Doctor J

For some reason I had tonight in my head as the deadline for this and only started it yesterday so it's rough as foook. I wanted to do some jingle-jangling with the 12 string I picked up last year so this is chord based in a way I don't usually do stuff. I still wanted to have a little space freak-out in there somewhere, though.

The technical stuff : Drums are Yamaha kit into Behringer pres. Bass is a PRS EB4, guitars ares are a Gretsch 12 string and a Bacchus strat, all into an Avid Eleven. Poorly screeched vocals into an SE mic. Noises are courtesy of Reason, space voice from Talk Any and all mixed in Protools.

About the song: We've never been able to see further away but, these days, rarely gaze past our hand

50/50. I had a 4003 and went between both, depending on what I was trying to achieve at the time.

However, much as I loved the sound, I was unable to ever find a way to play it which could reasonably be called comfortable, so I ended up selling it and bought something with a forearm contour and which didn't have that poxy metal bracket.

I managed to put off even starting mine until this morning so will have to do a sneakeroo submission before Lurks gets home from work tomorrow.

More of an assembly job than a build, but anyway...

I have an old ESP 51-style Precision, single coil pickup with a slab top. I love the fat, farty sound out of it, but I need a forearm contour and I'm much happier with a J-sized neck.
 

Last year, I ordered a 54-style ash body in trans-white (the Mary Kaye finish) from Warmoth which has been waiting for an accomplice. Today, the postie delivered the neck, ordered from Warmoth late last year - roasted maple, Jazz nut width, tele headstock, side-dots only with banjo frets. The smell of the roasted neck is utterly delicious 😂

Anyway, I'm thinking a humbucking old-style P pickup is the way forward, rather than a proper single-coil and, perhaps, a serial/parallel option via a push/pull volume knob could be very interesting. A Cabronita style scratchplate in mint could be very tasty, too. I'll go with something a little sturdier than the original early-50's style bridge and, of course, it won't be strung through the body anyway. I'm undecided whether to add a bridge cover or not. I think a pickup cover would just get in the way.

I have some parts but need to get more before I can really start putting it all together, but this is the starting point.

Hey, guess what...

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/nevermind-baby-is-still-suing-nirvana-1284031/

It's all about perspective isn't it? Chris Square is a legend if you look at bass from the right angle.

First thing which came to mind was the Washburn and Rudy Sarzo gurning with one. Then I saw Steve's post and it's bang on.

What is the thinking behind the string guide on the G string, is that extra bind point really necessary?

Elixir stainless steel 45-105

That white ESP Phoenix in the FS section. I have no need for it and it's absolutely ergonomically catastrophic for how I play a bass.

Still, would you just look at it 😍

On 09/01/2022 at 10:16, PaulWarning said:

absolutely, just not the whole nation (or race), apparently it's very bad form to tell Irish jokes these days, or at least the ones that infer all the Irish are a bit dim  

Apparently? To reference something you posted earlier in this thread - "if the same thing had been said about, say, West Indians all hell would break loose" 

Do you think a negative generalisation is ok to say when you're not saying it about black people?

There was someone on the forum here who posted a pic of their Ibanez many years ago. It had really old Elixir strings on it and the coating had degraded to such an extent that it looked like they were coated in white fur and were ready to go and live in the forest 😂

It's worn Elixir nanoweb coating, no?

I have, more than once, then my tastes and requirements have changed and I'm on the hunt again. Those moments of contentedness are quite delicious, however.

He used a Steinberger XM2 and GK head to record AJFA.

Love the 800LE. Great basses.

His drumming isn't poor, it's genuinely terrible. He was decent, back in the day. Definitely. After the black album, he stopped practising and he's really, really bad. Once Metallica became 'tallica, that's where it turned to sheeeeite.  Listen to any of the live stuff from the last 25 years in where he chucks in one bass drum strike per verse on the fast stuff. Nah, I don't actively dislike the guy - he's the only one who cones out of SKOM with any credit at all - and he does come across as immensely dislikable quite frequently, but I will not stand idly by and watch people defend his drumming. No. I'm not having that.

On a related tangent, Mustaine has claimed that Metaliica had Dave Lombardo lined up to replace Lars at the end of the Puppets touring. Cliff's death stopped that from happening, of course. Lombardo was out of Slayer at the time so there a whiff of plausibility to it. When Lombardo played Battery in 2006 with them (I think) we caught a glimpse of what might have been.

Just because one is dim doesn't mean one can't be nice.

11 minutes ago, Bunion said:

Cannibal corpse have probably some of the most shocking titles and lyrics in “songs” 

“I Cum Blood” being one and “entrails ripped……” I let you look that one up yourself. 
Never understood why you would want to write music like that. 
I’m not shocked by it, not offended by it, more bemused and a little sad it was ever written 

I saw Gorerotted many years ago, supporting Cryptopsy. They had a song called "Masticated by the Spasticated", which made me chuckle. I give it to them, that is a truly spectacular song title. I was more offended by their music, really, really not to my taste. I've played on bills with plenty of Grind and, even better, Goregrind bands. A lot of those lads spend more time coming up with manky titles than writing riffs. Very few of them lived out their lyrics, I'm quite sure.

Getting offended over musical fantasy is like getting offended by horror or gore movies and books. Intent is everything. Art does not mean the artist lives it out in the real world, or wants to live it out in the real world. There are, of course, plenty of bands using music as a means to push a shitty political agenda which they genuinely believe in. Get offended at that.

2 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

Not quite - the version the Bass Channel did was carefully constructed from watching and listening to live performances of the tracks.

 

Ok, the guy from the Bass Channel used his fingers instead of a Pick, but they are Jason's parts.

 

They also have individual tracks with much louder bass to learn from. They did have individual proper mix as well, but Metallica's record label got upset about that.

 

 

I don't listen to the original anymore - I listen to this version. It's much better.

So yeah then, considering they never played The Frayed Ends of Sanity, Dyer's Eve or To Live is to Die when Newsted was in the band so there were no live performances to watch or listen to 😉

It's a fine effort, a really fine effort, but the three or four solo tracks of Newsted's original playing are absolutely ferocious and you can't replicate that without using a plec - and I say this as someone who plays with fingers 99% of time.

8 minutes ago, ubit said:

 

 

Indeed mate, they said their ears were shot during the original recording and mixing. What a crap excuse. Then when they had the chance to remix it said we don't need to change it, it's perfect. Like the Mona Lisa, would you change that? How up yer derrière is he? Comparing your record with a timeless, priceless masterpiece. 

Here's the other side of that story

"We had to get the drum sound up the way he had it. I wasn't a fan of it. So now he goes, "See the bass guitar?" and I said, "Yeah, great part, man. He killed it." He said, "I want you to bring down the bass where you can barely, audibly hear it in the mix." I said, "You're kidding. Right?" He said, "No. Bring it down." I bring it down to that level and he says, "Now drop it down another 5 db." I turned around and looked at Hetfield and said, "He's serious?" It just blew me away.

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/interviews/steve_thompson_when_lars_asked_me_what_happened_to_the_bass_in__justice_i_wanted_to_cold_cock_him.html

The real crime was not getting it mixed properly, at last, for the 30th anniversary edition. They could have had a remastered disk with the original mix and a second disk with whoever giving it a decent mix. They could have righted a very big wrong but, rather spitefully, stick to their guns. They were wrong, they know it, and still refuse to acknowledge it.

Those "with bass" albums, as far as I'm aware the only Newsted studio tracks which ever came out were the 4 or 5 on Guitar Hero, so there is no full album with Newsted on every track. Everything else is some dudes playing what they think the basslines are. The irony of "...and Justice For Jason" was that Newsted still couldn't be heard on it.

Some of the roadworn models sported it too, quite bizarrely. When the guitar solo goes on so long you can't even get back to your smoke, oh the humanity!

Pluck the string the other side of the nut, is this the same sound?

Also, while fretted, pluck between where it's fretted and the nut. I think the sounds you're hearing are there.

I love how Ibanez (and several other Japanese instrument manufacturers) operate, continual evolution. They're not content to regurgitate the same old stuff year after year. There are some retro orientated instruments but they're continually pushing the range forward, keeping it contemporary. It's not for everyone, granted, but they stake everything on their instruments being modern and technologically up-to-date. It's a brave way to do business in a frequently backwards-looking and overly-sentimental industry. 
 

I'm gassing badly for a nice RG at the moment 🙂

Perhaps some Eerie Von stuff off the first 4 Danzig albums? Great songs but no fretboard gymnastics required in order to play along.