lownote

I take the point made by several that jazz 'grownups' may spot my fraud. But that assumes there's one correct way to do things that they're using as a benchmark. Part of my point, rooted in what I understand of Smith's teaching, is that walking should be improv - choosing between options. And apparently there are many many perfectly valid options, including little phrases that have no provenance other than that Smith says they're useful little licks. If between them useful little licks, chord tones, scale tones, adapted scale tones and diatonic and chromatic passing notes cover every note between point A and point B (and point A and point B can be any note you fancy - root, third, fifth, seventh) then them ol' jazz buffs gonna have a hard time proving me wrong. Not standing up for youthful rebellion here, just saying.

I am engrossed in Mark Smith's Walking Bass course. It is is very deep and complicated for a simple person. All 62 videos of it. But then I started to notice something reassuring. You can actually play almost anything and get away with it. Let me explain... You set out to join the dots between chords tones. There are four of those. Your bass line gets smoother as you introduce scale notes, and there are lots more of those. It gets smoother still as you introduce chromatics, and that's almost everything else. That's when I realised... It doesn't matter what note you play. So now I happily play faux-walking bass, concentrating only on hitting the beat and leaping up and down the fretboard in a confident looking manner, playing largely random notes. Looks good, sounds good (helps to play fretless with dull flats). No effort to learn. And I recently played just like that in a jazz group for an evening just to prove my theory. I was complimented.... So am I bad?

Do some tech stuff. I started off changing my strings. Ended up by converting a fretless bass that sold to Bryan Adams.

This'll puzzle you. Although I hope not too much, as I need an answer :). A while back I dropped my Markbass LM2 head. No obvious damage, and I gave it to a elec tech who said he couldn't find anything damaged. But ever since then, I get fuzzy muffled sound. Occasionally. But only when playing the very low end of my fretless Revelation. It's not the bass. Switch amp off and on again and the system's fine. Why should I have issues only on the bottom three frets, on the amp. Is there a low frequency filter that could have been knocked awry?

Well all I can say is I've bought and sold about 40 basses, 37 of them by post. I had one minor issue and a big issue on two incoming. In both cases the sender was light on packing. Recently ParceForce, before that usual Interparcel UPS. Life isn't quite as bad as it seems if you provide against contingencies and use common sense.

+1 Parcel Farce have done me no wrong.

There's an unlined fretless Vintage P/J active on eBay at the moment. All natural wood. Anyone know the model? I could be tempted into looking for one, only nearer.

Apparently it only engages for JPEG production. I'll be shooting in RAW.

Is the Auto ISO feature any good? Strikes me this lets me manually set speed (useful) and aperture (useful) but still be flexible - in the one area where change isn't quite so obvious (ISO).

I have bought into Mark Smith's 'Simple Steps to Walking Bass', at Talking Bass https://www.talkingbass.net/product/simple-steps-to-walking-bass/ . This is a compendious learnathon that will take you forward from absolute basic chord structure to learning to walk fluently in great and exhaustive detail. And it's astonishing good value at around £50. Frankly, you get an awful lot of skills and knowledge per pound. Enough to last you months if not years of study. The downside is the amount of stuff. 62 videos! Yer man leaves few stones unturned. And the name. You'd only call this marathon 'Simple Steps...' if you have a first class degree in music and are super brainy - which Smith has and is. Most mortals will go "FFS...'. Plus his high speed excitable and non stop delivery is somewhat wearing after a short while. But then I am doing several hours a day and at least he's more exciting than Ed Freidland. I did get through Ed's course on SBL but only by drinking strong coffee. Overall a tour de force, but you may need the Force to get through it all. Recommended ****

Just buy a 5 string set and ditch the G

Reasonable size regional concert hall. Currently en-lensed with 50/1.8, 35/1.8, 80-200/2.8 running on a Nikon 7000 body.

... this. I regularly fall out of love with bass. I just lock it away for a while and I'm soon back. 32 years is a long while. Any road, what's all this twaddle about being 'almost 50', like it's end of t'road? I haven't seen 50 for 15 years and still strut my stuff - if a little forgetfully at times.

Seeing as 'ow the opticians say I'm slowly losing sight in one eye and I know a lot of musos, I'm taking up concert photography while I can still field photons. Plus its a cunning scheme to get me some bass depping in lieu of payment Watched all the videos, bought all the right equipment, got permission for my first concert. What can possibly go wrong? Any pointers from those with previous experience?

What do you need doing? Pretty much everything is DIY, requiring no more skills than you require to tie your shoelaces. I have had little joy of professional techs, and finally lost faith when one asked why I was paying him to do something I could do myself.

They are, and do you know what? I think they sounded better further away from the strings. But its probably all in my head. Along with the frogs and cut snakes. Having said that I'm happier I've added the extra squidge because at least the pups are pushing back against the screws properly.

More sponge now added and pickup heights a little higher and pups firmer under spring compression.

Just swapped the Entwhistle pups for Toneriders on my Revelation P bass unlined fretless-with-flats. The Entwhistles are great sounding and have a punch without being hot or peppery. The Toneriders are nice but softer, less punchy, and IMHO the note seems better defined? They're also tricky to mount high enough to get within good reach of the strings as they're shallower than the Entwhistles. They're currently about 3/16 - 1/4 inch from string to pup head rather than the usual 1/8 inch. Which of course may be why they're less oomphy. To rectify this I'd have to fiddle about with increasing sponge depth and maybe even longer screws, and I'm not sure if it's worth it Edit: I should say I fitted this bass with a KiOgon loom, so this should be considered in the comparison.

He only lives up the road from me so I can see him a lot easier than going to the smoke

Well, at the risk of being flamed I'm sticking my neck out and saying I'm not going, despite the waste of a ticket. I have scoured the programme and can't see its more than a pale shadow of last year's event. If I lived in norf Larndon and it was a few minutes walk away perhaps, but I'm not juddering across half of Britain on a bus and rail combination for what's listed. No early bird ticket for me next year, I'm waiting to see the full programme, even if buying late will cost me more.

Nubya Garcia on sax, with the only DB player I ever wanted to listen to - Daniel Casimir

As title. I need to waste more money on more tuition, so looking for DB or upright coach. Must have bass to teach me on. EDIT: Decided not to do this thing after all. Mods please delete unless you want to leave it here for others' reference.