TimR

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1357811753' post='1928639'] ... The place where that really falls down IMO though ius when the performance is hugely dependant on fx, like Shep's dubstep stuff, that is probably more down to the processing he applies than any amount of phrasing nuances (possible exception being how far envelope filters are opened, but even then sensitivity changes to the filter could make another player sound very similar). We arent talking a touch of octaver and a chorus here though, his fx setup is hugely complex and very carefully tailored to the material he is creating. Which makes it nigh on unique to him at any given time, and therefore you would probably find it easier to replicate his tone using synths. Of course the argument there is that he isnt really playing bass, merely using a bass as a signal generator for a hugely complex modular synth system, after all I can definitely make another fretless sound like his Roscoes do in a normal mix, just not in his particular choice of musical endeavour. [/quote] You could also argue that he (the player) set all this up carefully himself. He didn't just buy some new gear that magically changed his tone.

Think of it like a cake. Your bass is the base, plain sponge, chocolate, whatever, you can chose what you want. The player puts the icing and decorations on it. Thick, thin, hundreds and thousands, jelly tots. The cake is basically unchanged but looks and tastes quite different with different toppings. Then you take the beautifully baked and iced cake, drop it in a bowl, pour on some jelly and top it with custard. That's your band...

[quote name='Inti' timestamp='1357692377' post='1926991'] No?... [/quote] Yes.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1357720273' post='1927067'] Yes. Thanks for the lecture but I am well aware of this! It was me who made the comment about being buried in the mix. ... [/quote] Yes I didn't really want to highlight certain people because it was more of a general observation. If you're digging in everytime you play every note on every tune then you need to look at the gear. You're obviously not, some people may be.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357691498' post='1926984'] Would you say this is only true of good instruments or any instruments? I'd have thought it would be the same for any instrument. That is, you can control the tone in the same way with the same effect, even if the instruments natural tone is not as good as another's. [/quote] By good, I mean playable. Quality strings and transparent pickups. As opposed to bad, dead strings, warped necks, rattling machine heads and dead spots etc. Most instruments you buy nowadays are good. The better the instrument, the easier it is to play.

What concerns me here is everyone talking about 'my tone'. It's almost like you all play every note exactly the same way. I'm reading things like 'I dig in', 'I play with the tips', 'I play with the flat', and 'I tend to play harder when I'm buried in the mix.' Seems to me that there is a lot of learning to be done with respect to expression. Every note should be played differently. With a good instrument you should be able to control the subtleties of tone using your hands only. If you're buried in the mix then it's not your playing, it's your level and EQ that need sorting. It's these subtleties and your phrasing that make the music and they won't change from one instrument to another.

Quality of sound has never really been very important. I used to have an AM radio with tiny 5" speakers in my car, at one point I upgraded to an FM with cassette. It wasn't digital and would still go in and out of tune. But it did the job. Now the minimum is a PLL FM tuner with CD player and decent quality speakers. I'm sure music is made louder to sound better in the car or headphones on the tube. How many people who aren't audiophiles sit and listen to huge speaker systems in their home? Not many. As this thread shows the wives have control of what the sitting room looks like and big speakers don't look good.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357495083' post='1923524'] Well, I'd swap all of my instruments for one piece of crap bass if I could gain a load of skill in the swap. And I'd guarantee I'd sound much much better than I do now, or would sound if I played a £6,000 bass. I'll mention it again, a bit of tutoring on my fingering technique (stop sniggering!) improved my tone massively. It made my good Overwater sound amazing. Nothing to do with the bass, all to do with how I was playing it. [/quote] The Overwater has to be capable of conveying the tone. Re: Francis Dunnery. Are we talking about tone or technique here? The op suggested tone was mostly to do with the player. He didn't suggest ONLY to do with the instrument. So the question is really to what degree does the instrument and gear influence the tone? I would say they're 50/50. Massive amounts of EQ will change the tone radically. Lighter playing will not compensate for 12dB of bass boost.

I thought they just did covers of old MFI stuff.

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1357494290' post='1923508'] So our 12 year old Swedish friend finally nails his colours to the mast and proclaims The Mahavishnu Orchestra to be music whilst Jennifer Lopez isn't. Well, tell you what, I'm very happy over here in the clown camp 'cos I gave up on that masturbatory twaddle thirty odd years ago when someone opened my ears to the Count Basie Orchestra - never looked back! [/quote] The problem is his theory is majorly flawed in that when Bach etc wrote their tunes, they were popular and (shock, horror) people danced. Although the musicians of the time probably played with a bit more feeling than the orchestras do now.

[quote name='yepmop' timestamp='1357491674' post='1923435'] ... . If my memory serves me right did not Jaco learn musical theory later in his life? [/quote] No, he spent his whole life learning it. He only formalised it later.

A good musician will get the best available tone out of an instrument. The tone is a combination of the instrument's physics and the players ability to draw the sound out of it. At some point you reach a limit, either the player or the instrument.

Did we get to 5 pages then?

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1357490040' post='1923370'] So if you do grade 5 violin at school and never play again your a musician but if you play gigs most weekends to a high standard and get everyone on the dance floor week in week out your a hobbyist? [/quote] I think it's a title other people bestow on you. If you've taken an exam, then an examiner has given you the title. If someone has asked you to play with them and the audience have stayed to listen to your music then you're a musician. Just owning an instrument and making sounds with it, copied from sheet music or CDs probably doesn't make you a musician. You could well be a good player and a musician but whether you can decide yourself whether you are a musician or not is probably a matter for debate. Is everyone who auditions for x-factor a singer?

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1357487437' post='1923285'] So, if its all in the fingers and the player ability being more important than the gear why do we have 16,000 topics (with quarter of a million replies) in the Bass Guitar and Amps sections but 1600 topics in the Theory section? If you consider nearly 2,000 in the 'Gear Porn' but 129 in the Groove Library you'd be forgiven for thinking being a bass player was more about having than playing. [/quote] Because human beings like the quick fix. No one wants to spend years perfecting their playing when you can sound better overnight by changing your bass/leads/effects/amp/cab.

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1357417781' post='1922487'] Do you enjoy what you're doing? Do others enjoy it? If so, who cares what you call yourself? [/quote] I always enjoy what I'm doing, and usually everyone else enjoys it too. Although sometimes you would be hard pressed to describe the noise that our band makes as music...

[quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1357400194' post='1922108'] Abit late to this topic and only got so far through so apologies if this sounds like a rant. Jaco had a huge understanding of music theory. You do know that most of the Weather Report stuff was written right? As in it sounded so out there and boundary pushing because it had been composed and written that way. Also, People on this forum seem to think that by knowing theory restrains you from playing what you want because you're working within rules. All the theory does is explain the rules to you, give a name to what you're hearing. It allows you to speak and comunicate with one another. Yes music is a language, and you learn to speak before you read & write. But ate you guys telling me you wished you never did English at school and never wanted to read or write, as it will hold you back in your creativity in speaking?! That's what I thought. [/quote] I think the problem is that people keep thinking of theory in terms of rules. I keep going back to this point but there are no rules, or at least there is no enforcement of them if there are. They're more like a guide that you put in your back pocket and pull out when you get lost. It's like there are rules of spelling. i before e except after c. That doesn't work either does it, as there are more words that are the exception to that rule than actually follow it...

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1357376465' post='1921697'] I'd not agree with this (well, *someone* had to!) ... [/quote] Nope. You do agree with it. Note my liberal use of 'tend' and 'in general'. Certainly a couple of big bands I've played in have not swung, even though the music has been written like that and the conductor or MD has tried to get the musicians to swing. It seldom works, though, in the way we've come to expect it in small beat combo's. As you say there's just not the feedback mechanisms and freedom in place for it to happen. In classical trios, quartets and small chamber orchestras it can, and does, work extremely well.

It all depends on what you've practiced. Classical music doesn't tend to swing, classical musicians (in general) don't learn to swing and don't practice (in general) improvisation. However, the only difference between improvising and composing is one is done live in front in an audience spontaneously (or is supposed to be). Quite a lot of blistering solos from rock musicians are very carefully rehearsed at home.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1357321814' post='1921087'] To be honest, given that Jaco arranged tunes for a big band amongst other achievements, it suggests that he had a better grasp of theory than you credit him with. And soloing in a jazz context requires you to internalise a lot of information. I don't imagine there are any great jazz soloists who didn't have a very solid understanding of harmony - you don't just pull music like that our of your arse you know. I agree that there are people who've made really engaging music but never knowingly learned any theory. But put those people in a different musical situation and they will probably fall flat on their arses. [/quote] This is a very good post. I'm sure many of you know an awful lot more theory than you realise. Reading the dots is only a very very small part of it. I suspect if most of us were asked to play a major scale in C we could do it even if we couldn't read the score or if someone showed us where the C was on the fretboard. We would probably also know the difference between and be able to play a Cminor scale. Saying that you don't know or understand theory is a great misnomer. Probably what is so scary is that it is called "theory". You don't need to know Newtonian physics theory to be able to predict where a falling object will land. You just need to know it to write down the experiment so that someone else can repeat it. But then I suppose you could video it and stick it on YouTube.

Theory does not tell you what to play. Theory tells you and others what you played and why it fitted with the rest of what you and the other musicians played. It suggests what you could play in any context, but it doesn't tell you that you must play it. It's not rules and regulations, it's descriptions. If you understand it you will be a better musician, if you don't understand it, it will limit what you can achieve at a point. It's like being a great speaker, but not being able to write.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1357314108' post='1920855'] ... some people crafted rules and regulations around music ... [/quote] They're not rules and regulations. I think you need to understand what your function is within the music and use that to produce music before you can call yourself a musician. My milkman can whistle. Is he a musician?

No. You're a bass player, but not a musician yet.

[quote name='alyctes' timestamp='1357078191' post='1917322'] I seem to remember that nice Mr McLaren had something to do with all that? [/quote] Cheers. He took the backing band off to form Bow Wow Wow and gave Adam a completely new set of musicians. That would explain a lot.

Yes. I can believe that. All his best stuff was done in the '70s. Don't know how the 'Antmusic' and subsequent 'highwayman' thing came about, I suspect it was something they agreed to do to increase their appeal. I had heard he had returned to his raw '70s type punk. Didn't see the show, might watch it on iPlayer.