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[quote name='Faithless' post='866974' date='Jun 14 2010, 01:01 PM']It's another theme about saxophonists.. In our area, I simply can't listen to any of them (esp students from local academy), cuz they're all trying to sound either like Parker or Coltrane. All the solos they analise in school, is either Omnibook, or some Coltrane stuff, all the solos they transcribe is either Charlie or Johnny's stuff - and don't try to tell 'em to transcribe.bassplayers, pianists, guitarists, it's a sin.. In fact, most of them wouldn't tell more saxophonist 'names', than those two cats.. Isn't that a shame? But then again, most of them are young people, maybe they will find their sound, without the help of Parker.. Other case is.. Can you listen to Kenny Garrett? I can't more than 5 minutes. A complete Coltrane clone IMHO. Well, some tell that he's 'exploring' Coltrane's stuff and ideas, but, for me, that's just a lame excuse for a shameless copy..[/quote] I agree with some of what you are saying there - it's true to say that a lot of lesser sax players, or rather younger, less experienced ones (like any musician on any instrument) will go through phases of sounding like the greats - but in defense of Garrett, while I can't speak too much for his albums as I haven't listened to many of them - I saw him live with John Mclaughlin and Chick Corea (with Christian McBride and Vinnie Colaiuta) and his solo spot where he duelled with Vinnie for the best part of five minutes was utterly, utterly amazing... he tore the roof off the Festival Hall - he sounded like no one but himself... astonishing playing. I'd ask you whether you've actually heard him live at the height of his powers? If so then fine - but I was blown away by the power of his playing - and for the record the impactful parts of his solo were single sustained notes that just built the tension up to breaking point... again using the word 'clone' is very dismissive of his playing - trying to play jazz is a very humbling experience - it take vast amounts of skill to get anywhere near his level - I'm not saying you have to like him, or any one else - just have a little, tiny bit of respect.... or don't - it's your view - but it certainly ain't mine. One last thing - as Christain McBride very widely said: "Sax players have to 'go through' Charlie Parker... bass players have to 'go through' Pastorius" - it's all part of the history of our instrument - take it or leave it.

2 x Sei - super jazz 4 string and single cut 5 string 1 x lovely custom fretless Genz Benz Shuttle 9.0 Epifani cabs a handful of FX MIDI enabled bass Logic Pro - and other bits of software gubbins Basically that does it for me right now - I think and know from experience that owning a good bass is one thing but playing it in, getting to know it and learning how to play that specific bass takes time, practice and patience - constantly changing basses means you have to start that whole process every time you get a new instrument - obviously some instruments have their limitations but they may have virtues hat others don't as well. I'd love a classic Fender jazz vintage bass but do I need one? Not really, I'd love a Fodera too - but until I find one (in later life) for a decent price I doubt I'll ever own one... learning how to get the most out of what I've got is (IMHO) a far better use of my time. Cheers Mike

I'm digitally releasing some new solo material very soon - probably next week - just been mastering the tracks today and they sound fat... will let you all know when they are available to buy Cheers Mike

Love your passion and energy - keep on rocking dude you definitely have great style and musicality in your technique Cheers Mike

[quote name='Faithless' post='862134' date='Jun 9 2010, 02:40 PM']It's cool, dude. The problem, for me, with Linley is, that, if someone would have given that Zawinul live record to me to [i]listen[/i], not to [i]see [/i]it, if you know, what I mean, I'd, without much thinking, tell that it's Mr. Pastorius playing, not Mr. Marthe. Ideas can be original, but, so should it be with the sound of musician, shouldn't it? [/quote] Personally I can hear the difference between Linley and Jaco - the latter's tone and touch is so distinctive and Linley plays if anything with more aggression - Jaco was more laid back even when he played fast - and for the record as soon as any bassist switches on their bridge pup and plays muted 16th notes they are 'accused' of sounding like Jaco... it's damn hard not to. It's another part of the language of bass playing that he helped pioneer - but hey if you don't want to use it, don't use it.

Congrats man - I bet you'll be nervous as hell but it'll be one hell of a rush when you're up there - have a great one and well done

[quote name='Faithless' post='861104' date='Jun 8 2010, 03:33 PM']I think, that no one's arguing, if Laurence is a great player - the issue, for me at least, is how [i]he [/i]sounds, and that his songwriting ideas sound [i]very [/i]influenced by particular person, which is not good, IMHO.[/quote] Fair enough - but calling him: [quote name='Faithless' post='858075' date='Jun 5 2010, 12:08 PM']...another 'Jaco victim'[/quote] is implying that his ideas are limited to just sounding like Jaco may be true in the case of a few of his early recordings - from about 20 years ago - for me his playing is influenced just as much by Charlie Parker, classical music and a whole load of other deep jazz influences - among them a certain Mr Pastorius - I've heard Laurence play dozens of gigs and he generally sounds just like himself on most of them IMO - he really is more than just a one trick pony. Likewise Linley is amazing and yes his technique is very similar to Jaco's but his ideas are astonishingly original and again, having seen him live several times the stuff he can do on a beaten up old Jazz bass is really impressive... M

And this week on Points Of View.... We spoke to several people in the street, one agreed with us, one didn't, and one punched our reporter when he mentioned Flea, Led Zepplin and Jonathan Ross all in the same sentance... Bloody Beeb M

[quote name='alibabu' post='859730' date='Jun 7 2010, 12:15 PM']I think the music on the 'Faces and places' album ranges from the absolutely brilliant to the somewhat boring, but I don't think Linley plays on the album, the bass duties are shared between Richard Bona and Etienne Mbappe. You can hear Linley Marthe on the 'Vienna Nights' album with Zawinul.[/quote] Plus 1 The recent live album and DVD called '75' is also superb and I think some of you are being very over ciritical of Laurence Cottle - he's a stupendous player who'd eat most of us here for breakfast - and has plenty of original ideas - check out 'Shock!' with Gareth Williams if you doubt it. Cheers Mike

[quote name='algmusic' post='858926' date='Jun 6 2010, 03:10 PM']Thanks for the help guys.. Imovie and Mac the Ripper worked a treat.. I'm gonna rip out the audio later when I've got time and eq, but till then, I have a great demo vid for now. Cheers Adrian[/quote] Cool man - glad it all worked - phew! Share the results when you're ready Mike

[quote name='Musicman20' post='855975' date='Jun 3 2010, 12:23 PM']Birdseye maple neck, thats it. Not keen on flame/quilted bodies, but thats just me [/quote] plus the one -

[quote name='paul h' post='855841' date='Jun 3 2010, 11:01 AM']I admit to being a bit intrigued by this glove thing so I decided to do my own little sound test. Apparently my bass playing is completely shot and I can't play in time with or without gloves but have a listen any way. One half is played au naturel and the other wearing some woolly gloves from Next. See if you can tell which is which. [attachment=51287:glove_test.mp3][/quote] that was f***ing ace - keep up the good work

Allan kicks ass live - a right gnarly geezer - I've seen him three times in the last few years and he's great but I don't think I'll make the Ronnie's shows this week - I actually have a gig on Saturday - my first in about three months! But if you get a chance to see this lot you'll enjoy it - lots of energy and lots of notes

[quote name='hitchy64' post='855559' date='Jun 2 2010, 11:47 PM']I can see why he wears them, but it's not very rock n' roll is it. You'd look a bit of a twat playing in them really lol[/quote] Nice to see we have some open minded people here... I interviewed Etienne recently and he's a lovely guy and really not the sort of person who would wear gloves for any other reason than he said that within three songs the sweat from his hands kills his strings dead - and as for the logic of this - inspite of what they might look like - is that the gloves will give you the perfect 'dry' tone and if anything extra punch and nice muted attack - like he gets here (nice bass llines at the end of this clip): Mike

[quote name='algmusic' post='855148' date='Jun 2 2010, 05:53 PM']I've got version 8. I'll have a play[/quote] Hi Adrian While you can try and use iMovie if you are acually happy with the footage you can just extract it from the DVD using this piece of software: [url="http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14414/mactheripper"]http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14414/mactheripper[/url] It's quite straightforward but you'll need to look at the instructions, obviously , basically this will create a VOB vile, which you can then open and encode with this piece of software: [url="http://www.squared5.com/"]http://www.squared5.com/[/url] You'll need to have the Quicktime MPEG 2 component installed on your Mac, it costs about £15 but will enable you to encode your video to the right spec required by Youtube. [url="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/"]http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/[/url] Alternatively once you've created a .mov file via the MPEG Streamclip software you can import the clip into iMovie 8 and if you look on the 'Share' menu in iMovie there should be an option to upload it to Youtube. The good thing with this is it will ensure the quality doesn't dip and you can choose what qualoty you want, you can even go High Definition if you want, just follow the instructions, and make sure you uncheck the 'Set to private' box so the video will be public..... I hope all that sounds OK, it's a bit complicaed at first but essentially once you have ripped the footage from the DVD and created a .mov or mpeg file via the MPEG Streamclip software you can just upload a file to Youtube, iMovie is just the icing on the cake Hope that helps, any questions just ask Mike

For me there are great things in so many players but aside from obvious stylistic things that a player like Jaco, Marcus, Victor or Matt Garrison that immediately identifies them as bassists, I try to approach my playing with an idea first and the style second - i.e. do I want to mute now? or slap? or solo? - then I find the technique to suit the idea - and try always to let the music dictate what I play rather than the other way round.

Just added an MP3 version of this that's a bit more ravey...

[quote name='discreet' post='851298' date='May 29 2010, 06:16 PM']It's a right large portion.[/quote] Um, no, it wouldn't have been at all appropriate... besides she's not only married and has one kid I believe she's expecting again I meant, if you can get your mind out of the gutter that she is a lovely and very attractive in person, so to speak Cheers Mike

For the record I've met Lauren Lavern and she's lovely

I love bits of the Beeb, more on the radio side but they do still make SOME good programs but BBC3 is piss poor and aside from Later with Jools, has NO new music shows, anything outside ratings grabbing bollox like Somewhere Over the Rainbow or very rock/pop/iindie biased festival coverage there's no alternative... so what do you expect a BBC look at bass playing was going to be like? I think the tendancy is to want to look and sound tendy and ironic about music, it was a tongue in cheek look at a 'fantasy' rock band and so all the jokes were to be expected, yes it is dissapointing but no more dissapointing than their other music coverage is, I mean the current state of things makes Top Of The Pops look adventurous...

Well I'm currently on holiday and won't be able play any bass until I'm back home on the weekend and I always see a bit of time off as a chance to step back from all the stuff I've been playing to reassess and then refocus on what I need and want to do next. My girlfriend used to hate me for always having to find a music shop on holiday and have a noodle on a bass, which was always dissapointing as the basses in the shop were never as nice as my bass at home... now I actually enjoy having a break and don't worry about it, it just take ma an hour or two of playing to get my chops back! M PS I'm up with my two year old Ben, hence the early hour of my post...

I'm still hoping I can attend but just wondered if anyone is able to give mr a lift from either south or central London? Happy to pay towards petrol - if I travel on my own I can only really bring ne bass so if anyone has a preference between my Sei Single Cut or Sei Jazz then let me know. I'll be packing my Genz Shuttle 9.0 as I really want to try it through a big 8x10 just to see how loud it's 900 watts really sound it'll be a first as I've not had a chance to really crank it... Cheers Mike

[quote name='Chris2112' post='847870' date='May 25 2010, 08:07 PM']Oh, I believe Stanley is the best upright player around, but I still don't dig it much! However, Ronald is a fierce drummer, I absolutely love him. He plays with such fire, like a young Jeff Sipe. Sounds like a bloody artillery battery on the kit![/quote] I haven't checked what the clips are like on the sampler but as an album I enjoyed it and the full tracks have real life to them, the drumming is very cool, Stan is mainly on electric and plays his ass off. I think there are a couple of tunes on DB and for the record I think his upright playing is great - I guess my original point was that I'm not a big fan of Stan on record but this one was a lot better than I expected... I'm less and less bothered about bass led albums but this one is worth checking out. Mike

Vic is fantastic, I've seen him live about 6 or 7 times and he's always amazing, I would have loved to have been at the clinic but I'm out of town all this week, for those who missed it though I recommend his Groove Workshop DVD as there's a ton of very insighful musical thinking and instruction on there, Vic's philosophy on life and bass playing really adds some humanity to learning and playing music, he's a deep guy and even though he has insane amounts of tchnique he knows how to dig deep into his emotions and feelings.

I think I have the Apex ones, I think the most important thing after the quality of the bracket is the way you attach it to the wall, my sisters' boyfriend is a handyman/chippy extraordinaire and he used a hefty bolt and glue on mine so they are rock solid and don't move an inch. In other words don't just rely on the supplied bolt and washer, but then again I'm crap at DIY so you might be a wiz at putting these things up, I just get nervous about hanging a 3K bass four feet off the ground...