tinyd

General fitness is obviously never a bad thing and certainly helps with stamina on gigs, but I find that to be good on the night at playing bass (particularly DB), I have to specifically train beforehand beforehand by....playing bass. I can have a really nice active month between gigs with plenty of cycling etc, but if I don't spend some time working the "bass muscles" then the next gig can be a bit hit-and-miss.

I only play gigs about once per month so as well as whatever practicing I normally do, I make sure that I run through some tunes at a fairly decent tempo a few times coming up to the gig just so I don't cramp up on the night.

Thing that I find least helpful is people doing fretless slides on an upright since double bass players rarely do this except for effect, solos etc (mention to the master Ron Carter for this one).

10 minutes ago, petebassist said:

Agreed about the DB technique. For instruments so expensive, NS Design aren't much good at providing quality video content to show the different sounds and tones you can get. 

I did try an NXT a few years back at the London bass show, but the action was set way too low to dig in like on a DB.

 

Yep, weird that they don't make more "here's a DB player making this sound like a DB" videos since I'd have thought that this is one of their main audiences. But maybe their market research shows that most customers are people coming from BG....But I'd have though those players still want it to sound like a DB.

Yep, it's a nice tone alright. Like you say, it's not often you see an EUB played by someone coming at it from an acoustic bass standpoint. I think this is a large part of the sound to be honest - if you play an EUB like it's a big fretless bass turned on its side then it'll sound like that, whereas using a DB technique tends to give a more DB tone. Having said that, I've never played an EUB so this is pure speculation on my part based on a limited number of videos I've seen....

I agree with the FDeck suggestion above. A pretty inexpensive piece of gear that will stand you in good stead over the years even if you upgrade / change pickup / amp.

+1 on on the "get in touch with singer" idea. Singer, bass and guitar might be enough for a wine-bar thing anyway and you can take your time finding a drummer who can play quietly. 

17 hours ago, NickA said:

Deliberately "punchy" according to David Gage.  Whereas I'm using a realist sound clip, which you move around the bridge, pad with cycle inner tube and mess with counterweights till it sounds right.

Talking of delicate setups, I had a Revolution Solo before which was very natural-sounding....but only if you had it *just* right, the weather was decent, you said special prayers to the MBOL fairies etc. The Lifeline is very usable, but only with some pretty hefty mids-destruction from the EQ.

10 hours ago, NickA said:

Rarely touch the eq on my pjb rig. Maybe tweak the bass for room acoustics.  My old trace certainly needed a big smile on it tho.

 

Guess the trace was designed to sound impressive and the pjb to be flat response.

Ha, I definitely remember that from my Trace days! I think it must be my DB / pickup combination (Realist Lifeline) but I find that I have to get rid of the mids on my PJB setup as well (and it was the same on my old GK before that).

On 21/05/2025 at 18:40, tauzero said:

 

You have to make sure that it's trying to load http:// and not https:// - Chrome has an unfortunate tendency to change everything to https://, Firefox is more subservient in that respect.

It's probably fine because you're not going to be sending anything confidential, but in general I'd avoid any site that doesn't use https, especially if it has a login (like this one). If you sign up and use a password that's the same (or similar) to one that you use somewhere else then you're leaving yourself open to being hacked on those other, more important, sites.

I have a Japanese Jazz (a 62 reissue) that I bought new in Denmark St in about 1990 and it's been my sole bass (guitar) ever since. I try other basses from time to time (as well as the usual GAS browsing) but I haven't tried or seen anything that I prefer so I reckon that's it for me. Having said that, if I played more gigs on BG (as opposed to DB) then maybe I'd stretch to a fretless or 5 string.

Pretty nice to see a bass amp where you don't have to immediately kill just about all of the mids to get an even servicable sound. 

13 hours ago, TimR said:

Listening to the Scott podcast, they bring up a valid point.

 

800,000+ people have been taken in by a grifter, when real musicians have been honing their craft and working on building a following for years, this guy rolls up and essentially cheats his way to the top 5. 

 

Half of it is the fault of people who unquestioningly believe what they see on the Internet. Beato was, until the guy was sitting in front of him and exposed.

 

 

I think they did a good job of distillling it down the the main point - that it's not OK to mime a video of you playing something that you can't actually play in real life. All of the other stuff about miming, cleaning up parts on recordings etc are justifiable as long as you can actually deliver in real life. 

Also, in general, I would much prefer to watch clips of people playing stuff with imperfections (either in their execution or in the sound quality)...

My general old-person take on a lot of contemporary online "influencer" stuff is the complete lack of boundaries between authenticity and just selling stuff. Of course, this has always happened, but from talking to younger people (e.g. my kids) I think that there's no longer even a pretence that there is a line between somebody doing or telling you something that's real versus them making money.

On 29/03/2025 at 18:58, Beedster said:

My intonation is so poor I'm having a 68" scale built  

Ultimately I need a scale length that's so long that the full reach of my arm only varies the pitch by ~1%

Yep, the FDeck is an HPF that does a good job of removing the "boom" but also boosts the level if needed. I haven't been using mine much for gigs but for some reason at my last gig the bass sounded bad even though it was in the same venue, with the same amp and with what I believe are the same amp settings.

Might be worth trying an "fdeck" which a lot of people use to help with the impedance etc. I have one of these

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=988199496641126&set=pb.100063532544681.-2207520000&locale=en_GB

10 hours ago, JPJ said:

With Mrs JPJ off out for the evening, I've had a good play around on the old GarageBand recording my bass. Tracks included: 1) the J-Tone big twin direct into my interface (Behringer UMC202HD); 2) bass recorded with an SM58 again direct into the interface; 3) the J-Tones via my EBS Stanley Clarke DI; 4) the J-Tones via the EBS and the SushiboxFX Finally DI; and er finally 5) and thanks to @Burns-bass, my bass using a Realist Copperhead via the EBS/SushiboxFX combination. 

Pre-gig yesterday I'd spent quite a bit of time gain staging my setup (so EBS, Sushibox, Behringer X-Air) and also eq'ing and I had a great sound last night even though I was monitoring via FOH so from behind. Some knowledgable punters commented how full my bass sounded and how it sat in the mix - no doubt down to the time spent gain staging. 

As I said at the outset, I wasn't totally unhappy with the sound of the J-Tones but they did lack something and could easily end up sounding like a fretless bass guitar. The Copperhead however is a huge step up. Firstly I needed to back the bass off on the EBS and use the HPF, secondly I was able to open the treble up too and still not get the nasally sound piezo's can exhibit at times. So, all is well that ends well. I'm off to do some more faffing about before Mrs JPJ gets home. Thanks all for your input and help, and for the record, I did like the SM58 recording so a microphone might well be in my future but for now, I think I'm going to be happy with the Copperhead.

That's a really good analysis. I found my copperhead to be very usable as well - I just upgraded recently to a Lifeline because it's a bit less bassy on my bass. I did some similar experimentation last night with an FDeck HPF and a Fishman Platinum Pro (the old one). I tweaked a lot but I came to the conclusion that the best sound is just going straight into my amp (a Warwick Gnome head and a Phil Jones C2 cab). The only thing is that I have to turn the bass and middle all the way off on the amp. The HPF and preamp do give a bit more control, but I end up just doing using them to do the same thing (turn the bass right down) so once I took them out of the signal chain it didn't really make a difference.

Anyway, I think the moral of the story is that it's worth playing around with different gear, but probably the most important thing is getting the right pickup (or mic) to provide the best possible input.

+1 on the Realist Lifeline. I've tried quite a few pickups over the years and this one is my favourite so far although I also have a J-Tone as a backup. With careful EQ (i.e. killing the mids) I can get the Lifeline away from that "fretless" bass tone so it sounds pretty natural.

It's obviously good to play with drummers but like @NickA says above, playing without them is also really important. It's also nice in a rehearsal/jam situation because you can usually play without an amp which I find good for my overall playing. Also, of course, not all drummers are created equal so sometimes adding a drummer is detrimental....

One other thing - while you have the strings off, use a 4B pencil to add some graphite to the string slots in the nut and bridge - it helps lubricate them slightly when it comes to tuning.

12 hours ago, NickA said:

I play an old carved bass at "jazz in a pub" volumes ( sometimes quite loud). never had a feedback issue....

Yep, same (except my bass is a hybrid). In my experience feedback usually happens if the amp / pickup / preamp setup isn't optimal - but once you can eliminate the "boomy" end of the spectrum it's usually fine - certainly for jazz/bluegrass type volumes.

I don't have opinions about bass players' ability on guitar, but I *do* find that guitarists who pick up a bass often have a bad tone (because they don't pluck the strings properly) and their timing can be dodgy.

On 30/01/2025 at 11:34, Terry M. said:

I would lean more towards Cold Sweat based on the single chord vamp structure (bridge aside)

Yep, the vamp thing is key I think. I saw a Pee Wee Ellis interview and he called out So What as an inspiration (the horn line) but I think the modal jazz influence is there as well in terms of staying on a single chord for longer.

I have a Warwick Gnome head running into a PJB C2 cab and I like it a lot. I use it for DB and it's loud enough for small jazz gigs with drummers plus it's very light and so easy to carry.