Al Krow

Btw great shout adding Rutger! Out of interest why this bass line rather than perhaps something like his awesome bass line to Dancing Queen? I kinda feel he's a spiritual successor to Carol Kaye - any merit in that thought?

Oooh...Macca has just slipped to third 😊

Yeah fair enough. Full price of a Helix Stomp XL is around £600. If that also comes with a USB cable, I'll concede the point.

Maybe wrong, but I'm not sure any of the Helix in the comparable price range to the SY-300 does though? Yours was a £1k+ product. I agree with @Woodinblack the more important thing is the right power supply - can't use it without one. For me, a USB cable costs a few quid and is not worth stressing about, particularly when you've just bagged a bargain? And the even more important thing is if the SY-300 is actually any good / going to be usable live?

But there's definitely some love - Les Claypool, MM and Flea have all got 7 votes apiece. I think most of us would take our hats off to pretty much everyone in that list of 30 even if they didn't quite make it into our top 3.

Interestingly Mixcraft has been described as being the "closest you will get to Garage Band on a Windows system". It's < £100 and allows video editing too. I take @Happy Jack's point. But I think we shouldn't devalue our time either, so if a particular daw is say £40 cheaper but its UI is much less intuitive and takes a lot more time/effort to get used to, then I'd want to take that into account when evaluating cost and value.

Sold Frank an octave pedal. It's always a pleasure dealing with him: top bloke and very smooth transaction.

With exactly 100 votes in, the BC verdict on our favourite bass players is as follows:

We will be in touch, please leave your contact details after the tone. No need to call back if you don't hear from us.

Appreciate that's frustrating although, trying to remember, and I'm not sure if any of my pedals which have needed USB type-B cables to connect have actually been supplied with them in the box.

I mean, should I be feeling quite so smug that my three choices (Jamerson, Entwistle and Geddy Lee) have all made it into the top 10? Or does it merely confirm what a boring / conventional bass player I am who needs to get out more? 😅

Absolutely! Although also doubling up as a really useful survey of the views of musicians who know and appreciate bass probably better than anyone else. I think if we asked the public at large, most would probably not even heard of James Jamerson? They would obviously know Paul McCartney but I bet half of them wouldn't know he played bass, haha! Plus also I think you can only replace the names of the bottom few and not the votes already cast against them, so ideally the most popular choices need to be listed from the start. If I/we run this again next year, we can maybe replace the least popular in this poll with some of the suggestions folk have made along the way.

Bumping this old but excellent thread 😊 Nice little article from Music Radar - pretty up to date (Sept 2023): 5 underrated DAWs that aren't Logic, Ableton or Pro Tools, and why you should consider switching | MusicRadar

Guess I've got the same question as @JohnDaBass ie can you hear quite a difference between the B1-4 and B2-4 in terms of sound quality?

With 75 85 95 esteemed BC'ers already having cast their votes, seems like there's a definite "Top 5": 1. James Jamerson 2. Paul McCartney 3. Pino Palladino Bernard Edwards 4. Bernard Edwards Pino Palladino 5. John Entwistle With a chasing pack of: 6. Chris Squire 7. Duck Dunn 8. Carol Kaye 7= Geddy Lee 9. John Paul Jones 10= Jaco Pastorius 10. Geddy Lee 9= Carol Kaye 10= Jack Bruce 9= Geezer Butler

I love working with drummers who have electronic kits. Can pretty much choose any kit they want and can get the FoH very nicely balanced.

Cos we've 30 slots only alas. Which of the greats would you drop to make way for them?

As in I've swapped him out for Flea, so hopefully Flea gets some votes...isn't he due one from you?

I think knowing the final answer in advance is going to make it a bit less exciting, haha! It's a shame we can't include a wider selection but it's interesting which names regularly feature that are not on the list, so maybe next Xmas we can do a more refined list (or @Dad3353 will help me figure out how we can broaden the poll). What I do love about our poll, though, is that's there's perhaps no more thought-through a group of musicians to be asking this particular question to.

I know, I know...but which of the greats would you cast aside to make room for Steve H? And how about posting a clip of his best bass line ever to make up for his absence on the poll (limited to 30)?

Ok gents Mr Wooten has had a flea in his ear...

Well if Victor Wooten doesn't get any votes soon...😅

Ok I'm gonna fess up that I'm (pleasantly?) surprised at how popular Macca is as a bass player (he wasn't in my top 3). Tbf his post 1965 James Jamerson inspired playing is in a different league to some of his more plodding early Beatles stuff, but was he that good as a "standalone" bassist that he's currently coming in 2nd on our poll? I suppose the equivalent would be our lead vox saying he wasn't an amazing vocalist either - I mean he was no Aretha Franklin. But I guess it's the combination of singer-songwriter-bass player which puts him into the stratosphere, and a combination which very few others (Geddy Lee?) have managed to scale.

Not at all, was just playing catch up in order of posts...and the available 30 slots now all unfortunately gone.

Ah seems we are limited to a total poll list of 30...so despite my best intentions the list is now closed! Sorry to those of you who's favourites I've not managed to list.