The blog of Ryan Billingsley
- Show Wrap Up
Tyler Bender played at Spin this past weekend and it was interesting.
First, parking in Broad Ripple is ridiculous. I had to park at my buddies office which was like three blocks away from the venue. I knew Broad Ripple was the place to be, but there is no where to park. All of the parking lots have been converted into pay lots, which is a joke.
The next hurdle was Tyler being sick… again. He takes too much hippy meds and claims they work. Apparently he was on something stronger this time around. We started doing our soundcheck and he decided he needed to get some change so he walked off. During the soundcheck. This is bad. Fortunately he showed up right at the end of our run-through song.
Now, if you don’t know Spin, then let me try and describe it. Spin was formerly the Patio. I never went to it in it’s former incarnation, so I can’t say how it has changed. It isn’t a very large club and feels like it is maybe half the size of Birdy’s. Being a small club, it is loud. It is loud on stage, it is loud off-stage. Spin has more monitors on stage than any stage I have seen so far, and unnecessarily so. Four monitors spaced out would have been fine.
Another problem with a small stage is being crammed next to Brian, our drummer. All I heard besides myself was a crash symbol echoing in my ear the whole night. I definitely need to invest in some good ear plugs or I will be deaf by 30. No matter how many monitors there are, if you can’t space yourself out, there is no change to hear anything. Fortunately, as a bassist, I heard what I needed to hear and trusted that the rest of the band was in the same place with me.
Fortunately, I don’t think most of the people coming out to these shows are super critical about the sound and just enjoy hearing music and doing some drinking. Overall, it was a good show from what I heard. We stayed for a couple songs from The Randies and they were a lot of fun to listen to.
Tyler Bender will be at Birdy’s this Friday so come on out. You can see videos of the Spin show on Facebook, add Tyler Bender as a friend to see them and all of our videos from previous shows.
- The first modification
I realized last week that I have had my current bass for something like six years now. I bought my NS2000/5 from Mars Music, when there still was a Mars Music, while working there in high school. It was a huge step up for me. My first bass was a Dean that cost $130 dollars and was a gift from my parents. It stayed my only bass for several years until I received a Squire P and J for my birthday. The Squire was great and I couldn’t afford anything else, so I stuck with it for a while.
Then I got a job at Mars, working as a guitar salesman. I was surrounded by basses constantly. Everyday, when it was slow, I would pick up a different bass and start playing it through some rig that was beyond anything I could afford. Then one day, we started carrying Stuart Spector basses. I was blown away with the look of the bass as well as the neck through construction which, to me at the time, was synonymous with expensive basses. The best part was that the price was something attainable by a high schooler working part time at a guitar store. The discount we got definitely helped, but I still couldn’t afford to buy it outright, so instead I put a red quilted maple topped NS2000/5 in layaway and proceeded to use paycheck after paycheck to pay it off.
I distinctly remember the day it finally became mine. I was nervous as can be. The whole time, I hadn’t bothered to tell my parents that I had just purchased a $600 bass guitar. I brought the bass home and hide it under my bed, trying to think how I could break it to them. I finally pulled it out and showed it to them and let them know that it was mine, but I was serious about playing bass and therefore needed a serious instrument. They surprisingly didn’t give me any grief about it and that was that.
After realizing how long I have had this bass which still serves as my war horse, I knew it was time to make some upgrades. I have always been wary about changing anything on my bass because it is the only playable one I have at the moment and I can’t afford to not have a bass. However, I tear into my car all the time and it is worth 10 times as much as my bass and it is about as important, being the only car I have, so I threw caution to the wind and took on a small but important project.
The project was two fold. First, I was going to upgrade the shielding in the electronics cavity and add shielding to the pickup cavities. I found a really informative tutorial on TalkBass by Lyle Caldwell about shielding and grounding your bass system. I ordered the copper tape to line the cavities from Stewart-MacDonald. I started by removing the strings, then took everything out of the cavity. This involved pulling out the trusty soldering iron in order to free the pickups from the pots.
I was disappointed to say the least to see how the pickups were connected. Instead of having a lead and a ground coming from the pickup, the lead was covered with a shielding cable that was soldered to a pot and then the lead was solder to a terminal on the pot. This made me change my whole grounding plan and have to wire the system the same as it was before. After getting the pickups free and removing them from the bass, I started taping.
In Lyle’s tutorial, he was shielding a Jazz bass which looks to be a much easier job than shielding my Spector. First, my cavity is huge. It also has a lot of weird angles and corners that made the whole process a little tricky. Spector also did a terrible job making the cavity. There was a whole wall that had not been sanded. The bottom was very rough with little peaks rising from the shielding paint they had put down. Again, I was less than happy about this. I pulled out some sandpaper to smooth out the wall and worked on the floor of the cavity as well as both floors of the pickups which had the same small peaks.
I then applied tape to the floor, working it in however I could. After that I started working on the walls. I made sure to smooth the tape as well as I could. Finally I covered the entire lip with tape which would meet with the cavity cover to complete the shield. After finishing the cavity, I worked on the two pickups including the tunnels from each pickup to the cavity. After several hours of work, I was finally done with the shielding process.
For my first time attempting anything with the bass, I was pretty happy with my work. The next time I do this, I will probably put some more work into prepping the cavities and also try and use less tape. It was much easier with this bass to do small areas at a time than to try and use one long sheet of tape.
The final part of the project was changing the system over to an 18 volt circuit. I soldered in another battery snap in series to boost the power of the system. I then connected everything again and installed the pots and pickups, completing the job.
I was able to try it out last Wednesday and I didn’t really notice a huge difference but that was my expectation. The project was more to gain experience working on the bass and getting comfortable with how everything is wired. I actually had a problem with wanting to ground out so something might be loose in there. I have to open it up and see what is going on. I know the shield is grounded properly because I checked it with a voltameter.
Regardless, it was fun to work on the bass. My next project will be replacing the tuners on the bass because the D tuner lost its bushing. I still need to figure out what tuners I want to go with, and find money to do it, so that isn’t a priority at this point.
- The Romantic Warrior
This past weekend I had opportunity to see Return To Forever play at the Murat Theatre as part of their 2008 reunion tour. It was, quite simply, one of the best concerts I have ever seen.
Return To Forever hasn’t played as a group for 25 years, which means during their hay day I wasn’t even living. However, thanks to my dad, who has introduced me to so many great artists from the 70’s including Mahavishnu Orchestra, King Crimson, Weather Report, Jaco Pastorious, etc., I was very familiar with the RTF catalog. We even went and saw Al Di Meola when he came to the Music Mill. This concert was only partly about seeing the group back together and rocking; this was my first opportunity to see one of the greatest bass players ever.
Stanley Clarke is a bass players bass player. Victor Wooten is amazing and a real showmen doing things that leave people asking “Is that even possible?” but a lot of it is flash. Stanley Clarke really draws out everything from whatever instrument he plays. He is a master of both the electric and the upright. He has unparalleled versatility when it comes to playing styles. He can lay down a blistering slap assault or play a super smooth melodic chord heavy line. Either way, he is stunning.
What really set this concert was the second act of the show. The group return to their roots and did an acoustic set. During the course of which, they each had a feature solo, each artist commanding his instrument, alone on the stage. Lenny White’s solo was interesting, but you had to be a drummer to get it. Chick proceeded to use a mallet to hit the piano strings with one hand, while playing with the other, apparently he is so amazingly good that traditional playing just doesn’t do it for him anymore. Al Di Meola is so fast, you need a high speed camera to capture all that he is doing. His solo on a classical guitar is the best guitar playing I have ever seen, and it will be almost impossible to top.
What Stanley did on his upright was mesmerizing. I think for most people, anytime you witness someone who is a true master of what they do, whether it is a painter or a soccer player, seeing someone who has such a deep understanding of how their skill works and being able to really utilize everything they can from it leaves you in awe. That is how good Stanley is. He made the instrument sing so effortlessly producing this amazing growl then retreating back to a subtle vibrato, it was incredible.
Seeing Return to Forever does what I think every concert should do; make you want to be a better musician. I know I will never be as good as Stanley Clarke, and I am ok with that. I just want to be able to play one of his solos or have some understanding about how he does what he does. Seeing him play makes me want to go home, grab my bass, and start practicing scales and putting chords under my fingers in hopes that one day I will be able to play the solo from ‘After the Cosmic Rain’
Tour Preview
- G.A.S.
If you are a musician, then you either have G.A.S. or you know someone who does. For those who don’t know, G.A.S. is a chronic disease that has plagued the music world for decades. It targets the wallet specifically. G.A.S., or Gear Acquisition Syndrome, can only be cured by, you guessed it, acquiring more gear.
I have been able to keep my G.A.S. under control for the past couple of years, but once I started playing more at church and now playing gigs with Tyler Bender, I needed a change. Previously I was playing through a Carvin R1000 powering a Carvin RL410 and a Carvin RL115. The head provided a lot of power, but lacked any distinctiveness in its tone. I wanted something with some character. The 4X10 and 15 did basically the same thing, high power handling but no personality. They could be any ol’ cabinet.
I sold the rig to my brother-in-law and set out to find some new gear. I am not at a point where I can start going after some of “dream” quality gear, such as a 70’s Ampeg SVT head or an Orange head, because I just don’t have that kind of money. I wanted to find something that would add something to the sound but be somewhat affordable (i.e. Used) and also be lighter than my previous setup, which I couldn’t even fit into my car.
I ended up with a GK 700 RB II powering an Avatar B210 Neo. Even though it was a small rig, it had a lot to offer. It sounded fantastic but was still light and easy to move around. It worked really well for playing at church giving me a much better reference to go off of compared to the monitoring from the Avioms we use. However, as soon as I got asked to play a show with Tyler Bender, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to cut through the drums and a Vox AC30 on stage. I ended up borrowing the previously sold 4X10 from my brother-in-law and it served it’s purpose but still wasn’t what I was looking for.
It took several months for me to finally find the cabinet I wanted to complete the rig. I picked up an Avatar Delta 212. Ideally, I wanted a Neo 212 but the price on the cabinet made it worth it and the option to go the Neo route later is still there. The cabinet provides some incredible bottom end that really fills out my sound. Where the 210 and 410 provided a lot of punch, there was nothing to really support the E and B string. The 212 is fantastic in the low range. During the first outing with the cabinet, I could finally feel my sound through my feet as it resonated throughout the stage. It was fantastic and really helped improve my playing during the show.
I now am very happy with the head and cabinet combination I have. Sadly, G.A.S. has no permanent cure and I can already feel a bout of it coming on. I have no effects, not even a good tuner, so might be time to pick up a rack and some nice effects to compliment the current rig.
- Playing for the masses
If you have been reading this blog, and just let me say thank you so much, you know I have had some shows with Training Wheel Fire which then became, simply, Tyler Bender. Well I am thrilled to say that I am now the permanent bassist for Tyler Bender. The bass player I was filling in for had to many commitments and bowed out leaving the gig to me.
I have already had the opportunity to start crafting my own lines, which is really exciting, yet challenging for me. If you made it out to the Birdy’s show you got to hear the two new songs which featured those lines. If you didn’t, check out the videos.
The band is made up of some quality players and some great guys. Jon, on lead guitar, has been a good friend of mine since I was in high school and was the reason I got to play with Tyler in the first place. Tyler is a gifted song writer and a great singer and has some killer stage presence. Brian is a bass players dream when it comes to drummers. He has great time and doesn’t overplay but grooves which makes writing bass parts even easier. Andy is like the swiss army knife of the band, playing rhythm guitar, keys, and singing backup vocals. There is a great vibe throughout the group both musically and off-stage.
I encourage everyone to check out the MySpace page and listen to some of the music, and keep an eye out here for upcoming shows.
If you are interested in getting a copy of the recently released “Chicago Sessions” leave a comment or shoot me an email and I will get one to you.
- It has been too long…
Ok so I did my usual drop off the face of the blogging earth thing and haven’t posted in a long time, but a lot has been going on. Big news today, more to follow.
First things first, I am finished with college. After a long sting, spanning two schools and three different majors, I finally wrapped it up and I now have a nice diploma from Indiana University sitting on my next. For me, college has been a struggle.I went to the wrong school for the wrong reasons initially and it ended up costing me a lot. When I was first deciding what I was going to do with my life, I had my heart set on being a music engineer. I thought it would be great to record different musicians while still indulging my desire for all things technical. There were a couple of programs here in Indiana that were solid programs.
As a nice coincidence, my two best friends, and band mates, were going to go to Ball State, which just happened to have a good Music Engineering program that was going to only get better with a new building and more resources. However, my dream was soon crushed when I found out that you had to audition to get into the music program. I had long given up on playing alto saxophone, and was never that good to begin with, and electric bass guitar wasn’t on the list of acceptable instruments. So I ended doing a year as a Computer Science major and hated it. I hated the math. The monotony. It didn’t excite me creatively at the time and a change had to come. So I became a Political Science major, largely because I thought it looked cool on The West Wing, which I was an avid fan. I learned quickly that poli-sci was not for me either. So, with terrible grades, and no idea what I was going to do with my life, I left Ball State and transferred to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
My roommate and drummer was transferring there and told me about their new program they had started called New Media. They had a Digital Video and Sound Production program and there was no audition requirement, so I went with the intention of picking up my dream once more, but it wasn’t to be. Instead I fell for video editing and that remained true through graduation.
One thing that did remain constant through this whole process was music. Even though I had given up on music engineering, I never gave up playing bass. There was a long stint where I wasn’t playing with anyone and would only occasionally plug in my bass but I still did. That was the best decision I have made in the past six years. Playing challenged my creatively and provided an outlet to express myself in a way nothing else could. It is truly a blessing from God that I am incredibly thankful for.
With that phase of my life complete, I get to take a breather, continuing working at the same job I have been at and get some time to focus on different creative pursuits of mine. More about that tomorrow.
- Radio Radio
Last night I played at show at Radio Radio located in the heart of Fountain Square. The show went really well and I had a great time.
First, I have to thank Jon for putting my name out there to fill in on bass and Tyler actually having me come play. Radio Radio is a great place and I would love to play there again if I could. It is night and day from my last show at Doc’s up in Muncie. I will say, though, it is a small stage. Rude Buddah had their stuff up on stage and then we were setup in front of that, so it made for a tight squeeze. Part of that is also the fact that we have five guys on stage, so no matter where we play there isn’t any walking room.
I think I played my best last night, show or rehearsal. I didn’t miss any notes, felt confident, it was great. I did have to glance at my notes once or twice but I would rather get it right than not remember what to play. I could have been a little less conspicuous about having them up there, but oh well.
If you didn’t get to make it out, please go check out http://www.myspace.com/tylerbender and have a listen. There are also some videos on there, and there might be some new ones soon, I am not sure.
Pictures (click image for larger view):
- you. me. chicago. august 1-3.
Anna and I have launched a campaign, to recruit as many people as we can to go to Lollapalooza this year. The three headliners are Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, and Nine Inch Nails, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. This could be one of the best festivals to ever grace the Midwest. If you are in, post up in the comments.
- Post Gig Wrap Up
Well this past Friday I got to play my first gig in a long time. I think the last time I had a gig was when I was in my second year at Ball State. Our short lived career back then consisted of two shows and neither one went well. This time however, the band was well rehearsed and made up of some great musicians.
Oddly enough, my return to playing out happen to occur in Muncie of all places, the home of Ball State. I took the guys to a certain chinese buffet I frequented during my two years there. We had a good time questioning all the food that we saw or ate. Apparently this particular restaurant had been fined for fishing out of the White River.
After that we went to the venue which was more or less what I would expect. Not exceptionally nice, but not a total dive. We got our gear in, got setup, said hi to some people who had come out to support us and then we waited. We waited for an hour for the sound guy to show up.
It was fine for the first fifteen minutes, we just talked to people, Doc’s provided the band with free beer all night, which was nice. Then another fifteen minutes past and we started to get annoyed. The sound guy still hadn’t shown up. The manager had started pulling some stuff out but had no idea how to set things up. Then someone, who didn’t work there, volunteered to set everything up. While it was a nice gesture, he had no idea what he was doing. So then the lead singer and frontman for the band, Tyler, asked his roommate who is an audio technician to see if he could lend his services. Even though his roommate, Andy, knew what he was doing, it is almost impossible to be thrown into some else’s system and know where everything is being run, let alone know where they keep the mics. So for another half an hour, they tried to get something going, no avail.
Finally, an hour later, when we should have been packing up and Cory Hill should have been going on, the sound guy finally showed up. He scurried to get everything setup, fix what the other guy did, and then do a sound check. We played through our set as best we could, but it was difficult to say the least. They had three floor monitors, two side by side and one for the drummer. We might as well have had no monitors. The sound coming out was horrible and way too loud. If you weren’t right in front of one of them then you heard nothing at all, which was my experience. Our drummer smashed his hand early in the set and was flinging blood all over his kit the whole time. We missed cues because we couldn’t here each other. It was interesting.
Despite all of that though, we played pretty well and people said the music was good, but the sound was horrible. The sound guy obviously didn’t know what he was doing and wasn’t monitoring the mix at all. Andy had to come and give us some feedback on what we could do on stage to try and fix it, but there was only so much we could do.
We packed up our stuff and then headed home. I get in my door at 2:00 AM that morning. Even though the whole sound situation was really bad, the band said it was the worst they had experienced, I still had a great time and wish I could do it more often. There is something about playing in front of people that is rewarding and desirable. I get to moonlight with Tyler Bender and Training Wheel Fire again in May, and I look forward to it.
Finally, your Arrested Development for the day…
- Doc’s in Muncie
This is just a reminder that I will be playing with Tyler Bender at Doc’s in Muncie, Indiana, tomorrow at 10:00 PM. If you are around, come on out. Should be a good time.
Also, I slacked on my Arrested Development a day, but I am back on it. So here is Episode 2. Just a quick note, the clip here is just a portion of the episode but you can watch the whole thing once it has finished.
