Evita + Gear Review

Hello,

Evita, is in the final regularly scheduled weekend!! I'm subbing out of the last night, April 19th, to play a Slam. The run has been a blast thus far. We have an extension to run through the end of May...hopefully longer. Some of the cast and band will be changing. Kevin Brown, will be leaving us due to another contract and the new drummer will be awesome. The music director, Ryan, will be subbing out of a few dates as well. I'm sticking with the run....and will be subbing out for some Slams. Not going to lie, the Slams are a blast and they pay a lot better. In a typical night playing the Slam, I make double what I do playing Evita in a given evening. Evita is a lot of fun and pays well for the weekend...just not as much on a night.

Gear Review Tascam MP BT1

So this is my first formal [if i can call it that] gear review. I bought this little machine the first week of March and I've been playing with it since.

Some background, it's an MP3 Bass Trainer. What is a trainer? It's a headphone amp + music player in one. It features effects, metronome, tuner, and some fun software. The software allows you to slow down a song without changing pitch, transpose a song without changing tempo, cut the bass track, loop sections, and a variety of similar functions.

Now that I've had it for a bit, I love this thing. The metronome & slow down functions are great. The metronome isn't as feature laden as my Korg MA30, but it's adequate. You can't put in subdivisions or anything like that, you get to pick how many beats, and tempo. I used this to learn Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder & What is Hip by Tower of Power. Two tunes that previously I considered "landmarks'...where i knew my playing was at a great point when i could play those cleanly and with power. This device was also great for learning "Higher Ground"...I was reading a transcription of it as done by the Chilli Peppers while playing along with the Stevie Wonder version. The difference is...Chili Peppers played it in E where as Stevie does it in Eb.

The only frustration I had was at first with iTunes...I didn't realize that they had a really simple tool to create MP3 versions of songs. I thought you only had the Mp4s. Yeah, once I looked under "advanced" and saw make MP3 version. I was astounded. Now, I load up tunes & play-a-longs to the bass trainer and go to Evita to get some practice in between 7:30 & 8PM [we have a 7:30 call, but without the trainer, I'm just sitting there reading or being bored].

So yeah-I give this device 4/5 stars. The only things that I am deducting the star for are: Only plays MP3s, it's pretty big-about the size of a pack of Djarum Cigarettes or a bit wider than a pack of Marlboro 100's and about as thick. The unit is by no means large, but eh-I'd like to to be closer to the size of an iPod. Yep. ..I'm sorta picky. However, I do LOVE this unit. It has helped reinvigorate my practice routine. I love being able to practice whenever I want with an amp and metronome without driving the neighbors nuts. I like playing late [after gigs], so this is a great thing.

all the best.