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EW = Exotic Wood, such as mango 🥭 😉

This journey, into bass playing? What made you pick up that first bass at the start of this long and winding road? I was given a musical aptitude test at school when I was in Y2 (age 6-ish?) and got picked to take violin lessons. Kept violin going for about 10 years, hit maybe grade 7 practical-wise and enjoyed playing in big orchestras with a G7/8 entry requirement and audition.. but played by a mixture of sight-reading and ear-training, refused to take grade exams or learn any more theory than was absolutely required, and almost never practiced at home. I give myself an A for blagging-it, looking back. In a Y9 music class (age 13-ish?) I had a classical guitar shoved at me and was taught the chords to play along to 90% of Everybody Hurts by REM, and that was enough to get me interested in guitar and signal the beginning of the end for the violin which, if I'm honest, I was mostly keeping as a way of avoiding PE lessons by that point. I bought a cheap electric guitar and amp (a Session Pro black and white Strat copy and a Peavey Rage) from the son of a friend of my mum, and proceeded to get absolutely nowhere with it because the focus of everything I read was learning ever more chords. Traded the guitar and amp against a bass working on the theory that it was more violin-like; 4 strings and focused on one note at a time instead of bloody chords. The difference in pitch and the idea of playing the 'bass part' never came into my thinking at all. Brought it home, tuned it up, sat on the sofa and proceeded to just play along to the football show theme tune that happened to strike up on the telly in the background. It made near-instant sense to me and I had a new instrument. Do you still have the same fire and enthusiasm? Do you still love it? Yeah, it's still my thing. My other thing is being the kind of computer geek that has an 8U rack of switches, routers and firewalls where most people have a BT smart hub on top of a Billy bookcase, so I need something mainstream-cool going on outside that. What has changed along the way? Your taste in music, taste in basses? My mum was (..and still is) into rock music so she passed that on to me and it's always been home. The classical years were great ear training but I don't seek out classical music. Meeting friends and playing in bands has forced me into some slightly heavier metal styles but if I can't hear a definite note from somewhere at all times then I just can't play along, so bands that are constant blast-beats with a wall of guitar-noise, flappity-fingered bass parts and growling/screaming vocals are still completely inaccessible to me from a playing standpoint. Basses-wise, I've gone from playing 5-string Vampyres and Warlocks for 10 years, over to 4-string Precisions and Jazzes for 10 years, and am now back to 5-string Streamers and Stingrays. Thought it might be Spectors and Ibanez SRs for a while, but nope. What was the first bass? And what’s the latest? First was technically a black/white/rosewood Squier P-bass Special, but it had issues which I now know were to do with the truss rod, and the shop eventually let me know the distributor was recalling the batch so I should return it. They fixed me up with a Yamaha BB N4ii in 'yellow natural satin' (read: wood), which was orders of magnitude better. Latest is one of the new '24-spec Warwick RB Streamer LX 5s in gloss white.

I sold a Gramma pad to Shep. An amazingly smooth and easy transaction as we only live about two miles apart.

I'd imagine no one mass produces a 2-string nut. For good reason. Well spotted though, Beedster.

Don't you rock me, Daddy-o! - Lonnie Donnegan

Why a 4-string nut?

If we're talking bout the very first time with a rock instrument, barring the ubiquitous class Recorder etc. It's middle school and the last day of the summer term and the school wanted to quickly put on a little show. "If anyone can do anything, sign this form"! was the carrion cry from Birch the head. So for a laugh myself and my mates cut out some cardboard guitars, got up there and mimed to 'Get It On' only there wasn't enough cardboard so I grabbed a snare drum, sticks and two chairs and proceeded to bash along to perplexing gasps from around the hall....I was actually playing a pretty groovy backbeat to everyones amazement ( I did bash some biscuit tins at home so had an inkling) Not sure I fully realised what an important moment it was but it probably cemented my need to take the electric instrument thing seriously.

Fixed.

Love Morphine, no bassist was ever as original as Mark Sandman. What a sound! I’m glad that I’ve seen them live several times.

FTFY however Two out of three ain’t bad, as meatloaf pointed out there’s a mistake in the bible. Loaves, fishes and sheets of tortoiseshell. Maybe they ran out of ink or forgot to write it in. Tortoiseshell is plainly the stuff of miracles.

Not broke? Don’t fix it

It requires Kontakt? I didn't spot that before. I've had problems in the past with NI so I won't use anything the requires their products.

Maybe they listed just so I could purchase? I would suggest reaching out to Marco via email, super helpful guy: Riccardo Damiani | Markbass [email protected]

It is, but be aware that EW probably means extra wide. Unless you have big hands, I would advise caution I’ve had an extra wide Yamaha and it was painful to play after just a few minutes - I have medium large hands, bigger than average but I still struggled with the wide spacing I looked at a picture of a TRBX174EW and they look pretty wide to me

Definitely a deal there for sure. That's the solderless controls in, flats on, and the action brought down a good bit. The pickups are sitting a little too low, but it sounds good? Think I'll leave it as is..

I’m not sure that is true. I’ve honestly never played a squier that wasn’t worth at least the asking price and probably more I’m with @Terry M. on this one, it’s much more a fender problem and more US than Mex these days.

Father Figure - George Michael

Theres nothing worse than learning beginner bad habits by trying to figure it out yourself and making your bass life so hard that you end up with hand or shoulder pain, or just as bad, discouraged I wish I’d had an early lesson or two

This. I’ve measured (and felt!) 70-80V between the output of a 9V switched mode wall wart and ground. Earthing the connected device made the problem go away.

Seen a Yamaha TRBX174EW come up in local ads for 175 euros. I figured that's an ok price right? Vs buying a new Harley benton j bass