drTStingray

Haha!! A lot of people do these days - even fitted with flatwounds (a la 1961). However, if this was 1980 you very likely wouldn’t have been 😏

Tchhhh - you guys and your semantics 🤪😂😂👍 I suppose I’d better join in - the Average White Band, by the late 70s, we’re using Musicman Stingray basses. Later still they were using Yamahas - (BBs I think) - in the early 70s, Alan Gorrie used a Precision and Hamish Stuart a Mustang - until the mid 70s Fender was still the bass for R and B.

You obviously were in with the wrong lot in the 70s/80s!! If you think this is bad you should have seen 1967 (quite a lot of people were in a parallel universe for the whole year)!!!! 🤪

You right there as well, @Bean9seventy

Not before they’d been ,,Livin’ It Up,, extensively 😂 coincidentally containing one (some) of the best bass parts known to mankind 😉

I don’t know about college stuff but I think you’ll find it was born in Birdland and the like which crossed over - the dance floors was all T Connection etc etc doing what they wanted to do in the late 70s - the Brit stuff was a bit later? And drew on all that stuff. PS the prog rock beard strokers had gravitated to the likes of Return to Forever (and brought their girlfriends who liked the funky stuff) by the mid 70s - moving on to the likes of Brand X - if ever a concert showed the gulf in audience it was Herbie Hancock at the Birmingham Odeon circa 1978 - the first half was jazz - and the place was virtually empty - I was amazed (the bars must have been heaving) - the second half was funk and the place was full and dancing!!! The Brit Funk stuff must have really got going in 1980/81, @Bean9seventy? I too have your misgivings about some about some of the ‘history’ taught in colleges and elsewhere but don’t chuck it all out the window!! The idea (which some people would have you believe) that Marcus Miller would use flatwound strings in the early 80s is plain barking - he had his bass modded to improve it (especially in the mid/top end) remember (or was that something I dreamed) 🥴

This forum is legendary for its quite elderly demographic so it’s probably the wrong place to be saying people weren’t even born in the 70s - too many of us actually were - even in the 60s (dare I say it - 50s)!! Anyway 1976 is famous for lots of things but the most memorable were the hottest summer anyone could or can remember in the U.K., and of course, the introduction of the renowned Stingray bass 😀👍

For the uninitiated, Mark King was originally a drummer - worked in a London music shop (Macaris says @Bean9seventy) - the IOW stuff predated this AIUI. It was only when someone pointed out to me he was playing drums on bass that I suddenly got the principle. He borrowed a Gibson (EB2?) bass for their first recording session doing Love Meeting Love. The band I was in at the time covered that song (I think the keyboard player had a 12” single of it). MK was turned on to the Jaydee Supernatural bass by Gary Barnacle’s (sax player who played with them and recorded with them - did lots of sessions in the 80s) brother’s white Jaydee. If you buy Stuart Clayton’s excellent tab/manuscript books on Level 42 there’s a lot of info on the band history and Mark’s instruments.

At least they didn’t move to Kansas City, and can still employ the services of a milkman if they so desire.

Yes Return to Forever was still considered jazz rock in the mid 70s - but pieces like Sorceress were pure funk. I saw the Jeff Lorber band at Pizza Express Soho, about five years ago - what a fabulous gig (and on a par with the Fatback Band at Ronnie Scott’s, NYE I think 2019 - just pre Covid).

Yeah I agree Mike - do the fretless Wals command the same sort of prices as fretted in the US?

Really? And yeah - having been asked to play a couple of Santana bass lines from the mid 70s he played some very tricky stuff - I found it quite difficult to play some of it tbh. I misunderstood Bean9Seventys posts thinking it was Pops Popwell…… to be fair it does sound similar, presumably because of the playing style and use of a Precision.

Wasn’t he that Uber tw*t who physically threw (or escorted) that other id**t John McCrirrick off his live afternoon talk show because he thought his comments might upset his core Women’s Institute audience?!! 🥴

Interesting - I listened to the Santana track and it does have elements of the Level 42 sound, even beyond the slapped bass - but there again they took influences from jazz funk and other genres - so pop became very funk orientated in the early 80s, another Brit funk band being Freeze. I saw Pops Popwell a couple of times in the late 70s with the Crusaders - a monster of a bass player and not just slap, although he was great at that. However it was extremely unusual that such a player would be playing a Precision by that date as other basses far more suited to slap style (and fatter sounding for finger style) were available by then - you were as likely to see, in the U.K. at least, a decent bass player playing Musicman, Yamaha, Alembic and subsequently Ibanez Musician basses - not many using Precisions. So I think you’re right @Bean9seventy. You’re also right that the “accepted history of bass playing” tends to overlook significant “non Fender periods” and the extensive “no flatwound strings available” period - all rather laughable tbh. It’s almost as if LA 1960s - early 70s and Motown 60s and early 70s have a monopoly of all recorded bass for the whole of time - good as they are, they aren’t the be all and end all. Ive personally started to watch more of Level 42’s performances, particularly the fairly recent ones - this has fuelled a new found gas for that archetypal British bass, the Jaydee Supernatural - joining gas for that other archetypal British bass the Wal Mk1 😀

My Ray fretless from 93 has a neck virtually the same as that (sans skunk stripe) - you are right, most Rays up to 2002 or so have figured maple necks - in fact the Classic series basses were based on the late 80s spec largely AIUI. Whilst we’re talking fretless Rays here’s my 93 - snapped up off EBay around 12 yrs ago for £751!!

Noting you mention the ebony, of course we all know wood makes no difference to the sound (so say some 😂 ) however you have a fine trans red Ray there, which is almost certainly on an alder body - and alder bodied Stingrays have a certain warmth and mellowness which the ash ones have less of (note this, ‘wood makes no difference naysayers’) - unless you’ve tried them back to back, you won’t know. This also reminds me that the Stingray fretless is one of the best fretless instruments which used to be available - and occasionally is in limited numbers from the factory. I still love mine and go all fretless every so often! Fabulous bass you have there, and the neck job looks excellent.

Thanks for this. I’ve seen footage of him using Acoustic but to be fair, it was from the early/mid 70s. Many reggae bands used 18” speakers at the time. This is from before the days when ‘lowly’ bass players featured in guitar magazines, or specialist magazines existed for them!!

‘Family Man’ Barratt did use a Jazz in the 70s, but into an Acoustic 370/301. I’m sure if he was playing the same stuff now he’d be using decent class D equipment. The bass player in Steel Pulse used a very nice Stingray. It never ceases to amaze me how everyone presumes every bassist used Ampeg - in the 70s Ampeg would be a V4B - and they were not ubiquitous with bands - John Paul Jones was another Acoustic amplification user. We need to beware current ‘industry standards’, which are often based on an incorrect impression of what was used historically. For 90s pop - Musicman Stingray 5.

Im surprised a shop 20 yrs ago didn’t have half a dozen entry level basses - including possibly a Vintage Stingray copy; Encore Precision copy etc etc. Even my local music shop had those. If they wanted to carry Squier instruments, they had to take 20 items at a time (and what the Fender distributor decided they should have - Fender’s business model worked on the basis they over-produced guitars and used retailer’s showrooms to park them all - hence the walls full in some showrooms). Now 20 yrs ago, you could go on a tour of several shops in Denmark St and the Bass Centre and find multiple left handed Stingrays, Warwick’s, Fenders - fretless basses, Stingrays, Stingray 5s etc etc. I think Guitar Guitar still does carry more than the ubiquitous Fenders. To pick up on @Chris B’s earlier post in this thread, to be honest, the only place I see 4 string Fenders being used are with professional acts (eg Adele last weekend). Not sure why some of them even bother as they’re often virtually inaudible - no doubt you can ‘feel’ the bass in the actual performance - heft and all that 😏 😩

I must remember that next time I see a sonic blue Fender 😀😂

Messrs Musicman clearly missed a trick when they named this rare and somewhat infamous colour aherm….. trans green.

I fear I may have done a couple of shops a disservice - the likes of Andertons stock quite a lot of basses - however many music shops stock vastly more guitars than basses - and probably sell far more of them to be fair. 20 yrs ago it was a quite different picture - perhaps the allure of being a bass player has reduced.

You are of course quite wrong - a bass guitar of ANY TYPE is a niche instrument in most music shops these days, from what I’ve seen.

That is a very subjective view. However I certainly can tell the difference between instruments of the same make and type but different fretboard necks and bodies, for instance and definitely between low end and higher end models of the same instrument type, as a player. Anyone else’s view is frankly irrelevant to the player. I would be surprised if anyone couldn’t tell the difference between say the sound of a Precision bass, a Stingray and an Alembic. I do worry that there’s a certain level of sniping at other people’s choices somehow being wrong, irrelevant or less relevant in threads like this. Surely, so long as the musician is happy with their choice then it is likely they will get joy from performing and will be closer to achieving their playing ability than if they were playing something that they were not happy with - regardless of how much they paid for an instrument to achieve that. I’m happy to pay extra, for example, for a figured maple neck or a specific colour because they please me, aesthetically. Others may not like them - it’s all a matter of personal choice - and there are lots of them with an instrument. Functionality is by no means the only driver for purchases.

Indeed they are but how much real value is added sound wise? And can the average listener tell the difference. I think, as with electric instruments, many can - but the same is true of acoustic guitars. The high level makes such as Martin and Taylor generally produce instruments with exquisite tone - but are cheaper instruments that different? Can the average listener tell the difference? There’s a world of difference in how different types and manufacturing of electric instruments are carried out, the cost and volume of the labour (and in which economy that’s based), the cost of materials and the perceived market value all have a bearing on it.