Misdee

11 hours ago, mikel said:

It's like anything. If you had started out on a Rick you would then have found Fender necks odd. 

Very true.

Rickenbacker basses are a pretty esoteric design, though. I would contend that the Fender is more an easier design to get along with for most players.  That said, I know Paul McCartney is on record as saying that he never really felt comfortable playing a Fender bass, so that very topically illustrates your point.

I know that by the time Revolver  was recorded Paul had his Rick, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had still used his Hofner on some tracks, just like he did on Let It Be.

10 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Yeah, ad nauseum

 

Audiophile - someone who talks so much about listening to music you wonder if they have any time to actually listen to music.

True, but how many folks on Basschat spend more time talking about playing bass and related issues than actually playing? 

I suppose you have to accept that for a lot of folks talking about their pastimes is a big part of what they enjoy about them.

2 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

Apart from the £20 you spend on it. And as any audiophile will tell you, streaming is no substitute for a CD or the aural nirvana that is a record!

I've been streaming this album from Tidal through my pretty good ( but fairly old) hifi system and it sounds very acceptable. The new stereo mixes have some detailed and even  holographic in places. Having a decent DAC makes a big difference in the quality of sound you get from streaming, and Tidal is definitely better than Spotify premium.

The whole vinyl v CD v streaming debate is a complicated one in so much as which turntable system v which CD player v which streaming system ? A lot of the major hi-fi manufacturers have long since abandoned CD and endorsed steaming as the inevitable future of audio. It's inevitable that streaming will develop even greater levels of fidelity.

My take on it all is that streaming can sounds very good, and it's very convenient!🙂

It's just that every time I play a Rickenbacker bass I am reminded why I've never gotten one before; I grew up playing Fender basses and the Rick feels so alien I can hardly play it!  The non-tapered neck completely throws me. And the strings keep hitting the pole pieces on the pickups and making loud clunking noise. I just love the sound and the look so much I can't give up on the idea. 

When I first started playing the bass I wanted more than any other was a Rickenbacker. Come to think of it, I probably started playing the bass just so I could get a Rickenbacker, such was their allure. I didn't want to be a bass player so much as a Rickenbacker owner. Now it's forty-odd years later and I still haven't had a Rick. But never say never...

That is good to know. If it were not for the pound being tragically weak against the dollar I would be doing my sums regards buying the USA NS bass I have always deserved. As things stand, it not even worth bothering.😕

When I first started gravitating towards Yamaha BB  basses the thing that surprised me the most was how unlike Fender basses they sounded. They have a tone which is quite apart from the typical P/J Fender fare. The active JJ arrangement on the NE is even more boutique-sounding. I can totally understand whern folks compare it to something like a Ken Smith rather than a typical Jazz Bass-style 5 string.

I suppose a pertinent question is are Spector basses as great as they once were? Now that Stuart Spector has retired and Korg have taken over the company, I would be interested to hear from Spector afficionados if the basses are still made to the same standard 

Listening to this album has made me  hanker for a Rickenbacker bass even more, by the way.

I've been listening to this remixed version for the last few days and I love it! I totally understand the authentic mono v remixed stereo debate, but the new remix certainly gives a startling insight into the recording and brings the music to life, to my sensibilities anyway.

I love Paul McCartney's bass work, and listening this album I've really been struck by how great he was at playing between the kick and snare of Ringo's drumming.  I love the sound of George Harrison's guitar on the early takes of Paperback Writer, too. Sounds like either his Gretsch or his Rickenbacker. I tried googling it but it got too complicated to find out the facts, such is the conjecture.

Sleeford Mods sound properly angry to me. The singer has the demeanor of a man who has just been DNA tested on the Jeremy Kyle Show and the results mean he now has to surrender half his Income Support every week to an obese mother-of-three called Tracy. Let's face it, both the guys from this band are probably no strangers to their local Citizens Advice Bureau.

Maybe music doesn't sound as angry as some might expect because politics is now secondary to shopping in most people's lives. Political issues only become tangible crises when they affect the ability of the masses to buy the goods and services they want and feel they have a right to. As long as folks have access to the material things they desire they are relatively content.

I'm always reluctant to critique other people's playing, partly because I am acutely aware of my own shortcomings, and also because it's difficult to be complimentary without sounding patronising.

Suffice to say then that there is nothing wrong with your playing in my estimation (with the addendum that even the best players can always find room for improvement), and you could easily get some work playing bass. 

 On the advice of a big name bass player I once met socially, I used to record all my practice sessions and then listen back to them while I was doing housework ect. That probably sounds quite strange but it was very helpful in defining my shortcomings as a player. A guitarist I used to play with who had studied at Berklee was taught to do the same thing by his tutor while he was there,too. The tape doesn't lie, and if you are serious about playing for other people then you have to be as brutally honest about your own playing as the outside world will be.

Spector's are indeed great basses. I wish I had bought one when they were more affordable, although they were never that affordable, thinking about it.  I've only tried the USA-made NS basses and they have consistently been epic and lived up to the hype. I would rate them amongst the best basses money can buy.

Spector basses have their own sound. I would venture that the EMG pickups, combined with the maple body and neck-thru construction, are a significant part of that tone. I know Spector offer other options nowadays, but EMGs are synonymous with that classic aggressive Spector character.

I seem to remember paying around that for mine in 1985 , no case. They had a matching fretted and unlined fretless in the shop, and I agonized over which to buy, but eventually sanity prevailed and I chose the fretted version. Otherwise the next few years would have been a lot more out of tune!😄

The thing about Fender Custom Shop basses is they are making expensive recreations of their ordinary instruments, albeit vintage ones.  And anyone who has played a lot of vintage Fenders knows they are a mixed bag, to put it mildly. It's not surprising that the CS basses are unpredictable, and Fender basses are very setup -dependent. Any Fender bass , Custom Shop or not, the difference between a good one and a bad one can quite often be a simple matter of adjustment.

I used to have a Ibanez Musician Bass back in the mid -1980s. I had wanted one for years and when I eventually got one I was so happy I couldn't sleep for two nights! Oh, for that level of excitement nowadays!

They were pretty iconic basses at the time, what with Sting ( and lots of other top players) using them. It's a shame that Ibanez developed from the manufactured in Japan quality brand they were into what they are now. Basses like they used to make would be expensive nowadays, but it would be a price worth paying for instruments that were still the same level of quality as from their Golden Age.

19 hours ago, Grimalkin said:

I can't think of anything recent, but then I can't think of anything that would beat Swift's observations of almost three hundred years ago, he could have written it yesterday afternoon:

 

"His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World 1726.

The current cultural zeitgeist is more Taylor Swift, and that means contrived blandness and, above all, studious avoidance of real controversy. Don't do anything that could alienate a significant amount of consumers or sponsors.

Few things are more revolting than F anny Craddock's cooking. Even after all these years it's indelibly etched upon my memory. A culinary antidote to '70s nostalgia.

The BBOT has definitely got its own sound, and it's a very good sound It's more "open" in the treble and upper midrange. Hi mass bridges tend to sound a bit more compact to me. As others have mentioned though, the advantages of other designs is as much that they are more stable and more practical than the BBOT. 

Hi mass also bridges give noticeably more clarity and sustain higher up the neck, in my experience.

On 14/10/2022 at 16:46, lowdown said:

Max Romeo - Wet Dream.

"When pressed, Max Romeo insisted the song was about fixing a leaky roof, but few outside of the Carpenter's Union believed him".

 

 

Lie down girl let me push it up, push it up, lie down
Lie down girl let me push it up, push it up, lie down

Look how you're big and fat, like a big, big shot
Give the crumpet to big foot Joe, give the craddock to me

Lie down girl let me push it up, push it up, lie down
Lie down girl let me push it up, push it up, lie down

 

 

I'm not sure what craddock is, but it sounds a bit too close to haddock for my liking. 

Doug Rauch.

 He is best known for his playing in Santana in the early to mid,1970s. Also played with Carly Simon Betty Davis, Lenny White, Billy Cobham and very briefly with David Bowie.

A superb player and highly original bass player who was ahead of his time.  He had the whole funky 16th note thing going long before the wider world was aware of Jaco, and he did some double thumping too.

Unfortunately Doug became overwhelmed by drug problems and depression by the time he was 26, dropped out of the music business and died at 28 years old in 1979.  One of the very best players of that era, for sure.

 By way of contrast, another one would be Chris Bostock who played with the JoBoxers in the early 1980s and a few other notables during that decade. Always liked his playing but he didn't go on to make very many more recordings.

It's easy to be flippant but I wouldn't underestimate the difference screw holes can make.

Screw holes make a Fender bass a de facto hollow body. Think of it as micro-chambering. There is bound to be differences in  both tone and weight between screw hole basses and the ones Fender couldn't be arsed with. If you look closely at some of the Masterbuilt Custom Shop basses, the screw holes are quite exquisite. God is in the details.

And if you think drilling a few simple holes is easy, wait until you need them drilling in your own head. Then tell me how easy it is.

I can't help but think that this might be the thin end of the wedge. Like Warwick basses and their wax finish that has to be laboriously maintained by the owner( the thin end of the wenge, you might say) which saves Warwick the trouble and expense of finishing their basses. It starts with a screw hole and before you know it you will have to route your own truss rod channel.

 I put it to  you that Fender, stung by criticism of their dubious quality control, and, have developed a strategy to gradually make the customer increasingly responsible for the manufacturing process. Five years from now when you buy a Fender bass you will get a box of parts, a sheet of instructions and a good luck message that also functions as a legal disclaimer.

Just now, MungoBass said:

We now know for sure that ashtrays are included then! 😀

But definitely not the screw holes, apparently. So much for period-correct. To me, vintage Fenders have always been all about the screw holes. 

On 15/10/2022 at 17:13, ezbass said:

I was trying to think of bass players who are associated with Yamaha and there really aren’t that many that spring to my mind at least. Those that I can think of off the top of my head are: Billy Sheehan; John Patitucci; Nathan East; Peter Hook & Michael Anthony. I would have added John Myung, but he jumped ship to MM ages ago and Henrik Linder used to use a TRB, but now uses a Mattison sig model. Perhaps Yamaha need to make more of an effort to put their basses in the hands of more A listers, but perhaps they’re not that bothered. I noticed that their instruments, including a bass, were used in the latest version of A Star Is Born, but I wouldn’t have thought that this is the best kind of product placement in order to promote the brand.

 

Nonetheless, I wouldn’t hesitate to use a Yamaha if they had something that fitted my requirements as they don’t make a bad instrument at any price point, as has been said before (they were certainly in my current search for a dreadnought).

Over the years a lot of top pro players have used Yamaha basses, and a fair few continue to do so. The players you mention are quite a roster just in themselves!

I am, unfortunately, old enough to remember when the BB basses first came out  in the late 1970s/ early 1980s and they were pretty high profile at the time.  Paul McCartney, Lee Sklar, Jimmy Haslip, David Hungate, Abraham Laboriel, Paul Jackson and the bloke from Chas and Dave all had one, to name but a few. They were definitely prestige instruments at the time. Carlos Santana had popularized the SG2000 and Yamaha were looking to do the same for the BB bass.

A lot of well known music was recorded with Yamaha basses. I really don't see them as an inferior brand at all. In fact I think they have quite an impressive heritage when it comes to who has used them and the tracks they are on.

To be fair, I think Fender's popularity is based on the fact that they are the originators of so much that we take for granted nowadays. Their invention and creativity is not to be underestimated. How much value for money they offer in the current UK market place is another matter in so much as their equipment is much less expensive in the USA and Fender are not responsible for the exchange rate and levels of taxation on retail goods in the UK.

I know Fender quality control can be a bit(very) haphazard, but they are still in many ways the most important guitar company in the world. The strength of a company like Yamaha is that they have taken the innovation of companies like Fender, learnt from it and built upon it, creating their own identity in the process.