DylanB

Sold Sean some strings, smooth transaction, no issues. Thanks Sean!

From a practice point of view lockdown has been a positive for me. I’ve taken on a teacher, and have sectioned off an hour a day to practice (which I often use!). As a result my walking skills have gone through the roof, comparatively speaking.

The Soul Vaccination live album is fantastic. One of the albums that brought me to TOP. Saw them a couple of times, once at the Astoria and then at the Indigo2 I believe. Incredible live band. Rocco was one of the greatest ever. Everyone talks about the muting technique but his overall sense of feel was insane. Rocco + Garibaldi 😍

Finally got round to taking my Elixirs off and putting my Markbass LongEvo set on. It’s worth remembering when I’m comparing them that the Elixirs were 4 months old and, while not dead by any means, definitely not new. The LongEvos seem a tiny bit more grabby in feel than the Elixirs, which is to be expected from new strings. Other than that the feel is quite similar. I like a high tension string and these don’t disappoint. Output level pretty much the same, possibly a tad higher with the LongEvos. The biggest difference is in the tone, where the LongEvos seem to have more presence in the low end. The full spectrum is there, they just seem a bit more authoritative in the low frequencies. Not quite what I was expecting vs old strings, but I like it. They don’t seem boomy or flabby, just a tight, full low end. If this is the tone I can expect to hang around for the next few months I think I’m onto a winner. B string sounds good and works well with the other strings (i.e. tone wise it’s pretty close to E and A strings) Not enough of a difference to write off Elixirs forever, and future decisions may come down to price as much as anything, but right now I’m leaning towards the LongEvos. EDIT: Actually take all the above with a giant pinch of salt. Turns out my main cable has been dying a slow death unbeknownst to me. It was killing all the top end. Classic example of ‘boiling frog’ - it was so gradual I just didn’t notice. I thought all my work on technique was really paying off with a drastic reduction in finger noise. New cable and BOSH there’s that finger noise again! Turns out I don’t know what anything sounds like anymore so don’t look to me for advice in this instance. I’m off to retrain my ears. Bugger.

My position has always been that having the same bass as another player won’t make me sound like that player, so why am I now doing searches for used Ibanez basses? 🤔

Excellent! Thanks.

Any idea which electric bass Dave Swift was playing last night on Jools for the Celeste performance? Sounded really really good (as he always does of course).

I’m taking a belt and braces approach. 1. I’m watching this documentary 2. I received this excellent looking book for Christmas: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jazz-Gary-Giddins/dp/0393068617 3. Sep-Dec this year I took a History of Jazz online course through the VSO school in Vancouver, which I think was actually largely based on the above book. I’m hopeful that with this three pronged approach, some of this information might actually stick in my thick skull 👍

Do we NEED 5 string basses? Well no, but then we don’t need any of this. No-one held a gun to our head and said we have to play bass. None of us actually NEED to play music at all*. We could choose some other way to express ourselves. If we accept this, we see that playing bass is about choices. Some of us choose different approaches. None are wrong. “Need” suggests an objective binary (either you need it or you don’t). It’s not that simple. What do you want? *I know for a lot of people it’s a living. I’m talking about the decision initially to pursue music as a career over other occupations. I’m aware that there are many who are now “tied in” to music, and for whom playing is not a choice. I’m also aware this is a slightly smart-alec answer