ambient

There's no gap on the pockets of either of my Fenders. Both necks are perfect and don't move, I believe they have graphite rods in them for stability. The Marcus Miller bass is a dream to play, and has 6 bolts attaching it to the body via a plate making for a really sturdy fit. The frets are all perfectly seated, and the bridge is perfectly positioned, and allows for either through the body stringing or through the bridge on both basses. I like the hipshot machines on the Marcus Miller bass too. You can't actually see the neck pocket on the bass in the photo, it's not that close so making comments on it seem a bit odd.

I own two USA Fender's, a Marcus Miller and a USA jazz bass. Both are great basses, and like I've said before, people know (MD's, producers, artists etc) what they're getting. They've both been set up to play how I want them to, and they respond and sound how I want them to. There's also the fact that you drop some cash on a used USA Fender bass, you'll almost certainly get it back should you sell it, you can't say the same with a custom bass by someone no one's ever heard of.

I own 2 Fender basses, both USA basses and I think they're excellent instruments. What bass would have great playability after being shipped halfway across the world, spending probably weeks inside a container onboard a ship, without a decent setup and maybe new strings ? I know what producers, engineers, MD's and bandleaders like to see, and it's not some strange shaped, pointy thing looking like a conservationists nightmare. Any bass can be setup to play and sound good, I've played Squire basses that sound and play amazing, with stock hardware and electronics, (that's another thing, people spending a fortune on replacement pickups....why, can they hear the difference when playing live ?) I only joined here a couple of days ago, but I can't believe how obsessed with gear everyone is. It's the player, not the bass. One of my tutors at ICMP told us a story a while back, something about Jaco and a fan who was raving about the sound of Jaco's beat up fretless '62 jazz bass. Jaco took off his bass, leant it against his amp and said something like "does it still sound amazing now ?".

Just play what you'd usually play over a Dominant 7 chord.

Dominant 7 chord with some or all of the following upper extensions - flat 9 (G), sharp 9 (A), sharp 11 (C) and flat 13 (D). Altered scale is the 7th mode from melodic minor scale and contains all the above alterations.

I'd say you were a bass player, that's not necessarily the same thing as being a musician though. I can 'play' keyboards, but I don't class myself as being a keyboard player, I simply don't have the necessary technical ability for that, same with guitar. I don't think that learning a bass part from whatever source, be it TAB or a how to play video on youtube makes you a musician. It's not just the knowing how to, it's also the knowing 'why'.

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1357370490' post='1921658'] I've played with a fair few classily trained musicians who know all the theory and can site read at speed etc, but they are completely unable to solo or improvise. Some of us may be limited by lack of theory but some that know it are limited in other ways by it. [/quote] I've also played with a fair few classically trained musicians, they have fantastic reading skills, a thorough, deep knowledge of the harmonic aspect of music and they can improvise like **ck.