neilp

On 28/01/2022 at 20:44, Quin said:

Well, there is an Sb elite I for sale now for 580£, how does the Sb elite I compare to the sb-700? i might just go with that then

 

The quality is not quite the same as the Matsumoku basses - the bat-ear early basses are SO well built - but the Elite is a fine bass, and the neck is less "individual" if that stuff does bother you

Interesting the things people pick on with instruments. I'm an unapologetic Aria fan - I have a pair of SB100s, fretted and fretless and I love them dearly, but I also have a fretless Wal, a P bass and a Jazz bass. It would be difficult to imagine a more diverse collection of nut widths, bridge spacing and neck profiles, but in reality it makes no difference at all. I swap between them all regularly and within a second or two I'm fully acclimatised. I'm not a believer in "I must have THIS nut width and THAT fingerboard radius". Play the bass that makes the noise you need. And by the way, you missed a great bass in that SB700. No comparison with the Westone, a different league

Best purchase - never having owned a P bass, and with a new project on the horizon which would benefit, I dipped my toe in to the extent of buying a Squier Classic Vibe 60s P bass, on the basis that it's cheap enough to just get chucked under the bed if I don't like it.

And? It's great! Body is a bit light maybe, hardware is a tiny bit cheap feeling, but it plays and sounds great. Neck is very nice, finish on the fretting first class, generally way better than I expected. Highly reccommended

It's all very clever, but it's closer to a video game than it is to music. Get these kids out playing music with other humans, and then maybe they'll turn into great musicians. Youtube channels can't do that

A Satellite Jazz bass copy bought new in 1979, which I still have! I didn't realise it was still around, I assumed it had been "borrowed" at some stage after I bought my SB1000, but I was clearing out a cupboard for my mother the other week, and there it was!!! I must have chucked it in there when a pickup died and it just sat there. Now has new pickups and is back in the herd... Photos later

On 07/07/2021 at 19:27, Dad3353 said:

No, I don't agree. Yes, one may play the drums in 4/4 throughout (I'm a drummer, and that's what I do...), but the bass staff has 2/4 and 5/4 bars in there. You can't count 4/4 all through the bass part and be on the '1' all of the time.
It's possible to play 3/4 throughout on the drums; that doesn't make the bass part 3/4. 

One last comment on this, and then I'll let you all make your lives difficult. Just because a phrase doesn't begin and end at the beginning of a 4/4 bar every time, doesn't mean it's not in 4/4. 

On 07/07/2021 at 19:39, Dad3353 said:

OK, I'm out. I'm quite used to 'accents' and such, and I also know how to count bars in pieces with multiple time signatures. 

That's the point. So am I, but this piece is neither polyrhythmic nor in multiple time signatures. Straightforward 4/4, and that's by far the easiest way to count it

2 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

No, I don't agree. Yes, one may play the drums in 4/4 throughout (I'm a drummer, and that's what I do...), but the bass staff has 2/4 and 5/4 bars in there. You can't count 4/4 all through the bass part and be on the '1' all of the time.
It's possible to play 3/4 throughout on the drums; that doesn't make the bass part 3/4. 

Just because there's an accented beat, doesn't make it the '1'. Have a listen to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, or almost any orchestral music by Brahms. There are accents all over the place, and it's almost impossible to play if you try to make the accents the 1 of every bar. Put the bar lines where they should be, so you can count a steady four, and it makes total sense. Try it. Trust me.

The drum track is the thing to listen to if you want this song to come out right. It's so much easier if you count it in 4 and learn where the accents come. Then all you need is a drummer who can keep time....🤣

On 05/07/2021 at 22:24, Dad3353 said:

Hmm...

If you try to count 1.2.3.4. all the way through, there'll be moments when the '1' is no longer the '1'. 

No, we're thinking about it wrong. The drums are in 4 all the way through. Trying to play it with different length bars is what makes it difficult. Forget the notation, listen to the song, count it in 4 and follow the drums. I promise, it will make sense

On 06/07/2021 at 00:09, Dad3353 said:

The pink sections are the non-4/4 bars (2/4 and 5/4...). There's a metronome click to help illustrate, with a slightly stronger '1'.

No, the pink sections are parts of a longer, 4/4 phrase that have accents shifted from where the typical back beat would put them. Count it in 4, listen to the drums and it will become clear

On 01/07/2021 at 21:45, Dad3353 said:

No, that's the same tempo (150..?) for everyone, but some bars are 2/4, others 4/4 or 5/4 (but the drums stay on 4/4 mostly, really...). Several time signatures, but all the same tempo. Here's an obscure example of polytempo; be warned, it's not easy to listen to or to play; it's for that reason that polytempo is so rare...

Allstar, Smash Mouth ...

All of the bars are 4/4. The thing that varies is the length of the phrases, not the tempo or the time signature. Thats why so many people struggle to play it, they try to divide up the bars differently. If you listen to the drums playing the straight 4/4 you can then place the phrases against that, and it's relatively simple as long as you can play the riff rhythmically

2 hours ago, NickA said:

My new cello bridge cost £154 fitted ( no adjustors of course ) the blank was the best (despiau, grade A, C02) one they had in stock at £84, fitting £70 (an hour's and a bit work I guess). They didn't do all the fancy stuff of removing and shaping bits of the bridge blank that some people insist on.... but it fits the belly and the finger board curve perfectly; for a £10k istrument it's fine .. seemed a bit harsh at first but now played in nicely.  If I had a £100k cello I might be more fussy! 

The nearest equivalent despiau 4/4 DB bridge I found is £117, same price with adjusters pre fitted if you drop a few quality grades. Quite adequate for most us amateurs I'd imagine.

Admitted, if you want the finest grade A blank, custom carved, then fitted with the finest ebony adjusters, it's going to cost!

NB it's not the Jag technician you're paying for, it's the fancy show room, the massive tooling cost, an overweight management structure and the profit margin that heads off to India! 😉

Well aware of that, I work there! But at the end of the day, what you're paying for matters far far less than how much you're paying!! My feeling is, given how often you need to change a bridge, paying a bit extra for the best blank and the best job is well worth it, if you can. Given how much some people spend chasing the "perfect" set of strings!!

On 09/06/2021 at 20:27, NickA said:

Certainly is.  Whether or not it makes a difference .. I don't have a clue.

 

Ouch!!! just OUCH.  That seems unreasonably expensive.  I was going to get an adjustable fitted to mine ... now (being somewhat unemployed) maybe I won't.

Have you ever seen how much work goes into turning a blank into a proper, fitted bridge? Never mind the extra work to fit adjusters properly. To give you an idea how cheap luthiers are, an hour of the time of a "technician" at a Jaguar dealership hereabouts will cost you £200. Compare the skill levels....

Best - I can't choose, so either Q Tips at The Lakers Hotel in Redhill early 1980, or Springsteen at St James Park in 1985

Worst - Bad Manners at Bristol University Students Union in 1984 (I think). Dreadful, chaotic, awful sound, out of tune, apathetic drivel

I'm not a huge fan, but U2 were and are the tightest band I've ever seen. Clayton undoubtedly has the ability to play lots and lots more notes than he does, but makes the CHOICE not to. No way a band can be that tight and powerful with a bad bass player.

20 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

This. Songs, films, paintings, sculpture - in fact, all art - reflect the time and the culture they were created in. If they don't please or suit you, don't sing, play, look at or listen to them. But please don't whinge about or attempt to "cancel" them. I don't like the great majority of films. The gratuitous violence, covert (and overt) political agenda they promote and the manipulative appeal to base emotions in most irritate me. So I don't watch them (don't even have a telly). However, I recognise that others are free to make their own choices.

I don't think anyone has raised the idea of "cancelling" anyone or anything, the discussion has all been about personal feelings and personal decisions. And if songs, films, paintings or sculptures reflect attitudes from the time and culture they were created in, and those attitudes (racism, approval of slave trade, misogyny for example) are generally deemed by modern society to be unacceptable, what is wrong with refusing to play, listen to or look at them? Or should we just allow these toxic attitudes to hang around?

It's German, maybe 1920s/30s I reckon. Scroll looks quite nice, shame someone cut the hatpegs off! It's been in the wars though, those new bits of wood in the ribs don't help its cause any and there are lots of cracks in the top and the back. As it doesn't look great, its value depends largely on how it plays and how it sounds. Could be a grand, could be 3 or 4....

6 minutes ago, EssentialTension said:

Maybe  adifferent thing but ... Muddy Waters knicked it, then the Small Faces knicked it from him to get it ready for Led Zepp ...

 

Marriott always said he was happy, even flattered, that Plant borrowed so much from that song. And after all, however much all the Zeppelin bashers go on, it's mostly sour grapes over the success. Whole Lotta Love is a much better, more interesting song

On 02/01/2017 at 20:54, Winny Pooh said:

Alanah Miles' Black Velvet has some tasty playing on it FWIW

That record is a synth. I don't know why, it's dead easy and sounds better on a fretless. I like Tony Levin's playing, and Tony Franklin may be the best thing about The Firm

On 22/04/2018 at 06:49, phil.c60 said:

You clearly didn't read the line that said "if we decide that the feel for the song is...." I think that's got "feel" covered. Then he needs to count us in reliably when we're gigging. Forget the maths, try literacy.

You don't need it counted in at 129 or at 130, you need it counted in at the tempo you decided on at rehearsal. You don't even need to know what that tempo is in BPM, as long as you know how it feels. Counting in is no different than playing. If you use loops etc you might need a click. Otherwise keep the mechanical timekeeping out of it and learn to play the song at the right tempo, judged by how it feels. Metronomes are a practice tool.

3 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

would you keep wearing your trousers if they were too tight?

Why accept what you have if you can change it to what you want? Most of my guitars have re-shaped necks, or upgraded pups, or chamforing.

Not my basses though 😜

I think the answer to that is "no reason at all", except that I think it tends to become a displacement activity for some, like the endless search for the perfect strings that some double bass players get involved in (honestly, who has time for messing with mixed sets of strings????). I think the answer to most of the problems people encounter with neck profiles, balance, string spacing etc etc is simply to play the bass and get used to it, and focus on making music. Just my opinion, not saying anyone is wrong, just that there's a risk of too much focus on the gear.....

On 02/06/2021 at 18:45, TheGreek said:

I have no issues with either J or P profile necks. The only bass I've ever had issues with the neck profile was on a Wal.

So in my collection I have two Aria SB1000s - one fretted and one fretless, a 2001 Epiphone Thunderbird, a 1985 Wal fretless and my first ever bass, a Satellite Jazz copy from 1979. All very different neck profiles, which is an issue that, being honest, I never even think about. In the same way it would never occur to me to worry about what wood a bass is made from. If you don't know, you can't tell from listening. I think we all worry about these things far too much. Consumer culture has taught us to expect to have EXACTLY what we think we want, regardless of its actual merits. GAS at work.....

On 29/05/2021 at 17:53, Ricky Rioli said:

I remember Noel Gallagher's unconvincing attempt to roll back his estimation of them as "bedwetters" 

While I entirely agree with this particular opinion, I don't think I give a flying f-ck what that whiny, arrogant tosser or his lairy brother think

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

Am I being oversensitive if I pick up a sanctimonious "if you don't take a spare bass (and whatever else) to the gig then you're an inferior bass player" vibe in threads like these?  Some of you might just want to rein that in a little - some people can only afford one bass.  Some of us don't take it as seriously as you - I regularly play in an originals band which hasn't "made it" and therefore gets a derisory token gesture of renumeration for our troubles, so excuse me if I lift a finger to that in my own lazy way because I don't particularly feel "professional" in this scenario.

 

Yes, you are being over sensitive! I think it's about how you view the whole thing. Being unprepared certainly doesn't make you an inferior musician, but it might make you a less reliable, flakier band member. I make no judgement, but I would be pretty whizzed off if my guitarist or  keyboard player didn't have spares and it ruined the gig....wouldn't you? At the absolute minimum spare strings, batteries, leads, DI box and some tools. If you really only have one bass and can't afford another one, fair enough, but be as prepared as you can be, surely? The lazy one finger says it all, really....