Leaderboard

Absolutely love this. But you may hate it, or hardly contain your indifference to it of course. I’ll still love you long time.

No one’s as good as Charlie Drake. Fact, not opinion.

The fabulous John Wetton - ye olde creamey bass tone and great bass line.

Ah the old originals vs covers band debate. Nope it's not a waste of talent to play other people's stuff. Following your logic there would never be another classical music concert. Live music done well which connects audiences and musicians is a good thing, full stop.

Bach? Over-rated organ humper. Irving Berlin? Total amateur, couldn't read music. People who don't know stuff will disagree with me but I'm used to it.

Two NBD in a month! I traded an old Yamaha for a Squier CV Jazz V which I subsequently couldn't get on with and decided 4 strings is what I really want again. Sold the Jazz and a got me a lovely 2011 Bordeaux red G&L SB-2 Tribute. I was originally shooting for a mexican Fender P-bass, but realised I might miss having the jazz pickup for blending. After doing some research online and through searches on Basschat I thought the SB-2 tribute would actually be the one and I wasn't wrong. Loving the slim neck and the punchy pickups! Lack of tone control doesn't bother me, as I can always use some form of parametric EQ if I'm desperate, or just run the volumes lower. Definitely a good purchase and feels very well built and those pickups are superb. Anyone else have one of these?

So I saw this Teambuilt bass pop up on BassDirect’s website. I thought the Teambuilt models only had nickel silver frets, but this one came with the regular bell brass frets. It was pretty cheap by Warwick standards, so I took the plunge. I was curious to see whether the cheaper Teambuilt models showed any signs of being built to a price. The answer is... not really. Fit and finish Compared to German Warwicks I’ve owned in the past, the only real differences are chrome hardware only, 3-piece body (grain looks OK from the front but is a touch jarring on the back), and a satin rather than oiled finish on both neck and body. Weight-wise, it’s a bit heavier than the original German version of this bass I owned a few years ago, but the balance is much better, so guess the extra weight is in the body. Other than that, you’d think it was a custom model - invisible fret technology, all the same hardware and electronics and perfect from headstock to bottom strap button. Playability The neck feels quite chunky, but similar to other Warwick 6s I’ve had in the past. Top fret access isn’t great, but then that’s the Corvette design with 24 frets. The satin finish on the neck feels ultra smooth and I don’t miss the oiled finish one bit. Fretboard is basically flat and everything is easily adjustable, but I didn’t need to do anything to set it up except tune it - neck relief, intonation and action were spot on. One other point that I like is that there is no large cutaway on the top where your plucking arm rests - so not like the original Corvettes, but the same as the $$ model. Sound Typical Warwick growl - a little too bright for my taste when set flat, but that might be the Black Label strings as they are quite tinny. Cutting a little treble makes for a great basic tone. My favourite tone with active with both pickups - fully panned to the neck sounds great but the bottom end is a bit flabby, panned to the bridge makes for a great soloing or chording tone, but is a bit thin for regular bass lines. Anyone that thinks you need a Dingwall for a good B needs to try a Warwick. IMHO the best bottom B string out there, and 34” scale makes life easy. Overall I really like the bass. The whole thing feels top quality - as a comparison my Sterling 5, which was £800 more, is also very good but the fit and finish cannot hold a candle to the Warwick - perfect fretwork, super-tight neck joint, nice woods and a deep, punchy tone. If anyone wasn’t sure about Teambuilt Warwick basses, and they find one with brass frets like I did, don’t hesitate as they’re excellent.

The Internet has never been short of sad people desperate to make an impression by striking ludicrous, provocative poses. Most of them fall into the camp of "I don't get it, so therefore they're all complete cr*p and so is anyone who disagrees with me".

You don't have 5 songs in the top 5 positions of the US top 10 unless you're the best there is. They were that good and then they went and got better! Good enough to change the way the whole recording industry operated. You can hate them and you can try to ignore them but you can't escape them. They influenced all your heroes so, like it or not, they have influenced you!! Poetic justice for all the haters.

Well said @Dad3353 She is one the few artists who's work and career arc (for want of a better phrase) have had that sort of spellbinding power over us mere mortals.. I used to have a book years ago called - I think - 'The Craft of Lyric writing', or something like that anyway... It was a great book, full of fascinating analysis and insight into the craft of lyric writing in popular music..and it had sections on writers like Dylan, The Beatles, Cole Porter etc, etc.. But the author reserved their absolute highest praise for Joni Mitchell, saying that she was just on another level to everyone else. As the years have gone by, I'm more and more convinced that the author was 100% correct. Joni Mitchell is the greatest storytelling songwriter of the last 50 years...

As promised I started building the second single cut 5. You may have seen the red fretless single cut that is awaiting lacquer. This is walnut front and back, with alder and veneers. Fingerboard will be Birdseye and I’m going to try using the Shaper to do custom symbols and blind frets. Two Delano SBC 6’s with 4 band eq.

And a bit more on Wetton for us JW lovers, particularly around the 72-74 era with Crimson's Starless, Lark’s Tongue in Aspic and Red albums 61 Fender Precision , Italian-made Jen Double Sound Fuzz/Wah , Hiwatt valve heads , Cerwin-Vega 4×12 cab - EV drivers

Going back to the OP, I think Macca’s fame eclipsed any of the skills he had, be it as a songwriter or bassist so they tend to be forgotten about or not dwelled upon. He was “just” a Beatle. In a similar way Prince was never rated as a guitarist or bassist, he was just Prince. There must be more out there, anybody think of anyone else? Sting? Eric Clapton?

So not really today, it was last week. After much deciding on a short scale bass, I decided I wanted to get the TMB35 but turned out there aren't many around until things are restocked . I had a previous bad experience of dealing with Bax, but as this is quite a cheap bass anyway (and a tenner cheaper from bax), I thought I might as well try them. Was disappointed when I saw from the tracking that it was in Amsterdam, but it spent a weekend travelling and turned up without trouble on the date when it said it would, so full marks for them, and it seems like apart from having to deal with our UPS guy, they seemed to do the job too. So the bass is a 5 string 30" scale with wider than I like string spacing and quite a fat neck for an ibanez - nothing like an SR. It has a P pickup and a J pickup, and is passive with a tone control. It was £193. It came setup fine, and I haven't had to adjust anything at all. The tone control was loose as the bolt had fallen off the pot, but turned out I had to take them all off to get the plastic off anyway. The colour is probably best described as 'toothpaste green'. It is reasonably light compared to most of my full length basses but the headstock is a bit massive and the machineheads are large, so it is noticably headstock heavy both sitting and standing, which is unfortunate, not sure if I can do much about that. I find the headstock ugly but on a bass like this I don't mind so much. It is hugely fun to play and it is an easy thing to just pick up and play which is what is happening with it, it sits behind me at my work desk and gets picked up a lot. Sound wise it sounds great, especially the B string, which is very useable and it doesn't sound like a short string, or like you are missing anything. the P pickup is great and with mixing of the j pickup there are a lot of really useable sounds. The J pickup on its own is a bit noisy and thin, but its ok. It is definitely playing above its cost. I would have no problem gigging this - in fact at some of the more 'down to earth' venues, I almost certainly will! The bass - Pigeon for scale

During my deliberations/investigations into my eventual Fender JMJ Mustang purchase, I came across these two videos. These pretty much sealed the deal for me tonally.

Definitely Chris, from what I’ve read how The Beatles were in their Hamburg days wasn’t that far removed from punk, which is my main area of music.

What do you guys want from an18 year old bass player? Playing a musical instrument well is an end in itself as every" proper" musician will tell you. Playing it this well is something that many of her critics can't do. There are composers and musicians and sometimes there are guys who do both. It's very boorish to criticize one for not being able to do the other.

'Both Sides, Now (2000)', Is really worth a listen. The terrific Vince Mendoza arranged and conducted the Orchestra. The musicians credit list is pretty formidable, but don't let that put you off as a chops album, it's not. Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell album) - Wikipedia

Anything by Spooky Tooth or...Robert Implant?

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Just another impression on this, in view of the (perfectly valid...) opinions above, I've been a Joni Mitchell fan since... Well, forever, so some bias here. She has a very varied set of interests, and has, over time gone down several different rabbit holes, and explored many different genres. I find it perfectly fitting that, whilst respecting the more delicate numbers, there's a bit of 'raunch' on stages of the sort. There are other videos of more intimate occasions, and I found it refreshing to see and hear her evident enjoyment of this performance. I'll freely accept the reservations mentioned; it doesn't detract at all, for me, whenever I watch this video (and I've played it extensively..!). I can think of only one or two songs from her whole repertoire that I could be tempted to skip over, but even then I probably wouldn't. One of the Great Wonders of the Modern World, to me; her art and output have brought so much light and joy into my life.

Are we really going to do this? Oh very well. Artist Country / Market Claimed sales The Beatles United Kingdom 600 million 500 million Elvis Presley United States 600 million 500 million Michael Jackson United States 350 million 300 million Elton John United Kingdom 300 million 250 million 300 million records Guinness World Records listed Madonna as the best-selling female recording artist of all time, with more than 300 million records sold during her career. Previously, the 1998 edition of Guinness Book of World Records stated: "No female artist has sold more records than Madonna around the world... We all know that these numbers are notoriously flakey and depend on one's choice of definition, and of course that everything on the Internet is guaranteed true and accurate. Whatever. It is widely accepted that each of The Beatles and Elvis Presley really outsold 3rd place and lower by at least a factor of 2:1. And then there's the distinction between singles and albums. Not too relevant in an age of downloads, perhaps, but it's worth remembering that each album purchased equates to at least half a dozen downloads and, for earlier 60s albums, more like a dozen. Madonna was Queen of the singles chart, just as The Beatles were Kings of the singles chart. The big difference is that The Beatles were also Kings of the album chart. At the same time. Check out the 50 best-selling music artists of all time by album sales: The Beatles — 183 million units. Garth Brooks — 156 million units. ... Elvis Presley — 146.5 million units. ... Eagles — 120 million units. ... Led Zeppelin — 111.5 million units. ... Billy Joel — 84.5 million units. ... Michael Jackson — 84 million units. ... https://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-music-artists-of-all-time-2016-9?r=US&IR=T#17-madonna-645-million-units-34 Madonna comes in at #17. Bored with this now.

Love it! It’s, erm, very David Lynch-y..!

Not a fan or a scholar, but IMHO this is pure beauty, mesmerizing IMHO, thankful that it happened and that we can still enjoy it, wouldn't dare throwing even the smallest of stones. Obviously not everybody's cup of tea, thankfully there's all sorts of beverages out there for all of us to enjoy.

This page link below has a full templates for major DAW's. You can load up the full Orchestra in one hit. It's such a light library, with a small RAM footprint, that it hardly touches the sides. So, your Puter shouldn't scream out in pain. A modest Laptop will run it with no problems. Discover Templates — THE PAGE (spitfireaudiothepage.com) Most of the templates have two versions: 1) One track per articulation (there are only two articulations - long and short). 2) One track with both the long and short articulations (for use with keyswitching - C-2 and C#-2).

Not Far Enough - Sonnder (nicely covering both title and band. YMMV 😁)

indeed, the sound track from the Backbeat Band, from the film Backbeat is very punk rock

I won't play oasis, because I really hate the sound. I am not bothered by blur either way and they are not of my generation either. TBH, although the whiney horrible sound of oasis puts my teeth on edge, what I hate more is "cover bands playing oasis" and "drunk people in pubs singing oasis" Beatles, not so bothered about either way, we do "come together" and "twist and shout" (I know that's not really Beatles but it is), and I enjoy doing both of them, no particular desire to do more. pin the grand scheme of pop I think he was a good bass player, singer and songwriter even if not particularly my thing. I think they moved music on. Also seeing them playing live on early recordings they are very tight as a group and confident, I would be happy to be in a group that tight, whatever they were playing

As part of the many tracks we've recorded with our lockdown project. The bass track was recorded on a Yamaha BBP34 with Dr Lo-Rider nickel strings. I tried to give enough room frequency wise for the guitar tracks. (Apologies for the image 😛 )

I thought this might be of use to some. A 2021 list of free instruments available for download. The 19 Best Free VST Instruments in 2021 (musicianonamission.com)

My take as well and to be honest, I've always thought that over the years.... I can say that with confidence now I'm 64.

Ooh it's like being back in the 60's. Are you Beatles or Stones? McCartney or Lennon? Such strong opinions too My guess would be that most of the strongest views are from people of my generation who grew up with this stuff. For a different generation it would be Oasis or Blur. I've played in covers bands where people who are old enough to know better won't play Oasis songs because they were Blur. Anything from 10 years either side and they have no problems. The thing people forget is that the Beatles were a pop band. The pop band at the time in that they were a major force within those few bands that were inventing British pop music. Not that they didn't stand on the shoulders of giants, mainly black American giants. We barely knew about these giants at the time, we only found out about them when British bands brought them here. If you play now in bands with guitar, electric bass and drums then this is how what we think of as bands happened. I was a Stones fan and looking back there was a genuine split in music, The Stones were very much part of a London scene of musicians whose music was truer to the blues music they were listening to. If you listened to the Stones it wasn't long before you discovered Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and so on. The Beatles were a pop band from the start. If you don't like pop then you aren't going to be big fans. There are an awful lot of earworms in their back catalogue though. As to Paul as a bassist though, well I've only just started learning any of his stuff, I've never wanted to be in one of those bands that only play stuff from their own teenage years and most of what I've done has been fairly rock based. My Duo partner is a big Beatles fan and a mutual friend has moved down this way so suddenly I'm playing a lot more 60's stuff. i've reached a stage where just playing anything with anyone is fun and guess what? There are some lovely bass lines in a load of those old songs. It wasn't just McCartney either but he is particularly inventive, and it is quite instructive listening to how much he improves over time. The playing in the early songs was pretty generic and limited but the progress he made between 62 and 1970 wa an awful lot more than I managed in 8 years. I'm finding some of his bass challenging and interesting and I'm only copying. I think people who 'hate' music are just telling us something about themselves. We all like different stuff and we are all free to do so, you don't have to 'like' anything. People hating the Beatles? It's like being back in the 60's

Drilling Me Softly 🙂

Received the new hardware ordered and couldn't resist fitting the neck and trying to get an idea of what this is going to look like...