7string

Congrats

Enjoyed that Good name for a band. I take it if I listened to you 8 times that I wouldn't have a blinding headache the next mornin

Great thread. Some brilliant stuff on here I'm gonna get so slated for some of this I have a couple of picks from Kip Winger, Paul Gilbert, Phil Collen, Marco Mendoza and probably forgot a couple of others. Like [b]Rayman[/b} I have a cool jacket. Billy Sheehan signed it at a clinic at the Bass Centre. I had it signed again by him and the rest of the band did a signing at Tower Records, London. My boss let me have a really long lunch hour as I said that I'd have to line up and wait my turn. My Mum added Mr.Big himself to the back and went over the sigs in thread. I also have Kip Winger's painted leather jacket from "The Heart of the Young" tour. I bought it while he was auctioning some stuff from his site. Some time later, he had another auction which included his Jackson basses. A mate of mine told me about it a month after it had ended. Cheers mate... Kip also signed my Jackson KW bass at a gig in London. It looked great until I polished the bass and wiped it clean off. So much for permanent marker. My favourite memorabilia is a tape which has my signing lesson with Kip Winger on it. I went up to him after a gig in London and asked what he did to warmup before the show. He said to come early the next day and he'd show me. So I've got a good half hour of him teaching me how to breathe and so on. At one point he says "you're pretty good already", a proud moment. All of this wouldn't have any meaning, but Mr.Big have reunited and have a live DVD and CD set coming out. Winger's new album "Karma" hits the shop in early October. For the first time in years, my stuff is relevant

I was going to say that as well Nordstrand have a really strong following (see owners club on Talkbass) and are available trhough Bass Direct. Low End are another with a great reputation. Then there's Mike Lull... Not very helpful am I ?? Sorry.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='608895' date='Sep 26 2009, 12:01 AM']And what's the scale length on that? [/quote] 34"

It's really how you get on with the band members. They'd rather have a guy who can play who they get along with rather than a bass virtuoso who's an ass. Don't worry. Prepare yourself well for the audition and enjoy it.

£170 for a custom paint job? That's great bang for the buck. I've made a note of the website

That's a fine lookin' bass

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='606325' date='Sep 23 2009, 01:11 AM']I was always lead to believe that you adjust the truss rod with the strings slack. Same with the action.[/quote] Adjusting the truss rod or saddles with normal string tension is fine. If the neck won't go straight then more forceful tactics are required, so you'd then loosen the strings. Just tune up after each adjustment as they'll send the instrument out of tune.

Think I read somewhere that during the 60's and 70's if an electric bass was called for it was labelled as "Fender bass". Not the number of strings but the manufacturer (bit like Hoover I suppose). Even though the first popular electric bass guitar was a Fender, we've come a long way in 50-odd years. Now we have fretless, instruments up to 10+ strings, different woods and so on and on. Bass has come a long way indeed. Just look at the electric guitar over the same timespan. Still 6 strings and a lot of Strat copies. More strings hasn't really had a sniff at all. Doesn't matter how many strings a bass has or should have. The point is that we are way more open-minded than guitarists and that makes us better than them By the way, I have a 1 string.

The DVD is great by the way Some great musical twists and turns as well as the return of The Big Monkeys

Ordered stuff online. Turned up a couple of days later. Great as usual

Just looked at Play.com. 2 DVD set released 19th October at £16.99. 2CD set also available on the same day at £15.99. Other music retailers are available.

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='608092' date='Sep 24 2009, 08:00 PM']Careful guys, he may go the same way as Janek. [/quote] Oh man was that funny The ego has landed.

I had to pay Parcelforce their standard £13.50 charge to get my item from the depot. The VAT was less than a fiver. DHL or Fedex will deliver first and bill you later on. Their charges are much less than Parcelforce (the VAT 15% & import duty, depending on value remain the same).

That's a really interesting instrument. As you'll know it's chambered and the top is so thin it actually flexes giving AH the sound he wants. I like the acoustic/electric 5 string. I've seen one 2nd hand for £1200 !! A new one costs £550 ish through Carvinworld.

With the Hugh McDonald thread, I wrote a bit about Carvin so I thought I'd start a thread on it's own. Carvin guitars are built in the USA, but up until recently were only available in the USA. I've seen pictures of their stuff over the years and managed to get a copy of the (USA only) DVD showing different artists and their gear (Steve Vai, Joe Walsh, Timothy B.Schmidt to name a few). Carvin build everything guitars, basses, amps, PA systems, mixing boards and so on. Anyway, Carvin have a new(ish) site called [url="http://www.carvinworld.com"]Carvin World[/url] and they're now shipping to the UK! It seems as close to custom as you can get as there are so many options to choose from. Wood, colour, frets, dots, different pickups etc etc. There's also some instruments in stock so they're available straight away. Definitely worth a look around

Hugh is a great bass player, no doubt about that. I think he usually plays Sadowsky's but recently he's been advertising the new [url="http://www.carvinworld.com/catalog/guitars/index.php?model=sb5000"]Carvin SB5000.[/url] This is from Carvin's e-mail update [b]Bon Jovi Rocks With Carvin [/b] Hugh McDonald, noted session bassist and unofficial 5th member of multi-platinum New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi, recently took delivery of his new Carvin SB5000 5-string bass. Hugh has been playing with Bon Jovi since the mid-1990s, and also played on the band's first demo of their breakout hit "Runaway" in 1982. He has also played with such prominent artists as Willie Nelson, Lita Ford, Ringo Star, Cher and Alice Cooper. Hugh reports he is "smitten" with his SB5000, and plans on adding a fretless model to his arsenal in the near future. The new SB5000 is based on the 4-string SB4000 designed in conjunction with bassist Sekou Bunch. The SB5000 is constructed using an alder body with a bolt-on maple neck that features Carvin's newly-designed cutaway neck heel for easy playability high on the fingerboard. Other features include an ebony fingerboard with medium-jumbo frets, newly-designed SB headstock, new locking bridge and hundreds of wood and finish options. Electronics are active with Carvin's new Alnico J99A pickups.

There doesn't seem to be a European release at the moment, so Japan's the place to go. The Royal Mail charge a whopping £13.50 for taking it through customs. VAT was less that £5! Read on the net that you can complain about that cost and so might get a refund. DHL or Fedex don't charge anything like that amount. The DVD set was 5100 Yen which is £35 including shipping. It's around that price on eBay and you might still have that Royal Mail charge.... HMV Japan seems like the place to go.

As a small compensation by not being able to go to the Mr. Big gig in London, I ordered the new DVD from HMV Japan. It took more time going from Coventry to Glasgow than it did from Japan to the UK. Anyway, here's what's in the box: You get a big poster You get a towel which is a bit like a tea towel. Note the mis-spelling of Pat Torpey's name And there's a promotional instore promotional DVD with the 2 DVD set. Japanese fans are really lucky

[quote name='NJE' post='606764' date='Sep 23 2009, 03:55 PM']"The choice of woods is amazing : Buckeye , spalted Maple , Quilted Maple , Bubinga.Walnut back, Ivory ramps , Ivory Fingerboard ."[/quote] Ivory ramp and fingerboard?? Seen pink ivory before but not black. Maybe I should get out more. If this bass makes you play like HF, that alone should be a reason to avoid it THIS IS A JOKE BASED ON PERSONAL TASTE

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='603436' date='Sep 20 2009, 11:30 AM']While watching the L.O.G. video's i came across this. Its how Lakland set up their basses and while the measurements will of course vary i really like how Carl uses a straight edge to check the relief. Ive not seen it done this way before and have always struggled with the cappo at first fret/hold down string up the other end of the neck method. I did notice that he does all the setting up with strings at full tension but i guess thats probably to cut down on time for the video.[/quote] There's some good stuff in that vid. Interesting to see how they setup basses in a factory situation. Straightedges make assessing a neck a lot easier than trying to hold the string down at both ends. You can use part of a combination square (as in the vid) or a draughtsman's T-square. As long as it's straight that's all that matters. I'm puzzled as to which parts of the setup you would do with the strings loose. Adjusting one thing has a knock on effect on another and the string needs to be at pitch to adjust neck, saddle heights and so on.

With all my family coming from East London, Chas & Dave were an institution when I was kid. Still love 'em now. It was only later that I found out about their earlier career

Another player north of the border

Always good to see another player north of the border. D