Belka

I think it's a much better idea to start out with lines, or at least some visual marker (short lines/dots like on Alain Caron's F Bass). Of course unlined may look cooler but generally the top players who play fretless tend to have better intonation when playing lined. Jaco, Willis, Bona all spring to mind. The bigger name unlined players like Steve Bailey, Percy Jones, Christian McBride and Tony Franklin tend not to have the best intonation, although they are all obviously great players. There are some exceptions; Pino played unlined very accurately, and Michael Manring has great intonation too. I suspect this comes down to them both having very good relative (or perhaps perfect) pitch, and putting in many hours of practice. Generally the lines are most useful when playing above the 12th fret as that's where the intonation can get really squeaky. It's less of an issue in normal playing positions. Of course using your ears is important, and you would not always play directly on top of the line depending which part of the neck you're at. One caveat is that the old 'use your ears' chestnut does depend on a player having good ears in the first place. To be honest I think most people vastly overestimate their ears. It's almost certain that there are players out there with pitch recognition good enough to distinguish between and play both just temperament and even temperament, but I doubt these people would be even 1% of the fretless community. Using a tuner while playing scales will probably make you good at playing scales in tune, but I'm not sure of its wider benefits in promoting good intonation while improvising fills because as soon as the muscle movement changes, the muscle memory from that goes out of the window. I'm not a teacher so I'm wary of giving advice, but I would say if you plan getting an unlined, knock yourself out, but be aware that the dusty end will present considerable challenges. Work on ear training /pitch recognition as much as possible both on but also away from the instrument, and play as much as possible - keep away from playing fretted for a good few months.

As far as I'm aware, no. Why do you ask?

Here you go, if anyone's interested

I agree with most of what you say, but personally I feel the impact that the neck joint on things like sustain and punch has little basis in reality. I think the idea probably came about in the '70s because typical bolt-on basses (Fenders) were 'punchy', and neck-through basses (Alembic, Rickenbacker, Spector) did have sustain, but to attribute this difference to the neck joint when not taking into account things like pickups and their position, bridge and nut materials (massive brass bridges probably do give more sustain than BBOTs), and yes, even wood choice. I'm sure there is a slight difference in sound between neck-through, set-neck and bolt-on, but it's subtle and has very little to do with punch and/or sustain. I have found that neck-throughs have more consistency in sound on all areas of the fingerboard, and some people say they sound more 'compressed' (I can't say if this is true or not). A few years back Fodera built three basses, with identical body and neck woods, pickups and electronics etc. A neck-through, a bolt-on and a set-neck. I think the conclusion was that there was very little difference in tone between them (and that might not even have been down to the neck joint; the neck through would have had more maple in the body than the others due to its construction).

Apart from Brazilian Rosewood they're not really. Alder, maple, mahogany, Indian rosewood, poplar, pau ferro are relatively cheap, not exotically figured and not in short supply. Ash is becoming a problem due to the beetle which is decimating trees but for most of the last 70 years has been abundant and inexpensive. Ebony and purpleheart are more expensive but do show up on relatively inexpensive production instruments. More exotically figured woods typically used as tops like buckeye burl, poplar burl, figured maple, etc., are generally not considered to be tonewoods. Most builders say that a top has little to no effect on tone.

I've just seen that Fodera have listed the Ryan Martinie bass as available to order on their site. It list for $11,700 which is obviously very expensive, but cheaper than I was expecting with that laminated top. Looking at the options on the bass (bolt on, Hipshot bridge, EMG pickups), I'm pretty sure they'll release a Ryan Martinie standard model with a painted Ying Yang-ish top sometime next year which would probably retail at around $6-7k. Still pricy but if anything cheaper than Warwick custom shop. Could be a smart move by Fodera to try to drum up some new business from the rock and metal fraternity - imagine how Wals Tool/Flea fans would have bought if the supply had kept pace with the demand.

16k Euros would be a fairly high spec model, and would include all the import taxes duties into the EU/UK. The Thomann UK site has custom 5 strings generally between £10-11k. However, these basses are essentially Ying Yang models (albeit slightly altered) and there is a massive upcharge for that (it's the only thing on the Fodera pricelist which is POA), so I reckon 16-26k for these basses would not be far off. And he got two of them. I know some people won't believe me but they do not give away basses to endorsees. I heard that Victor Wooten once got a free bass, but endorsees typically wouldn't get more than 10% off.

I saw people talking about this over at another site and was surprised to have not seen it here yet. I have no affiliation to the auctioneers or Peter Hook but it may be of interest to some. The Overwater seems particularly interesting. Link here: https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/search/?au=45

Most of my basses are on the heavy side. I have a couple of custom 5 strings that come in at 4.5kgs/9.9lbs, a StingRay 5 which is 4.7kgs/10.3lbs, but my 6 string is the real heavyweight; 5.9kgs/13lbs.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/songs-with-ghost-musicians.270544/ Interesting read here. Of course some of it will be true, some will be hearsay, and in many cases the producers themselves may have forgotten who actually played on a track. I've heard the rumour about Steve Bailey playing Duff's parts on Appetite for Destruction before, but I'm not sure I believe it myself - perhaps he did play some stuff that wasn't ever used, or perhaps pre Pro Tools/Logic he was overdubbing mistakes.

Hi all, just writing to ask for advice. I have a new set of pickups that I want installed in my bass, and am in need of recommendations of an electronics expert who could do the work as I think it's relatively complex as far as pickup swaps go. At present I have a set of non-splittable humbuckers in there (Aguilar DCBs). They're wired to an active preamp with the normal three band eq, volume and passive tone and blend knobs, and two switches, a kill switch and a passive.active switch. The new pickups are splittable dual coils, and I want to install a three way switch to go between the outer coils in single coil mode, parallel humbucking mode, and the inner coils in single coil mode (I know this is possible as I have it in another of my basses). To avoid any drilling I'd probably replace the kill switch with the three way one. I'm located in Bristol and would much rather drive somewhere than ship the bass. Will be happy to hear any recommendations/suggestions. Thanks

Floating thumb technique is perfectly applicable to basses with ramps, it doesn't hinder it in any way.

Thanks for the feedback. The seller is going to work out the shipping charges so I should get an idea of how much it's all going to cost. Sounds like Fedex or UPS may be a better option than USPS/Royal Mail, although I presume that'll add a bit to the cost as well.

Hi all, Just wanted to ask for some advice. I'm thinking of buying a set of pickups from a private seller in the US. I have experience of buying from companies there and the VAT/duty was easy to do as invoices/bills of sale came with the items, and HMRC contacted me to ask to pay the duty. However, I'm not sure how this would work for a private seller - would them stating the value of the pickups on the parcel be enough? I have no intention to undervalue the items to avoid the VAT as I don't want to run any risk of them being held up at customs/confiscated. The price second hand would be around $400 US. I presume I can pay this through PayPal, but would there be any charge for transferring money abroad? Before anyone asks about buying them here, they're Seymour Duncan dual coils from their custom shop - pretty hard to find and new would be considerably more expensive. Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Thanks for posting. I think I read that this was recorded with the fills done as punch-ins, but it doesn't sound like it here, sounds as if it could be one take.

I just checked the Bass Direct site and they have a second hand AT 212 and a One 800 for sale - 2020 model and a considerable saving on a new one. I've been hearing great stuff about GR since 2018 and once gigging starts again I fully intend to get a 1400 head (I use a few basses with low output so would appreciate the power). I have a BB2 too so will initially just get the head but will perhaps look at a cab down the line.

Thanks for posting. I heard that actually the strings on his MusicMan were half-rounds rather than full flatwounds. Certainly dead sounding anyway. Interestingly, whereas a lot of isolated tracks show a level of dirt and sloppiness that isn't apparent in the final mix, Bernard seems to play very cleanly and with a light touch (I'd guess that those harmonics you can hear in the bridge are due to not pressing down that hard on the fretboard, although it could be a right hand thing). His muting is also very good - no lower strings ringing out in when he does parts in the upper register.

If she put original stuff up on YouTube she would probably get very few views, unless, ironically given the nature of this thread, she was performing slap pyrotechnics on the bass. How many original YouTube videos demonstrating how 'less is more' get millions of hits? From interviews with musicians, with the decline of music sales and especially recently with lockdown restrictions curbing live music, I've learnt that for many, YouTube has become an essential income stream, so I say more power to any musician who's making money from their videos. Also, I would definitely describe her playing here as creative. She takes the original bassline and never departs from its main structure, but puts in lots of embellishments, all appropriate in terms of timing and the song's harmony - that's certainly creative in my opinion. It's a little bit off topic but generally the more you transcribe and practise, the more creative you'll get. I don't think that many musicians are born creative, although there are differing levels of talent.

There is definitely a big difference between vintage pickups and modern reproductions of '50s, '60s and '70s pickups. In my opinion, although things like hand winding/scatter wound, and the exact composition of the AlNiCo 5 magnets makes a difference, the main factor is that most modern repros are wound a lot hotter than the originals, with more resistance. Pretty much all Duncan, Fralin, Lollar, Novak, Wizard, Fender etc. 'vintage' jazz pickups are wound at around 8-10k ohm resistance. In the early '60s, I think Jazz pickups typically measured between 7-8k, and by the '70s 6-6.5k was pretty standard. I can understand why modern pickups are wound hotter - imagine spending £200 on a set of vintage reproduction pickups, installing them in your bass, and discovering that you've lost 30-40% of your output volume - the builders would be inundated with returns and it wouldn't be a viable business. However, low output means a smoother, less middy sound with more sparkle to the highs and a detail to the sound that modern pickups don't seem to get. To be fair, I think Aguilar wind their '60s and '70s vintage pickups at around 7.5k, and Fralin also offers underwound as well as overwound pickups, which while not known nearly as much as the overwound, are likely to be far more authentic. I focused on Jazz pickups as I think Precisions are a bit closer to the originals - they're wound in series and so were always higher in output than Jazz pickups anyway.

About a year ago I ab'd a '74 reissue next to a couple of real '70s jazzes (a '72 and a '78). The reissue had better build quality than the '72 (although it could have been down to wear and tear), although surprising given their reputation the '78 seemed to be very well built. Soundwise, the real '70s basses sounded very different. Whether they were better or not is subjective. In my opinion modern pickups, even reissue '60s and '70s one, are all wound hotter to give higher output. I understand that dealing with low output/resistance pickups may be a pain for modern players, who expect a certain level of output, but as a result they all tend to sound middier, without the sparkle in the highs you get from vintage pickups.

It seems nobody hates slap more than bass players. I'd imagine in the guitar world you get guitarists 'hating' tapping or sweep picking for the same reason. Or drummers who 'hate' double kick drum playing. Do any of the bassists here who hate slap also hate tapping and sweep picking on guitar, or double bass drum patterns, or does the fact that it's not actually done on bass mean you don't have that intimate emotional connection with those styles?

Fair enough, but at the end of the day, you say he was a young guy - I don't think there are many people out there who are initially attracted to playing an instrument who understand the bigger picture. I started playing guitar (I lasted a year before I switched to bass) because I thought Hendrix playing behind his head and making feedback sounds was cool. If someone has the talent and will, listens to a range of music and practises properly, they will move out of the flashy phase and take the instrument more seriously.

I think Davie 504 gets treated a bit unfairly around here - he's a great player with a very good ear, and some of his videos are quite creative - the bass with no strings one is great. If he's getting young kids into knowing what a bass is and how cool it can sound I think that can only be a good thing, and will hopefully lead to some of them picking up the bass. Yes, it's clickbaity, but that is the way of Youtube unfortunately, Scott Devine is a very serious educator, and even he has to make clickbaity sounding videos to maximise exposure. It's not like he's claiming to be a serious educator or forcing anyone to play machine gun percussive triplet slap over Mustang Sally, it's just a bit of fun. Perhaps we could encourage Davie to make videos that might go down better over here.... 99.88% CAN'T tell what WOOD my bass is made of!!!!! I change my FLATWOUNDS for the FIRST TIME EVER!!!!! He says his WHITE pickguard has more MOJO than my TORT pickguard??????????? TRACE ELLIOT watts are 1000% HEFTIER than class D watts!!!!

I think you need to give Victor Wooten a good listen - Mark King is far more guilty of tuneless clicking (and I do really like Mark King and Level 42) than Wooten - there's a lot more harmonic and melodic interest in what Wooten plays, although I admit that the fact a lot of it is solo bass without a band may put people off.