Al Krow

@PJ-Bassist couple of reviews above. Weight, I'd say 9.5 lbs (4strings) to 10.2 lbs (5strings) from comments made so far. Action and neck - I'm a little spoiled with great necks with my Ibbys and Yammys but I've not noticed anything untoward about the Sire. My action is not as low as some folk like to have theirs (e.g. @dave_bass5). Slightly oddly out of the box Andertons had set it up with raised E,A,D strings like you might see on an acoustic bass. I have since lowered, but didn't manage to get super low without fret buzz, but maybe a combination of slight truss rod adjustment would get me there if I wanted to lower the action further.

With the current bit of extra time on our collective hands, thought it would be good to get our collective recommendations for paid on line bass courses that are worth investing in. I appreciate that there is an absolute ton of free and very good material on-line. Some of the paid courses can, however, take things to the next level whilst still offering amazing value for money and maybe I'm old fashioned but I kinda think it's great to be able to support fellow musos for the their time and effort in creating and pulling together this material when we can (although I appreciate that some of them are doing incredibly well from their online channels!). For me, it also provides a bit more motivation for working through the material given that I have parted with hard earned cash! I have over the last few years become a big fan of Mark at Talking Bass and have really liked his free tutorials. I recently took the plunge with his 'Simple Steps to Slap' course costing $80 (approx £65). It's actually 53 lessons with full lesson material so effectively just over £1 a lesson and should keep me busy for 6 months or so in total (I'm half way through so far). Really happy to recommend this course - it's aimed I would say at a competent amateur with perhaps a couple of years bass playing under their belt rather than for a complete beginner. I've been playing fairly intensively for about 7 years now and it's been both enjoyable and a very useful intro the fun and percussive world of slap. As well as any excellent courses you've done, feel free to share if any paid courses you've taken have been a bit 'meh', that can be just as useful to know! [PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING 😊] What I'm really keen to find out are details of the specific PAID on-line courses you've taken and found really useful rather than generic recommendations of tutors. A little mini review along the lines below, which I can cut and paste, would be great. As I mentioned above I'm aware there is a ton of free very good material on-line, that's not what I'm looking for please. Summary of recommended courses: SBL Technique Accelerator Course - Scott Devine. About £100 and includes 24 video lessons with workbook and tells you what to practice each week (~20 mins/day at least 5 days a week) to remove some bad habits and improve overall technique/facility on the bass. Bass Mastery course - Joe Hubbard. Around £400 per year 48 lessons with video which is usually somewhere between 15 and 25 minutes and a pdf. Need to be able to read music notation as there is no tab. Basic Fundamentals course - Mark at Talking Bass for anyone needing to learning basic music theory. This is one of a series of lessons provided by Mark who has a clear and easy to follow style and comes highly recommended from several of us on this thread. Basic and intermediate course - Jeff Berlin. Aimed at teaching how to read bass clef music notation. $99 gets you access to 24 lessons of various sight reading etudes totalling 102 pages and access to video on Vimeo showing how they should be played properly. The lessons are emailed to you by PDF. Online Academy - Tony Grey subscription fee £24 per month. Well structured course covers both theory and technique (detailed contents - see JohnR's post on page 4). Zoltan's bass lounge - both electric and double bass. Courses (temporarily free) are normally £20 to £70. Tuition is on a 5 string bass and music notation rather than tabs. DiscoverDoubleBass - very affordable Artist Works Jazz Bass - John Patitucci. Three levels - beginner, intermediate, advanced - each with a number of lessons. Subscription e.g. $105 for 3 months gives access to the acoustic course also, plus a 4 lesson basic theory lesson. Videos for each lesson, and PDFs (notation only, no tab) for most lessons, as well as some backing tracks. John is a good teacher, and has relaxed and friendly style. The real bonus is that you can submit several of your own videos, and he'll respond personally, providing feedback on where you should improve. Simple Steps to Slap course - Mark at Talking Bass cost £65. 53 lessons with full lesson material including exercises and accompanying notation / tabs & drum tracks. Basic and Intermediate Slap courses - Stuart Clayton. £8 per course.

Aww shame mate, there will be opportunities aplenty I am sure in the not too distant future when you'll very welcome to pop round.

@PJ-Bassist you heard it first here! Save yourself £1,500...

Dirty Linen - Fairport Convention: have to fess not come across this particular track before. It's on at 42.00 of this clip if other folk are new to it like me. Really punchy PJ bass tone at the start of the song. No idea what make/model this 1976 bass is though!

Congrats - she's a beaut. Not sure whether that is bad QC or just dislodged in transport - not experienced any QC issues at all with any of the 4 Ibby basses I've had (3 of which are still in my herd), so am sorry to hear about the loose wire, but glad you managed to sort it out.

Wow! Have you really got one of those? Did you consider getting an octave pedal as an alternative? 😁

Is it just me, or does the headstock bear more than a little resemblance to the Sadowsky one? (And which IMO is not a bad design at all!)

Excellent! Better still please post a clip of you using the board live!

If you want an actual wah pedal included in the mix, then worth checking out this: As well as all the fx you mention which it does very well, it also includes: drum machine, really easy to use & free editing software plus aux in and ability to use as a very capable headphone amp - making it ideal for silent home practice. Accessible 'global' 3 band EQ and volume control is a really nice touch and not a feature available on most of the predecessor Zoom range, where these can only be adjusted by editing the individual patches, which is a ton less convenient on the fly. Excellent all rounder, particularly given its price point.

@Akio Dāku how does your set up mainly get used? Home use only, studio recording and/or live use solo or with a band?

Are the Ashdown ABMs D class? I guess I'd assumed given their size and weight they might not be.

I've kinda got a thing for parallel clean with drive pedals to maintain low end. This version 2 of the legendary Damnation Audio MBD1 came out a few months back in a more compact enclosure with a few additional enhancements. Looks good!

Yes exactly, so continuing down the bottom end for the A AA E F# A A E F# and then heading up to dusty end for second part of the phrase

Ever considered going half way and getting a Stagg 3/4 EUB? Don't cost the earth and are a lot of fun. And there is just something uber cool about playing walking bass on an upright! Does mean standing up to practice, though...

@hiram.k.hackenbacker meant to say, well done on getting your bass away - always nice when that happens. If it has been a 5er I would have been very very tempted myself!

btw @ead, whilst I'm being cheeky, is your full name 'eadg' or 'bead'? 😁

What else have you said that about over the years then? 😁 Look forward to you revealing all (about the bass)!

LSD (yeah they chose their name deliberately!) were simply outstanding. Their double bassist wrote a fair chunk of their material and provides a pretty decent BV to boot!

Oooh you little sneak! (Ok pot and kettle...tbf so did I, arrived on Tuesday 😁). What did you get? Pics please!

Damn! Those gals can play!!

Well you could get 4 of these basses for that money. I just got the one, oh and the BF cab in the picture and maybe a VT Bass DI pedal as well at the start of this week. Fortunately @bassfan hasn't noticed so, I've not been marked absent yet 😁

Well if you're a BJ tribute band then I guess you should emulate their live set by doing both back to back eh 😉 I suspect it would go down a storm...hmmm wonder if I can persuade my crew to include in our set!

I often find myself thinking that certain songs are very close in some or a lot of aspects to others I've heard. I couldn't help but think that the Keep the Faith had a lot of similarities in the bass line / rhythm section to the Stones "Sympathy for the Devil". Did a search a while back and turns out that Bon Jovi were in full agreement!

What is nicely showy on that one is including the second half of the bass solo riff an octave up at the dusty end part way through the solo. 24 fret basses definitely help!