The Bass Geek

The new IMN podcast is available for download - get it here or listen at the site.

I’m also jotting down notes in a new blog for the good For Dummies folks, so feel free to enjoy my musings over there as well.  There are some other notable blogs over there, like Bob LeVitus’s Dr. Mac blog.  The Wiley folks are moving a good deal of their instructional content online at Dummies.com, and I’m happy to be a part of it.

And now I’m going to get some sleep and try to avoid a head cold on a show weekend with a book deadline rapidly approaching.

Most notable about this night at Radio Radio was the packed house.  It’s a tough sell to get people out on a weeknight in Indianapolis once the temperature dips below freezing, but this band managed a big crowd on a otherwise unremarkable Tuesday.  Nice work.

The fact that the performance justified the crowd level was a bonus.  The Duke Spirit had an instant rapport with the audience despite the singer’s admission that they were wracked with some form of respiratory ailments, and they put on a high-energy show nonetheless.   Trashy, driving fun.

Also, I just found out that Dick Dickinson died Monday, and it’s a huge loss for the Indianapolis music community, jazz or otherwise.  The Chatterbox downtown will have a memorial show Wednesday, December 10th.

Yes, there is a certain amount of unnecessary anal-retentiveness that goes into making a store clerk demo four different models of tuners.  After all, it’s just a tuner - it just helps you tune your bass guitar.  It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) sit in your signal path, it doesn’t overtly affect your playing, and it’s certainly possible to live without one if you have a good reference tone and decent ears.  And I already own a pedal tuner - the new one is just to use for changing strings and quick tuning when I’m not using my pedalboard.  It’s tiny and fits in the gig bag.

And yet I went through the demo nonetheless, because as I kept looking at models, my requirements for the perfect tuner revealed themselves.

1. It has to be chromatic.  Tuners built specifically for bass or guitar are handy, but they’re useful only in those instances.  What if you have to help another instrument find a pitch that isn’t handled by those tuners?  As somebody who has played with bagpipes and sitar, I can vouch for this significance.  To be fair, the bagpipes never made it into the correct pitch in any case, but that wasn’t the fault of the tuner.
2. It has to have a line in.  It’s always better to tune in silence when possible, because you don’t want to annoy the audience with either sour notes or bad tuning jokes.  Especially the jokes.  Stop that.
3. It has to use easy-to-find batteries.  I passed on a couple models because they used watch batteries, and I just don’t have faith in finding them when emergency strikes.  AAA batteries fill me with more confidence, I guess.

So, $34.24 later, I have my tuner.  There’s no specific brand loyalty here - it’s just the one that fulfills these needs.  Hope it’s helpful to those looking to tune up.

And please, for God’s sake, tune first.

The American Cabaret Theater started the run of its country Christmas show this weekend to a decent crowd and reception, and it’s running through December 21st, I think.  I’m using the old P-bass on this one - it just seems the most appropriate instrument for this gig, and it’s working well for now.  I’m noticing a loose tone pot, though, so I may need to do some work on it soon.

The new amp is still in the shop, too.  No word on its availability, as of yet.  Hopefully it’s a quick fix, ’cause I’d like to be able to use it for . . .

The Playboy Psychonauts have a show coming up this Sunday at the Melody Inn for the Cocoanut Grove lounge night.  It’s all us, and it’s all new costumes and a few new songs.

I hate having all of this stuff coming up the week after a vacation - it feels like a car that’s suddenly taken off from zero to 60 in a half-second.  Did I mention there’s another Google book deadline next Monday?

The run-up to Thanksgiving inevitably means a flurry of activity, but today was a record, I think.  Amongst the various and sundry chores that pop up when you take an extra day off of work, I had to make an amp run to Uncle Albert’s this morning.  It has nothing to do with the Cursed Venue, but I have a new amp that requires a little work.  Other than a noisy preamp pot and a little associated static, this Trace Elliot 2×10 combo sounds fantastic, and between it and the Ampeg B15N, I think I’m good on amps for a nice, long time.  Here’s hoping I get it back soon - I’ve always liked the sound and compactness of a 2×10 combo, and I want to start using it ASAP.

Especially considering we’re in tech week for the ACT’s Country Christmas Cabaret, where my old amp will be residing for the next month or so.  Rehearsals have been going fairly easy, as the material isn’t that challenging, but there are still the little kicks and endings to hash out.

The holiday podcast is also ready following a rush job - recorded, edited and uploaded (well, uploading at the time of this writing) all in one day (with the appropriate attention to detail and quality, of course).  I’ve been playing with some of the compression and effects settings to hopefully make the podcast sound even better.  Now that I’m submitting WAV files to the radio station, there’s a little more room to enhance the sound quality.

And, just in time for the air travel, my music and tech magazine subscriptions flowed in en masse today.  I am ready for the travel.  Everything’s coming up Bass Geek!