Mornats

Well I got my guitar and I love it. It's got that really nice jangly sound and just sounds lovely. I knocked up a very quick demo of it. Excuse the guitar playing on it, I'm still finding my feet with a six string: [url="http://soundcloud.com/mornats/danelectro-59-sound-sample"]http://soundcloud.com/mornats/danelectro-59-sound-sample[/url]

Of course... because they're passive! D'oh!

Not sure about the Classic J but my Contemporary J has small gain pots on the electronics for each pickup. Worth checking to see if they're set ok on yours.

Your'e speechless?

[quote name='NeilMorrell' timestamp='1336185465' post='1642301']
Are any other Contemporary J users having issuses with exceptoonally noisy actives (almost like something is breaking down) or is it just me. Just had to do my debut gig with a new band with the Musicmaster because the Overwater sounded pap.
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I've got a Contemporary J4 and never had a problem with the actives. They're the quietest set of pickups I've ever had in a bass (out of the 3 Bass Collections and the Dean that I've owned). They're pretty much noiseless for me so it may be a fault. Get in touch with Overwater and see what they say. Calling them is quicker than emailing from what I've heard although they've always answered my emails quickly.

It is indeed. It's got lots of new toys in it (I've upgraded from Guitar Rig 4 LE). Some very nice reverb units, I love Little Reflektor. Plus I've got a new Danelectro DE 59 on its way so I'm going to have a great weekend with this combination!

[quote name='Commando Jack' timestamp='1341914362' post='1725939']
+1 again.

It could be expanded to an every-now-and-again feature where basses battle it out. And of course don't leave it to fender clones, what about Stingray-alikes and Rickenfakers?

Also, I think that reviews or buying guides to peripherals related to recording and live sound would be interesting. Things like wireless systems, IEM, DI boxes, bass friendly audio interfaces etc. The likes of Sound on sound would review this stuff every now and again but they are rarely for bass. Of course this is something that a lot of people couldn't care less about, but touching on it sparingly would be useful, and the back-catalog that you build up would become a useful reference (esp. good for driving people to your website )
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+1 to this and +1 to the quoted point too

Just as the title says, upgrades and updates are half price until the end of July 2012: [url="http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/guitar-rig-5-pro/"]http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/guitar-rig-5-pro/[/url]. I've just upgraded from my Guitar Rig 4 LE version (also works if you have Kontakt Elements) for €44.50 which is quite good value.

In fact, if you go out and buy Kontakt Elements for around £40 and then upgrade it to Guitar Rig Pro you have a load of good virtual instruments plus a good virtual amp modelling bit of software for less than £80!

There's a thread on here comparing the Harley Benton amp to the Ibanez Promethean and it comes up trumps I believe so good call. Hope you enjoy it when it arrives!

Hola amigos,

No idea why I started this in Spanish but that's beside the point. I want to, and need to learn a bit more guitar work. I'm starting to get the hang of putting guitar stuff into my tracks (for recording, I don't play bass and guitar live at the same time) and think it's time I learned a bit of technique and theory.

I had a look through Guitar for Dummies, having read the Bass for Dummies book and thought it was quite good. However I was instantly put off with the Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, Silent Night, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star bits in them. I just simply do not want to contemplate playing those. I'd rather have something more interesting to play, even as examples.

So, I'm after a book to help me with chords (easy chords, moving between chords, adding extra notes to chords to change them from one chord to another), power chords - pros and cons, hints tips etc. melody, constructing melodies from scales (triads, extending triads, etc.), strumming technique, exercises, practice routines etc. Starting with fairly basic stuff and moving into stuff like sustained chords and the like. A nice easy learning curve is what I'm looking for.

As a comparison, as I said the Bass for Dummies book was great, I've also got 3 of Rikky Rooksby's books (How to write songs on guitar, How to write songs on keyboards and the one about Riffs) which are all good but aren't designed to be instructional books on playing guitar.

Musical genre is broadly "rock" but basically any electric guitar genre is fine to learn for me. Classical acoustic guitar isn't something I'm looking at right now (but would be fantastic later on maybe).

I'm fairly competent on bass and do some guitar work although I have to record chords separately and combine them together in Reaper as I can't change between them quickly and I have to google each one before I play it! I can play a little lead (almost soloing!) by going over the notes in the scale but that's about it. Oh, power chords I can do but hey, that's fairly easy to pick up with practice A book with a good mix of theory and practice (exercises, sample riffs etc. to play) would be great. I'm not averse to DVDs either.

Cheers all!
Nats.

Got one of these incoming: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/danelectro_1959_reissue_double_cutaway_wh.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/danelectro_1959_reissue_double_cutaway_wh.htm[/url]. Can't wait!

I've got the Ashdown 220 Touring (1x12 speaker) and I can get mine to fart a bit if I turn up the bass on my Overwater to full but the preamp on that bass is quite meaty and it can overpower a lot of speakers in my experience.

I've played a Squire precision through my Laney RB1 combo and it sounded just fine. It had that classic P sound so I don't think it's your bass.

Our very own walbassist demos the 550 head on YouTube and shows quite a few EQ options you could try. Flat EQ seems to be bass = 9 o'clock, mid = 9 o'clock, treble = 3 o'clock. They have a passive EQ which takes some time to get used to.

I've managed to get a really nice growly sound with some good low end and enough upper-end bite to cut through drums and a guitar from my combo so I know it's possible to get a good sound. Definitely contact Ashdown though and see what they say. I had a good response from Guy when I was asking about amps before I bought one.

Oh, here's Walbassist's vid: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QibZQbxSc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QibZQbxSc[/url]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1341745521' post='1723409']
Anyone reading this yet to join a band: Exposing yourself to a steep learning curve teaches you much and [i]very [/i]quickly, too! Jump in at the deep end! G'waan, you know you want to!
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Absolutely mate. No time for pre-show nerves after that week too. We were absolutely terrible at the start, I'd only had the tape of the 8 songs we had to play for a few days so was learning the structure as we went. Looking back I don't know how we did it but it was all down to just having a go and playing the songs over and over, going over any parts any of us were weak on and getting it right. So after one week of practice we went from nothing to being a band with a setlist of 8 songs that we could play confidently. It's very very possible and the threat of a looming gig was pure motivation. I loved those days

Welcome Joel! Now you're on Basschat listening to us I'm gonna start buying the mag. It sounds like it's going to get great.

I got my first bass when I was 16 and just learned to play the likes of Enter Sandman and what not. A few years later at uni my mate came round to mine and asked if I wanted to play bass in his band. I said sure, why not. He replied, ok we've got a gig next weekend. Eek. Luckily we were at uni and had one of those many weeks off we had so we practiced all week and did the gig. It went ok, we learned a lot in that week. I had to use masking tape and plasters on my fingers as I had blisters under my blisters though.

I had a go of a few tele's at my mate's house last night. He's modified a Harley Benton telecaster body and changed it to a 12 string (he popped a Gibson-style neck on it and added a floating bridge for the additional 6 strings). It's based on this one: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_bentonhbt1500tbk_egitarre.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_bentonhbt1500tbk_egitarre.htm[/url] which I really like the look of and it sounds all jingle-jangly. It's a bugger to keep in tune though. Very tempted for £80 as the build quality was sound. Except of course that the one they have in stock now has humbuckers rather than single coil. But, I now know what I want, can get something fairly cheap and you've all been great with your help as always. I'll let you know what I get and will pop a track up on soundcloud sometime to show it off.

Right, I'm off to a mate's house for a bit of a jam over the weekend and he's a guitar nut and has around 17 of them (he builds them, well assembles them, not builds them as a hobby) so I'll try a few of his and chat to him about them. Unless I'm totally barking up the wrong tree with what I want then I'll order myself a white Dano, either a 56 or 59. Other than looks a little bit of price difference, are there any other major differences between them?

[url="http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/53542-ashdown-220-touring-112-bass-combo-amp.html"]http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/53542-ashdown-220-touring-112-bass-combo-amp.html[/url] - worth looking at if you like the valve tone. Great little combo, I love mine. Nice grind when you push the gain too.

My 5 string has two J pickups on and I'm pretty sure they're single coil as they pick up some noise (especially when facing my PC but oddly not when I swing it around 90 degrees). My fretless 320 has had its pickups replaced before I bought it and I've no idea what they are.

Yeah I'm a big fan. Saw them play in Cardiff last year and thought they had a great live sound. They do come up with some interesting sounds.

I've seen a Spongebob Squarepants guitar set. Meant to be quite decent apparently.

Ok, so I'm looking at getting the white Dano 56 or the 59. Everyone seems to love them and they're cheap as chips. I did pop into PMT in Bristol but they didn't have any in stock. The guys were brilliant though, I told them what I was after sound-wise and they hunted around for some guitars that would suit and they were even more than happy to play them for me so I could hear how they sound when played properly. I was almost convinced by a Wilson Bros. Ventures guitar but there's something about the look of the Danos that really appeals.

Also check out the Ashdown Touring that's being massively discounted at the moment: [url="http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/53542-ashdown-220-touring-112-bass-combo-amp.html"]http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/53542-ashdown-220-touring-112-bass-combo-amp.html[/url] (£50 cheaper than when I bought it a month ago!). Lovely tone from the valve pre-amp but it's 25kg.

That's sparkly! Ok, so I'm stuck between the black Danelectro 56 and the white one (same model). The white is only £140 from Thomann whilst the black on is £175 or so (the £140 black one is a slightly different model with a "proper" bridge). I'm not ever likely to play it on stage though so the £35 saving would win out I guess.

Way to go Seashell, hope you really enjoy it!

[quote name='fumps' timestamp='1341320793' post='1716937']
I like different things for different moods. it all depends with me. i have become a lover of all kinds of music so the idea of staying with one style makes me feel like I'm trapped......if that makes sense ?!?!
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Mate, that sounds like an inspiring musical mish-mash just waiting to happen! Bring other styles into the songs in the setlist and make something really interesting.

My bass background is similar in some respects to yours. Started when I was 16 or so, just learnt some songs, joined a band at uni, just learnt the songs and played them (but with only a couple of gigs, nothing great although it certainly felt great playing live). Then I stopped when I was about 21. Roll on to 2 years ago when I was 35 and out of the blue I picked up a bass again. Learnta few songs, played them then thought "ok, I played a song but no one heard it". So I wasn't really getting anything out of it. Then a mate at work got me into recording my own stuff which I said I just couldn't do as I no zero music theory.

Anyhoo, I got a book (Bass for Dummies - actually a great book, I highly recommend it) and learnt the single most important thing (for me) about music theory. It's been mentioned above already but it's basically, if a chord is being played, you can play any of the notes in that chord in pretty much any order. You mainly want to start or end with the root note (the C# in a C# chord). We're lucky as bass players as each chord is just a shape on the fretboard and you can use the same shape anywhere. I know the major chord (no idea what type of major) and the minor pentatonic (because a lot of rock and metal are based on that) chord shapes. And that's it. All of the stuff in my soundcloud link in my sig were written andplayed by me with only that knowledge. It was a massive lightbulb moment for me.

This is a great website that shows you visually what the chord shapes are: [url="http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/index.php"]http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/index.php[/url], and in particular: [url="http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/basic/index.php"]http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/basic/index.php[/url]. I've tried learning more but what little I know has worked so far for me.

I know for a fact that you (and I, and others) aren't alone in not knowing much, if any music theory. I saw something on Sky Arts where Kasabian's guitarist was saying he doesn't know any music theory but knows what fits the stuff he's hearing. Also, I saw a video about Flea where he said he doesn't know the type of chords or scales he's playing, he just knows what sounds good.

Finally, here's something interesting that I heard. My mate's sister is a classical music tutor. She's got some of the highest grade qualifications in music and she can't listen to a lot of music now as she always tries to examine it. In a similar fashion, I'm actually hesitant to learn more theory as my lack of knowledge is helping me explore and try things that I wouldn't think of it I just tried to fit everything into an established theory.