bassace

A long time ago when I was very young - relevant to the second paragraph - I was playing upright and the tail wire let go. I was using one of those steel tripod bridges in those days so that, plus the three feet cups, all propelled themselves into the audience plus the strings were wrapped all over the place. Surprisingly I got them all back but the bass was a complete gonner for the rest of the evening. We were supporting one of the major bands and their bass player let me use his instrument to carry on. It was a fantastic instrument but I thought the G and D were slightly out of tune, so I proceeded to retune them. He went ballistic.

Come on guys, be nice to each other. Remember the bass had a place in jazz long before rock came on the scene. That doesn't mean its better or worse but surely all bass-based genres can exist in harmony. And at the end of the day, don't you think that rock is treally a subdivision of jazz, in that most tunes are based on a menu of well-tried chord sequences and what is a guitar solo if it isn't improvisation - which is what jazz is?

Very soon!

Hi Alfie Thanks for greetings. I see you are in a London band and I'm mainly in a Birmingham band so local gigs may not often be feasible. You play BG and I play DB and you are at least a generation younger than me, so we seem to be chalk and cheese. And yet, and yet............... we both play at the low end and we are both Basschat subscribers so we do have much in common. Be good to meet sometime to discuss gear and stuff.

Guys Just chanced on this thread so I'm a bit late. However, I would have liked to enclose a photo but my camera is playing up, so i'll describe - it's so simple. This will work for a Stagg, Aria and anything sticklike. Anything a bit more substantial I don't know. Simply take an upright chrome guitar stand, cut the upright bit off to stand approx 12"high, smooth off and stick the end pin in it. Sounds precarious but just you try it. This assumes that the lenth of tube is approximately the same as the end pin length.

Plus 6 Total 1205

I heard recently that one of David Bowie's gigs had to be cancelled because the electrician didn't come up to scratch. He was known as the Man who Failed to Earth. Sorry about that, Im feeling a bit hyper................

ped, Old Horse, Dave, paul Thanks for you kind welcome. ped, I'm with Dave Moorwood's Rascals. We do the Lamb at Wantage 4th Wednesday in the month. Free admission but the drinks are a bit pricey. Our piano man is Perry Lock who lives in Colwell Drive, Witney. He's one of the best keyboard men around. If you ever look in (caution, it's jazz!) I'll help defray costs by buying you a pint. Dave, the German blonde lives upstairs and is my practice bass. The other three live in the garage where I have built a special cupboard. The humidity seems to suit them.

I've been a BC subscriber for about a month but have only just figured out how to set up all the stuff (signature etc). So it's about time I introduced myself. I'm probably the oldest subscriber at 66 but still do plenty of gigs on DB. I play in a Birmingham band, Oxford band and also freelance. I've found the forums very interesting and you will probably remember that I got involved in the Stagg discussion. I'm trying to sell my EBO that I bought in favour of a Fender Jazz in 1964 (twit!) so I can invest in a Steinberger. Then I will be fully upright - although at my age a bit of viagra may help. I live just outside Chipping Norton and am always happy to give any help with Double Bass matters. Great site!

Rainbass Enjoy your new acquistion! I recommend that you fix the metal bit that faces into your body and possibly discard the other - that's what I have done. Then if you press the 90 degree turned end flat into your stomach the 'face' of the instrument will be facing 135 degrees away from you (the G will almost disappear from sight) and you will have a perfect playing position for starters. I've no experience of bowing a Stagg - probably not very good. And as for strings, that would take a whole new forum. The strings as supplied are red-ended. Surely they are not Spirocores at £130 a set. That would make a very cheap bass indeed!

The figerboard is radiussed symetrically (it doesn't have an assymetric profile like most DBs) so should convert to LH easily. However, note that like many sticks it has bits sticking out to stabilise the instrument against the player's body and you would have to play around with these. I'll try to attach a photo some time but unfortunately only the fast reply button will work at present.

dangerboy Yes, mine's an Eastcoast which I believe is exactly the same as a Stagg. The bag and instructions say Stagg. Gig was at Cape of Good Hope. Very soon I won't be doing upstairs gigs unless there's a Stannah installed. Only joking......

Ah, it seems to work! Right, here goes. I was doing a jazz gig on DB above a pub in Oxford a few weeks ago. I lugged all my stuff up the stairs. The guitarist mentioned a stick in PMT, Oxford's leading music tech shop which was quite cheap. When I asked if it was any good his reply was ' at that price does it matter?' So a couple of days later I went down to PMT and saw this Stagg in cherry red, just like my old EBO, at £390. The nice assistant let me have a demo and it was quite impressive. He obviously saw that I was enjoying the experience because he sidled up and said the magic words 'you can have it for £239' So I bought it. It's obviously a budget version of the Aria but whereas the Aria has three controls (what for?) the Stagg has two - vol and sub base. I find that to get reasonable deep bass I have to keep the sub bass at max, and even then the E is not quite as strong as the others. This could be because my amps are a bit on the light side (GK, Hendricksen JazzAmp). The Stagg works a bit better through my Roland Cube and I'm sure it would be great through a small BG amp such as a 1x12" Hartg combo. The neck is a bit plasticky - it's not ebony or graphite - but plays well enough. I think this instrument is great for a cheap entry into uprights for a BG player or perhaps a DB player wanting to explore EUBs - as I am. I might not bother with anything more ambitious for the present. I haven't gigged it yet but took it to a rehearsal the other day. The guys were well impressed and the guitarist said it was very good, 'how much did you pay, about £1200?' !!!!!!!!!!

Believe me, it's fun. When I get this thing to upload I'll give you more details.