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New member, making the transition from drummer to bass player


Naigewron
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tl;dr: Always played drums. Bass player quit, now I play bass. Apparently I love it. Here's my gear. Hope to see you around.

 

Hey all!

I'm a new member and a pretty new bass player. I've been playing drums in various bands for at least 15 years, and I've played guitar for at least that long, but never in bands. Lately I've been making the switch to bass, and found that I absolutely love it. I guess the "mix" of the tonal options of guitar along with the rhythmic and groove elements of drumming just really spoke to me, and I took to it like a fish to water. I *think* I have a reasonably decent feel for the instrument (note: May or may not be deluding myself), but there's definitely a lot to learn. 

The story is that my current band started up about three years ago with myself playing drums, and we had a bass player for the first 18 months or so. Sadly, he had to leave because of time constraints, since he was also singing in two heavily touring bands. So we've been spending the last 18 months as a three-piece, doing some acoustic gigs (with me and the main guitar player playing acoustic guitars) and just writing and arranging new songs.

It's been during these arranging sessions, and the demo recordings I've been doing at home, that I've found a love for bass playing. So I've requested to be allowed to move from drums to bass in the band. We'll be heading into the studio early next year, and I'll be handling both bass and drums for those sessions, but once that's done we'll be looking for a new permanent drummer. I've never played with a drummer before... scary times 😳

As for gear: I've been going direct since this whole bass playing thing started, but this week I finally bought an actual amp, and the difference in tone and feel was just mindblowing (at least through our cheap PA). I've owned the bass itself for a few years, put together the pedalboard over the last month or so, and finally put it all in front of an amp at this weeks's band rehearsal.

So here is my new bass rig:

FAASvy0.jpg

Bass: Ibanez TMB-100

Pedals: Boss LMB-3 -> TC Electronic Sub'n'up Mini -> TC Electronic Hof Mini (only used for two ambient intro sections) -> MXR Bass DI

Amp: Hartke HD500, 500 watt (peak) 2x10 combo. 15kg (~30lbs) of oomph!

I was a bit nervous about the 2x10 cab in a rock band context, but it seems to do a very nice job. It helps that my guitar player uses a 20W 1x12 combo and not a full Marshall stack. It probably wouldn't cut it for a dual guitarist metal band. Of course, I haven't tested it with a drummer yet. We rehearse by playing my programmed drumtracks from our preproduction demos through the PA system 😉

Anyway, hope to hang around for a while. I'm a hopeless gear nerd, so I'll probably pop up in those sections of the forum a lot.

Edited by Naigewron
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Welcome.  I did a similar switch, although a lot earlier on in my musical journey.

The only problem I found was I kept getting invited to join bands that needed both a drummer and bass player, and often ended up back on the drums as it was much easier to find bass players (not good ones might I add) than drummers.

I do try to keep my feet (and hands) in both camps as much as I can though!

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Thanks fellas!

 

7 hours ago, Huge Hands said:

Welcome.  I did a similar switch, although a lot earlier on in my musical journey.

The only problem I found was I kept getting invited to join bands that needed both a drummer and bass player, and often ended up back on the drums as it was much easier to find bass players (not good ones might I add) than drummers.

I do try to keep my feet (and hands) in both camps as much as I can though!

I think my time of juggling multiple projects is long gone; at least until the kids grow up a bit 😉

At the moment I'm happy staying with the one main project, and if someone wants to jam then that's obviously also cool 👍

 

6 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

(S'all we needed, a backward Norwegian..! 9_9 )

...

:lol: :P

So you cracked my code, did you? And I was being so clever too 😂 🤨

Edited by Naigewron
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8 hours ago, super al said:

I love the look of that ibanez bass. Does it sound and play as good as it looks @Naigewron ?

Btw welcome 😸

Well like I said, I'm a reasonably new player so I don't have a lot of basis for comparison, but I quite like it. The neck is very smooth and comfortable, and the P/J pickup layout makes it pretty versatile. I'd say it's a very nice bass for the price, and a great allrounder for someone who doesn't quite know what they like yet.

Edited by Naigewron
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