So, I did something bad today. Had a fling with an old flame. (Yamy TRBX304). My Schecter found out and was mad. “You even played LEAD!!!???”. I was like “ Baby, it didn’t mean nothing, you know you are the only one I would record with or take on stage!” Unfortunately there was video evidence, and I got caught.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zNVnQ9QhQup0qvGN5krHyMnLv3B74ybz/view?usp=drivesdk
@howard brought out the Yamy because of you, this is all your fault!
hahaha awesome 
I love seeing your videos @kerushlow and @LesterH also as much as I enjoy the actual sound I also love seeing the visual part of everyone playing. The rigs, the basses, the setups both hand movements.
I am at the point that I am really paying attention to fretting hand and trying to get less movements and more smoothness. Helps greatly in this time of covid and not seeing live bands to see close ups of everyone playing.
Probably hashed out someplace else as I know there are a few ‘how to record’ threads but I am curious to audio and video setup for each of you? Are you interfacing and synching the video or just straight recording live through a mic?
Great slap tone you’re getting out of the TRBX by the way. Love the A string tone in particular. Nice use of the looper too.
All of my video ones are literally just my phone mic and my default video dep camera on the phone. Plugged into my rumble 40, and that is all coming right out of the rumble 40. Use a Zoom B3n pedal for looper, drums and an affect (think Im just using a compressor on most of it). Save the big boy amp I got for band practice and shows. Thanks, glad they are helpful in some way, even if it’s just my musings!
This one is through a DAW and Audiobox. I like a Presonus. It was $150, for the box headphones and cable when all said and done. Recordings come out better but I’m also still new to doing it myself and learning.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cPgOpv4CdHs_dEckDHhkjq28wfjBJRMX/view?usp=drivesdk
Thanks. Yup the switch was on the slap setting and had some compression on the pedal. It’s a nice bass, very playable, lots of tones.
It looks simple when you are playing it cuz you are so relaxed and confident in your playing. It looks hard AF if I was to try it at this point. 
Yup. It isn’t easy. Having some guitar experience helps, but the hard part about learning guitar is quickly switching between chords.
Yeah, I have some guitar experience, but it is 20 plus years old, so I don’t know how much a help it will be. Expecially since I was never really good on guitar. not a lead guy, and played MOSTLY power chord riffs in trash / punk cover band with a few of our own shitty, really shitty songs. LOL
I was never great with guitar chords.
My fingers, on my fretting hand, having ben broken a few times, and one time, in. a car wrek, they broke in a way that needed a certain setting to heal. But MY, the unruly patient getting kicked out of the ICU for throwing things at nurses, cursing them out, ripping things out of me everytime they put them in, and. leading to the final straw, when I pushed a million dollar heart monitor, like the hospitals prized possession. the newest machine that goes “BING”, and I tore out whatever lines were in me and pushed it across the room.
During this time, I tore off seeveral plaster cast settings they made with finger splints, and they ended up tying my arms to the bed, and using an ace wrap to hold the finger splints.
I don’t recall ANY of this, it is all pieced together thru the stories I havee been told by friends and family.
I talked about it in another thread
Where the only time in about 4 days that I remember vividly was me in the ICU, hands tied to the bed, hitting my wrist against the railing over and over trying to pop the clips off the ace bandage so I could unravel it and get it off.
I have no idea why I was so determined to get it off, and looking back, I really wish I did not do that, cuz my fretting hand fingers might be so much better today then they are. I have my middle finger bends into and tries to cross over my ring finger that also bends towards the middle finger.
It is not like it makes things impossible (for the most part, some chord stretches, I would literally need to position my fingers over the correct frets with my plucking hand, then play that cord.
So some of these bass cords frighten me (not really, but I know my limits), and if I come across some that I just can’t do (without re-breaking my fingers and re-setting them) I will figure a work around. beauty in music, there are many ways to create beautiful music, and one chord will not kill it all. and there are ways to FUDGE a chord or note if you need to .
But
Playing guitar really did help me get thru B2B quickly where I don’t feel like I missed anything, and I really enjoyed it, but because I knew plucking and fretting and had experience with an instrument, I was able to focus on the music theory, and each lesson behind each module and song. all that was great, and when it came time to do the workouts, slow med and fast, I found that I was able to do most of them from the beginning.
I will admit, I had to go back at the end and do Billy Jean on Fast during the final test. the first time thru, I could do slow, and pretty much make it thru medium, but I got tripped up during the string progression, moving up and back down on the fast one first time thru. But that was like day 3 or 4 of the B2B course for me (like i said, I did it quick. covid hit, my daughter was in the hospital fighting for her life, and I could not visit, and I had some of my own deacons I was fighting thru, so B2B was a life saver, and I almost felt like playing it 24/7 and let all my problems fall by the wayside.
But what I am getting at, is if I didn’t play guitar all those many years ago, I would have not gotten thru the first 3 modules in a week.
I learned most of my guitar by playing with others, one on one, and watching what they were doing, and then doing it with them, just like, yep, just like @JoshFossgreen does in B2B, so the learning style was spot on for me. And IDK, it just felt like a natural progression in my life and timing was right, and my past experrience paid off.
am I anywhere near complete, or the bass player (musician) I want to be, no, but I know B2B gave me a huge boost on the way to get there.
It is a really good program, and I love how it is structured. My journey has been unstructured and I arrived where I am haphazardly. Having a program like B2B would have given me a much stronger platform to launch from. Rough all the medical stuff you went through, but again I admire your will. Lots of people would just give up, but you are pushing forward and finding a way even if it’s an obstacle not everyone has to get around. With that mindset there is no way you won’t reach what you set out to accomplish on bass!
@T_dub thank you but You could do it. Half of it is just believing you can
Yeah, medical stuff is nothing new to me, it just sucks and hurts more the older you get.
I blew my right knee out when I was 10, and that was my 3rd trip to the ER
1st, I was riding a trike sort of toy when I was maybe 3, but I was trying to ride it like a skateboard, or a razor type thing, but we did not have those back in 1975. I went over the handle bard (rag doll) and knocked out my two front teeth, thank god they were baby teeth.
2nd, I was 4, it was the Bicentennial, 1976. I was riding my plastic fantastic skateboard out front in the townhome track we lived. in front of our house was the basketball court. a cement court with one hoop on one end, we played lots of 1/2 court there over the years mostly 82 thru 90.
But I was out there trying to go off jumps other neighbor kids made.
A 4 x 4 and a pc of 3/4 plywood. no nails, just laying atop one and other.
It was a miracle that I made it up the plywood with those cheap hard plastic wheels, but I rolled right to the top, hooked the front end of the board over the end of the ramp, which stopped any momentum I had on the board, transfering it to me, and I landed totally on my right hand / wrist. my whole 4 year old body weight on that wrist.
It snapped in 2. not just a fracture, snapped in two. (thats the plucking hand tho, so who cares right). there was a fire cheif that lived in one of the units facing the basketball court, and my screams and wailes brought him running.
He grabbed some magazines, rolled them up, stuck my arm into it to support the hand and keep it from flopping all over, further damaging any ligaments, tendons, bones, flesh, etc…
Rushed to the ER for the 2nd time in my life. He probably saved my hand, I am forever grateful to that man, John Perry, the fireman
10 years old, blew it out playing soccer. long story I won’t go into as to why this happened, but I was running and did a slide tackle, to poke the ball away from the forward that was rushing my goalie.
He tripped and landed his 10 year old body weight on my leg and hyperextended my knee. NO FUN,
went to the hospital, my leg the size of a basketball, so they raced me back in. laid me down, put something in my knee and I watched the blood shoot across the room. once it was drained, they did x-rays, and 5 minutes later, tey came in and told my parents, we are taking him to surgery right now.
I freaked. NO don’t let them do this to me, I am gonna die.
I did not, but I was in the hospital for about 5-6 days, and I again was deemed a hostile unruly patient. and my parents said it was the meds, but they wouldn’t listen, they just took the other kids out of my room and let me ba an ass hole until they could send me home.
11 years old
Same ER, Same Leg, Same injury, different cause and different severity.
I was riding a BMX bike infront of my aunts house in Irvine. they were watching me while my mom and dad won a trip to stay 2 nights at the Disneyland hotel (which was pretty fancy back then, but remember, cell phones were -19-20 years (commercial mainstream)and even pagers are still used mainly for doctors then. drug dealers started using them about 6-7 years later. LOL -10)
So I hurt my knee, jumped off a bank, pulled up really high, I was maybe 2 1/2 foot off the ground (bottom of my feet to the ground) and pulled back so the back tire flew out under the front tire, and I landed on my left leg, it was locked. My knees already naturally. bend about-5 degrees naturally, most knees lock at 85 degrees, so plus 5 degrees.
well, hyper extended the knee again, this time with my body weight, fallilng straight down on it, and popping it back. it was not a pretty sight.
I was a minor, and my Aunt, who was a lawyer, actually did not think to get my parents to sign a medical release, so the hospital could not treat me til they can get ahold of my parents, and the only way was to call the hotel room, then leave messages at the front desk.
This happened at maybe 8:30am. my parents did not get back to their room til after midnight, and once they got the message they rushed over, and got to me about 2am, and finally got me to the hospital.
I. don’t remember much of that one cuz I was in shock most all day.
but even tho the damage was more extensive, it was better this way because it was less painful. doesn’t make sense, but it does when you break it down. If you tear a ligament about 1/2 way thru, it is hurting and throbbing and sending pain signals the whole time, weather you are moving or not, but if you snap the thing in half, the nerve is broken between the two halves, and stops firing all the time, and the knee at rest can actually not feel that pain much. This one I broke the knee cap in 1/2 (again, it was in half, and not a fracture, so it hurt when moved, but still it was not bad)
I also ripped cartlidge, but the biggest saver was…
the first time, I severed the major vein or artery that goes thru the knee, that is why the blood shot across the room from my knee that was the size of a basketball. They closed that up at each end the first surgery.
So, it was unable to snap this 2nd time, and I did not have the internal bleeding problem.
If I had the internal bleeding problem, and I bled out for 18 hours or so, my parents might have come home to a corpse. in reality, if it is life threatening, the ambulance would have come and treated me, but it was not necessary this time.
The first one got me to stop playing soccer, I didn’t want to get another leg injury.
The 2nd one got me thinking more and more about water sports, and I stopped playing team sports, and really just used my bike and sketeboard for transportation, my maing thing became Surfing, and to this day, my goal with my health, and getting new knees and doing all the things helthwise that I am doing right now, the ultimate goal is to get back in the water.
Once my knees are replaced, that will get me back on the mountain. I need a little more physical conditioning, and possibly shoulder surgery before I can reallly get back in the water and surf as aggro as I like to.
Bass is such an awesome way to keep positive and keep moving towards other life goals, while accomplishing musical goals as well. I couldn’t have picked a better instrument, and a better teacher, better course, and better forum. and it is amazing when you hear this, that playing bass, and befriending all of you and learning thru B2b and other sites is sooooooooooo much more then me just learning to play bass. it means so much more when it is the motivator behind other things like having the ultimate goal to get back in the water.
so I won’t bore you with the
18 year old car crash (compound fracture right femur affecting my leg, knee and hip for the rest of life)
19 year old face crunch (5 boots to the eye socket)
19 year old Leg surgery #2 from the 18 year old car crash
(I surfed and snowboarded and played guitar thru and after those)
24 year old emergency appendix. it burst the second they took it out of me, like in the surgeons hand
other various breaks sprains whatnot, on fingers and hands and toes and wrists and elbow, etc…
2013 - walking the dogs on PCH and Goldenwest in Huntington beach on a Friday night, I just got home from a week in Phoenix on business. had not had much sleep for the week (hotel beds…) and had not had much food that day, I went for the walk and then was gonna go straight out to get something to eat.
Well, I turned and looked out at the sunset, my wife (seperated soon to be x) says I licked my lips, started to say something, and went out like a light, fell straight back, like stiff as a board, falling back, and smacked my head on the pavement that is the bike trail at the cliffs.
I cracked my skull by my left ear, and then I had this thing neurologists refer to as, or call a “Counter Cooue” or something like that, sounds like KOO
Remember the steel balls hanging on thread on your grandfathers desk, and you would pull back one ball, and it would swing and hit the stack of 6 like balls, and the one on the other end would swing back to the same height, and then go back and hit the stack again and transfer the energy so that only one ball would go up at the other end.
or if you did 2 balls, then 2 balls on the other end would move
or if you did 4, then 4 on theother end would move, leaving 2 standing still, etc…
well if you know what kind of office desk toy, stress releiver, whatever they sell them for, if you know what they are and how the energy transferes between the balls adn releases out on the last ball,…
Ok
picture this happening in my head, but
a huge golf ball sized masas, from the point of impact, transfered thru my brain, and left the golf ball sized mark on the other side of my head, for me, this was my front right forehead, above eye level.
Ok, so I was taken to a head trauma unit, and again, like the car wrek,
4 days later, sort of woke up and said, WTF, where am i.
They told me, but had me on super high levels of Fentynal every hour or I would scream bloody murder.
They watched it and were convinced they were gonna do brain surgery to stop the bleeding.
But on the 5 day, the bleeding stopped, and I was saved again.
couple days and I was back home with a hugh headache, adn on state disability for 6 months until they woud give me my DL back.
because I had a seizure in the ambulence, after smacking my head, they have me documented as having a seizure, so I had to stay under a neurologsts care and take meds he told me to take to make sure I didn’t have any more seizures.
The DMV wants 5-6 months before you can apply to get it back, so I sat around for another 5 months then, on some trippy medication tha would make me forget where I was sometimes, or who I was.
anyway
past that
comes 2019, Jan 5th to be exact.
I go to the airport to fly to Phoenix for week.
I woke up at 5:45, house was pitch black, everybody was in their bedrooms, so I got my daughter to drive me to the airport. I said i was running about 30 min behind and wasnot gonna have time to park and take the shuttle.
She dropped me off, I went in and tried to get the kiosk to print my ticked, but it wouldn’t
so I asked the lasy and she fiddled around for a minute, then looked at me and said sir
you have a 6:15am boarding call, it is 5:45
I said
Yeah, whats the deal I have to board in 30 min, I gotta go thru security
so
she said it again, basically word for word the same thing, and I am getting a little freaked out
Huh, yes, I have to get on a plain at 6:15, it is 5:45, we both agree on this right?
She says “yes sir, but you have to get on a plane at 6:15 am. "
“Yes” is nodded back
“sir, it is 5:45pm, Sunday night. you are 13 hours early”
I was still confused for a second, then I was thinking back, and thinking about what I was doing sunday, and how I could have woke up the same day etc… and it dawned upon me, " OK, thanks, I will come back in the morning”
I was feeling shitty that day, and took a nap around 11am. when I woke up at 5:45pm, it was pitch black like morning, but it was night time.
it was unuaual because my wife is usually out watching TV on a sunday night, and my daughter is usually watching a movie with her boy friend and dog on a sunday night, and the other daughters some and go, but therre is usually some activity in the house.
This time there was none, except my daughter and her boyfriend were watching tv with the dog, it was just a quiet show, upstairs, and I woke up downsttairs.
Ok, confusion over, but I am shaking like a leaf and sweating along with it.
I walk down the stairs and out to the front of terminal A, and sit in the first bench you will come to when taking the “passenger pick up” route.
I called the wife and asked her to come get me, I made a misteke.
That is the last I remember that time.
I woke up to this 4 days later (its always 4 days later when I get told the good news)
And 2 really cute peppy nurses talking to me on a movie screen, telling me I was like this
But they told me (from a drive in movie thearer like screen, they were in 4kk ultra high def to boot) I had been in an induced coma for the last 4 days, and I had some visitors that wanted to say hi
So my daughters and parents joined the nurses on the movie screen, and started telling me, you are on life support, you have pneumonia and sepsis, but they think you are withdrawing from Xanax.
The whole time they had to remind me not to talk, cuz I had tubes in my mouth, and then i would try to take them out and the two nurses would say, thats it for visiting time, you are going back… I never heard them say out.
When they pulled me out of the coma (i don’t remember being in it at all, but I remember the feeling when they were pulling me out, and it was super uncomfortable, it was spinning, and falling, and falling while spinning backward, and then the colors and it started looking like then Eddy opened the door to TOON TOWN, and everything was singing cartoon songs.
It lasted all of a few secondg, then there was that movie screen and the two nurses again.
That picture I showed above kind of freaked me out. I would have swore they were keeping me in a box, like an incubator, with plexiglass wlls and had the big monitor in movies like an accordion going up and down and up and down.
As I was trying to describe it to my parents and daughters, and I was saying, come on, you were there, you kow what I am talking about. but they pull out those photo’s and showed me and I was like, NO way.
what about the flat screen tv or movie screen that you guys all talked to me on, and they were like, umm, no, we just reached over in front of your eyes and talked to you.
Man, i was so bummed that it was not that technical of a ride, after the pictures, I was like 'MAN, that is boring"
So the Dr convinced my parents and wife that I was detoxing Xanax.
I kept telling them, no, thatt is impossible, Iw ould have had to have taken xanax to be able to be detoxing xanax, and I did not take any.
I had a scrip written by a shrink the month prior and I filled it but I had one or two and didn’t care for it and got rid of them.
But that nurse was convinced I took them all, and I was in the hospital with withdrawals 3 days after the rx ran out.
It was a pain in the ass to get them to under stand I never took them, and I kept telling them, I got no shame, if I took them I would have told you, I don’t even like them, so i got rid of them. They didn’t believe me for a while, but whatever, I finally got better.
So then I was in treatment from 10-16-19 (this time for drugs, and I checked myself in, I was done. I was sober for a long time before, then had some injuries, and then had some rx that I maybe didn’t need, but kept taking, then I get in the hospital almost dead, and get out and I can’t work, or get out of bed for months hardly, and then they sent me back to work when I didn’t feel like I could do it.
so I turned back to drugs at that time.
So, I got to treatment on 10/16/19.
and on 3/3/20, on my youngest daughters 16th birthday, I was out with her (I was living in Aftercare at the treatment center and doing outbatiend rehab still) and we got the call that my other daughter, the middle one , her eyes were rolled back in her head and her heart stopped on the paramedics gurney, and they were taking her to the hospital a block and a half away.
And thath night we didn’t know if she would life.
and after that night, we didn’t know if her brain would be ok, she had some oxygen starvation to the brain, and while we were waiting this out, her foot was turning black with gangrene, cuz she was alone for at least 6 hours minimum before she was found, and she was sitting on her foot, starting it from oxygen, so before we could wake her up (she was same as I was in that picture, I actually have pics of her the same, but not gonna post them, not mine to post.) from the coma andd before we could know if her brain function was normal, all we had was a CT scan that showed a stroke, but fortunately not in a place that would effect motor function or speech, and we werre just hoping and praying, and before we could do anything to talk with her,
they had to amputate the foot. they tried to save it, couple surgeries to try and get blood flow, but didn’t work, so they took the foot.
Next day they stopped the breathing machine, just had it on stand. by in case she stopped breathing on her own.
And
then they took the tubes out, and I looked at here in the eyes, and she talked to me in a super horse voice, and I told her not to try so hard, she will need to rest for a while, but she mustered out the words “what happened”
I told her overdose and she cried a little bit, and then she said she loved me and saw her mom and said she loved her mom, and then she asked me "dad, can we get matching tattoos? I said of course, and she asked her mom “mom, can we get matching tattoos” and her mom said yes.
This is1 00% true story, not changed a bit
we were so happy to have her back.
Then a few days after this
COVID hit and nobody could visit.
it was like that for like 8 weeks.
Ok,
So, when she was better, we put her in a rehab, which she did for 3 months and was great, and then she came back up to huntington beach (rehab was down in Dana Point) and her boyfriend (who is a good kid and not a drug user) came back from Las Vegas where he was staying with his father, and
they did an air bnb for a week at a time, while I was looking for a place for us to move into.
after a week in a very dirty and not nice BnB, I just moved them into my Rehab After plan facility.
it was a group of 2 bedroom apartments, and I shared one of the 2 bedroom apartments with a good friend of mine. But I always slept out in the living room. I would be on my computer and playing bass till super-late, sometimes all night, and then just crash on the couch.
So they snuck in and stayed in my room that I was not using to save money.
the two managers (who were just clients that had been there longest and had nowhere to go so they get offered a manager job adn don’t have to pay rent anymore) knew they were around during the day, and that was cool, and her boyfriend immediately got a job across the street, so it was convenient, and we were looking for an apartment close by… what does this have to do with anything, hang on, its building.
So they stayed the night, the other guys would come around to do room checks at 10:30 and I would say “they are waiting for their uber, should be here in 10 minutes” or " I am taking them to a hotel across the street cuz he has to work tomorrow, but they said come back at 11pm (just making up bs)
and they got to stay for 3 weeks, which cost them / us about $1500
ok
this is leading to the end which is to the final cut making it current.
about 2 months before moving out, I got a scrape on my right shin.
it was from my other toenail, and happened while sleeping.
But
My legs had ademia (sp?) where they retain water and the ankles swell up.
my two ankles and both legs under my knees (calves) retain water due to a medication that I was taking, and it was one that I was going to be not taking much longer, I was tapering off of it, so I didn’t think too much of it.
but since there was so much water in my legs, that scrape that bled a little at first, never scabbed up or healed. over the next 5 eeks it started to get white, but it was not like infection, it was like the skin was filing up with water and pulling off the lower layers. it was still relatively small, less then a dime.
We found a place, and moved in on 9/25/20
When we moved, the thing was about the size of a quarter
so after moving, on 9/29, i developed a fever and was feeling nauseaus.
my mom got paranoid cuz of covid and called 911 the next morning, but I refused to go to the hospital because I did not have insurance, and I just wanted to sleep it off.
I told them it might be because of my leg (which then looked about the size of 3 quarters) and if it got any worse or my fever got any worse, I would call them back.
I slept that Monday and most of Tuesday, and the fever broke and I was not feeling as bad, so I go to sleep that tuesday night, and on Wed, October 1st, I woke up to that 3 quarters being like the size of a 3x5 card on the front of my shin, and my leg beet red from just above the knee to the tips f the toes, it was wet with lost of slime and fluid.
I called 911 right away, and they took me to the hospital wherre I stayed until October 20
Since getting home, I have done about 5 cycles of antibiotics, I have been laid out in a bed for 3-5 days at a time not eating and barely drinking.
I have hurt so bad I wanted to die, and it just kept going and going and going, I was starting to feel helpless.
I got a new (used) MM Stingray SLO Special, and just looking at it and my Ray 4 and my ltd B-4E, those things kept me going, and kept my motivation to do the things needed to get well enough to play again.
and like I said in the beginning, playing is giving me the motivation to do the things that I need to do to get better so that I can go back to the waves and snow. as much as I love music and playing bass and having called music my life line many times, I too am the same wiht surfing and snowboarding (surfing more so then all of them) but discipline from one helps motivate and gain discipline for the other twoj.
iDK exactly what I am trying to say, I hav been writing this post for way too long, I doubt anybody will want to read it, its so long and rambles on an whatever and what not
But, if this story, my story, we all have our own stories, but if this story of mine can help you in anyway, to motivate, to find dicipline, to try new things, whatever, if I can touch one person with my story and words written about it, I will be a very happy and rich human being.
So awesome that you hooked up with Damian and get lessons from him now!! Is he still based somewhere on the West Coast? Seattle or Portland?? Arranging lessons with a 9 hour time difference just wouldn’t work for me… same reason I can’t really approach Josh or Gio…
I am taking some online lessons with a guy in the UK at the moment. Fairly rigid regimen to start off with, but probably exactly what I need right now… and while “tedious” at times, it is for the long game 
Quite the story. These types of things help put into perspective our own troubles. For whatever Ive gone through, been lucky medically. Must have been real crazy to wake up like that, can’t even imagine! Best of luck getting back in the water, and snow. For what its worth you have a small online community of us here cheering you forward!
@joergkutter it has been tremendous for my playing with Damian as an instructor. He and I speak daily he is shooting me advice and tips. Heck last night he spontaneously sent me two copies of his books for free. I have seen an improvement in a very short time so I can’t say anything negative. I am thankful for your advice to check him out. He is in Portland which is only three hours behind me so not too bad.
Now I am getting seriously jealous, @LesterH 
That is so cool!!!
The Improviser’s Path perhaps?? I had been pondering this one myself! Ha, you are one lucky dude 
Soon, I will just barely be able to make out your tail lights if I squint really hard 
@joergkutter you will always be light years ahead of me bro. However at 7.00 a month you cannot beat it. If you interact on Basseducation.com community which is very small less than 200 people he will respond with you daily. It is like having one giant private lesson. Of course I am meeting with him under the mentor ship program which will give me 2 virtual lessons per month on top of that. I am doing the improvisers path and a bout a dozen other modules
@LesterH You are talking me into the $7 membership pretty quickly
Is Damien the Talking Bass guy?
