Lo.

Michael Henderson told me Miles Davis once said to him: "Remember Michael, you're a f***in' bass player. Don't worry about the top - we got all that" ("we" meaning the rest of the band) That's what bass playing is to me, and it's the best instrument because you have a part of the spectrum all to yourself, assuming of course your keyboard player is not an arse. It's only about one octave, but it's all yours and all you need to make magic. Best wishes on your journey. If I had to suggest further study I would start with Ray Brown, James Jamerson, Paul Jackson, Verdine White, Willie Weeks......there's lot's of incredible technical stuff out there as well as these old guys but 'i would always urge you to consider whether it's actually playing bass if it strays away from our sacred ground in the bottom octave. Not saying it's wrong or unmusical, but a lot of it isn't bass IMHO.

[quote name='Jerry_B' post='1061096' date='Dec 16 2010, 10:43 PM']Stick some clips on YouTube [/quote] Here's one for ya... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2VJ9_Sf9z0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2VJ9_Sf9z0[/url] This is with all controls on 10, flat EQ on the preamp. Heavily hand-muted line though, so not the best to hear the tone in full. What a great bass. Grain on this is not pretty though - needs a red respray...

Had a listen to this - nice track. The bridge is just based on A/D/G/C x 2, but the bass starts the 2nd time on the third of the chord (c#). Here's a quick non-perfect take on youtube for you: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHnPoopn0I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHnPoopn0I[/url]

Well I'm now the proud owner of a very tidy 79 T-40. I love its mad variety of tone and its weight. Thinking of spraying it red to make it heavier.....

Er - didn't see this thread last night, but I'm the lucky guy. Picking it up tomorrow. I'm told it's really clean and was looked after by a session man so fingers crossed. I had a T60 and sold it about 20 years ago - regretted it ever since. BTW - would have preferred that red one that went yesterday. Damn, that was tasty!

[quote name='fatback' post='1058358' date='Dec 14 2010, 11:30 AM']Oh happy day Nice one. Out of curiosity, where did you buy the neck?[/quote] The neck is made by "Dr Parts" from Dangleberry music - £56, sanded & sealed (unfinished). It's not a true Fender shape (head is slightly stretched toward the nut). Cheers.

Bought a neck for a 51 pbass project and made the mistake of trying it out on my squier Jaco jazz while I wait to get a body blank - now I'm gonna have to buy another neck 'cos this thing is funky as James Brown's left foot. The fretless neck will be resting for a while. Different tone than my 73 Jazz with rw fretboard - highly recommended "mod" - will be swapping out the stock pickups on this soon as I have some homemade ones to check out. Will put up some clips on youtube when I get a chance. [attachment=66377:14122010326.jpg]

Great job! Shameless link to my version - learnt by ear and stitched the bits of best of a few takes together over the backing track without the original bass on it. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5zo1JyEA6Q"]ANMHE[/url] Long live the king.

Just finished putting the covers and mute on to my CIJ 51 RI. Made a rosewood finger rest, so it's about as near as I can get it to how the good lord Leo intended. PHil Jones told me the pickup cover modifies the magnetic field and therefore the tone of the bass - he has magic ears so you can take that as read. I don't expect everyone to agree but I am [b]loving [/b]the sound of it at the moment. Here's a playalong to an old soul jam with the finished setup...God bless the P [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QGX1ju24-o"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QGX1ju24-o[/url]

I played the Squier recently - it was superb, so good I snagged this recently (CIJ) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvc9C2wRCZg[/url] (old roundwounds) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9VtrYoRvd0[/url] (new Fender flats + foam mute) The CIJ has a classier finish and hardware, but no real difference. The stock pickup isn't to my taste - I prefer more bottom octave - it's easy to add on an EQ, though. Get any except the Sting model with the signature slab at the 12th fret. It's just a big bowl of wrong.

Oh - OK, it said it may be blocked in some countries. Good grief, can't a guy pay a little tribute to a bass hero anymore Here you go...just uploading now: [url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1241008/Music/thinkingofyou.wmv"]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1241008/Music/thinkingofyou.wmv[/url]

Great track - here's my attempt [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMxDFwviCss"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMxDFwviCss[/url]

Hi - I have many videos up on youtube showing the hook technique. It is definitely the best way to approach his lines. The floating thumb allows you to mute using the tip or side of the thumb. Because I normally use two fingers I have always struggled to rest my middle finger on the pickup cover like Jamerson did. The Motown tone is all about fat flatwounds, high action and bass bridge muting under the cover (on top of strings, not under them). There are also many heavily compressed/limited Jamerson recordings where the natural sound of his bass is given more attack by the limiter. Despite the the reduction in dynamic range the benefits of this were that you can hear lots of very fast lines that would be too low in volume if the limiter wasn't used - as Jamerson played faster, the notes were quieter, as his hook couldn't travel as far. Cheers. [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/jamersonshook"]http://www.youtube.com/user/jamersonshook[/url]

Bassed in NW. Looking for dep or steady work. RnB/Funk etc drop me a line: [email protected] Check out my youtube stuff for my headless videos - I do have one, but I'm no oil painting.... [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/jamersonshook"]http://www.youtube.com/user/jamersonshook[/url]

My attempts: Full speed: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh58NIRSPDw&feature=fvw"]Hit Me[/url] Slowed down: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK2PhJm_eMg&feature=related"]Hit Me![/url] (Shows 2 options for the end of riff run...) One finger right hand, for fun: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woDEztzR8YI&feature=channel"]Hit me!![/url] Story goes that NWR composed it soon after seeing Jaco with Weather Report. Wonderful.

Sorry to throw my biased opinion in here, but I was surprised to hear some of the comments about Phil. I helped him out at NAMM in 2008 and use his awesome Suitcase+4B rig. I know how passionate he is about helping customers, too. Phil's gear produces the closest sound to the instrument I've ever tried - he is obsessed with producing top quality gear and will be gutted to hear about power supply problems affecting perfomance. I'll let him know, maybe he can give an update on the issue. I loved the Flightcase and Super Flightcase when I demo'd them at NAMM. They had a great tone but I agree that they wouldn't hold their own with a weighty drummer beside you. The "problem" with Phil is that he designs to reproduce such an accurate response from the instrument that you would have to cut the bottom octave (or boost the one above) to significantly increase your volume. The way I see and hear it, most manufacturers ignore the bottom octave and deliberately pump the power into the higher frequencies giving a much louder result. I'm not saying other manufacturers' gear doesn't sound great at times, but I believe Phil would not compromise the design in this way - he really does have magic ears and a complete love of the bass (he's got about 40 of the buggers, last time I spoke to him!). Needless to say, his bigger cabs give more, and those Piranha speakers he designed from scratch are just amazing - I'm still not sure whether I can believe it but he told me he has NEVER had a request for a replacement 5" driver due to a customer blowing it. I must say when I'm doing any reggae and crank up my rig, the little things are really flying in and out, but so far so good! Verdine White came by the stand when I was at NAMM. I gave him a Sandberg 4 string and plugged him into the Suitcase; within 2 minutes he ordered one for Studio use. That said it all for me - a bass-god like Verdine has every right to be completely bored with new toys, but Phil's little combo had him rocking harder than his stint on the SWR stand. If there's a bass bash in the NW soon maybe I can bring the Suitcase rig down - you really have to hear it rocking to understand the PJ approach. I wish I could get hold of one of these - sadly, I'd never get permission from my procurement manager (she's tough to negotiate with). [url="http://www.philjonespuresound.com/products/?id=121#"]OMG I want one....[/url]

[quote name='thebuckets' post='678861' date='Dec 9 2009, 10:42 AM']at last Jamersonshook is unmasked! Lo i have been watchin your vids on youtube for quite a while but somehow never found that one. hats off to you mate- good work. perhaps you would like to throw your tuppence worth into my 'should i sell my p for a Jazz' thread in the bass guitars gear forum as im still undecided and have noticed you play both.[/quote] Cheers. Don't sell your P. Try to get a nice cheapo Jazz (MIM/MIJ/Squire?) and upgrade the pickups. My P & J basses both have active EMG's. I've played £50 Jazz copies that are great instruments - with decent pickups and the right setup you will have a great bass. After string type, the tone mainly comes from you hands - I set the action high to get a loud clean tone, and low if I want a dirtier thing without having to batter the bass - if I wanted low and clean my hands would have to play the strings a lot softer, but that's not the tone I usually want so I rarely do it. For LH muting, check out Rocco Prestia's technique - I guarantee you'll build some of it into your style, and it might just make you decide to keep that lovely P. See this from 6min in: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKBVvb57Gc8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKBVvb57Gc8[/url]

[quote name='thebuckets' post='675342' date='Dec 6 2009, 12:55 AM']have a look at [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCrO3iVWZE8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCrO3iVWZE8[/url] and please tell me where i can get the notation and or tab to this classic jamerson bass line it might just make me keep hold of my sunburst p and stop gassing for a Jazz! cheers Bri[/quote] Here's my take on it - not sure how it compares with the tab but it might help... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAwJTzP_U0Y"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAwJTzP_U0Y[/url]

Here's my go at this wonderful line. At first I thought it was Sekou Bunch, and Marcus Miller also plays on the album, but I finally found out that it took Bernard Wright (he was 16) to show us bass players how it should be done, on a keyboard. No matter, bass is bass, and when it's that good you got to just stand back in awe. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYEfmDv2I6w&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYEfmDv2I6w...feature=related[/url]

My vid of it - done by ear. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh58NIRSPDw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh58NIRSPDw[/url] ...and a slowed down version [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK2PhJm_eMg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK2PhJm_eMg[/url] The original is just a masterpiece - apparently NWR was inspired by going to see Weather Report with Jaco just prior to recording HMWYRS. Well worth the effort to learn - it helps you understand control with groove at quick tempos.

Is this a combo or rig? I think it's both... anyway it's gorgeous and I love it to bits.... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ODbfDvDTY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ODbfDvDTY[/url]

Nice bass - please let us hear a few mp3's of it if you get a chance - especially if you can A/B it against the Fender. I met RS at NAMM - he was next but one booth from us - he's a really nice guy, and he lent me the P/J bass you see Bob Babbitt with in the attached pic. We both liked it, and I wish I had the spare cash to get one (a Musicman is the only instrument higher on my wish list at the moment)....can't possibly sell my Fenders though, they're too good! Sorry - not got around to learning how to post pics in message yet.

I used to play using an SWR 1x18 (Bag End) cab - no tweeter - it was a wonderful simple setup and I still love to jam through that cab, but it does not reproduce the fundamental like the PJB Suitcase rig I have (4x5 combo + 4x5 ext cab), especially on a B-string. I demonstrated PJB gear at NAMM in January - all the upright bass players that tried it were amazed - boosting the 50hz graphic slider is like putting an octaver on your bass. So the answer from me is 5's in a well designed box, I guess......or an 18 on its own! Love BF's comments on here - thanks for all the info!!

Try Roland combo's - they're great. I have a DB700 that's I use as a subwoofer for the big soul band PA - it was super-reliable as a bass combo, but I upgraded to a PJB Suitcase +4B rig (which is awesome but in a different price bracket!) Oops - late post....hope you like the SWR - I got a Big Ben 1x18 cabinet that I love and can't bring myself to sell!