tauzero

I'm playing all the right notes. Not necessarily in the right order. - Eric Morecambe

[quote name='Cantdosleepy' post='98821' date='Dec 4 2007, 01:59 PM']And either way, swearing at the little mites is probably not the best way to broaden their minds.[/quote] Quite, it's far more effective to take one ear in each hand and pull outwards.

I don't use one, but that's not because I think they're the instrument of the devil, I just never think to use one. Come to think of it, I never practice. Oops. I can see a major use for them, and that is if a band has no drummer. I've seen the consequence of a band of very inexperienced youths learning a set with no drummer and no metronome, and then recruiting a drummer (a very good one) and playing a gig shortly afterwards - the drummer had to try and keep time with what the band were doing as they were incapable of listening to her. However, with experienced musicians that should be less of a problem.

Another faint possibility - I've just had to open up my elderly Nady which was cutting out occasionally. The side of the jack socket had cracked so I think the spring contacts are loose as they're not being held against the jack plug - just need to find another of these wretched enclosed jack sockets...

(Planet Waves springy jack plugs) [quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='95965' date='Nov 29 2007, 08:50 AM']Dreadful? Not in my experience, in fact just the opposite. Whilst I have experienced a noisy and unreliable connection on one of my basses, this was due to using a cable with standard plugs and was caused by the socket.[/quote] The guitar I was using it on was a brand new Variax - for some reason, a Planet Waves stereo lead was supplied (it runs power up from the splitter box as well as taking the signal). Crackled dreadfully. Used a stereo lead with standard plugs, problem solved. After that, I won't touch the things.

Being a bit strapped for cash at the moment, and tempted by a Markbass CMD 121P or H, I wondered if any of the shops involved in [url="http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/takeitaway/index.php"]the Arts Council's "take it away" scheme[/url] were stockists of Markbass - I did try hunting through the West and East Midlands shops but couldn't find one, but there's no list of Markbass dealers that I can find. Does anyone happen to know? Where did you all get your Markbasses from? And just how annoying is it that Guitar Center in the US is selling the CMD 121P for $850?

Schallers on the Warwicks (as was OE when they were made), Bostons on the Tsais, and the Axl before them, and the Variax 300. The only solid-body I've got which doesn't have them is the fretless Squier Strat, and that's because I don't [s]play[/s] gig it.

I periodically went to 5-strings from 4 but always finished up going back - not because of the number of strings [i]per se[/i] but because the fretted 4-string was (and is) the JD Thumb and no other bass could touch it for playability. Surprisingly, when I bought the Antoniotsai on a whim, I found that it was comparably playable and the most playable 5-string I'd encountered and so I started using it as my gigging bass with the covers band. It's not so much for the notes below E as for being able to move across rather than up and down [1], and being able to use left-hand damping when playing bottom E. Having become stable with 5-strings (still using 4 as well), I thought I'd try enlarging my horizons and got the Antoniotsai 7-string which has had a bit of a rocky start - now that the pickups are sorted, I can play it properly (for some values of properly), and I've found that the neck is so good that I can play it for extended periods. I had an Axl Tiger 6-string for a while (which I compared with other 6-strings and found to have a comparatively good neck) and I found I was getting pain in the back of my left hand after playing it for a while. I've only got ickle hands which doesn't help (glove size 9). So I must conclude that despite 17mm string spacing and my small hands, the fact I can play it like a regular bass means it's not actually an ERB. [1] which reminds me of the motto "Down, not across" - anyone else geek enough to have encountered it?

[quote name='Bassassin' post='97114' date='Dec 1 2007, 10:14 AM']That seller has some absolutely bonkers stuff - this one's comparatively sane: [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-LEFT-HANEDED-DOUBLE-NECK-HEADLESS-BASS-5-4-FRETLESS_W0QQitemZ190122088384"]http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-LEFT-HANEDED-DOUBL...emZ190122088384[/url] If it was right-handed, with a lined fretless 5 & fretted four, and had the fretless neck on top, I'd be interested! As it is, I guess I'll just have to build my own! [/quote] Just start with one of these: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270173689997"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=270173689997[/url] and swap the frets from the 5-string to the 4-string neck. Easy.

[quote name='lobematt' post='96733' date='Nov 30 2007, 03:23 PM']Thanks for that, I'll post him on there now. Thank god one of us has a heart![/quote] What, you're shipping him out in bits now?

Bought a couple of bass books off Paul_C - good communications and speedy delivery.

[quote name='Machines' post='96582' date='Nov 30 2007, 11:41 AM']Passive EQ = tone control on any passive bass. It in theory can only cut not boost. However Villex appear to be doing very clever things .[/quote] The Baxandall tone control system is passive but gives cut and boost, in a way - but to obey whichever of Newton's laws says you can't increase the total energy in a closed system, the signal coming out is reduced in amplitude compared to the signal coming in (-20dB) so it needs either a big signal coming in or an amplifier at the back-end. A passive system with equivalent EQ to the original that could drop in in place of an active system could be handy. Is there much associated circuitry? If not, it might make room in the control cavity for a wireless transmitter...

First owned (and possibly first played, it's a long time ago) - some hideous green sunburst semi-acoustic stylee thing with a body seemingly made from papier-mache. A Rosetti Bass 7 IIRC, which cost me about two quid (a lot of money to a schoolboy in 1971 or so). It was a truly dreadful instrument which I sold fairly soon, but to whom and for how much I have no recollection. It took me a good couple of years to get over the trauma of owning the thing...

[quote name='john_the_bass' post='96189' date='Nov 29 2007, 04:01 PM']I know the same can be said for basses, but why do you need so many bikes? At least i can keep all my guitars/basses in a cupboard upstairs![/quote] Well, I've just sort of accumulated them... None of them are currently on the road - mainly because for the last two years I've been living with the girlfriend while sorting out my divorce, and they're at my house (where my future-ex-wife is) and I've avoided going over there to work on them. Trivial stuff for some of them (sorting out a horn on the Tiger, mirror for the Daytona 900), less trivial for others (like complete assembly being needed for four of the older ones). As for oil leaks, the older ones don't have any oil in them...

While I could only be bothered with watching ten or 15 seconds of Victor Wooten at top slap speed, when he's not going frenetic he can be very impressive - check YouTube for the Flecktones doing "Big Country", where he plays some beautifully fluid fretless. I see the main role as a binding force which ties together the rhythm and the melody, but that's not to say that I think it should be purely supportive or that the binding force should be devoid of embellishment.

[quote name='john_the_bass' post='96003' date='Nov 29 2007, 10:18 AM']I agree - unless you've got something that the collectors will be all over whatever time of year, I think you'll have a better chance of getting a good price in the spring.[/quote] But that's when I'll be selling the bikes... must rationalise down from 14 to some slightly more manageable number. So how will people be able to afford basses when they're buying my bikes, eh? [size=1]Triumph Trident 900 Triumph Trident 900 with Sprint fairing and oil leak Triumph Daytona 900 Triumph T595 Daytona Triumph Tiger 900 Triumph T140V Bonneville Triumph T150V Trident Triumph T20 Tiger Cub Triumph T15 Terrier Triumph Tigress Suzuki GS500 Honda CB250N Honda CB400T Honda VF750SC[/size]

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='95395' date='Nov 27 2007, 11:10 PM']It seems like there's an awful lot of really nices basses around at the moment at good, and ever reducing prices, and no-one seems interseted [/quote] I'm interested all right - I'd like to take them all home and be their friend, but unfortunately when someone wants a four-figure sum for a bass, the decimal point is missing and as yet no-one has been tempted by my counter-offer of 50p and an almost untouched packet of fruit gums. Hmmm, wonder if anyone would be tempted by one of my motorbikes...

[quote name='grosa' post='94155' date='Nov 25 2007, 03:54 PM']what were they thinking with that headstock? otherwise i like it[/quote] If you look at the [url="http://www.laurus.it/english/models.html"]pictures on the manufacturer's website[/url], the headstock makes more aesthetic sense - it picks up the body theme rather nicely. I'd prefer a headless headless myself but I wouldn't say no to one of those. Wish I had a grand to spare, I'm just trying to settle on a 5-string fretless at the moment...

[quote name='dood' post='95409' date='Nov 27 2007, 11:44 PM']I think the 4 will pretty much be untouched by what is happening around it. I don't think we will ever be without the 'classics' - Precision/Jazz etc etc.[/quote] The 4 will stay as the bedrock of bass for the foreseeable future. In fact, the fretted 4 - at one point fretless was the thing to have, at another it was 5-strings. In the end, you can get an idea of what the demand is for variations from the 4-string fretted theme by wandering into a large guitar shop and seeing what's there. If there's 50 basses, you might see two fretlesses and four 5-strings (and never a fretless 5-string). You can get a similar idea by looking on ebay. The future of the 4-string is most definitely assured, and manufacturers are savvy enough to know that and to realise that they don't have to rely on producing Fender copies to sell too, otherwise the world of bass would get to be a rather boring one.

I like my hats. From the Dudley Beer Festival (and my 50th birthday): [attachment=3789:Mike01.jpg][attachment=3791:Mike02.jpg] and, after being attacked by the rest of the band [attachment=3794:Mike03.jpg] Must dig out the old ones...

I had the chance of a Hofner violin bass for £75 but I didn't buy it. Mind you, this was about 25 years ago, the Beatles obsession hadn't started up yet, and it was an absolute bag of sh*te to play, and I was looking for a bass to play on. Respect to Lord Sir King Paul for the fact he actually managed to play complete gigs with one. I do miss my old Precision a bit. It wasn't a patch on the Warwick which I chopped it in for but it was the second best Precision I've played. PS. is the surplus apostrophe in the thread title just to annoy people like paul,the and me?

Harry Chapin - "Cat's in the Cradle" Pete Townsend - any of the 'Oo stuff done acoustically (can be seen on various Secret Policeman's Ballseses) John Williams - "Jesu joy of man's desiring" +1 for Eva Cassidy's "Somewhere over the rainbow", which has added poignancy since a friend had it played at her funeral (thread convergence - a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer at 52)

Well, it was mine, all mine... Having been elected to play bass by the rest of the band and gone out and bought all the bits to make a Hayman 40/40 and put them together, it got to the point where we were actually starting to try to play things. Item number 1 was "Back in the USSR" by the Beatles, which I had only heard a couple of times and never paid any attention to the bassline [1] so I had to make something up and I finished up playing the square on the almost-pentatonic scale (root, 4, 5, b7, octave). I might even still have a recording of our fist gig somewhere. I've never learnt the proper bassline to it and I haven't played it in over 30 years, which suits me (and probably Sir Paul, if he ever got to hear of it) fine. [1] I still pay no attention to basslines.

[quote name='metaltime' post='93999' date='Nov 24 2007, 11:30 PM']Im dyslexic. Not severely (is that right) but it does make things more difficult.[/quote] If you use Firefox, you can load an English dictionary that will spell-check as you type into a text box (like on a web forum, for example...). Handy for me as I'm dystypic. Note: for some reason, Mozilla think that Americans speak English while the English speak English (British), which, even as a not-very-nationalistic Anglo-Irish cross, I find rather thoughtless of them. Don't know if there's a similar facility in IE (spit), I avoid using it.

I've said two hours but it would be very dependent on factors like how much we got paid and how much we got paid. As the guitarist is Scotschish [1], he's been trying to line us up a couple of gigs north of the border which would include some accomodation and enough money to cover the travelling, and maybe a little on top - but that would be a self-financing weekend break rather than a big earner. We would have to take into consideration how much we'd get paid, of course. [1] I feel that's a good compromise between "Scots", "Scotch" and "Scottish"