Obsidiandesire

thanks, i've always trusted rotosound strings and so these'll probably be the ones I use!

I have a stonewood bass, It's not even a copy of anything :/
It's not active though, and it'll soon have a pair of medium gauge Rotosound strings on it, they're humbug style pickups, and it's 24 fret, i think that's about it

Caught some people messing with it in my school today, all hell unleashed since I'm due to leave soon so i can be assured they won't touch it again

I was supposed to say Flatwound, i always get them confused, I don't know why!
I'll look up my local stores before hand when I get the money, and hopefully find a set that I like...
I do love cello tuning, and I plan on learning it some time, and a fretless in cello tuning's as close as I can get , I always thought 5ths are a better tuning than 4ths, and it would be much easier to make chords!!

Ok, so I recently got this Ashdown Mag-200, but I have to be ashamed to say I don't know half of the options on it! so i've come here for help, for those not in the know, it's this model (Note: This isn't MINE, just found it on google)

I like to play slap, my band usually does stuff along the lines of muse, but with funkier basslines, think Level 42, but i'm not as good as the King

I'll be getting it back from the clutches of the stockroom at school (due to a recent move, i had no space to put it ), and so i was wonering the best setup.

also, Is it possible to run it through more than just the speaker in it? I believe it doesn't give the amp justice.

Umm, this seems like a really short post, so if you need any more info, just tell me, and I'll edit this post

EDIT: Mine only seems to have 1 speaker in, however, not the two that are in this one

That's really nice, my stepfather had a stingray at one point and it was gorgeous to play! Somehow I think that this will be the start of a beautiful relationship between one man and his bass

Let's see, about 2 months ago (could even be 3!), I decided that I wasn't using my Ray pierce bass, it's a Jazz lookalike, and my first bass. I really had enough of it, the action was shot and suchlike, so after careful thought, I decided to de-fret it.
So, away I hacked at the fretboard (Though I obviously didn't [i]hack[/i], I was very careful!)
20 frets I think in total, might be 19 though...

Then my Low E broke on my main bass... which I just robbed off my defretted bass (being sixteen, means I'm skint!), it proceeded to sit in my room, full of holes where there should be frets, and with 3 strings on it.
The poor thing was locked in an attic for 7 months prior to this treatment, I sometimes feel as though I'm torturing it.
So today, I found some filler lying about, applied it to my bass and voila, I'm trying to pass the time waiting for it to dry.

Once sanded and varnished, I plan on buying roundwound strings for it, but i'm in a slight predicament. I would like to put it in cello tuning (CGDA), but obviously normal strings wouldn't exactly go into that tuning without completely killing them. I was wondering if I could actually use cello strings on it, or is it just better to go with EADG and find a cheap cello somewhere?

Thanks in advance!
Ash

EDIT:
Also, what sort of price range am I looking at for the strings? I live in the bolton area, and manchester is fairly accessible for me

Huzzah! welcome to the bass players community

Good luck playing and all!

Remember, guitarists are just failed bassists

Yeah I use a 2.2mm Tortex pick very very rarely...

Longview IMO is a very easy song, I recommend some easy rush stuff to show off (does that exist?) or if longview is more your level, some Chili's stuff. (By the way would be a good one with a pick, if you don't mind dropped D)

and I have no idea what the exam your going in for is? Would someone enlighten me? PM or otherwise...

This would be the bash in St annes?

I may just feel a little out of place being new to the forums and probably quite young and probably not as good as any of you =[ and not having as many basses and not as many amps... i could go on forever

Just as long as I get to play a 6 string (which I shall do very badly) and/or a 5 string fretless, i'll be ok

Sounds a lot of fun though!

Well in the recording, it's worth noting they recorded about 3 or 4 basses on top of each other?
I think just regular distortion on max + octaver like was mentioned above [i]should[/i] work...

Yeah an old singer from one of my bands lives in Ormskirk, isn't the internet such a small place?

and that would be?
I lived in Oxton, Birkenhead for 4 years so I may just know the place

I am, Transport will be an issue, but I know the trains around northwest fairly well....

should be fun!

Should I bring my bass?

If anyone passes through Bolton/Belmont on their way, a lift would be much appreciated!

I was thinking of "Upgrading" one of my bass's...
Yes it'd probably cost just as much to buy a new bass, but I'd like the experience in modding them myself.
When I get my PC back i'll post a picture of it.

For now a descripting will do:

24 fret maplewood neck
I forget the name of them, but the tuners with 2 on each side

Fairly new unwound strings (medium gauge)

Pickup arrangement is like this (and are the same as the one's that came with it)

-------
[indent]-------[/indent]
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2 volume one Tone control

The action's pretty low and buzz's around the 2nd fret on A + D but i'm gettting that sorted tomorrow hopefully.

It's not active



anything else you need to know?

I'm looking around £100-£200 budget.


Oh, and tutorials would be helpfull Bear in mind I hardly know anything about bass

I have a set of pretty new unwound medium gauge strings, I thought they would do the job really.

I havn't.
Would I be welcome as such a youngster?
Where abouts up north are you from?

I once played a gorgeous fretless acoustic, I forget the model as I was just starting out playing...

Recently, it's a standard Squire jazz 5 string bass... It must have had some good strings on as the B string didn't feel "floppy" at all, which was one of my real hates on 5 strings.. granted it was still very loose, but had a nice twang.

Also had the pleasure of playing a £15000 Grand piano... Ebony keys and all!
Boy was that an experience.

That's it I'm an idiot.

Yeah, i'll youtube it and see if I can find any good tutorials..

My female singer annoys me =/ She sings perfectly in tune (though sometimes manages to drift out of SCALE, not key, for example if we play in the key of C and say, hit an E... She'll hit a F# =/) Apart from that she's ok but out of band, we don't get along, think Axl Rose + Slash.

Yeh there's a double bass player in my school who turns bass to max on his amp, everything else to 0 and volume to max (which i've banned him from using my amp for that reason) and he gets to play in like the Jazz band / various other side projects going on in our music departments, I had to force the teacher into letting me play in the Orchestra =[

As for bass solo's.... I constantly get told to turn down in practice (i set my volume roughly the same as the guitarist) so one particular practice session I turned my volume controls on my bass to 0 and played along...

Noone noticed.

On my final gripe:
The most often things I hear in school:
"Why does his guitar have 4 strings"
"What's a bass?"
So i've gone to yelling at people if they call it a guitar, it's called a [i]Bass[/i] guitar

Thanks for that, I noticed that Billy Uses fingers don't fret (hehe)
I might start learning how to use 3 fingers, and perhaps buy one of his DVD's.

I noticed that on one of his DVD's it mentions Pitch harmonics? I know this is a little out of topic, but I can do regular harmonics, how would you get Pitch harmonics?

I was having a discussion with a Technician on friday, he mentioned to me to start using a pick (something I never do) to build the muscles in my left hand up for faster basslines and to be able to hit the string enough times.
After we did a few takes (I was being recorded), he mentioned that my fingers were fast enough, and my left hand was [i]nearly[/i] strong enough (thank stu hamm's tapping solo's for that) but it still didn't sound so clear.
We tweaked around, and came to the conclusion that it's just the way I play, it dims out the higher sounds

Bearing in mind, I was plugged straight into the mixing desk for the tweaking, and I could probably set up my amp to help compensate. What effects pedal setup + EQ setup could I use to help me with this sound?
Bearing In mind my age, I probably have £150 to £200 to spare =/


Meanwhile, I'm going to invest 60p and get a pick

Thankyou It saves explinations later:)

Yes, I'm a young bass player... or at least compared to all you old fogies


Hmm... I've just turned 16, I live in bolton, lancashire (wait, it's Greater manchester now =/)

I have a Stonewood Bass + A ray pierce bass (both 4 string)

Just moved from my mums and an hour in a car being bashed around has done them no good =/

Stonewood buzzes around the 2nd fret, and 14th fret=/

You can fit a bus through the action around the 12th fret on my Ray pierce...


I nearly bought a Squire Jazz 5 string with my birthday money, but instead spent it on Bass lessons (up to lesson 3 now!) and a nice upgrade for my PC.


Hmm...
I have an Ashdown 350 amp, and a Drive 25 watt amp

Other instruments (in order of skill) are Guitar, Tabla, Double bass, Keyboard and vocals.
I can lay down a simple beat on drums but just don't count it really....
I also know the basics of a few brass instruments (Euphonium to tenor horn range)

As far as bass playing skill, I get told often I'm a natural (Will have been playing 2 years on wednesday!!)
I'm hoping to go for my grade 8 exam sometime this year (If i can fit it in to GCSE's) and eventually take up teaching bass as a part time job.

I like to play with a kind of slap groove based around mainly pentatonic scales (and the few ones i kinda made up myself)

My favorite players (in order) would be:

Stuart Hamm
Billy Sheehan
Jacov Pastorius (don't know how to spell that one)
Victor Wooten
Flea
and Les claypool

so pretty standard really

I'm in a band at school, but they're not dedicated enough really. We've covered Dani California, The pretender, Smells like teen spirit (to actually teach another band in school how to play it :/) and done 4 of our own songs (all with a female singer )

I spent a week in august at the Liverpool Institute of performing arts summer school, where I met the most amazing singer (who sounds like Matt Bellamy off Muse) and made a very very good song (if I say so myself)

My main gripes about bass is that it's grossly understated =/ I like to be LOUD (which i know can be bad sometimes, so I try to turn down) and I like to show off but I've not even been allowed a Bass solo in a gig yet with my current band. I had a good one at LIPA though


My other main hobby is Computers, and Maths/Physics/space -.- I dabble in photography sometimes too


I hope to provide lots of input on this site! But I have to say I'm relatively inexperianced, I still struggle at reading bass clef (although I know where the notes are and all my note lengths and trills/mordents/aciaccatura's etc) and not many scales, and obviously not much on the whole bass scene really.

So there's gonna be a lot of give + take on my part

[Insert ending with witty statement here]