The Combo Club

[GwenOnBass]

Hip Hip Hooray! Kudos to the lady who is currently on the mend and yet enjoys tying her fingers up into knots. You need to get out there and show them skills off.

Thankee sai.

The new spider exercise for me now is a mirror of the last one on the E and A strings. It's a mind-bender to keep straight LOL Also on this week's practice run are two octave arpeggios around the circle of fifths. Those two exercises will keep me off the streets. There's no point to it, really, when in the Real World ™ one minor pentatonic all night is a hundred spacebucks in this quadrant.

View attachment 4019600 I've now had both a NAD and a NBD this month. Very happy with both so far. The amp is the PJB BG-400 I talked about a couple of times in the last two weeks, and the bass is my Warmoth short scale project with Barts and a Nordstrand preamp. Wish I'd known the bass body would come with the truss rod access, I would have bought the other style of neck Warmoth offers. The pictures I could find didn't have the access routing. I'm planning to get the other style eventually in medium scale to try it out. The bass isn't super light but it is very comfortable to play and I'm still discovering what the preamp and pickups can do together. I don't know if it's the roasted woods, or the brass bridge, but the sustain is crazy, even with the preamp in passive mode.

The amp I bought used locally and I'm lucky to have found it for the price I did in this condition. I love the clean, clean tone it produces with whichever bass I play through it. Five inch drivers have no business sounding like this. I really need to get it above apartment safe levels soon. I've been pushing it as much as I can but definitely want more. It's a keeper for sure. In regards to what Morrighan just posted, I'd love to get a Darkglass or other distortion pedal to play through the PJB! The amp wouldn't color the sound at all, you'd be purely hearing what the pedal could do.

I'll be putting some stuff on Reverb soon, not just to recoup, but because these two will just cover so many bas(s)es.

The VT Bass Deluxe I use has been discontinued and between its six settings I can dial in extremes all the way to YES-style overdrive. As an Ampeg emulator (and by most accounts a very good one), it really is possible to get SVT tones out of the PJB There's no limit pedals, it's a deep, deep rabbit hole to find that "perfect" distortion.

The secret treasure (to me) is how musical the PJB is, for a "clean" amp. "Clean" is equated with "sterile" so often I just give up. Recording these spider exercises on a "fliptop" setting makes me laugh.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Gone quiet in here?

Dropping by to say triad arpeggios up and down over two octaves through the circle of fifths is not easy (for me). Sure sounds good through my combo though. Just like a real bass player!

 

[iagtrplyr]

Gone quiet in here?

Dropping by to say triad arpeggios up and down over two octaves through the circle of fifths is not easy (for me). Sure sounds good through my combo though. Just like a real bass player!

Hey, Morrighan! I didn’t get here yesterday but thank you for adding a log to the fireplace to keep it warm.

Speaking of warm, we’re dropping 20 degrees from yesterday, so fall is officially here and now we’re working on winter! We had flurries on Thursday.

I didn’t do any playing yesterday though I could’ve. I worked for half a day and took a luxurious nap in the afternoon. It’d been a while and with the cloudy day...well, you know.

Today’s the day. Just a little schooling to do (conferences this week), but then I’m recording “Celebration” for the November orchestra piece. Note-wise not challenging, but rhythmically-speaking, ya gotta nail the groove throughout, and it’s a good one too. Some sixteenths thrown in at the end of each phrase to get those feet on the dance floor adds fun to it. The song should be out the first week of Nov.

We watched a pretty decent biography on Netflix last night of Chicago. It was filmed in 2016 and covered their entire career. Though I wasn’t a Peter Cetera fan during his post-Chicago pop music (not a big David Foster fan), but he was a terrific bass player and gave them, along with Terry Kath, the heart and soul that made the band so good. Q

It’s Sunday, jump on with your own weekend highlights or comment on anything you’ve seen so far. M, I bookmarked a website last week on the Circle of Fourths. It looks interesting and I need some wood shedding work since I don’t play consistently enough. So thanks for being an influence, but NO, no spider drills for this old fart! You can have ‘em.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Hey, Morrighan! I didn’t get here yesterday but thank you for adding a log to the fireplace to keep it warm.

Speaking of warm, we’re dropping 20 degrees from yesterday, so fall is officially here and now we’re working on winter! We had flurries on Thursday.

I didn’t do any playing yesterday though I could’ve. I worked for half a day and took a luxurious nap in the afternoon. It’d been a while and with the cloudy day...well, you know.

Today’s the day. Just a little schooling to do (conferences this week), but then I’m recording “Celebration” for the November orchestra piece. Note-wise not challenging, but rhythmically-speaking, ya gotta nail the groove throughout, and it’s a good one too. Some sixteenths thrown in at the end of each phrase to get those feet on the dance floor adds fun to it. The song should be out the first week of Nov.

We watched a pretty decent biography on Netflix last night of Chicago. It was filmed in 2016 and covered their entire career. Though I wasn’t a Peter Cetera fan during his post-Chicago pop music (not a big David Foster fan), but he was a terrific bass player and gave them, along with Terry Kath, the heart and soul that made the band so good. Q

It’s Sunday, jump on with your own weekend highlights or comment on anything you’ve seen so far. M, I bookmarked a website last week on the Circle of Fourths. It looks interesting and I need some wood shedding work since I don’t play consistently enough. So thanks for being an influence, but NO, no spider drills for this old fart! You can have ‘em.

By whatever learninating I may / may not have absorbed, "circle" and "cycle" are different only in that classical music theory prefers one term over the other. Descending fifths makes much more sense to the bass player's ear than ascending fourths, and three left turns will get you back on the freeway!

***

many see the Peter Cetera-era Chicago as a bit cringeworthy, but its harder to tell from here in the future. In the lens of my musical education, Chicago is a natural. What's a band without horns? The kids I associated with were influenced by our music teachers' tastes. There is Stan Kenton, and Maynard Fergeuson, all this big band stuff.

It's very good big band stuff, they're tight as I'll ever hear ... one aside with no particular point other than my own alignment with big band sounds .... hold the pleasure of many pleasant conversations with Horace Heidt Jr., who told me Chicago is Oz for Midwesterners.

Being kids and liking anything parents hate, rock bands with horns were Well Duh. Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Chase. CTA.

Parents think Tommy was the Dumbest. Thing. Ever. So it gets more play than Alan Sherman records ever did six years earlier

 

[Passinwind]

By whatever learninating I may / may not have absorbed, "circle" and "cycle" are different only in that classical music theory prefers one term over the other. Descending fifths makes much more sense to the bass player's ear than ascending fourths, and three left turns will get you back on the freeway!

BTDT, got the t-shirt, from TB approved Lazy Carrot no less: Invalid Link Removed

 

[GwenOnBass]

BTDT, got the t-shirt, from TB approved Lazy Carrot no less: Invalid Link Removed

Just jump in anywhere, it'll come round again.

 

[Passinwind]

Just jump in anywhere, it'll come round again.

The faster we go the rounder we get.

 

[GwenOnBass]

The faster we go the rounder we get.

Just a little further



Love that the shirt comes from a carrot shop. Looks like only mens' tees though. I see they take custom orders but have to take a pass on international shipping for .... you know with the right shirt style and a bit of "I'm the bass player" mojo, it could be pretty effective

 

[Passinwind]

Just a little further

View attachment 4022228

Love that the shirt comes from a carrot shop. Looks like only mens' tees though. I see they take custom orders but have to take a pass on international shipping for .... you know with the right shirt style and a bit of "I'm the bass player" mojo, it could be pretty effective

I've seen variants of those shirts elsewhere, and I wouldn't actually pony up for the shipping either. Sure wouldn't hurt me to start working on some that again in any case, a lot of my solo ideas are mostly just based on listening to twenty bazillion hours of Coltrane.

 

[GwenOnBass]

I've seen variants of those shirts elsewhere, and I wouldn't actually pony up for the shipping either. Sure wouldn't hurt me to start working on some that again in any case, a lot of my solo ideas are mostly just based on listening to twenty bazillion hours of Coltrane.

to my twenty bazillion hours of listening to Jerry and the boys

/me still wants a Starfire
unsure about all the Wickersham fiddling but OMG that's the tone I'll always "hear"

 

[Passinwind]

to my twenty bazillion hours of listening to Jerry and the boys

BTDT too, back in the Stoned Ages. But trying to figure out where Phil was coming from lead me to Trane and Ornette and that stuff grabbed me pretty hard.

/me still wants a Starfire
unsure about all the Wickersham fiddling but OMG that's the tone I'll always "hear"

Roger that. I had a stock 70s one, it's not the way. I've played a gorgeous older one with the right (Bisonic) pickups too, which was an entrirely different kettle of chips. That's a great start, or you could hit up Curtis Novak. I know a guy and still might take a stab at the electronics part myself one day. My luthier friend doesn't really get Phil though, although both basses I got from him kind of know the way.

 

[RodRy]

View attachment 4019600 I've now had both a NAD and a NBD this month. Very happy with both so far. The amp is the PJB BG-400 I talked about a couple of times in the last two weeks, and the bass is my Warmoth short scale project with Barts and a Nordstrand preamp. Wish I'd known the bass body would come with the truss rod access, I would have bought the other style of neck Warmoth offers. The pictures I could find didn't have the access routing. I'm planning to get the other style eventually in medium scale to try it out. The bass isn't super light but it is very comfortable to play and I'm still discovering what the preamp and pickups can do together. I don't know if it's the roasted woods, or the brass bridge, but the sustain is crazy, even with the preamp in passive mode.

The amp I bought used locally and I'm lucky to have found it for the price I did in this condition. I love the clean, clean tone it produces with whichever bass I play through it. Five inch drivers have no business sounding like this. I really need to get it above apartment safe levels soon. I've been pushing it as much as I can but definitely want more. It's a keeper for sure. In regards to what Morrighan just posted, I'd love to get a Darkglass or other distortion pedal to play through the PJB! The amp wouldn't color the sound at all, you'd be purely hearing what the pedal could do.

I'll be putting some stuff on Reverb soon, not just to recoup, but because these two will just cover so many bas(s)es.

Great new gear, glad you've got stuff you're happy with!
Let us know what and were your Reverb listings will be. Not that I need any new gear...

 

[RodRy]

Gone quiet in here?

Dropping by to say triad arpeggios up and down over two octaves through the circle of fifths is not easy (for me). Sure sounds good through my combo though. Just like a real bass player!

Dropping by after working on cars and buildings. "Hi y'all!"

Your exercise description has tired out my brain.

 

[swink]

Your exercise description has tired out my brain.

At least you've got a brain, here they're considered a luxury product...

 

[Recon1342]

I played through Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes (a couple of times). It was originally recorded on a standard guitar using an octave pedal. I can tell. It’s really, to my mind, quite unimaginative. Simple bass lines are awesome; simple bass lines that constitute the entire melody, maybe not so much. For contrast, the bass line for Wind of Change by the Scorpions is both simple and poetic. And Queen... let’s not get started on Queen. It’ll be years before I master those lines...

 

[GwenOnBass]

My nightcap — 70s British prog rock

what grooves!

night

 

[iagtrplyr]

I played through Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes (a couple of times). It was originally recorded on a standard guitar using an octave pedal. I can tell. It’s really, to my mind, quite unimaginative. Simple bass lines are awesome; simple bass lines that constitute the entire melody, maybe not so much. For contrast, the bass line for Wind of Change by the Scorpions is both simple and poetic. And Queen... let’s not get started on Queen. It’ll be years before I master those lines...

All great stuff, Recon. Two fifth grade boys and I did SNA two years ago at our end of the year talent show. Being I was the guitarist as well as the bassist l, I fuzzed my Jazz up pretty well and along with only drums (ya gotta be authentic) rocked that pup out. Our singer turned into a wild man on stage, thus allowing no one to notice any bad notes. Of course, with all that fuzz, how would ya know?

The only Queen I’m messing with right now is Dragon Attack. Why? Because I love sore fingers at the end of a song! I love the opening and wanted to learn it, but can’t play the line up to speed without tripping over myself. Still, a lotta fun.

Great Scorps tune too. Give “Still Loving You” a shot if you’re yearning for another ballad that still rocks.

Whatever ya do, keep having fun!

 

[GwenOnBass]

Monday's taking its sweet time again, eh?

 

[Recon1342]

Monday's taking its sweet time again, eh?

Monday’s the longest day of the week. You know that, silly...

 

[GwenOnBass]

It's the best day to work on those tied whole notes at tempo 180.