NickA

I guess the p bass is pretty easy to replicate. The endless "has anyone cloned a Wal" threads would suggest some basses are a bit harder!

Especially if you copy something that already works. And once you ditch the endangered tropical hard woods, multi-layer laminations and hand soldered electronics it can evidently be very cheap to do. Over several years I converted my cheap bass into something that I hoped would be somewhere between a Wal and a Warwick, with elements of jazz bass. Added all those fancifications. Cost an f'ing fortune. Doesn't sound like any of those things either. 😂

I could have a hundred of those for my cheapest bass! It's like hifi, every tiny improvement doubles the cost ....and even then most people won't hear the difference.

I was thinking slave labour. The materials are awesomely cheap too. Pine body and "poplar laminate" ( aka plywood) fingerboard. Bet it's still better than my £90, 1970s grant jazz was tho.

Back in around 1980 the cheapest playable twin pickup bass I could find was a rather awful jazz copy ( blockwood body and puny pickups that picked up police radio). Maybe the 40W valve combo it came with was included ..not sure. Anyway, £90 ( I wanted a fender jazz, but they were £440) But now, in this modern age, see here: gear4music "Chicago" ( with a gig bag, cable, strap and a plectrum). https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Chicago-Fretless-Bass-Guitar-by-Gear4music-Natural/1V6V?_gl=1*1koznj7*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTg0MDYzOTIyOS4xNzM5NDg5MDk2*_ga_0WF1R5QW3K*MTczOTQ4OTA5NS4xLjEuMTczOTQ4OTExMy4wLjAuMjY0NTQwNDU. £130!!!! ....and thats not their cheapest model. How can it be so cheap? Can anything so cheap be playable.

My 4/4 goes in my Skoda Citigo. In fact I took the Citigo to a bass bash with: double bass, pjb flightcase & pb300, 2x Wals and a Warwick. Had to leave my bitsa fretless jazz at home tho.

Wonder if those lightwave people would do an optical pickup for double bass.

Also your bows will clash ..especially if you're trying to share a stand. I've played in orchestras for 55 years and never seen anyone play left handed. I guess with the violin family, you just have to learn to play right handed ..in away IT SHOULD be easier as you can do all the difficult fingering stuff with your dominant hand.

I play an old carved bass at "jazz in a pub" volumes ( sometimes quite loud). never had a feedback issue.... but all the other reasons to get a laminate bass I agree with. double bass rooms sometimes has really nice ones for £1k or so by the looks. https://www.thedoublebassroom.com/product/vintage-3-4-double-basses-1940s-1980s/

Sorted. Thread over! 😀

How was it solved by your wife? She sat on the floor and held on to it perhaps? I actually did that for a girl at school who's bass slipped whilst she was performing some Bottesini with a blunt spike. on a slippy wooden floor. I dived out the audience, grabbed her pin and held fast till she finished. Reader, she still wouldn't go out with me 😂: ps: hard to tell the angle due to the angle of the photo. But you do seem to be holding it away from you not hugging it to you. That won't make the pin slip, I think, but Might make it hard to hold steady. ,

There's a trend ( I think) in classical bassists sitting quite low, bass at a shallow angle, both feet on the floor. The member of my orchestra who actually went to music college sits like that ( she's not tall mind ). The extreme being the "new Dutch bass school" who think they're playing big cellos. I'm a bit old school myself. One foot down, bass quite steep, like Nils HOP here ( tho I'm shorter and my bass is bigger!)...and he only has a rubber stopper on his end pin. but you do need to wrap yourself around it when bowing as you don't have your right thumb on the fingerboard for stability - especially in thumb position.

Rubber feet slide. Good sharp metal spike embedded in wooden floor! 👍 Or carpet, if you're precious about the floor. When playing in churches I sometimes wedge the spike in the gap between flagstones. But actually .... These work really well: https://beareandson.co.uk/stoppin-floor-protector-396-p.asp.

This. But it gets really expensive to try them all! The best all round bet seems to be the realist copperhead. Works fine, high output, £169 from Thomann. Personally I found it a bit dark and there's little or nothing you can do to change the sound. I have a realist sound clip which is super adjustable & tweakable for pressure and position on the bridge, also has a volume control on it and I remove it for orchestra. sometimes I get it just right and it sounds sublime ... but fitting it in a hurry with no time to tweak...sometimes not. Like the headway, I've never seen anyone else use one, but that's not because it's rubbish, it's just not caught on.

Doubt fender are even in the same ballpark.

seriously they're great basses and reasonably priced 2nd hand. I had a go on one of Jazzy Vs Europas once, a really good, solid, no vices bass with a good range of tones..(think it had series 1 electronics?). I started to consider trading in my MK2 Wal. Not done it tho ( not yet) too expensive new ($19k) even with a Wal to trade!

dentists!

They're amazingly beautifully made instruments .. but oh the price! £15k for a new Stanley Clark... But one 2nd hand on for "only" £5750 ( bass bros) Strange they don't hold value, unlike Wals which, much as I love mine, are not really the same level of work but MK1 and MK2 currently priced at £7k+ 2nd hand. Even a passive pro1 reissue at bassbros is £5500. Hard to justify buying a new alembic with relative bargains around 2nd hand.

I don't think Scott is overplaying, but guitarists do seem to have huge egos. Case in point is a Jason Sadites album called brief eclipse, featuring Jason Henrie on bass ( fellow wal owner) who plays some great tight and melodic bass lines whilst Jason totally milks his Line 6 helix all over the top of it. I like it mostly for the bass playing but it's evidently the guitarist's "thing".

I think my Dolphin was CNC and hand finished. None the worse for it, rather lovely in fact. Though the electronics look to have been hand soldered ( by apes). My Wal is totally hand made ( by 2 or 3 people) and actually, a bit squiff ( sounds ok tho), but the electronics are immaculate. Nothing wrong with factory build if it's well done. I'm guessing these smith lites are on a production line even if hand carved. we may never know.

old thread ..but I only just found this. I was just musing whether Scott D was actually any good ( as a bass player in a band ) and actually, having listened to " the devine king project" on band camp, my opinion of him has shot up. not super flashy but solidly competent with some nice touches ( I do like Jazz and fusion, mind). I mean, he's not exactly Hadrien Feraud or Victor Wooton but not so far from, say, Janek Guizdala. Many great technicians, it's said, "know all the words but have nothing to say". Scott does have a bit to say I think ...and top marks for effort ( his mate Simon could play fewer notes tho ).