Beer of the Bass

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1441966239' post='2863290'] Because that's what the likes of BC are about - gear talk. We are mostly all anoraks and nerds and it gives us pleasure. [/quote] Exactly that. There are many more musicians out there who just pick up something that works and makes the sound they want, then gig it for years without any further thought. Generally these are not the same people who spend time on bass forums.

Nice, and it'll look good on stage. It has a bit of a Charvel/Jackson vibe about it, but thankfully without the pointy headstock!

I think these have come up on here before, but I thought it might be worth mentioning in case anyone is looking for a cheap and very workable pickup. A couple of months ago I picked up one of the J-Tone pickups which are sold on eBay, the black rubber covered one which looks a little like a K&K Bass Max. While I prefer to use my mic setup where practical, I've used the J-Tone at several gigs now and I'm quite impressed with it. Mine is the same model as this: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/J-tone-Big-double-Bass-Pick-up-/200613316399?hash=item2eb57c472f"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item2eb57c472f[/url] Like any bridge pickup, it's not "my bass only louder" but it's well balanced and not harsh at the top end. The output seems quite healthy straight into the 1Mohm input of my GK MB200, it's not noisy and seems quite feedback resistant. One of the gigs was a party in a barn with PA reinforcement, and it coped with that volume without any problems. On my bass it sounds better than the Upton Rev Solo II did. The jack mounting (though functional) is perhaps not the most attractive, so I'm using a Lando jack clamp instead. But for £28 it's hard to find fault with! I haven't tried any of the other models, but I can confirm that this one works and works well.

This sort of thing pops up across most of the different decades and musical styles. I was a little taken aback to read about the battle of the trad jazzers vs the modernists at the 1960 Beaulieu Jazz festival: [url="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jun/19/popandrock2"]http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jun/19/popandrock2[/url] You don't get that much of that with Jazz audiences these days!

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1441820737' post='2862078'] I want a stack of 4! [/quote] You should do it! I wonder if a pair of the 2x10"s might be more sensible though...

I think most of the time they know, but they have the time and patience to hold out in case there's one guy who'll pay the asking price. After all, they only need to find one.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1441732817' post='2861331'] It [i]may[/i] be a reference to the occasional short sailing trips organised by the cancer charity for him and other young people who are either undergoing treatment or in remission. [/quote] Indeed, and I hope he has a good time. I was just entertained at the notion of knowingly starting off a contentious thread just before going away for a few days, so that he has something entertaining to read through on his return.

Hmm, could that be a bit of a "light the blue touchpaper and stand well back" moment from Milty there?

8x10"s can be very cheap secondhand, as I reckon just about every bass player buys one at some point and then realises they can never be bothered to haul it around for gigs.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441550091' post='2859708'] Of course I recognise that what I think is required for a certain gig is not what everyone else thinks. That was the point. I don't justify these things in the same way, and I was curious to know how other people did. [/quote] Words and phrases like "unjustifiable", "indulgence" and "mealy-mouthed" suggest that you're not very willing to accept those other views when they are offered. I would feel less confident dismissing the experience-based opinions of people with vastly more gigging experience than myself, as you appear to do a couple of times in this thread. I'm not posting this to be unfriendly, just trying to offer my view as to why the thread has gone less than smoothly.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441543904' post='2859650'] Wrong. I'm not. [/quote] Professional or otherwise, that seems rather like splitting hairs. My point is, if you're going to write blogs on why we "need" to change our strings regularly or why we should pay extra for coated strings, you ought to be able to perceive that your judgement of what is needed for a given musical activity may not apply universally.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441542023' post='2859625'] All this "I bring two basses in case one breaks" and "I buy superior quality gear because it's more reliable" just seem like mealy-mouthed justifications for what is simply an indulgence, although so many here seem to be unwilling to admit that's what it is. [/quote] Declaring other peoples behaviour indulgent or unjustifiable does seem overly judgemental, so it's not surprising that you may have annoyed a few people. Look at it this way; you're professionally involved in a business which sells strings, right? If I was to declare that a five quid set of generic far eastern bass strings would do a perfectly adequate job, audiences couldn't tell the difference and spending £17 on a premium US made product like a set of D'Addarios was an unjustifiable indulgence I dare say you would disagree with me. It's surely not too much of a leap to realise that people may think that way about instruments.

I hope whoever proofread that article is feeling a little sheepish at this point for misspelling the bands name in the headline. AD/DC, anyone?

Some of the 50s Sun Ra stuff uses percussion almost but not entirely in the way you describe, where the percussion is another voice rather than just a rhythmic backing. I can't think of any tunes where it carries the whole song, but there are elements of it in this. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5FBhGNwiTU[/media]

Come to think of it, I've heard one or two local metal bands whose bass sound somewhat resembles that noise.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1441465339' post='2859089'] Adding '[i]Why do people buy expensive gear?[/i]' to '[i]Is expensive gear better?[/i]' and '[i]Do you ever gig expensive gear down the pub?[/i]' results in bangs and smells. Back to the drawing board. [/quote] Ah, but I get a better sounding bang and a much nicer smell with quality gear!

Vintage vs. hi-fi can be an odd distinction to draw, as a lot of bass sounds considered "hi-fi" have massively hyped EQ applied, whether that's from the amp or an onboard preamp. If you take a typical passive bass with flatwounds and plug it into a clean, flat system (like a high impedance DI box into a desk and studio monitors), the sound isn't much like the stereotypical hi-fi bass sound and wouldn't sound out of place as a 70s studio tone.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1441400628' post='2858722'] The Canadians banned that song from public radio for being racist. IIRC. Possibly. Go Canada! [/quote] Hmm, the bongos/chimpanzee bit? I know the BBC had issues over the word "faggot" more recently, both in this and in Fairytale of New York which they probably received more complaints about the censorship of than they ever had about the word itself.

I'm pretty sure that's a basschatter. Here we go again...

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1441375143' post='2858432'] In this case, I can imagine no one less 'up himself' than the OP, him being a modest, likeable chap entirely devoid of pretence and artifice. [/quote] I think that's part of why people feel comfortable bringing up their differing points of view. When a poster holds some strong views but doesn't get prickly when questioned (and Blue seems uncannily patient in such situations), it almost invites a bit of devil's-advocate disputing of their points.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1441360246' post='2858207'] I just wanted to point out that my thread title was ironic. There is nothing wrong with the production values of modern pop music. I just wanted to register how hard it is for the little guy to keep up with the technology used in producing it. I guess a parallel would be a local group trying to put on a gig in a pub versus a full-on Iron Maiden stage/lighting set up. [/quote] I wonder how much of it might be "the trouble with audiences"? Some people are happy just to hear the song played well using whatever palette of sounds is available to the performer, while others seem to judge the quality of the performance by how closely it resembles the record. The latter group might have to adjust their expectations a little when attending small venue gigs.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1441314746' post='2857944'] I'll simplify this and I'm a huge MJ fan. No Beatles, no MJ. Blue [/quote] Oh, absolutely. MJ himself was a massive Beatles fan and in some ways the Jackson 5 format was an attempt to capitalise on that trend towards self-contained bands (rather than frontman plus sidemen) which the Beatles were instrumental in starting. I just find it interesting to think about which artists and events might be considered important when historians look back a century from now. I suspect that within his post-Beatles era, Michael Jackson may be considered to be one of the big things.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441313907' post='2857922'] I've never seen something that sounded musically pleasing and thought "It would be better if he stuck on a set of flat wounds, but never mind", and I doubt many people have. [/quote] I don't know, I can think of a few times I've seen great players and thought things like "Great, but wouldn't it be nice if he lost that awful scratchy piezo sound", "Aargh, why did it have to be a DX7" and things of that nature. Perhaps I'm unusual in that respect.

The price compares very well to getting an EA Wizzy 10 over here, and has the benefit of being 8 ohms so you can expand to a pair of them easily. I wonder how it sounds for double bass?

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1441310331' post='2857876'] It was always recognised as a cult classic that one. You do have a point about me not being constructive but I tried to that in the long running 'experimental' music thread here on Basschat and ran into a barrage of indifference! [/quote] I was maybe less aware of that; for me it was something a friend played to me a few years ago which seemed surprisingly fresh and made me wonder how I hadn't come across it before. That made it feel like a reasonable candidate for this thread. This sort of thing is tricky in the internet era when almost every bit of music published is discussed, analysed and blogged about somewhere or other. I guess most things do find the recognition they deserve, whether that consists of a critical re-appraisal or just a small following of enthusiasts.