Dave Vader

i stripped the tweeters out of my 2 15" cabs, and they're old PA cabs, and there's more than enough high-end flying out of them for me. Still have to pull the treble down on both bass and amp.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1365711754' post='2043450'] You need to read my reply after that one [/quote] Yep, and after 20 years of nobody else caring what you sound like, and the fullness of your d'addarios. You may also just buy what's cheapest and most durable. Course you may not, horses f*&^ horses and all that.

Depends on what hits you first. I tend to arse about with a guitar/keyboard/bass/hitting the table to get some ideas, then hum some melodies, and then try and fit words into it. Sometimes entirely the other way round. I've written stuff from just a drum beat before, and sometimes written pages of words, and then tried to fit music to them. Inspiration is a funny thing, best not to make a science of it.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1365704769' post='2043319'] You have 20 years experience and you think that strings DON'T make a difference? [/quote] Me too. And he said up to a point. Once everything else is thrown into the mix, the brand makes less difference than you'd think. Gauge, and flat/round make a difference (though still less than you'd think) the age of the bloody things does though.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1365697341' post='2043158'] It's not a 'bad' sound in itself (it's the classic Fender with flats tone), just perhaps not the best choice in the context. But the Fender with flats thing is [i]very[/i] fashionable right now, so people are choosing it because 'it sounds great' rather than because it sounds great for that particular song. It's the same reason so many bass sounds were inappropriately bright and zingy in the 80's- "it sounds great!", regardless of the song. [/quote] Heh, I spent 2 and a bit years playing a fender with flats in an 80s tribute band. Nobody noticed.

This was mine for a very long time, never got reliced, just ended up like this. It did actually fall out of the boot of my sisters car once and bounce down a very steep hill (East The Water, Bideford if you're familiar with it) and that's how it got to look like this. Well, that and being chucked around a stage Townshend style every other week, and rebuilt the day after. A lot of it is just playing the damn thing all the time though.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1365695641' post='2043112'] After using god knows how many different brands of varying prices over the last 20-odd years of playing I'm frankly not convinced they actually do make that much of a difference (as long as it is a sensible comparison eg roundwound vs roundwound not roundwound vs flatwound). I'd be interested for someone to set up a blind audio sample test with different manufacturers strings all of the same style and gauge and on the same bass run through the same rig played by the same player. Could we tell the difference between the £6 set and the £30 set?. Each set would realistically be run on the same bass for 6 months and played as often. One sound sample when freshly strung and another 6 months down the line to see how each set wears with equivalent use. Probably been done but not seen or heard the data personally. [/quote] Can we also have them in the mix with a whole band please? Just to get it in perspective. btw, my 18 quid fender flatwounds do a whole year of heavy gigging before they need to get changed. Result

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1365691116' post='2043010'] You should probably listen to something else then. [/quote] I've never heard any bassists using loopers. I've never wanted to either, that's probably why, doesn't come on the radio much. Or my mp3 player, and nobody I know lends me a copy of it and says "you should listen to this mate, you'd like it". probably for the best. I have one solo bass record, Jaco Pastorius first solo album. Most of it is ok.....

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1365683605' post='2042806'] I don't I understood it. I reckon guitar strings should last a good few months, especially if you are just a home player, like me. I can hear the difference in guitar strings. Admittedly, it's not as noticeable a difference as bass, but it is a difference. My school also used to buy incredibly horrible cheap strings which were just the epitome of awful. [/quote] Oh yeah, in a home playing environment my rotos go for ages. It's when i gig them or hit a long studio session that they all go to crap, usually the more expensive ones die earlier IME. Btw, my SG has had the same set of rotos on it since last july, it did 2 half gigs as a back up (last couple of songs in both sets) when my strat chucked a string break on me. And it gets played a fair bit at home, and sounds great. Don't judge roto's guitar strings by the bass strings. I bought a set of those optima golds back in the 90s when everyone was raving about them, and they got shredded inside a fortnight, without gigging them. So I get wary of gimmicky stuff. Used to play ernie balls all the time (good enough for Jimi, good enough for me) but changed cos they don't do the hybrid gauge I like.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1365677752' post='2042663'] He said guitarists just buy the standard strings, and don't even think about the difference a different set of strings would make to their tone. That's the moment he knew I was a bassist, when I bought prosteels for a guitar [/quote] To be fair though, bass strings make a huge amount of difference to your tone, whereas in 25 years of playing guitar, I have only heard ever so tiny differences between different guitar strings, and like Nige, go for long lasting and cheap (rotosound rotos, 10-52 if you're wondering, come with a free spare top E as well, and are long enough to be tied back together at least once if they break at the bridge.) I occasionally buy different and interesting strings, only to be disappointed. Particularly with acoustic strings, they all lose tone after a few hours of my big sweaty paws all over them, and the cheap ones sound just as nice for those few hours. Lots and cheap is the name of the game for guitars, change them as often as you can afford. [quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1365678038' post='2042674'] I have also read from an expert on Gibsons that many players go for higher gauges on their Gibbos to get better tone, but if you have a great guitar in the first place it will sound great with even 8-40s, only poor guitars need heavier gauges. [/quote] Maybe, but it won't feel the same, which is important, I like the heavier gauges cos they feel excitingly fun. However, Tony Iommi uses super light strings, and still has the tone we all want. I can't get the sounds I like from light strings, probably cos it feels like playing a toy. Anyway, this isn't guitar chat.... Chap I saw at a gig the other night who had his bass so drowned in envelope filters that you couldn't make it out among the other muck in his band. Awful, though probably not his fault, as was a multi band night, with nought but a line check before they played. With a regular engineer, he could have been awesome.

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1365594154' post='2041466'] I can learn the lines for funk, and get them to sound authentic, but can't think of the note selection for myself, in a million years. So I'm playing along to something and want to "funk it up" it's a real struggle. [/quote] Play on the one and don't fake the funk. (Or, slap a root on the 1, and follow it up with some minor 3rd to major 3rd, minor 7th to root, 4th to 5th hammers up near the 12th fret. That way yo can generally fake the funk)

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1365669964' post='2042504'] It's not the same as a chorus pedal [/quote] No I haven't yet wanted to beat anyone round the head with a looper for thinking it sounds nice.

Owch, and surely it should at least have a TV logo with that headstock?

Yep, you can happily pop in to the studio with the intent of putting in a bit of bass/drums/whatever, and spend a whole day fiddling about with something you had no idea existed, with the result that you have got nothing down. Fun though.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1365512597' post='2040499'] But do you put it up on Youtube and call it art? [/quote] Clearly it is entertainment......

Oh, I'm in a lot of trouble....

West Country bassists, taking over. Welcome, there seems to be a lot of us round here now.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1365273884' post='2037583'] 3) That I can only play folk music - that's a personal preference, not a professional limitation. [/quote] And you're still sticking to that story. Good on you.

Oh that is pretty Skol, shame to put frets in it....

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1365267189' post='2037459'] For some reason, until they see us set up and play, people always assume I'm the guitarist... [/quote] I had the opposite problem for years, so I gave in and started playing bass instead

Yep, always done it naturally, and had no idea I was doing it. Management were in at rehearsal last night trying to tell us how to do the "stage presence" thing (seems like a load of old tosh to me, having to tell people how to do it, but hey ho, I'm not in charge) and apparently I have it in spades without knowing it.

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1364768137' post='2030769'] OK, try playing [s]rhythm guitar[/s] music of any kind without a sense of rhythm....... G. [/quote] Fixed it for you, if you have no sense of rhythm, you are in the wrong game, go running or something instead

Double fantasy? Really? Worst thing Lennon ever did, and he did some bad things.....

I am also interested in powered monitors, as I am moving my studio to a small shed sometime in the next year, and want new monitors to mix to, small and active and as uncoloured as you can get.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1364548923' post='2027920'] I don't understand this statement either. Even if I don't play the original bass line to a cover I will spend as much time crafting a new line for that cover as I would for one of my other bands original songs. The amount of time I spend on playing, learning and crafting lines in both settings is the same. If you're not slavishly adhering to the original how do you have the talent to come up with something different? Writing is writing. [/quote] I find it takes me a lot longer to sit down and learn someone else's line than it does to dream up one of my own and play it along to a song what I have wrote. Or even someone else's song that i am playing bass on. That's particularly easy as the artist will pretty much tell me what they want played, and then i play it. Beats all that rewinding and trying to make out the indistinct thumpy thumpy thump of a recorded bass line.