The Bass Geek

I spent most of the day Saturday installing new locks on the house - not that the old locks were bad per se, but my lovely wife bought some electronic deadbolts with the spiffy new keypads. See, now I can’t lock myself out of the house anymore (twice since we moved in). It was okay when security was around to let me into my apartment, but the locksmith is more expensive and a little farther away now.

These locks run on 9-volt batteries, so I did what most enterprising young musicians would do when faced with a need for the little square givers of electronic life. I raided the gig bag. By the way, it’s a sure sign of domesticity when your gig bag becomes your primary tool kit. It isn’t that I’m overpacking the gig bag, though. That bag could be a savior at a show when your gear (or soomebody else’s) breaks down. It’s a good thing I checked, too - the batteries in the bag were dead, and I ended up having to run to the hardware store anyway. Better then than at the show, even if I did have to extract my car from the snow to do so.

Anyway, if any of the readers of the bass book are checking this out, here’s what’s in the gig bag at any time:

• Multitool, like a Leatherman® or something
• Screwdriver, ’cause I hate the screwdrivers on the multitools
• Extra set of strings
• Polish cloth for bass body and neck
• Polish cloth for strings
• All necessary cables for gig
• Backup cables for the necessary cables
• The 9-volt batteries I had to replace
• Spare tuner
• Bass DI (in case the amp goes or they need a PA feed
• Spare fuses for amp
• Electrical tape
• Sharpies (Silver and Black
• Business Cards
• Flashlight
• Kazoo (once used for a solo and kept around just in case since then)

A good gig bag will help you out of a lot of jams, and it’s handy around the house when domesticity ensues. Just make sure to test the batteries and make sure everything gets returned.

There’s a new IMN podcast up, and it’s the time of the year where we’re talking a lot about holiday shows. There’s an abundance of dancing Santas and Sandi Patti every year courtesy of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and it’s truly . . . a sight to behold. I witnessed it as part of a corporate outing a few years ago, and the only moment I recall vividly is the slack-jawed amazement I felt when that line of Santas did it up right. It was an awesomely disturbing event.

We usually get a visit from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (they of the orchestral-metal holiday music that everybody syncs their X-mas lights to) every year as well, and they made the upper part of the list this week. We looked up the lineup during the podcast to verify that Alex Skolnick (Testament) was still a member. He was, and that was just the tip of the iceburg. I found heavy metal violinist Mark Wood lurking in the wings as well; he’s the only man I’ve ever seen perform a metal-laced medley of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Stand/I Want To Take You Higher” on a DOUBLE-NECKED electric violin. You’ve also got most of the members of Savatage, a drummer from Metal Church, Kitaro(!)’s guitarist, and Al Pitrelli, a guitarist who’s played with everybody from Michael Bolton to Megadeth.

I can’t help but think this was a brilliant career move for them - the bands drew a decent audience, but this thing is a huge seller all around the nation. Nice work. And it doesn’t involve Michael Bolton, which is also a huge bonus. It may be holiday cheese, but it has to be better than tap-dancing in red velvet.

And I wanna see a double-necked electric violin, dammit.

It should be a hard and fast rule for every player.  Always keep an extra set of strings in your gig bag or case, no matter what.  No matter how expensive bass strings can be (up to $75 in most cases for bass guitars, much higher for uprights), you should always keep a set at the ready, and maybe more at home just in case.  I went ahead and splurged on some extra sets - partly because there’s a new bass in the stable, and partly because I have to change the strings on the Jazz bass more often to keep things functional on the MIDI side.  With the new Reason program, I want to program some new sounds into the Playboy Psychonauts set, and that means making sure the notes translate well through the MIDI pickup.  The brightness of the new set is the biggest difference-maker in that department, and I just like the sound of them.  Conversely, I’ve kept the same set on the fretless for a couple years or so because I like the duller, thumpy sound they make.  Strings are a huge part of the sound, and even at $75 they’re a lot cheaper, even in the long run, than the $8000 amp I just saw reviewed in Bass Player this month.

Also, I got just around to watching the “special event” of “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” last night after a few days’ delay.  It was decent, but I wonder if new episodes in March are still on the horizon given the writers’ strike.  I’m probably obligated by my AFM membership to support the writers in this case, but I’d come down on that side anyway. Just because the studios don’t (allegedly) make money on Internet content yet doesn’t mean the creative types shouldn’t be reimbursed for their efforts in making that profit to happen.  Here’s to a swift and lucrative resolution.

Finally, anybody know where I can find a Cylon bass guitar?

I’d like to thank the good folks at Propellerheads (creators of Reason) for posting some extensive documentation on their website. The challenge of finding the instructions I needed in a 400+ page PDF more than outweighed the cost I would have incurred by putting my fist through a laptop screen. I’m still a little irritated at the workflow to edit clips in the sequencer, but I suspect that it’s the newness of the procedure, and that learning the keyboard shortcuts might be in order.

Even the image of a punched laptop is making me sad. That tells me two things - first, that I’m thankful it never happened, and second, that I need a small vacation.

Part of the idea I had for this site when I created it was to give me enough space to record bass tracks for folks from files they sent electronically and post them for FTP. I’ve done this a couple times with decent results, but I’m also noticing that services are popping up that handle this kind of thing, too. To wit, I’ve signed up on eSessions to see what’s doing over there. Basically, they act as a middleman to connect those organizing recordings and the players. There’s a little real-time collaboration, but most of it is based off of taking the files and recording them at your own facilities on your schedule. Which is pretty damn handy, ’cause it gives you easier access to players like Tony Levin.

It also means that, at least theoretically, I’m up for gigs against Tony Levin, and I know who wins that battle every frickin’ time.

But if you’re looking for cheaper tracks from somebody slightly lower on the low end’s evolutionary scale, lemme know.