Beer of the Bass

[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.

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1441301037' post='2857774'] That gets LOTS of recognition and is the subject of much attention every year! [/quote] Only if you read certain bits of the alternative music press, and AFAIK it didn't make much impact at the time. I dunno, is that insufficiently "before it was cool" for this thread? It might be more fun to suggest some albums you think are under-recognised rather than just popping up to tell us the rest of us why our choices are wrong!

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1441299278' post='2857753'] Looking purely at the facts, spending £2,000 on a guitar to play 15 £200 gigs throughout the year doesn't make business sense. [/quote] I'm not sure that business sense is the motivator for most peoples music making, and we would be hearing some fairly dismal stuff if it was. If the sound and responsiveness of that £2000 guitar inspires the player to practice and write more and they can afford it, it seems worthwhile. Plenty of people on here have talked about being inspired to kick up their playing to the next level when upgrading to a professional quality instrument. For me that happened when I changed from a thumpy sounding Chinese plywood double bass to a 100 year old carved bass which is louder, clearer and more even sounding, feels better to play and is easier to control under the bow. Perhaps the amount my gigs pay hasn't increased, but my playing experience is much enhanced. What price do we put on that?

I feel like acoustic instruments are a bit of a different case. I'd agree that it's not essential to spend a huge amount just to get out and get playing, and the nuances tend to disappear through an undersaddle piezo and a pub PA system. Having said that, the more expensive instruments which get some individual attention in their manufacture really do have something that the cheaper instruments lack, and this will come through in spades in the studio, in more intimate acoustic settings or mic'd into a high quality PA. Spending tens of thousands on something made from esoteric woods and dripping with pearl is still an indulgence, but I would argue that spending a couple of grand on a handmade instrument is not. I may be biased by having a classical guitar luthier in the family, but I can hear a degree of difference between a £500 acoustic and a £3000 acoustic which I cannot hear between electric guitars or basses at the same price points. I wouldn't laugh at somebody for choosing an instrument within their means, but nor would I dismiss the value of many of the higher end instruments.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1441292473' post='2857657'] I do realise that your joking, but I'll say: The important bit is not who was 'bigger', but who was more innovative and influential. Which was the more important album, Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' or the lesser selling 'Sgt Pepper's'? [/quote] That's an interesting point to bring up, as looking at some of the bigger names in contemporary pop, I think I can see a fair chunk of Michael Jackson influence, not just in the music but in the whole way of working. I mean that thing of having big productions by name producers, slick videos, performances as much focussed on dance and spectacle as the song etc. I'm not a huge MJ fan myself (so no epiphanies for me there), but there is probably a case to be made for him having changed the industry in a fairly significant way. Of course, none of this has happened in a vacuum so anything which was important in the path of 20th century pop will have paved the way for it in some way.