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15 hours ago, TheGreek said:

I have a Mahalo with rubber strings which is fun to play - compact and lightweight - however this is spoilt by needing to retune every two micro seconds. Constantly going out of tune (strings take ages to settle) even though it takes forever to tune for that reason.

 

I'm waiting for somebody to invent rubber strings that don't suffer from the above problem. 

I tried the DB trick of using a heavy pencil to leave graphite in the slots in the nut which makes them slide more easily. Helps a fair bit.

I don't want to be a "fingerboard marker" fundamentalist, but in general the quicker you can wean yourself off them the better you'll play so I definitely wouldn't do anything permanent to the bass. This isn't for weird purist reasons - it's just that learning to shift and finger properly on upright is much more important than on BG and relying on dots too heavily will set you back and stop you using your ears properly.

I still use a pencil marker on 5th and 12th "frets" on gigs just as a sanity check on a loud stage (and I'm not that good anyway...) so like I said, I'm not a purist on this.

@Niksonbass -  I know there's nothing more annoying than a person on the internet who, when you ask about X, suggests that you buy Y instead. But I'm going to do it anyway and ask why you're looking for an EUB as opposed to a DB? This is definitely not a criticism of EUBs, which can sound great and are a bit more convenient than a DB, but just thought I'd ask since you mentioned DB in your original post.

On 12/11/2021 at 13:48, TimR said:

The number of guitarists I've played with who start songs after being counted in and by the end of the intro are in a different tempo, some times having paused and hung on notes. 

You're being pretty charitable to describe this as "not thinking the same way" 😀

The usual adage is that everyone in the band is responsible for time, and if you watch good bands in any genre then this is obvious. But sometimes guitarists, singers, horn players etc can get away with having timing that's a bit suspect, whereas bass players and drummers definitely can't. If you're in a band and you're the only person who seems bothered by a bad drummer then, apart from the drummer, it also might be a sign that the rest of the band aren't necessarily that good either. 

On 21/10/2021 at 17:29, NickA said:

It's perhaps the dullest book on earth, but the Simandl New Method ( it's ancient) is a good foundation for upright bass technique.  Also David Heyes "daily exercises for double bass" is a good workout.

A big +1 on both the importance and the dullness of Simandl. There are other fingering systems but I'd start with this as it'll get you playing in tune more quickly than if you just try and adapt your BG technique.

I think what's important is to learn the structure of the songs, make sure you know about any stops/breaks etc and then play bass lines that are in-keeping with the previous player's. IMHO I don't think that learning them exactly is necessary (or even desirable) unless the bass lines are an identifiable motif/melody.

They look really nice, and I can see the attraction of the smaller size relative to full-scale EUBs. Any DB-players out there - do you find that the shorter scale and lower tension means that if you "dig in" too hard then the Upswing can't really handle it? I'm not saying that you *have* to dig in to get a DB experience, but there are times on DB when doing so is the right thing to do....

I think this is one of those cases where the sound is more about his technique than the bass itself per se. So I'd say any bass, probably with flats, with a middly EQ will sound pretty close if you can get that style under your fingers.

[Edit]: Just remembered that I saw this video the other day which should be helpful
 

+1 for The Jazz Bass Book by John Goldsby - not strictly a "method" book, but it does contain loads of great information and transcriptions from bass players throughout the history of jazz so you'll learn a lot from it.

The Jazz Bass Line Book by Mike Downes is also a great resource. Lots of examples in different styles plus side-by-side comparisons between different players over the same tunes.

I got my bridge adjusters fitted by Tom Barrett in Galway - he added them to my existing bridge. Might be worth getting in touch with him.

http://doublebassireland.com

Been listening to Pino Palladino's new album:

and also this one from Sam Gendel from about a year ago:
 

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Both very fresh-sounding (to me, anyway). The Sam Gendel album was recorded completely live over a couple of days

The album is really good. Really varied and interesting and not at all a "bass players' " album if you know what I mean (although the bass playing on it is obviously excellent)

I'd add Shen basses to the list - like the Stentors and Strunals, they can be affordable but are a significant step up from the cheap models.

I guess it depends on what you want to sound like, but I think that trying to make your body position as close to how you'd hold a DB will probably be good in the long run, especially if you want your EUB to sound more DB-like (you may not, of course).

I shared this video in another thread - different model of bass, but it may be relevant.
 

Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" works for me - it has a hypnotic, repetitive feel, but it's rhythmically interesting and so doesn't feel bland (I find music that's too shapeless tends to be irritating and so jolts me out of whatever I'm supposed to be concentrating on....)

1 hour ago, chyc said:

That's a great video. I've never heard an NS sound as close to a real upright as that. Thanks for sharing.

Me neither -  his point is a good one - just about all of the other videos that I could find have players playing them more like a BG and they therefore have that "giant fretless bass" sound, so maybe the easiest way to get them to sound like an upright is just to play them like one

Anyway, his video made me want one, which is a bad thing, but I hope you get one and get the sound that you want!

Not sure if you've seen it, but this is a good vid:
 

He has some good tips on how to make a WAV 4 sound a lot more like a DB
 

11 hours ago, TPJ said:

Or any other bossa style song. There are loads of them.

Indeed, but I think that in this case the other instrumentation etc are also pretty close to Song For My Father so it sounds to me a bit closer than just a general 'style' thing

57 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

I'm not hearing that at all! A different version, perhaps ...

These are the versions I'm thinking of. Different key but pretty similar (although that bass pattern is used in loads of tunes)
 

22 hours ago, JimmyN2 said:

We use the Real books and/or iReal Pro in our music but I tend to play the root to 5th for each chord in this song - a little like a Steely Dan’s intro to ‘Ricky don’t lose that number’ - with a little variation around and it seems to work fine.

As has been said by others above. 

I'm pretty sure Steely Dan directly took their intro for "Ricky..." from Song For My Father

On 18/10/2020 at 23:18, stewblack said:

This is where I am with scales and modes and applying them to my playing. It ain't much, but it's a start. I played over an Am groove. I played within the Am scale (or one of them - the one I know - aeolian I think you call it) and then played within the C major scale over the same Am groove. I listened. If I play the C major scale over a C it sounds different. More twee. 

The advantage that I see with learning more about "theory" is that it provides some shortcuts towards being able to play things that sound good, rather than just trying things out more-or-less at random until something sounds pleasant. But however you get there, it still all comes down to listening to the overall music and playing what sounds good to you.

One other note: Full scales often sound a bit artificial if you're playing along, especially as many of the scale tones end up on weak beats. For jamming, the major/minor pentatonics, the blues scale, and the "bebop" scales are a more musical way to explore these relationships.

On 14/10/2020 at 21:49, TKenrick said:

I read this a couple of times and might be misinterpreting it, but...

Since D dorian, C ionian and G mixolydian are all the same scale, how is this playing different modes over Dm7?

Agreed, thinking about playing C major over Dm7 will probably result in targeting different notes compared to thinking about D dorian, but you'd still be choosing from the same 'pool' of pitches regardless of which of those perspectives you choose, so the resulting sound is still D dorian in every case.

Yep, agreed, the notes are all the same, but when you play lines and melodies you're not just plucking notes out and playing them in any order - like you say, you're targeting different notes and where you start and end gives the tune a certain sound, especially when you consider that some notes will end up on strong vs weak beats. If you play Paul Chambers's bass line to So What without a piano, it will still sound (mostly) like D Dorian, not C major, even though the notes are all the same. So it's a bit too simple just to treat every diatonic mode (and chord) in a given key as completely interchangable, even if they share notes - like most things in music, a lot depends on context.

That's my understanding from reading stuff over the years - it's interesting stuff and as with everything that people call "music theory", it's all just a way of helping explain why some things sound good

The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine has a very detailed explanation of the relationship between modes and chords. One thing he covers is why you can't just play a C major scale over all the chords derived from C major.

The general idea that I got from his book (and other people) is that you don't want to be too "prescriptive" about the relationship between a chord and modes, but that knowing the relationship(s) gives you an available pool of notes that you can use when you're playing over the chord.

What's nice is to internalise how the different modes sound over the chords. For example, as others have said, over a Dm7 chord a D dorian will probably sound good, but it's worth understanding how C ionian and G mixolydian sound over the same chord (you hear this a lot with jazz walking bass lines - I've heard both the examples I just gave on versions of So What, which is all dorian, but rather than just walking up and down dorian modes, bass players will emphasise other modes to add interest).

One thing to note is that German bow technique tends to involve a straighter arm and I'm not sure how that might affect its use with the shorter scale on the Ibanez. In one of the official videos on their site it's being played with a German bow and the contact with the strings is very close to the bridge but maybe that's fine. Just something to be aware of...