timtoomany

I was a bit put out when I bought a brand new Boss BR600 recorder and then had to shell out another £20 for a power supply. Perhaps it's the same for these gizmos too? In which case wouldn't blame the seller.

Jealous! Thanks for the review. Personally I'd have the jetglow over the ruby any day.

I was given an album by Jessica Williams Trio called 'Momentum' and was hooked from the beginning. I believe it has the most oblique version of 'Autumn Leaves' ever recorded too. A phenomenal pianist with incredible support; sadly underrated/unknown IMHO. Building on this, I was recommended Bill Evans Live at Village Vanguard, which was a real slow burner for me, but now a vital part of my listening habits many years later.

Interested to hear other people's views on this issue. I play bass, piano, church organ, a bit of rhythm guitar... Realised recently that with all of them I much prefer taking an accompanist role. As far as that goes, I love the way the bass can set the rhythm, give a solid root to the chord changes, throw in a bit of melody. A great all-rounder. For what it's worth I can't write songs for toffee.

I see your Gladys Knight and raise you The Mars Volta. From 1:40 or 4:00. Five times I've seen TMV play live, and four of those times I've witnessed women in the crowd fainting from the intensity of performance/tightness of trousers/overwhelming incomprehensibleness of the music.

I completely agree with this sentiment. Playing a second instruments informs your playing of the first in all kinds of useful and unexpected ways. I always found I could visualise music theory on the keyboard far more easily than the fretboard, and experimenting with chords and scales started to unlock some of the musical concepts that had previously been a mystery to me. This can then be fed back in to your bass playing, which I found far more satisfying and intuitive once I had a handle on the harmony and structure of the music I was playing. I think playing through the standards is a good approach. For what it's worth, I like to convert the chords from a fake book into the Roman numeral system (eg vi - ii - V - I - etc.) because it is much more easy then to pick out the relationships between the different chords in a progression; also to try and use 'efficient' voicing when moving from one chord to another--good voice leading. It was only by noodling around on the piano that all of a sudden I realised - hey, the 9th in one chord is the 13th in the next chord, and so on, and the music theory started dropping in to place. Apologies for a rambling response. Hope it helps. Tim

Fdim

Thanks for posting Dave, this is thread is one of the funniest things I've seen for ages. "They're well worth it." Ha ha ha. "and they'll clean up nicely." But how much should I spend on the cleaning lotion?

¿Does 'moist' mean something else en español?

Err, ... kudos. Some story. Sorry to hear about your friend, dog, bass and car. I posted this LP because I thought the kooky 60s way of teaching bass might raise a chuckle, not because I thought anyone really had played bass with The Ventures. Glad to know what the guitars they used were though--they have a unique look--did Mosrite make them as customs? I've been hearing all about the woody thump of 60s basses on another post; on this recording pretty much anything played on the E string sounds like a deep percussive ghost note without any hint of a tone.

Anyone know if Fender make an unmarked fretless jazz neck?

Cheers guys, very grateful for all the recommendations and admonitions. I admit that the suggestions have caused me to reconsider my position on Weather Report thanks to these videos; I even enjoyed some of Joe Zawinul's synth bits.

PLEASE DON'T DELETE THE MODELS WEARING RICKENBACKERS!!

I nearly made it out of the record shop without spending any money ... until I saw this: [url="http://img847.imageshack.us/i/playelectricbasscover.jpg"]Play Electric Bass (cover)[/url] [url="http://img543.imageshack.us/i/playelectricbassbooklet.jpg"]Play Electric Bass (booklet)[/url] The 'Guitar Phonics system' looks like a precursor to tab but is counter-intuitive and nearly incomprehensible. Pretty good fun, never the less.

Agreed. I paid less for my Fender (Mexican) Jazz.

Glad you're enjoying it Burrito--it's one of my favourites. Forgot to mention: Scott Walker's albums were mixed in the early days of stereo and if you pan left or right with the balance knob on your hi-fi you can isolate the bass or guitar parts. Specially helpful for learning parts and playing along. Thanks to all the suggestions before. I've been playing with the flatwounds for a couple of weeks and they sound great. Can someone talk to me about putting foam under the bridge?

Ouch! Sorry, just not a big fan of jazz steel pan or Toots Thielemans on kazoo... Grateful for the suggestions though.

I realise this is probably sacrilege to say, but I don't get on with most of Jaco Pastorius's solo work and I've never been all that keen on Weather Report. I do, however, like Bright Size Life very much, and I've just discovered the Joni Mitchell album Shadow and Light; Jaco is upfront in the mix and the band; it's a long way from simple comping but there's a laid-back feel to it. So my question is this: can you recommend other albums I should be listening to where Jaco takes a bit more of a back seat?

Funny, I was just going to recommend Strings Direct too. Used them for the first time last week. I did a search for strings and they were the cheapest so took a chance. Ordered late one day and they arrived the next morning, very well packaged. Great stuff.

[quote name='chris_b' post='1128305' date='Feb 15 2011, 01:23 PM']Only if it feels comfortable. I think you're taking this too seriously!![/quote] Nah, I was just joshing!

[quote name='Michaelg' post='1127405' date='Feb 14 2011, 06:26 PM']its almost definitely scott playing bass on that record.[/quote] My already high opinion of Scott Walker has just increased. Heavy gauge flatwounds are in the post, and meanwhile I will work on my rusty picking technique. Love the photo. Is it obligatory to wear the bass at collarbone height? Thanks again for all the good advice.

Thanks for the advice. The only bass I've got with frets on it is a Squier Telecaster P bass, but you're right, it's got round wounds on it. I'll try out the flats and see how it goes. Another question though: won't I lose the punchy treble end with flats? - is that offset by using a pick? Cheers for the help.

I've always admired the bass line on Scott Walker's song 'The Old Man's Back Again' from Scott 4 (bassist uncredited) and would like to recreate the sound. I can get the notes more or less in place but it sounds like a pale imitation. For further reference it's the sort of bass style and sound that underpins Serge Gainsbourg's album Histoire de Melody Nelson, again the work of an uncredited bass player, particularly the track 'Ah! Melody'. Does anyone have any ideas on equipment, amp type/settings, technique to achieve an authentic sound?

I'm going through the same thing at the moment so I can sympathise. I used Chuck Rainey's Complete Electric Bass Player (book 1: method) but it sounds similar to the Josquin des Pres with all the one-note rhythm for pages and pages. The hardest thing is that pretty much everything comes with TAB attached which is impossible to ignore. I've taken to covering it up. The thing I've had most luck with recently is sticking in one position, using the one-fret-per-note approach, learning all the notes under the fingers and learning to associate them with the dots on the stave. Lot's of Rainey's exercises stick in one key and make this possible; maybe des Pres is the same. If not, check out Major's boot camp post which has loads of good positional work. I've also found that saying the note out loud as I play it is a good way of reinforcing the learning, although it makes me feel like an idiot. Worth sticking at, no doubt. Good luck, Tim

I just bought one of these V940s because I was using the fret markers on my J bass fretless as a crutch and not really feeling out the intonation. For what it's worth, I think it's pretty good for the money. Anyway, this question will mark me out as a novice, but I hope someone can help me out. What do all the knobs do?! I'm used to nice simple volume/tone. One of the others does bridge/neck p/up pan I think, but frankly I'm floundering.