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The other point about a walking line is that it should work on its own. Just because it’s a bass line, it’s still a melody in its own right. That’s the beauty of a walking line - you can just play chord tones - R/3/5 - but you can also play something much more interesting. It all depends on the context and the player.

Any note works if it’s in the context of a line that makes sense with the music. The issue comes when the line requires you to outline the harmony in a more fundamental way (eg R357). Having said that the 6th/13th is used in one of the most foundational bass parts - R/3/5/6/ 8/6/5/3/ R/3/5/6/ b7/6/5/3 but it’s on the weak beat (2/4). It’s also often used as a chromatic approach note to a flat 7th. Advanced players can construct a line that both outlines the harmony to support the other instruments and adds something to the music.

I agree with you Ped. I’ve had or played pretty much every reasonably well-known brand of bass under the sun, including a number of fanned fret designs , and the best sounding and feeling B I’ve ever tried is on a Warwick Streamer Stage 1. Perfectly even and defined up past the 12th fret and 34” scale. I’ve never played a Dingwall that I liked the sound of (but the feel great) and personally fanned frets aren’t really necessary, and are a significant compromise at the top (and especially bottom) end - just try playing an octave C on B and A strings on that 37” scale. Over recently got a nice Ibanez BTB with 35” scale and whilst it improves the feel of the B the higher strings suffer a little, however overall it works as a bass. Plus fanned fret basses just look a mess IMHO

I can play basic slap stuff and appreciate the groove on old school 70s Funk etc (When I was a pro years ago you kind of had to cover it), but I never got that good at it because I never really liked the more complex sides of it. At the risk of being controversial I’ve always thought that Mark King was far more interesting when he played fingerstyle (a lot of earlier tunes have some really nice lines), despite his fame for the slap thing. Ditto Stanley Clarke (who to me only impressed on upright). When it gets to some of the double thumbing, multi-finger stuff like Alain Caron, Victor Wooten and Matt Garrison, it just leaves me completely cold. I can barely appreciate it for its technical virtuosity and I can’t ever recall a piece of music that includes these sorts of styles that I’ve ever wanted to listen to twice. Therefore, rather than waste time with it, I concentrated on expanding my musical knowledge, and technically mainly via fingerstyle but also with a pick - which has a similarly funky and percussive nature but has more flexibility and allows one to play with nearly the same freedom as fingerstyle. There is absolutely no issue with playing the styles, technique and music (and gear) you want. There is no credibility to be gained nor lost by choosing one technique over another - as a bass player the only real pre-requisite is to try to play the right notes in the right order, with good time (appropriate to the style). My only criteria for technique is that it is a means to a musical end - if it doesn’t do anything for me musically I’ll discard it. IMHO some musicians concentrate far more on the technique itself than the musical result.

I’m surprised they didn’t remove the frets as well!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Modulus-Graphite-6-String-Bass/333490033142?hash=item4da58e11f6:g:Ui0AAOSw2VdeICuR This seller appears to list items on an auction with no reserve, then cancels the sale once ended and re-lists for much higher than the winning auction price. Some of the feedback is hilarious. Shame as it’s a nice, old non-trussrod Modulus but I wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole.

Funnily enough, last time I looked (a couple of weeks ago) an Ultra Jazz V was £1959 on their site. It is now £2,089

I’d be interested to know what Fender’s annual UK turnover amounts to - This fine must be a sizeable proportion?

In the context of this thread your comment is a bit pointless. Of course people can choose whatever avenue they want to sell stuff. The point of the the thread is questioning why stuff seems to take longer to sell here than in FB - and then widened to other selling platforms - and what the reasons might be for it. IMHO when I sell here I usually have to accept a price below what it’s really worth to me to sell, and even then not a sniff, but don’t have the same experience with either eBay or via a shop (normally making more even after commission). I believe it’s a good marketplace for the buyer as there are so many basses for sale and has a thriving trade option which isn’t easily available elsewhere. It is mid January so many who have overspent at Christmas are probably not in the market to buy; conversely those same people might well choose now to thin the herd.

Pretty much every bass I’ve listed on here has been like tumbleweed across a dusty track, Even if I drop the price to an amount I really wouldn’t part with elsewhere - and still zero interest other than the odd tyre kicker. IMHO the issue is that there are a lot of basses for scale, Including a sizeable amount from European sellers which personally I wouldn’t be interested in (due to them being too exotic/fugly/expensive/far away basses). Bumping your sale thread finds it down to page 5 within 6-8 hours. Unless someone’s searching for your specific bass it’ll probably be missed. I’ve missed out on basses I wanted to buy as I missed them and found them on page 40 or whatever a month later Then there’s the courier business for selling as it’s likely many interested buyers are too far away - so without the time/packaging to post then you’ll get far fewer buyers. A shop can always post and as a business there is naturally more trust. I’ve sold basses via Bass Direct and got far more either in part ex or commission sale than I got advertising here as a private sale. I have a bass for sale here at the moment for cheap Indonesian/Korean bass money - again naff all interest (appreciating the fact that it’s mid-January and many people are short on funds). It’s going on commission sale soon as it makes space and I fully expect it to sell in a few weeks.

That’s terrible news. RIP Neil.

That’s why I said baseline (geddit ;)) setup. If it’s in the middle then those that prefer a lower or higher setup can at least play it. If the neck is shaped like a banana or the strings are choking on the top fret the majority of bass players will find it almost unplayable. Factory QC is for another thread but in theory it makes sense (other than temp and humidity changes in transit making the neck move).

If you went to try a new car and all of the cars had flat tyres and no petrol would you buy from them? A baseline setup can be done pretty quickly - other than the neck moving what else cannot be done by the factory and be ready to play? It’s not like they’re selling millions of them. Each instrument should have a final inspection including setup to known specs. Assuming the neck hasn’t moved (and a quick tweak of the truss rod can fix that), all new basses should be ready to play out of the box.

...and make sure the string has a break angle over the nut and bridge. Thicker strings tend to “curve” over the break point so a firm press will set the angle nicely.

Keep it. That big flake sparkle is fabulous and it provides a nice contrast to a jazz bass - you won’t be able to replace it very easily and you’ll just have seller’s regret. Which reminds me...

As has been said the two biggest speed improvements to older Macs are more RAM and swapping a spinning disc for an SSD. Ignore what Apple says - their RAM is usually made by Samsung or Hynix and is no better or worse than off the shelf offerings from the same or other well-known memory manufacturers. Kingston had a reputation for high quality back in the day - not sure if it is still true. Aside from bloatware one of the most well-known reasons for slowing down is that OSX is fundamentally a UNIX OS and has scheduled jobs running in the middle of the night daily, weekly and monthly. As many people have their computer off at that time, the jobs never run so log files get bigger and more bloated over time, eventually slowing down the entire OS. Part of the job of the tools mentioned in this thread is to run those jobs and clean out any errant log files. There’s not too much else you can do with the Mac OS - but if you had 8Gb RAM originally then that’s probably the single biggest culprit for it slowing down over time - OSX has always been memory-hungry (god help you if you run any Adobe products) and 16GB should be an absolute minimum for a machine of that age. There is an inbuilt utility to check memory and performance but it was never particularly accurate - something like one of the tools above is more likely to give you a clear picture of what is making it slow(er). Best of luck!

String height is mainly about neck profile so it entirely depends on the condition and seating of the frets, the neck profile and whether the neck has any high or low bumps, slight twists etc. Nut height and profile are also crucial for an easy to play bass in the first few frets. A very well-setup instrument will play the same with a lower string height than a poorly or uneven set up instrument, and will feel more consistent bottom to top. It really isn’t about measuring the height of the strings in one location. Unless you’re bass neck is carbon fibre or a very stable laminate it’ll need tweaks over the course of the year (humidity and temperature changes). For a long time I underestimated the importance of fret levelling and overall setup - the difference really is like night and day.