Leaderboard

This happened yesterday ☺️ It was a very lovely drive up to Bass Direct in Leamington Spa to drop off a bass for a commission sale, and to also pick up this masterpiece. I am in awe of this bass. I fell in love with Spector earlier this year, and that admiration for the brand convinced me to go for this beautiful USA, handmade Forte 4 in Nightshade, and now named “Stormbringer”. The quality and attention to detail, is second to none. The sound, the feel, the resonance, the playability and the comfort is something I have ever experienced, and I’ve owned a lot of basses in my time. I’ve never had a bass with EMG’s before, and there a real revelation. Also, simple things like having a master volume and pickup pan instead of 2 volumes, just makes me happy. I also love that is has no fretboard inlays. A real classy, clean look. It’s like going from a BMW to a Bentley. Thanks to Ash, and Mark, for all their help as usual. So good to see them both, at last. Cheers all ☺️

I usually do a bit of boo-wappa-doo followed by some bip-bap-buppa-deee which leads me nicely into some shoo-wabba-doobey-doooop-bappa-doop and then ease back into the song. There's no point in going over the top, with these things, you've got to keep it tasteful.

Full blown Billy Sheehan tragic 1980s tapping fest. No matter what the genre of music. If you ask me, that’s what you get. As a tragic 80s throwback myself, I will do this without shame or embarrassment. Your emotional reaction to it is your problem. I’ve done this before!

Getting there! Black Schaller machine heads, EMG Geezer Butlers, black screws, black knobs, black tapes, now I need a black bridge...

So I accept for me buying older Vigier basses, is becoming an addiction!! HELP!! I picked this Series 1 Arpege fretless on Gumtree about a month ago..I have wanted a delta metal fretless for what is years, and to see one come up, I bit the bullet, because snooze you lose! I had a series 1 fretted bass earlier this year, but sold due to not being able to get the insane low action on my series 11,111 passion basses..So I didn't take a gamble on this, just an educated guess that the fretless would be able to lower the action quite well, even with the truss rod! Thankfully correct! So probably a last series 1 bass from March 86.. Electronics have been replaced I appreciate..Very functional 18v 3 band preamp..active/passive push pull knob, master volume and passive tone knob..No idea who made the preamp but very quiet, So maybe not quite as quirky as the other two..lol The neck profile is slim and just astounding.. This fretless really sings with that spinal tap sustain that goes on and on and on! Trying not to do that Alan Partridge moment in his caravan pretending to be Mick Karn..lol..Feel it may become quite addictive polishing the delta metal fingerboard too! So the second one of these beauties up on basschat this week! 👍😃

Nice one SumOne 👍, flabba here with the steinberger

I've done a different tune in the EHB Short scale thread already but I thought I'd do another one, this time with just the bridge pickup for that sort of jazz bass bridge tone. As I'm playing in a big band and that's seems to be all I'm playing at the moment that's what you get - a big band arrangement of Stevie Wonder's "Don't you worry about a thing" All tones from a Line 6 Helix. Recorded live using OBS - none of that video then dub a track on top of it nonsense, I ain't got time for that! A green bass with a green screen gives some weird colour effects! Although now I'm wondering if I want the bass to be refinished in a chromaflair paint job!

You are listening to the wrong bass solos....

Hold whatever note you're on. The band quietens to give you your moment. The anticipation from the crowd is palpable.... Pick up a pint and down it in one. Or, if you don't drink alcohol, a coffee. Make sure you can consume the drink within your allocated 8 bars. Jump back in to the groove with the rest of the band on the one.

As I have said elsewhere. I don't do solos and people onstage know that. If I am asked to do one I will simply stop playing. Trying to make someone uncomfortable is not fun.

The Duff is indeed passive. Switchable between the pickups and it has the TBX tone thing. As you can probably tell, I’m something of an expert! Other than wanting to play with a fretless bass, I don’t think I’ll be needing much else for a while! We’ll, maybe a five sting. And an acoustic. Here’s my slightly messy pictures. The pedalboard is homemade. Once I’ve figured out where everything’s going, I’ll try and tidy the wiring. And yes, the stupid sticker is all my own doing!

Last two churchs used too, always in the the week before you were playing. Current one not so much, but we're currently only 2-3 band members cos of covid. I've always been blessed to be in situations where embracing the craziness and learning as a musician was possible vs getting jaded and demotivated by it. I started learning bass as my first ever instrument at 18 when I went to Uni.... within 6 months I had been conviced to play on a Sunday. There's was quite a learning curve- but you know what folk put up with me as a complete beginner who didn't know what they were doing so I can put up with others in that situation.

1. Stay rhythmic 2. Avoid playing up and down the scale, it always sounds rubbish 3. Don’t be afraid of leaving some space 4. Avoid playing up and down the scale, it always sounds rubbish 5. Avoid playing up and down the scale, it always sounds rubbish

Personally I'd play one that lasted for about 40 minutes. That way I'd increase the chances of not being asked again.

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I don't listen to bass solos 'cos I find them boring, so I'm sure as hell not going to inflict one on the punters.

I bought a convertor block to clamp normal strings, and it gives me a much wider choice of strings. It might be worth investigating. I'm using D'Addario Chromes on a Hohner 5 string headless. David

What about the Kiloton? Passive but potent.

I think the difference in outlook is driven by what we're both seeking to do musically. I play in covers bands and we're paid by pub landlords to bring in punters off the street and keep hold of the ones already there to increase bar sales, or to help get a birthday party or wedding bash going. So, yup, what we do is completely driven by audiences' "utterly random and disagreeing priorities". We love playing together and the set lists we do and if our audiences are really enjoying themselves that makes for a great night for us. The fact we get paid (sometimes very handsomely for function gigs) for enjoying our musical passion, is icing on the cake. And because we are paid, we have to be mindful of our customers. If you're an "artist", which I certainly don't claim to be, then caring more for your art and less about what the audience thinks is much more understandable and, of course, your prerogative.

There are a few areas to visit on the journey to better note choices; this is all with the caveat that note choice is also a somewhat personal choice and some things that are theoretically 'correct' might not sound good to you (the opposite might also be true...) I'd approach things in this order: 1. Get familiar with basic intervals up to an octave (you need to know these in three ways: how they sound, how they look on the fretboard, and how they're spelled). If you have a good understanding of the sound you're after then you're more than halfway there 2. Understand how the most common triads (major, minor, diminished, augmented and suspended) and 7th chords (major 7, minor 7, dominant 7 and half-diminished) are constructed. This instantly gives you access to a whole host of note choices that aren't the root. Scales are ok, but focusing on chord tones will allow you to outline the harmony much more accurately. 3. Steal as much as possible from your favourite players. Whenever you hear something you like, try to work out what chord is being played by other instruments - this gives you an understanding of the context(s) that you can use the thing you've stolen. This won't happen overnight, and will require a lot of persistent effort (at least, it does for me and everyone I teach!). If it were easy then everyone would be Pino. FWIW I would say that ears trump theory knowledge almost every time, but ears take much longer to train and theory provides useful labels for sounds that make communicating with other musicians much easier.

Dear me! I thought live performance was supposed to be fun? I don’t often need to play bass solos, and have nothing prepared, but I’m pretty sure I could improvise my way thru a few bars of something without being too precious if the situation called for it….

I stood in for a mate with his band once, a long time ago. The singer very kindly introduced me to the crowd and invited me to do a little solo, which put me on the spot somewhat. Fortunately, prior to the show I had a bet on with the sound engineer that I could get the 'A' Team theme tune into the set somewhere, so I just played that and won myself £20.

I know a very good bass player who plays in a funk and soul band, very much a 'pocket' player. Once, their singer called for a bass solo - a complete surprise. Bassist played one note a bar, looking straight at the singer all the time. Didn't happen again!

I’ll come back in on this conversation with this……many years ago when I played for Marshall Amplification at the giant Frankfurt Music show, I happened across Mike Tobias’s stand. As a budding luthier myself, I was very keen to chat with one of America’s top bass builders at that time, ( the great bassist Jimmy Haslip, the upside down left hand six string player from the Yellowjackets used Tobias basses). Mike brought a bass out for me to try as we were discussing different woods but that bass wasn’t the sound I looked for so he brought another two or three basses out but the last bass was ‘the’ sound that pleased me most. It had a main ash body, with a cap of walnut I think. I had started building using ash already, liking the sound very much for my style of fretless finger playing. Yes, wood does make a difference, though not the huge amounts we may imagine by reading descriptions like..’provides punch and clarity…cuts through the mix’ etc etc. a lot of this is done by fingers or pick style and aggression, strings, amplification. I am happy to say that both audience and bass players attending my gigs always say they hear my bass notes really clearly and mixed in well with whichever band I’m with, then go on to complain that most of the time with other bands, the bass is very woolly!

Any artist who puts their audiences’ utterly random and disagreeing priorities above their own is potentially in for a world of pain. As the saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. And “tiny nuances of bass tone” - or any other tone for that matter - can make a big difference to how something is executed and/or perceived. If someone out front, who may not be able to even tell one instrument from another (something that I’ve come across frequently) is the basis for your judgements then I don’t know what to say, only that your priorities are very different than mine.

“Does/will the audience notice?” is the worst possible justification for any creative or artistic choice.

claim to "fame", stagedived at a rockbitch gig in Brighton, crowd parted like the red sea and I fell flat on me face!

I’m really liking this track from the Abyssinians, it’s a nice Bassline which I’m going to work on the weekend

No, Coming Up!

My plan was to get a Bergantino Forté HP or a Quad Cortex as my third amp. I have a Genzler Magellan 350, a Vanderkley Spartan and a Jule Amps Monique preamp with a GSS Sumo power amp already. Ooops! Did that make three...? Well, I was out shopping for a fourth amp - not a third. All of a sudden I got the chance to get a super nice Aguilar DB 359 at a more than reasonable price, so I changed my mind. No DSP amp for me! No programmable stuff! Just plain analog old school stuff. I was a bit concerned how the Aggie would work with the Genzler Bass Array cabs; my old Super Bassman and the Bassman 100T sounded crap through them. No problems with this baby brute! Wooly, fat, juicy! The DB 359 is a BIG amp. Really big! But - it sits well on top of the Bass Array 12-3 SLT cabs: no risk sliding off the top cab. A tiny bit of T-factor can be seen... I kind of like it...

Solos are so last century. It's all about the break down now. Stamp on your dirtiest overdrive, palm mute and half time for 8 bars. One note is plenty, maybe too much.

More metal-flake basses! (By the way, I set it and forget it!)

Spent far too much time on the this over the last few days... Still, 'er's funky! This month we have a celebration of the Full Moon, in all its forms 😁 Contains basses by Sandberg and ACG, plus lots of fiddling with my new organs. Guitars by Strat (with some widdling by J - cheers!). Drums programmed in and/or using loops by EZ Drummer. Mixed with Neutron 3, Ozone 9 with plenty of Phasis and Raum and a large dollop of BassRoom.

I used to get a drill out too, Tubescreemer on full , octave pedal and chorus. Mental

Sometimes. There are many ways to make music and preparation takes many forms. Playing Jazz means you are NEVER able plan every note in advance, unless you want to look like a clown. As for playing a solo, I always just make it up as I go along.

Here’s my Yamaha kit! Not the best pic - finish is a sparkly white kinda thing. I too had Gretsch before this… I’ve owned various brands but always loved Yamaha stuff so in the end I just sold everything else and went Yamaha. I too have/have had Yamaha PA stuff, basses, guitars etc. you can’t go wrong with Yamaha! one weird side effect from COVID/lockdowns was I joined a group on Facebook called ‘snares’ and decided to start a collection of Yamaha snares (I got a little sidetracked and picked up some Premier ones too!).

This. But they’re not cheap. About £650

The steaming turd icon by the input socket should make this an essential purchase for everyone 💩

these ones from 2008 are great , I have 2 of his albums

Contentment is never permanent, it is the human condition.