SumOne

^ It has, but a good video worth repeat viewing! This morning has been Blackboard Jungle Dub time for me.

The Labella Flatwounds arrived today and lasted all of an hour on my Bass (they sound good for Reggae but I now realise I just don't like the feel of any flatwounds). So if anyone wants some on the cheap I've put them for sale here:

UB40 article https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/06/ub40-reggae-back-mi5-were-tapping-our-phones I've ways written them off but should probably give their first albums a listen

and Bare Necessities.

Nice one. It's not far off something I made a while back:

It's alright, but is basic overview stuff. Ideally it would have a lot more content and would have the original tunes rather than 'in the style of'', but I find it convenient to have it as one album collection of tracks to play along to with their corresponding notation all in one book - otherwise I tend to not read notation much so I find it good practice for that. Those Carlton Barrett drum tracks are great. I've dusted off the Laptop to get back into production a bit having been inspired by the DM Khan videos, Alpha Steppa does some decent tutorials too. Straight into it with no mucking about.

Some live Reggae drum tracks from Jim Dooley's channel (can also download from https://jimdooley.net/Free-Drum-Loops-and-Beats) Reggae (75 BPM) Reggae One Drop (100BPM): Dub (115BPM) Ska (135BPM):

This Ed Friedland Reggae Bass book is a pretty good starting point. Notation & tabs and 47 tracks (lots are just a couple of bars though) with some history for each style going chronologically Ska-Rocksteady-Reggae-Dub-Modern Ska-Dancehall. It's fairly thin at 30 pages and covers 50 years of music development so there's nothing in-depth, Dub is mentioned but there are no play-along Dub tracks. Also, all tracks are 'in the style of..... ' I presume they don't have the licenses for the originals. Here are the tracks as a Spotify playlist:

Generally speaking, the tone, rhythm/feel, and space between notes are big parts of playing Reggae, doing that while playing Triads is a good starting point. There's a thread of Reggae Bass playing guides here:

If you do go for multi-scale then I'd suggest they aren't for everyone, they weren't for me anyway. I'm in the minority saying that though, almost every comment about them online is positive. I gave them a good try having owned an Ibanez SRMS805 and then a Dingwall Combustion but neither quite did it for me, I've now got a Sandberg TM5 SL and I much prefer it. The Dingwall 37" B is clearer than the Sandberg 34" B and there is more even tension and tone across the strings but not in a drastic way, I don't think many people listening would notice much difference but I find the Sandberg more enjoyable and easier to play and I prefer the tones I get from it. Fanned frets aren't difficult (right up at either end takes a bit of getting used to though), what I found more tricky is even with normal vertical pickups you need to pluck the G a bit closer to the neck and the B closer to the Bridge to have an even tone - add the angled pickups of a multi-scale and you've got to shift the plucking even further, I didn't find it comfortable or natural to play like that. Also, the Dingwall was quite heavy, it's quite a long reach to the first frets, no tone control when playing passive, no mixing between pickups (just switching), and a clean clear modern tone rather than more I guess what could be described as warm/character/vintage of the TM5. The SRMS805 was good, but string spacing too close for me. This is just my experience with 5 string multi-scales, I expect there is even less value in multi-scale with 4 strings.

This morning Peter Tosh 'Equal rights' is getting played loud while I 'work from home'. Such a good album, this tune is beautiful and powerful:

This was usually my opening tune in a DJ set. The first minute builds up energy really well (the vocal A side does an annoying thing of all vocal on the left, everything else on the right.... I guess recording in stereo was a novelty!)

Nice one. I ordered some La Bella Deep Talkin' Bass flats earlier today as they seem to have pretty much unanimous praise, if they don't do it for me (I'm guessing they will be good for Reggae but not so good for slap) then I'll give the D'addario Pro Steels a go.

Nice one, yeah I think I'll stop doing things half-arsed and go the roundwound route as almost all of my playing is Reggae and I like higher tension strings. Trying to play Dub/Reggae and Funk/Slap on the same Bass with the same strings and setup is probably too much of a compromise given that and ideal slap setup will have the opposite things to the ideal Reggae setup. I'd forgotten that I had an old 4 string pack of Adagio Flatwound Nickel strings so put them on the higher strings just now and remembered why I'd stopped using them - I like the lack of string squeaks and the tighter tension but they are brighter and more mid-focussed than my old steel roundwounds so it seems that roundwounds aren't all automatically good for Reggae, I think they were quite cheap though. I'll probably try the D'Addario Flatwound Chromes next.

I'm due some new strings, currently have 5 string steel roundwounds 40-128 and thinking of getting Nickel and heavier gauge (45-130), mostly as D and G sound a bit thin. Or possibly I'd go for roundwound but I occasionally play funk/slap so ideally want something that can still do that (but most of the time it's for Reggae). Any particular recommendations?

Andrew Ford has done a few beginner Reggae videos: Rocksteady: Modern Triads: British Ska:

Thanks for the quality videos! Not just the Reggae ones, loads of useful content on your site that's helped my playing.

Yeah, confused me a bit as I have a more recent version labelled as Junior Delgardo on vinyl, think it's exactly the same though.

I've started listing a collection of Ska/Reggae/Dub Bass playing guides here: