visog

... then don't assume the key's 'B'. Assume it's E' and you've got a very common 1-4-5 variant.

I've got tremendous deja vu all over again...

Prices coming in at about £680 although not seen one in the flesh yet. Seems to be a pre-order item in most UK outlets currently.

Here's a good shot of that lovely Ibanez Artcore six for Thundercat: http://www.bassplayer.com/artists/1171/watch-thundercat-perform-tron-song-live-video/51046

Both are good though in the context of a great line...

Whoa hold on there - passing notes are entirely different to ghost notes. Passing notes are gliss's or commonly chromatic connecting notes in a line or melody. Ghost notes are notes that have a rhythm value but no pitch as they're muted or otherwise not sounded. Make sense?

Try searching for exercises around the term 'finger funk'. Jaco is legendary at this but so is Francis Rocco Prestia of Tower of Power fame. Also look out for Matt Garrison's four-finger application of groove playing with ghosts notes if you want to achieve hyper-speed (and get fired from most normal bands)

Do her a favour and buy her some decks and a pair of Dr Dre's. Not some old fashioned guitar tuba thing for people who can't afford karaoke

[quote name='grahamd' timestamp='1428449959' post='2741482'] Is that a Smith Feraud Burner lurking in the background too? Anyone have a try? [/quote] Yes it is. Saw it when I was last in. No not tried it. Looks beautiful. Looks like Mark's go two in stock: http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/5_String_Bass_Guitars.html

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1428252275' post='2739606'] Well I heard all the notes and enjoyed them immensely, a true artist on the bass guitar. (Granted, it's not exactly Justin Bieber but that's not the point of this post.) Christ knows what AJ must practise to play this stuff.... [/quote] And DC is killing as always... My favourite AJ is also Steve Khan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_FBGKb5Q-k Oh and he makes unbelievable use of a the B string.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1428178246' post='2738927'] Listen to some Anthony Jackson from this album - [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4v4Zu-msnQ[/media] Tell me that you honestly can't hear the notes that he play clearly. I did a lot of transcribing of his playing from this album last year, he loves the low Cs, C#s etc, they can clearly be heard. [/quote] Well I heard all the notes and enjoyed them immensely, a true artist on the bass guitar. (Granted, it's not exactly Justin Bieber but that's not the point of this post.) Christ knows what AJ must practise to play this stuff....

Hmmm... I think people are just trying to be provocative on this thread. A decent 5 has 5 usable strings across all frets. Although intonating a B-string in the dusty end is a bit of a challenge I grant you. Worth persevering. Don't dismiss 5's on the basis of bad basses. A low C# sounds different to a C although it takes longer to perceive it because of the wavelength. (Not harmonic resonance!....) And also, as alluded to in many posts, the ability to play two octaves of any scale within 5 frets is a real enabler to seeing how scales unfold on the fretboard which you simply don't get on a 4. (The next milestone for this, if you understand what I'm getting at is a 7 where the major scale manifests as a vertical row from the B upward in fourths or from the F upward in Fifths which is the basis of Lydian Chromatic approach.) So I'd challenge the orthodoxy of the 4 from it's viola heritage and say a 5's the the way to go. And as for memorable bass lines on a 5, their arrival coincides with the pre-eminence of Rap and Dance and the decline of guitar-driven rock into a minority music. The advent of 5 is not causal to so called unmemorable bass-lines, it's coincidental with unmemorable music.

I'd like to be the first to complain about the battery life of the iBass...

Purists (notably) Alembic say it changes the tone, which it probably does when you think about it, but that said, I've seen it done many times... Just be careful with the fingerboard wood though, darker woods work well but I'd say my maple fretless conversion was a fail... (Only every seen Sting with such a beast as me but he seemed to make work ok).

Probably the first sort of bass single-cut I saw. Alphonso Johnson played one for a while.

It more than just 'lazy journalism', it's approaching cynical. How long until there's an implication that Basschat is BGM's online forum simply by association. (I bet the column won't feature much of the many 'why I don;t buy BGM anymore' threads.) I think it would be better, if it must be done, to feature Talkbass and other online communities with full credit to the OP's who in effect are becoming music journalists for others' profit.

Well Chris Squire and Paul McCartney have got on with them for the last 50 years!?

Sorry - re-read your OP and you cited Steve Severin also.... Great music, bad technique....! For great examples of killer plec technique, refer to Chris Squire, Bobby Vega and some guy called Paul McCartney.

"Plectrum playing... all upstrokes" No... although quite common... For some reason Steve Severin comes to mind -some great lines but from a technical point of view, all over the place. All up-strokes is simply a placation of bad technique. Alternate picking is the way to go with a focus on consistent tone. Just put the time in and get on with it...

Here's a Ken Smith beaut' just in at Bass Direct... if you want to try one out... The demo is awful BTW... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc_66DokP5M

I haven't played a Ken Smith but I have a Status. I suggest you try them out in person. Sometimes, the thing you lust after pales when played, and the thing you've never considered blossoms. The map is not the territory. The web view is not the bass in your hands.

[quote name='hellothere' timestamp='1427258721' post='2727959'] Thinking of buying from their online site [url="http://rguitars.co.uk/"]http://rguitars.co.uk/[/url] Anyone heard of them? Had any experience using them? [/quote] Richard presumably?

None more fusion....

If you're commissioning one, then consider Bernie Goodfellow's GB Spitfires or Overwater.