Belka

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.

Way back in 1998 I visited San Jose in California, and in a bar I saw a band with a bassist who had a '70s Jazz. When I went to have a talk with him after the gig he claimed that the bass he was using had belonged to Bernard Edwards. Of course, he could have been telling porkies, but he was a rocker and not really into funk/disco so I don't think he would have any reason to pick Bernard over any other player. My memory is a bit hazy but I think it was a sunburst with a rosewood fingerboard, blocks and binding.

I kind of agree. I can also imagine that in certain genres (speed metal if that is still a thing) it's the kind of question you may be asked if auditioning for a band. Also, I remember reading an interview with Mike Pope when he was subbing for Patitucci on the Chick Corea Elektric band. They opened the set with 'Got a match', which is 16th notes moving at 150 BPM with a fairly complex fingering pattern, doubling the keyboard melody . I'm guessing that if he couldn't have done that, Mike Pope wouldn't have got the gig. I suppose that's a kind of extreme example though as it's pretty much the outer limit of what is possible to play.

Thanks for sharing this. I always thought there was some kind of chorusing on this track and now I understand why. It’s really interesting the lengths people went to back then to get good sounds - it’s a lost art with plugins these days.

Mixed opinions - I took a bass up there to have an issue looked at with their tech. The email communication in advance of my visit was super efficient and friendly, but when I arrived I didn't feel welcome at all - was actually asked 'why are you here?'. The tech they had was friendly and dealt with the issues, and I enjoyed talking to Mark when I met him - he's certainly knowledgeable. When the bass was fixed, I asked if I could play it through an amp to make sure the issue was resolved for myself - was told 'why would you want to do that - I already checked it?', although in the end, begrudgingly, they let me do so. It's a great shop and despite the issues I would buy from them if they had something I wanted, but it was a weird experience. I always enjoy visiting the Gallery and have found everyone there extremely helpful and approachable, and Wunjo are also very good, and therefore I would always use them ahead of Bass Direct (unless it was something I couldn't find elsewhere). It's a shame they can't sort out their customer service - I really want shops like that to succeed as they have such great stuff but I can see why some people would never use them again.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/guitar-hard-case-for-bass-or-guitar-/1394881014 https://www.gumtree.com/profile/accounts/1b8724625a0e9b167460f7e15574815e He's on Gumtree now. No Sansamp however.

I doubt he cares to be honest, but he's terrified that Priti will shout at him if anything is done to allow freer movement.