Compliments on bass sound

[jazzyvee]

I had a large outdoor festival gig with Musical Youth where we were headline act for closing Saturday night. I decided to take my series II europa and  my bass rig. The gig went great and from the stage the bass sound was glorious. As i was packing down, two guys from the PA company came over and told me that the bass sound out front was incredible, deep clear and powerful was one description, and the other guy described it as awesome.  I have to give that credit to the team who made the bass. I don't usually take that bass to reggae gigs but it certainly did the job an may just get to the festival gig on Friday.

[rv_bass]

As your signature says, “ The sound of Alembic is medicine for the soul!” 

[pauldo]

😀

[edwardofhuncote]

I'll cheer for the home team too, but don't sell yourself short, Jazzy... there would not have been any such compliments from soundcrew (or anybody else) had I been depping for you on that gig... it all starts with the player. Having the greatest bass on the planet to work with just seals the deal. 

[jazzyvee]

We all played really well on that gig myself included but yeah having an incredible bass and rig that can handle it behind me helps.

[jazzyvee]

Just got home from a festival gig. Just as I was putting my gear away, the bass player from the following band came over to me and wanted to have a look at my bass. He recognised it was an Alembic europa and also that it different controls, a narrower neck and string spacing which he would prefer if he had one.
Also he was really complimentary about my playing and the sound he said was really clear and ..... wait for it he said the tone sounded a lot like that guy who played alembic bass with Allan Holdsworth!!!!

Be that as it may, i graciously accepted his compliment whilst in my mind wondering if Jimmy J was ever playing anything with a reggae vibe with Allan Holdsworth.
Then after I got backstage, one of the members of another band who played earlier also complimented my playing.


I personally don't take compliments well especially if I know the gig has not gone as well as it should. But we were bang on the money tonight and so getting compliments from two other musos was pretty cool.
All in all it was a nice end to a long day and a good gig.

[JimmyJ]

Good story jazzyvee.  Glad you had a great show. 

I find it's always best to be gracious to post-gig compliments, no matter how you think it went.  If it meant enough to them that they would come up and say something then "thanks a lot, I'm glad you enjoyed it" is the best answer.  You don't want to disagree and say "are you kidding? that was a terrible set". HAH!

Holdsworth raggae vibe?  I'd have to say no.  Other than a moment or two during a group ad lib (which was always fun) very little of his music ever sat still long enough to really get into a deep groove. 

I think what happened at your gig was that this guy knew Alembics, knew some Holdsworth music had Alembic bass, and put two and two together when he heard your giant tone!  He recognized that "clear" bass sound despite the different musical genre - which is pretty cool actually!  Nice observation.

Cheers!
Jimmy J

[jazzyvee]

Agreed. 

[pauldo]