Annoying Twit

It has a bid. So it appears that the starting price was not more than the market will bear.

How else would you recommend I learn this bass setup/modding lark?

Potential pickguard and new truss rod cover (missing when I first bought the bass) designs. These are deliberately simple. I'm planning to make these using black plastic, with the assumption that at some time in the future I'll refinish the bass in a light natural wood oil finish, if I can work out how people put a finish on a bass that really brings out the grain. (I"ve seen this mentioned several times). I wondered about designing a pickguard and truss rod cover in the shape of a well known litigious American bass manufacturer as a joke, but couldn't make a sufficiently curved TRC shape that would fit on the headstock, and didn't want to extend the pickguard to include the knobs. My pictures seem to get blurrier each time I try, but this should give the basic idea. If I do this, I'd be designing the items with CAD software, and hence there would be no problems getting them to be symmetrical. Unlike the cardboard Ideas for how the design could be changed gratefully accepted. But, nothing too weird or technically difficult please

It's been a long time since anyone else commented in this thread, so I don't know if I should continue solo posting. But, I've decided that overall I'm pleased with the admittedly minor changes the pickup swap led to. The sound is slightly beefier particularly for the B string. Playing along with a Roland PMA-5 with the bass track muted, the bass sounds quite OK in the mix. I've been fiddling with the setup in terms of string height and truss rod tension a bit, and seem to have stumbled onto something I find reasonable, and gives me less 'clank'. Such that I feel I enjoy playing the bass now, while before I really didn't enjoy it that much. It was an accident that I started playing it last night. I was playing along with some ultra-cheesy tunes I'd written on the PMA some years ago, and found one of them was in the key of Eb major. In working out a bass line, I had one that naturally wanted to descend from the Eb on the A string down, but of course on my four string I didn't have a lower Eb to descend to! So, out came the six string

Ah, I thought it odd that a Fender bass would have a different coloured top. But once my eyes interpreted the lighter colour as wood showing through, I just didn't see it differently.

I've got a number of interesting suggestions for different teachers at the moment, in Leicester and Birmingham. I may do the occasional lesson in a round robin style, to see how different the teachers are, and what I gain from each.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1382377269' post='2251461'] Now states made in Japan 1993/4. [/quote] I wonder if anyone asked where it was made, prompting the seller. I asked a seller of a Bass Collection bass that, and the country of origin then went up on the listing immediately I did.

£200 doesn't sound too high to me for a Silver Series Squier. I can't keep up with Japanese Fender and Squier prices. But, £200 still seems a good price to me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Jazz-Bass-/171154831491?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item27d99f7883 I'm not thinking of buying this. But, has this bass not been sanded down a bit much. There seems to be a bit of lighter wood showing through in places.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny. (I can't believe this hasn't been posted yet).

Stafford is quite some distance away. I think I'd need to take a train to Birmingham and change. It would take me hours to get there, I think.

I do think that not learning theory gives an illusion of additional creativity. E.g. someone without theory may come up with a bassline and realise 'hey, this uses notes from the major key (sic) except that I'm using the flatted seventh - this is brand new, nobody who knows theory would come up with this.' George Martin reported that The Beatles thought they had invented the added sixth chord. Personally I think the fastest way to get someone making up their own basslines is to teach them the minor pentatonic scale. Later on after learning more scales and modes, along with rhythms, prompt them to try using notes that aren't in the scale. How is someone taught like that more constrained than someone who doesn't know what any of the notes on the fretboard are?

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1376928935' post='2181044'] Peavey T45 ... even less than T40's [/quote] [url=http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peavey-T-45-Bass-1981-/111194830686?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item19e3ba775e]T45[/url]

Time to Hide.

I finally got around to drilling holes for the pickup screws in the wood, and I can now screw down the screws further. I'm using rough blocks of foam to act as springs underneath the pickups. I can now adjust the height of the pickups. The overall result is that the pickups seem OK. It sounds like a bass. But, I don't think it's a very inspiring sound. While I used the cheaper pickups, Given that the basic character of the sound that I don't like has stayed the same, I wonder if this is the sound of the bass itself, rather than the pickups. It does seem to have a lot more power in the low B string however, perhaps to the degree that it overpowers the other strings a bit. The bass looks very ugly with the pickups in holes that are too small for them. Thinking about possible solutions for this, one might be to make and install a pickguard on the bass. If that was the case, I'm wondering about the possibility of attaching the pickups to the pickguard, rather than to the wood.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1378447960' post='2200331'] i've often wondered why some british luthier doesn't make a bass totally of native woods. [/quote] What could they use for the fretboard? Is the native field maple hard enough for a fretboard? The body would be easy, with alder, linden, and ash being commonly used woods, as well as woods such as oak and walnut.

Not my personal 'worst advice ever', that's already been covered by others in this thread. I was told over the phone by a well known internet musical instrument shop that as guitars are all made on a production line, that there was no difference between different copies of the same model. And therefore there was no advantage to going into a shop and testing the actual instrument you're going to buy, compared to having tested one of the same model. I don't believe this. Particularly when buying cheaper instruments that haven't had a very careful setup. Also, while I am a bit hesitant to mention this, in the 'for sale' section there are often people chiming into a for sale thread saying how cheap something is being sold for, and that someone should grab this quick. Most of the time the advice is correct and useful. But just occasionally this advice will be given when the asking price is quite high.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1382251821' post='2249643'] I've had some really good one-off lessons. Each lesson keeps me on track and I go back again when I next need direction. My bro in law is a cello teacher. My Ma in law is a piano teacher. Both agree that with most students the real purpose of the lesson is to keep the kids practicing. If this isn't a problem with you, then I'd ask "what do you want regular lessons for? " [/quote] I mainly want to play 'normal' bass. I seem to be making good progress with this. I can seem to get the hang of the index/middle finger 'pop' with slap bass, though slapping with my thumb sounds right. And I really don't know what I'm doing when I try to tap, though I can hammer on OK. I can sort of get something going with the left hand in the bass register, but higher notes sound all kinds of wrong. I am guessing (careful choice of word there) that if I had a one off lesson on one of these topics, that if I could be taught to 'get it' for one riff, that this would speed me up considerably. Rather than just trying just random stuff until I stumble onto it. One thing that prompted this was that I try to make sure I do regular exercise as well as all the other 'stuff' in my life. Having missed loads of exercise while busy at work, I attended a coached swim session. A number of bad habits were pointed out, which now that I'm aware of them, I can address them. Perhaps the same would apply to bass.

I think if I had a lesson or lessons, I'd want it to be in real life.

I visualised something similar to what I've heard happens to packages sent by a well known courier. And, is there a chance that there's a design fault?

Leicester. I work in education myself, so I think I'm reasonably prepared to take sufficient notes etc in order to make sure I have what I need to revise/remember material.

I'm basically stumbling forward bit by bit by myself. I just don't have enough spare life left over to really take on regular formal lessons. I was wondering what people here thought of the worth of having the occasional one-off lesson here and there. Is there value in this? Things that I'd be concerned about is whether or not a teacher would want to take what I do and re-work it from scratch. Andrew Levy of The Brand New Heavies has mentioned that he has what someone described as 'awful' technique after teaching himself. But he gets the job done, and given who I am and where I am, if I just more or less get there, then I'd be happy. (And I seem to be getting there, albeit slowly and sporadically). Also, would a teacher be too used to people that they see every week, and perhaps someone who turns up for a one-off would require a different teaching strategy in the (say) one hour available? Is that enough time to (say) teach some basics of a new technique such as tapping or slapping, leaving me in a better position to continue learning that by myself than I would be otherwise? Edit: I'd like to be clear. I'm not asking if a one off lesson would be all that I would need. Or that it compares to regular lessons of an hour a week or suchlike. Only whether having the occasional lesson would be a significant improvement compared to having NO lessons.

Again. Who is doing this to these basses, and why? [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Round-Back-Electro-Acoustic-Bass-Guitar-by-Gear4music-Damaged-RRP-100-/350903214290?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item51b37620d2"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item51b37620d2[/url] How is JPJ's build going?

Here's the same player playing a Vintage (brand) p-bass. Exactly the same buzzing sound. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU9MmVveFhU[/media] I wasn't meaning to criticise cheaper instruments. I would like to be one of those people who can take a cheaper instrument that has sufficiently good quality ingredients and refine it into something quite decent. But, it's to be expected that the cheaper instruments will have variable setup quality, as something has to give to get the price down. I've always thought that a reasonable buying strategy might be to buy cheap basses being sold by technically skilled bassists (perhaps their backup bass or something - or perhaps they jumped on the Sue Ryder bandwagon). As any foibles such as poorly cut nuts are likely to have been solved some time ago.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1381799945' post='2244001'] I can't say I heard much fretbuzz, to be honest. In any case, that would only relate to the particular setup of an individual instrument... [/quote] I think there's something there, though I'm now wondering what. When I listen to the youtube video I hear some metallic sounds in addition to the actual sound of the notes, e.g. between 0:50 and 1:04 on the video. If those sounds aren't fret buzz, what are they? It could be setup, and/or playing style if the player isn't fretting the notes well. But I hear something. Similar rattling sounds here: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTXsAibLak[/media] E.g. from about 2:00 on for a bit. Though, when I've researched rattle, the advice has always been to clean up playing style, rather than look at the setup of the bass. This youtube video sounds atypical of a p-bass to me. Not the more aggressive 'London Calling' sound more typical of p-bass demos. Though, I prefer the sound this guy gets to the stereotype.