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[quote name='BigRedX' post='187064' date='Apr 28 2008, 11:12 AM']As CK says too many concepts copied directly from the guitar without seemingly thinking if they'll work on a bass.[/quote] The thing is... the bass came first, a 5-string made for Steve Swallow, the one on his 1991 solo album cover: The guitar was scaled down from that and simplified, and was so successful that Parker didn't follow up on the basses until much later, and (if the Wikipedia article is accurate) because it was in their contract with Korg. Steve, with this bass, was the one who clued me in to the benefits of High C on the 5-string.

[quote name='peteb' post='186045' date='Apr 26 2008, 05:45 PM']To anyone who isn’t a massive soul fan, Jamerson was just a decent session player who played on a string of hits![/quote] Not as many hits as Carol Kaye, however... Nah - while Jaco does very little for me, I'm of the "if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything" school of thought.

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='184029' date='Apr 23 2008, 07:14 PM']My understanding was that you'd normally put a much shallower shim in, but only at one end of the pocket, thereby altering the angle of the neck rather than moving the whole thing forward.[/quote] That's what I've done with the Tune, using Gaffa tape layers to build up a wedge. It's about 1mm at the thickest, but has a dramatic effect on the neck angle. For a permanent fix. however, I'd prefer a 5mm block, or (even better) to recess the bridge.

You could try [url="http://www.thomann.de/ie/"]Thomann[/url], they have various 6-ers on sale. They have a Harley Benton for €169, or Peavey Grind for €398.

It's these guys: [url="http://www.plastictoys.co.uk/"]Plastic Toys[/url] from Southampton.

Here's a guy who likes Aluminum - sorry, Alumin[b]i[/b]um: He has a (Flash-heavy) website [url="http://skylabdigital.com/"]here[/url], and more YouTube videos [url="http://ie.youtube.com/user/x9spaceman"]here[/url]. He has 1-string and 6-string basses too, and something called the Vytrobulus...

Tuning by ear at a gig? That must mean the crowd is nice and quiet... If you tune by harmonics, you're not quite following the equal-temperament scale any more. Which is OK for a 4-string or fretless in a non-critical situation, but the deviation could be a problem if it's an ERB, and/or you have keyboards overlapping the bass range.

My old [url="http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=AX1B&category_id=6"]Korg AX1B[/url] has a decent basic tuner function built in, activated along with a mute mode by holding the pedal down for a second. It indicates sharp notes like G# with a tiny unreadable dot, so I might not tell from the tuner alone if I was a whole semitone sharp - so but it's fine if you tune from below a note. (I didn't use it for several years, but pulled it out again after I got the Tune, and it sounds better than I remembered.)

If you view that seller's other items, there's more Cheapness than a man can stomach. Anyone for an acoustic bass with soundhole pickup? On the other hand, that thru-neck bass also comes in [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/6-STRING-THRU-NECK-BASS-SOLID-MAHOGANY-WILKINSON-PU-S_W0QQitemZ160230498212QQihZ006QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]6-string[/url] for £20 more.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='177157' date='Apr 15 2008, 04:38 PM']There was a comedian I heard once who was taking the piss out of duran duran because their basslines were all the same. Was it Richard Vranch? He was funnier than Guy Pratt anyway.[/quote] I'm pretty sure it was Guy, he did that when I saw him live. It was a bit harsh, I thought - it could be classified as part of JT's style, and I easily point to songs like [i]New Religion[/i] or [i]Ordinary World[/i] as counter-examples.

Since I mentioned Tina Weymouth in the "Babes" thread, I've been trying various Talking Heads bits, including [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MA3ZE3mb7DU"]And She Was[/url] and [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4NXkM8PsPXs"]Wild Wild Life[/url], but try [i]Heaven[/i] for starters: Dig those 80s threads! Also, since I last looked at XTC's [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5Da9sc6YDBo"]Mayor of Simpleton[/url], someone's posted a video of the bassline, which looks spot-on to me: [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vVcFsdPD8kw"]here[/url].

[quote name='phatmonkey' post='175838' date='Apr 13 2008, 08:23 PM']Good idea, i'll stop people uploading BMPs.[/quote] If you do that, I also recommend blocking TIFF (or TIF), the uncompressed format used by Macs.

[quote name='tauzero' post='173768' date='Apr 10 2008, 11:04 AM']It still takes time to download. And one point is that if you take the photo, load it into something like Irfanview and then save it again, at exactly the same resolution, it will be considerably smaller.[/quote] Is that because it's a BMP or other uncompressed format, instead of a JPEG? Or do you mean a JPEG quality thing? Not many people know about the second factor, so I should say something about that: You can usually choose the quality setting when you save a JPEG file, and save a lot of disk space (and bandwidth) that way. A typical value is 85%, which is OK, but 95% is usually unnecessarily big. I've taken JPEGs down to 60% and struggle to see any difference, at 1/4 the size.

I thought at first this would be about the picking hand - my pinkie is too short for that. On the fretting hand, always. I've had to work at using the [i]ring[/i] finger properly, and still lapse in to index-middle-pinkie on the lower frets if I'm careless.

The way I understand it, "hot" is not so much about raw level, but the signal/noise ratio. The original idea behind onboard active circuitry was to boost the signal close to the source, with a short run of wire between pickup and amp, because long cable runs can mean loss of signal while picking up more noise. EMG took that idea to the extreme, putting the preamp inside the pickup casing. Amp boost stages also introduce noise, so a higher low-impedance signal helps minimize noise in that way too.

And here's Victor unhinging a few jaws...

[quote name='Rich' post='169738' date='Apr 4 2008, 12:40 PM']I simply fail to understand why so many people seem to be quite so anti-ERB (or for that matter, anti-4string). At the end of the day, surely we all play music because we love doing so, not because we think it's clever? Can't we all just get along?[/quote] Well, are that many people anti-ERB? I see a lot of comments along the lines of "I don't see the need", or "it's not for me", which I don't construe as anti-ERB. If I tried telling people "you're wrong to want an ERB", that would be another matter, for which I would expect to receive a nastygram or three. Personally, I've been torn between the GAS for a 6-string and the realization that I probably wouldn't make effective use of it. If I ever find an EBMM Bongo 6 in Teal Green in a shop, you may need to get a mop and bucket to clean up the drool... but in the next couple of years I may need to travel light, live out of a couple of suitcases, and I have nowhere to store stuff that doesn't charge per week. That makes GAS fairly easy to resist, and GAS is my only justification for an ERB.

Let me share one of my secret artists with you - or, I should say, why-is-this-guy-a-secret? artists: [url="http://www.keneally.com/"]Mike Keneally[/url]. Here's a recent video of "Dolphins" with bassist Doug Lunn, but he's also worked with Bryan Beller extensively.

I've just heard that my old Stick arrived safely, and it was a pleasure dealing with Mego on the sale. I was more worried about DHL than anything else, no worries about the transaction. - brian t

On a related practical matter: getting strings for a 6 isn't always easy. I have to order strings for my 5-string (headless High C) from the UK, and I've never seen 6-string sets on sale here in Ireland. All the shops carry are standard 4- and 5-string sets from (mostly) D'Addario and EBMM. In fact, last week, at a university jazz gig, I saw the first 6-string I've seen in 8 years here. (An Ibanez BTB-406, new, and I never saw the bassist touch the 1st and 6th strings!) I know the're certainly [url="http://www.chrislarkinguitars.com/"]made[/url] here... maybe one day.

I honestly think a 6-string neck would be a bit much for you to be comfortable on, without a lot of practice. A 4-string bass is not somehow "less" than a 6-string, you're not "more" of a bassist if you have more strings. How about a 5-string? I play one tuned EADGC, which would also work in EADGB - I just have to buy "High C" sets.

Let me tell you a story... are you sitting comfortably? I played bass first, and tried guitar later, and when I did I found myself at odds with the standard guitar tuning. I came to the conclusion that the tuning makes sense in one specific context: for strumming full 6-string chords. Coming from the bass side, however, I was used to the strings being a major 4th (5 semitones) apart, so could I tune the guitar EADGCF? Turns out it works just fine for many things, and I still do it today, though I don't play guitar much. I have a system of working out chords (a spreadsheet), and the chords can be transposed in two dimensions - up the neck and across. There are even some chords that I can strum on all 6 strings: just not as many compared to standard tuning. Since you're (generally) [b]not[/b] going to be playing 6-string chords on bass - ewwww! - I think you have no reason to want the same tuning on the bass as the guitar. I think this is behind to some of the comments here about "thinking like a bassist" - and also our objections to the term bass [i]guitar[/i]. To get the most out of the bass, you will have to go beyond guitar techniques. Sure, it's possible to play a bass like a guitar, to lay a bassline down, and I don't mind when guitarists like Satriani and Vai do that - it gets the job done on tracks where it's all about the guitar. Those guys also know that if they want a more complex bassline, and more of a band feel, they need to get a bassist in to the studio.

Bass-related, it has to be plectrums, of which I have a few, I've basically given up on pick style, on the few occasions I tried it I dropped the plectrum anyway. I even have a Dunlop [url="http://www.jimdunlop.com/index.php?page=products/pip&id=42&pmh=products/picks"]thumbpick[/url], which won't fall off, but it hurts my fat thumb. Non-bass-related*, it has to be one of these: the [url="http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-11197-The+attack+of+the+cat+paws+by+Bandai.html"]Neko Nyanbou[/url]. Literally "Cat Meow Paw", it curls up when you pull the trigger, so you can use it to scare people, or grab things. That site has a great graphic with "sample applications". * Now I think about it..?

I remember being highly interested in a [url="http://www.yamahamusic.com.au/products/musicalinstruments/guitars/electric/solid/sg.asp"]Yamaha SG2000[/url], after seeing Big Country playing them - loved the looks and the sound. More recently - yes, a Parker Fly would be very nice, especially the upcoming Adrian Belew signature model with MIDI pickup. Mmmm... What I do have, however, is one of these: Oink!

I like a good bit of older Dream Theater, but they kinda lost me with [i]Metropolis 2000[/i]. In 2002 I saw them three times in four days, in Dublin, and London where they did a double-header. That's when they do weird stuff, like JM breaking out the Stick on [i]New Millennium[/i], and on the second night they played the whole [i]Number Of The Beast[/i] album (Iron Maiden). Great, but I was kinda cured of the DTs after that experience. Anyone for [b]DragonForce[/b]? I've seen the video, and I don't know [i]what[/i] to think.