your own XP key to activate (OEM won't work) Nearly forgot, When you get to the install, name yourself DAWuser and leave the password blank - change it to whatever you want later, but you have to do this to log on in the first place.

The laptop spec certainly sounds powerful enough... An express slot to add a firewire card may be needed if you want to upgrade the interface ( the UX2 is lacking midi for inputting drums and keys), and the 8gig of RAM will run plenty of VSTi's and effects. To use the full 8 gig of RAM, a 64 bit OS is needed (Windows 7x64) - and a 32bit DAW to be able to use all those free third party VST/VSTi's. As mentioned by myself and many others - whenever computer recording is discussed.... Try Reaper - so good I actually bought it, when I could have carried on using the unrestricted demo and ignored the 5 second nag screen! Download reaper's unexpiring and uncrippled demo [url="http://www.cockos.com/reaper/download.php"]here[/url]

[quote name='dannybuoy' post='1164848' date='Mar 16 2011, 07:26 PM']Never seen such an adaptor but I can't imagine it would be very good for an audio interface.[/quote] My setup: Tascam FW-1804 connected by adaptor to HP DV6900ea running audio optimized XP/Reaper DAW. I can record eight inputs together into Reaper with each track running vst effects, and monitor the the whole lot with only 6.1 ms latency while recording. In other words I can hear everything with FX in real time whilst recording, and same with the band... (in 24bit 48000 WAV btw) The laptop has a Ricoh FW port built in - but the TI chipset in my adaptor beats it hands down..... The adaptor linked in my above post has a VIA chipset which is also rated well for audio work.