Beedster

15 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Great setup @Linus27, nothing boring there imo.

Yep, it ain't what gear you play, it's how you make it sound that matters, no doubt @Linus27 has got the latter covered 👍

I rehearsed this a couple of times and having done so realised that it's in the top 10% of Precisions I've owned in terms of tone, playability, and loojks, which in real terms places it among a gang/gaggle of pre-CBSs. So for the time being at least, and with apologies for the people interested, I'm going to keep it 👍

On 06/06/2025 at 21:54, Beedster said:

Hardest album we've played, best gig we've done

Singist hits some loud shit in our Odelay gig, went great, could have been better, could have been worse, Beck has said the same about his own gigs

2 hours ago, lowlandtrees said:

I thought all this stuff but some Chinese factories do good copies and you would not expect high quality for that price. Just happens to be my dream acoustic guitar….never heard the bass

It has NOTHING to do with LB's acoustic, and trust me, you do not ned to hear the bass 👍

What a f***ing awful looking instrument, frets aren't even parallel (might be photo), plus why such a wide neck, could easily fit another string on there  

And then, there's the feedback.....

On 17/06/2025 at 22:12, lee650 said:

Im overwhelmed and lost for words! You wonderful people have been a light in some of the darkest days of my life.

 

The money is a huge help and allieviates some worry, all the lovely comments and advice have shown me i have people in my life that care. 

 

Ill withdraw my MIJ 75RI and ill take it to a gig on sunday, and lay down some funk in your honour 😊

 

@AndyTravis has been a rock and im very glad you're all my people. 

 

My sincere and humble thanks to you all.

 

 

Mate, firstly glad this has helped

Second, if I were able to get up your way to see you lay down that funk, I'd be there in a flash 

Third, love this f***ing forum and the people who hang here, and @AndyTravis, like @Clarky earlier this year, respect and thanks guys 🙏

15 hours ago, paulbuzz said:

I suspect (with no evidence whatsoever 😁) that as bass players, we might find a moderately high level of consensus as to what constitutes an interesting bassline, whilst disagreeing wildly on the merits of the resulting music.

For example, whilst I think that Mark King is a talented and inventive bass player, you couldn't pay me to listen to Level 42 - I'd much rather listen to Dee Dee Ramone go 'dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum'! 😆  

Though by horrible misfortune, I did once see Level 42 on two successive nights, and only one of them was because I was getting paid...! 
But I did get a large collection of discarded and largely unused bass strings at the end of the night, as all his basses were being restrung nightly, and the removed strings, used or otherwise, thrown on the floor of the hall. I didn't have to buy any strings for several years, so thanks Mark 🙂

Agree re first line 👍

I'm always amazed by just how many people, many of them fellow musicians, are completely mystified by slap, almost to the point as seeing it as a form or irony, the theme to Seinfeld seems to come in for particular flak! 

13 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

 

I said 'popular music', implying the charts.

 

5 and 10 of the contemporary  ones are good... but possibly synths.

 

I think most of the older ones are more musically interesting (rhythm and melody) than most of the newer ones.

Fair enough, i suspect that if we're talking chart music only you're on the money in arguing that the music 50 years back had more interesting bass parts. But as someone who encourages my daughters to listen to whole albums by artists whose singles they like, I'm often impressed and encouraged by how interesting the bass parts can be, even in songs or artists I really don't like (Kanye being a great example of the latter) 👍

7 minutes ago, paulbuzz said:

Having come up with his proposition, Stub has tested it by comparing today's top 10 against that of 50 years ago. It's a smallish sample size, but it's a fairly reasonable approximation of a random sampling, and not subject to the bias you suggest. It could be improved by testing a few other randomly selected past/current weeks against each other, but I don't think anyone's aiming for a publishable research paper here. 😆

It is of course restricted to 'top 10'-style music, but that's the point of Stub's proposition.

Personally I wouldn't care to venture an opinion one way or the other (not least because I haven't the faintest clue what's in today's charts), but it's a reasonable and (subjectively!) testable hypothesis.

Not sure 'Top-10' was mentioned in the OP I was replying to, it was 'modern music' as below, but like I said, it's still all opinion, so not really a testable hypothesis, more my opinion differs to the O/Ps, and as you say, you don't even have one  

On 16/06/2025 at 13:00, Stub Mandrel said:

Why have the basslines of popular music become so basic (excuse the pun)?

 

Is it just that old-school bass players had a bit more theory knowledge? Or just that modern music is so dance oriented the bass has just become an extension of the kick drum?

So here's a counter hypothesis: our musical preferences (style, genre, complexity) determine how we draw conclusions about relative merits of style, genre, and complexity

47 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

The current top ten.

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart-update/

 

50 years ago?

Whispering Grass ... mellow, fairly straightforward jazzy line on an upright.

I'm Not in Love ... any questions?

Three Steps to Heaven ... simple but some nice stops

The Hustle (Van McCoy) ... nice syncopated funky disco bassline.

The Proud One (Osmonds) ... verse very simple, gets funky in the chorus

Listen to What the Man Said (Wings ) ... nuff said?

Stand By Your Man ... quite a bit going on there.

The Way We Were (Gladys Knight) ... a great slow upright line.

Disco Stomp - (Hamilton Bohannon) .. Would be pretty simple some really honky slides used as accents.

I've done my comparison and I think my observation stands that test. 

I still think it's a matter of opinion mate, two of those are standout basslines to me, I could probably find the same % in contemporary chart music, alongside a whole load of boring basslines as there certainly were in the 50-years ago list 👍

28 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Let's face it, they and their ilk are a pretty small proportion of modern pop music.

 

You'll find few songs in the Sixties or Seventies charts with straight eights as a bassline, and those bands that did use them often were more sophisticated.

 

I used to think Dire Straits basslines were simple in the 80s, they seem sophisticated now!

Not buying this at all, I suspect you're basing your 'old music has good bass-lines' idea on a limited set of artists, and doing the same with your 'modern bass-lines are shit'. Have a listen to a station or a show playing 60's and 70's pop and trust me, you'll hear some pretty bland bass parts at least 50% of the time. Re modern music, while I like to explore the road less travelled, I pick up as many decent basslines from the stations my daughters listen to such as Heart and Radio 1 (!!!!!) as I do on Radio 6.

Anyway, there ain't no right and wrong to any of this, it's all just opinion and ultimately a function of what each person construes as a decent bass part in the first place      

Might work rather well, I doubt you'd ever use the bridge P-PUP soloed but it might blend very nicely with one or more of the others. If it were for sale at a decent price I'd certainly give it a go, especially as it appears to be wearing a bunch of cream Dimarzios, defo my fave PUPs, the colour has a huge effect on tone  

On 17/06/2025 at 00:31, Stub Mandrel said:

 

But rarely in the charts. 

Yeh Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, and Billie Eilish are yet to achieve success at chart level 😂

Hey @tayste_2000, is this for short scale basses? 

On 13/06/2025 at 10:40, lee650 said:

Ive only just became aware of this (and spent 30 mins sobbing afterward) a few members im close too will know that after 22 years of marriage my wife asked for a divorce.

 

At the risk of oversharing. For many years ive struggled with (for a long time undiagnosed) carpal tunnel in both wrists, which at times has hampered my playing. This is on the mend, but among other things has taken a toll.

 

Im devastated, but ive done a lot of thinking and looking back, it cant go on

 

Ive been harming myself mentally, and suppressed anger and frustration and sadness until it warped me into something im not, and caused her to fall out of love with me

ive numbed the pain with Alcohol which has affected my physical health.

 

She knew what was happening to me, but dealt with it by keeping busy with other things and remained focused on creating a life for herself that didnt include me, in time we were more roommates than a husband and wife. So sad, we had a beautiful relationship, and it withered and died and we both let it happen! heartbreaking, truly heartbreaking

 

Ill always love her,she was my best friend, soulmate and the love of my life. Right now im still full of anger and resentment and need to try and let it all go and forgive, because ive tortured myself and her for years 

 

If this looks at all familiar i beg you COMMUNICATE, share your feelings and find the person you love. Im not courting sympathy or even attention, but please hug your partner and love them fiercely and with all of your heart.

 

Ive been a nember of this forum since 2007 and it has been part of my everyday life in all that time. Ive made friends for life and brothers id never had, and many many times been a small light in my darkness. I cant thank you all enough for this, im very moved and grateful to have so many wonderful people in my lif

 

Im going to move out and get a flat with the shirt on my back and a couple of basses, at 51 my life parallels when i left Newcastle at 19 

 

Im on the cusp of a new start

My focus will be on healing myself phyisically and mentally, i plan to throw myself into the thing thats always defined me , Music!!

 

 

Time to forgive and heal

  

Brave post @lee650, all the best mate, life throws some shit around and I'm sorry to hear it's hit you, but at the very least you've got a bunch of bassists onside should you need them 👍

10 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Is it just that old-school bass players had a bit more theory knowledge? Or just that modern music is so dance oriented the bass has just become an extension of the kick drum?

It's because you're listening to thw wrong modern music 👍

I have a playlist call 'Great basslines' that are tracks that I hear on the radio, usually tracks that I'd not heard before, and usually by artists that surprise me, e.g., Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, Billy Eilish etc. There is some great bass playing out there 👍

8 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

Putting jazz bass ashtrays on a bon-jazz bass is an abomination. I cannot stand it when I see these. Otherwise, bass looks alright, because of unknown origins etc. I wouldn't pay more for that than the price of a new fretless Harley Benton 

Ha, missed that, a common theme in this thread it appears  

4 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Even though this is probably a Squier PJ from factory I'd always be wary of a PJ with the bridge cover on, that piece of metal could be hiding some hideous amateur routing.

....and even given that, installing a Jazz(-esque) ashtray on a Precision is rather poor form 👍

Two units I'm not really using any more, £120 each posted & insured. Happy to haggle if needs be

Krivo, gold standard of low-feedback magnetic DB PUPs (IMO of course....)  

Lifeline, also rather useful for (generally) low feedback amplification 👍

It gets less attractive the more I look at it  

I find Mighty Mite hit and miss, like Fender when they’re good they’re very good, but unlike Warmoth and Allparts, they can be quite bad also

3 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

A comment from someone who's already seen it advises it's about as authentic a ballet as Tommy is an opera, so make of that what you will!

Sounds like high praise to me 👍

15 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Lovely stuff. I’ve been offered significant sums to trade in, but better someone gets a bargain than all that. 

I am SERIOUSLY tempted myself Lawrie but my GAS Therapist has been quite stern about it. Should have left the relationship purely professional and not married her    

14 hours ago, Owen said:

Mutter mutter 5 string mutter cough mutter

Your life would be so much richer if you stuck to four Owen 🤣

Or poorer, depending on which way you look at it