XB26354

Well there is quite a price difference between a SR5 and the UV. The Gallery in Camden always has plenty of both makes and to be honest, in terms of comfort, quality and versatility even a normal MV5 or RV5 wins hands down. The neck on a Sadowsky has wider spacing - especially at the bridge - but the overall neck profile is very comfortable. I find that the nut on every SR5 I have tried (and I've played probably 30 or more) is cut very strangely - the G is very close to the edge of the fingerboard. My technique is fairly light but the G keeps slipping off the board. I've looked into this (thought I was going mad!) and the G is typically 1.5mm from the edge of the fingerboard. Most basses leave about 3-3.5mm, so I guess it is just the way MusicMan designs their basses. SR5's do have a habit of being heavy sometimes too, whereas every Metro I have tried was lightweight and solid. Sonically of course they're very different beasts - a SR5 has one big humbucker at the bridge with a coil tap and eq, whereas an UV will have 2 single coils, vol, pan, 2-band boost-only eq with passive bypass and the Vintage Tone Control (like a passive tone on a Fender, but without losing highs - regular Metros don't have it). It is down to personal preference but, having owned both basses, I would say without hesitation that the Sadowsky is a better buy (and it will be worth a lot more second-hand should you ever tire of it!) Best of luck with your choice Mat

[quote name='mcgraham' post='217499' date='Jun 12 2008, 11:32 AM']think of blues guitarists, rarely do they come out anything new to 'say', as they are confined (more or less) by their typical scales (which is perhaps why average guitarists all sound like blues guitarists). Try to play in varying shades of random and try being erratic in your note choice, be completely chromatic, or non-diatonic, or moving between the two, maybe straying away from one key, return to it... or maybe not?[/quote] Not forgetting that Jazz comes from the Blues and has the Blues at it's root. Try working out Straight, No Chaser, as it is a perfect example of a chromatic melody over a 12-bar Blues. The solos have a Blues element but definitely lean more towards jazz. When practicing don't forget about chord tones - by playing chord tones with chromatic approach notes above and below you can make instant jazz And the golden rule when transcribing - learn it! Write it out if you want, but it is far more important to learn to play what you're working out, with the same feel as the original - when you can play along with the record and what you play is indistinguishable from the record, you've nailed it.

I had a GWB1 which originally cost £1499 (it was also the only one in the UK at the time!). It was nice, but nowhere near worth the money. The 1005 has the same ebonol fingerboard as the 35! It beats me why Japanese handcraft skills cost £1300 on a Sadowsky Metro and £2K on an Ibanez That black one you tried was probably a GWB2 - some were being sold off even a couple of years ago - like the GWB1 but in black.

[quote name='Mikey D' post='215704' date='Jun 9 2008, 08:52 PM']You know how much or who was selling it!?[/quote] I think it might still be with the distributor - even discounted you're looking at over £2K...

The GWB is a superb bass for very little money. It has the best B I have heard on a sub-£1000 bass, is lightweight and excellently balanced and really sings. It is only let down a little by the low output, but then a normal Bart can be dropped in if that really is a problem. I have seen 5 or 6 of these in the Gallery (and owned one until I got bored sounding like a poor Willis imitation!) and once set up every one felt great. They even come with the same strings Willis uses - D'addario EXP165. Maybe the one you tried had a poor setup? The 1005 has apparently sold literally a handful worldwide since it was released - one has been floating around in the UK for the last year or so but at such a ridiculous price no-one wants to touch it with a bargepole! Going back to the original post, you'll be very hard pressed to find a 105 unless one pops up on eBay. It has been discontinued for nearly 2 years iirc. There was one online retailer doing them a few months ago but I checked recently and they're sold out. Mat

I didn't hate it, it was poor - poor ideas, poor ensemble playing and especially poor material. I was with someone else (also a bass player) - and we were like "where's the melody?" "Where's the groove?". I have seen most of the best jazz/latin musicians still alive, and last night's performance will not live in my memory at all. I'd also like to point out that this is not negativity for the sake of it. I really can't believe that MG would have been happy with his performance or the material. Interesting that these guys all sound great when playing [i]better material[/i] with really top-class instrumentalists (Camilo, TT, Herbie Hancock etc.). With another soloist, MG actually playing some bass rather than messing around with Logic and his effects, and a bit more structure, the gig could well have been fantastic.

Well I must have been at a different gig because I have to say it was tuneless crap. I saw the band on before Garrison and I thought that was pretty avant garde noise, but the MG trio was deeply disappointing. There were a few nice moments but the whole thing sounded like a discarded outtake from (Tribal Tech album) Thick. Horacio Hernandez could not have played any more busily if he tried, Scott Kinsey sounded the same as he did on Rocket Science (with the same keyboard sounds) 8 years ago, and MG was clever without saying anything meaningful. He had a middly, twangy tone and played a lot of muddy chords in the first 5-7 frets. The three of them did not gel at all. The one unison line I heard (at the end of the second number) was sloppy as hell. Someone forgot to tell them that music often requires some kind of melody or harmonic movement. They didn't settle on any rhythmic or melodic pattern for more than about 2 bars. Totally improvisational music treads a fine line between innovative and boring, and they were firmly on the latter side. A shame as Scott Kinsey was superb in Tribal Tech, as was Hernandez with Michel Camilo. Shows that great musicians + poor material = poor gig.

Well I tried one today, albeit a 5-string deluxe (Korean), and it is lightweight, well-balanced, its got SD Basslines single coils, a quilt top and a nice 3-band eq for £599 retail. If it were not for the slightly more chunky neck profile it could easily pass for a US deluxe or Sadowsky/Lakland Skyline sound and playability-wise. I was gobsmacked. Perhaps they're variable in quality?

I also found that, although prohibitively expensive, Fodera 6 singlecuts have absolutely perfect balance seated or standing - in fact they are [i]body[/i] heavy - you have to use a strap or the body will slide off the right side of your leg (if you're right-handed)...

From the excellent Jazz Theory Book: "scales are a[i]n available pool of notes[/i]". Also: "When playing minor harmony, think [i]key[/i], not chord."

That's an opinion, not a fact. I'm much happier playing a 5-string and active basses work better for certain styles/songs. Touring with a Modulus was a total pleasure as the neck never moved and every note was really even. Restringing a Sadowsky in a hurry is a real pleasure as I don't have to feed strings in/out through the bridge. I would say the P-bass is the best plain-sounding bass. Now there are many who think that this is all a bass should be, often the same people that think bass is "easy", should only ever plonk along on the root, and that every man should have a short back and sides (I've played with plenty of these "timewarp" musicians!). If we're not meant to play above the first 5 frets why bother putting more frets in? A Fender just wouldn't be my only bass. My opinion

I don't agree with that at all. P-basses are passive with one pickup (the wrong way round) and four strings, 20 frets and 34" scale. Whether or not you believe they are the original and therefore the best, active basses, humbuckers, 5- and 6-string basses, laminated necks and bodies, carbon fibre (necks and reinforcement), onboard eq, quick release bridges, lightweight tuners, all the other bass manufacturers' body and headstock shapes... It is certainly true that many companies have copied Fender designs, but in the case of the "improvements" listed above, Fender has been playing catch-up, and in many cases never has caught up. I don't think they were so right straight off the drawing board - they copied their own guitar design tuned it as a double bass. The fact that they "improved" upon the early Telecaster bass shows that they didn't even get the Fender right first time Fender also trades on it's historical/nostalgia appeal without really making any effort either to improve or introduce new models (anyone tried a Zone recently?). Of course the Fender bass is classic but to say that nothing good or new has come out in the last 40+ years is not accurate.

Those session guys used a P-bass because that was all there was! What else could they have played in the 60's? Rickenbacker, Hofner, Gibson, etc? The P-bass is popular because it is the original bass design (I'm ignoring the Telecaster bass here as it never proved particularly popular). Leo Fender deserves massive credit for getting 90% of it right first time. I would say an old (60's-mid 70's) good-quality P-bass is fantastic, but the quality over the years has been very variable. They work for standard [b]bass[/b] tones. Jamerson had a wonderful sound but 90% of that was in his hands - the strings were so dead and the action so high he could almost have been playing a piece of plywood. Anthony Jackson played various flavours of P-bass and hybrids and got a great sound with a pick and phaser. JJ Burnel got a huge grinding punk sound, but a lot of that was the HiWatt guitar cab with the blown speaker(s). P-basses have that "bark" and cut needed for playing most contemporary music. I would say that the only changes I would make would be to reverse the two parts of the P pickup (it has always been the wrong way round), add a J pickup at the bridge position and get a beefed up bridge. I would then be happy to take it to any gig in any style. Looks are also important - the P-bass is very familiar and regular looking (read: compatible in almost any band) because of its simplicity and heritage. Then again I've not owned one for 15 years, but that's another story!

You'll need very flexible knuckle joints to play quick alternating 4ths with one finger (for example Heard it Thru the Grapevine), plus there is a damping issue. I've never played sevenths with one finger and wouldn't advise it - you'll be fretting the seventh halfway up your finger instead of the pad, and it seriously restricts your mobility. It wouldn't work at all with major sevenths either. One finger per fret is a very general guide rule. Depends on the size of your hands and how many strings your bass has, of course.

It depends on the amount of twist, and in which direction. The usual cure is (as Bassassin mentioned) to remove the frets and plane the fingerboard but with any decent luthier that's going to be £200 upwards. If the neck has a big twist you'd be better off asking Ernie Ball for a replacement Sterling neck (Stingray neck is to wide to fit the Sterling's neck pocket), or get a luthier to make one. Adjusting the truss rod in the other direction a few turns or wrenching the neck are best left to someone that will pay out if the neck gets knackered

Played a couple of them - same old same except for the nice hard case. So what about the bridge? They finally woke up after 25 years of people putting Baddass replacements in? Other manufacturers have been using lightweight sturdy tuners for years - the fact that a 4-string Fender has neckdive is a joke. Buy it only if your bass [i]has[/i] to have Fender on the headstock.