Passinwind

22 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Interesting read. Thank you.

There's still time to fix that logo... 😄

The ones with the duff logo are going to be collector's items, mark my words. 😎

9 hours ago, Basilpea said:

Anyway, that's where I am at the moment - any more advice will be much appreciated.

 

FWIW, a good friend of mine owns a lined fretless 4-string Rob Allen Mouse. In all honesty I greatly prefer the sound and feel of the various standard scale RA basses I've played over the years at GTGs. All the RA basses I've tried have been piezo-only though. I'll admit that I've been less than thrilled with any short scale bass all the way back to the EB-O I started on a zillion years ago as well. BTW, there's a pic of an unlined Turner Ren 5 on the latest page of the Turner "club" thread on TB.

On 17/01/2020 at 07:33, therealting said:

Lots of companies show prototypes at NAMM with handwritten labelling and the like. If they sound and feel good enough, then the aesthetic details are sorted out in time to meet shipping deadlines in the summer etc.

Yep. I see lots of that every year and many production pieces look substantially different by the time they get to market.

16 hours ago, stevie said:

It's interesting to see how many builders have decided against having a standard black cabinet. I guess that's one of the benefits of DIY.

My wife actually made me promise not to build any more black cabs over a decade ago. And I'm considerably more than OK with that. 😎

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

Yup, the second guy was awesome ... amazing masterclass in standing very still while staring at a tablet on a music stand and playing lots of (rather pointless) notes very quickly. Unfortunately, when I woke up he'd finished.

 

Bummer. Damian plays a whole lot of other styles, some of which I really dig, but NAMM chops is NAMM chops. Hence my absence from that and all similar off-site events. 

I have a bunch of these in different sizes: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Cuff-0803-Adjustable-Re-Usable/dp/B0051PUJC8

On 23/01/2020 at 13:37, GuyR said:

Rick Turner Renaissance basses also sound great, but rare in UK

I played a fretless Ren bass at NAMM last week. It was a four and had lines, but it was very nice. RT is a great guy too, I really enjoyed talking to him. No idea on scale length options and the like though. 

4 hours ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

It did not say! On purpose, I think: 'we're not giving you any publicity at all after we've chucked you out of the show'.

I think they always put that sign up somewhere near the front in an unused space as a warning. I meant to look up that booth on the show locator map to see if it was legit, but I really needed to hear more slap bass first (as if) and then I forgot about it. At least a few people do get shown the door every year for real in any case.

39 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Not expecting Ibanez to do it, but I think most of dingwall basses are available fanned fret(less).

A friend of mine has one, but I think It was a conversion.

I'll be camped out right across from the Ibanez booth at NAMM and will be sure to check these out.

Classic = old, plain and simple. Nothing to do with the quality of the material whatsoever. All the rest is subjective fluff...oh, wait!

2 hours ago, deepbass5 said:

Just wondering how many of you out there have lost the enthusiasm to lug tonnes of gear round the country of an evening.

Does the lure of the next Gig still drive you to carry on or do you long for quite nights in and summer evenings in the garden at home.

Neither one really. 2019 was my first year without any gigs in decades and I'm fine with that, but eventually I'll probably at least start taking sub calls again. I typically get out of the house at least weekly for a long running house jam that suits me pretty well and I can just walk to that one.

Unlined fretless has been my main squeeze since 1977, when I bought a brand new Travis Bean fretless. That was actually the only bass I owned for a twenty year stint. In 2003 I finally got another one, this sapele bodied Crescent Moon custom build by the late Craig Mueller:

I sold the Bean a couple of years ago, and then last year my good friend Marco Cortes at Marco Bass Guitars made this one for me out of pre-built bits he had kicking around the shop, save the custom neo sidewinder pickups he wound for me:

For the last few years I'd been using EB Cobalt Flats on the Crescent Moon, but I'm currently trying a set of DR Sunbeam roundwounds on it. That works better for my slide bass schtick, but time will tell if the switch will be permanent. I started off with GHS Pressurewounds on the Marco Bass, but just recently put on a set of SIT Silencers, which are a little brighter and seem to suit me better. I do my own onboard preamps for all my bass guitars (my designs, my builds), and am a firmly active-only kind of a guy.

I'll have a semi-official presence at the Marco Bass Guitars booth, Hall D #4728. There will be at least one of my amps in the booth, plus a number of basses featuring my latest onboard preamps.

I'm planning on being there at 10AM and 2:30PM Thurs-Fri-Sat for at least an hour  in each instance for sure, and then it may be hit or miss the rest of the time since I intend to float around a lot. But as always, the show is mostly about the people for me and I will be happy to go wherever it takes for a meet up.

I use a wide variety of solutions. Just recently bought a set of these D'Addario ones, which I like a lot so far: https://www.amazon.com/DAddario-Accessories-Guitar-Strap-PW-DLC-01/dp/B073WNCLLF

The Grolsch or hardware store fender washers are my least favorite, I've seen them pop off way too often.

Nice to see what she's up to these days. I saw her sit in with some friends quite a few years ago a few times in a local hotel bar, just before she moved to New York. Her parents were very cool and had their heads screwed on straight, but it seems that she still had to pay her dues and find her own way anyhow.

On 24/09/2019 at 05:18, cheddatom said:

I always thought that as most of the audience are there (or should be) to see the headline act, then they would see it as a climax anyway.

Not if their ears are all used up by the time the headliner comes on. Which is one of many reasons that I've always  preferred single band shows in clubs.

On 06/09/2019 at 10:07, Stub Mandrel said:

I think some manufacturers are basically lazy and make fretless basses simply by leaving the frets off.

Also, 'defretted' basses will be this way.

Yep. When we were spec'ing out my new fretless late last year my luthier friend had several potential conversion necks already made up with fret slots and "fretted" side dot markers that he tried to give me, and he acted like my request for unlined and only minimal side dots where usable notes are was unusual. I didn't want to be too hard line since it was partially a gift, but I had to put my foot down on that one.

20 hours ago, bassfan said:

Following on from the ever popular “how many basses do you own??? “ by @musicbassman

I’m curious to to know how many of those people that own multiple basses, myself included, ever take more than one out of the house? Do you rotate them? Do you have different basses for different bands/gigs?

 

All four that I own leave the house regularly. I'm not currently gigging, but each band or act typically had a preference for one or another. When I go to my weekly jam or an open mic I often try  to figure out which one has been sitting at home the longest, or in the very rare case that I have something new I'll concnetrate on that one for at least several months. I also frequently have a bass around that I'm working on for my luthier friend, doing custom preamp installs, and I always try to take those out in public at least once before I bring them back to his shop.

I almost never bring more than one bass along, just every once in a while if I'm doing my originals duo thing with just a drummer and myself. In that case I usually bring a guitar too.

Up to 4 now, the most ever in 47+ years of playing. 2 fretless fours, one fretted five, and an EUB.  I really only have the time to keep up on two regularly, but two BGs and one upright would be my ideal if I could make room for an acoustic upright. I despise selling stuff so I'll probably just stick with things as they are in any case.

20 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Let me tell you a little story that happened to a friend of mine. He ordered last year an F-Bass Alain Caron Replica 6 strings through the official retailer in Paris. His bass along with 4 others were blocked by the French customs because one of them had a rosewood fingerboard, but they didn't know which one it was. UPS France did a terrific job by loosing the official CITES certificate that MUST be original. After 4 months of waiting I wrote to Marcel Furlanetto as my friend doesn't speak English at all and Marcel sorted it all within 2 weeks. My friend got his F-Bass Alain Caron Replica 6 by the end of January 2019 instead of early September 2018... And this just because of the total incompetence in that matter by the French customs which preferred to block 5 basses when only one needed a CITES certificate.

I don't think they can really tell the difference between plastic and wood.

In the USA, you've got specialised offices; in Europe, we have dumber than dumb customs officers.

It's about time that the guys at the CITES realise that the musical instruments are absolutely not endangering the woods of Appendix I, II and III, and focus on the real culprits.

It's a real mess, even if you deal with a sympathetic and competent agent as I did. In my case the bass was old enough to be exempt from the Appendix II regulations, but I still needed two different permits from completely different entities to document that exempt status, which took a couple of months to come through in one case. And the bass still got impounded in Europe, since the guy on the other end hadn't realized he needed his own importer's permit. Fortunately he was able to procure that permit very quickly, but that seems to vary wildly country by country.

19 hours ago, Dood said:

Which raises the question, given that customs and excise probably don't know their Brazilian from their Indian, will instruments with what looks like Rosewood on be halted in passage anyway, no matter where it came from. Thus, it's probably not going to be that helpful lifting restrictions. Border control are still going to be busy and bits of paper will still need to be signed - and paid for? 

At least in the case of the US Fish and Wildlife senior inspector I met and dealt with when exporting an old bass, he was extremely well versed in identifying wood, and fully capable of taking a core sample and using an electron microscope and other relevant tools. But at the same time, he was very friendly and respectful and the last thing he wanted to do was molest my 40 year old bass. I brought along extensive documentation and he went online to verify it on the spot, FWIW. The process was very onerous and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I was lucky enough for it to only take a 13 hour day to drive to the nearest of the dozen or so specialist inspection stations in the US, get it shipped out from the same city (which was highly recommended), and drive back home. 

1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

At last, some people opened the eyes and ears of the bureaucratic people at the CITES. And it was about time. Being a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard lover for my fretless basses, it became a real hassle to buy basses fitted with this wood... And I'm not even talking of selling some of them.

Hope this will really take place at the soonest.

Brazilian rosewood apparently will still not be exempt, as it is  explicitly listed in Appendix I and the new legislation applies to Appendix II species.

On 11/08/2019 at 09:19, funkgod said:

I am interested to see how many musicians think music is getting worse, cant just be me. i will be honest i don't know what is in the charts right now, i think as we get older we choose a direction and tend to explore that to the point of it getting so involved everything goes by the way side, i am very guilty of this, on saying this i do believe music is getting worse. here is a vid, i wonder how many people agree with this, and the big question for those that agree  is there a way back ?

i realise this topic is going to open a few cans, so i am going to try add a poll to see if you agree with the vid or not. Be interesting to see the outcome.

The TRUTH Why Modern Music Is Awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

I got a minute into the 2 1/2 minute commercial at the front end. Nope, that's a fail.  And I do believe that consuming music via videos rather than in audio format is the Debbil's Work.   But beyond that, what's on the charts stopped mattering when I hit puberty and gained the ability to buy whatever music I wanted to listen to. From my perspective, I still have acccess to all the old stuff (if it was recorded it's modern in my book) plus whatever new things I happen to find today or tomorrow or next week. I just don't see how that can be construed as being worse.

On 14/07/2019 at 00:27, Newfoundfreedom said:

I can't be the only one, can I?

Hate is a bit too strong a word in my case, but I haven't played a single gig yet this year and that doesn't bother me in the least. I did two last year, both sub gigs I got calls for on the day of the show. I've always preferred working on the technical/production side as far as live music, but I stopped doing that several years ago and don't really miss that either. Any and all of that could change tomorrow, or not. But the important thing is that I'm enjoying playing bass more these days than ever before, either by myself or in a few different regular jams I'm involved in.