bencooper

Like the previous posters I've heard similar stuff. From what I've heard Tim splits his signal between two and sometimes three amps, mixing clean and overdriven sounds. He uses two wahs that are joined together with a kind of plank arrangement, so that the clean and overdrive are affected at the same time. The previous comments about his overwound pickups I've also read elsewhere. With one amp it'd be tough to get the exact sound, and actually you wouldn't really get his exact sound even with the same set up would you, plus don't forget that there will have been some studio work on it too. His live sound is amazing, but not exactly the same. Had a Darkglass B7K in for review recently, and you can get some pretty awesome tones from that, ones that will give you an approximation of his tone at least. It lets you blend the clean and overdrive nicely, and there is also a parallel out, so if you have the luxury of two rigs you can run your distortion into one and clean into the other via the pedal.

Well a lot of the 80s rockers played Jacksons and Kramers. Spectors also used to be a pretty common sight around American 80s rock/glam metal guys - Kip Winger et al. I'm a bit of an 80s rock and metal buff! If you wanted to play it safe I'd just plump for a Fender P-Bass, that wouldn't look out of place at all. It's a good bass anyway, and you can use it for all kinds of bands, and pretty much every rocker ever has used one at some point 80s or otherwise! Oh and make sure you get it in black (mirror pick guard an optional extra)

Five is hard. No order for these: Duff McKagan - inspired me to take up the bass in the first place as a teenager, and sling my bass impossibly low, for which my fretting hand still suffers to this day! Billy Sheehan - I saw him do a clinic after I'd been playing about a year. Never knew you could do that on the bass. Strap length adjusted to necklace like length and I spent many hours learning as much of his stuff as I could. Sting - a great player who really showed me how a great bassline doesn't need to be complicated. Strap moved to a mid length where it has remained ever since. James Jamerson - don't think this one needs explaining Geddy Lee - see above There are loads of others: Steve Harris, Duck Dunn, Macca, Randy Coven - the list goes on and on.

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1323181607' post='1460204'] His nephew found it in the loft and put it on Ebay. [/quote] Did it sell for the Buy It Now Price?

It would have been a better story had the neck come off...but fortunately for me it didn't. I will say the audience found it hilarious. But then they were waiting to watch Budgie so I'm not sure they should have been laughing! (Just kidding, before any Budgie fans proceed to rip my head clean off - Burke Shelley is a good player, I like the band and they were very nice guys too!). I heard the same story about that Clash shot. Didn't he try and glue it back together or something?

I was playing a gig in Cardiff, and it had been going really well. Feeling a bit adventurous at the end of a song, I hit the final note (a massive open E!) and decided in my youthful exuberance to do a Billy Sheehan neck bend, you know the one where he pushes the neck and body away using the tension of the strap for purchase. Hadn't tightened up my strap lock and my 2.5K custom bass plummeted to the floor with a bang. Very embarrassing. Testament to the workmanship though it was fine, with just the tiniest ding on the headstock. Gives it character I think. Fortunately I've never really damaged a bass badly - just my pride! Ben

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1322562413' post='1452538'] I enjoyed the issue. Lots of silly grammatical errors and typos though. It seemed 'busier' if you know what I mean, I like lots of boxouts with specific information in interviews, and I thought the instrument reviews were pretty decent. And Ben, you write well. [/quote] Cheers Silddx - I definitely tried to make the interviews busier, like you say boxouts and so on. Glad you liked the reviews too. Thanks for the compliments on my own writing! As for the typos etc. as I said I will try and tighten this up over the coming months - it's not an excuse at all, but if you knew the time frame I was given to put that issue together, as I was simultaneously in charge of my old mag. Anyway, good to know I'm heading in the right direction, and the feedback here from everyone has been valuable. Bear with me and 2012 will be a case of onwards and upwards! Cheers Ben PS - As for the pics of the basses...errrr...yeah, it won't happen again! PPS - Americanised spellings just slip through unfortunately, I think because the eye is used to seeing them so much these days. But for consistency I'll double up efforts to catch those in future too.

Surely one of the most iconic basses ever. I think the assumption people have about Gibson basses not being "good" basses comes from the fact that their basses often have a very identifiable tone, and sometimes aren't that tonally flexible, but what they do I think they do very well indeed! And they look cool as...and when you're rocking out on stage, well that is kind of important isn't it? I knew someone who had one, and he gaffer taped a large spanner to the back to combat the balancing issue - not sure what that did to the finish in the long term though!

[quote name='BassBus' timestamp='1322220649' post='1448065'] On the subject of reviews. It has been a criticism of BGM in the past that basses reviewed are too often in the higher price bracket. I have posted my feelings on this in the past. We all have the ability to go along to our local instrument store and look at endless Ibanez, Fender and Yamaha basses in the low to medium price bracket. Therefore, I think concentrating on that price of bass is perhaps not the best use of editorial space. Highlighting lesser known basses for me would be more use. But then again that is only my opinion. [/quote] Hi BassBus, I think we have to strike a balance with these things - like you say anyone can nip down the local guitar shop and have an hour or two on a Fender, Yamaha, Ibanez, not so much with expensive luthier basses. But at the same time, not everyone is that interested in those high end instruments - they want something they can aspire to. My intention is to do what I did on my previous magazine - feature a spread of price points where possible, so there is something in the low and mid points and the high end. best Ben

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1322214316' post='1447921'] I think we should celebrate our diversity rather than suggest there is a blueprint for the ideal bassist, which is what I seem to get from the bass publications, but not nearly so much in the guitar mags. [/quote] Yup, I'm with you on that. Obviously I didn't spring fully formed as a magazine editor from the womb, and since I started playing bass at the age of 16 I've read every mag there is with any bass content in it, and I do think there is a bit of snobbery out there about things such as "can you sight read?", "don't you know how to improv. over jazz chord progressions?", "whhaaaaat you play with a pick?!". People should endeavour to learn and improve as much as they can, but a lot of people are too quick to judge players on these elements. It's interesting to note though that I almost never see anyone say: "(Famous bass player) can't improv. over a jazz chord sequence/can't read music, so he/she sucks", it seems to be reserved for our fellow enthusiasts, which is what I always find a bit odd. I've never heard anyone suggest that Carol Kaye is somehow a deficient player because she uses a pick, that Sting is useless because he doesn't slap or that any "name" player is pathetic because he can't sight read (which many of them, particularly the rockers, will openly admit). And people often don't want to admit that many of the most memorable/hummable bass lines (note I'm not saying best, as the definition of best will change depending on what criteria you're using) are often fairly simple, technically speaking... I think to suggest that any given player is a paragon we should all aspire to is a bit dangerous. You need to have an open mind and ears, that's my philosophy, anyway. And anyone who doesn't like it is just plain wrong LOL cheers Ben

OK, that's a lot of stuff to respond too, so at the risk of boring you all to death I'll deal with each in turn: [b]ezbass[/b]: An interview with Bruce Thomas is doable, and he's in the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame too, so worthy of some coverage. I'll need to do some hunting around and see what he's up to - I can't promise anything at this stage but he'll go on my list. [b]silddx[/b]: I see where you're coming from - I can tell you that in future the size of reviews will take into account the nature of the bass and its audience - for example I've got a review of a Sadowsky coming up in issue 74, this will be longer than a usual review, because the reviewer felt there was a lot to talk about, and he also had a chat with Roger Sadowsky about the bass and that is going to be included with the review. When we review cheaper basses they will tend to get less in depth coverage. As you say the critique of a bass's price should take in to account the market - that is, someone who wants to seriously consider a 2K bass will have that money, and the price should only be criticised if in actual fact the reviewer feels the bass doesn't stand up against basses half the price. On descriptions of tone, well how someone interprets a tone can be subjective so I see what you're asking for, but because it's open to subjective impression it's hard to standardise it - I could ask reviewers to weed out anything too flowery in the tonal descriptions. The impression I get from you is you want things to be more factual but also more lively and engaging - I'll try and do a Captain Picard and "make it so" [b]Jacqueslemac[/b]: Well, I do think that the emphasis in BGM over recent years has been on the jazz/funk guys. It's something I'll be addressing - I want to achieve a balance of coverage. I'm a rocker at heart, but I've always been interested to read about bass players from all genres and I listen to all kinds of music. It's fair to say I will be having more rock and metal players in the mix than over recent years, but I also want to feature reggae and dub players, country players, blues and so on. As Silddx said, you can't please everyone, and not every issue, but making the interviews more varied is something I'm going to work on over the coming months. [b]yorks5stringer: [/b]I think I addressed your point in my response to sliddx...as for reviews of left footed pedals, well I'm actually right-footed... [b]skej21: [/b]What I am going to make sure is that all basses are reviewed relevant to their price point, which I'm not sure was the case before. That is, if a £179 bass gets 4 stars that means it is 4 star against its competition, and wouldn't be equivalent to a 3 star 1k bass. I do have to say that in my time working at Oyster House I've seen very few instruments that were rubbish - sure, somethings are merely OK, and some are overpriced, but I think to give something 2 or 1 stars it would have to be really sub-standard and you just don't see many of those instruments these days, as manufacturing has become so much better, especially in the Far East. What I will be doing is bringing in other star ratings so each instrument will get a mark out of 5 for Build Quality, Sound Quality and Value For Money - so a bass could get 4 stars in Sound and Build but only a 3 or 2 for value if it's deemed overpriced. [b]gary mac: [/b]Cheers, I can see we're going to get along just fine On the pics...yeah I know...it ain't gonna happen again is all I can say! Phew! Well, that's brought my RSI back...stop sniggering at the back... best Ben

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1322148993' post='1447250'] Hello Ben, good of you to join us! I was going to have a look at BGM but WH Shith still have last month's with Michael Anthony on the cover. When I used to buy the magazine regularly it usually hit the shelves around the 20th. Also, do you have any plans to improve the quality of proofing the mag. I used to subscribe but the colossal amount of errors in the type and photos, even the music notation just put me right off. Almost all the reviews were 4 star too, and rather bland. Nick improved things a bit but there's still lots of room for maneouvre IMO. Anyway, very best of luck with your new job. Cheers! [/quote] Hi Silddx, Thanks for the kind words. I will try my best to catch those proofing errors. In my experience most of those tend to be when last minute changes are made "on screen" to something. I know how frustrating they can be, and they do leap out at you when you're a reader. The only thing I'd say in the magazine's defence is that I've yet to see a magazine that doesn't contain typos, layout errors etc. Not that this is an excuse, just that they do happen - but I'll see what can be done about tightening things up. As for the reviews, well you probably better not look at the star ratings in this issue...but what I will say is that I won't give out 4 stars and 5 stars to just good-enough basses - and I think that in this issue all the product deserved their respective ratings. As for blandness, do you mean they weren't critical enough, or that the writing wasn't lively enough? Glad to hear from you! best Ben

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1322146291' post='1447196'] Hi Ben Don't worry about the kicking, most people here wear trainers, apart from the odd few who wear ballet slippers (which means I'm gonna get a kicking as well now|! ) I personally don't see a problem with reviewing LH instruments - the components are the same, the electronics are the same, the materials are the same, the sound is the same - the thing's just made backwards is all... [/quote] Hi icastle, I agree (naturally, being a lefty) but I can see why some people were thinking "What?", given that left-hand instruments tend to get reviewed only in special features about left-handed basses/guitars etc. I suppose I was more expecting the kicking, or slipper bashing, just by raising my head above the parapet as people might see it as a chance to...err...vent at the new Editor! Of course I'm happy to hear suggestions and ideas from people who read the magazine, but in my experience sometimes people can get a little heated during such exchanges. When you start on a magazine and ask for feedback/suggestions it's a little bit like opening Pandora's box...just without the Hope left at the end Ben

Hello everyone, I'm Ben the new Editor of Bass Guitar Magazine. Not sure if I should resurrect this thread, or if I'm just asking for a kicking... In answer to Jondeeman's query as to why all the lefty stuff, it was simply a case of logistics for that issue. I was in a position where I had to get some basses reviewed quickly, due to issues with the handover from my previous magazine and Bass Guitar Magazine (something I won't go in to here as it's lengthy and far too boring). It was just one of those times where things didn't run entirely smoothly and so I had to review a load of basses myself. You'll find that from next issue this isn't the case, and that left handed basses will crop up in a more proportional manner from now on! I'm not about to go more niche and make it Left Hand Bass Guitar Magazine Anyway, I hope that clears this up. It wasn't some kind of political correctness gone mad (sorry to sound like the Daily Mail), it was just out of necessity. best Ben