neilp

9 hours ago, TrevorR said:

Hardly trading a boat anchor for a featherweight though... my SB700 weighs pretty much the same as my Wal!

 

PS Keep the Wal!

Very true, they're both fairly heavy. Maybe buy a nice wide strap and keep the Wal?

The only bass I like as much as my Wal (Custom Fretless) is my Aria SB1000 fretted. Totally different animal, but equally rewarding to play

On ‎20‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 07:38, bazzbass said:

no eye contact at gigs? man that IS weird

you did well to leave.

send them an email saying that your basslines are yours and their new bassist HAS to write his own

Really?? Basslines to songs that aren't yours??? Why? What possible benefit is there for anyone involved if you take that approach? Just walk away.

Quote

On ‎18‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 10:07, Rich said:

A few of my favourite hacks:

Mains IEC chassis socket mounted permanently in the side of my 4U rack case, just under the handle so it's protected from accidental bashes. This in turn feeds the mains 4-way inside the case. Makes setting up even easier.

I carry a 1ft square piece of 1" foam inside the rack, which allows me to store the bag of mains/speaker/misc cables inside the rack without them rattling around damaging things. At gigs, the foam goes between the cab and the amp and stops vibrations. The cable bag itself is an old school PE kit drawstring bag. Ideal size.

Kiddie's night light plugged into the rack's 4-way. Provides enough illumination inside the case to allow me to plug stuff in without fumbling around.

 

My Rack is set up very similarly, but I have tuner and compressor in the rack, all plugged up, and my Smoothound wireless hidden in the back of the rack case, again all plugged up ready to go. I have a snake that I made up to go to my pedal board.

Set up consists of taking front and back covers off the case, putting it on top of cabs, plugging speaker cables into cabs, effects send/return to pedal board, pedal board power to the rack, then one mains plug. Switch on, hey presto

In fairness, and to give some kind of perspective, when I stopped actually spinning spanners for a living and moved into management, I sold around half of my tools and realised around £26k. What I have left is probably at least another £20k, so £35k or so in musical gear doesn't look quite so extreme!

Why do people feel the need to lie to their partners about the cost of their gear?

Double bass, two bows £20k

4 electric basses, amps, cabs, pedals, recording gear, mics etc probably £10k

Too much? No, I know musicians with far more money sunk into gear, and many more basses that never get played...

8 hours ago, project_c said:

How would you know how artists work? Are you an artist? Do you speak for all artists? Picasso, Kandinsky, Chagall, Georgia O'Keefe, Raymond Pettibon and a million other painters all used music as an integral part of their work. Let me know when you think you know about how art works better than them, before going anywhere near my backside.

The good thing about being a human is that we have a whole range of senses that we can utilise in whatever way we like. You're implying that if you use your eyes, you switch off your ears, which is stupid. Why not use both? That's what they're there for. You look at sheet music, don't you? Does it make you an inferior musician?Most of us combine our various senses to perform activities, they don't need to be used in exclusivity. It's a flawed argument. The intention behind it is valid, but it's flawed.

 

Talk about deliberate misrepresentation. Bored now. I have plenty of knowledge of art and music to be able to offer an opinion, including time spent at the Royal College of Music being taught by the very best, and my experience is that your eyes are best used to keep yuorself connected with your fellow musicians, and the best way to stay in tune is to use your ears, and to practice. Short cuts like fret lines are fine, if you just want to do it "adequately", but don't help you to become fluent and musical. Please yourself, you obviously know more about this subject (and me) than I do.

17 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

I actually have quite a good ear, and can tell when I'm not in tune. The problem is (for me) is that having played very little fretless, and for big jumps  (e.g. the All Right Now solo part), I can very easily end up out of tune. Of course my ears tell me its out of tune, but by then it's too late. I imagine that having lines would help in this situation.

 

 

Not anywhere near as much as you'd think, actually. You have to learn the interval anyway, the lines are a distraction. Try it, give yourself a week of focused, directed practice and you'll see.

11 hours ago, project_c said:

..But you do use your eyes to make music. You make eye contact with other musicians, you read charts, you occasionally check that your hand is in the right place, and that you're not going to fall off the stage.

And plenty of artists use their ears to paint, especially when music is the inspiration behind the painting. 

You need to stop with the Jeff Berlin. People have different ways of achieving what they need to achieve. If unlined works for you, brilliant. For other people - especially visual people - visual triggers might be more important than you realise.

Fretlines do not affect the size of anyone's penis. Using ears is great, using visual cues is also great. It just depends on what your goals are. 

With respect, what codswallop. If you're using your eyes to keep you in tune, you can't be using them for watching other musicians. You need to stop denigrating the tried, tested ways. Yes you can achieve what you think you need NOW, but further down the line the fact that you cut corners and relied on lines will come back to bite you. If lines were the way forward, trust me, I'd be using them. So would every string player in the world. They don't help you develop a technique or an ear.

And as for artists using their ears to paint.... a bit like suggesting someone uses their backside to talk

8 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Surely a lined fretless covers all options. The lines are there if you want them and if you don't want the lines then don't look at them.

-  or is it to do with the kudos of the audience going Wow - he's playing without lines.

 

Who has time for kudos? It's about the fact that I find it easier to make good music and play in tune without trying to use visual clues to get a result that is non-visual. You don't use your ears to help you paint...

Yhe point is he hasn't, and no good string player has, learned where every note on the fingerboard is, he's learned how the shifts work and how the intervals feel in different positions. Its how we should all do it, fretless or not

3 hours ago, project_c said:

I think this statement is a bit of a clichè to be honest. It's a bit like saying 'use your brain' when trying to solve an equation. Great, if your brain already contains the necessary information to solve the problem. Using ears to correct intonation takes years, even decades of focused study. If you have that kind of time available, great. For the rest of us, there's fretlines, so we can get on with the enjoyment of playing a fretless without 35 years of listening to a drone. Just because the lines are there doesn't mean we stare at them all night. They're there to help. We don't stare at fretted basses when we play, but we occasionally check we're in the right place.

If I didn't play jazz, I could probably get by without them no problem, but for soloing up the top end I definitely need those lines.

I think that statement is a nonsense, to be honest. It doesn't take 35 years. The dots are more use than lines anyway. Try it. Give yourself a few months. If you can play in tune with lines, you will be able to play better in tune without them, and you'll find you have more brain available for playing music. Just as for all string players, you should be focussing on the hand that actually makes the sound, and that's not your left. Sheku Kanneh Mason has no lines on his cello, and he's only 20.....

Learn to do it without the training wheels

Final thought. I have 3 fretless basses. The Wal has no lines, the Cort has no lines, and the Squier has lines. I was recording recently with the Squier, because I wanted the woody, hollow Jazz Bass sound. Listening to the tracks back, I realised I was fractionally flat ALL THE TIME. Nobody has complained about my intonation in years, so I was a bit shocked. Ended up playing everything again on the Cort. Came out spot on. The Cort and the Wal are both gigged far more than the Squier. Anyone want a nice VM Jazz with J-Tone active electronics?

No, really? The point is there is no need for lines. Do what violinists do and use your ears. Jaco had lines because he took the frets off a standard Jazz, not because he needed them

There is no such thing as a lined violin, viola, cello or double bass, and there's a reason for that. The lines actually make it more difficult to play in tune... counterintuitive, but its true

To be honest, it doesn't really make much difference. I would go with unlined and trust your ears. It will take you less time to really nail the intonation if you do without the "crutch" of lines, which dont help much anyway. Even unlined basses usually have dots on the side of the board to help you navigate, and I think that's all you need. Have fun!

I will accept that I'm very lucky to be in the orchestra I play in, with a first-rate conductor who spends time on details and insists on standards that most amateur orchestras can't match. It's hard work, granted, but Neilson 5 is perfectly doable too., just find the patterns and work on it. This stuff is important to the work. Put some work in.

You may well be right. I'm on a mission to change that in my little patch of the UK though.

When did I last eat a Wotsit? Long time ago....

I think your real world must be different than mine. What is this "snack" of which you speak?

So many players give up before they've even tried. When I was in Youth Orchestras (NYO even) I thought the last movement of Tchaikovsky 4 was almost unplayable. Now? Simple...

Look at the notes, work out your fingering and practice. Practice at a speed at which you can play it, and keep practicing at that speed. Vary the rhythm - dotted semiquavers, triplets, whatever you want - but keep practicing slowly. The key is not to practice it wrong. You should be playing all the notes. There is a reason the composer put them in.....

Last thought - if your conductor REALLY didn't notice the sketching, you need a new conductor! Ours would notice, AND he'd pull us up on it.

On 05/02/2018 at 15:07, Barking Spiders said:

other bass heavens and hells 

heaven - basslines loaded with 16ths played fingerstyle a la Rocco Prestia

hell - solo bass stuff when whatever's being played might as well have been done on a guitar

16ths are called semiquavers in the real world...

I love the Wal too, but the Aria was my first "proper" instrument, and I think had a major influence on my playing and my sound. It's been with me since 1984, I couldn't imagine not having it...

The Wal doesn't have the emotional attachment, as wonderful as it is...

Interesting Bilbo. If one of them had to go, it would be my Wal Custom fretless. I'd keep the SB1000. I love them both and have no intention of parting with either, but the Aria is burned into my soul....

I own an Aria SB1000 which I bought in 1986. Its a 1979 bat-ear model. The quality of this bass is at least the equal of any bass I've ever played (bear in mind I also own a Wal....) and it will be the last bass I ever part with. It's a wonderful instrument.

I hate to agree with you bassasin, but I think maybe you are talking rubbish lol. Look at the things Ibanez and others were selling bassists in the late 80s, and the colours.....

22 hours ago, Al Krow said:

All basses get moved on in the end.

No. I have four basses and a double bass that are going nowhere