booboo

I've got one of these wwwbassmute.com It's a nice (expensive) semi-permanent way of having a consistent degree of muting at the flick of a switch. I bought it to try and make my j bass sound like an upright as that's what I needed at the time. As with any attempt to make BG sound like URB it got me into the better, but still not quite the same territory that all these things do. What it is good for is mid-way through a covers set when I need an old motown/muted p sound. I can just roll of the tone on the bass, flick on the mute and hey presto it's (nearly) a p. One thing I have found with this or any other muting solutions (besides palm) is that to mute the strings enough to change the sound often pushes the tuning up a bit as I suppose it almost creates a zero fret in front of the bridge or just bends the string slightly. Just make sure you have time to re-tune between car wash and mustang sally ;-)

80's marlin P/J thing in an huge 'hard' case made of pressed card. The neck actually had a visible twist if you looked down it.

Bought the Mono bag. Top bloke, described goods 100% honestly, put up with posting despite ad clearly stating collection only, and sent to my work address so the ball and chain didn't find out I'd bought more bass things. It doesn't get any better than that!

There are quite a few if you search on ti'nterweb, but Ishibashi seems to be the most foreigner friendly. If you know the model no you want do a search and right click/translate on the results if in Japenese.

I've tried SD Antiquity II's and liked them. Beefy and powerful but still 'vintage' (or my idea of vintage). Not too hot or hifi sounding - I like them lots.

I think we are all missing the main point here - did you see that ZX Spectrum Vega gamepad thingy at the end of the clip? £100 gets me my eighties teenage years back! Manic miner, jet set willy, the lot. Over 1000 of the original games in one box. As an added bonus the sh*tty 80's 2D graphics will keep my kids from monopolising it too. I just hope the keypad stands up to the 1500m race better than my Spectrum did on DT's Decathlon.

The thing is though that the bloke who was glued to the dots all night could play any tune in the book, but if you sit in 'by ear' you are limited to the stuff you know well - unless you have big enough ears and a big enough knowledge of tunes to cop all the changes on the fly. Kudos to the bassists (and there are a few) who realy can do this well with any tune, but I'm not one of them!

How's the string height at the nut? If it's badly cut/too high it could be the final thing to check.

[quote name='Fitzy73' timestamp='1425156295' post='2704642'] hi, my mate asked me to set up its Marcus miller bass . but I am about to pull my hair out with this bass. the tilt neck adjustment its causing the strings to choke out on the last 5 frets , the badass bridge saddles are as low as they go on the E and G string and the action is still too high , the neck heel is too high . the truss rod is adjusted correctly , other than some fret work I don't see a solution . am I missing something cheers [/quote] Sorry if it's a daft question, but have you got too much tilt on the neck - can you take any off via the adjustment? I've got one of these and am not a massive fan of the sound but it's the best set up of any jazz I've had and the neck is a dream. Maybe just luck I've got a good one?

Any love for the Dave Hall Amps stuff? Real tubes too as well as sweepable mids.

[quote name='zero9' timestamp='1424180215' post='2693506'] The PJB Bighead and headphones are superior at highlighting the inadequacies of the instrument and players capabilities, compared with an amp/speaker in a room at all variables associated with that. Therefore, perservering with the headphone amp will hone your playing to a level where you'll sound cleaner and produce a more even attack. Stick with it and you'll grow to like the tone [/quote] ^^^This. Combos/rigs set at practice amp levels tend to flatter player and gear. I use a cafe walter headphone amp with some nice transparent headphones for practice, and I know that once I sound good/ok with this things, will sound great in a mix through a decent rig.

Maybe need more volume on the amp for fingerstyle so you don't need to work/dig in as hard? I certainly need less gain when playing with a hard pick.

mmm...

[quote name='paul h' timestamp='1423228186' post='2682475'] I'm a terrible bass player, musician and person so I never even try to learn most bass lines! I much prefer making stuff up on the fly so I learn the chords (roughly) and then just throw in the odd riff reminiscent of the original to keep the rest of the band off my back [/quote] Shhhh!...this is a public forum - do not divulge our secret bass playing ways. Pretty soon folk will cotton on that we have not got 'big ears', but just a brass neck and a fake smile.

If you like the strings (apart from the tension) it might be worth tweaking the setup. My TI's feel a lot less floppy with a raised action and more relief. Without knowing the strings you had before it's hard to be certain, but (IMHO) flats of the same gauge tend to feel stiffer than rounds.

Twerking or moonwalking would work in the verses.

Sometimes I think this issue can be as much to do with venue acoustics / eq as the keyboard player being heavy handed. Soundchecks often revolve around getting the rt hand of the keys sitting in the mix which leads to too much left. Maybe time for a keyboard with two volume controls, one either side of middle 'c' :-)

[quote name='AntLockyer' timestamp='1420326675' post='2648207'] It's too late [/quote] ^^This, I'm not sure you'll notice the odd ding or a bit of buckle rash! Seriously, I've got a Nitro finished bass and I don't think they require any special care except the finish itself is more prone to dings than a tough poly one. I take it the bass is reliced to look like 3TSB refinished in white and reliced? Congrats let us know how she sounds.

Enjoying this thread as someone who is a (little) way further along the same journey. All great suggestions so far and I'd like to chuck in vols 1&2 of the real book, along with omnibook bass clef ed.