Beer of the Bass

Nobody is saying anything should be crushed, destroyed or banned, the thread is literally a question of "I am unsure if I want to do this thing, would you?". Personally I would choose not to, we all have that choice.

I listen to Fela Kuti fairly often, and I think I'd feel pretty uncomfortable if I was on stage playing Zombie with a white British guy singing the lyrics, especially given the amount of pidgin Kuti used. I would absolutely play stuff influenced by that style, but singing those actual songs feels a step further than I'd be comfortable with. Though I'm not claiming any great virtue on this type of thing - a couple of decades ago I played with one or two bands that dipped into other cultures in a "middle class white kids playing dress-up" way that I still cringe to think about.

I had a 100 watt Carlsbro valve PA head that (with a similar amount of cab) would stay fully clean at the sort of volumes where the PF50T is starting to get grindy. But for some styles, the sound of a valve amp sailing close to the wind is fun, and the portability, more useful EQ and DI outputs of the PF50T are good to have. The Carlsbro got left at home for a lot of gigs just because it was a heftier lump and sound guys tended to just want a DI in front of it anyway.

I haven't had the chance to compare to a Bassman 50, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be in the ballpark since it's also a fixed bias push-pull 6L6 pair with the same nominal power rating. We have a drummer with reasonable dynamics who's not a shed-builder, and our guitarist usually uses a Blues Junior, and in that context it does fine. Running the midrange control most of the way up helps things to be audible too, an option you don't have on a Fender tone stack. I can hear that it's starting to grit up and squash a little on louder notes when I get to around 2pm on the master volume, though that was at a gig where I was running into a single 12" without PA support and the guitarist had a larger combo than usual. I had it running into a venue's house Orange 8x10 on Friday, and it felt plenty loud that way!

I suspect the difference you hear when shifting a bridge backwards or forwards slightly is the change in the relative position of the soundpost qnd the bridge foot. If you move it by 5mm, say, that's going to be a barely noticeable change in scale length, but a significant change in the gap between bridge and soundpost.

I played a set with him a bit over 20 years ago, before I really knew who he was or what he did. The band I was playing with opened, some local improv-heavy jazz sorts played with him, and then we combined everyone for a third improvised set. I was not prepared for how funny he could be, I remember absolutely cracking up trying to play.

Ah, but consider; https://youtu.be/xccLqr4jW7c?feature=shared

You wouldn't like my band, then.

I don't think Jaco would have been philosophically against more than 4 strings, he had a 5-string acoustic bass he played in his off-time. But the Fenders were available and familiar instruments. If he'd managed to get on top of his issues and had been around for longer, who knows what he might have explored.

I do wonder if in future we'll see predatory court cases in the other direction. As in, creator makes money on an artistic work, AI company pulls our that creator's prompt history and activates their legal team. Possible? They're certainly well resourced operations who could afford serious legal rep.

I must admit, I have yet to click "play" on any of this AI music. Perhaps that makes my opinion on it uninformed, but I feel that if it wasn't worth someone's time to write, play and record it, it's not worth my time and attention to listen to it.

The thumbnail image looks AI, something about the proportions of the lettering and the amount of yellow tones. It likes yellow, I don't know why.

Ah, there was one like that when I was at uni. He was university staff and maybe 5-10 years older than most students, he'd impress people by reeling off a bunch of Jaco stuff and well known funk lines so it was known that he was the bass guy in our small university town. But then when people tried to get him in bands it became apparent that he'd learned a collection of party pieces by rote, didn't know the names of notes or chords and couldn't jam along on even simply structured songs that weren't one of his prepared things. All a little sad really, from a guy pushing 30 looking for status with a bunch of 18 year olds.

I'm not sure I'm thinking of it dismissively when I call something showboating - a lot of interesting and very accomplished musicians will bring out an element of showboating when it helps get things across to their audience. I mean that little "hey, get this" presentation of something obviously tricky. I think it *can* be done in a good natured way that doesn't take away subtler properties of the music, but to pull that off you have to have self-confidence and the ability to back it up, as well as making sure it's not the whole of what you have to offer.

I mix finger and pick playing depending on the song, so my focus is more on getting the balance right between the two with a single amp setting, and bringing out the differences I want to hear with the pick. So I probably make some different choices than I would if I did everything with the pick. I like relatively light picks (Dunlop Ultex triangles in 0.88mm), specifically to bring out the attack click. I always favour the neck pickup with a pick (on a bass with Jazz style wiring), tone control back just a little for an older feeling rock tone, or tone control up and a light overdrive for a brighter, "let's pretend it's a Ric" tone on one tune.