Bilbo

If this is done on one mic, you are lucky to even get what you have. Just think of all those frequencies coming at the poor little thing! I would suggest you have too muh of a clash betweem the tones of the guitars and the bass. The bass needs some frequency seperation from the guitars if it is tpo be heard. You may need to take some mids OFF your sound so it sinks to a lower place than those guitars. There is a lot of spillage across the mix - everything sounds like everything else (not really but you getmy point).

[quote name='rodneymullen' post='189950' date='May 1 2008, 08:00 PM'][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRT3yu-3dc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRT3yu-3dc[/url] Marco Panascia is fresh [/quote] Thanks man! I'm going looking for these guys!!

'Julia', a Lennon and McCartney tune performed by John Scofield, Medeski, Martin & Wood on their Out Louder CD. It BLEEDS, man! and the World Saxophone Quartet with our very own Tony Kofi on board - HEAVYYYY!! I need to get some more of their stuff!

When I arrived on the Cardiff scene (1988), Paul was playing a 4 string Gibson Grabber. He was playing with the likes of Rob Haddon and Dick Hamer. I saw him a couple of times with the new Wal but then he seemed to disappear. I left S. Wales in 1994 so have lost contact with most of my old colleagues down there but I still get down to see Julian Martin occasionally. I'll ask him what happened to Hillman. Did you ever see Jon Caulfield play? I gave him some lessons way back. He worked in Cranes (sales).

I played a beautiful 5-string Wal at Cranes in Cardiff not long after it opened. I am not sure but I think Paul Hillman bought it in the end (he had one anyway). It was a blinding bass but I didn't have £1,500 at the time (still don't for that matter!). Paul was an OK player - what's he doing now? Dreadful to say it but I can't remember where Livewire was.... I recall Gamlins and Gwent Music and, of course, Cranes but where was Livewire?

Only ever played one once (1988) and wasn't impressed - not that there was anything inherently wrong with it, it just didn't float my boat. I may have missed something as I lacked the experience I have now and, not knowing what I didn't know, would have probably missed an opportunity to explore a deeply respected instrument. Reputations like Alembic's (and Wal's) are not built in a day. They take many years to develop. What I will say is that many of the classic Alembics (not the cheap one like the Epics etc) look stunning. Take a look at their archive of custom models. [url="http://www.alembic.com/info/fcvault.html"]http://www.alembic.com/info/fcvault.html[/url]

Don't like them. Slippery little suckers!

Linley Marthe died? When did that happen?

First thoughts! I think one major aspect of these developments is that the internet has the potential to increase the capacity of musicians to shortcut the monopolies that the major labels have on distribution. By cutting out the need to ship truckloads of cds to stores all over the world, small operations (even one man projects) can complete with Columbia or Sony on a level playing field. These developments will best suit minority musics like jazz etc where sales of 1,000 cds are considered successful but the principles will apply to all. This is all particularly true of MP3 downloads where you don't even need to get the material pressed onto a cd to get it out there. The problem that arises, however, is that there will cease to be any form of editing so the market will potentially become flooded with second, third to tenth rate product. Most of this stuff will never be reviewed in industry magazines or be placed in strategic positions in music shops. Most of it will never see TV or radio airplay. It will thus become harder to search through the piles of cr*p the is out there in order to find the diamonds. There will also be fewer opportunities to earn massive sums of money from CD sales because fewer people will have the massive marketing machines that defined the majors. There will be fewer bands touring the bigger venues and the smaller venues will get smaller until a 400 seater will be the maximum. It will be a kind of musical communism where the biggest marketing strategy will be word of mouth. As a minority interest musician, I find it all quite encouraging!

20 years with an ebony fretboard and groundwounds and no problems with fretboard wear. Can't be bad.

Jaco was top banana well before he died, Astronomer. And well before his mental health deteriorated. We were all singing his praises in the late 70s. He died in '87. His death has no doubt added to the legend but his playing was what got him noticed, not his lifestyle.

Dog Snot Ricky Coo Coo & the Scented Wallpaper Top Notch First Draft Odd Sox The Point Anywhen Corpuscle Mule

[quote name='WalMan' post='187872' date='Apr 29 2008, 10:39 AM']Jaco - I've tried, honest I have. Love his stuff on Heavy Weather, but find his solo albums (which I picked up on re releases in an HMV sale a couple of years back) heavy going and largely unlistenable[/quote] Totally accept that a lot of Jaco's solo work is not immediately accessible but some of his stuff on 'Word Of Mouth' is DEEP! Keep revisiting it, Walman, its great stuff. Just another point - most players, however good they are, have their own idols and influences and I have never heard anyone (except Jaco, who I am only TOLD said it) say they are the top banana. Anyone who SAYS they are the greatest is, for my money, a fool.

Isn't this discussion inevitably flawed by the introduction of the concept of genres. If a person is popular as a bass player in a popular genre, s/he is inevitably going to be rated more highly than an underground hero. So Steve Harris is going to be rated more highly as a HM player than Jaco or Manring despite it being patently obvious to anyone that can hold a bass that Harris is not even close to being in their league in terms of technique, innovation or musicality (that is an objective not subjective point). So, Harris is, by definition, overrated. Sorry, but Entwhistle is the same, as are 1,000 other pop/rock players. Whenever I read these forums, I am always astonished by the ways in which people of limited listening experience will nail their colours to the mast in praising their favourite players as geniuses (genii?): just look at all the 'underrated' player threads - mediocroty is more than enough for many people. My point is this; surely the purpose of the exercise is to embed the bass part into the ensemble in as creative and musical a way as possible. Jaco was famous for his shreadding but his most successful work is when he is integrated into the compositional whole - that is when he shines, not when he is somersaulting onto his bass. Wooten is a clinician, an athelete, a circus act - but I have never heard him make music better using his (copious) skills . Same with Bill 'the trainwreck' Dickens. Jeff Berlin is another great technician but he needs a producer SOOO badly (has anyone heard those ludicrous Norah Jones things he has put on his MySpace page- somebody TELL him, please). So, for me, the overrated bass players are not the clever, technical ones per se, but the ones who do 'clever' bass things that don't contribute positively, with integrity and class, to the music being performed. My problem with Jameson isn't his playing - its those bl***y awful Motown tunes: acres of bubblegum with no emotional depth. I like his mind, his way ofnegotiating the changes but, for God's sake, don'tmake me listen to that dreadful stuff any more!

I didn't think Jazz needed controlling!

Prisons - I was playing at HMP Latchmere House the day that the Twin Towers fell - the PRISONERS called for a two minute silence before we had the night of our lives. There was a band made up of staff and prisoners that ROCKED and their singers were the best! If you ever get an offer to play a prison, do it!

Was he an innovator? I heard little more than a Larry Graham thing with a bit more speed but a lot less funk. I did enjoy some of the Chick Corea/RTF stuff but I just thought his bass playing never really gelled for me - too clunky. I actually preferred his upright playing but thought his electric playing was heavy-handed (i.e. clunky). After the first two LPs I mentioned above, I thought he was just endlessly repeating himself (like me, I guess )

Like many of us here, my learning is a mixed bag. Mainly self taught, I had a half dozen lessons with a guy called Dan Quinton (Otis Grand and the Dance Kings) and a couple with Dudley Phillips but that was about it. I can read but was entirely self taught in that area. My main learning was done through listening and transcribing off records and time spent with a few theory books. A handful of videos appeared here and there (Jaco, Jeff Berlin, Gary Willis and John Patittucci IIRC) but, as I said, it was mostly transcribing and theory books. I actually think that most learning is from one's self - a good teacher can impart information but only you can LEARN it! I would argue that reading music is one of the most useful things for learning as it really speeds up your ability to benefit from the materials available and to understand the 'maths' of music (an important aspect of more sophisticated musics). Transcribing helps you share in the problem solving and creativity of those players (of all instruments) that move you but effective transcribing is, to some degree, dependant on your ability to at least understand written music. You can, of course, transcribe by rote rather than by the written note, learning the stuff by repeated listening etc, but this is a much slower process in my experience.

Nice jazz trio gig at the Fox in Bury St Edmunds last night. Ben Pringle on piano. Apart from being a lovely guy, he has a nice touch, with some classic stride piano mixed in with some more contemporary voicings. Ben apparently wrote the music for 'Time Team'. We didn't sound like that tho' He also told me how to locate that irritating buzz on my home studio!

If you get School Days and Journey To Love, you've pretty much heard Stanley Clarke. Personally, I think he is overated and much of his product has dated badly. But I know I am in a minority so you may want to check out some other people's responses!

The 'key of G' implies that all the chords and scales throoughout the piece related to the chords and scales that evolve out of the G scale (GABCDEF#G) scale - staying on the G chord is a very, very tiny part of the potential of a key signature. Composers in the European tradition (classical music) create whole symphonys in a single K (Symphony in G major etc) so the potential of a single key is vast.

Try Urb's O'Shea link, peeps. New one on me. Some great stuff on there. Recommended

Off the Eden website: Interviewer: What do you expect is in store for the future of jazz bass? Yogi: I'm thinkin' there'll be a group of guys who've never met talkin' about it all the time. Interviewer: Can you explain jazz bass? Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation, even on bass. The other half is the part bass players play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong. Interviewer: I don't understand. Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz bass knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's whats so simple about it. Interviewer: Do you understand it? Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it. Interviewer: Are there any great jazz bass players alive today? Yogi: No. All the great jazz bass players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it. Interviewer: What is syncopation? Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds. Interviewer: Now I really don't understand. Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz bass that well.

Its not hard to see what will hapeen - just look at history. Take jazz (I had to get it in there, didn't I?) In the early days in the US, jazz was a no-profit, out of hours nonsense activity for a few musicians in a few obscure backwaters. Gradually, it caught on and got marketed. It grew and grew and hundreds of bands existed in territories across America. People were hearing it nightly on the radio and the bands they were listening were ALL playing live to the nations. The introduction of the phonograph record preceded and downturn in the numbers of bands that the industry could sustain and then external factors kicked in (loss of shellac due to WWII). The bands tailed off and small groups became the flavour of the day. Then rock and roll came along and, ZAP, even the previously succesful jazz acts were counting the days. Jazz is now a cottage industry, full of people who make a bit of money but many of whom live hand to mouth. Most people in the field do other things to make ends meet; teaching, commercial gigs, sessions (fewer and fewer), tv catalogue work, pit orchestras etc. My guess is that the bubble is set to burst as music ceases to be as important to future generations as it was to previous ones. There is as much money in music for XBox games these days as there is in many sub-genres. More people involved but earning less. I did a session for the BBC in 1982 on a state of the art studio and it still sounds great. My home PC is now more powerful. The secret is in the skills of the engineer/producer and not just in the gear. As we all get more expert, our home recordings will become more sophisticated and more competitive. For people interested in minority musics, this is probably a good thing. I also think that professionalism is more necessary now than previously. Getting hammered all teh time was romantic for the Stones et al. Now it will get you fired. I think the music industry in the future will be different; not better or worse, just different!

Even I would sell my jazz soul for that gig! 'There once was a woman, a strange kinda woman......'