TheLowDown

I have the Snark ST2 clipon but I never use it. It's advertised as being fast and accurate, and it's definitely neither of those. I tune manually first and then check with a phone app.

Boss GT-1B seems decent. It's got most everything apart from rhythms, and with better quality samples than the more artificial sounding Zooms.

I've never had a 5 or 6 string without the problem with the low B string. The heavier the gauge the worse the problem gets.

There is some theory that the strings have to be in balance. So the gauges selected for 5 string that work 'ideally' on that must be rebalanced to work on 6 string or 7 string or even 4 string. In other words for the 6 string for example you can't just add a C string and expect it to work ideally using the same gauges on B-G.

A lot of Smashing Pumpkins are laid back.

Usually when there is wrist pain it's because it's an uncomfortable angle on the fretting arm or the plucking arm, often by having the bass too low slung or the neck being almost parallel to the floor. Painful issues can arise if you're using your fingers with the wrist at a bent angle. The wrist must be as straight as possible at all times when plucking and fretting. 

Lighter gauge strings can also help with fretting, but some people don't like the less full tone.

My guess is that they get you playing songs quickly is because they think that's what most beginners want to do and to make it fun. Some people just want to play songs and that's all, just like with guitar.  They're not interested in self improvement except where it serves them to play songs that they know. 

I would get the basics such as posture, stance, where to place your thumb and fingers for plucking and fretting before you begin a song. The basics that you develop early on will help help to minimise future injures. I think it's much better to develop good habits early on rather than waste time later on undoing bad habits and dealing with carpel tunnel and tendonitis.

Songs are more of a fun day activity, but don't do much in the long term for increasing skill, especially if that's all the beginner wants to do IMO.

What I do is search ebay and Discogs for what they sold for to get a rough idea. In the olden days it used to be Record Collector mag.

Never ever sell to a 2nd hand record shop. Never ever ever.

The neck should be around 45 degrees so that your wrist is not at such an uncomfortable angle. I don't know anything about what bass you're using or how you're holding it, so at a guess there may be neck dive, which means that I would invest in good wide leather strap that has rough material on the inside to grip well. The more it grips the less effort you use to hold the bass in a comfortable position, which means that you can focus on playing and have less fatigue over a long play session.

Try using the simandl technique where your little finger and ring finger are pressed together to give extra strength to your fretting. The nerves in the little finger and ring finger are joined anyway, so this makes them less independent from each other than other fingers.

But yeah a lot of it is just building up the required muscles and actions in your hand an fingers.

The only one I've made enquiries with in in the recent pat are Andertons, but they sound like stingebags. Up to around £150 they give you half value of what they think it's worth, £150- £!500 they will give you  two thirds, and above £1500 they give three quarters.

As long as a can get anything similar to a p-bass-like sound I don't care. Anything too bridgey or jacoish gets returned or sold, but I've never had to do that - except once when I wanted to try a stingray type bass - because the placement of the pickups near to the neck determines that aspect of the tone. Other than that I don't go out of my way to get any specific sound. 

All my gear is inexpensive for what it is and does the job.

My plucking hand thumb 'floats' up and down, and will rest lightly on the string immediately below(in pitch) but never on the pickup. I try to position my thumb as a sort of "free wandering agent" because it's tempting to anchor the thumb, so this mindset avoids that.

My thumb is always muting all of the strings below on 4 and 5/6 string. If I'm plucking the C string then the base of my thumb is muting the B and E string. From the base of my thumb to the tip of my thumb is always pressed lightly against all the lower strings at all times.

On 16/12/2021 at 14:01, AScheck9 said:

2) by moving my thumb onto the D string, the E string occasionally becomes unmuted and begins to hum sympathetically. 

I'm not sure how that would be achieved. Perhaps you're holding  your elbow out too far. The problem may stem from your posture(best not to sit low or slouch while playing).

They're extremely niche. I would hazard a guess that 80% or probably much more of basses sold are 4 string. 5 strings are a fun instrument to play, but when high street shops, already struggling, have to balance the books and consider what will sell and what wont, a 5 or 6 string is unlikely to be considered high on the list. They're more likely to get more of what will sell.

On 22/11/2021 at 14:50, tegs07 said:

There have been a couple of interesting threads (to me) recently about instruments, their construction, marketing and value. Some points such as the materials the instrument is made from (tonewood - or to give it a less contentious name simply wood commonly used by luthiers) seem to incite foaming at the mouth. The other element for contentious debate is value and what is required for a company to achieve that value (marketing).
 

I think most people would agree that technology, a cheaper manufacturing base  and production workflow has improved to such an extent that no working musician really needs to spend more than £400 on an instrument. If we get rid of marketing costs behind a brand this would probably drop to nearer the £200 mark.

Does this seem a reasonable conclusion?

If so why do we pay more, particularly if we are in the camp that dismisses any tangible benefits of wood choice and other similar incremental upgrades and also dislikes brands and the marketing and endorsement required to build those brands?

I think you're spot on the mark. It's why I don't bother with expensive basses. Lots of people mistakenly judge quality by price tag or brand name, totally oblivious to the fact that they're getting screwed most of the time. People believe that if they pay a lot for something, it must be good lol. 

It always pays to do extensive research before purchases and to be aware of the market.

On 15/11/2021 at 09:25, Supernaut said:

I'm not sure if it's all in my head but I'm just unhappy with where my tone is right now. 
 

I have two very good basses, a Sandberg TM4 SL and a Bacchus Woodline Craft Jazz, but I can't seem to gel with them. 
 

Something keeps telling me that I need a Precision. Every time I pick one up, it's the sound I'm after but I've never found 'the one'. I think subconsciously, I'm trying to make my current two basses sound more P like but that's not what they're built to do. 
 

Should I get rid and start afresh? Advice/thoughts welcome. 

It will pass. It sounds like it's not the basses you're dissatisfied with but something closer to home. Sometimes if I'm whizzed off with life or people or whatever, I find I will 'transfer' it onto something else and then blame the stinky poo out of it. "The garden looks like crap", "the tone on my basses really don't do it for me anymore", "family are doing my head in", blah.

I bought an amp head from Thomann recently and they supplied a UK plug in addition to a 2 pronged plug.

3 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

At the age of 67, I can confidently say I'll never be able to play like that, no matter what I do. It warms the cockles of my crusty old heart to see them do it, but I am a realist.

 

Related to that, I see there have been a couple of comments along the lines of "those youngsters are technically brilliant, but robotic/have no soul", which seems a defensive reaction. It's as if some feel threatened by their ability. The obvious response is that, yes, they may be mainly about technique at the age of 15, but by the time they're 21 or so and have learned and listened more, they're going to be outstanding in every respect.

 

Sometimes, we have to accept that life isn't fair and that ability is inherent as well as worked for. Some people are just better equipped for certain things than others. They have to put the effort in, of course, but their mix of physical and intellectual attributes gives them a head start and means they can take it further. 

I'm one of those who suggested that, but you would be barking up the wrong tree if you believe that it was in any way a "defensive reaction". The purpose of the post, given the OP and subsequent comments, was to remind that there is a lot more to music than perfect chops, and people should not feel so defeated. 

At the end of the day, it's not about how good you are, but about how much you enjoy making music. It's not a competition. 
 

I recall seeing a film one time about 2 competing pianists. One of the pianists was "brilliant" and technically perfect, but his playing lacked feeling (the film was almost like a metaphor for the technically proficient but sometimes robotic classicist vs the improvising jazzer). While the other pianist often made mistakes and always felt inferior to the technically perfect one. The latter was the one that was always preferred because he had something to say, whereas the former was more like a robot. It just goes to show that it's rarely about being perfect, but about having something to say in your playing. Music is expression. If you'e got nothing musically to say, it doesn't matter how good your chops are.

Each day I practise one finger per fret involving shifts on the fretted so that I have the muscle memory of where the fret is, and I always always fret almost on the fret on a fretted. Practice scales up and down the neck every day on the fretted for ear training.

An exercise to do is to put the drone(ideally, a bass, cello, or sine wave) on C or whatever scale you want to us at the correct octave, switch off the lights and feel around for where you think the C is. With muscles memory, you'll have a good idea of where it is anyway so you will be able to make an approximate stab at it on the fingerboard. If you  can't find it, then cheat and put the light on for a bit. Then slowly slide up the fingerboard on that string, plucking the string to hear the note every few seconds to hear where you are, always listening to the 'beats/pulses' that you hear. The slower the beats the nearer you are to a note (even if it's not in the scale), the faster the beats the further you are in no-man's land. After a while you'll hear that some notes/intervals(well, it's 2 notes that you're hearing in harmony) sound sweeter. The unison, octave, and 5th and to a lesser extent, the 4th will tend to sound slightly sweeter sounding(that's when you'll be thinking that there's got to be a note somewhere around there). Do that until you've reached the octave further up the fingerboard. 

I like to play in the dark because most of the time I'm trying to see with my ears. The ultimate goal should be to rely on your hearing much more than what you see on the fingerboard, but even the best will have to look at the fingerboard occasionally. 

Regarding strings, choose either roundwounds or flatwounds depending on which sound and feel you prefer, either brighter/rougher or duller/smoother. Some people advise against roundwounds "because they'll eat into your fretboard, man!", but it's silly advice, like being advised not to leave the house in case you get run over by a bus. I prefer SS roundwounds because it makes it easier to grip the strings to do a vibrato each time I mess up, and I prefer the tactile feel of them anyway on both fretted and fretless. Maybe in a few decades the fingerboard will start to show some wear that makes any difference whatsoever. But by that time, the bass will have long been sold or forgotten about, but I will have enjoyed playing the bass much more along the way than if I have have heeded the advice.

Play with your finger tips rather than finger pads.

To begin with, play and sing each note up each string in sharps and down each string in flats.  Do for each string. You need to associate the position of each note with the sound that you will eventually expect to hear before you play it.

Then put on a drum track or metronome and then play every C note on the fretboard before the 13th fret, going from one to the other for about 30 seconds to the drum track or metronome. Then do the same with G, D, A, E, B, F#, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, G#. A#, D#, C# (the last 4 are the same as Ab, Bb, Eb, and Db, respectively).

Do the above every day until it becomes second nature.

Theory is the easiest part - you learn it once and it's done. It's not an evolving, continuous or subtle process. The hard part for me is with ear training, consistently recognising intervals and notes on fretless..

I buy my gear based on whatever gives me the best value for money. Where it's made is irrelevant in my decision, but I doubt any will be British. I would have to look.

12 hours ago, chris_b said:

Over the years I've owned gear made in the UK, Denmark, USA, Germany and Italy. Recently I realised that I've never owned the full set of UK made gear at the same time, so I've been contemplating putting together such a rig.

 

In the past I have owned UK made gear, 2 Wal basses, Vox and Marshall rigs and now use UK made cabs, covers and leads, Barefaced, Roqsolid and OBBM, and I briefly owned a Thumpinator but I've never gigged a full set of UK made gear. I'm limiting this to actually made in the UK. I had a lot of time on my hands during Lockdown!

 

Is this something that people think about? Does anyone load up their car with exclusively UK made gear when they head off to a gig? What have you got? What do you like about it? in mod

I notice that there is no Eastern made gear listed there, which is odd given the overwhelming prevalence in modern day times.

Any reason why?

15 hours ago, Boodang said:

and as you say there are plenty of players out there with bent wrist technique

The damage is being done when the fingers are moving quickly, forcefully, repetitively while the wrist is bent at an uncomfortable angle. Light pressure and less finger movement will be less damaging than fast and furious finger movement with a bent wrist. A bent wrist with no finger movement does not cause any damage.

I would hazard a guess that punk, metal, and rock players would be far more susceptible to carpel tunnel syndrome than country or jazz musicians, for instance. Those fast and repetitive 16th note rhythms, while trying to look cool with their low strung bass, is a ticking timebomb that will inevitably take its toll.

6 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

That's totally inaccurate. Someone was posting about overly precise measuring earlier. They might be able to put some better maths on it....

 

If two people listen to the same note and one is hearing it 6 cents sharper than it actually sounds and the other hears it 6 c flat you better hope your tuner is 'dead on' or someone is going to 'hear' it out of tune.

Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just quoting what someone else said earlier in the thread. It was meant to be 4-5, not 4-6 fwiw.

Whatever the number happens to be, then that's the only accuracy that's needed.

If the human ear is only accurate to 4-6 cents then that's all that's needed. I tune every day before playing, first by ear and then by tuner to within +/- 3.

I generally fuss about far more important things.

Took me a long time to warm to rap/hip-hop because of all the mentions of Ns and Hs and Bs, which I didn't want to hear in music especially. It wasn't until I started playing the bass that I tuned out the lyrics and focused on the beat.

I prefer the independent non-commercial hip hop.

On 31/08/2021 at 18:52, Al Krow said:

Nope - one of the new Marquess range; I'm a little bit blown away by how good it is!

Wow! Nice bass. If I didn't already have a 5 string fretted I would have bought the blue version in a heartbeat, assuming it's relatively lightweight.