allighatt0r

I went to London on Monday, after looking forward to it for months, and really enjoyed myself, I got the tube from Epping and went straight to Charing Cross Rd, with one goal in mind for the morning: Denmark Street. I was with my brother (aka: Rodders) and we decided to start at the top and work our way back towards Borders, starting at the shop opposite the 12 Bar Club (i forget the name, it could have been Regent guitars. ) where we tried a couple of Italia basses, a Modulo (precision with a twist) and a Maranello (Les Paul with a twist). The modulo was definitely my favourite bass of the two. It sounded really good nice, with the tone rolled off it was strong and warm, and with the tone full on it was punchy and bassy. My only dislike was the strange gold string that ran round the edge, it looked ok, but was odd and uncomfortable when i felt it against my wrist or arm or leg.... After that we wandered into a couple of other shops, only to walk to the bottom of the shop, find around five very un-interesting basses and walk out again. So we crossed the road to the Bass Cellar. We walked in, half expecting to be greeted with a hello like the other shops all had, and we were treated as if we weren't even there. We wandered round and saw two Rockinbetters and some nice basses worthy of time spent playing them and possible money spent buying them, but the hostile vibe coming from the owners meant neither me or my brother wanted to even ask if we could try something out. We were unimpressed. Biggest collection of basses in a shop? Smallest collection of w**kers. So we walked a couple of shops down to Wunjo Guitars. By far the best shop in the street, we weren't in the store two minutes and the friendly scottish guy came up to us and said "hey guys, anything you want just grab it and plug it in! enjoy yourselves!" so we stayed there a fair while and i got my first try on a Gibson Grabber. I loved it. My brother desperately wanted to visit Vintage & Rare guitars, so we went to the back of there and played the most expensive basses either of us have had the pleasure of holding. The owner came over and talked to us, quite impressed by my brothers style (he surpasses me in technique by miles) and was subtley and very in-directly asking if we were actually going to by something (so subtley that my brother didn't have a clue...) but when he realised we weren't, he was still happy to let us try whatever we wanted. I loved the Gibson EB-0 in there. There was no sign of the expected mud. My brother wasn't impressed that i wanted to run it through a bit of distortion though. We had a great time, and I really can't wait for my next visit to the Capital. Just a shame about the Bass Cellar. Anyone else had better experiences in there? Sorry for going on for so long, I really have written an essay.

I went to Denmark street on Monday (I've been waiting to go for weeks, and really loved it, I wish that the Bass Cellar were a friendly bunch though. there was some nice stuff in there.) And i played an Italia in the shop opposite the 12 bar club (i can't remember the shop's name...) it was a Modulo, a sparkly precision copy with 4 lipstick pickups parrallel to the string, i loved it. (apart from the gold binding string around the edge, that was uncomfortable.) I think Italia's are a great 'vintage with a twist' sort of bass, as long as you don't mine the sparkly-ness. Oh and +1 for the Jet King. I'm lusting for one of them as well.

[quote name='Moody' post='180431' date='Apr 19 2008, 12:46 PM']Thing is though, it's all in the states I think so not sure what the delivery is like.[/quote] Yeah, thats the main thing that was on my mind... As the t-shirts are reasonable at today rates.

[url="http://www.cafepress.com/buy/bass+guitar"]Direct Link[/url] I've just spent the last hour or so browsing... I'm glad i know the Firefox Page Info trick to get the pics. I really like these designs, nevere heard of cafe press before, i do believe that this site may be getting a fair bit of my custom

I can understand perhaps, if he's 70 and has a chronic fear of everything technology, but otherwise i have to say he's an idiot. My ME50B has always served me well on the tuning front, 5 LEDs, with the centre one being green, it's quick. I've had far too much experience with cheap hand-held rectangular tuners, with a huge fan of LCD, only to take half an hour to wait for it to find what string I'm actually twanging. I do use the 5th and 7th fret harmonic technique sometimes, but only because my brother taught me it.

Have a read of [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=16422"]this thread[/url]. If you can manage to concentrate through all of it, it should enlighten you. I would try to explain myself, but i would probably leave you more confused than when you started.

+1 to Money and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick definitely. Greenday - Longview Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild The Strokes - Juicebox Free - Alright Now (if you played the solo to just about anyone they would recognise it.) ...to name a few. I think there are a fair few bass songs that started off as great basslines, and the guitards just copied. (Juicebox being a prime example.)

Any chance of some names next to all those faces Rich? I would love to attend the next bash, although i think i would feel a bit unworthy in the presence of some properly experienced players.

Not a problem. Promise us pics if you buy it?

The neck is a C profile at the nut, and transforms into a D profile as you get to the body, it's really comfortable. Also, the neck is very smooth and fast feeling. The string spacing is adjustable at the bridge too.

Hi Mike, My main bass is a Cort GB74, (four string version of the GB75) and my personal opinion is that they're great. The controls took me a little while to get used to, but other than that it's been great, I've had no problems with it, except for having to raise the action and tweak the truss rod a bit, but i think thats mainly to accommodate my (poor) technique. But this bass should be fine, as it's secondhand, and has more than likely been set up properly? I paid roughly £300 for my bass new, so, depending on the age/condition/etc. of the bass, i would say £150-£180 would be reasonable... but haggling is half the fun of buying. If you have any more specific questions I'll be happy to answer. Oh and by the way, is it the natural finish or the white one? Mine is the white one, and i wish i had got it in natural.

Get a message to Jon (Bassassin) if you can, he's a walking encyclopedia on JapCrap such as this, and should be able to give you the info you need, I'm afraid i can't help you out much myself sorry... Although, how come the main item picture is natural, and the actual item is black...

There are a few fairly nice songs in that set list! My main tip for you would be to learn to read tabs! Print off the tabs (try looking on bassmasta.net, and ultimate-guitar.com) then put the ones you have trouble with on a CD, and play along. 8 times out of 10, the tab won't be perfect, so it will take a little while to perfect. Alternatively, ultimate-guitar.com and a fair few other tab sites also have the chords for most songs, which I'm sure would help? With the band I'm in now, i got a call from the guitarist asking if i wanted to join on the Monday, and the next rehearsal was on the Wednesday, i downloaded all the songs and printed off the tabs, made CDs and could play the songs fairly convincingly for the rehearsal. Although i did have those days off.... Also RE: Sweet Home Alabama, the chords are D, C, G, over and over, except for once or twice there is a little E, F turnaround.

My Cort GB74 has a neutrik locking jack socket. So i don't need to loop! But i do with my other bass, better safe then sorry!

Thanks for all the replies, I'm really looking forward to it now, i just hope people are going to be friendly. Although i may have to just pull a solo out just to annoy some arrogant guitarist. It just has to be done sometimes

[quote name='tombboy' post='163800' date='Mar 26 2008, 02:52 PM']From my experience, if you enjoy playing Root, 5ths & 7ths blues all bloody night[/quote] Excellent, that's my brother's favourite, and i don't mind it either. In case anyone was wondering, the jam night is at the Flying Fish Inn, in Carbrooke, just outside Watton, in Norfolk.

Tonight I'm going to my first ever Jam Night at a (fairly) local pub, with my brother (also a bassist) and my dad (not a musician at all). I was wondering what to expect, should i announce myself when i get there? Should i take my own bass. Am i going to get hostile looks from the locals? I'm not scared, i'm just apprehensive, I'm not sure what the style will be, if it's jazz i will be a total fish out of water, same if it turns into something metal (although, i guess i could try and blag my way through The Trooper.) I searched and found [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1493"]this topic[/url] but i decided to start a new one as thats so old. So... Any interesting experiences to share? What are the main un-written rules?

I was at a local guitar and bass centre yesterday, and picked up an [url="http://www.djmmusic.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=PK20SB&eq=&Tp="]Encore 7/8[/url] bass to try, and as i picked it up i noticed how stupidly light it was, (according to a catalogue, it's made of 'wuton', a low mass Far Eastern tonewood.) The neck is as wide (and so is the string spacing) as a normal P bass, and so are the pickups, It's just smaller (one eighth smaller to be precise). Harmony Central give it terrible reviews, but the reviewers were leaving it as standard, i think i would replace the pickups, and perhaps the bridge, as it looks like it's a full size one. Another mini bass is of course, the [url="http://www.largesound.com/"]DeArmond Ashbory[/url] basses, which are ridiculously small. What other small basses are there? Perhaps there are some more high end than the Encore

I think one of the most excellent rock bassists recently is the guy from the Kaiser Chiefs, almost all of his basslines are far more complex than they first seem. Sometime soon i'm gonna spend some time and work out one of the albums. Although i'm not sure the Kaiser Chiefs are what you mean by rock.

Thanks alot, now to practice!

In my band, i get a 12 bar solo in Johnny B. Goode, (standard fast blues in B flat) and i use the blues scale: over about three octaves (starting at the 6th fret on the E string, and traveling up to the 15th fret of the G string). I just tend to go a bit mental, just playing a lot of notes in the scale and using the occasional bend or hammer-on or whatever, trying to hit the E flat and F on the chord changes. I just wanted to know if you guys have any idea of how to make it into a more structured real solo, instead of being a load of notes that fit?

Have you tried turning up the gain knob and turning down the master volume? I don't know about your amp but this certainly helps with character and tone with my amp. Just a suggestion

It has often puzzled me why we use our less dominant hand for an operation that tends to be a lot less complex then fretting, if i ever try to imagine fretting without a neck in my left hand, i can't make it do what i want at all, my fingers just kinda wiggle aimlessly. It's too late for me now to try and play left handed basses, i think you can only make the switch if you have no previous experience, otherwise you have to kind of fight with your brain over what it's used to doing when you have a bass round your neck. By the way, i could be talking absolute rubbish, don't take any of this as gospel truth. EDIT: [url="http://www.andertons.co.uk/acatalog/Bass_Guitars.html"]These guys[/url] are selling to a pretty selective audience! left handed girls, that want to be bass guitarists. (see the first four basses)

Not sure about the yellow... Everyone knows red with white stripes goes the fastest. Then white with black stripes. I just has a thought. A ebony fingerboard with two white parallel to the neck stripes, that continue through a black painted body... Hmmm...