Johannes

I have used them long time on my 5-string Sadowskys, both fretted and fretless and haven’t experienced any sticky feel on them. For me they are great strings, balanced, clear and punchy sound, medium tension. Possibly the best flatwound B-string available.

This is somehow complex question to answer. I think even those who have studied under professional supervision are still self-taught to some degree. I had exellent teachers but I think their strongest influence to my developement was to wake up my skills to develope by myself. Those who don’t want to work and sweat for their skills at all usually stop playing after a while. Sorry about my english.

I have played about 3000 gigs and most of the time it`s just one, either fretted or fretless. Sometimes both of them. Never had a problem. I think if You have a decent quality bass, inspect it regularly and take good care of it there shouldn`t be a problem.

I begun playing the bass about 49 years ago. Made my living with it from age of 17. Today I feel I am better musician than ever. With experience I have matured, playing less but with more understanding about what really serves the music. I am accompanying, not showcasing my chops. Even my tecnique is better since I don’t panic facing difficult tasks and my experience and knowledge about practising helps Me to survive.

I haven`t heard any rules about this subject. I think it depends very much about overall instument and neck construction. It wouldn’t hurt to make it thick enough to have some material for some future refrettings or in case of a fretless sanding/resurfacing.

Sometimes the local staff present dont know about the existence of the loop. I’ve seen it happen.

Most likely it is caused by venue’s induction loop. Common problem with single-coil pickups.

How do You guys feel about tapered B-strings? I use my B-string much above the 5:th fret, often even close to the 24:th. Mostly they seem to have strange overtone and intonation problems. T:H

Sorry, there's no topic. It should be: using ring finger for plucking.

There seems to be widely accepted consensus about this, it's index and middle fingers, never ring finger. Thumb is now accepted for plucking too, ten years ago it was only for slapping. I started to play the bass (45 years ago) using index, middle and ring fingers. Later I involved my pinky and thumb too. My middle finger is much longer than index and ring which are much closer in lenght. If I must play quick triplets, 16th notes or something like that, I tend to use alternating index and ring. I remember reading (one of my great heroes) Nate Watts discovered the power of his ring finger after having an accident with his middle finger and not been able to use it for a while. Your thoughts?

To my experience (pro over 40 years) it really doesn’t matter much at all. Some basses are ”snappier”, some ”punchier”, some ”warmer” etc, regardless if the pickups are positioned half an inch south or north. You might hear the difference between 60`s and 70`s bridge PU placement when listening Your Instrument carefully alone at home. When playing in a noisy club or stadium You are often lucky to hear it at all. Even when You hear it recorded in a studio, sometimes it is so heavily eq`d , compressed and destroyed in the mix to lack all the detail and dynamics so it really doesn’t matter if there is a bridge pickup at all.