good news, the transformer (very probably the most expensive and specific part, other than the speakers) seems OK. the problem seems to come from the main relay which remains to “off”. maybe a problem with the thermal protection circuitry or something similar. hard to be sure without the schematic, so I contacted KRK and asked for it. I hope they will send it to me … a lot of brands always refuse to give their shematics, even for discontinued products like the VXT8 … we’ll see !
Module 4 Billie Jean exercises are kicking my butt. Coordination b/t hands isnt happening, 45 minutes in and Im getting frustrated. Time to put things away and come back tomorrow. Come back with a fresh outlook and mood. By the comments everyone has problems with it, which is a bit comforting.
Fear not. This happens to literally everyone with that exercise. Just nail the slow workout and move on, come back to it later. I couldn’t nail it on fast until I had almost finished the course.
I’m only hitting week two of B2B and I’m sure my struggles are things that have been brought up time and time again, already. But for posterity:
Flying fingers. I’m trying to be conscious of the left hand fingers not fretting, keeping them from lifting clear off into low earth orbit.
Unwanted sharp plucking. I’m fairly good at plucking through to rest on the next string, but every now and then I’ll find my fingernail catches the string I just plucked and makes a sharp TWANG I wasn’t looking for. I keep my nails short with only a millimetre of overhang but I might have to sacrifice even that for the greater good.
Finger strength. My pinky has never had a workout before and it’s borderline torture to make it fret right now. No doubt it’ll get better but right now it’s a sad sight to see.
I feel a little frustrated because I think I may have made a mistake in the bass I purchased.
To explain…
I just finished module 3 lesson 1 - Fast Workour for CHild in Time.
I thought I was doing quite well, then I recorded myself, and realised how crap I was, Thought I was further along than this
I have small hands (19 cms / 7.5 inches) from base of palm to tip of middle finger. At the beginning I thought about purchasing a 3/4scale, but instead I decided on a full size bass.
DId I make a mistake? I’m second guessing myself.
Was going to post a link to the video I made of me playing along to Child in Time to show how crap I am, but looks like the forum doesn’t allow links…
Hey @Anestis,
You didn’t make the wrong choice with your purchase, full size is the correct bass👍
You should be able to post a practice fragment, you may not have access as a newby as yet?
This would be the only reason I think it’s not possible yet🤔
Cheers Brian
I was able to post a link to the video in the comments of Module 3 Lesson 1 Fast Workout (Child in Time).
You can look there for the link in the comment I made.
This is something to improve over time if you are just aware of the issue. As you already noticed it, whenever you play, you improve. End even ending up nto doing it perfectly, alot of people play extremely good bass and still have those issues. Don’t worry.
Cut your nails. When I started playing bass I noticed I had to trim my nails much more frequent then I normally do. Especially plucking hands Index + Middle I trim even more.
But then again with time you may start plucking in slightly optimised angles and nails are less of an issue.
Try not to be so hard on yourself, Recording tends to pick up everything, so it is great tool to help you get better.
We all have been shocked after our first recording, or even the first time playing plugged in, but it will get better.
As long as you have identified it, you can adjust and correct it.
Playing with good technique will help and you get this thru the course, and practice for starters.
Plus, you still very new being in Module 3, and I wold be more surprised if you popped on and said, “I sound Great”
I think you are on the right path, just keep working and things will fall into place.
No. Not at all. Plenty of people, even big names like Victor Wooten, have small hands. The idea of needing a short scale bass because of small hands is a huge unfounded myth. Your just asking your hands and fingers to do things they haven’t done before and it takes your brain a little while to build these new pathways.
This. All this.
You are still at the very beginning compared to where you’ll be at the end of this course. I highly recommend trusting Josh and the process. He will get you there.
Hi, Josh - I’m on Module 6 at the moment, and thus far I’ve found the course pretty easy (with the exception of Billy Jean.) I have a music background, however, and play a little guitar and a lot of piano, so what I’ve really needed most from the course is technique guidance.
I’m finding it very difficult to play cleanly; I tend to make a lot of mechanical noise when I’m playing, and I get a fair amount of buzzing due to either inadequate fretting pressure or poor finger placement within the fret.
Anyway, my question is whether you have specific exercises or lessons I should be working on to improve the cleanliness of my playing. I’m doing OK with muting strings (I think) but I still feel like I sound pretty amateurish, particularly when I’m trying to play faster and transitioning over medium to large intervals.
Hail @termimalp! If you want to grab Josh’s attention, you can always throw up the Josh signal by putting the @ in front of his name… like this: @JoshFossgreen
Then he’ll get pinged that he’s been mentioned in a post.
For my students who struggle with playing clean, I’ve found it’s almost always a result of the student moving through material faster than they can play cleanly.
I always want everyone to play slow, steady, beautifully, sustained and clear before moving on to more challenging material.
Of course, we all want to feel and experience progress, so no one (self included) does this.
If you find that things aren’t clean, start doing slow-down exercises.
Play whole notes through a major scale at 60 or 70 bpm, and make sure each note is gorgeous and round and smooth and perfectly connected to the next note.
At slow tempos you can usually start to see and feel precisely what is going wrong.
If you’re practicing slow enough, you can usually make adjustments and start to fix things.
I second what @Gio said. And if you have particular difficulties with any lesson in any module you can write comments right under the specific video there. I witness to the fact that Josh would always respond in a couple of days.
Reading comments also helps to see if anyone else is struggling with the same issues…
Josh also has made a video particularly on muting technique
You can find a list of all the youtube material matching to B2B course map with this thread from @eric.kiser
Good luck and welcome!
Later maybe I can pick your brains on “how to make my wife play the keyboard for me” because that is what I am struggling on…
Hey Dan! I agree with what @Gio - taking it slow gives you more time to check your technique and make corrections.
And I’d also add - don’t expect total perfection at this point, even if there’s some noise/messiness it’s okay to keep tackling it one day at a time. Even just noticing it is a great first step.
Another thing you can work on slow are finger exercises like this that help you focus on coordination/cleanliness without having to worry so much about playing music -
And the muting video @Fahri linked might help too!
I’m definitely finding myself struggling with moving my anchor finger. Typically it’s fine when I anchor playing two strings, but as soon as I have to move my thumb from A to E or to the pickup I have a little mental malfunction and tend to forget in either direction. Leads to either plucking a muted string or letting strings ring unnecessarily.
I tried the ring finger method of muting A but that was yet another thing to remember and coordinate so I think maybe I’ll focus on getting my thumb anchor correct before I start coming up with shortcuts.
But also, I mean, I’m four weeks into the course and having gone from never holding a bass to … slowly and gingerly … pumping out Billie Jean I think I’ll take a few mental hiccups as things that I will definitely fix
I had the same problem with the anchor in the beginning as well. I found myself consciously trying to remember where to anchor my thumb. It just takes practice and after a while your thumb will know where to go. Now, I don’t even think about it once I start playing.
You’ll get there…
