ForestPoetry

Don't have mine yet either. Forgotten I'd even ordered it tbh. Waiting a month now.

I've tried one and while it sounded massive on its own, it wasn't very well defined and I could picture it getting lost quite easily in a mix (especially live) and just not cutting through the way two single coils would. But then I've never really been a humbucker guy when I think about it. I also don't like my basses to have too many switches and knobs on the front. My GPS Corvette J/J with two knobs and a stacked tone suits me fine.

This really is a meme reality. Surely anyone else would have been blacklisted off the face of the live circuit?

I'll take this opportunity to plug some of my (slightly atypical) favourites which just don't get enough love IMO: Miles Davis - Tutu : its Miles, it's Marcus, it's smooth and dark and delightfully weird. Late 80s synth cliches abound, so maybe not for everyone. Weather Report - Heavy Weather : I always play 'Havona' to someone who's curious about jazz, it'll either click or it won't but either way, it leaves in impression. Absolutely essential. David Torn - Cloud About Mercury : I blind bought this based on the surreal cover art and all star supporting cast (Levin, Bruford, Isham) with no idea what to expect. It's a kind of world-influenced fusion with very tasteful shred guitar and a ton of atmosphere. Floored me at the first listen and it's been a firm favourite ever since. Ralph Towner - Solstice : the first proper foray I made into more experimental jazz outside of your Kind of Blue, Somethin' Else etc. The opening track swept me away from the first note. Like the rest of this list, it was and still is really unlike anything I've ever heard.

ESP LTD B-205 fretless Looked nice with the spalted Maple top (though definitely "I'm a £500 instrument trying to look boutique"), felt pretty nice too. Tone was abysmal. It was like someone stuck a guitar preamp in a bass. I don't expect to have to turn the bass knob on the active controls ALL THE WAY UP for it to actually sound halfway like a bass. Weak, lifeless, no bottom end. Lasted about two days. I've played some cheaper passive LTDs that were pretty solid, however.

Yes Lawd.

That does look very neat actually

The 300 to 6/7/800 (whatever it is these days) are all basically the same bass. Just the woods and electronics get a bit better the further you go up the price scale. They're all very good and although my Soundgear obsessed days are far gone, I still wouldn't hesitate with a lot of them. Thanks to the brilliant ergonomics I know that's one bass I can blind buy every time and it'll work for me. Saying that I think they're oversaturating these days with all the minor variations in body finishes and so on. The 655 in "ice black" or whatever, for example. Just another SR w/ Bartolinis that sounds good, but not great. If you can find one of the 6xx series ones in the brown stain finish with the Norstrand CND P/J pickups and active/passive switch, that's well worth the £6-700 price tag. Or just get the 300E for probably the best sub-£500 five string on the market. I'd also recommend looking at the TRBX from Yamaha which was very clearly their idea of an SR competitor when it dropped. Many good reviews on the TRBX305.

I love a bit of Collins era Genesis, guilty pleasures be damned. And if Gabriel hadn't left we wouldn't have albums like Peter Gabriel III, IV, So, Passion and Us which are all beyond-words levels of good. Everybody wins!

This thread reminded me how much I absolutely love this song which I haven't heard in a long time...the original version of course. The re-recording never clicked for me. Fabulous bass playing from the inimitable JG. His work on Peter Gabriel III was also astonishingly good.

Did her and Peter Gabriel ever hook up (as in romantically)? Artistically they've always struck me as counterparts of eachother. Kate is a very rare example of a mainstream female artist I take seriously and respect...for Hounds of Love if nothing else. Give me her worst effort any day over today's autotuned airbrushed hoes gyrating their way through ghost-written "club bangers". Urgh.

For that price, I'm ordering it. Not bothered if it takes a month and I save £30 odd. Looks like a nice piece with lots of cool pictures and detail. I hope the Wal and Steinbergers get the love they deserve!

Depends how big we're talking. Tears For Fears for example...The Big Chair is an outstanding pop record IMO, they were already fairly big by then and of course BC was what broke them into the bigger picture. Seeds of Love however is totally jumping the shark if you ask me. Some people have mentioned U2. Funny thing is, for me U2 only started sucking once they stopped taking themselves too seriously (so around Achtung! Baby). My favourite one is The Unforgettable Fire. That and the albums before just have this strident earnestness and energy to it all which I find irresistible. Sometimes it depends on the mood I'm in. I'm a massive Sisters of Mercy fan and love basically everything in the discography. Sometimes I prefer to listen only to the more metallic, punky stuff from before the first album. Other times only the overblown bombast of Floodland is enough to satisfy me.

I'm in two minds. I'd like to shake his hand for elevating a practical joke to basically performance art. I'd also like to punch him in the mouth.

I don't know about worst, but the Ibanez SRMS multiscale did let me down. Almost everything about it, looks, playability, etc was outstanding. You really cannot fault Ibanez for playability and versatilty whether it's a £300 or £800 bass. But I couldn't get on with the tone. Everything was too bright and snappy, even for a Soundgear. Too much hardwood in the neck/board and the body too small to have any real OOMPH, bearing in mind I'm much more of a Jazz/passive guy now, had been playing one for nearly a year by this point and was not the Ibanez nut I used to be for several years. I sold it on in March or so less than a month after I bought it.

I've been quietly GASsing for a Stick most of my life, having been a huge Peter Gabriel/ 80s KC fan as long as I can remember. Nick Beggs and Sean Malone are two other great stickists who spring to mind. It's one of those things where I ask myself "could you actually play that" - it's a big wide board, you need serious hand/finger independance and I don't have the biggest hands for a bassist - but I'm nothing if not stubborn when it comes to getting on with learning something new like that. Is it easy to "fret" a Stick and do you need 10-inch fingers to be able to pull it off? When I see Levin or someone playing it they look like they're not applying any pressure at all.

I've been out of the 5 string game for a while. I've honestly preferred playing 4's but it's good to have the option available, and band members "encouraging" me back in that direction, but with 5 strings I'm very picky about neck dimensions (don't have the biggest hands). Usually only Soundgears do it for me - I swore by them for a long time, but I wanted something different. I've always been GASsing for the big W. I must have tried ten different 5 strings over the last week or so. Old faithful Ibanez got a look in, but I don't like those Panga Panga fretboards they're putting on a lot of stuff now. Came pretty close to buying a Ray35. Sire, nice but too many switches. The Spector was great, but unsure about the 35" scale. Tried a Yamaha BB735, and it was beautiful, but the neck was still just a tad too chunky to be comfy. The TRBX didn't do anything for me. I remembered playing a Thumb BO 5 and how playable I thought it was, despite the odd pickup arrangement. I just didn't want to drop the £1000+, until I got my hands on this:

I bought a cheap b/w/b off ebay for my black/maple Jazz and it's fine. Looks the business. However either it wasn't cut precisely perfectly or I just got too enthisiastic and scraped off a small amount of the neck when I had to force it on a bit. I think it was only arouind £20, can't recall the seller.

I've used that head and combo numerous times. Seems to be a staple of many practice spaces. While I'm hardly the world's number one Ashdown fan, (give me Trace/Ampeg/Tech21 any day), that one? Absolutely loved it. Very tasty overdrive for when you want some dirt, and a nice useable compressor.

Currently torn between a BB735A and a Warwick GPS Corvette for my next 5-string. I'm honestly more inclined to go for the Yamaha, as I like the passive switch and a P/J would make a nice change, and it's less expensive leaving more money leftover for a Sire fretless I'm also GASsing after.

EB Cobalt Power Slinkies if I have the cash to spare. Failing that, Roto Swing Bass.

Played a gig in Nottingham on Saturday just gone. At The Loft, a student bar. I knew something was off the moment I arrived, as the headlining band's bassist was sat at the side of the stage with his head in his hands. Seemed like there was some kind of issue with the monitors. Turned out the venue had spent a fortune on a brand new, flashy digital mixing desk and nobody had any idea how to run it! Not even the soundman the headline act had brought with them all the way from France. I heard something about a software issue as well. It was sending the bass to all the monitors for some reason, and nobody knew how to rectify it. Everything was by now about 30 mins behind schedule. This caused us to decide to bin off using the DI box in the bass rig loop, and just go through the cab: a big beefy Ampeg 8x10 that I was just delighted to hook my VT500 up to and bring the chainsaw. Less than a minute into the first song the soundguy rushes on stage and turns my head down, as I had no monitoring whatsoever I suddenly couldn't hear anything. You get shafted enough being a bassist in a metal band ("just scoop the mids and boost the tops and lows til you can't hear yourself properly bro"), so I always make sure to boost my mids right up, if it clashes with the guitars then tough luck. He wasn't happy about me turning myself back up. Then again he should have learned how to work his big shiny new Star Trek mixing desk! Not my problem. ...that aside, the gig went fine. Lol.

I've been very pleased with my EBS Multicomp so far. The valve emulated mode is particularly satisfying.

It's been a very long time since I heard the White album properly so it's hard for me to comment on the mix or remastering. What I'm hearing sounds pretty nice. I really enjoyed the 2009 remasters (mono ones, bit of a purist in that regard). Let's face it, the original 1987 CD presses were a victim of the format's limitations at the time. Typical flat mastering of early CDs. I remember hearing the remastered Beatles for Sale and it was like someone lifted a rug off the speakers that'd been there my whole life. Details I never heard before.