SumOne

I went from 4 to 5 strings a few years ago and have always just had one Bass at a time but I'm finding that there are occasions where a 4 is better for slap: Marcus Miller, Flea, Larry Graham, Les Claypool, Mark King, Stanley Clarke etc. can't all be wrong! (I'm sure there are lots of examples of them playing 5 too, but they often choose 4). That's how I'm justifying getting a 4 string Bass anyway!

Similar to Daft Punk 'Voyager' which was probably made digitally but they are trying to sound like 70s Disco with a bass guitar. I find that a Jazz bass with more of the bridge pickup, compressed, and a mid EQ boost gets pretty close with the right technique.

I'm starting to think that after 60 years of rock there isn't far for it to go that's non-formulaic while remaining popular. Almost by definition it follows a formula of Singer(s)+guitar(s)+bass+drums structured into something along the lines of intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chours-outro, and tried and tested chord progressions. Go too hard or away from the formula and it isn't popular enough for festivals like Reading. There are performers from outside the rock genre on the Reading lineup this year that would have seemed like something completely groundbreaking if they showed up in on the stage at Reading in the 1970's though, so some popular music formulas have certainly changed.

Picked up these three for a total of £5 at the weekend, best £5 I've spent in a while! The flipside of Uptown Top Ranking:

I'm a bit late on this news - sadly, Chris Meredith died about a month ago. He had worked a lot of big names, including: Yellowman, Burning Spear, Ziggy and Stephen Marley, Dennis Brown, Israel Vibration, Gregory Isaacs. https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/guitarist-chris-meredith-is-dead/ I just learned from this interview that he played the Bass for one of my favorite tunes:

One of the best things with the Helix Stomp is when it gets sold and there's a pot of £ to re-buy individual pedals that were sold to get it!

Nice video. It has helped with my P Bass GAS! I'm mostly into Reggae and Funk and occasional low-tuned Doom/Stoner stuff so always go for 5 string J (type) Basses but I've felt for some time that I should own a P Bass at some point to see if the hype is deserved (I've tried them in shops and been un-impressed, perhaps I need longer with them though). So many people say the P has an intangable quality of being an inspiring, fun to play, go-to bass that makes you play in a certain laid back way that I'm going to have to find out for myself.........I expect going from a 5 string multiscale headless active Ibanez to a P Bass is going to be a pretty big jump!

I've usually had good experiences online and in-shop other than once when I'd made a long journey to try a specific Bass that I then found to be making odd electrical noises, I said perhaps it has a low battery, "yeah, could be" was the answer as they walked off and never tried to solve it or follow-up, so that lost them a potential sale as I talked myself out of bothering to solve it or spend £ there on alternatives that day. On the plus side, they have a good amount of Basses and let you get on trying them hassle free, and they have given me much better part-exchange rates than anywhere else a couple of times so I will be going back again.

I prefer wider spacing (19mm) on a 5 string as it gives a bit more space for slapping n popping.

I agree. Remembering/working out that things like 6x # = F# and then needing to remember each of those notes is a # is my biggest hurdle.

I can work it out, mostly due to childhood piano lessons. Not fast enough to play along to though. I can read Tabs faster, they work okay other than when you want to play in different positions and the fact they don't show length of notes/timing and rests, and they don't encourage you to actually know if the note is an A or C or whatever so I don't think they are a particularaly good way of reading in the long-term. Learning basslines from ear and memorising them is good (especially as it isn't the done thing for most bands to play from sheet music) but is a bit like learning singing songs by ear and memorising them without reading/writing words - it is possible but being able to read/write to then memorise makes things easier. I'd recommend learning the basics as it isn't as complicated as it initially looks. Just learning these two charts is enough to be able to do the basics: .....spend a few minutes to apply that to this and play it: And you can say you can read music! Admittedly at the most basic level and there is more to it for complex music, and sight reading is a whole other level. But even at this level compared to Tabs it gives more useful information and lets you play the notes where you want (open strings etc) rather than sticking to the prescribed Tab fret. Also, a good thing I've been taught is to sing out loud the notes as you read and play them 'D D A A B B A' etc. as it is a good way to train your pitch/ear/hand/eye coordination.

My Ibanez EHB 1005 MS:

I'm a fan bands having a dancer as band member: Hawkwind with Stacia, Happy Mondays with Bez, The Prodigy with Keith & Leeroy (in the early days). Or failing that, a lead singer that mostly just sings and dances, like Mick Jagger or James Brown. They can be the focus of attention, then Bass players can get go about their Bass playing in peace. Or Electronic music bands know a thing or two about getting crowds dancing and you don't see Orbital, Daft Punk, Kraftwerk etc. doing much dancing themselves so I don't think it is essential to have dancing Bass players, just as long as the crowds get some sort of visual performance from singers, dancers, lights/screens or whatever else.........then again, this is all a bit different to a pub covers band!

Nice! That's a good idea, unfortunately I got rid of my tape recorder a long time ago. Recorders like yours and reel to reel seem relatively cheap at the moment, I've got a feeling as they get more rare their prices will go up as there's unlikely to be enough demand for companies to start making them again but there will always be some demand for things like you are doing. What mic would you recommend for melodica and percussion? I'm doing home recording of Dub/Reggae with some drums (mostly just Kicks and snares) being samples from vinyl then recorded/sequenced on an MPC One, and the Bass is recorded from my Bass Guitar>Pedalboard>MPC One, and have amassed quite a few small instruments (Bongo, Conga, Steel Tongue, Kalimba, Shakers, Guiro, Harmonica, Melodica etc.) that I've been recording to the MPC via a vocal mic. It's starting to sound sort of how I want - getting away from a 'Clean and exact' purely DAW produced sound with imperfections in the playing/timing and recording actually helping to make it sound more like what I want (70's grimey dub rather than 2020's 'clean' steppers stuff that seems to dominate nowadays).

The Jamaicans:

I was a teenager in the 90's and have mostly followed the Jungle > DnB > Dubstep > Dub & Reggae sort of musical journey (tempo slowing down with age!) so a whole genre of Doom/Stoner metal completely passed me by on a sort of parallel timeline until I saw Orange Goblin play at a festival a few years ago and that also got got me into Kyuss, Sleep, Bongripper, Electric Wizard, Lowrider etc.

Sumac Dub - Le Jardin de Lucy Its a good album for 'clean' sounding dub (I usually prefer stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a shed!).

A bit obscure for anyone not into the genre, but before he got big I had some online chat with dubstep producer Zomby who sold a cracked copy of Reason to me - or at least he took the money but never posted it to me. After a lot of hassling he offered to send me some p0rn to 'chill me out' (which he didn't!) eventually he gave me a full refund so I don't have any complaints other than the hassle caused. Shortly after, he got quite famous and there was controversy that he copied someone's tune (also made on Reason) and released it as his own, and quite a few more stories of obnoxious online behaviour....to the point that I wouldn't be suprised if he googled himself to find this thread and registered on Basschat just to send me threatening messages!