SubsonicSimpleton

I was aware of the trick of using 4/4 mittels on 3/4 scale to get lower tension while retaining the heavier gauge, I found quite a lot of discussion about it over on talkbass. My instinct is to start on the weichs and leave experimentation with heavier tensions and different string types till I have a good handle on the instrument, for now I just need something that works without exposing myself to unneccessary risk of injury.

As it is a high mileage valve amp, it is quite possible that components other than the valves will need to be replaced even if they haven't failed, might be an idea to get it checked over by a good amp tech and get a full assessment of what needs doing before you start ordering parts or negotiating prices. I would suggest that you investigate the cost of replacing the capacitors and transformer rewinding - I've no idea what the output tranformer specs are, but you probably won't be able to buy an off the shelf replacement, so having an idea of who you'll need to take it to and a rough idea of the cost of a rewind might be a good idea should this be necessary. It's always good to see quality engineered items being restored to their former glory, but it is often the case that the work needed is more extensive and expensive than an optimistic first look might indicate especially when something has been run into the ground. Good luck.

The bass will go directly to the luthier for setup when it arrives - I've played a handful of cheaper DBs that have come up for sale secondhand along with a new stentor student and they were all pretty much unplayable, no real suprise that people buy them on a whim and then give up. The spirocores looked like the best choice from my research, benefits including extreme longevity, reasonably bowable once worn in and magnetic pickup friendly should I need to amplify - the schaller 411 looks like a much simpler and cheaper option than piezos & preamp if I'm understanding what I've been reading correctly. There is no substitute for hands on experience with these matters though, and I was unable to get to the DB bash, so missed that opportunity to get a wider sample of the sound and feel of different strings. I understand that finding an ideal match between strings & bass isn't straightforward, but after the research time I've put in, and going to look at DBs in reasonable travelling distance I'm pretty fed up and just want to make some music.

You might want to take a look at this thread http://basschat.co.uk/topic/227904-1x12-cab-design-diary/ The Beyma SM212 driver (tested in the prototype cabs) is very well specified and costs £79 at blue arran.

I'm going to be ordering a strunal 50/4 shortly, and would appreciate recomendations on decent finger friendly pizz strings so I can maximise my enjoyment and playtime while I develope technique and callouses. I played a properly set up primavera strung with innovation honeys at the weekend, and the string tension seemed easy enough to deal with but I didn't really get to spend long enough with the instrument to see how tiring they are to play over a longer period. I've read through the reviews in the innovation trial section, but I don't really have enough experience with DB to gain much meaningful information from the reviews, as they are mostly comparative to experiences players have had with other strings on their basses. I've already got a proper teacher lined up for some lessons to make sure I start off with good habits, I've found a good luthier to set my bass up when I get it so it will be really playable, the main ingredient I'm missing is strings - spiro mittels are widely touted as the default jazz pizz string, but I'm not really sure whether they would be a good choice for learning to play on. So help me out please, what's going to give me a nice punchy pizz sound and not induce crippling tendonitis.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1414065031' post='2585346'] @SonicSimpleton - I'll give that a go. Now that you point it out, one of my books by Ed Friedman recommends putting the ticks on beats 2 and 4 etc. I need to practice that more. [/quote] That exercise I outlined is pretty dry and technical and good for highlighting basic issues, but the beauty of using the metronome like this is that you can work on changing the feel of something while also maintaining solid time which is much more creative - take a simple melodic idea and play it straight, make it swing, make it funky, play with variations of syncopation, change the amount of space etc etc without the feel being dictated by the drum machine.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1414053545' post='2585126'] I've seen many comments that playing with a metronome [b]or drum machine[/b] is a good idea. I just wondered if there was an argument for metronome only. I'm playing extensively versus drum machine at the moment. TBH, after my wakeup call, I'm not interested in learning to be able to play things I can't already play, for the meantime, I just want better timing and better control of dynamics. [/quote] If you play vs a drum machine, the drum pattern is making the time explicit down to the smallest subdivisions, if you play to a metronome set only to click on beat 2 & 4 you have to rely on your own internal clock to keep you in sync. Try this - at a reasonable tempo like 80bpm with the metronome clicking on every beat, play up an down a one octave scale one note per beat, starting playing whole notes e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C,B,A,G,F,E,D,C, then switch to eighths but keep one scale note per beat (C,C,D,D...etc) without breaking your stride, then triplet eighths (C,C,C,D,D,D..etc) then sixteenths (C,C,C,C,D,D,D,D ETC) what you want to achieve is nice even flow of notes with the first note of each group landing on the click. Once you have that down, set the metronome to half the speed you had it set at, (or if you have a fancy one set it to click only on beat 2 and 4), so you play at the same tempo, but you now have half the information from the metronome to keep you in time and no explicit indication of where the 1 is - repeat the exercise and see if you can play it smoothly and reliably hit the first note of the groups that land on 2 and 4 in sync with the metronome. If you can do that easily try slowing the tempo down even further and see what happens to your accuracy. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Oldschool Peavy gear is very solid, but bear in mind that Peavey manufactured most of their stuff in their own facilities since the company started, in recent years however they have been outsourcing their manufacturing, so it would be somewhat unwise IMHO to assume that the new stuff is going to be as solidly built as the old stuff. Also worth noting that not all older Peavey gear is equally well loved - the black widow equipped cabs and combos are good, the blue marvel equipped ones are meh. Wattage ratings are fairly meaningless, but they give the manufacturers numbers to put in their advertising copy, but what they don't tell you is whether the speaker in the combo can translate this power into sound effectively, reliably, and whether it will sound good while doing it. The speaker cab is crucial to translating the amps electrical output into sound - good quality drivers don't come cheap, and in the super cheap combos you most certainly won't be getting good quality speaker drivers. The cheap drivers in low end combos might sound OK at lower volumes, but whether they can handle the amp being cranked and live to tell the tale is another matter, and you might want to check if replacement drivers are available and how much they cost before commiting. Go play through some amps at your local music shops, and make a point of trying the better quality stuff as well as the things you can immediately afford - if you don't have a frame of reference, how can you tell what will fit your requirements or expectations?

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1413890873' post='2583134'] Tone wise (and comfort) I actually prefer my old 74 Jazz - with custom Wizard PUs and an EMG pre. All the tones are instantly useable, fat and growly... but I do like having the option of an end-of-the-neck pickup too, for that 60s vibe. My Jazz has a neck like a baseball bat though, so it's not that comfy on a 4 hour gig. [/quote] Get a Squier vintage modified 70s jazz, then route it for the extra pickup you want, and slap in the pickups and preamp you want and job done - every box ticked except the neckthru one.

Following on from what truckstop wrote, when I started have pain issues I was really fearing that injury problems were going to stop or severely limit my ability to play - I tracked down my nearest proper bass teacher and gave him a call, explained my concerns and booked a lesson, he spent the hour running me through various exercises and looking over all aspects of how I was playing, and gave me some really good constructive criticism on things that I could change to make my playing more efficient and kinder to my joints and tendons. He also recommended that I could get a referral from my GP to have a CT scan of my hands and wrists, so maybe it would be worth doing something similar Kev, and get a checkup of your technique if you haven't done so already.

Just a thought, but what gauge strings are you using kevvo66? I was suffering from a lot of joint pain, and had concerns with the beginning symptoms of tendonitis and changing from 45-105 to 35-95 yielded instantaneous relief from all the discomfort. It's a very cheap quick option to try if you haven't given it a go yet.

Scott Whitley's youtube vids are worth a look IMHO, he posts in the technique forum here; http://basschat.co.uk/topic/239073-the-slap-bass-lick-library-is-here/ I'm pretty sure he also has some videos focussing on basic technique as well, but his slap licks vids put the techniques into a musical context that is more interesting than practising dry technical exercises.

Before getting into testing different woods against each other, I think you would first have to satisfy the following question; If you felled a single tree of one species and then made a number of bodies from the timber, would you get a variation depending on which part of the tree the wood came from?

Maybe you need to stop obsessing about trying to find a perfect solution and simply enjoy playing what you do have access to.

Might be worth checking the cables you are using between bass, effects and amp - if they are poor quality or in bad shape you could be losing tone and volume from your bass before it gets to the amp input.

Before you throw in the towel, how about trying getting them to play a new song, but you provide the charts - the lyrics with chords arrangements you linked look like the sh*te you will find on the online guitar tab websites. It is quite possible that these guys haven't played with a proper chart before, they might rise to the challenge and respond positively, in which case it might be possible to approach a couple of songs like this and then get them out to a jam night to break the gigging duck. Sounds to me like you have come to a situation where several musicians have been playing without a certain instrument, or with someone incompetant and they have adjusted their approach to compensate - I would expect them to continue to play the music they already know the same way they have been doing, so to really see whether they can accomodate you properly within the band, you need to see what happens when you all learn something fresh and you are an integral part of the process from the beginning. Just be smart about what you suggest they try - if you pick songs by artists they like, preferably with obvious key & guitar parts that will be fun for them to play and fairly easy for them to learn you are much more likely to be successful, anything that would take them outside their comfort zone will likely meet resistance.

I went to look at a stentor student 3/4 DB locally recently, and noted down the colours of the string silks, with the intention of identifying them using the quinn violin database to find out what type and tension strings they were - didn't pay attention to the ball ends, and the quinn site isn't giving me a conclusive answer - it changes with each string. here are a couple of links to other stentors with decent pics http://basschat.co.uk/topic/246686-double-bass-for-sale/ this one on gumtree shows the pegbox end clearly http://www.gumtree.com/p/double-bass/stentor-conservatoire-double-bass-some-impact-damage-otherwise-excellent-condition/1083710925 E black A Green D blue G purple Can any of you shed any light on what these strings are?

See if this vid from DB makers Upton is helpful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BXHu-s7BnI

I would suggest that it isn't worth buying an amp until you actually need one - for home practice a unit like the [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/zoom_b1on.htm"]zoom B1on[/url] offers a ton of really useful features that you won't find on a dedicated bass amp(like drum machine, looping etc), and if you are beginning your journey into playing bass, then being able to practice often is way more beneficial than being able to practice loud IMHO. The zoom B3 is a step up as it will function as a USB audio interface for recording on PC/MAC and has a proper DI output for live/recording, and your PC really gives access to a ton of excellent educational and creative musical resources. Most rehearsal spaces have cheap amp hire, which means that if you are considering joining a band, you can meet up and play with them before committing to purchasing an amp, and then buy something with a good idea of what you need for that particular musical situation. My local rehearsal studio also hire amps off premises on a day basis, so it isn't strictly necessary to own an amp, but worth noting that the more often you need to use it the more sense it makes to own one. Try to be realistic about what you need the amp for, and your personal circumstances - if you join a band that practices in the drummers garage/cellar, plays mostly for fun, and doesn't require moving kit about constantly, then there is plenty of cheap secondhand bargains that are unfashionable, bulky and heavy but will still get the job done reliably and allow you to enjoy playing with others in a band situation. Usually for these type of bands, gigging will involve (initially at least) playing a handful of songs at a jam night, or supporting other local bands, and in both cases it may be completely unnecessary to cart an amp to the venue (jam nights usually have backline provided, on support slots you might be able to arrange to use the headliners amp if you ask nicely beforehand). If you are playing in a band that gigs frequently, or multiple bands and you need to move your amplification about a lot, maybe even using public transport, then the more expensive lightweight gear is a good(or even essential) investment, but this route can be very costly even secondhand, so the more time you have to save if you don't need an amp right now, the better.

Buy a trolley to make moving the marshall about easier.

Four strings are good for bitsa builds, 5 strings not so much (less choice of parts, and what is available is much more expensive). If something like a Squier VM 5 isn't good enough for you, just save the cash and buy a Fender deluxe 5 secondhand, you won't save any money attempting to build a 5 from bits.

There was one for sale on here some years back http://basschat.co.uk/topic/97624-soldyamaha-attitude-standard-bass-and-peavey-microbass-combo/

Does the bass need to be humidified? Wood shrinks as it loses moisture content, and if it is being kept in a modern centrally heated house it may dry out enough to create shrinkage cracks.

Theory allows you to accurately describe what sounds cool, understand the relationship between the different musical elements in the music you are playing, and increases your ability to reuse a musical idea in a different situation - my impression is that a lot of people are turned off by the mathematical and technical language if they attempt something like associated board grade 5 theory at evening classes, but there are more accessible sources of information and knowing this stuff will make you a better musician overall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bvgAbWRdIA

You might want to demount one of the drivers and have a look at the innards of the cab before committing to surgery if you are considering fitting a recessed handle that will necessitate cutting into the cab carcass - altering the structural integrity of the cab might have unintended consequences which will be pretty much irreversible. There is a completely non-invasive solution you could try, if you loop a suitable strap round the cab ([url="http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/25989100/"]something like this [/url]or [url="http://www.maypole.ltd.uk/MP6072-LUGGAGE-STRAP%3CBR%3E25MM-x-2.5M%3CBR%3E250Kg-GS-PK2_47774-15791"]this[/url]) you can provide yourself with one or more additional lifting/dragging points to help make manouvreing the cab in and out of the boot easier.