TrevorR

Well let’s see... I bought my No 1 bass in 1993 and my No 2 bass in 2001. And my amp rig in about 2006. Never been slightly tempted to change either since then so they must be doing something right for my ears and for my fingers.. 😉😁

I’d forgotten about BBM. Gary’s Scars album has some great bass from Cass Lewis too. Must dig that out!

Can’t recall if I said how much I enjoyed being a part of the last one. Bo was so easy to chat to so it made for a very easy Skype recording. He also has a great voice for radio... both live and listening to the ‘cast. Iwonder, like @ped said whether we should compile a list of hot/perennial topics to cover or discuss in the podcast? Such as... what's the best bass for metal? Lol! What is the role of the bassist and how has that changed whats the real value of gear above the mid-range price. Does it actually make a difference to anyone/the audience? reading - damaging to creativity, broadly irrelevant, useful but optional skill or essential? ....I’m sure more will occur to me

Well, that’s better than chucking strumpet after strumpet into the audience for them to take home as a souvenir.

Yes, see other posts. The bendy frets in the vid aren’t really proper key specific tempering, just a tuning sweetening thing. My comment you quoted was specifically in relation to the question “Why call it temperament and not intonation?”

I have a nasty habit of fiddling with my strumpet between songs while the lead singer is doing the intro for the next one.

A “strumpet”?

Big, big plus 1 for Neil Murray's playing on the early Whitesnake albums - especially Trouble, Ready and Come and Get it. So souful and funky but yet still driving and perfect for the bluesy heavy rock sound the band had at the time. One of my favourite bass players.

Inspired me to listen again to the Drama album and in fact, there is some amazing bass playing across that album despite being one of Yes' less well known ones. And while we're at it has anyone recommended listening to anything with Bernard Edwards of Chic playing on it? Those early Chic albums and the Chic produced Sister Sledge stuff has some great bass playing on them. And Tony Levin does some fantastic bass and Chapman Stick playing all across Peter Gabriel's So album.

I love the album Tribes Vibes and Scribes by Incognito. Wonderful funky, soulful bass on every track. The Yes Album has great playing by Chris Squire (and check out Tempus Fugit from their Drama album - best bass line ever).

Funny enough, in Waterloo Station at the mo there’s a big display of iconic album covers to celebrate “National Album Day” and this one features in the display!

Because “tempering” a scale means very slightly moving the frequency of each note in the scale... which is what their bendy frets does. So the “even tempered scale” we use in western music assigns a standard, fixed frequency of each note in the chromatic scale slightly to create a compromise that kinda sounds good and more or less in tune when playing any natural major or minor scale.

She’ll be coming all the way from NYC to tell you off and give you her “Don’t Do This At The Gig” face!

Yes and no. Most ears probably wouldn’t hear it but there are frequency differences between thre notes in the even tempered scale (a harmonic compromise popularised around the time of Bach*) and the strict temperament scales. The best of classical musicians on string and brass instruments will compensate automatically. In fact with real true temperament (as opposed to True TemperamentTM - which is just a tuning “sweetening” system) you’d strictly need a differently intonated guitar for each key you might want to play in. Of course, in the real world it barely makes a gnat’s crotchet of a difference. But, hey, it’s just (yikes, “just”!) the next step on from the Buzz Lightyear tuning system some folks have on their guitars, or the type of sweetening that players like James Taylor use on standard guitars. If it floats his boat... *Hence his two books of piano studies written for “The Well-Tempered Klavier”

You’re confusing the dragons with Boris Johnson! 😂

I’m completely easy with when and for how long. Would like to have at least a week so I can, at least, take it to a rehearsal and then try through the church PA in a service... so practicality and logistics first. Let’s make it as convenient for as many folks as poss.

Not a worry, you can’t see the gold for the constant pea-soup fog you always seem to see on old movies! A lot of the main traditional sites are in a very small area around Westminster. Parliament, Big Ben (tho it’s covered with scaffolding at the mo), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, St James Park... My top tip is go see the changing of the guard at Horseguards Parade (opposite end of St James Park from Buckingham Palace, 11 am every morning and you get to stand really close to the horses - literally only 20 feet. At Buck House they’re 100 yards away at best. National Gallery On Trafalgar Sq is free and lovely to wander round. So many iconic paintings. And Windsor is lovely - just a 40 min train ride from Waterloo Station. The castle is amazing, as is Eton College and wandering by the Thames.

Sounds like a plan! But you still need to pop in for a go on the Wals @Grangur

No you mistake me... I think that the series/parallel switching is a great idea. I was just saying that two switches [pickup selection switch + series/parallel] was better than the 3 switches and gives exactly the same functionality.

Another stealth one is the Aria SB900. The soapbar pickups are reverse P configured coils. This is Erik Scott of Alice Cooper's band playing one. Neil Murray also played one in the Whitesnake days...

I’ll be having a proper test drive further down the line but I had a good look at the bass at the Bass Bash and despite how lovely the bass is, the pickup switching arrangement is one thing I was not convinced by. Here s my thought... Set aside the series/parallel switch, the two on/off switches aren’t a simple ergonomic solution to me. They give you four pickup options. Three of those are useful (neck, bridge, both) and one of those isn’t useful for me and, actually, has active downsides - both off. Why should I want both pickups off? Maybe to mute the bass while it’s sitting on the stand. But I have a volume control for that or, more likely, an in-line tuner pedal which mutes the signal. So in practice the “off” setting is entirely redundant and unnecessary for me. AND there is always the risk of accidentally turning the bass off mid song and having to work out in a panic why? Pedalboard died? Cable broke? Amp died? DI box bust? Oh, no. I’ve just turned the bass off. But a standard three way switch gives you all the useful functionality of the two on/off switches in a single switch... neck, both, bridge. A much more straightforward and usable arrangement for me.

Sure it could be squeezed in. Whereabouts are you?

Sounds like a plan. I'll be happy to pop the kettle on! Any while you're here it would be a shame not to have a whizz around the Wal!

Yes, of course.

Yeah, Matt Freeman from the Harry Potter films with Magneto the WIzard. I was surprised he didn't play one of his own signature basses! 😋