achknalligewelt

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1361208040' post='1982809'] Not only that, but it would require a lot of someone's practise time to maintain those sort of 'chops'. For most players that is going to be a massive waste of time. I'd agree with most of that, but with 'bass player' replaced with 'musician'. It's not specifically a bass player skill. I think particularly for bass players it's important to bring some variety and colour or you're just going to be another mouth that needs feeding. You need to contribute as much as anyone else, preferably more. I also rate Alex James BTW. And I think Entwistle's bass often sounded awful, and he often sounded bored. [/quote] 'Here are some more notes, Pete, I'm off for a ciggy and a lie down.'

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361198744' post='1982588'] You sound like my kinda guy Not being a big Blur fan (although my lady has Parklife), I just had a listen to Tracy Jacks, bloody hell, that's a great bass line and works the song so well. I even like his tone. He's really got that lovely smooth nuanced playing that I am such a fan of. Jared Followill from Kings of Leon is another of this type of player. [/quote] Cheers. I find him to be melodic, rhythmic and just endlessly listenable as both an indidivual player and as part of the overall Blur sound. The same goes for Mat Osman (Suede), Mickey Quinn (Supergrass), Colin Greenwood (Radiohead) and Bobby Kildea (Belle and Sebastian). Some of the bassists on the indie scene are superb, but seem to go utterly under the radar on BC. I got called a troll for saying that I didn't like John Entwistle, which seemed a tad harsh. I say again, Guitar pop is the home to a stack of great bass playing, quite possibly because it lacks the big beasts of the bass firmament, and relies instead on the skills of the ensemble player and the all round musician - it's always a surprise how much else a pop band bassist does on a record besides hold down the low end. Mike Mills is part bassist, part polymath in my opinion.

It's a nice question, and I asked a similar question a while back. I, for my trouble, got heavily shot down for it, though this may have been because I advocated Alex James as a bassist rather than one of the accpeted canon of bass masters. Thing is, I agree with the thesis of the question - slapping out hemisemidemiquavers at 200 bpm is a great talent, but outside of a very particular genre of music, it is also utterly useless. A great bassist is one who can always do what the music requires, and then add a layer of personal interpretation on the top. Knowing what the song needs and how they can fit themselves into that hole is one of the fundamentals for a bass player. To be a great, they then have to be able to mould that hole around themselves and make the line they want to play work. To take Alex James as an example, the bassline to Tracy Jacks is utterly unlike any other in 90's music. God knows, frankly, where he got it from. But get it he did, and it is the heart of the song. Any other bassist could have created a line themselves given the same blank canvas of a song, but the alchemy of that line in that song is impossible to match, I think. I mention Alex James as he was a great influence on my approach to bass when I started, but you could add, to take an almost random example, Tony Williams on Stuck In The Middle With You, or Pete Quaife on You Really Got me. Some is note-y, some isn't, but the way these lines bring life to the songs is the sign of a great, for my mind.

I work with a chap called [url="http://woodmanstone.com/"]WoodmanStone[/url] - this is our [url="https://soundcloud.com/#woodmanstone"]Soundcloud[/url]. Our record is coming out on the 23rd March - please buy it, I'm getting mechanical royalties on it! Also, however, I'm very pleased with our work - poppy but with some odd corners, and the Woodman can't half sing. Cheers!

We managed this: [url="https://soundcloud.com/#woodmanstone/im-living-for-the-weekend"]https://soundcloud.com/#woodmanstone/im-living-for-the-weekend[/url] I played a roundwounded Squire Jazz with a pick straight into the console, through a digital amp simulator. I must admit, though, I had to push the engineer into taking out bass in favour of mid. I think it's a good sound, but then again, we're not aiming for a contemporary sound.

I'm being seasonal, with Step Into Christmas by Elton John. Whoever the player was on that, they're playing ALL the bass. All of it.

I always use a pick for everything. I can't use my fingers properly, I get terribly lost. Plus, because I never use my fingers I find I start to get blisters about halfway through anything, so I have to pull the pick from behind the scratchplate anyway. A lot of my favourite tones seem to be picked, too - Chris Squire, McCartney, Mike Mills, even Serge Gainsbourg's 1960's bands. But ultimately I agree with everyone else - it's horses for courses in the end, and the only people that care are other bassists anyway. In essence, ignore this post.

Our drummer has upped sticks and gone - his wife had a baby, which is just an excuse if you ask me. Finding another one has not gone well. We've had a couple of people we know express interest, but then you get to asking what they can play: "Wilson Pickett?" "No." "Mamas and Papas?" "No." "Small Faces?" "No." (Desparately now) "Beatles?" "Erm, not to play, no." Gah!

A Night at The Opera by Queen. I am practising being John Deacon and singing like Freddie at the same time. It's not going well.

Anything by Blur - Alex James polarises opinion, but by God can he play. Supergrass' Micky Quinn specialised in a certain kind of frantic melody too - anything off of I Should Coco is just mad one-take splurges of bass. Even the later stuff, though more refined, is super-clever.

Carlos Dengler, the Interpol bassist who did Evil (he's not with them any more) is a friend of a friend. It's a nice bassline - simple, but I think it works well in the song. Nice guy, too.

Best: The former Sound Control in Leicester was very good, though you could see the place gradually dying as the Rickenbackers disappeared and the Gibsons turned into Epiphones. By the end it was cheap Chinese no-name clones and an Ashdown Blue at best. Good people, but a victim of the internet. Worst: I went into Sounds Live in Newcastle on the vague hunt for a Rick. I got hold of the thing, only to have it pulled from my hand by a guy accusing me of wasting his time, because the best way to sell a £1800 guitar is to shout at the customer, obviously. I didn't even get to plug it in.

Mike Mills. I was playing the guitar along to What's The Frequency, Kenneth off of Monster with the help of a transcription in an American guitar magazone, and noticed that there was this other tab line below it. I listened a bit more closely and noticed this really, really cool melody under everything else that I'd not noticed before. The bass. I played the line on my guitar and was hooked immediately. I bought my first bass about a fortnight later. I still love Mike Mills' playing to this day, and finding out that he played just about everything else and sang at the same time meant I'd found a new hero.

I think of a quote I read from Bernie Edwards, asked by a bass journalist, at the height of Chic's fame, what kind of strings he used. He thought for a second, then answered 'whatever comes on a Stingray'. The BCers whose strings last a week - what are you doing, playing underwater? I use a 1.4mm guitar pick and for strings, whatever's cheap (EBs at the last change). I only really change something when it breaks. I think the last time I bought a full set of bass strings was... 2006. I am not after zing, though, more clonk. The bass is on full volume, full tone. I get what I need from my amp more than anywhere else. [i]EDIT: I just asked my bass playing colleague here at work when he last changed his strings, and the answer came back '1981'. Classy move.[/i]

Our band has 6 members and owns the PA communally. We've never thought about what happens when someone leaves, but I suppose we'd dissolve the partnership and sell the PA, then split the proceeds? Seems fairest - I know I couldn't afford to buy someone out, and if the ad for a replacement drummer said 'To join this band, you'll have to buy our departing member's share of the PA', I predict a respoonse of no people. Then we form another band with a little mixer, a pair of Mackie powered 12" speakers and forget about buying a full PA again!

Maybe he heard that guitarists are ten a penny, but a bassist will always be able to find a band. I have a bit of sympathy with him. I started as a guitarist (still am by inclination, but have been enjoyiong the bass for years alongside it). So, does he get in everyone else's way? I've been accused of this in the past, and have always tried to take account of my bandmates needs. But if I have space for a few notes of wild improv, why not? We all like to stretch. If this guy can make it sound good, I say more power to him. The bass can do all sorts of things other than thump away in the background. But it has to be done right, and everyone in a band needs to be sympathetic to the rest when it comes to playing, otherwise the whole band will just sound messy.

This thread is inspiring. 2nd hand Squier P-Bass here I come!

I seldom get direct compliments from my band, or indeed any comment on what I play or how I play it, apart from when I started and I was asked if I had a more thumpy-MacCartney-esque bass for early 60's numbers. I responded by saying that I could do that if they bought me a Hofner and until then they'd have to be happy with my Jazz and solid state Ampeg combo, authenticity be damned. There were grumbles about being dedicated, but I'd usually just rip off the solos to My Generation and that'd satisfy them that even though I played a Jazz (gasp) with a pick (more gasps) and roundwounds (gasp to end all gasps) I could actually play the damn thing, and that kept them happy. For a long time, though, I kept being asked to turn down, or cut a spot of the high end, make it a bit more, y'know, bass-like, but then my wife and I had a baby, and I had to take a few gigs off. Now my technique is an essential part of the sound, and my tone is apparently sorely missed, and the dep guy's Hofner is not what they want at all. The grass is apparently always greener with the other guy's rig. Of course.

I've been in a couple of 4-pieces and am in a 6-piece now, but I'd quite like to have a go at being in a trio. Something about it appeals to me - probably the opportunity to cut loose a bit more without some twonk of a guitarist taking up all the space with their riffs and effects pedals. You can't sing and solo at the same time. Thank God.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1334833606' post='1621986'] Tricky. I'm not ageist (just old) but I would say generally one learns things more quickly when young, no? Not that age should exclude anyone from doing anything of course, he added quickly. With the possible exception of base jumping. [/quote] I'm certainly not being ageist. I have any number of useless students. Age is no factor at all.

I have a bass student who has picked up the technique to bang out a root-note line in 8's in about 6 weeks. He likes indie rock, so I've told him that he's ready now. He won't need much else to start enjoying himself in a practise room playing Kings of Leon songs with some other guys. Go and join a band I said, because practise is the only way to learn how to use the tools I've given you. He's a bit of a natural, and very keen, so I am confident he'll start picking up more complex stuff as he goes along naturally. On the other hand, another student is still not band ready after nearly a year. He's not musical, but his wife bought him a bass for his 40th birthday, and she's damned if he's going to get to give up. And so he's decided that before he hits the stage, he wants to be able to out-MacCartney MacCartney, possibly just to annoy his wife, but I am still doing simple scales and fingering with him, and probably will be for a while yet. Frankly, we spend most of our lessons chatting about our kids and drinking tea, but he's happy to keep paying up, and I'm happy to let him. Horses for courses is what I'm saying. As long as you can keep up with a couple of songs you like on a stereo, and you want to take the plunge, jump in.

We are in the process of restarting a band from the old days. At the time, the bulk of the material was written by me (then on guitar), our bassist and about half the lyrics by our singer. Our drummer didn't write, but always took the lead in the feel of the song as he was and is very gifted in that area. Our processes were very chaotic, and what would emerge would be very much all our own work - words by one, chords by another, re-jigged and made into a workable live number by a third. These are your chords, half his words and putting it in 6/8 was my idea. If a song went through our pricess and came out the other end much the same as it went in, well, we all just agreed that this was the best thing for it. It's still a joint decision. I once tried to give our bassist a line that I'd transcribed for him, and although he very politely played it as I'd done it, he then asked me, with just a touch of menace, never to do it again. I concurred. We just credited the whole thing to the band, because had we not I think we would have seriously negelected the work of non-writing members (which could have been any one of us on any particular song), and sticking it all on liner notes would have been utterly tedious both to compile and read. We know what's what. Most people don't give a damn anyway, and it's not as if we ever made anything from publishing anyway. However, more recently I have been working with a friend on a set of songs that he has written, and apart from one middle 8 which I wrote, I haven't put anything creative in. He gave us total freedom with the parts we played, and quite a hand in arrangement, but we all understood that these were his songs, and his name will go on them and not ours. He is selling his songs, and I expect only a mechanical royalty on any play his versions get. If Adele picks one up, he'll be the beneficiary. But so he should be, I was just doing a job for a mate.

*AHEM* Sounds Live *AHEM*

I've had shoddy service on Denmark Street more than once, although Wunjo have always left a good impression. The worst experience I've had in a guitar place was in Newcastle about six months ago at a store near the Tyne Bridge which will remain nameless. I was just browsing on a stopover in the city, and saw a very nice black Rick 4003 in their window. I was (still am, sort of) in the market for one, and thought I'd take a look at theirs. I asked to have a spin on it, and the young lad behind the counter said yes. As he wandered off to switch on an amp though, someone who I guess was the manager (a biker-looking guy with a gut like Eric Pickles), stormed over to me as I stood holding the Rick. 'You buying today?' he demanded 'Two grand is a lot of money,' I said jokingly, 'I'd like to try a few before I commit' 'Well, you can get out. Don't waste my staff's time if you're just pissing about.' He then pulled the guitar from my hand and stormed out the back. I had to take a second to work out what had just happened, and by the time I had gathered my thoughts, I was alone in the shop. So off I went. I acually live in Leicester, where the chance to even see good gear is limited. Is there anywhere BCers would recommend near me (Nottingham, Birmingham)?

There is something about the tone on Serge Gainsbourg's stuff around the Jane Birkin/ Melody Nelson albums that I love. It's got a kind of trebly prominence without being too flash, plus the playing itself is just awesome. Herbie Flowers, I think, although I could be wrong. I'll also shamelessly copy any tone ever made by Paul McCartney or Mike Mills. Well, try and copy.