FDC484950

How much does it weigh - what’s the balance like?

Just look at the big, long-established retail chains that have gone under in the last 15 years. From Woolworths to Debenhams, If a chain/shop isn’t making money it won’t survive.

I can’t find the strings I use in any UK online store, let alone a shop, I’ve bought my last 5 basses off here or eBay and the only shop I’ve been into in the last 7-8 years has been Bass Direct. Even 25 years ago the standard town music store had little to offer other than beginner instruments plus some accessories. The only reason they survived is that there was no choice other than the shop in the next town or nearest city. The Internet was the final nail in the coffin.

Dare I say it, if I’m looking for a used bass, the first place I’d go would probably be Basschat

Clearly there’s still enough demand for the odd specialist shop, but you won’t see 10 Bass Direct or Bass Gallery-type shops setting up in the UK any time soon!

Thanks for that - yes, my SR3006e is the same weight as your 5005 and doe feel quite heavy on the shoulder. The bottom end really is tremendous - the 1605 is excellent too but as you say, the wenge makes for a tight yet rich and open tone.

18 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I love my SR5005, night and day with the 1605, especially weight wise, also vast difference between the two pickups compared to the premiums. Mine was the 3v circuit, bass mid, treble, mid freq initially but the treble had completely stopped working and I had a spare 3 band glokenklang preamp around, so I took the old one out and put the glok in there. Its pretty good apart from it needing one less switch and one less knob (I left the other knob in anyway).

What do you see to be the differences between the 1605 and 5005 (other than the obvious - singles vs humbuckers)? My 1605 has a Darkglass pre that has no treble control but TBH the bass sounds so good completely flat I’ve not needed to use it (and it has huge boost so only a tiny bit is needed to make a big difference). What’s the weight difference, if you have weighed them?

How do you find single coil hum on your 1605? For some reason I assumed Big Singles were an in-line humbucker, but they appear to be a fat but regular single coil, and disappointingly have a quite a bit of hum. I wonder why Ibanez didn’t go with Big Splits, seeing as what little information I can find about them seems to indicate they sound very similar?

In other news, I’m eyeing Bass Direct’s SR5005 - amazing wengé grain in the body, but it looks like the original model with the 3v circuit (no mid switch), which was distinctly underwhelming on the first edition SR5006 I had a few years ago...

If he did build them all himself then it makes perfect sense for him to shut up shop - his legacy will be all those great basses, all with the same high-quality construction and unique tone. I did play a buzz once, many years ago, and it was the best fretless I’ve played. 

The good news is that (according to headstock distribution) you can still order them from cottamguitars.co.uk. The bad news is that it’ll likely to be a 3-month wait!

So - newer monorail bridge units definitely don’t drop in - your bridge units are about 7.2cm long and the newer models are 6.1cm. Looks like your best bet is to see whether Ibanez can still supply them. I’ve emailed Headstock Distribution, the Ibanez U.K. representatives. The part number is 2BB1MR25K, FYI.

That’s an SR3006e, right?

The hardware is Cosmo Black and I believe it has long ceased manufacture. You could try asking Ibanez UK?

I’ve been meaning to check whether the later mono rail bridges are a direct replacement as they are available (and much better). Having just scored an SR1605 at a very tasty price, I’ll check and report back. The only downside is that you’d have a black bridge and off-black tuners, but I’m looking into the feasibility of swapping out the tuners with (black) Hipshot Ultralites as they’re 50% lighter than the stock Gotoh GB707s.

Mick Karn was a class act and one of the few fretless players that truly had his own voice and instantly recognisable style. I’ve learned a few of his bass lines and he tended to approach them about as far away as you can be from a conventional bass line. They’re very challenging to get down, and then almost impossible to recall without playing over and over again until memorised. He played across the bar line a lot, and often went nowhere near the root note of the chord, but because the bass line worked as a melody in its own right, it fitted in with the song.

Oil on Canvas (the post-Japan live album that ended up being bigger than any of their albums when they were a band) is a perfect showcase for intelligent, interesting and creative bass playing. It matters not one jot whether he had theory or technical knowledge. 

Yes, loading on the P pickup with two volumes or a pan seem to suck the life out of both pickup on all the basses I’ve tried - and I’ve had a few (Fender P bass Deluxe V, Yamaha BB etc). Not tried one with a pickup selector switch - if it truly isolates the two pickups it should do the trick, but I suppose you then lose the both pickups tone. In theory it’s the best of both worlds as I prefer the P bass pickup sound to the J neck pickup, but much prefer a j bridge pickup to a MM, as I prefer more bite from the bridge pickup.

8 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

Yeah, I have - thank god.

Bought in 2011 as a treat to myself for a messy breakup.

Sold in 2013 to get married to childhood sweetheart.

Who bought it back for me in 2017.

A very special CS 1 of 1 (weird neck profile) 64 jazz bass relic.

There’s just something about a Jazz bass with matching colour headstock - olympic white, candy apple red, lake placid blue, they all look fabulous!

Make life easy for yourselves. Plug in a synth bass pedal and a nice compressor, connect it up to a loop pedal, play the sequence once and go get a beer from the bar. Happy days!

Wont quite work with NGGYU, however.

Exactly. Bass is a visual instrument and the music you play on it is a series or repeating patterns (until you run out of strings/frets).

If the OP is wanting to be able to keep up during a jam then the two most important things to learn are good ears (what am I hearing?) and knowing the possibilities from what you’re hearing (what works over what I’m hearing?). You can improve your ears by picking a song, working out (any way you like, even looking it up) the chords for a song, then some basics as to what fits (and that will almost always mean chord tones at the beginning).

Bringing it together is hearing (for example) a G major chord and knowing what shape a G arpeggio (which is just a fancy name for a chord where the notes are played one after the other rather than simultaneously) looks like:

G on 3rd fret of E string, then

B on 2nd fret of A string and finally

D on 5th fret of A string.

You now have a code - every time you hear or need to play a major chord and there is at least one string above where you are now, and two frets available further up the neck from where you are, you will always be able to recreate this shape. It’s a little bit of learning that adds up to a lot of knowledge. There are then tons of exercises or variations to this that could keep you busy for months or even years, for example:

• Do the above for major (G,B,D), minor (G,Bb,D), diminished (G,Bb,Db) and augmented (G,B,D#)
• Learn the major shape above starting with your index finger, then with middle finger and finally little finger (of fretting hand)
• Add the 7th chord tone to the second exercise - so Gmaj7 (G,B,D,F), etc
• Once you have the three above down, run through them in all 12 available keys (for example, starting on C, then F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db etc - commonly called the cycle or circle of fourths, important because many chord progressions follow this pattern) - if this is boring and feels like an exercise, find songs in different keys and play along.
• Play the arpeggio starting on a different degree - so for G try G,B,D, or B,G,D or D,B,G or D,G,B. For each variation, link what it SOUNDS like to what it LOOKS like on the fretboard. This will not only improve your dexterity but will really lift your knowledge of the fingerboard.
• Whatever you, do make MUSIC. If it feels like you’re just playing an exercise then try it over a real piece of music. You only really need to practice it to learn the notes - from then on take that information and make music out of it.

Etc!

Expanding this to scales is something I would tackle later because as a bass player you really need to nail the chord tones first - and once you know them, scales are just the bits in between

It’s up to you how far you want/need to take it. You don’t need to become a muso or a theory nut to achieve your goals.

4 hours ago, bazzbass said:

my 2 cents.

It's OK to ask questions about weight, hardware etc, but if you think it's way over or under priced, I feel a PM is best here.

saying "Gorgeous bass, GLWTS" is fine too.

No pointing out that your Jazz is better than the P for sale, it's not on.

Coming in just to say you hate that bass or amp is not on either

Nor is it OK to comment on an effects for sale ad "I don't use effects" lol, yet people do

 

True. Weight is an often asked but not always given.

In defence of Mr Newfoundfreedom, whilst it is very well-played, I kind of agree that it doesn’t do anything for me as a piece of music. This is where good composition separates a good piece of “music” from mildly aimless noodling. I don’t agree that it is self-indulgent, however; it’s quite restrained from a widdle point of view

18 hours ago, peteb said:

Regardless of his views on active bases, this is Scott doing what he does very well - an excellent interview with Gail Ann Dorsey

 

 

Isn’t that an active MusicMan?

No pop-ups here Ped, looks OK. 

His technique is very much an individual choice; I gave it a shot for 6 months solidly and got nowhere with it - the third finger to me just doesn’t have the independence (at least on my hand). As I understand it he played like that from day one, so it probably came naturally. I’d expect plenty about articulation and dynamics, and damping with the plucking hand, as it goes a long way to explaining his super-clean technique, plus his fingerboard harmony approach (which is largely based around the 4+2 fret “box” and viewing harmony as shapes on the fretboard).

Practice with something to reference - one other instrument (so get a keyboard and play single notes, then play along with it playing various intervals - start with octave, then 5th, 4th, 6th, 3rd and finally 7th and 2nd) or an open string. Your ears can lie to you if you initially try to reconcile one fretted note with another, so it’s important to get used to playing with a reference point you know is in tune. It’s partly muscle memory and partly ears. Also, don’t underestimate a consistent fretting hand method - so shift up and down with the same finger and get used to playing a phrase starting on your first finger, then 2nd finger, and finally 4th finger (of fretting hand and internalise the shape, and consistently placing fretting fingers in the same place relative to fret lines (or with ears if unmarked). Hearing whether you’re in tune or out of tune is easier higher up on the neck so it may be better to start at the 12th fret rather than the 1st fret.

9 minutes ago, silverfoxnik said:

One thing I think that's contributed to the decline in conversation on For Sale threads has been the introduction of the facility to bump your post without having to say anything new when you do it.

You see some stuff that's for sale on here being endlessly bumped without any new comments or info added to the thread by the seller, which I always find quite disappointing and boring and ultimately, a bit of a turn off. 

For example, imagine going into a shop a few times to look at a a piece of gear you're interested in and mulling over, but everytime you go into the shop the staff don't speak to you. Eventually, you'd just decide to go somewhere else, wouldn't you.. 

I do agree with you. I don’t like the fact that posts got to the top with no update, and as you say, many threads have lots of “invisible” bumps. If the item for sale is rare, unusual or it’s provenance may be in doubt then a bit of debate/clarification is fine. If it’s a bog-standard mass-produced bass, what is there really to say? “Nice colour”? 😉

Personally I don’t really see the point of saying “Nice looking bass” on a US Standard P-bass ad, for example. It’s a mass-produced instrument with a limited number of colours.

I also don’t feel like making the type of slightly disingenuous posts I’ve seen that are of the form “if only it had X strings/was orange/was less than 10 miles from me I’d buy it in a shot”!

Then there are the weird and wonderful instruments that to me look awful. To be honest there not a lot I could say (other than “yuck”!)

The challenge is when you see something that is clearly way over any going market rate. They’re often from our European cousins as U.K.-based sellers generally have an idea as to market rate. Then again, the price may be competitive to other European cousins (in Euro). On other forums I frequent (not musical) there is no restriction on commenting on price and it ends up like the Wild West, so its a good and respectful rule that it’s not allowed on Basschat. In any case, for most sellers, deafening silence will usually prompt a price drop

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

I don’t reserve the right to put so many double negatives in sentences that they make no sense to anyone!  

Fixed.

What, you mean like “3 fretless fails I see everyone do”, followed by step one (Intonation), and a demo showing how it should be, where half the notes are out of tune 😃

Simandl method has you read shifting positions. It starts with a semitones and end up at an octave in the one string (or maybe even more, can quite remember). It’s a great exercise for muscle memory and you can over time ‘feel’ the shifts - but it’s a lot easier if you stay on just the one instrument as it does feel different on different basses, even with the same scale length. This takes care of the shifting bit; treat the learning to read and the playing without looking separately and then being them together.

it just goes to show how superb string instrument players are - they play an unmarked fretless from day one!