@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...

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.

Couldn't agree more, and you forgot to mention jamming is fun

True lol :p serious musician is serious

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).

Wow that's nice

That's hard haha.

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?

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

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

So my pop-punk jam turned into a sludge jam. I'm okay with this.

Anyone know if this is big enough for some small/med bar gigs?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/ampeg-micro-cl-100w-2x10-mini-bass-stack

I like the idea of the skinny stack, because it'll fit in my room very nicely.

EDIT: Or even this?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/ampeg-micro-vr-bass-amp-head-and-svt210av-bass-speaker-cabinet-stack

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.

EDIT: found both manuals, check it out:

http://www.ampeg.com/pdf/Micro-CL_OM.pdf

http://www.ampeg.com/pdf/Micro-VR_OM.pdf

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.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/200-300.gc?src=Acoustic%20Cabinet&ipp=25&internal=1&browser=&fsrc=acoustic+cabinet

So I just got back from tour in Europe and I'm just super impressed with my Darkglass B7K preamp/DI. It wasn't just me, but a lot of people thought the bass tone was great.
It's a great OD pedal and it works awesome if you don't have an amp that you can lug around.
I basically went straight to the PA and took a parallel out to whatever bass amp I had onstage. It's also got a great OD signal, definitely one of the better OD pedals I've tried.

Anyone else here uses it? Would like to see what settings you guys use.

I've Been Playing For 6 Months Now. Ibanez Sound Gear 300. I Love The Thin And Narrow Neck. Easy To Move Around The Fret Board. We Jam Every Friday. Mostly Blues And Blues Rock. I Want Expand To Play Some Entry Level Death Metal. Huge Fan Of Death And Obituary. Any Suggestions For Newer Bassists?

Obituary was a good mention, they aren't hard to play but i'd suggest staying away from Death for the near future...or at least the Di Giorgio albums. In order to make more suggestions we'd have to know what subgenre you're more interested in but taking death metal as a whole i'd say Amon Amarth is very easy to play, also septic flesh, benediction and malevolent creation are more noob friendly old school bands (from my experience). I'd still suggest though that you go for stuff which you personally enjoy playing and listening to, cuz the most important thing is having fun , so try different bands and songs, figure out where the limit of your current ability is, work on that for a while and choose songs which challenge you but aren't TOO difficult so that you improve slightly with each new song you learn (that's at least how i've been doing it since the first time i picked up a bass )

hope it helps, cheers

Thanks Malphas. I agree, you have to enjoy what you are playing. My challenge is that I finger pluck and don'r use a pick. I will check out the bands you indicated. I do really enjoy Benediction so that would be a good start. Any suggestions for some old school metal or old school death metal? Bands I listen to seem to be to advanced for my chops currently. Certanly a goal to set out to achieve but want to have fun playing more than classic rock and blues (not that I dont enjoy those genres).

Same here, finger plucking ftw, lol, i do practice with a pick when i have the time but that's not very often haha. To give you a few more old school suggestions i'd say Bolt Thrower, Immolation and also Vader (although maybe not old school) generally aren't very hard to play, but be warned, although old school doesn't require a lot of left hand technical wankery, it does however require some serious right hand stamina. So just search ultimate guitar for tabs from your favorite bands and try em out

Here's a change: I seriously fucked up my hands, so I've been playing with a pick. I used to give a shit and be like "omg whats the point" but now I don't, I just want to play music any way I can. My favorite Old School DM is early Dismember, Entombed etc. I aim more for the punk influenced type. Here is my current repertoire:



I need to update that list. Thing is I don't want to have too much songs to play, I'd go nuts. I warm up to Hypocrisy, because it is slower and less dynamic - then into Dismember which is more melodic but not as "brutal". Then into dynamic + brutal.

That's a nice playlist, i also prefer not to practice too many songs and constantly update my list but dropping some and learning new ones, as my practice sessions each day take waaay to long lol. Anyway, how did you fuck up your hands? what happened?

Right, I have the same problem XD I used to go through the list because I am OCD but now I just warm up songs and then pick 3-4 songs that I actually feel like doing, or learning something random.

I'm not exactly sure, but I've had problems with other joints in my body however doctors just don't know. I am gradually feeling better though (much better) so in the interim I also picked up the guitar and practice vocals in addition.

Aw that sucks i had a similar problem about a year ago (well...relatively similar) i just seemed to have lost all my right hand speed over night. One day everything is fine, the other i'm having serious difficulties doing my warm up exercises and even couldn't play some songs because my fingers were too slow...so i tried practicing even more, like 7-8 hours a day but that seemed to just make things worse every day...so i stopped playing for a while (at the time i had exams at college so i wouldn't have had much time to practice anyway). When i started playing again about 2 months later it was like nothing ever happened, i was instantly back up to speed and even instantly started making progress again on technique stamina and speed, so all fronts haha...to this day i have no idea what happened but with the break it kinda fixed itself...strange, but that's it lol

hope you get better, dude

Written by Malphas on 05.10.2014 at 02:32

Aw that sucks i had a similar problem about a year ago (well...relatively similar) i just seemed to have lost all my right hand speed over night. One day everything is fine, the other i'm having serious difficulties doing my warm up exercises and even couldn't play some songs because my fingers were too slow...so i tried practicing even more, like 7-8 hours a day but that seemed to just make things worse every day...so i stopped playing for a while (at the time i had exams at college so i wouldn't have had much time to practice anyway). When i started playing again about 2 months later it was like nothing ever happened, i was instantly back up to speed and even instantly started making progress again on technique stamina and speed, so all fronts haha...to this day i have no idea what happened but with the break it kinda fixed itself...strange, but that's it lol

hope you get better, dude

Thanks! yeah, it's probably temporary. What I did notice is that when I brought my bass over from America the action became much more stiff because of the dry weather, that may have caused my hands to be overworked. I love my bass to death, but it's probably time for one with a better neck to avoid these types of things. The same with me, I got slower and I pushed myself harder to see if it changed then became worse. Usually tendon/ligament issues you don't really feel it until it's really hurting.

Anyways, I've picked up a few new songs today. Stuff by Poison the Well, Blindside and Converge - it's fun because I can just shred away and it's not that complicated stuff.

Yeah, a change of climate can have such effects, and it's gonna take time to adjust to the new one.

Now that you mentioned action, a strange thing happened to me when i lowered my Yamaha's action. I was playing with high action (maximum on the B string) because i wanted to avoid that clucking on the strings and since my RBX375 is actually a 4 string bass with a little wider neck and +1 string (it wasn't originally built for 5 strings, it's a modification of the 4 string model) it's a 34" neck length so it's 1" shorter than the B string would like it lol, long story short i had difficulties playing technical and brutal death because of the left hand speed and precision those genres require and with high action it's just impossible to play so i lowered the action, starter playing and it was a revelation...it's like i instantly became 10 times as good as before lol. So even though that clucking sound is annoying while practicing at home, the aggressive tone it produces (when i crank up my amp) is actually quite good, so i've been using low action ever since and i'm loving it. Now to the strange part...a few notes/frets just completely lost the sound. When i play them they just don't produce any sound whatsoever, neither acoustic nor through the amp. How can i describe it? eerrmmm....it's like that dull sound when you don't press down on a string hard enough, when your touch is too light, and they seem to be random frets (2 on the D string and 3 on the G string- of which 2 (one on each string) are on the first octave, and the rest are on the second octave (12+ fret)). I checked both the frets and the fingerboard, there's no damage, i checked the strings and there's no damage either. No idea what the action has to do with it or even what the problem is maybe it is time to change my strings though cuz i haven't done it even once on this around 3 year old bass haha

Written by Malphas on 05.10.2014 at 17:30

Yeah, a change of climate can have such effects, and it's gonna take time to adjust to the new one.

Now that you mentioned action, a strange thing happened to me when i lowered my Yamaha's action. I was playing with high action (maximum on the B string) because i wanted to avoid that clucking on the strings and since my RBX375 is actually a 4 string bass with a little wider neck and +1 string (it wasn't originally built for 5 strings, it's a modification of the 4 string model) it's a 34" neck length so it's 1" shorter than the B string would like it lol, long story short i had difficulties playing technical and brutal death because of the left hand speed and precision those genres require and with high action it's just impossible to play so i lowered the action, starter playing and it was a revelation...it's like i instantly became 10 times as good as before lol. So even though that clucking sound is annoying while practicing at home, the aggressive tone it produces (when i crank up my amp) is actually quite good, so i've been using low action ever since and i'm loving it. Now to the strange part...a few notes/frets just completely lost the sound. When i play them they just don't produce any sound whatsoever, neither acoustic nor through the amp. How can i describe it? eerrmmm....it's like that dull sound when you don't press down on a string hard enough, when your touch is too light, and they seem to be random frets (2 on the D string and 3 on the G string- of which 2 (one on each string) are on the first octave, and the rest are on the second octave (12+ fret)). I checked both the frets and the fingerboard, there's no damage, i checked the strings and there's no damage either. No idea what the action has to do with it or even what the problem is maybe it is time to change my strings though cuz i haven't done it even once on this around 3 year old bass haha

Well, it's probably to do with the bowing of the neck. Every neck has a slight bow and you don't normally notice it affecting the sound, but that becomes more apparent when you lower the action on the bass. For mine, I've had trouble with a few frets in the middle of the fretboard because the neck was actually bending forward towards the strings. Because the neck is pretty low quality, even if I adjusted the truss rod (which controls the bow) it would still bend back into that curve within a day or so (actually I didn't have this problem in humid climate!). Basically, the space between the string and the fret are too narrow to create the note that you are playing.

I actually fixed it by raising the bridge saddle and the nut itself, it made the action a tad higher but that's a good thing when you play with a pick. As long as I can get B standard and have decent intonation when playing every note, that's good enough for me.

It sounds like 1. the neck is bending forward in the middle as well (like mine) causing those notes in the second octave to go dull and 2. perhaps the nut (the part of the bass where the strings extend from the peg to the fretboard) is actually lower than it needs to be, making the beginning notes in the fretboard dull.

I don't know how comfortable you are with adjusting the action yourself because it might mean spoiling what you have right now that you are comfortable with. But if you are OCD like me go for it

I actually checked the intonation (with harmonics) and it's perfectly fine, but what you're saying makes sense and yeah the easiest way to fix it would be to increase the action a bit. Thanks

Written by Malphas on 06.10.2014 at 00:05

I actually checked the intonation (with harmonics) and it's perfectly fine, but what you're saying makes sense and yeah the easiest way to fix it would be to increase the action a bit. Thanks

By the way, is there other stuff besides DM that you like playing?