Breeders Tribute Gear

I've been going along doing this Breeders tribute without much concern for gear. I've used what I had access to...which is mostly a small battery operated VOX digital modelling amp, a knock-off telecaster, and a knock-off stratecaster.

Finally looked up today what exactly they play:

To my complete shock, the strats are 1991 Strat Ultras, which have a HSS pickup configuration...which just happens to be what the strat knockoff that I'm using has.

I've been considering picking up a les paul someday but the choices are so many that I didn't know what to get. Based on what they play and what I've heard and my price range...I think the choice to make is a Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro in gold top. ($499) I've heard before that "studio" models are for shit, and what the gals play have the humbuckers (P90s in their case, though that won't probably be in my price range) that have both parts showing (instead of it being one single plate cover). Either that or go with a standard plain in gold top ($399). I'm not running out to buy anything cause I have access to plenty of guitars, but someday maybe.

I have a list of pedals on the wishlist for the future (probably far ahead future) too:

Ibanez tube screamer (prolly TS9 with 3 knobs and the big foot switch, $99)

Boss super chorus CH1 ($99)

Boss digital delay DD3 ($129) or DD7 ($149)

EH nano Holy Grail reverb ($120)

Noting that today I saw reference that the gals use Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion ($75) ...but of course they are playing through Marshall half stacks too. Probably not needed with the tube screamer.

Boss RC-3 Loop Station ($199) sounds like fun, but doubt I'd ever learn to use it.

All of this ignores that I already have all the effects I need in the little battery amp (though they aren't easily switchable)...that I have no need to perform on guitar...and that I don't own a real guitar amp.  That's why none of this is a near term need or even want. It's all dreams in the useless ether.

PS: The below (from LSXX tour) is ridic.

UPDATE: I totally forgot to list the black and white telecaster with "Echo" written on it. They don't use this very often but it has started to show up in some of the new tunes. 

And, of course, Jo has played a Rickenbacker bass (Pod) and a Music Man Stingray (first Kim's red one and later a tan one that I presume to belong to Jo). Sometimes the red P bass from Pixies makes an appearance too and even the Thunderbird got played by Mando.

End of Days

A while ago I was horrified that KiS was bringing this beast on stage with Pixies.  Call it coincidence, reverse-foreshadowing, a trend, or the end of days...but this photo pops up yesterday on KeD's twitter feed:

It makes one wonder if the piece of shit was KiD's contribution to Pixies sessions back in fall 2012 after all. To which I say...I have to rethink everything I've ever believed.

Side note: I'm also really sad that KeD isn't playing the Aria in this pic. 

Walking Bass Lines with Chromatic approaches

Slow day at work.

This is a brilliant lesson.

How to Play Bass Dot Com

I have this habit of getting an itch to play a song that I've learned in the past or gotten notes for in the past. I go look for it in my pile of music stuff and it is never anywhere to be found. This happened last night. I remembered that my bass teacher last year gave me the tab for "Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac and I went looking for it. Vanished.

The good news is it made me look online today for Fleetwood Mac stuff (there is kind of surprisingly little, but I guess that's an indication of the lack of tech savvy-ness of people of a certain age)...which led me to How to Play Bass Dot Com. I've stumbled across this guy before, but I was reminded today of how great his video lessons are. Then I wondered how one got pdfs of the tab. Subscribe of course. What's nice though is that he gives a fair amount away for free. He has a paid subscription too, and it might even be worth it, but frankly it is more information than I have time to absorb currently. Anyway, I'll be getting his monthly video/tab package for free now and we'll see how it goes.

His philosophy is that you learn by playing songs, which has kind of been how it has gone for me. I just can't focus on scales. He has two books that interest me..."Deliberate Practice" (which seems to be temporarily out of print) and "How to Practice in Your Dead Time" (about Visualization, Ear Training, Rhythmic Perception, Finger Exercises, Sight Reading, Bass Line Analysis, and Expanding Your Bass Guitar Map).

I've long noted that there is a difference between playing and practicing. I'd be interested how someone how focuses on playing tunes applies a deliberate practice mentality. For me it is about slowing things down and going over rough spots again and again until you get them. Sometimes you have to take a break and come back to it if you aren't cracking it. And then working transitions into and out of those tough spots is key too.

I've been avoiding doing that tough practice work for a while now, but recently started trying to do it again. I try to give myself a mix of "deliberate" practice and playing for fun. Part of my deliberate practice lately has become memorizing tunes that I thought were too complex to memorize. For the most part I'm finding that this just isn't true. If you spend enough time with something almost anything can be memorized. I also keep thinking that there must be a limit to how many songs you can keep memorized in your head at one time, but that doesn't seem to be true. If anything, the more that you memorize, the better that you get at it and the more capacity that you have to take in more. It is a strange thing.

Memorizing the tune also seems to help in playing it better, because now you only have to focus on looking at your hand...you don't have to look at the music. So shifts gets better and proper finger placement to avoid buzz, and good right hand technique all develop. It is a win-win.

Of course, memorizing things for performance is also terrifying, because without fail I WILL have a brain fart at a show no matter how well I know a song. It happens. Though I'm at least get better at recovering from these things.

Behringer Ultrabass

For the Halloween show we used MR's boyfriend's Behringer Ultrabass amp.  It was a two piece. The cabinet was heavy as hell. I'm not sure of the wattage.

The head looked just like this (ULTRABASS BX4500H...450 Watt) though:

On Musician's Friend the head runs $250, which surprises me as cheaper than I'd of expected. I'm going to guess that the cab was a UltrabassBB410, which seems to be discontinued (I wonder if the head is on the way out too and hence why it is so cheap).

It was a nice rig other than the cabinet being a monster (listed as 100 lbs in specs)

Getting Off Book

So I've got this Halloween tribute gig on Saturday. It is the 4th year that we've done a Halloween show and the 3rd year that we've learned a whole new set for it.  The last two years I had a really hard time memorizing my parts. When we did Flaming Lips the parts were just harder than I was used to...but last year was Love and Rockets and the parts were dirt easy. I just found them hard to commit to memory. This year it is INXS and, again, the parts are dirt easy. But I've been traveling a lot lately and also now play in 5 bands and I was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to get off book at all for this.  I tried to not use my notes at Saturday's rehearsal and failed.  On Sunday, I did not open the book at all for my private practice session. I thought "let's just see how bad it is". To my surprise, I had 99% committed to memory. The other bit was just a matter of a quick look up and reinforcement a few times. Monday night I played the whole set perfectly.  On Wednesday I'll be ready to play dress rehearsal off book...and I'm actually not nervous about the gig and don't think I'll need to make any notes for myself at all, which is rare.  I plan to try to play the entire set every night this week to keep it fresh.

How did it happen that I memorized it all? I really can't say.  I have not been putting in the time until last week and this. But somehow, when I buckled down, it came.

I'm always afraid that my capacity to memorize tunes will vanish. It was a surprise to me that I was even capable of memorizing.  That first Pixies gig was probably the first rock show I ever played off book on bass. Muscle memory is like a miracle.

I haven't made a very strong effort to get off book for ska. I admit this is in part because my bandmates haven't bothered to get off book, so I've been indignant about putting in the time. But I probably ought to give it a shot. It IS nice to put away the music stand...both cause it is a pain to haul around but also because it feels like a bigger accomplishment.

That Disgusting Thing at Her Feet

So I've not really talked about the whole "new Kim" thing here. And I'm not gonna get into it now.

But a while ago the "new Kim" posted this photo online:

Which is this horrible thing:

And looks like this on stage:

Anyway, it implies that future live Pixies shows will feature bass effects either on old or new songs or both. I like to think that I'm open-minded, but in some things I guess I'm a purist, and one of the things that I like best about the Pixies is the simple, un-affected bass lines.

Plus, this fucker costs TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS.

The boys can go any direction they want and go with god. But I don't think I'm ever going to want to play this thing and I hope no one asks me to.

Wrapping Cables

This weekend a boss-sort-type-of-person-of-mine-but-not-really said "If you don't know how to properly wrap a cable, ask D or another staffer" Me being D. The funny thing is, I know there is a proper way to wrap a cable...but I've never done it before in my life. And I'm 99.9% certain that none of the other staffers had any idea the proper way to wrap a cable. I watched a video about it once and got thoroughly confused and gave up. Since then I've done the..."I'll be careful and neat but I know this is still wrong" route.  Being called out as the expert...I did some research today and came up with a simple, short video that gets it right. I tried it and it isn't as hard as I'd thought. But it IS totally different than I've done it in the past and I've never seen another staffer do it correctly.



 It's nice that my boss has faith in us...but probably better if she verified that we know what we're doing before asking us to teach others.

Princeton Chorus Amp & the Red Bass through Tubes

I manage gear for a girls music camp. Most of what gets donated to us is entry level gear or very old semi-functional gear of no real value.  We do have one decent drum kit and a collection of very nice mics.  This year someone gave us a Princeton Chorus amp...which I was pretty excited about...but then it turned out to have an intermittent problem. A pro guitar player amongst us suggested that the inputs on those amps go bad, so we sent it for repair. It came back and now seems to be working, though I find it a little buzzy. Last night I played through it for a while cause it is sitting at my house waiting to return to storage.

It certainly is better than most amps we own, but I gotta say that I still prefer the teeny-tiny little Vox amp. That thing kicks ass.

The red bass, I think I said earlier this week, sounded better through a tube amp. Someone also told me that the Squires are notorious for shitty wiring and that I could easily upgrade the whole thing. I'm not sure it is worth it. The whole raison-d'etre for having the red bass is Pixies aesthetics. That, of course, becomes sort of ridiculous what with the makeup of the band changing. And who knows how many more years we'll even keep the schitck up? I'm reminded that '62 reissue replacement pickups are $70-90 if I ever want to try and upgrade.

Memo to Myself

I write out painstaking tab for most of the songs that I play on the bass because I have a poor memory. If I figure it out I have to write it down or else it is gone in no time. Then I practice them until they are memorized and ditch the notes.  Later, when muscle memory has finally failed from too much time past, I can go back to the notes and remind and refresh.

Some songs, though, just come naturally and I write very sparse notes. "The Sad Punk" is such a song. I wrote down the chord progression, but felt the incidental notes were so natural and obvious that there was no need to write out.

Fast forward three years.

*blank stare at progression*

Memo to myself...always write it all out.

Told you so for future me..."Don't Change" by INXS is also this kind of song. Write it all out dumbass.  Though, if we're still playing "Don't Change" on or after Oct 27th I'll be shocked.

New hi hat stand

Had $60 in gift cards to Guitarget from working GRC...so  bopped on down and picked up a used Mapex hi hat stand for just about that much. The Sugar Glider had been complaining that mine sticks...which I'd never noticed before (could be why I can't play hi hat for shit? perhaps). It's first test drive will be on Wednesday...when TD unexpectedly plays a 5 song set ON TV (complete with band interview...what? WHAT?!?). Yeah, seems like the right time to test out something new.

Next Round of Purchases

I keep thinking/hoping that I'm approaching the end of my major music purchasing...but it kind of seems to never end.

I've got $40 credit at GC I need to burn by end of August.

The next things on the list:

• I want a compact and lightweight RELIABLE alternative to my heavy 175 W combo and my unreliable 600W combo. A friend is selling a used like-new condition 2x10 350 Watt bass cabinet. I kind of want it, though I think she wants more money for it than I want to spend (like $350...new it would be $399). 
• If I get the cabinet, I'll need a head to go with it. I'd be looking for a lightweight (hand-held) head in the 200W-350W range. New or used. No rush on getting it though. I'd like to spend in the $300 range.
• I would like a lightweight set of good drum hardware. Snare, hi hat, and probably a straight cymbal stand. Looking to spend less than $150 for the 3 pieces. I want to be able to pack everything down and put it in a smallish bag and not break my back. Still looking for the right brand/model/price-point combo.
• I'm actually good for heads and sticks at the moment, but I could always use the credit for those things too. At some point I should put a full new set of heads (top and bottom) on the Sonor kit (for about $150)...but I'm really not playing it out much these days so there's no urgency to that.

Note that lightweight is my overall life theme.

Ten Inch Tom

A while ago I found a 10" Sonor Force 2000 tom in the garbage on a bike ride home from work. I took it home and cleaned it up (it smelt moldy...so I sanded the bearing edges and wiped the rest of the interior and exterior down with vinegar). Lubed the lugs (old style Sonor). Yesterday I got in new heads and a clamp and installed it and it sounds great and fits into my kit configuration fairly well. I'm hanging it off a boom cymbal stand. It sounds great.

The clamp I bought is a Pearl Ax-25 Adapter 2 Hole Revolving and it is kind of awesome. I think I probably could have gotten the Sound Percussion version of this for a couple less dollars or this weird  Mapex AC903 Multi-Purpose Clamp , but it was really hard to tell from the photos online how things work. I'm really happy with the Pearl thing...it is exactly what I needed. I wish I could hang it off my straight stand instead (it is more sturdy and I prefer the straight stand on my left) but it seems to work the way I set it up. 

It makes the hi hat position a little tricky, but I really like having a tom in that position. It surprised me. I was reading an article in some drum magazine about someone moving their toms to the left because they had trouble getting around the kit. This struck me as out-and-out cheating at the time...but it IS shocking how much one can accomplish on the left side there and how much more comfortable it is.

Good Head

At the show last Thursday I noticed that my heads on the black kit are pretty pitted. The floor tom sounds pretty bad too.

So my current drum situation is that

• The Red Pulse is at TD practice space with all Remo heads on it except for the resonant bass, which is a Pulse. The heads are old, but in good shape. All my extra hardware is there and so is all of my extra cymbals.
• The Sonor is at my house with all Remo and the newest heads on it. I use the Sonor for personal practice, I loan it for ska practice, and I use it for TD gigs whenever possible. My best hardware and cymbals are with the Sonor.
• The Black Pulse lives in my gig bags and I use it for SSW gigs and for any outdoor gigs. It has very old Remo batters and the stock Sonor resonants. I grab hardware and cymbals from one of the other kits when I need it.

So this week I bought a full set of Remo resonant heads and a pinstripe Remo Rock Pack of batters and a Remo Powerstroke bass resonant. Basically a complete set of everything. This cost me just about $175 online.

I'm now debating what to do with the new set...put it on the Sonor or put it on the Black Pulse. If I put it on the Sonor I'll move the Sonor heads to the Black Pulse. Not only is this twice the work, part of me wants to see what is the best case scenario for how the Black Pulse can sound. So probably I'll put everything on the Black Pulse and get new heads for the Sonor in a year or two...or maybe just replace the tom batters sometime soonish. If we ever get around to recording TD I'll certainly replace everything immediately before that.

Recording...or not...yet again

Someone donated an M audio interface to GRC and I was gonna take it for a test ride under the guise of testing it for camp but secretly cause I've wanted one forever. It turns out it is a firewire device, which I have no way to hook into. On a whim I stopped into a local music store to see if they had firewire to usb converters. They didn't, and they looked it up on the internet for me and we figured out together that you don't really want to try to convert firewire to usb for audio...it doesn't work that way (flash back to my optical to usb quest). While I was waiting for them to look stuff up, on the clearance table I found a Yamaha Audiogram3 with Cubase ai5 software for $71. It had a usb hookup and worked with my operating system. What the hell thought I?

Of course, as these things go, "plug and play" wasn't really the case. I'd hoped to set this up on my old laptop, but quickly figured out that I'm so behind on Windows updates on the thing that it crashes when you try to update or install anything. Sigh.

I successfully used up the very last bit of memory on my other laptop installing the thing. Can't quite get it to work right yet though. And the latency is horrible (you sing...and the sound returns to you half a second later). I found my project for "Do You Love Me Now" and suddenly wondered why I'd bought the thing at all...for here was a multi-tracked project in Audacity that I clearly put together WITHOUT a device at all.

That said, it would be nice to be able to record two tracks at once if I can get the thing to work and one would assume that it would be better quality (it has a pre-amp) than what I could get from my pc mic input. I also want to try using one of the mixers that GRC also recently acquired to see if I could record a live band all at once (though, of course, the tracks would not be separate, but once upon a time this worked pretty good for SPB demos).

I'm not sure if I'll play with it for a while and then return it if I can't get it to work...or rack it up to life and just let it sit in the corner and make me feel guilty and like a failure for the rest of my life.

Why is this so HARD? It's like the central ongoing pain in my ass of my musical life.

Vocal Effects

A very nice closeup I stole off FB.

Related, last night I got a rough mix of a few songs that were recorded live from a CJ show recently. The sound guy pulled everything straight off the board. It probably counts as the closest thing to a legitimate recording that we've ever had (or may ever have in the future, since recording really isn't the main concern of a tribute act). He had the effects turned up super high on RS's voice (perhaps borderline too high) and it made RS sound like magic...like an entirely different person. I kept having to remind myself that I was listening to...well US...because it sounded so otherworldly, polished, and...ahem...professional.  

I can't say that it did the same for my little vocal bits, but that's probably just me not being able to listen to myself sing without wanting to vomit.  But it is worth remembering that the dry ass, bare-bones, shitty quality mic/PA combos (run by no one at all often) that I'm used to singing through probably do me no favors. Nor the shitty rooms. I'm no great singer...and I'm not trying to make excuses...but even the pros would probably sound a bunch worse under the performance conditions in which I find myself.

The Sadness...My Amp

So I bought an amp back in spring of 2011 that I thought was perfect. It was an Ampeg BA600 with a 1x15 inch speaker. 600 watts. 35 pounds. It had power, light weight, and a good brand name. It cost me $850. It was going to be my forever amp. It was my first quality equipment purchase.

Every so often, it has seemed like it would cut out, but I chalked it up to bad cables. Then, a rattling/buzzing started at high volume. I've tried to ignore it. I don't think it is under warranty anymore and even if it was, I can't bear the thought of shipping it somewhere.

I looked it up and it sounds like these amps, while Ampeg in name, were made by some other company and the quality control was poor. The screws inside the amps were not quality checked to the proper torque, so when you vibrate the air inside with 600 watts of power, the screws come loose and rattle. Some of them also have a problem with cutting out. It doesn't seem like there is a fix to either problem.

I'm sad, because I was trying to invest in quality equipment and it didn't work out. It sounds like what I'm looking for...high power and low weight...is just a pipe dream. Probably the best solution is a separate cabinet and amp head...and possibly to move to a 2 x 12 configuration instead of a 1x15 or 4x10 in order to save weight. And there's my nagging feeling that any good venue will just DI me anyway...so what is the fucking point of even having a good amp...essentially it is a monitor. Of course, it is true that I play in lots of venues that do not have sound systems that can accommodate a DI bass. Probably for those I can muddle through with what I have or wait to get a good deal.

It is true, though, that I think that bass is going to stick around for a good long time. It would be nice to have something I could rely on. Of course, having a reliable amp is also probably a pipe dream...there will always be speakers or tubes to blow...wires to break...fans to stop and over heat...drunks to spill and drop...and the ever-present threat of theft. All life is impermanence and that goes for music equipment too I guess.

A footnote...which is that, recent bad wire excepted...I have two basses that are easy to play and sound decent and one cost me $100 (w/ practice amp) and the other cost me $75 (w/ practice amp AND a free acoustic guitar thrown in). I fantasize about fancier instruments (or ones that match KiD's)...but the two that I have are really great players and I'm so lucky to have them.

How-To-Play-Bass dot Com

This guy has a pretty awesome site

Pedals and Board

I got all the pedals that I ordered. So I took out my homemade pedal board and I dug out a bag I found 6 months ago and thought "this would be a perfect bag for my pedal board" and set it all up with my new + old pedals with velcro and everything. I find it amusing that I have no brand loyalty...there's Digitech, Boss, Electro Harmonix, and Berhinger here:

To my horror, it turns out that I kinda LIKE the chorus. Yeah...I'm gonna become THAT person. Sigh.

I also think that I don't play loud enough as a rule to really get the full benefit of the BassBalls. It cuts in and out for me...which I think it because I don't use a pick and don't crank my amp up high. I read that it does better with strong sustained notes.

An Effect on Me

I bought two pedals this week.  A Electo-Harmix Bass Balls Nano and a DigiTech XBC Bass Multi-chorus. This on a whim after determining that my Zoom...while a neat toy...really doesn't function for a live performance situation. Or I don't know how to use it. Or both. But I tried and it made no sense to me and so fuck that noise. There are those that use multi-effects boards and those that use single effects pedals. I thought I was in neither camp...but for sure now I know that I'm not in the multi camp.  So I rewarded the last 6 weeks of hard work with new toys to assist in my brave new role as "lead" bass player in one of my bands.  We're not in Pixies territory anymore Toto.