Nickthebass

As a replacement for what? Into what sort of bass? What sort of sound are you going for? 😁

Anyone any reviews or thoughts on these?

No ... you weren’t wrong. There are just many ways of being right. I once heard “there are no wrong notes, only poor choices”.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I’ll do a little more digging.

I’ve got a mid-80s Squire Jazz that I’m going to soup up in a (sort of but not really) copy of Paul Turner’s 1960s Olympic White Jazz. I know it won’t make me sound like him, the tone is in his hands etc. not a daft fan boy - but it’s a well known and well heard reference point. Anyone any thoughts of pick-ups? From what I can see it’s pretty much a coin flip between Nordstrand and Lindy Fralin (pretty similar price points). Any other options to add to the mix? The Fender equivalents seem a bit over priced.

Thanks - they sounded like single coils but wanted to check.

Pierre - you may know this ... what pickups does Paul Turner’s white Stenback have in it? Also - you may remember a Talk Bass Sei bass thread from years back. I was having a through neck Jazz built (cocobollo top, Nordstrand pickups). I think you may have been waiting on one about the same time.

In terms of location on the instrument, assuming you are playing that C with your middle finger - I would call that 2nd position. Your index finger being at the 2nd fret. To me - 1st position would be 1st finger in fret one. Someone with more classic / upright background may correct me. The term “root position” is one I’ve heard from Scott Devine but never before - may just be my ignorance though. This refers I think to where you start the scale from - in this case starting a C scale from the root (C). I don’t think it refers to a particular fingering. I think it is laying the ground for thinking about playing the same scale starting on different notes. For a C major scale starting on the root you get C D E F G A B C start on the 5th you get G A B C D E F G from the 6th you get A B C D E F G A and on - you get the idea. This way of thinking about that major scale unlocks pretty much the whole of diatonic harmony (basically all the harmony you’ll need to play pretty much any rock, pop, blues, funk, folk etc. song). Once you get how the C chord relates to the C major scale and what happens when you start that C major scale on (for example) an A (ABCDEFGA) and that you get an Am chord from that scale ... then the world is your mollusc of choice. All of a sudden you’ll see why going C Am G F sounds natural.

Back to the topic at hand ... I think the answer is “it depends”. Harmonically as the others have said - some sort of chord tone that leads you to the next chord is often nice. You could even go full Chuck Rainey, don’t bother with the root, slide up to a double stopped high E and Bb somewhere up the dusty end of the neck - give it a shake and then slide back down for the next root. For the sake of one beat - you could just sit on the C. Chances are that if it’s only a passing chord then the root movement is important to the structure of the tune. (Maybe hit the root first time around and do something more fruity 2nd or 3rd time.)

As I say - rule of thumb - depends on the situation. Also depends what you mean by “busy”. A bubbly 16s rhythmic part that sits in one register, locks with the hi hat and kick and sits mainly on roots and 5s may sound like it takes up less space than something with fewer notes but is moving through registers and especially with big downward drops across arpeggios. Sitting on a C playing 16s may stay out of the way more than moving from a high E (on the g string) quickly down the C7 arpeggio, whallopping the open E before bouncing back to the C - even if it was rhythmically less “busy”. (Think of a Jameson style rake all the way down.) When I say busy I am thinking “ear grabbing” as much as the actual number of notes.

In terms of context - I’d also think about tempo and how many other people are playing at the time. As a general rule of thumb I was taught that the more bodies on stage the less everyone should play. Also if it’s a fast tempo I’d probably just bang the root and move on to the next chord.

Works and kids have conspired to scupper my plans thus far.

In other news ... this to thread prompted me to dig out my DVD of Standing In The Shadows... I may try to inflict it on my wife this evening.

I spend most of my professional life playing with Excel. What do you want this thing to do? It should be fairly simple to knock you up something that works for you.

That’s quite a stretch! If you are going to do something different - do it. Awful as it is ... I have more time for the Buzzard than someone taking a P bass body and making the bottom a little more bulbous and fractionally changing the shape of the scratch plate. They just look weird to me.

By contrast ... for me it’s companies that try to alter the proportions of those classic shapes just for the sake of it. Call me an old stick in the mud.

Chris McIntyre isn’t in London anymore. He is now in Edinburgh. Easier to get him on the phone rather than email McIntyre Guitars Unit 5B Albion Business Centre 78 Albion Road Edinburgh EH7 5QZ Scotland United KingdomTel: 07764747450 email: [email protected]

The correct answer is anything from Nordstrand. They’re also the best pickups for metal. 😁 Seriously though - they do a wide variety of Js including split-coil humbuckers. I have both their SV and SE winds. The first are more traditional sounding and the later are a bit thicker. TBH though I think you’d be pushed to tell much difference once the band is blasting away. Their pre-amps are great too. I have a 3 band version with switchable mids.

Once we’re post lockdown I could be tempted down from north of The Wall for this.

Although I think that later the arrangers started writing Jamerson style parts - including some stuff for him! The dude was special ... I read somewhere that he wasn’t allowed to tour because he was so important to the studio sound.

I would have been fine but with either but this is quite a simple rhythm. The second makes it very obvious that the Bb is on the “and” of 3.

You’re welcome. Magic only looks like magic when you don’t see the mirrors and wires. When you talk about “thinking several moves ahead” what you’re actually seeing is a highly developed approach to leading the ear through chord changes. The way it was taught to me comes back to walking bass in jazz. Let’s say you’re walking and you going to hit the root on beat one. You then have three notes with which to outline the harmony and end somewhere nice in relation to the next chord. Example a bar of C then a bar of F - we’ll just talk about bar 1 | C /// | F /// | Triads (1 3 5) are C E G and F A C. Playing C E G C in bar 1 would be great. You’ve got the triad then a 1 (or 8va) which is the 5th of the next chord. The ear will hear that move from C to F and feel a resolution into that F - especially if you go up to the F from below. You could finish bar 1 on the E and approach the F from a semi tone below. Again the ear is lead from one chord to the next. You could get fruity and stick a Gb on beat 4. A common resolution to a major chord in jazz is to play a b7 chord a semi tone above. Using the 2 bars above the piano would play | C / / Gb7 | F /// | Remember that thing about open strings in flat keys? Open A down to Ab is the same thing. Not only does it make position shifts simpler but it implies a quick chord substitution and leads the ear to the next root. Most chord progressions follow similar rules and patterns. What Jamerson is doing is applying the way that a jazz walking bass line moves around changes to a pop context. He has done it so many times (probably playing standards on upright) that he already has under his hands a dozen ways to navigate a given set of changes. Some tunes he gets to blow on more than others (I have no idea how he got away with the part on Darling Dear ... 🤯😳). At the end of the day it’s mostly walking bass (harmonically speaking).