risingson

It's the bass player's bass from Alien Ant Farm, only my favourite band when I was 11 or 12! There is a story behind the building of this, I don't think it was made by Fender at all but ended up with the stamp on it. EDIT - apparently it's a custom shop, which makes me totally wrong!

Hej hej! Good to have you on the forum, I'm in Sweden about three or four times a year gigging!

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362927726' post='2006273'] I did too, but some folks on here can overreact. Sometimes I think we could have much more interesting conversations on here if we could keep cool and not resort to personal attacks for the lack of anything intelligent to say. [/quote] I fear my sarcasm might have got a bit lost there! I've got no time for people like that at all, he was an obvious troll with no idea what he was talking about and I won't miss him. People basically never do personal attacks on this forum, it takes people like him to bring it out of everyone else, it's just inevitable and to expect people to engage in normal conversation like we would do with other forum members I think is naive.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1362917249' post='2006110'] He had name of Inti at first then changed it to, I think, anitloco, then disappeared. [/quote] Banned in the end. A shame really, I thought he was terrific fun and not at all a cock.

You cannot listen to these things in isolation and conclude that the playing is sloppy, that absolutely isn't the way a a record is made or is meant to be judged. Someone posted up a John Deacon bass line in isolation a month or two back saying the same. The fact is that the bass take is reliant on an entire ensemble recording, not itself, a bass part is rarely a self-contained thing. So the idiosyncrasies of the band are what make a record or live recording, not individual parts. I think people regularly misconstrue what it actually takes to record a great track, it's rarely about perfection, it's about the sum of the parts working together towards the best possible sounding track. The mistakes in dynamics and timing are simply the human part of the performing and recording process, the idea that we are by our nature imperfect and it should be accepted as such. The isolated parts of a recording are not for consumption because they aren't reflecting the fact that when you play with more than just yourself in your bedroom rehearsing you will have to adapt to the limitations of your environment, whether these limitations be technological or human. Once you accept this it's far easier to enjoy recorded music for what it is, which is totally honest musicianship.

Should be interesting! An old song and a new song that really press your buttons. Here's my two for this week, old first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBEomCtCujw And new (this will totally divide most of you listening wise I'd guess): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0o68XLaUc

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1362783374' post='2004914'] Played three of these today - fantastic necks on all of them, so easy to play [/quote] I'd be really interested to play one, they aren't my kind of thing at all but I have a bad habit of resting on my Fender laurels and maybe I should get out a bit more! Played an Elrick for example a few months back, not my thing at all - or so I thought - picked the thing up and man it sounded unreal. Like a Warwick somehow but just better. It's the look of them I personally can't get on with but everyone is different I guess.

Have we honestly got through this thread without this getting mentioned once? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mln0RciE2o0

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1362689282' post='2003492'] Interesting that no-one has yet suggested "the tone is all in the fingers"... are we all getting past that misnomer? [/quote] I think it's kind of half true, in as much as if someone picks up my bass at a gig and uses it with my band (something that happened recently), they're not going to sound like me and vice versa. It's as much to do with the idiosyncrasies of individual's styles too. Adding effects and stuff makes things even more different.

[quote name='rednose200' timestamp='1362692691' post='2003589'] Made about 83 I think. Green isnt the most desireable colour either. Played one once. Was awful. Not all the same though. The best Fender P/J is the Aerodyne by a million miles. Thats what I would look to. All best. [/quote] I'm I'm correct I think the OP meant the newer spec Mexican made one with the actives and block inlays posted above. I tried one a while back, thought it was excellent!

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1362692764' post='2003591'] I'd say that if the bass is worth playing then it doesn't need a decal and if you want the decal then buy a Fender. [/quote] +1. Took my Japanese Squier P when I gigged in Sweden last, had a guy come up to me from the audience after asking me what year my bass was from, he thought it was a 60's P and he knew his stuff, he just couldn't see the Squier logo from where he was sat in the auditorium. I showed him it was a Squier, he asked me why I was playing one, I told him it sounded good. I know he did too because he told me before he found out it was a Squier!

I couldn't own one. It would almost be akin for me to buying a diamond-studded Rolex, the crucial difference being that 99% of people in the pub actually have no idea about how much it cost anyway. Looks-wise it's the height of bad taste for me too, just like the diamond Rolex would be.

I highly recommend Status Hotwires. Not at all interested in their basses (graphite = wrong!!) but their strings are superb, I've got my P-Bass strung with them and they're excellent. If you're looking for/used to lower tension, stick with Thomastik. Expensive, but then you'll never actually need to change them.

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1362512790' post='2000629'] The interviews written about him show he was very particular about His sound though. [/quote] Definitely, but limited to what was essentially stock Fenders minus the frets + his Acoustic rig to get what he wanted from his bass for the most part I thought. I know he was fond of brand new strings too.

I'm using Status Hotwire flats on my P-Bass at the moment, they're excellent value for money and to my ears sound a bit better than the previous D'Addario Chromes I was using, I'd really recommend them. My next P will likely have Thomastiks on it. [quote name='Myke' timestamp='1362509621' post='2000514'] Doesn't Pino use them? When he's grooving with the R&B peoples? [/quote] For almost everything now, all of his P's are strung with Thomastiks or La Bellas, he drop tunes with the La Bellas with the hip-hop guys as he reckons the tension screws with the neck of the bass apparently! It's possible he uses rounds on his Jaguar bass and I'm positive he uses them on his fretless Musicman.

Jaco likely won't have cared about upgrading his instrument providing that it played well, after all he was rather good on the old electric bass and if something ain't broke then why fix it? Likely he didn't need the hassle. It's also not entirely true that he didn't include at least one or two mods on his instruments, he was known to use P-Bass necks on Jazz basses so that he could get a stretch on with his left hand, something about him cramping up on jazz bass necks.

I could use them for basically anything right now, old or new material, original or cover work, I'm really starting to come round to the idea of using them all of the time. I still like rounds though as well.

The Chromeo one is so cool, I am a massive fan as well!

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1362351663' post='1998919'] hence why i don't necessarily tell people i go to tech when i'm networking unfortunately its too easy to get tarred with the same brush before people know you [/quote] Yes absolutely, it's almost a hinderance in some cases. I don't mean to appear bitter about it all either, I made more than a few contacts and got plenty a gig from my college, it's good experience if you're the right kind of person, but there is probably a bit of a stigma appearing surrounding music colleges.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I didn't find the last M5-24 I played completely dissimilar to my Musicman Ray 5, flat and very manageable.

[quote name='SlapbassSteve' timestamp='1362350818' post='1998896'] I'm currently just about bothering with the third year of a music degree which is increasingly looking like a total waste of time and money, due to an apparent rather snobbish total lack of respect for popular music in all but a select few lecturers... [/quote] You've got to be at LIPA I studied for two years there before I dropped out, for a lot of reasons really but mostly because of the dawning realisation that I wasn't getting anything out of Uni that I couldn't be doing on my own. There is an upside to studying at a music college in as much as it affords you a decent set of contacts for later life, but then you've got to ask yourself whether those contacts you have in your phone could have simply been compiled through your own hard work and diligence working hard freelancing as a musician by yourself. None of the graduates from my year are necessarily doing any better than I am, most are struggling along doing almost exactly what I'm doing which is doing the best youcan to make ends meet. [quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1362351004' post='1998902'] Thats Phil Simmonds he went to Tech Music School however i would say that he's the exception rather than the rule for us that study bass at uni from what i understand phil got that gig by being a phenomenal player and networking relentlessly the whole time he was at uni [/quote] He's not the exception though, that's just what it takes. Working day and night to get the work that he wanted. Too many musicians wandering into music colleges and hoping for the best when they come out, like a degree affords you something and of course it doesn't, it's just a slip of paper in this line of work.

My parents learnt during my grammar school years that grounding me when I didn't do homework was hopeless, the way to really create any kind of meaningful punishment was to stop me from playing my bass. They considered doing it once or twice but they never could bring themselves to do it. I'm 23, nearly 24. Up until March last year my plans were very much to make a living from playing music. This had been reasonably successful up until one or two setbacks forced me to rethink my position and I've had to take up a temporary job to fill a gap between the times that I'm performing and recording and the times I am not. I am probably at the position where I'm almost ready to drop my job and get back to focusing on making my living from music, the hardest question nowadays for people my age (indeed anyone trying to live from being a musician) is how you make that living and what you deem as an acceptable salary to afford you the life that you desire. It's a really hard place to hammer out any kind of living. I know guys who are playing for moderate to big name artists as session musicians making considerably less than I could from playing a year's worth of weddings with cover bands, and conversely I could be playing with my originals band and making moderate to little headway into signing with a decent label and doing a tour, again for very little money. It's got to a stage where I'm now trying to consolidate where I fit in as a musician, am I to be considered a hired gun and make a little for myself or do I push for more with the hope of making something big of myself only to be rewarded with very little in return? There really aren't any easy answers and things are only getting harder and harder, the best I can do is spread myself thin and hope for the best. [quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1362342587' post='1998724'] I'm reminded of a (possibly not true) story about McCartney and Harrison, IIRC, taking a long bus journey across Liverpool to meet someone who knew how to play a B7 chord. [/quote] Love that story, be it true or not, the difference nowadays being that if you need to learn how a B7 chord works then you simply Youtube a video tutorial of it. Music is so incredibly far removed from what it used to be.