NickA

And for 100th the price of a Wal or an Alembic.... nearly.

Very sad indeed. The same happens with double basses. Bit of damage and the cost of repair (UK labour cost) is more than the cost of buying a whole new Chinese Factory Bass. Bassbags down the road from me skips plenty .. and sells plenty of new ones. Only stuff worth £10k and more gets properly treated. One of my kids really wanted to play the piano for a bit and we promised one if we got the big old house we tried to buy. Didn't get the house and he had to make do with a Yamaha portasound - which despite making a million noises, doing auto rythms and harmonies and having a midi interface ... just wasn't the same. So he stopped playing. I think mum's teak clad grand is off to scrap at my cost. Be nice if some of the parts get preserved or re-purposed at least. 😞 PS: re cautionary tales. In 1998 I paid £800 for a state of the art 350W Trace Elliot GP12SMX combo. In 2018 I decided it was a) too heavy, b) too loud, c) not HiFi enough. Couldn't shift it. Sold to a Hungarian bloke for £150 who used to tour the UK picking up bargains and flogging them round Eastern Europe. But at least it did sell.

Yup, that's the one. Bit before my time; but that could easily be the Buckden Village Fete. 🙂 🙂

"Jangly" & "grating" are words that come to mind 🙂

I got all four of cookin, relaxin, workin and steamin' on a double CD at HMV for £6 !!! .. all a bit samey but a few standout tracks ("Four" being something I play wit' band). Paul Chambers great as ever.

I'm still at the stage in jazz of working out WHICH to play, never mind finding them! Too easy to go for the easy options (up 3rds or 5ths, down a 6th, lead to the next chord with a 7th etc)which are simple to find! Oops thread creep.

😂😂😂. Oh, the hours lost to making the perfect tone ...when learning notes might have been more useful.

Full strength Spiros and work on left hand strength! That string matrix is a dangerous place. Plumbed my tablet into my hifi, then my bass amp and started wondering if I should have got Eva Weichs instead of Mittels! Though sanity prevails and I realise that no audience and few fellow band members will hear any difference between any of the strings 😂🤣😂. I Still like Spiro Mittels best... should really put my set back on the bass when there's only jazz not orchestra coming up. But for the effort involved ...the Eva's are pretty good. That guy changed strings 41 times for us!!!! Madness.

Browsing the piano companies .... Some things you cannot un see ( and it sounds like it looks!). £13,000 !!!

Thanks folks. So far I've found a piano recycling co who will take it away for around £300 and some sales & auction Cos who will take it away for £270, tune it for £75 and then pass you 80% of the sale cost if it sells. If it doesn't sell ....who knows, probably dump it on your driveway and charge another £300. eBay is chock with pianos, might give it a try tho. Bluthners, Steinway's, Bosendorfers, Bechsteins & Faziolis will sell. (£50k for a restored 1911 Steinway in Mansfield). Brinsmeads maybe not. The genuine elephant ivory and real ebony keys might be of value, the rest probs not. The axe solution is appealing but I don't think I could strike the first blow; I've known it for 50 years! And all those bits ( cast iron frame etc) still to dispose of. The village fete used to feature a competition between the ( then 5) village pubs in which they each had to smash a piano and pass all the pieces through a 6" hole in a sheet of chip board. Winner got free beer from the other pubs ...or something. Uprights tho. It is indeed a crying shame as many hours and much material went into building it and it cost my dad a few £100 back in 1972. Still, it has spent the last 10 years as a thing to put plants on top of and store various cellos, guitars and a viola da Gamba beneath .... more furniture than instrument, so mustn't get sentimental

Anyone ever tried to get rid of a grand piano? My mum has a Brinsmead baby grand (from 1925 or so, with a then fashionable, fetching, G-plan style, teak veneer finish ). Not been played properly for years. Lots of fluff, rubber bands etc under the strings. Badly out of tune. Needs to go. But how? Bloody thing must weigh half a ton and takes up half her living room.

That is truly hilarious. Nearly plopped myself laughing. Good clean purile fun.

My orchestra has 12 first violins, 10 second violins, 6 violas and 12 cellos (National Viola shortage). However we only have 5 basses ... we could have 7 from time to time but our venues are too small. Mostly bowed not pizz of course. You really do need something double bass sized to adequately transmit those low notes - same reason electric bass players use big speaker cones (or lots of small ones in the case of my PJB stuff). We have been banned from one local church for being too loud ... but I blame the heavy brass for that 🙂 This Bace thing, discomfort aside, will never be usefully loud enough without its pickups and amplification.

Saw Roy Babbington with Soft Machine a few years back. He was playing a Squire P J into a line 6 amp. Nothing fancy except for his playing!

Pickups. Amp. But tis true, a plucked cello is not loud.

Dum idea. As a child I would put my half size cello across my knees and strum it pretending to be George Harrison. Never worked. Shape all wrong. Just get a double bass.

Don't buy new. Check the marketplace every day and bag a bargain .... EG Squires are decent workhourse basses and probably better 2nd hand than a new HB at the same price.

there is but one answer. k&m. I went for the fabric seat without the pneumatic riser and no back rest. £165 from Thoman I think. Massive improvement on previous stools. Got a k&m music stand too, also very good quality ( heavy tho). I did manage with an IKEA bar stool for years tho. Hard on the bum but surprisingly good.

Nice. Bet that's fun. Still not seen a 6er DB..but it will probably happen eventually. I was close to commissioning a violone once, but reckoned there wouldn't be many opportunities to use or, having already failed at viola da gamba.. teachers to show me how. NB these DO come in 4, 5 & 6er versions.

Now, here's a thing. Playing the double bass in an orchestra I often have to retune (aka scordatura) as the notes go below E, often to a C (thanks Elgar ..who seemed to think it was a big cello. Thanks Bach, who was writing, probably, for a 6 string violone). A few people play 5-string DBs. Despite some Jazzers using EADGC, there are no 6ers ( bar Violines). Some people have 4s with an extension on the E that goes back to C ( ugly clanky things). So D, A, D, G. C, A, D, G. C, G, D, G. I guess you can avoid the width of a 6 strings fingerboard by retuning your 5. Drop D and BEAG tuning aside, doesn't seem popular with electric bassists.

Well that's a non refusable offer surely! Looks like a decent bass too. ..might spoil the op for an £1800 Stentor tho.😉

Better a decent EUB than an substandard Double Bass I think. Bass Direct has a couple of nice NS design EUBs right now for a bit less than the more expensive of the two Stentors (https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/NS_Design_CR4.html)... and offer 0% finance. Bit harder with a double bass I think. A brand new cheap Gear4Music / Caswells bass is likely to be short on tone and sustain and I've found the bottom end of modern lamianted bass a bit quiet (though an amp could correct it to an extent). Also you can assume that a Gear4Music bass will come with cheap strings and poor setup; you'll end up spending £100s to get it up and running properly (good jazz / hybrid strings are £200+ new; though a kind BassChat member might sell you some for much less ). Remember to factor in £150 - £300 for a pickup (unless you have friends who play really quietly!) Also, it might be hard to pass on when you want to upgrade (and you will) at anything like the purchase price. And finally.. I really wouldn't buy a bass before trying it out and comparing to a few others. At least with Caswells, you can go to their shop and have a go (though their stock is limited). Bassbags near Derby have these: https://www.bassbags.co.uk/product/eastman-vb80-double-bass/ it's very much a beginner bass but I guarantee it will come with nice strings / bridge / setup. Plus the proprietor will insist you try a load of (more expensive) other basses (in the hope you will buy one) .. but even if you stick with the cheapest you will get an idea of the variety and what you'd get for more money. Also he'll take a trade in against a better bass later on. I don't think they do finance (ask) but they would lease you one. My best advice is to save up the £1800 and take it bassbags or better stil to the doublebassroom in Hastings and try a load (eg https://www.thedoublebassroom.com/product/1950s-west-german-bubenruth-3-4-size/). If you can, take another double bass player with you, to advise and to listen from a distance (the sound "under the ear" can be deceptive). If you have doubts about what to look for ... well really it's a matter of do you like the tone and feel of it. Does it buzz or rattle (hope not), is everything sturdy (hope so), does it make a sound you like on all four strings, open and fingered? (must do). In my own case, (back in 1991), I tried new Stentors etc (they were about £600 - £800 then) in a london shop (now gone), talked to a couple of makers (too expensive, a George Stoppani was £4500 and a Ronald Prentice was £5000!!! ... both would be worth >£20k now!) and eventually spent my entire £2000 savings on the nicest 4/4 I could find; an 1880s German "factory bass". I still have it. Still play Jazz and Classical on it every week. It's needed some work over the years ... new strings and end-pin from bassbags, bridge modification from Tim Bachelar) but sounds better than ever - I've never regretted that £2k.

I've been waiting for that one to show up. Wonder if he can play Chromatic Fantasy on it too? tbh it doesn't look a bad proposition as although there are a lot of position changes, there are far fewer string crossings!

A 5 is useful if you need to go below E and some patterns that don't go especially low are easier to play higher up the neck across 5 strings. But the necks are wider so less comfy to play than a 4 and there's more risk of fingering or plucking the wrong string. I've not played a 6 but I guess the pattern thing is better still and the neck and mistake potential worse. 5 may be a good compromise. If not, why stop at 6. Get a 14 course theorbo or a Chapman stick.