thisnameistaken

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1360543517' post='1972223']Dizzee Rascel /Wiley - or whever came up with grime.... hip hop meets faster pop beats and suddenly London has it's first genuine urban music style[/quote] London did it before that with the jungle and D&B sounds.

No, because I don't have a 'main' gig at the moment. All four of my basses get used for different stuff, although the two bass guitars haven't been very busy in the last year or so.

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1360533222' post='1972025'] Don't agree. There's a little of the Pixies in there but his melodic movement was far more realized[/quote] I think The Pixies took a lot more harmonic risks than Nirvana ever did.

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1360510549' post='1971431']I think Kurt Cobain was the last "pop music" innovator.[/quote] I liked Bleach but innovative? Would you say what Tom Morello did was not innovative? Less innovative than what Kurt Cobain did? The word loses its meaning the more you try to apply it to stuff.

That's pretty much what I do. I tried Jake's advice about getting my left leg involved in supporting the bass behind the lower right bout but I've found I tend to tap that foot a lot, which wobbles the bass. Whoops! Bit more discipline needed.

He really likes his Jack White eh. Shows you how much you can do with a strat too - let's hope guitarists' wives don't see this video.

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' timestamp='1360446147' post='1970719']If you have any Boss pedal handy, try it first before spending any money on a new preamp. Boss pedals have a high enough impedance that works well with piezo pickups, IMO. Worth a try. I used to run my pickups into a Fishman Dual Parametric DI first, because it had a really high, 10 Megohm impedance input - thinking that the higher the better - but it ended up resulting in too much low end coming thru. The lower impedance of 1 Megohm on the Boss pedals seems to filter out those nasty low's perfectly for me.[/quote] Before I got a dedicated preamp I tried a couple of Boss pedals just to lower the input impedance at the amp as you describe, but it didn't work for me (I tried an OC-2 and an LS-2), the sound was still weedy and thin and horrid. That was a Bass Max at the input and going into a Hartke LH500. I bought a Fishman Plat Pro Bass and that worked. I still didn't like the sound but it wasn't because of the impedance mismatch, I just don't like piezos - I tried several with several different amps.

I played only fretless for a few years in the '90s but in the end I missed that punchy attack you get from a fretted bass. I still had a fretless too for a long time, but currently I don't, I do miss it a bit.

His bass looks very high and very vertical. I'm not sure I'd want the nut all the way up there?

OK that description makes sense. I'll have to give it a try. Cheers.

WRT what Jake said, I don't feel like anything is under stress when playing pizz but if I get the bow out the bass gets a bit wobbly so I know I am supporting it to some degree with my right thumb. I think I may have to get a teacher to give me some guidance on that. Jake: When standing how do you keep the bass still without touching it with your arms? I've found it only makes contact with me in one place - at my hip. Surely you need two points of contact at least to make it stable, no? What's the other one? But for me the double bass seems to be a much more practical instrument to play than a 34" scale bass guitar. I got seriously sick wrists a couple of years ago from bass guitar and pretty much completely stopped playing it for the best part of a year to recover, but during that time I played double bass without any problems. Since then I haven't had a regular gig on the bass guitar and I would fully expect my wrist problems to recur if I did.

I can only think of two: Guns 'N' Roses and 311. I think I liked Guns 'N' Roses because Slash was so good, and I think I liked 311 because Chad Sexton was so good. Odd that neither are bass players but there you go.

TBH I've been in bands (very briefly!) with people who seemed to have very specific ideas of what the bass was for. In one case I didn't really understand why I was there - I think I was just there to make the drums and guitar sound a bit thicker? I didn't stay long. I had another guy, guitarist, who wanted me to play whatever he was playing with his thumb. Again, seems a bit pointless to me getting another instrument in just to do that. Fortunately I've met many, many more musicians who really like hearing the bass pop up with its own contribution.

I used to use the bigger one, it was fine but bloody heavy. I suppose this one doesn't have that issue.

I agree. I honestly think the whole 'lock in with the drums' advice that beginners get is pretty bad advice and because so many bass players repeat it, they think it's forbidden to do anything else. I would say that regardless of what instrument you're playing, your first job to make the vocals sound as good as possible.

I don't really have a final bass part until we've got final vocals. Even then my part might change in the future if we change the arrangement or add more vocals or whatever - what I'm playing is often a reaction to what everyone else is doing so it's never really set in stone. As for complexity and how challenging it is; the challenge for me is usually finding something nice enough to keep me interested, and something that improves the impact of the vocals, and sits in whatever space is available but without drawing too much attention to itself. I've got pretty good at it over the years I think. I don't get accused of over-playing any more.

When I first started playing double bass I struggled to hold it for quite a while. How long have you been playing the Palatino? For the record these days it feels like having a drunk friend to cuddle, it's all good until I get the bow out and then I realise how much I rely on right thumb to steady it.

Evahs are lovely but the mediums are hard work for a beginner so weichs might be a better fit. They are at the expensive end of bass strings too - you might be better off with a set of Innovation Honeys which also have a good pizz and arco sound but are nearly half the price.

Wow this thread really went to straight to hell eh. I liked the performance in the video a lot. Hope that's OK.

It seems everyone on here who's bought the lower end Thomann basses think they're good value. Gedo Musik is also worth a look - both me and Bilbo have got sub-£2k basses from them and I'm certainly happy with mine, Bilbo appears to be happy with his too. It's really difficult to find anything as good in the used market if you've got a limited budget, so it looks like online shopping from the sausage-lovers is the way to go.

[quote name='TPJ' timestamp='1359972847' post='1962577'] If you have found your perfect string/action for your bass (I am envious) then a fixed bridge would be fine. [/quote] This is the way I thought about it too. I've got an adjustable bridge on one bass but not the other. It would be nice to try the other bass with a higher action but I'd need another bridge fitting to do that. It's certainly cheaper to experiment with an adjustable one.

I've always just cleaned the neck with warm water like I would any other bass.

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' timestamp='1359829403' post='1960940']Don't forget to dampen the afterlength of your strings (the bit between the bridge and the tailpiece) as they can cause feedback too. Took me ages to figure that out.[/quote] I would give totally the opposite advice: Try not to attach too many gizmos to your bass (pickups, preamps, bow quivers, etc.) because they will all rob something from the sound. Deliberately dampening the afterlength of the strings, to me, is a horrific idea. It will completely kill them acoustically. Yes it might mean you can go louder when amplified, but it will sound less like an acoustic bass. And for me, practising with a bass rigged up like that would be less interesting because it would lose so much character. My advice would be to get as much volume as you can without compromising the sound of your bass. There are plenty of options for deadening a bass if you need to, but you might find you can get enough volume without resorting to any of them.

Wow, brilliant. I warn you though there's nothing in the bass guitar world that compares to the expense of trying to get the sound you want from your double bass - especially amplified. Very satisfying when it works though.

[quote name='nobody's prefect' timestamp='1359634337' post='1957887']To answer my own question, I don't think I've ever heard a chord played on a, d and g strings sound the same as one using d,g and c. There's a different sonic quality and if you want that nylon string-ish tone, you'll need thinner gauge. Also, where in the scale you play has famously a huge impact on the tone - who of us is free of the carnal sin of playing something up the neck on E or A string? It's got [i]that tone[/i] in a good way.[/quote] Yeah I'd agree with all that. Variety of tone from the low B to the C gives you options and it's nice to have options. It's also a big responsibility on the player though, to EQ the bass properly so all the strings sound good. I've heard a lot of people who have failed at that. All in all though I went back to 4s because they're lighter and I can relax a bit more. Also doubling on double bass I'd rather not have strings on one instrument that I haven't got on the other.