MrAnderson

I don't mean musically, I'm not judging him on that, but from what I can see he is charging people for specific lessons on 'effortless mastery', which I can't see any other credentials for other than reading a book...

Except any competent teacher will have likely spent several years training in their chosen field...would you take foreign language lessons from someone whose only experience was reading a couple of phrase books? There are plenty of bad instrumental teachers out there ripping people off already, now bedroom psychologists are at it too...oh dear.

Whether the concept is bullshit or not, what qualifies you to teach psychology? Also, I can't see the author being too pleased with you making money from his ideas...

One of my mates was at Thainstone mart sometime last year, and found some woman flogging a bunch of her son's gear, as he was away studying...she had his H4 still packaged, but didn't know what it was and sold it to my friend it for a fiver...I bet he was chuffed to hear that one!

Yeah totally, it's got a couple of XLR inputs too but even just with the stereo mic you can get a half-decent sound...know what you mean, very useful to have

I try to avoid putting people in that situation by only adding people who have actually been to our gigs in the past! I do think Facebook is useful for promoting stuff to people you already know, whereas MySpace is more accessible for general use...although creating band pages seems fairly user-unfriendly.

Good buy dude, I got the H4 a couple of years ago and haven't used it to its full potential yet, but it's a good wee piece of kit...works really well for recording instrumental stuff.

Silver City Soul Revue | Facebook

Same, I've had a Yahoo mail account for years that I can't be arsed keeping tidy anymore. I just use it now for things that I know will probably attract more spam, and use my uni account for important stuff.

Same ratio as us then...that's still 2-1 in favour of guys though eh!

We've always had females playing with us (soul situation/silver city soul revue), used to be 2 girls doing vocals, now it's one girl on vocs, one on trumpet and one on trombone, and we're in there at least once a week

I thought the same at first, but it's still there if you click 'friends' on the left-hand menu, then 'status updates' just below it. Now please excuse my rather pathetic intrusion into this thread

We recorded these 7 tracks in 8hrs total recording time; Soul Situation on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads (about 3.5 hrs for setup + recording of rhythm section, 2hrs for vocs, 2hrs for horns), and he did all the mixing separately...cost us 125, we were pretty happy with the quality.

don't think they're too keen, sorry dude!

Lol, would +rep for this if I could...!

I'm the same dude, got a big pile of old strings packed back into sleeves and cardboard packets...not so bad now that I'm using flatwounds and don't change so often, but I'm unlikely to ever use any of the old ones! I share your logic for keeping them, even if bass-string breakages are fairly rare

Ben was awesome, shame to see him go! Good luck Charlie...

have some mates who may be interested, will check with them today and let you know!

Those crazy young'uns, huh! Awesome stuff...

Yeah, meant to also say it's down personal preference really, but as you say dropping the thumb onto the lower strings is an effective mute too and saves stretching fingers I picked it up from Peter Stewart who only taught me for a year at college but I learnt a lot...I think Chuck Rainey's tutor book has a similar right hand method. The falling/raking thing is fairly common Rass, just take things a bit slower and be in control of your fingers, if you stick at it you'll find it comes naturally after a while!

As droid says, co-ordination is key...slow scales will help with this. Try to alternate index-middle at all times, including when crossing strings. Personally I would advise against gluing your thumb to the pickup like a lot of players; there are different methods but I try to use a 'floating thumb'. Resting your thumb gently on the string below that which you are playing on, ie when playing the A string rest your thumb on the E, and let it move up and down strings in synch with your fingers. Your fingers take a c.45degree angle across the strings. This allows a more relaxed hand position, as you avoid arching your wrist, and your arm is fairly straight; the action of your fingers is also consistent for each string. Hope this makes sense some sense! Be patient and persistent, it'll pay off

with such a valuable contribution to the thread, is it even worth asking him to elaborate?

Cool, will give the Labellas a try...btw, if you guys think these are expensive, decent upright bass strings start at 120+ per set! Ouch...

I go with the Rotosounds, they do have a high tension but they work for me. Sound good and feel smooth. As mentioned, they also keep a good sound for far longer.

Hey Ewan, I might take just the amp off you, needing a new practise amp. Was it working ok when you last played it then? If I could have a quick shot with it beforehand that would be good. Cheers, Alan