NickA

I think getting a decent bass is more important than spending money on setup. You can always get the setup tweaked (by friends and teachers and by experimentation), but you can't make a good bass out of a fundamentally bad one. Plus the better the bass the more it will keep (and even increase) its value, making a future trade up possible. Personally I wouldn't buy a plywood one for playing Jazz; apart from the factors above you'll want a decent sustain. Lots of wood and lots or workmanship = expensive instruments bas(s)ically. Had you considered an EUB?

We may be listening to the Aguilar Chorusaurus chorus pedal as much as the bass. Nice tho, sounds a bit Eberhardt Weber - who also plays through a stack of chorus effects.

Synthetic feels kind of slippy. Nasty. Avoid. Black is fine for double basses (extra grippy apparently) though violinists and 'cellists think it a bit coarse. Other than that, I think you'd have to be very sensitive to tell the difference. My Arcus carbon bow came with "pepper and salt" grey/black hair .. and 4 of 5 bass players in my amateur symphony orchestra are using the same stuff. My wooden bow has always had white. Some people evidently take it quite seriously: "The gender of the horse is also important; stallion hair is preferred because it is generally cleaner than that of mares, which tends to get hit with more urine spray." (https://www.johnsonstring.com/resources/from-horse-to-bow.htm)

Fanbleedintastic. Shall have to try that in my skoda citigo (not sure where the amp will go tho) :¬)

Here's a (US) website that tells you all about bass strings .. http://www.lemurmusic.com/STRINGS/departments/2/ .. lots of information and advice. I have d'addario helicore HH hybrid (medium tension) strings that I use for Jazz and in a symphony orchestra (mostly arco). REcommended by Turner's violins and they suit me fine. Also have a set of Thomastic Spirocore "Red" - which are a jazz standard; hard work and difficult to bow ... but lovely long sustain; never get used these days. The spirocore "weich" (= soft) seem like a good compromise. I insisted on genuine gut and silver strings on my 'cello for years ..lovely arco sound, but they were expensive, broke SO often and the tuning was always drifting about. Changed to tomastic dominant synthetics - they don't sound as good but last much longer. Not great for pizz. Go metal.

I shall try to come along. Will bring my Wal and Warwick and hope to try some amps out in return. Double basses too? or is this a purely electric bash?

Hey, just sell the beemer. Not only will you get the bass in, people will let you pull out of side roads too !!! :¬) But if bass bags says it will go ... it will. He ships more basses around than anyone I've ever met! I reckon my next car will be a passat or octavia estate, purely to fit the bass in (plus bass stool, music stand, electric bass (or two), amp, guitar stand etc etc ) my wife's SAAB 9-3 hatch struggles with all that.

Impossible to say without having a play with it! Really good bows DO generally have a makers name stamp; tho often it's faded beyond legibility; plus decent bow makers often make slightly lower quality bows (cheaper wood) that are not name stamped, but are still well made. The best bows (using the highest quality of wood - which is what matters) are usually fitted with the most expensive bindings and mountings. Ie gold or silver metal and mother of pearl slide and frog eye. A dark colour is supposed to be good, but it's often faked up by treating the wood with nitric acid, so all bets are off on that. The bows are made of very dense tropical hard wood (sort of mahogany super plus). The best sort is called pernambuco - but as that is now endangered, bow makers are using snake wood and other dense woods. Cheap wooden bows are made of something called "brazil wood" which is "not quite pernambuco" but there are plenty of old bows around that are the real deal. The result is that new bows made of pernambuco are seriously expensive and for the price you can get carbon ones - and old ones - that are better. Weight should be 120g to 160g. Weirdly the most expensive bows are usually light but so also are the cheapest (because they are made of generic "brazil wood" rather than super dense and springy pernambuco) - to get more spring tension out of the cheaper wood means using thicker wood - so more weight. Yours has a decently mounted frog which looks like proper ebony but a cheap plastic binding (I have a similar 'cello bow .. though that one has a name stamp .... which cost my dad around £200 back in 1976, and which has been variously valued at between £250 and £500 over the years). 26" is a bit short. My bows are 27.5" and 28". Yours is probably a "student" model or a 3/4 size (most people these days play 3/4 basses but use 4/4 bows). It has a good curve to it, which is always a good sign (some old bows have gone saggy!) In the end what matters is: Is it a nice weight to hold? Is it "springy" ie the tension goes up when you wind up the screw (aka the "button" ) and it then bounces nicely on the strings. Does it draw a good sound out of the bass without you having to press too hard (hard to tell without trying some different bows, I know). Is the balance point in the right place (my best bow is 28" and balances 10" in from the screw) My original bass bow is a wooden one, unstamped but reportedly made by a german company called Dorfler. Weighs 125g. Cost me £80 in 1990. They told me it was pernambuco, but at that weight I REALLY doubt it is. When I bought a much fancier carbon bow (an Arcus A3) last year, it pulled SO MUCH more sound out of the bass that I decided my old "dorfler" was pretty crap. But now re-haired and wiped with good rosin it's actually OK - bit quiet and not so bouncy but fine for most stuff. I only don't use it because I have the nice loud bright and bouncy carbon one! If you get a chance, go into a bass shoppe and try some other bows out - they make a surprising difference to the sound. Once you find something that feels and plays as well as yours you know how much you need to save up to buy a better one! El cheapo brazil wood starts around £80, decent brazil wood £150 +, good carbon from £200, really nice carbon £700 to £2500. Pernambuco .... £1000 to £10,000! You will have to state a budget before they start showing you stuff (!!) but if you start with "I have this bow and would like to buy one a bit better" you will soon find out how good your own is.

[i]"It doesn't matter because bassists shouldn't be playing above the fifth fret on the two low strings anyway 'lol'. ????????????[/i] Try playing the header of Donna Lee (or pretty much any other Jazz tune) without doing that!! there are a lot of nice chords and harmonics up there too. Used to be said that you only get a good bass tone using as much string length as possible .. so it sort of depends on your priorities. :-)

Double basses have a 40"+ scale length and most people play them with only three fingers (1 2 4) up to the octave; I guess you could adopt that technique on an electric bass using 1 2 3 and just leave your little finger out of the party. Or, as someone suggested try 1 2 4 which gives your little finger a bit of support from No3. .. Mick Kahn (who always sounded great in my opinion) admitted to only really using fingers 1 and 2 in the studio and shifting position a lot (only using all four fingers on stage in case people sneered at him!). Or... ibuprofen, lots of ibuprofen.

Well you want to keep them nice and tidy ... and I find it unbearable when people smash up instruments, like "if you don't want it give it away", but in the end they are tools and (depreciation aside) if they make the right noises, what is the problem. All my instruments came with dings and dints. My 'cello, (which started life in a cinema pit orchestra) once had a nail put in it to close a crack (now professionally glued) and my double bass looks like it has been in a war zone (followed by a field hospital). The Wal I am careful with as it turns out to be quite valuable and I am being VERY careful with the newly acquired Warwick simply because it looks mint after the last owner had it refurbed and I've heard what Warwick's repair prices are like! So to the OP; good to be careful and kind to them, but don't get too OCD about it or it spoils the fun,

Fellow Wall-ers: what strings would you recommend for a fretless custom (Mk1 4-string in newspeak)? For years I've had mine strung with round wound Rotosound or Elite Stainless - looking for a bright sound. Now I have a fretted Warwick Dolphin too, which does BRIGHT in spades - and have promised myself never to play slap on the fretless Wal again! And reckon I should probably stop sacrificing the Wal's lovely ebony fingerboard. Many years ago I dabbled with flat wound ("Swing Bass"?) and "half round" strings and generally hated them due to a lack of zing and the difficulty of playing harmonics. Now, willing sacrifice some "zing" but I still want to play nice bright harmonics (ie SOME hope of hitting the last note in Portrait of Tracey ;¬) ) What do you think? Recommendations please.

When I was a baby trying to sleep, my dad was in the front room playing Bach 'cello sonatas. Result = life long love of Bach and big deep instruments. When my own kids (twins) were babies, I was too tired to practice at all!

It is very silly, (especially as I can play it on a cello) but a challenge and an education as you say; and some things writ for 'cello sound much better on a bass .. Rachmaninov's Vocalise for one. So, had a go at the Suite No1 in G prelude yesterday (the transposed to C version) . not a hope on the double bass, but just about do-able on a fretted bass guitar using all 4 fingers. Think Arthritis will set in long before I can play it on my db. You keep trying tho!

Thanks for the offer. Very busy at the moment (work intruding on bass playing hobby) but will certainly bare in mind (I'm in Derby btw).

"you simply install a new bridge with appropriate proportions." indeed, new bridge fitted to bass by top notch luthier = £200 + and two round trips to Stone. 30 minutes in the garage with a fretsaw = FREE! But I guess if you get too close to the cut-outs it isn't good (I didn't) on the other hand what are those cutouts for anyway? Strikes me that a solid bit of wood (or better a plain carbon fibre arch) would do a fine job! But I'm an engineer not a luthier. (feel a retirement project coming on).

yeah DON'T SMOKE !!!! Whilst an ash body is sometimes nice, a body burned to ash is not!

My bass if full size 4/4 (it was cheaper than a 3/4!) tuning THAT in fifths is NOT an option. Fourths in half position is uncomfortable. What is this Bach 'cello concerto .. do you mean the first 'cello suite? That's not too hard on a 'cello, but goes down to a C (extension of 5-string time). I have a transcription for Bass in C but can't hack any of it apart from the Menuet movements. Way beyond grad 8 methinks. Good luck with that!

you've played with Birelli Lagrene!!!!? I'm stunned. He's one of my all time favourite guitarists and a pretty mean electric bass player too!. Wow. May swallow my pride and try some Fender rumbles (you can even buy them at my local guitar shop).

I have some d'addario "hybrid" strings on my double bass which are OK for pizz (plenty of sustain) and OK for bowing. My bass teacher says they are the worst of both worlds! He uses arco strings and has a lovely orchestral tone, but frankly his pizz sounds awful (dead). I would say don't go too far down the "strings for bowing" road as you will lose all your sustain! I also have a set of Tomastic Spirocore which are what a lot lof Jazz players use, they have great sustain but are very high tension. They can be bowed just fiine, it just takes a little more time for them to speak and there is more pressure required to hold the strings down on the finger board (so they need a lower action). I stopped using them as I was having trouble playing fast passages and they made my fingers hurt. A bloke at Thwaites Bass shoppe recommended me to go back to spirocores, get an adjustable bridge and raise the action a bit for bowing .... (beats me) What I'm trying to say is that you can bow pizz strings but pizz on pure arco strings sounds crap. Try some stickier rosin (Nyman or Hidersine "winter") then work on drawing the sound out the strings; you need a bit more pressure to get the sound started and then ease off to keep it flowing. Press too hard and the strings stick to the bow, too light and you get weird harmonics instead of the full note and yes the E-string is the hardest one! Practice practice practice and no easy short cuts I'm afraid!

I just BOUGHT a bass from Stance (aka Alex / Carlos). A very nice Warwick Dolphin, bought on a whim as I'd always wanted one. Stance was really helpful, I asked a whole bunch of questions about the bass and all were answered quickly and in detail. A couple of worrying days when the money had gone across and the bass didn't get shipped .. but he's a busy guy and once suitable packing had been found (he does do good thorough packing for sure!) it was with me in 4-5 working days (dispatched Thursday with me on Wednesday lunchtime). Buy with confidence.

You are quite right Mr Spangles! Lugged my Trace out last night (which is totally reliable) but found I'd brought a dodgy extension lead (crackle, crackle, silence, crackle, thud). Hey ho. That 2nd hand AI Clarus is tempting; ugly tho it is, it's probably better and also a little cheaper than a new MB-500 or PJB d400.

On my full sized double bass with my little hands ... not a hope below 4th position, beyond which thumb, 1, 2, 3 works better anyway. Pivots make up for the missing finger on occasion tho. I learned the 'cello as a child: always all 4 fingers with all kinds of back and forth extensions - and translated that to bass guitar long before learning the db. Now play three different instruments with three totally different sets of fingerings! Tempted to re-tune the guitars in fifths, but (apart from making my hands hurt) it just feels wrong somehow (fourths, fifths and octaves dont flow so easily from first finger). My double bass teacher claims to use strict 3 finger technique on double and guitar ... but he's a bit of a simandl man.

EA .. never heard of them 'till now. But ouch, £750 just for the amp, then another £400 - £600 for a cab. Silly to balk at it really as we spend £1000s on basses (especially double ones) and I just spent £800 on a bow. I do have the feeling that basses keep their value better than amps tho. Anyone tried a PJB d400 with a double bass? Looks nice and solid and simple (though also not exactly cheap).