neilp

Not electric basses, but my double bass is called Meghan...

I use -Pirastro String Cleaner -Kolstein's Cleaner Kolstein's Polish For the fingerboard - VERY occasionally - I use a thing called Number 1 Fingerboard Oil. I was given half a dozen tins by my DB teacher many years ago and I use it on everything - DB, guitars, the lot. Who knows where it came from, but it does the job beautifully and I have enough to see me out, so that's fine!

If BC is currently oftenly mostly correct, I musht be mostly lefty-handed in the mirror

Normally if I'm drunk I rotate the other way...

Why am I rotated??

You asked for it!

I'm in a difficult position here folks - I agree with Blue. For me a great gig is one the audience loves, and I don't understand the snobbery over Mustang Sally and Sweet Home Alabama. A great performance of Mustang Sally is far more satisfying to me than performing average "originals" that no-one in the audience knows or cares about.

Thankfully I haven't had to find that out! The SB1000 has been in my life since 1987, and the Wal since 1994. The Cort and the Jazz Bass are just backups. The two main basses are all I really need, and yes I think I do take them for granted

I just got my Aria SB1000 back after loaning it to a guitarist friend of mine who;s thinking of leaving the Dark Side. In the meantime I've been playing a perfectly good MIM Jazz Bass - what I started my bass career playing - and enjoying the JB for what it is. Then the Aria came back - with rave reviews from said friend - and I've come to realise how much I took it for granted. Flawless design, superb neck, great sound and versatility. But above all, it just fits in my hands. No thought needed, it's a huge part of what I am as a bass player and I couldn't part with it. Anyone else had this realisation about taking an instrument for granted? Or are you all less conservative than me?

Lovely bloke, and a giant of rock'n'roll. He taught me how to make a vodka & orange...

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1450900186' post='2936894'] Stax every time - it had far more oomph - Motown was the Beatles, Stax was the Stones, as far as I was concerned (and I grew up in that era). [/quote] Funny that, cos I'd agree with the comparison, and if I had to choose I'd have Stax over Motown, but I'd take the Beatles over the Stones any day (and that's from someone who doesn't like McCartney!)

Giant red herring only of interest to the critics and talkers. Bonham and Plant - working class. Page and Jones - middle class. Who cares? What is "legitimate" anyway?

The Lemon Song

I like the look of the Cort Jeff Berlin myself. My backup fretless is a Cort B4 and I really like it, they seem like great value for money. Welcome back, I've been on a very similar journey myself, except I never sold the two best basses!

Let me assure you, Blue, of two things. First, I don't like the vast majority of what I've heard of JP's output. Understand? What's to understand? I understand he had a stunning technique, and I believe that his technique led him away from musicality, not towards it. Please don't presume to tell me what I do or don't understand. You don't know me, and I don't know you, Probably best to keep it that way. Can you say Iconoclast? Do you know what it means?

I acknowledge the technical skill needed to play this kind of thing, I just don't understand why, after putting all those years of work into your technique, you'd use it to play that? Technique is a means, not an end.

[quote name='Maude' timestamp='1449952461' post='2928389'] Could be an age thing, I'm 42 but I don't know at what age I'm supposed to like him. I'd agree it's more a genre thing. Jazz fusion, or whatever you want to call that style of music, repels me. I have no interest in listening to it or researching it so why should I know somebody who plays it? I've tried to like Stanley Clarke a couple of times in the past because I foolishly bought into this idea that I should listen to these 'gods' but it just makes me not want to play bass or ensure that I never play anything that sounds similar, so it's better for me to not listen to a genre that repels me. Most of the hereos lauded on here are similar in that I have heard of them and encountered their music at points in my life but have absolutely no desire to give them any more of my listening time. If I don't like their music then why would I? I'll rock the boat by saying these people include Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Geddy, Billy Sheehan, the Dream Theatre bloke, Les Claypool, Victor Wooten, Chris Squire, Mark King, there are others but you get the idea. If this makes me ignorant, stupid, uninformed or whatever insult makes folks feel better then that's fine. I'll just keep listening to music that I love and inspires me and keep playing what's in my heart and soul. If that's OK with everyone [/quote] Where's the like button?

You missed the essential bit - "sounds like". Quite often jazz musicians do disappear up their own cleverness and end up SOUNDING exactly like that. However clever they may know themselves to be, in the end music happens in the ears of the audience. Last point I would make is that you give the plumbers opinion weight on the basis of your own ignorance. You don't presume his ignorance on the basis of him not agreeing with you on a matter of taste. REALLY bored now

With respect, no-one said that Jaco's music was a load of old bollocks. I don't particularly enjoy listening to him, in the main, and I do think there's a touch of "emperor's new clothes" about him harmonically, but I never denied his technical skill or influence - whether for good or not is another matter. I do resent the implication that we need to qualify to have an opinion on a matter of taste. Bored now, let the Bass Police have their way

There's a touch of the "you don't agree with me, therefore you're uninformed (or dumb)" about this! I'm not uninformed, and I'm not dumb. My taste doesn't align with the Bass Police, but hey, who cares?

No-one on here - I hope - cares where you, I, or any of us "rate" as players. You deserve respect, just as the rest of us do.

[quote name='Number6' timestamp='1449779362' post='2926828'] Without reading all the posts have we reached a conclusion yet? Do the Aye's or the No's have it? [/quote] The Ayes certainly shouted louder, does that count?

He was more successful than me too, but I'm more alive (arguably!) and I can still play.... By that measure we're all better players than some that have been mentioned recently!

You should have heard him slap! And his fretless playing....

Mr Blue, whoever you are, you're really getting a bit tiresome about all of this. I studied at the Royal College of Music. If I can write sensibly about Stockhausen and tone-rows, then I think my tiny brain can just about cope with Jaco's noodling and Macca's rather naive use of passing notes and modalities. Your opinion is no more valid than mine or anyone else's. How do you know how long I've spent listening to MCartney or Pastorius (or Jamerson, Berlin, East, Levin, John Paul Jones, Bruce, Squire.......)? John Deacon stopped for the greater good. We should praise him...