Maude

My acoustic band has a wedding booked in three weeks and we've been asked to play Tammy Wynettes 'Stand By Your Man' and (bizarrely) Kenny Rogers' 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town', so I've been learning those two. The usual "it's country, how hard can it be" and then you actually listen applies, both songs have structures which don't seem to make sense, and then click. We're also working on a Country/Rockabilly version of Red Light Spells Danger which I'm liking at the moment. BTW the Kenny Rogers one is one of those songs you've always kind of known but never properly listen to, for what at first glance appears upbeat it's one hell of a dark song.

After a little Sunday drive over dartmoor last summer if found myself in Ashburton, the music shop was closed but a guitar in the window caught my eye with it's quirky design. The scratchplate, along with pickups, electrics and controls was screwed to a section of bodywood which popped out and was interchangeable to achieve a strat, tele, Les Paul etc configuration. Hard to explain but it looked really cool and I thought it was a great idea.

I don't know, I've never paid for a set up. It's one of the simplist things in the world to do so I'd never pay someone, hence why I said, "or whatever it costs".

I totally agree, but lots of different types of shops do lots of things that make me walk out without considering buying anything. I certainly wouldn't put an instrument on the wall without it being set up and in tune, with in reason, if I had a shop.

The cynic in me says they're left like that as most folks looking to spend that kind of money aren't beginners and will know a good set up to their preference will sort it, so the shop can then sell a set up for £80 or whatever it costs. The £80 set up is actual money in the shops till whereas profit on the £2k bass might not be much more.

In a similar vein, I think it was Rick Rubin who, back in the 80s, said he would always put whatever he was working on in the studio onto cassette and listen to it in the car on the way home, if it sounded good in the car then his work was done. He said the bulk of people, at the time, listened to music on crappy car speakers, not studio monitors. Nearly everything he worked on back then really did sound good IMO so it made sense to me.

Hmm, you'd think the question in this topic title would be easy, but after looking at the ebay listing I just can't decide.

The forearm carve is not a common style and reminded me of a Curbow, then noticed the satin hardware which is very similar, that was all. Just intrigued.

That Integra body carve and satin hardware look very similar to the Cort Curbow. Are the Arias made by Cort?

It looks nice and light. 💪

Our acoustic band struggles to find modern popular songs as, like said, there's not a lot of instrumentation going on. We're not adverse to changing songs around and actually thrive on doing stuff which 'shouldn't' work on these instruments (doublebass, guitar (12 & 6 string) mandolin, cajon (drum machine on a couple), 80s synth pop works well with the staccato nature of the mandolin as does 70s disco. We will do any music style in our own way but it's hard to find modern pop with enough going on for four different instruments. Dua Lipa's 'Be The One' works well, as does Portugal The Man, although I'm a little tired of that one. There was just more going on in older pop than today, not better or worse, just different, and that makes it easier to find stuff to play. It doesn't always make it easier to play though, Rio is rediculous on doublebass. 😄

Exactly this, if the songs weren't any good we wouldn't be discussing the musicians today. It was just one of those things when all the right ingredients were in the bowl at the same time.

Yeah I've no real idea, I'm not that up on the engineering side of things, which is probably why I found the clip interesting. I do know though that if I play the same bass through the same preamp into my old Yamaha MT8X and my almost as old Fostex DMT8, the cassette doesn't sound as clean a reproduction as the digital. Surely that's the result of digital over cassette.

I've just watched this on YouTube and thought I'd share. Really quite interesting and some useful information, but mainly just enjoyable and the sound they got in the end was almost bang on, if being critical it still sounded too clear and modern/hi-fi but maybe that's just unavoidable with today's digital way of recording and consuming music, computers rather than tape/vinyl. 🙂

I'm not really a fan of gold hardware in general but somehow it just works on a black Yamaha more than any other bass I feel. I have a black BBG5s with gold hardware that I bought new in the nineties, it was my only bass until the Internet came along.

We just watched that and Mrs. M correctly guessed that one. Shh... Unicorn is John Barrowman and hedgehog is Alfie Boe 🤔

In my head sliding harmonics shouldn't be possible, but they are.

Yes I was quite excited to hear the soundclips too, not sure I've got a se..................... oh I see, sorry my misunderstanding 😊 I am actually intrigued as to the construction as well, it sounds great 👍

I'm doing the opposite, I seem to play fretless like a fretted. The trouble is when I try and sound 'fretless' it all gets a bit early eighties and I feel like Alan Partridge playing Music For Chameleons.

Yes it is

That amused me far more than it should. 😁

You can, you just end up with a shiny turd though. 😄

That would almost be worth buying just to annoy our drummer. 🤣

No it's a Hertz one, 57 cycles per second apparently. 😁

I'm no electrics expert, not by a long stretch so this genuine interest, you are the man in the know. If wired in series would the bass only work if both outputs were used, the second jack plug being needed to complete the circuit, where as in parallel either output could be used independently?