tegs07

I’ve always seen Rickenbackers as the Harley Davidsons of the bass world. Over priced and covered in excess chrome, but kind of cool and everyone secretly wants one or at least is tempted to try one out.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164870685436
 

Not my cup of tea but it’s a nice looking bass. Not sure if it’s well priced though as I have little experience with these.

Doesn’t sound like you have any issues with timing …. Are you just a secret drummer?

Agree these are fantastic instruments and the antidote to all the Fender haters. Don’t want to pay a premium but do want a great looking / sounding bass? Buy a used CV.

I don’t know why you beat yourself up so much. I’m a pretty poor bass player. I was just about acceptable as a bass player in a pub punk band and haven’t improved much since. Now I am in my 50’s I am starting to try and learn to play better. Time and enthusiasm are not always on my side.

I like the instrument and enjoy taking them apart and refurbishing them as much as playing them.

I don’t really care what anyone else thinks. The small things in life need to bring pleasure as the big events just don’t happen often enough.

PS @Reggaebass suggestion is excellent. I struggle with timing and Reggae and Ska are great with helping with this. Stir It Up or Rudy ( a message to you) for example are genius in their simplicity and who can fail to have a smile on their face when playing along?

Just now, WinterMute said:

She definitely had talent, but the lack of autotune on her early recordings is covered by the layers of unison multi tracking to cover her picking and timing issues.

No doubt she learned to sing and became a great artist, as any others have, Seal couldn't sing when he started, look what Trevor Horn managed with Kiss from a Rose, Simon LeBon was abysmal at the beginning of his career and became a very passable singer.

I would agree with all that. Apart from possibly Simon LeBon. Never did get the appeal of Duran Duran.

8 minutes ago, WinterMute said:

Percy Plant was well known for singing flat, didn't slow them down much.

However, Waterman was bang on the money with his comments about Kylie Minogue, PWL really began the whole business of the face selling the music. Speaking as someone whose engineered my fair share of pop and boy/girl band titles, I can honestly say the the general rule is that the prettier the face, the more work I had to do to make them sound like they could sing.

Obvious exceptions apply, but they are generally very rare.

I would argue that Kylie has some talent. I don’t think you can survive a couple of decades in the music business just by being a pretty face.

The likes of Spotify and well before it Napster have long been touted as the death knell for music. They surely haven’t helped artists earning power but I think that the generic corporate culture did far more harm. Watching Glastonbury a couple of years back and Idles were one of the few bands that stood out as being exciting. I’m middle aged and the vast amount of stuff struck me as being unchallenging, unadventurous music for the masses. I rarely find any new music that really grabs me and when it does it’s rarely a British band.

Overproduction is one of many villains.

Edit: Before anyone says there are loads of great bands out there. I am sure there are but the challenge is to get promoted and signed followed by the challenge of not just reproducing whatever sound/formula is the latest cash cow.

On 06/05/2021 at 10:04, peteb said:

Yes he did.

I believe that he had a black P bass for the first tour and then used a 58 P for the second (Pulse) tour in 94 (currently up for sale for  £13.5k). 

He had a few basses on the Floyd tours and swapped between them for different songs.

His book is a recommended easy read. He is an amusing chap.

I can see why this technology is useful to save time and money butI don’t like the tendency  to overproduce and make music so formulaic.

There are plenty of artists out there that I know if I saw live with just a decent acoustic guitarist would be really great but I can’t stand to hear on CD/Radio/Spotify.

I think the most annoying trend in vocals is the X-Factor style of singing where every note is inappropriately dragged out and stretched out of all proportion. This is meant to show what a great singer they are.

No one would think a car was great if it accelerated or swerved at random and pointless sections of its journey just to show that it could.

Is this the same as auto-tune as in Cher “Believe”? 
I really don’t like the way the effect has become almost obligatory alongside a bit of rapping in a lot of commercial music.

Apart from that I can see the benefits but agree with @Nail Soup I would prefer character and imperfections any day. Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Michael Stipe even Neil Young sounds like a muppet and he is phenomenal.

I hate selling on eBay. They take far too much cash. There are lots of time wasters and a fair bit of fraudulent activity.
Sadly I will continue to use them as they have such a large reach. Several items I have tried to sell on here and Gumtree sold in a few days (on one occasion under an hour).

Tony Bennet?

He is awesome but strays into outright fromage on occasion 

Bob Weir.

Paul McCartney 

Carlos Santana

The list is (contentious) and endless. Finally to upset the stoner rock fans Monster Magnet. Loved “Dopes to infinity”. Live I thought they were pure fondue.

Just now, TheGreek said:

Interesting...I bought one of his albums in the 80s - Strong Persuader -  on recommendation of a guitarist friend. He claimed that RC was bringing Blues back in the 80s and thus a credible musician.

I have that album. There’s no doubt “cheesy Bob” is a credible musician!

1 minute ago, TheGreek said:

Robert Cray cheesy??? Why?

I just find him a bit middle of the road and slightly naff .. yet love just about everything he does regardless.

I have always found Robert Cray to be simultaneously cheesy and magnificent.

1 hour ago, Ricky Rioli said:

The purpose of a neck is to keep the string taut. Is it unreasonable to think that the construction of the neck will make minute differences to how it does this? I can't see how it is.

In this particular discussion, though, they're missing half of the factors. One dimension is consistent, the 34" scale, and they talking about the second dimension, the nut width. But there's no standardisation for the third dimension, the depth: the specs for both J and P necks vary enormously but are rarely given. Also, no account is being taken of how the neck is constructed, or what else is in it.

It seems to be reasonable to say, the neck impacts the behaviour of the vibrating string, but to reduce that complex issue to just the width of the nut .... 

I have a Vintera P which I bought used and cheap as I love those cheesy 50’s surf colours. I wanted a split screen VW bus but settled on the bass …. anyhow digressing, the point is it has a 50’s contour neck but with modern roasted maple.

The neck is so light compared to the P neck on my US bitsa which has a 90’s Rosewood neck, but is so much denser (wood + whatever truss rod and frets are made of) So P necks with different profiles can vary dramatically depending on materials used.

The Vintera has less “thunder” but suspect that is because it has pickups that aren’t as hot as the active ones in the Bitsa!

They may as well say that no P basses are correct since 1957 as the neck profile has varied a lot since then.

I am of the opinion that all factors, wood, nut, neck profile etc make a small difference but the pickups influence the sound above all else.
Stick Precision pickups on a Jazz and the overwhelming sound is a P bass.

That said I agree with @Beedster I love meddling with Bitsa builds and it is interesting how the various combinations of neck and body can make a subtle but important difference to how a bass sounds.

I have been on the lookout for an early Duff Mckagan bass for years and there’s no issue with that J neck P body combo!

11 hours ago, Waddo Soqable said:

If you're going to be an "80s band", as I would understand it,  with popular appeal to dear old Joe and Jo Public, its the way of the world that you'll have to have a good generous slice of "cheese" on the table...

Indeed.. I never liked any of the massive 80’s bands. I just found Wham, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran etc to be ridiculous. A slightly podgy bloke and his mates from Essex or whatever dressed up like a wardrobe malfunction on the set of Dynasty WTF was that all about? Yet they certainly had a winning formula and some catchy songs that are still loved today so what do I know.

The one and only:

Simon Gallup

Pmd

My 2ps worth. If you recruited for and will be promoting yourself as an 80’s band then play just 80’s music. That’s  what people coming to see you will want to hear.  

I also think if you stick to a simple formula and do it well then the band has a good chance of being successful.

I agree with the previous comments there is nothing more tragic than a random covers band trying to master every genre and era.

On a personal note  I would rather hear a band playing music I loathe very well than the odd song I like played badly.

16 hours ago, TheGreek said:

 Thankfully today there are very few poor examples of basses, amps, electronics - certainly less than when I started playing back in the 80s.

However I'm sure there are brands which continue to churn out less than good equipment - I'd like to hear from the experience of others what I should avoid.

Share your experiences?

I think we’re about the same age with similar experiences of trying to find budget instruments in the ‘80s. Not only were the instruments cheap and nasty but the outlets to buy them were severely limited. No internet and a small selection of second hand shops that stocked instruments alongside other brick-a-brac made finding a decent cheap bass tricky.

I don’t think I have played anything in recent years that a couple of hours worth of setup wouldn’t sort out to be playable if not loveable.
Nowadays it would boil down to a bit of brand snobbery, aesthetics as well knowing that for a little more cash there is a better quality instrument that can be bought quickly and researched from the comfort of your home (online reviews, you tube demos etc),

It’s  the same with cars. There are loads of cheap models out there now that are more reliable than top makes back in the 80’s but feel cheap and nasty and are utterly bland to drive. Why bother unless you have to?