velvetkevorkian

+1- I gave all my fretted basses a rough and ready fret levelling myself and it really does make a big difference to playability.

How about something like [url="http://www.vivaceviolin.com/pp/Accessories/Bass/65AB.html"]this[/url]?

Here's a pic of my old Mark IV: I appear to have the only broken one of these- my sister's friend switched it on with no speaker attached and apparently fried it. Just smelled like burning. Good solid amp though, I really liked the mix of active and passive tone controls.

OK- These points are obviously all IMHO, and based on what I consider good technique and musicality. As ever, YMMV... First thing is that posture you're sitting in will give you a lot of pain if you do it a lot- you don't really want to be hunched over like that if you can avoid it. Left hand- are you aware you don't use your pinky on your left hand at all? I would try and rectify that. Also, I would recommend not letting the thumb come over the top of the neck- ideally you want it sitting in the middle of the neck roughly opposite your index finger. Right hand- It looks like you're resting your thumb quite heavily on the strings- you want to be applying as little pressure as possible. I would recommend having a look at some floating thumb videos on youtube, or at least trying to ease off the pressure there. Its hard to tell as the music is quite hard to make out, but your timing seemed a wee bit rocky in places- I would recommend some metronome or drum machine practice with single notes to get your fingers playing evenly and consistently, then maybe try the tune without all the fills and get it as tight as possible. The other thing is that the strumming is way, way louder than the fingerstyle stuff- not really an issue here but something you would need to be aware of in a band situation, for example. I'm assuming you're doing your own take on the bass line as the way you play it is quite different from the recorded version- which is obviously fine, as long as you're aware of it! Hope that helps, and doesn't sound too patronising!

I'd recommend Stuart Clayton's Ultimate Slap Bass book.

...Hello?

Hi folks, I've been working on the Willis technique (thumb + 3 fingers) on and off for a while now, but when I do it for any extended period or at high speed I find I get a bit of pain towards the base of the thumb. For those of you who have been playing this way for a while, is this normal? Should the movement be coming from the base of the thumb, or somewhere else? I can't see any other way of doing it effectively. Thanks Kyle

Should be fine, as long as the covers aren't magnetic; plastic or wood are both widely used as they don't affect the magnetic field that makes the pickups work.

Just sold Al a footswitch- He paid promptly and has been a pleasure to deal with. Thanks Al! Kyle

True, but they'll set you up for playing in odd time. And they're brilliant.

Including the upright, six, of which I still have five. The other went for scrap. That's over the course of ~10 years.

Plenty of public domain stuff here... [url="http://imslp.org/wiki/"]http://imslp.org/wiki/[/url]

No, but if I ever buy another guitar it will be an 8 string, with 30"-27" fanned frets tuned F#BEADGBE or EAEADGBE (in the latter, the bottom E and A would be like the E an A on a normal bass).

This is copied from the German wikipedia page on notation: [code]Note: C D E F G A H Solfege: do re mi fa sol la si Notation: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7[/code] So yes, its just a different name to refer to that note.

I think this is an updated version of the rackmount one, as so many people complained about its weird format.

[quote name='thodrik' post='815481' date='Apr 22 2010, 09:14 PM']Apparently according to the store guy at Guitar Guitar, Aguilar are probably going to release more pedals pretty soon. I'm hoping for a nasty overdrive/extreme Tone Hammer type thing. I won't be holding my breath though...[/quote] What, like [url="http://www.themadape.com/Aguilar_Agro_Bass_Overdrive_Pedal_p/a-agro.htm"]this[/url]?

Depends on the amp. Not all amps will bridge into 4 ohms, in fact most I recall checking only bridged at 8. In any case its not something you can work out by looking at the stereo ratings.

If the neck was actually 1/16th scale that would result in a scale length of between two and three inches! edit- the whole double bass size thing is a bit misleading. My 4/4 bass is not 25% bigger than a 3/4 bass, nor are the 1/4 scale instruments actually 25% of the size as a normal one. It seems more like marketing than anything else to me- 1/8 or 1/16 scale sounds more attractive to parents looking for an instrument for their kids than one "a bit smaller than usual".

The stock tuning on this is actually EADGDG ([url="http://www.ibanez.com/BassGuitars/model-SR2010ASC"]link[/url]) but it fails IMO as it only has a bridge pickup for the fretless strings. Not the fretless sound I like. YMMV.

IME with smaller DBs (I helped out at a kids orchestra who had some 1/8 (I think, could have been 1/4) basses) its mainly a smaller body- the strings and neck aren't scaled to 1/8 or whatever. They're smaller than usual but not to the extent that the body is.