mike313

[quote name='Graham' timestamp='1483184438' post='3205255'] Just to make things awkward, if you don't need the low B, have you considered tuning a five string E to C? However, going on the specs alone of the three you've identified, I'd guess the second ESP would fit the bill best - through neck, exotic wood and 34" scale, which I think would be preferable for the upper register. [/quote] I thought about a 5 string E to C, but I cant find any bass sold with that configuration, so I should use a normal 5er and send it to the luthier to make the changes. The thing is I dont really trust the luthiers in my city for such a delicate job. I need the bass to have perfect tuning on the upper neck, decently low action and a consistent tone across the strings. I really fear a luthier converting a normal 5er to an E to C would mess up something, so I prefer to buy a standard 6 strings. Yeah the second ESP is my favourite between the 3 basses, but I'll wait for some other opinion before pulling the trigger on that. Thanks a lot and happy new year.

Hello, I am going to buy a 6 stringer mainly for composing with chords, arpeggios and some tapping. So I will be playing mostly in the upper neck and dont care much about the sound of the B string and low frequencies in general. I need a clean sound. Ultimately I am down to choosing between 3 basses. I would like to know, based on the woods and how they are made, which one you think is the best for my scope. 1- ESP LTD B206:[list] [*]Ash body with spalted maple top [*]6-Piece bolt-on maple/walnut neck [*]35" scale [*]Rosewood fingerboard [*]24 XJ frets [/list] 2 - ESP LTD D-6:[list] [*]Neck-thru-body [*]34" scale [*]Merbau body [*]5-piece mahogany/maple neck [*]Rosewood fingerboard [*]24 XJ frets [/list] 3 - Ibanez SR506[list] [*]5-piece SR6 bolt-on neck crafted of jatoba and bubinga [*]Sculpted mahogany body [*]Rosewood fretboard with 24 medium frets [*]34" scale [/list] They all cost the same and I dont care about things like weight or aesthetics, so it is really just a matter of which will sound best for the kind of music I will make. Unfortunately I have no opportunity to test the basses before buying, as I cant find any of them in any shop in my city. I know nothing about woods and such things, so please help me!

Thanks for the advice. Its not defretted, it is factory fretless, and it has the frets painted.

Hi, im going to buy my first fretless electric bass. I will buy a second hand instrument, still not sure wich one, but im looking at a Peavey Foundation right now. From the pictures in the listening it looks like it could be around 15 years old. It has some minor scratches on the body but in general looks like it is in good condition. I will have the opportunity of trying it before buying it. I would like to know, when I will have the instrument in my hands, what should I check? I know next to nothing about fretless basses. I suppose the neck could be worn-out from use, not having the frets between cords and wood? How much worn-out is accetable? Also, not having frets it is supposed to sound clean and not make any "buzz noise" in any point of the neck? There is something in particular I should check? Thanks in advance!

Hi, I have a question for players who regularly use the palm mute technique, the one where you rest the side of your right hand on the string right next to the bridge and play with the thumb. Ed Friedland talks about this technique here: [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP76f4XtlWk"]https://www.youtube....h?v=MP76f4XtlWk[/url] I really like the sound you get with this technique, especially for playing reggae and jazz walking bass. The problem is I cant really stand to play with the right hand in palm mute position for long periods of time, as putting the hand in that position gives me a pain in the shoulder and/or in the side of the hand. So after some minutes I have to switch to normal position, at least for a bit, to recover from the pain. I was wondering if someone uses this technique regularly for prolonged periods of time. Do you have some suggestions on how to position my hand and arm in order to avoid pain and play in a relaxed state, like when playing normal fingerstyle?

Hi, I teach bass and I imagine many other users of this site do the same. I think it would be great to have a thread where we can exchange ideas about the best exercises, teaching techniques and general experiences about teaching bass. I only teach part time to a few students, in general beginner-intermediate level players. I really like it and I want to improve in my teaching. I would like to ear from everyone about the one or two exercises that they find to be the most useful and/or the most liked by students. In my case, I see my students really like the classic Wooten exercise with the drum playing a 4 bar loop with the last bar muted, or the last 2 or 3 bars etc... You have to play a phrase (or even just a note) and keep playing and be in sync with the drum when the drum comes back from the silence. That is an easy exercise you can do even if you never played a musical instrument before. It is also fun and easy to self-evaluate. Also very useful to develop internal clock. Another one they like is when I play a short phrase on my bass without them looking, and then they have to reproduce the phrase on their bass and also tell me in what key it is.

Thanks a lot to everyone for the help. Thanks JapanAxe for offering to take a look at the amp but I live far away from you, and thanks to HowieBass for the pdf, but I know nothing about circuit schematic. Maybe I'll try to open the amp it and take a look to see if I can find the problem, but anyway it is just a small unexpensive practice ampo. Lesson learned!!

I left it turned off for the whole night....

Hi, Yesterday I was experimenting with a small practice amp I have (Behringer BT108) and I made the mistake of looping the out to the in: I had a cable going from the headphones out to an external audio interface and then from the audio interface back to the amp's cd player IN. Please dont laugh too much at me, I know it is a retarded idea but I was just experimenting and didnt realized what I was doing until later. I plugged in the bass and played some notes and obviously no sound came out of it, but i saw the audio interface clipping indicator going red for some seconds and then nothing. Now the amp does not produce any sound at all from the speaker, even if the power light is on. If I put on headphones I can hear the bass playing at a very low volume and the sound is heavily distorted. I wonder what did I have done? It is possible to fix it? Luckily it is just an old practice amp with no real value, but I would like to know what it is that I have broken. A fuse? The speaker? I have no idea. Thanks for any help

Hi, I was watching this video in which Madrid based bass virtuoso Alain Perez plays some flamenco chops. (starts at 5:50) [url="http://youtu.be/p72R59wgLOo?t=5m50s"]http://youtu.be/p72R59wgLOo?t=5m50s[/url] I noticed he never use the middle finger of his right hand, alternating instead the index and the ring finger. I remembered some time ago i saw another very good bassist playing live like that, playing fingerstyle and never using the middle finger. Honestly that night i thought the guy had some problem with his middle finger, so he could not use it, but now I realize this is a real, alternative technique. Does anybody knows from where this technique comes and what is the advantage of using the ring finger instead of the middle finger?

Hi, I am working on my sight reading and I have a big problem caused by the years I spent playing saxophone and reading in treble clef when I was a child. Even after many years of bass playing I realized that everytime I read a bass part I am actually still insta-translating from the treble clef. Example: if I see a C note in bass clef in my mind I will initially read that as an A (as it is in treble clef) and then immediately translate it in my mind to a C. This is working fine in the sense that I can read with good speed and accuracy, but obviously it is slowing me down a lot. Does anybody had the same problem? How could I go about "erasing" treble clef from my brain? I thought about writing like a thousand of times every note on paper with the relative correct (bass clef) name aside, to try and hack my brain into reformulating his musical notes patterns.