thisnameistaken

My favourite Bee Gee is the one that looks like Aragorn, and my favourite song is Stiffy Cocky Pudding.

[quote name='spongebob' post='1210714' date='Apr 25 2011, 11:02 AM']Fanny Be Tender[/quote] SRSLY?

Pedaltrain Mini would do it, about fifty quid I think.

I would rather get sh*t on my leg.

I like the old rootsy American stuff with the nimble string pickers, don't like the more modern pop stuff with the whiney vocals.

Thanks to both of you, this looks like a right mess of a situation! Jennifer - in terms of the gigs you do, do you find everybody is still using the fifth edition? I suppose it might make sense for me to buy the sixth ed. and try to print some of the stuff from the fifth ed. that is missing so I have them in hard copy.

I was thinking about nipping out to get a copy today. I have a PDF of an older edition but no facility to print and bind it, so I thought I would just go buy the licensed version. I've heard people say it's not very good. Is this because it contains a lot of mistakes, or is it a poor selection of tunes or what?

FWIW the one guy I know who plays slap on steel strings buys Rotosounds in a solo tuning set - designed to be tuned up a tone from orchestral tuning - then tunes them down a tone, so they are quite loose and still at regular tuning. Gives a really nice psychobilly sound through the pickup setup he's got - a Schaller mag pup and a piezo under the fingerboard to pick up the percussive slap.

How did you manage to split the bridge?

I think you're overreacting a bit.

I wouldn't recommend moving the bridge - its position has a massive effect on the tone of the bass. Some rockabilly / roots players prefer a high setup, some prefer low, the main thing with slap is getting a set of strings that give you the sound you want at the tension you want - that will make the bass easier to slap, then you can concern yourself with adjusting the string height to suit. Weedwhackers have already been suggested, I know some slappers on here prefer Silver Slaps (Teej and Clarky, IIRC) which feel more like normal strings and don't roll under your finger like weedwhackers do. They are still fairly cheap compared to most bass strings. I know some adventurous players on here have cut their own bridges to size but it's best to do it from the base of the bridge and that means matching the footprint to the body of your bass - doesn't look like an easy thing to do! Or you could get a luthier to do it for you, which might seem expensive until you compare it to the number of hours you'd waste probably getting it wrong.

The Word usually had some good live music too. Shame there wasn't more performances really because the bands and audiences always looked so up for it. I suppose on Jools you've got a seated audience. Who wants to play to a seated audience who are half a mile away? What's the point?

Poor guy.

Squiers are really good value, even the bog-standard ones are good basses, you can get them used for £100-ish. I've been gigging one for the last year or so.

[quote name='4 Strings' post='1205750' date='Apr 20 2011, 12:57 PM']Great idea, £1200 though.[/quote] Really? I got mine for £400 although it was the bass they'd used at the music expos in 1994 when they launched it so I suppose it was a bit "used", surely the A4 isn't 1200GBP now is it? Holy f*** it is. Well, I wouldn't pay that for a purely studio bass. Wow.

There's rarely anything vital and new on telly. I don't know what you expect from Jools Holland, really. Someone mentioned the sound being poor. I've noticed on the BBC's Glasto coverage the sound usually starts out a bit pants and improves over the first couple of tunes of a band's set. Same seems to happen with Jools - the mix seems to happen while they're playing their first tune.

Did Jazzes have blocks in 1974? If so I might be interested, can't say I've thought about it before though.

I doubt a pub full of non- music-liking punters who just want a piss-up and a sing-a-long will be too happy about being required to try something new, but good luck anyway. I would recommend splitting your activities into two bands, and doing the originals for audiences that like that sort of thing. Those audiences are considerably harder to find and retain, but it's rewarding work.

Oh. Cool! Glad someone else followed up the question for me.

The closest I ever got was a fretless Godin Acoustibass (precursor to the A4) strung with flats. It's a thinline semi-acoustic but has tuned metal rods mounted to the bridge inside the body cut to vibrate in sympathy with the strings and make the whole thing sound bigger. It works too. Nightmare to play on a strap though, worst neck dive I've ever come across.

Boo! Ah well there are plenty of other pickups on the market.