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[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1253127' date='Jun 1 2011, 08:32 PM']If you can play in time with a click or a drum machine then you're not a fraud [/quote] Early in my playing career I joined a band who shortly after signed to an independent label and started recording an album. When we were recording the album the drummer put down the drums tracks first and then I had to put my bass over his drums. I couldn't do it ; I just couldn't nail the timing. I was miles out, and my confidence plummeted; this was my first break and I'd blown it. I remember lying awake in the hotel for most of the night thinking "I can't do it, I'm not good enough; I'm never going to be able to be a successful musician". It horrified me; I was crushed. After a day or so of faffing about the engineer put a click down and asked me to play to that instead. I nailed every track first time (wish I could still do that!). It was the drummer who was all over the place, not me. Of course with a real drummer you have to compromise but I also have long experience of playing with a drummer who plays softly and follows rather than leads; for some stuff it works fine but for others it's a nightmare and it can lead to you questioning yourself. What helps is a drummer who listens, both to what he's doing and to constructive criticism (this goes for any musician). I once played with another drummer who used to slow down noticeably all the time and who used to get very angry when you pointed it out, however tactfully. The penny only dropped when he finally heard himself recorded....

[quote name='bassman2790' post='1252914' date='Jun 1 2011, 05:10 PM']No, the 4001 was £2600....out of my price range and I'm not keen on the Fireglow finish either[/quote] £2600? What year was it? That's proper vintage territory. Anything later than '72 and they're having a laugh.

I never intended to play the bass. Growing up loving Jazz I first wanted to be a drummer, but my older brother had already tried to get my parents to get him a drum kit with no success, so I figured that was out. Then a friend bought a cheap guitar, I saw Thin Lizzy, and that was it. Unfortunately I had zero dosh; my dad (a jazz musician) said I'd get more work as a bassist (how wrong he was!) so if I went for bass he'd help me get a quality instrument, which he did. It's his fault. Despite possible appearances to the contrary, I'm not really precious about bass at all. I'm fascinated by the instrument as a physical object - a piece of art if you will - and interested in the tones that it can produce and all the more techy stuff, but in many ways I'd still far sooner play guitar (which I do, just not as well - yet) or keys (bloody awful on those, only used for writing). I'd be just as happy playing much anything else, although I've never much enjoyed playing wind instruments. Really for me it's all about the writing, not the playing. The time was when I used to practice 6 hours a day; it never helped me write a better song so I can't say I bother much now. If I played like Guigsy but had written The Man With the Child In His Eyes (although they'd be questionable lyrics if I'd written them!) I'd be quite happy. In fact if I didn't play at all but had written that I'd still be quite happy.

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' post='1251378' date='May 31 2011, 12:54 PM']For years I was in the same boat - lusting wildly after that incredibly Rush/Yes bass tone but struggling to get along with the instrument in question. A few years back I bagged an '814001, but the neck was far too skinny for me. I occasionally tried a mate's 4003 from a few years back, and to put it kindly it's a bit of a dog - clubby neck being the worst offender. A few days back I bought a brand new Mapleglo 4003, on a whim but with the knowledge that I could always return it. It feels like a complete overhaul to the equivalent model of a few years back. The neck is far better, thinner but by no means skinny, and the tone is unreal - instant 'Astral Traveller'. The bass just feels right, even with the pickup cover. I'm a very happy chap Might put post some pics when I get home.[/quote] This is the thing. They vary so, so much in terms of feel, tone, weight etc. My 1980 4001 I wouldn't buy back for £50 (actually that's a lie, because I'd sell it straight on) but my '72 would take an enormous amount of wonga (far more than its actual value) to prize from my mitts. Glad you got one you liked!

[quote name='merello' post='1251850' date='May 31 2011, 06:28 PM']Did JJ not get his tone cos he couldn't afford a bass rig? Sure it was a Hiwatt amp and speaker for a guitar.[/quote] I believe you're right. In this case, necessity was the mother of a mother of a tone!

[quote name='51m0n' post='1251614' date='May 31 2011, 03:15 PM']Read a lot, practice a lot. Thats all that seperates you from the 'pros' really. The amount of time you have spent on it. You have acces to more gear than almost anyone did just 25 years a go. For free. Really.[/quote] Got plenty of gear. Just need to somehow lose my day job so I have more time. Wait, I sense a flaw in the plan....

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1251647' date='May 31 2011, 03:39 PM']Never been drunk or stoned, let alone played in that state, so cannot contribute to this debate. Bye.[/quote]

[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' post='1251377' date='May 31 2011, 12:54 PM']Don't drink anything other than straight fruit juice or water. When I played in bands that had a fixed set with numbers all meticulously worked out, I'd be far more nervous than I am now – playing in an improvising band that doesn't have the first idea of what we are going to do until we get up there. Seems like it should be the other way round but it isn't. [/quote] Makes complete sense to me.

[quote name='51m0n' post='1251422' date='May 31 2011, 01:17 PM']Thats what I said, but for clarification since my inner geek did get the better of me != means Not Equals, so where I said:- tone = timbre tone != note choice or phrasing I was saying that tone does Not Equal note choice or phrasing. It is the timbre or sonic quality of the sound, as measurable in terms of adsr (envelope) and frequency spectrum. Anything BUT the 'artistic nature' of the racket being created. I truly believe that the better a musician you are the harder it is for you to seperate the two (timbre and phrasing) when you hear someone play. Unless you also spend a significant (if not equal) amount of time sound engineering. Just my opinion, but I cant see how someone who can hear a player and get all the info out of their playing in terms of note choice, and phrasing could ever truly divorce that from the timbre. So people with very advanced ears for relative pitch and playing tend to have a harder time with treating timbre as a completely seperate objective aspect to the sound you are hearing. This is not a criticism its just something I have noticed. Fortunately for me (in this case) I am a truly crap musician (certainly by the standards of the really pro players on this site - Doddy, Jakesbass et al), but pretty good at hearing timbres etc etc.... This is not to say they cant hear by any means, timbres, and they are usually well ahead of the game compared to punters, but the fact is that top flight engineers do hear differently from top flight musos. Horses for courses I think. [i]<Runs away to put on his flamesuit with the chamois leather interior>[/i][/quote] Thanks for the clarification. I thought it was a typo. Interesting point regarding the sound thing. I do all my band's recording and mixing (although not to what I would class anything like a professional standard as I don't have the necessary technical knowledge and hence rely on my ears) and sound in that sense is something I've always been very interested in, so I think I can separate the 2 quite easily. EDIT: in fact the more I think about it I probably spend far more time these days listening to the sounds produced than the actual playing in most cases.... a career as a sound engineer awaits! (not!).

[quote name='TimR' post='1250693' date='May 30 2011, 07:43 PM']It's more of a question of respect to your band mates. It gets tiring really quickly when the band are spending evenings practicing for the band to sound tight and one of the members chucks all that hard work away by drinking so much that his performance and that of the rest of the band suffers. There's obviously a level of drinking that is acceptable to most people and a level that isn't. The problem is that some people are unable to have "Just one". I've been in a band where they had to carry the drummer out to the van and pack down his kit for him after every gig. (I didn't stick around for many gigs )[/quote] In 30 years I've only ever played with one person who got so drunk his performance suffered, and then only on one occasion. The reason he got so drunk was we were playing last at a relatively big gig and he was [i]extremely[/i] nervous. And yet in every band I've been in most of the band have had a couple of drinks throughout the evening. Personally I find if I don't have at least one drink (and yes I've tried it without many times) I'm so nervous that I just start making loads of mistakes. It then becomes a vicious circle. So [i]my[/i] playing suffers when I'm sober.

[quote name='51m0n' post='1251143' date='May 31 2011, 10:03 AM']I'm going stick my big oar in here. Sorry, can't help myself! So I see it like this, tone = timbre. They are the same thing. This means tone != note choice or phrasing. To me at least. So removing the note choice and phrasing from the equation then the same player has the same hands and may or may not play two different instruments in the same way, I know I have played different basses that have made me approach the instrument at a very low level differently, in other words the way I pluck the strings themselves and the way I hold the instrument is definitely different. In the case of the two Claypool tracks the timbre is hugely different. One is mildly overdriven and quite wide, the other is cleaner and very nasal/midly. Thats before the rampant fx use. If you think about it, Les has a 'target tone' he is aiming for, like you and I, for any particular project, and he has within his available arsenal for achieving that tone, a spectacular array of fx, amps, preamps, cabs etc etc. So regardless of the bass in his hands he can go a huge way toward processing the output of two or more different instruments towards the same final goal. A common part of the Claypool sound is the compression he uses, there's almost always plenty, and you can really really hear it. It almost defines his timbre more than any other effect to me. The possible exception is the mild overdrive he likes on the low end. Could I make any instrument sound like that? Not quite, but given the right rig and time I could get so close that not one of you could tell the difference. Certainly not from a youtube clip of the output of the PA. Except for the note choice and phrasing of course, I cant play like Les (believe me I tried for long enough in my yoof). What I am saying I think, is that the note choice and phrasing makes two players sound different far more than the attack on individual notes. And that the plethora of tone and transient shaping tools out there can make two players timbres sound incredibly similar timbrally, what you cannot do is make the players play music the same way. So any time a player picks up a different instrument he is likely (though not always guaranteed) to try and play the instrument the same as any other, but his phrasing and note choice will be the same almost always, which makes us say "He sounds the same on any instrument". We should add the caveat that he sounds the same, DESPITE the obvious timbral/tonal change. All IMO, IME etc etc....[/quote] I think that is probably pretty much the point I've been trying to make, except that I'd describe "Tone" in this context not as "note choice / phrasing", but as "sound produced" (which to me is different). The [i]sound itself[/i] is not the same, however identifiable the playing may be, although Doddy doesn't seem to agree. If I play a Stingray, you might be able to tell its me, but it will also still sound like a Stingray. If I play a Ric, again, you also may be able to tell its me but it will still sound like a Ric. The Ric will not sound like the Stingray and vice versa, and not just to my ears. Indeed on many occasions I can hear other people playing either of the above when I am not familiar with the player at all and still be able to tell they're using a Ric or Musicman (as an example). When I first heard "Influences" by Mark King, I was able to tell that the slap part on the first side ("The Essential") was a Status bass. Why? Because that's similar to what they sound like when I play them. I later found out that was indeed the case. I was also able to tell that on the fingerstyle solo he was using a different bass; his Jaydee. Why? Because I could hear the difference, if only because I am familiar enough with specific sounds. I still maintain that if you listen to Mark King playing his Jaydee, his Alembic and his Status, they are recognisably different sounds, despite them all sounding like Mark King. There are some people out there who really do overwrite the instrument tonally. I have a friend who plays guitar (and plays really hard) who really does sound very similar whatever he plays/plugs into. But not everyone is like that. As for the Claypool clip, I have evidence enough on various dvds, all obviously recorded slightly differently at different gigs, but on none of the examples I have does his CT sound like his Ric to me. FWIW, I actually prefer his CT sound as I think it suits his playing better. Anyway, I suspect this argument is going nowhere....for a change.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1250606' date='May 30 2011, 06:31 PM']Again,I am not talking about style either. As I said about the Claypool videos,the sound that he gets out of the instrument is recognisable. As you mention Janek-he's also mentioned numerous times that the sound comes from the player. I've never said that the 'shade is irrelevant',what I am saying us that a particular player will bring out a certain sound on an instrument.Sure a Stingray and P-bass have their own characteristics,but the way they I play them will bring out a different sound than how you play them. The Geddy Lee Ric/Jazz debate was mentioned earlier-two totally different instruments,yet both still sound like Geddy and have caused much confusion over the years. More of the sound comes from the hands than people realise,that's why two people playing exactly the same bass will sound different to each other.[/quote] Of course each individual player will have an effect on the sound. But that still isn't 100% of the sound. The 2 sounds in question are not the same sound (obviously, as there are two of them). You've already agreed with me in saying that one has more midrange and less top, hence they are not the same. Using the Stingray / P-Bass analogy, of course you will sound different to me playing them. But you will not sound the same on both, and neither will I (I know, I've tried it many times).

[quote name='Ancient Mariner' post='1250582' date='May 30 2011, 06:15 PM']I've only ever once had a few drinks before a (guitar) gig. It was like playing the thing at arms length, and I can remember struggling to stay tight, all the while fighting the tone that I'd not been able to set up properly and a guitar that wouldn't respond like it should. Quite horrible.[/quote] That sounds like me [i]without[/i] a drink.

[quote name='Telebass' post='1250562' date='May 30 2011, 06:01 PM']Even as a dyed-in-the-wool Fender man, I think they look great! But after having to repair a 70s 4001, and seeing my mate struggle to keep his 4003 usable neck-wise, I've come to the conclusion that they are not (and never were) terribly solid bits of wood, and that they are not remotely worth the money for the build quality. But I'll say it again, they look fantastic![/quote] The last Fender I bought, a brand-new Road Worn Jazz, had to have the neck replaced straight off the bat. I think you can throw the dodgy card at any maker you care to as there are always dogs out there (and the state of used basses depends very much on their previous owners). Geddy Lee's Jazz is onto its 2nd (?) neck so far while his tech says he hasn't even had to adjust the truss rod on his Ric. Also, both my Rics are still going strong nearly 40 years on, which to me suggests the build quality wasn't [i]too[/i] bad. As for whether you actually get on with a bass you've lusted after, well, I've been through roughly 40 basses. Does that tell you something?

[quote name='Doddy' post='1249779' date='May 29 2011, 11:14 PM']I haven't answered the Entwistle question because I'm neither a fan of his or The Who in general and don't really want to listen to various eras of his playing. But I will disagree about how I'm listening to the music. While the playing is recognisably Claypool,so is the sound he produces,regardless of the instrument. No matter what bass he is playing,he has a recognisable sound as well as style. There is no way I could listen to anything he has done and say 'Oh yeah,that's a (whatever) bass',but I can recognise his sound a mile off.[/quote] The first is rather convenient in terms of not countering my argument. "ah one, two, step to the side..." The 2nd, hmm. Let's see what Mr Gwizdala has to say about it shall we? I'll direct you to Bass Guitar Magazine July 2009, page 23, 2nd column; article by Nick Wells. He says he plays a Fodera because "it doesn't colour the tone and it allows me to have my own sound rather than having a distinctive Warwick or Yamaha sound". He goes on to say "I am a P-Bass player, you know, 50% of the time because I want to have that kind of sound". Surely if he sounded the same on everything neither of those statements would make sense? To move this away from sonics for a moment, I think what you're effectively trying to say is that the colour is recognisable as green regardless of what shade it is. In a sense you are of course correct. However I feel you're also implying that the shade is therefore irrelevant, that there is therefore no real difference between the shades, which is simply not the case. As a painter that's something I can argue quite categorically. My argument was about sonics, not about style, and I still maintain that the sonics are different, just as Emerald and Viridian are not the same, despite both being green.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='1250445' date='May 30 2011, 04:28 PM']Here's one for you Pete. "Like the cast of "Riverdance" perfroming on a stage covered in bubble wrap, whilst pissed".[/quote] I don't suppose you have a dvd of that do you?

[quote name='steve-soar' post='1250443' date='May 30 2011, 04:26 PM']How very dare you!! [/quote]

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1248263' date='May 28 2011, 02:31 PM']I don't see a problem with slap bass not incorporating complex harmonic exploration - that's not what funk's about! That's JAZZ-funk. 'Jazz's deformed cousin' in the words of Vince Noir. Complex harmonic exploration never got anyone's booty shaking, ever. Love that Bootsy vid, not seen that one before![/quote] Word. The above is something that is easily forgotten the more "musically aware" you become. It's like criticising AC/DC for not playing "out".

See, much as I love Kingy, I actually preferred listening to Nige in this instance. And he is only mucking about after all.

Surely it's ultimately up to the individual? I thought the point was to play music because you enjoy it (stagefright aside ). Of course if you're a pro sideman or some sort of function band then different rules apply, but otherwise who cares if you're sober or not? If you're crap the audience will likely vote with their feet. Of course at most pub gigs the audience is at least twice as drunk as the band so how will they tell?

[quote name='jonsmith' post='1249633' date='May 29 2011, 08:48 PM']Especially as the CS is virtually identical to the V63.[/quote] Not true. I've had 2 CSs (vermilion board) and 1 V63 (rosewood board) and have played several more CSs and several more V63s. The CSs haven't sounded the same as the V63s at all. None of them. The V63s have sounded different individually, as have the CSs, but all of the CSs have sounded more like each other, as have the V63s. Again, if someone can't tell the difference then their ears just aren't that great or they're not really listening.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1249604' date='May 29 2011, 08:22 PM']To me,watching those clips I hear the Carl Thompson as being a little more midrange heavy and a bit less toppy than the Ric,but the sound is still recognisably Claypool. Your friend can't tell the difference between your two Rics? That doesn't surprise me at all.[/quote] No, the [i]playing[/i] is recognisably Claypool. If the sound seems pretty much the same to you then your ears aren't as good as I expected them to be. Or more likely you're listening to it in the same way that someone listens to a musical genre that they're not really intimate with or interested in; "metal/rap/pop? It all sounds pretty much the same" etc. I note you haven't answered the Entwistle question yet. If your ears can't tell the difference there, then I suspect its because you don't want them to. It does surprise me, as to me he sounded [i]very[/i] different on each one, but then I know his ears aren't as good as mine (even though mine aren't as good as they used to be), or certainly weren't at the time. As stated before, everyone in my band can tell the difference when I play any of my basses. I've even been asked not to use certain basses in favour of others. Our guitarist didn't like me using my old 4001CS because he didn't like the sound of it. Our singer loved my old 4000 and likes the others far less. My Statii were met with general disapproval. When I used a Musicman everyone said they didn't like the sound in the context of the band; I agreed. When I used a P everyone loved the sound in the context of the band; I liked it but not as much. So obviously they do sound different, and not just to me. Many of the players I've known have said the same thing, so it's not just me. FWIW our guitarist's Strats sound noticeably different too, both to him and to me. He still plays the same when playing them, but that isn't the point. In addition, some people when handed a different instrument play differently. I didn't play the same things on my Seis or Alembics as I do on my Rics, because the sonics of the instruments didn't support the same kind of things.

[quote name='Spike Vincent' post='1249671' date='May 29 2011, 09:14 PM']I have always played sober,and frankly,I think anyone who is not at their best as a result of intoxication is doing their audience - and themselves - a disservice.I have played the odd gig speeding my t*ts off,but that's a whole different topic.[/quote] What about anyone who IS at their best as a result of intoxication?

Strangely, getting on stage has always terrified me. It's the writing and the playing of instruments I love. Don't get me wrong, a great gig is one of the best things in the world, but getting up there in the first place? Horrible.

[quote name='skej21' post='1249169' date='May 29 2011, 01:58 PM']I don't understand people who drink at gigs. If you don't get enough of a buzz just from being on stage or choose to ruin that by messing up your senses, you're clearly not enjoying the experience of playing enough IMO.[/quote] Ever suffered from stage fright? I have & do, even after 30 years (in fact as I get older it gets worse).