NickA

https://www.gear4music.com/Woodwind-Brass-Strings/Stentor-Conservatoire-Double-Bass-3-4/V0K?origin=product-ads&campaign=PLA+Shop+-+GENERIC&adgroup=GENERIC&medium=vertical_search&network=google&merchant_id=1279443&product_id=40196d1&product_country=GB&product_partition_id=127164593839&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIn6-_r7T-2QIVyLftCh0tvA3tEAQYAiABEgKaZvD_BwE £2000. Decent bass, fully carved, ebony board, nice size ... bit short on character maybe, but you pay a lot extra for that! (https://www.doublebasses.co.uk/instruments-sale) If properly repaired - not too visible, no distortion to the top and no rattles or buzzes ... then the previous damage shouldn't count against it. But as you CAN buy them new, it won't have appreciated any. So around what you paid for it. Selling to a dealer, they will tell you it's a factory bass of little value and offer you a few 100 quid, before giving it a polish and a setup, then back on sale for £2500 ;¬)

Bach 6 on a double bass is a MAJOR feat ... it's near impossible on a 4 string cello for mere mortals; the allemande is about the hardest piece I've ever played on a cello in public (I can only hack my way though the rest, and never start to end without grinding to a halt) .. it was written for a short scale 5-string cello with a high C !! Thanks for the Joel quarrington link; I have a long train ride today and now have lots of reading ;¬)

Red Mitchell played the 'cello too I see. Must have had a small bass, huge hands or only played in 4th position or above! There's a big difference between the 34" of an electric and the 40+" of a double bass.

I was listening to Michael Manring's "The Enormous Room" the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4Ra2KOyas )... which has the most amazing harmonics and chords every played on a bass ... and started messing with different tunings; eg tuning down the G string to F# yields some lovely major 7th type chords using harmonics. Then wondered if I could play the bass tuned like a 'cello ( C G D A) - after all, tuning in 4ths is really only because double basses are tuned in 4ths, and that is because a) they are descended from viols and b) they are too HUGE to finger when played in 5ths. An electric bass is a lot shorter scale, so why not tune in 5ths (bigger range, access to a low C). 'Cello tuning is only a partial success because the E has to go down to a C (floppy) and the G up to an A (tight) which is also probably not too good for the neck; maybe replacing the E with a B from a 5-string set and tuning it up would work. Also, standard 'cello technique involves a lot of extensions (eg playing a whole tone between first and second fingers so as to reach G# witha 4th finger on the D string etc) which is a bit too much of a stretch on a normal scale electric bass. Interesting (although, strangely, despite that I can play the 'cello in 'cello tuning, playing the e bass in 'cello tuning is confusing; as soon as I pick up an electric bass, my brain goes into 4ths!). Anwyay, what other tunings have people tried? Any good ones out there?

What on EARTH do all those knobs do XTof?

" We wanted a fully electric bass having nothing metal except for the tuners & frets" ... doesn't bode well for what's inside the pickups!

He's right you know. You can play anything if you really work it out and practice. But life is too short to work out and practice all the notes in Neilson's 5th. BTW provincial amateur orchestras don't get the best conductors; and anyway they have all those Violins (and back desk cellists) to worry about.

Denmark St. But it was two or three years back. Downstairs walls were lined with Shecters, which I'd never heard of at the time. I used to love Denmark st, it was a magnet for wasting any free hours in London; pretty much all gone now and it seems that Crossrail is killing the last of it (and HS2 killing my favourite curry houses and a really good pub near Euston). Anyway, enjoy the new bass - when you manage to get it.

For me: Bass heaven = The Enormous Room played by Michael Manring on his Zon hyperbass; Jaco's basslines on Joni Mitchell's Hejira; Percy Jones weaving beautiful chaos on Noddy goes to Sweden .. and you know, now and then, Mark King playing Sandstorm. Bass hell = some bloke, in a covers band, thumping out roots and fifths on a (relic-ed) passive precision fitted with flats But it strikes me that we're arguing more about tastes in music than about what bass players should do. If you like Jazz you want to hear a complex, ever moving bass-line that weaves around the harmonies of the music. If you like Rock then you probably want to hear a solid foundation with few frills or thrills - and doing either really really well, is heaven in its way. There are of course people who manage both kinds of playing almost simultaneously, for which I finger Richard Sinclair, Tony Levin and (a little left field) Steve Swallow - who's playing is never flashy and often harmonically weird, but all the same, somehow very special.

I spent a sunday morning in Westside's shop a couple of years ago, officially trying out AER amps. But they sat me in a bas(s)ment that was lined with Schecter basses so I couldn't help but try a "few". They are certainly very well made out of good quality materials and look really nice too. However I wasn't overly impressed with the sound, which was rather dull and "generic" (characterless). The ones I did like were those with the EMG pickups and a coil tap (effectively taking them to single pickups rather than Hs) - bit more life. Some of the "dullness" may have been down to the AER amps which are very accurate but a bit flat sounding (not much "zing" unless you press all the colour and contour buttons) and the fact that my amp of the time was a big heavy Trace GP12SMX thing that had zing in spades (but a certain lack of subtlety or accuracy). Anyways, a trip to Westside is a great idea, they were simultaneously helpful and non pushy, have a huge number of Schecter basses and will let you play with them until you're bored or buy one. Given your list of past basses, I can't see you'd find a Schecter an upgrade mind; IMHO a stingray would knock the socks off any of them (but then, I like Wals and you don't much so ...)

Wow, Phil, your conductor knows he has a bass section! Ours rarely looks in our direction unless a back of the desks 'cellist plays a bum note - upon which the back of the desk 'cellists will look over their shoulders in the hope of passing the blame! Though when we managed a section of 6 he did say how much he appreciated the solid foundation it gave the orchestra. Anyway, we (my bass section colleagues and I) reckon a lot of bass parts (especially early 19th century ones) are really cello parts with the basses expected to join in when they can. Come on now, in the time of Beethoven, many basses had only three, heavy, unresponsive, gut, strings. Either those guys were brilliant, the music sounded AWFUL or they faked it. If there are too many notes, just aim for the first of the group. Played Neilson's 5th a few months back - it has endless sequences of seemingly random chromatic bass notes at a very fast pace, mostly in groups of 6; so we decided to hit the first of each bunch of 6 and then make a rhythmic scrubbing sound for the rest of it. No-one knew ;¬) tho the conductor was miffed when I told him in the pub afterwards. Seriously tho, and under ideal circumstances, given sufficiently time; in legato runs, you should work out a fingering and try to play it properly, its often not as difficult as it seems. I'm learning Tchaikovsky's 6th at the moment, from a part that has been meticulously fingered by a previous user - it's a revelation, some of those fingerings really work well - so I'm going to use them! Sliding will sound wrong and it's probably better to play no note or a harmonious note than one that "falls under the fingers" and makes a discord. So play them all properly or pick some key notes and play only those. My (very amateur) opinion anyway. Won't wash in Phil's orchestra I imagine.

Depends on whether BEST means: "I like the sound best" or "most accurately creates a voltage proportional to string position". you can't accurately reproduce the "sound" of an electric bass as until you put pickups in, it makes the sound of one hand clapping. I agree with the harmonics thing tho. Are two soapbars ever going to sound like a PJ set? (the sims pickups aside, which can be made into J's, PJ's or "H" Soapbars by flicking a switch); something with coil taps would do it maybe; though the effect would be more JJ than PJ. NB: I like both the sound of my Wal and the sound of my Warwick (with the bridge soapbar pickup coil-tapped into a single) - so even that definition of "best" is a toughie ;¬)

dont know if they are "the best" but certainly the most flexible ... if you can't make your mind up! http://www.simscustom.com/pickups/ clever idea. IMHO Wal pickups are the best soapbars, but you can't buy them without the bass ... tho I see mr herrick makes something very similar.

Single cuts Gold hardware Lurid stained wood Unnecessary hardware ( pickup covers, thumb rests, pick guards ) Huge headstocks Strangely, given my love of curvaceous waxed wood bodies I don't like wooden pickup covers and knobs either. ... But will put up with any of it if it sounds good.

Well tough stinky poo, more of them for those of us that don't really care about neck profile :-) ;-). seriously, tho, you get used to it pretty quick. After all, it didn't hold back Percy Jones or Mick Kahn too badly. As ever, each to his own

Buy a double bass. 😋😋😋 but You know it's pretty hard to get a DB to sound like a DB through a pickup and amp. Sometimea seems like an eub sounds MORE like a DB than an amplified DB does! It does take a very subtle kind of amp (aer, Pjb, acoustic image etc) Seems strange to me that yr trying to reduce sustain, as on the DB we're usually trying to increase it ( hence high tension spirocore strings). Still, poss you need a gentler amp? Ofcourse it depends what yr playing; I'm thinking modern jazz, so if you're playing slappy rockabilly .. then we're after different sounds!

Buy another bass. Over the years I've spent £100s on my "project" bass in a vain attempt to get a fantastic bass on the cheap, but it's never been as good as the basses I've bought complete and it's residual value is ziltch. Not that it hasn't been fun. And there are some great second hand bargains, especially if you don't need something fashionable or collectable.

Some weird modern classical music doesn't have bar lines ... difficult to play. Without bar lines I think you're going to get lost; it's kind of a sync pulse that lets you get back in time every few beats. In any kind of band everyone is playing different length notes (unless it's folk music!) so you need that sync to stay together, and if you have a conductor then they need to convey that sync to everyone to keep them in time. Yes, you could all count 1,1,1,1,1,1 but once you are out then you will never get back in again .. It works. As for the five line stave... I feel your pain. But if you are playing a non fretted instrument then, in fact, C# and Dflat (for instance) are different notes (though it is debatable which one is sharper than the other under any given circumstance) so you would need a very wide stave indeed and it would be hard to follow. Of course it was never designed, it just evolved so it isn't perfect - and like the keyboard I'm typing on it could be better. CLEFS meanwhile are a pain as learning different instruments one tends to automate the process of "that dot means that finger on that string", so whilst I can read the treble clef on an alto recorder, the bass recorder (which is written for in the bass clef) proved difficult; although the fingering to get a particular note is the the same as a treble recorder, the dots are in different places for the same note and your subconcious brain sends your fingers to the wrong place. Having taught myself to read the treble clef on the bass guitar, I now have trouble switching back to the bass clef!!!! If you are really musical then I guess the transfer from dot to note to finger position becomes fast enough that you can read any clef on any instrument and even transpose on the fly!!!! My brother (a pro) can do it, I ( a rank amateur) can hardly do it at all. My dad (also a pro) took up the bass viol as a retirement project, but was defeated by the uneven tuning and because the music is written in the ALTO clef. No one said it was easy .. but it will keep senility at bay.

like the word "Cool" that disappeared from about 1974 until 1998 and was only spoken by Austin Powers .... it's back .....it's been back for longer than it was here before. So with Fender: through the 80s everyone wanted a bootique wooden "sideboard" bass (me included) and mainstream music was allowed to have interesting bass parts - hell, even really super dull Paul Young had Pino playing the bass line. Japan was considered POP, Funk was hip and JD's, Stingrays, G&L2000s, and Wals were everywhere and hot on their heels came Warwicks with lovely tropical woods and enormous price tags. Then came electronica, bass synths, and low frequency sine wave generators and out went actual instrument playing. And suddenly someone re-invented guitar bands with buzzy old valve amps, flat wound thuddy strings and FENDER PRECISION basses. A decade (and counting) of dullness ensued. Unless, of course, you like Jazz and Fusion where Foderas and other exotica rule the roost and bass players may still, now and then, get a tune! PS: yes I know, Pino plays a Fender these days - but he never sounds boring! ... rant over

my first bass was ply (soft centre blocks with hard wood facings) it was pretty awful, no sustain and a dull sort of sound. I guess it depends on the quality of the ply, as dense fully hardwood ply is as stiff as any solid wood. Thinking about it, my Wal is ply ... it's just that the centre of the ply is inch thick mahogany!

Well I may have fixed it .. improved it anyway. Took it off the Warwick, ran it back and forth between my fingers, then gave it a good boiling in a pot of soapy water on the stove (which is what I used to do with old rotosounds and elites that had got clogged and dull). I didn't expect it to work, but it's definitely improved it. I guess the heat let the string "relax" again. Now fitted back on the Warwick and sounds fine ... though the dolphin is a bright sounding bass anyway. NB, I gave up cutting my strings to fit the bass as I then couldn't cascade from the Wal to the Jazz Bass; just poke the end down the hole in the tuner, one turn through the slot then round and round the tuner. Shall take care with twisting the string in future though.