Tandro

Ok...did not bother to get it...thanks for the advice though It went for a very reasonable price if you ask me. Right, time to convince myself that it's a good thing I did not buy it...1) I told myself I would not buy any basses for a while 2) Why would I ever need another warwick (trick question)? 3) I've got no space 4) There 'is' another warwick that I really want and need to save for 5) the look of disapproval from my wife scares me 6) I told myself I would not buy any basses for a while ...hmmm... not sure I'm convinced yet. Serves me right, this is what happens the day after you get paid and start looking at basses for sale

Ha! I know the warwick love is thin in these here parts...but what can I say, I just like 'em. I was looking at how long he was registered, the history of his items, registered time on the bay etc and had the same thoughts. But I guess just me being paranoid. I was thinking the discoloration might have come from a stand rubbing against that area, but I hear what you're saying. I still have not made up my mind if to go for it...well, I still have a _whole_ 5 minutes to decide

Hi guys, I don't buy expensive stuff off the bay so not sure if things are what they seem, or what are the right questions to ask but I was looking at this which ends within the hour: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Warwick-Corvette-Double-Buck-Nirvana-Black-/120687278257?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item1c1985b8b1"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Warwick-Corvette-Dou...=item1c1985b8b1[/url] Posting it here means I may get outbid (doh!), but I rather ask as you guys would know what to look out for. What you think that discoloration at the bottom of the neck is? Something to worry about?

Hi Scott, First I'd like to say that I really like your video tutorials (I watch some again every so often in the hope that something will sink in,ha). Your structure for the new site is most what I would want, ie. technique/rhythm/improvisation/licks and language. I had started a thread earlier this year on how I should go about learning and that was basically what was touched on. But...for me while I can learn all these various 'concepts' and ideas, I have trouble making the step of how to make practical use of them, and make use of them 'musically'. For a beginner like myself, I know I need to know all these building blocks, but I can't make the mental connection of how to then build something worthwhile with them. Maybe I'm just daft and don't have an ounce of musical ability in my little toe. If I start out at point A, whats the next baby step to get to B and then C? As a novice all these concepts just exist in a vacuum and I can't connect them. Why is it for example that when I see a video of someone demonstrating the Dorian scale and soloing with it sounds 'musical', but when I try it sounds crap and just like random notes that 'fall' on a scale. Hope this makes sense. Thanks for your efforts, appreciated.

[quote name='Huwberry' post='1088257' date='Jan 13 2011, 04:28 PM'] Try as I might, I couldn't get the audio to stay in sync. Oh well, enjoy!![/quote] I was randomly looking at posts when I should _really_ be doing other things, and came across this. Huwberry, I just wanted to say that I really like this. I've got nothing to post, but thanks to everyone that posted, it was cool to see you do your thang...

www.jamstudio.com If its just rhythms, I normally just use my Korg Pandora (besides effects, numerous beats available or plain old metronome). I can also record chords from my bass along with a beat and loop it in my Korg and play over that. But for internet use, jamstudio is really cool. If you just want a beat/rythym then just only select Drums and deselect Guitar etc. and click for 'Loop page'...an there ya go. If you want to change the beat, tempo, add instruments with whatever chords you can do that also. There is however sometimes a bit of a stutter or delay when you use instruments in this 'free' version. HTH.

I had been trying to use this one in the past: [url="http://www.trainear.com/"]http://www.trainear.com/[/url] I have not done it in a while but I'll try to put a consistent 10-15 minutes a day during lunch or something. It uses the same idea Bilbo speaks of with learning intervals by relating it to songs you know. I wonder however if that is a good thing or a bad thing, as I hear an interval and I first think of the associated song then the interval. I don't know if eventually familiarity will stop me thinking of the song first and I'll 'just recognise' the interval.

[quote name='chugster' post='1087749' date='Jan 13 2011, 11:22 AM']Thanks I've downloaded Audacity. Can you point me in the direction of any instructions to use it to remove the bass from tracks?[/quote] First thing of course is to import a song. File -> Open , and then navigate and pick your song. My version does not have mp3 support built in, but I should really see about that. Anyways, so now you should be able to play it, edit etc. In my version of Audacity, to cut the low frequencies I go to Effect -> Plugins 1 to 9 -> High Pass Filter. There you can pick your cutoff frequency and Rolloff. Click OK, and it does its thing. Play with the values in High Pass Filter and see how the song sounds. Now this is not going to remove exactly the bass for any song, it just allows you to 'lessen' it to your liking. Not a perfect solution, but good enough for practice IMO. Now if you want to slow down the song cause that riff you want to learn is a bit too fast for you to play along with (or transcribe), then go to Effect -> Change Tempo. Slow it down on the slider as you need to. The nice thing with this, is that sometimes if I want to try and figure a section but I just can't seem to 'hear' it good enough, I might copy and paste the tricky section (or just highlight it) into a new audacity project (File -> New) and use the Low pass filter or something to attenuate the higher frequencies. You can really dial in the start and end of a section you want to lift out or repeat play over and over because you can set the start time (and end time of course) down to the millisecond (this sure beats back in the day when I had my songs on cassette tape...anybody remember that...and had to constantly rewind and play to try and figure out some bass part). Anyway, I hope this all makes sense and helps out in some way.

[quote name='chugster' post='1086406' date='Jan 12 2011, 08:58 AM']Hi, New bass player here. I've had a look round but haven't found what I'm looking for so apologies if it is already on here somewhere! Can anyone tell me if there is such thing as a website where I can get MP3s of actual songs with all instrument parts and vocals except for the bass so I can play along to them? I've found sites with tracks to jam to but I would prefer to play to actual songs that I know. Any help appreciated![/quote] Can't help you with a website, but maybe you can try and strip out the bass part yourself. There are most probably tons of programs, and maybe they are much easier to use than what I will suggest but I've only ever used Audacity (and on Linux with wav files and not mp3, but a friend of mine used it with Windows with no real issues). See the following: [url="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/"]http://audacity.sourceforge.net/[/url] Its free! I don't know the ins and outs of it too much and it can look overwhelming cause it can do ALOT, but I use it to strip out the bass and even slow down a song without changing the pitch...so you can make your own slow versions of the actual songs and play along with your bass . If you want to spend money on hardware, I also have a Korg Pandora PX5 which can take out a mp3 player as input and take out the bass on the fly. Maybe someone has easier or cheaper options. HTH.

[quote name='wal4string' post='1084528' date='Jan 10 2011, 05:44 PM']The 1975 track from the band War. A bit of fun to start the week. Always makes me smile anyway. Here is a uTube link to the track. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUT46ZR5CC8&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUT46ZR5CC8...feature=related[/url][/quote] Ha...just thinking about it is making me smile...me thinks I'll be messing with this one later tonight..thanks...!

Hi all, Firstly thanks for all the input so far. Very appreciated. I'll try to work in the various points everyone has raised in practice and see what works for me, but the main points that are repeated are: 1) Get some tuition 2) Learn to read music I do really want structured lessons badly but thought it not possible. I'm rethinking this now, even if it is only every fortnight. As regards reading, this was my goal last year. I'm not totally in the dark as thanks to my parents I used to do piano when I was young. You would think then that when I told myself I would having this reading thing down by end of year, I would be OK. Turns out I still suck (and looking at sixteenth notes is scary!). Hence the reason I originally stated that I need to set achievable goals in set time frames, cause I feel I just did not get anywhere last year (and I didn't). Just wondering what my 'achievable goals and set time frames' should be? Should I aim for learning an arpegio all over the neck at 100bpm in 4 weeks, or something like transcribe one song every fortnight? I am starting to use Musescore. I am not too sure with figuring out the timing and rests of notes in a piece I figure out so I put it in musescore and then playback to see if it sounds right. About the GCSE music, are there any other things applicable to study. What about these Rockschool Bass grades I see about a bit, worthwhile at all? Been checking out the recommended books at online stores. I am a sucker for a book, but I'm afraid it won't get used...like a lot of my other books. I will undoubtedly buy them over the coming months, but I think I need to stick to a 'one book until you finish it' rule or something. Even though I knew it already, it was a bit daunting when as Bilbo put it "there are a million other things you will need to deal with", but I'm not discouraged looking at the mountain. I know it will take a while, I just actually want to start getting there eventually.

I would love to get a teacher and was going to start looking, but things are coming up and for the sake of saving my pennies this might not be possible (I'm not a young Spring chicken anymore and I got responsibilities). As an economical spin to it, I was even toying with the idea of doing a few lessons just to 'get me on the right track' and get some advice on what I need to do. What about a 1 hour lesson every other week, is that too little? I dunno if I can even swing that. The going rate seems to be around £25-30 an hour? (As I'm out in West London, I had called Techmusicschool and they quoted £40 an hour, which seems a bit high).

Hi BC. So I've decided that I actually really want to learn 'music', and be able to play bass proficiently. But now my problem is how do I achieve this? Now before you all unanimously say, "Err, pick up the bass and practice...duh!", I need to know _how_ to practice. What you say? First, my thoughts on it. Personally I would love to take lessons, but its not possible. Realistically, I can get 60 minutes give or take of solid bass time everyday. Thats precious time I want to spend _very_ wisely. The next thing is that I want to set some type of achievable goals and time frame or I know I just won't get anywhere any time soon. So I want to look back in 12 months and see some real progress (whatever that realistically is). I guess I'm just looking for any thoughts from you out there, because what I think I need to do may not be the best thing and I could just waste my time. Any tutors who can chime in would be really appreciated. I'm at an average bass playing level in that I can play a tune if I learnt it, but I don't 'understand' what I'm doing. I would love to be able to just jam and improvise, but thats some magical thing I think you need a sprinkle of pixie dust for. I kind of figure the following are the main areas it could encompass(?): Harmony and Theory - stuff like scales, arpegios? Aural - learn my intervals, what else? sight reading - I want to be comfortable with this. Using 'Simplified Sight Reading For Bass' book now and I'm understanding rhythm/timing better Techniques - slap and pop, double thumb etc. Learn Songs - Besides helping with 'playing' practice, break it down into its parts to understand how the bass works with it? Transcribe - should help with the aural abilities and the understanding of it in context? If the above is vaguely right, how the heck do I fit it that in to 60 minutes a day? Just work on one thing for a month straight until I reach a certain point? Or 20 minutes of this, 10 of that? Do Major's Bass Boot camp only till I reach the end? I dunno. Sorry for the long post. Your personal experience greatly welcome. Thanks.

[quote name='Schnozzalee' post='1071221' date='Dec 28 2010, 08:10 PM']Lick Library is fantastic for guitar tuition, they have just 3 for bass - mark king, john paul jones and john deacon, I haven't bought them as I can work out the latter twos stuff myself and Mark King leaves me cold. No patience for youtube lessons.[/quote] There is also the Jaco Pastorious from Lick Library (I just did not have the patience to figure out Portrait of Tracy or piece it together from YouTube). Starting with seeing Victor Wooten live last year, led me to stumbling across MarloweDK's site, which together got me wanting to get back into bass big time. Which then led me to buying other videos and books, joining this site, and buying gear from this site...damn you Vic and MarlowdDK! MarloweDK also has: www.youplayalong.com I'm interested in that Ed Friedland DVD now as people here seem to like it...is it any better/different than Alexis Sklarevski Slap Bass Program?

Got Andy's ESP delivered to me safe and sound. Great communication from him throughout with the couriers being delayed, no fault of his. No models arrived with the bass...but its exactly as you see in the pictures. I'm well pleased Thanks Andy...!

[quote name='J.R.Bass' post='1048861' date='Dec 5 2010, 11:12 PM']No worries dude, added a vid of me playing it [/quote] Very...ahem...'Smooth' (as obvious a pun as you could get, could'nt resist it) Thanks for the score man, really appreciate it (my other half will appreciate it even more)!

[quote name='molan' post='1040698' date='Nov 29 2010, 04:08 AM']Fodera say that they are only going to produce 6 a year of these moving forwards because they are just so labour intensive, having one that was completed this year feels nice but it's really not any kind of major reason that I like it so much! Is it 'worth' the current $12,500 price tag (about £10K in the UK after taxes) - well that depends on whether you can afford one and So - apologi[/quote] I for one cannot afford it (like 99% of the other people reading this...maybe I'm wrong?), but I would buy one in a heartbeat if I could. So my game plan is to start saving my pennies, scour the for sale forum and wait with baited breath for when the time comes in some years that you decide to sell yours...and then take out a loan for the remainder of the cash and buy it I think it could work...

Nik, your feedback is miles long! I have nothing but praise yet again to add for Nik. Everything people say about his packaging, communication and delivery is absolutely true. I bought his Zoom B2.1U, and while I might have been slow, Nik was always on the ball letting me know what was going on every step of the way (even though I was out of the country). Thanks again Nik for a painless transaction (and the pedal!). Have no fear in doing business with Nik, just know that it will all go well...