SJA

has this been discussed yet?
-Fernandes Burny-

[url="http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/ikebe/0000084525.html"]http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/ikebe/0000084525.html[/url]

it's odd how there doesn't seem to be a cheapo 12 string electric guitar-
only in doublenecks, but plenty of cheap 8, 10 and 12 (doubled/tripled) string basses.

the gimmicky angle seems to sell.

this looks like the Steinberger Spirit doubleneck-
with separate outputs for each neck it could be an interesting concept for solo playing with 2 processing lines.
I'd prefer the guitar neck on top though.
[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PRO-DOUBLE-NECK-GUITAR-AND-BASS-WITH-TWO-INPUT-JACK_W0QQitemZ190121488043QQihZ009QQcategoryZ4713QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PRO-DOUBLE-NECK-GU...oQQcmdZViewItem[/url]

[url="http://www.musicyo.com/product_specs.asp?pf_id=189"]http://www.musicyo.com/product_specs.asp?pf_id=189[/url]

a bit more manageable-
[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC-DOUBLE-NECK-GUITAR-AND-BASS_W0QQitemZ190177475730QQihZ009QQcategoryZ2385QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC-...oQQcmdZViewItem[/url]

[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-TRIPLE-NECK-ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC-GUITAR-AND-BASS-COMBO_W0QQitemZ190116658289QQihZ009QQcategoryZ47064QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-TRIPLE-NECK-ACOUST...oQQcmdZViewItem[/url]

a US auction, but it probably won't be long before these show up in the UK too- all this Galveston, Tennessee etc. branded stuff seems to be the same as Wesley and other UK ebay stuff.

dunno how that acoustic top would stand up to all that string tension over time, but you wouldn't get bored with that to practice on- at least until it implodes!

edit- actually, thinking about it, how do you play that sitting down?

there are some funny double + triple neck bass + guitar + lap steels/banjos too.

the 270 has better machineheads. I've got a fretless one.

if it's only £20 more it's probably worth it.
the body wood is different too, dunno how much difference that makes though.

Alembic made a bass for Jack Casady with 2 sliding pickups back in the 70's, but it looked horrible.

putting a cover like one big pickup over them would improve the looks.

tripping on a chord, in the time-honoured tradition of Chuck Berry's duckwalk.

re. sustainer, I remember a mention in Bass Player of Fernandes building a custom bass for Pete Steele of Type O negative with a sustainer in it.
the body was styled like a Rick.

the sliding pickup under a cover has been done, can't remember if it was Gibson, Ovation, but still sounds like a good one-

eg. if you had 2 J-coil pickups under the cover and could slide them to any position between the neck and bridge, and separation between the 2.- anything from Alembic to stingray.

I've stuck with 4 so far as that's all that's been needed in the bands I've been in (dropping the E to D if necessary), but I've often wanted to get a 5 for the low B range, and will do at some point.

6, 7 and upwards is interesting with the added chordal/simultaneous chord or melody + bassline possibilities (for single notes the tone always seems to thin out on the higher strings though), but I find there's always a compromise between string spacing and neck width, plus there's more to mute, and being a cheapskate- more to spend on new strings

[quote name='bremen' post='96633' date='Nov 30 2007, 12:58 PM']Warmoth dinky p, swamp ash,maple neck 3.41kg[/quote]

if I put another Warmoth P together I'll probably go for that config-
I went for maple neck/fingerboard and hard ash body- and the bass ended up at around 11lbs (hipshot Ultralite machineheads but offset with a heavy Badass II bridge).
loads of sustain, lows, and a cutting, bright metallic tone, but a lighter body would give more punch/snap in the high mids, and be less tiring on the shoulder.

[quote name='paul, the' post='96480' date='Nov 30 2007, 04:06 AM']+1

"It's My Life"

Great line.[/quote]


...but dare I say that Paul Webb did it better on the Talk talk original?

I like Tony Kanal's playing though- eg. harmonics on "Just a girl"

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='96290' date='Nov 29 2007, 06:55 PM']Forgiving me I'm mis interptreteing you, but don't these two paragraphs sort of contradict each other?, or is that intentional?

Clive.[/quote]

they might be contradictory - I might be guilty of using that excuse.

slapping that fast doesn't interest me at all, though- it just seems like its sole purpose would be impressing other bassists.
if you take Wooten's Classical thump- it's quite a nice composition, but IMO double-thumbing the notes out that fast spoils it as a listener.

re. wiring 2 J's in series, if your EMG Select J's are the same as the ones in the PJ sets I've used, i don't think you can do that-

you need the pickup -ve and ground shield to be separate, and on EMG selects the pickup -ve is the shield.

you'd have to swap out the pickups for ones with pickup +ve, -ve and ground.

also, you could try getting a humbucking J pickup to go in neck position-
a Dimarzio ultra jazz is a split-coil humbucker, like a P pickup (won't sound exactly the same, due to coil size and positioning, but it'll give you some variation).

and there are stacked coil J humbuckers too.

[quote name='Nate' post='96097' date='Nov 29 2007, 12:38 PM']I have a horrible feeling that some (not all) people don't like the bass gymnasts because of their own playing insecurities though...[/quote]

yeah, it's an easy excuse to get out of learning theory, learning scales etc- I've been in bands with guitarists who sneer at technically advanced players when their own playing could benefit greatly from some practice and learning to expand their capabilities.

re. my own technique, i can't do double-thumbing, but then i have no intention to learn it either because the sound of it does nothing for me- ie. for fast playing i'd rather do it fingerstyle for tonal reasons.

first bass i played- 80's maple-neck sunburst precision belonging to the bassist in my brother's band,

first bass of my own- 1991 korean squier precision - horrible bass! frets wore out, hardly any sustain, deadspots galore, neck-heavy, dull, muted tone.


re. Kay basses that loads of people started on, James Eller told me on Talkbass that his workhorse bass is a Kay, that he had Seymour Duncans put in-
[url="http://www.myspace.com/jamesellerbass"]http://www.myspace.com/jamesellerbass[/url]
I suspect it's the one listed as "lorimer geilgud custom" in his pics (or that's a close copy of it).

he used it on the session for Julian Cope's "world shut your mouth" only because his usual musicman was in storage, but the producer was so impressed with its tone he ended up using it all the time.

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='95932' date='Nov 29 2007, 01:46 AM']Some of Mark King's best work was the songs where he "underplayed".[/quote]


yeah, playing for the song.
I picked up a Level42 compilation a few months back, and although "heaven in my hands" is a good song, Mark King's slapping underneath it doesn't fit in that context.
it's odd why he didn't play fingerstyle like he did on the Chinese way, the sun goes down or Starchild, as that would have fit a lot better-
slapping on that song sounds like he's doing it just to keep his slap trademark in there.

there's a clip on the old Grey whistle test of The teardrop explodes doing "reward", and JC's playing a black maple neck jazz, worn high.

James Eller's great though eg. Trampoline.

also, on the gibsonbass site there's a thunderbird/firebird doubleneck Cope owns- I remember seeing his bassist playing it on TOTP.
[url="http://www.gibsonbass.com/JulianCope.php"]http://www.gibsonbass.com/JulianCope.php[/url]

I've been listening to Thunder's backstreet symphony album again-

Mark "Snake" Luckhurst played some great basslines on this, in the Neil Murray, Andy Fraser, John Paul Jones vein.

a Thunderbird user, á la Frankie Poullain of the Darkness.....


another great JPJ-inspired player- Stuart Chatwood of the Tea Party eg. "the river", "save me", "bazaar".

"I'm surprised you came to see me three times. But thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, even if the search for whatever it was you were looking for in my music proved fruitless."

2 of the gigs were free and i attended to check out if you lived up to the hype you've garnered in magazines etc.
at the Troubadour gig I was relieved to find that Michael Manring did actually live up to the hype.


"It would seem that the pertinent bit there would be that it was on my blog. I'd be unlikely to go onto a rock site and post about my dislike for VR's set at Live8 in a thread about Duff's bass-playing, or join a thread where Duff McKagan was posting and tell him I didn't like his band - and were Duff to approach me about it, I'd probably apologise"

well, that's a bit cowardly then isn't it?

is it a case of one set of standards for your friends and another for people you don't know?

"I'm not writing demo music for the technology I use... "

could have fooled me.
the music you are playing comes across as exactly that- a demo for the technology, whereas Michael Manring's material comes across as music rather than a demo for his Zon basses.

[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='95274' date='Nov 27 2007, 07:53 PM']However, I always find it odd when people say my (or anyone else's) music 'relies' on effects - I don't see processed or unprocessed sound as being any different. It's like saying a guitarist relies on different guitars for variation, or a band rely on different tempos for variation.[/quote]


the validity of the analogies of the guitarist changing guitars or a band changing tempo depends on whether the music they play doesn't vary in any way otherwise.
you do overly rely on effects- I've seen you play live 3 times now (in the vain hope that I'd get to hear something i liked) and every time it's the same story of relying on a reverse effect, pitch shift etc. to wring some kind of variation out of some unremarkable riff or idea.

[quote]Looping is no more a limitation than having a drummer in your band who doesn't also play a melody instrument...[/quote]

that would be a drummer who can't freely vary their playing, changing their style, pattern on the spot- plus stops you from throwing in a chord change on the spot. it IS limiting.

as for me being rude, well, i've seen Steve himself be pretty rude himself about other peoples' music in his blogs- eg. calling Velvet revolver "sh*t on a stick".
I've got a bit tired of his attitude of smug superiority, sorry if I've put a spanner in the works of his self-promotion scheme.

[quote name='ARGH' post='95235' date='Nov 27 2007, 06:19 PM']You have to remember though SJA that Manrings Basses are VERY VERY modified,to call them straight 4 string basses ala a stock P would be misunderstanding. Manrings Technique is his WOW factor though all that tapping and slapping and chordial work..often on fretless is amazing to see.[/quote]

IIRC his fretted Zon headless (Vinny?) is in standard tuning and has no retuning options on it-
it's just that his songwriting - chord changes and melodies are just in a totally different league to Steve Lawson's.
SL relies on effects for variation, and frankly it just gets boring very quickly.
and looping lost its novelty a long time ago, and now the limitations it places on the music just stifle it.

[quote name='Sean' post='94148' date='Nov 25 2007, 03:43 PM']My message to anyone who is skeptical about ERB is go a Steve Lawson gig, open your mind and absorb.[/quote]


sorry, I'm going to be brutally honest here, and if I get flamed for it, fine.

I saw Steve play alongside Michael Manring (at the Troubadour in 2004), and sorry, Steve, Michael made far more memorable, stirring music, and happened to be using 4 string basses.

maybe it's just that he's a far better composer, regardless of how many strings he uses.

full marks for using the web for self-promotion though Steve

the string path over the nut to the machineheads looks a bit odd- all squeezed together.

John Wetton
Greg Lake
Doug Pinnick

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0oZ8PQNC00"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0oZ8PQNC00[/url]

funny how the bit at 6.11 where she shows the same riff on the 4 and 12 actually shows the 4 to sound so much better-

definition and grind.
I think the fundamentals of the octave strings mask the harmonics of the regular strings, and adding distortion just muddies it up further.

Doug Pinnick used a crossover to split the highs to go through guitar amps for distortion,
and John Paul Jones had stereo outputs on his doubled-string Manson basses, sending the bridge pickup through distortion,
so i think the signal on doubled/tripled-stringers needs extra separation, esp. when using distortion.