Well, I just like to know who the bass players on this forum are, the bass is not to be underestimated ...
I play bass myself, pretty shitty gear actually .. I'm playing exactly one year right now.
An adonis four strings, and a Stagg 80W amplifier, it's just doable to play in a band
Monday I'm recording a demo
I love to play rock and metal (of course) Iron Maiden - Hallowed be thy name and Dream of Mirrors are heaven!
So .. What's your gear ? Favorite songs to play on the bass ? Band ?
Any small practice amp, including 40w can cut through if the others aren't too loud, but the main thing in that case is the eq setting, the best way to go if you wanna be heard with bad/weak gear is to significantly boost your mid frequencies
I've played with the 40 in a house-setting. I had it on 6 with lows to 10, mids to 8 and highs to 6. It cut through great.
I miss band-life. I just started a hardcore punk band, so hopefully we'll get together and get some gigs planned.
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Check out my Post-Black metal band out here.
New Ep out now!
@Malphas,
Yeah, I like it because it forces me to play the note clearly. The rubber band can help, I mainly stretch my wrists before I start playing to get the blood flowing.
@BoxCar Willy,
Though it is nice to be in a band and interact with like musicians - its nice taking a break from it sometimes to focus on building your technique and your own creativity. I've been in enough bands to the point where my next focus would be to write my music and hopefully get a group going with that. Though, it would be useful if I can learn to do dm vocals so I don't have to rely on finding a singer. But that's way ahead...
My problem with bands round here is that there aren't that many musicians around, cuz i'm living in a country with a bit under 2 million people and the town i live in has a population of about 10000 so yeah, it's quite hard to find musicians in general and people with similar tastes in music are almost non existent lol. My current band members are: the drummer=punk, guitarrist=rock (mainly stuff like HIM and metallica), lead guitarist=death metal (at least 1 that shares my taste ) and me...we don't have a singer. As you can see it's quite hard for us to agree on playing one genre and that's the main reason why we don't really write our own stuff...i can write death metal whether it's old school, technical, slam, brutal (haven't tried playing around with melodic though :S) but the drummer and rhythm guitarist don't like that stuff very much, lol, so yeah...i'm still happy to be able to jam around with the guys a couple of times a week even though we mainly just cover rock and heavy metal evergreens...it's still a shitload of fun
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exclude the impossible, and what's left is the truth.
Yeah, for me there actually is quite a bit of musicians around here but not alot of metalhead musicians that can/want to play death metal. But I can live with that though, it takes patience to find similar musicians and sometimes you get lucky. I had that situation with one of my bands in the states actually, we didn't have a singer and didn't all like metal so we played instrumental rock, but it was heavy and atmospheric and people really liked that shit. Personally I don't really know any rock songs at all lol so whenever i do get to jam with other musicians we usually just improvise and build a groove. It would be nice to jam soon though, I haven't in a while. But either way, you can't go wrong jamming with different styles, it just builds your brain.
I posted this on another forum for musicians and thought I'd share it here while I'm at it. You can do this on any root note, but as you can see it challenges your use of quads with the three finger plucking. (You might need to zoom in a bit).
Yeah lol I actually wouldn't suggest it unless you completely changed your style to 3 finger RMIM technique because then it would throw you off completely I also do a tremelo version of that where you strum each note twice before going to the next note, good for death metal. But if you use a pick or whichever, you can still use this exercise instead which I've done before.
Any advice on playing with a pick? What size is optimal? The band I play in now sounds way better with the punchieness o a pick, but I haven't really ever played with one. Suggestions?
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Check out my Post-Black metal band out here.
New Ep out now!
I usually use the 1.4-1.5mm if I have the option, its thick enough to play without getting tired quickly (it takes more energy to use a smaller pick) but not too thick that the attack is sloppy. I used to use the dunlop ones, they were pretty good.
I tried using different sizes and thicknesses, what turned out to be best for me personally was a no-name 1.0mm (pretty small in size), idk it just feels kinda natural to me, can't use ones that are very big and the thickness seems to be just perfect for me as it's quite robust and not bending, and i also don't really like using thicker ones..idk why to be honest, playing is just much easier for me with that 1mm pick, but i haven't met anyone else who uses the same kind of pick that i do for a bass (even though i mainly play finger style and only use a pick from time to time) so it's a matter of taste and personal preference i would say, so try different ones until you find one that feels like it's playing by itself
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exclude the impossible, and what's left is the truth.
Yeah, since they aren't expensive at all I would get a few from different materials and sizes and see which one you like the most. And actually I double checked and I do also use the 1mm as well, its a soft skinned so its easier to hold for longer. Don't like the hard plastic ones tbh.
Someone once gave me a pick made of some kind of soft metal, it had a really awesome metallic attack to it but after playing for a good while there would be silvery dust on my fingers and on the bridge :p
EDIT: found this interesting video on talkbass.com, i never played like this (maybe thats why i suck with a pick) but it makes total sense :p
Most probably. I played a 115 on pretty much max volume at all my shows with my last band and it worked out, so probably a 210 would do a much better job especially since the tone would be much clearer.
The second looks like its more powerful (100w ohms vs 200w) and has an XLR output which is pretty important if you need to line out to a PA or mixing board (its better gain/noise ratio than a 1/4"). The micro cl says it has a 'unbalanced line out' which I can see is just a standard 1/4" output. the micro vr also uses eminence speakers vs. lf drivers, the micro vr is also fan cooled. Second one overall looks like better quality and better power/speaker output. They're both damn good deals though.
My personal opinion is that they should both get the job done, with the 200w one doing it without breaking a sweat, but according to the reviews the smaller and cheaper one isn't good for gigs at all, only for practice :S i have never tried an Ampeg myself so i can't really tell you for sure but what i can tell you is that they look kinda expensive for what they actually offer to me, so if i were you, and you are already considering spending about 600$, i would most probably go with something like
the sound you get from "Orange" amps is unique, imo the best amps for both guitars and basses, but yeah...obviously more expensive than ibanez, peavey or behringer
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exclude the impossible, and what's left is the truth.
Whatever you do, stay away from fender cabs/amps - especially the 'rumble' series. they have an attractive price but are cheap pieces of shit.
EDIT: I just remembered something. When I was in the states, Guitar Center was having discounts on the Acoustic line because it had just been revived. They sell 410s at around $300 and also the matching head for roughly the same price. If I were you, I'd see if there was one near you. I tried it out and was pretty impressed. A guy there told me that Acoustic was widely used with old school rock bands so it has that vintage tube sound.
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can cut through if the others aren't too loud, but the main thing in that case is the eq setting, the best way to go if you wanna be heard with bad/weak gear is to significantly boost your mid frequencies
I also do a tremelo version of that where you strum each note twice before going to the next note, good for death metal. But if you use a pick or whichever, you can still use this exercise instead which I've done before.
