jazzburger

36 minutes ago, Kyndainverse said:

I've recently started playing Bass again after about 20 years of only occasional strumming, I was pretty active, if not very talented, for a few years in my late teens and early twenties. 

My new enthusiasm comes from joining some fellow parents in a rehearsal studio to make a bit of noise. So far we seem to be veering towards something vaguely post punk dubby/funky ramblings.

Nice to meet you Kyndainverse.  My talent has never matched my enthusiasm or the lovely basslines that run through my head almost every day.  I started in the mid-80s and have recently treated myself to an Ibanez Mikro 4-string which is encouraging me to go for lines that I never attempted on my old Aria RSB Deluxe.  The Zoom B1on pedal I bought when I got the Mikro has transformed my practice sessions.

Covid restrictions permitting, I'm about a month from starting rehearsals with some guys at work.  It seems like we could be attempting anything from Linkin Park to Jaco Pastorius with some Herbie Hancock in between.  I'm out of my depth but that will give me the kick up the @rse I seem to need.

Good luck with your PPDF ramblings.

I'd like to respond to this old thread because I've returned to bass playing after a 10-year break and I'm trying to develop my technique.  I'll go the list route as other members have:

1) Inability to keep time

2) Inability or unwillingness to play just what the song requires

3) Underestimation of how difficult it is to be a technically competent and musically responsive player

4) Unwillingness to put in the time to listen widely and practice

I'm not guilty of 1), less guilty of 2) than I was when I first took up the bass in the mid-80s, slightly guilty of 3) and very guilty of 4).  I'm a mediocre player but I can see a way forward - finally.

On 04/06/2021 at 21:43, bubinga5 said:

This is for sure Marcus. 

 

How many bass players make their mark from the first note? A string-bend at that! This is a silly track but that groove is for days.

10 hours ago, TK4261 said:

Here is my heavily modded Squier Mini P Bass...Great little couch Bass and sounds good also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRW1_4Zd3uw

 

I really like this bass and I like the term 'couch bass'.  My recently acquired Ibanez Mikro is now my 'couch bass'.  Just need to wait for my back pain to subside before I get back into practising 🙂

I just watched the linked video - the bass sounds really nice and full and perfect for what you're doing on that track. A little hint of Rickenbacker on that fast lick near the end - lovely.

On 22/05/2021 at 07:12, Mykesbass said:

Something brand new. Heavily programmed, but to me, still has a great feel. Joel Culpepper.

 

I love music like this - I think it's damned hard to play such a sparse line and stay in the pocket.

3 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

The way that’s worded you may be getting a call from Operation Yewtree. 😆

You have a point. I was keeping my girlfriend company. She had an early insight into my character, buying me drumsticks for my 17th birthday. "You drum on everything" she told me.

2 hours ago, lowdown said:

Included in the blurb were the names of the players on the sessions. Most of them, were fusion/Jazz/Rock players of that period that we all seem to know of.

I got a message about this from a YouTuber who mentioned Tom Scott, Chuck Rainey, Rick Marotta and Ray Parker Jr among others. Sounds about right.

Babysitting in the late 70's meant a couple of bus journeys, some beer, a quick fumble and the best bit - THIS!

Does anyone know who any of the session players were??

You CAN dance in platform shoes and you MUST!!! Hats off to Lequeint 'Duke' Jobe. Killing it!
 

If I could only grab two albums for my desert island sojourn, these would probably do:

Focus - Live at the Rainbow

Focus - Hamburger Concerto

For we bass players and fans, Bert Ruiter is IMHO one of the most underrated players ever to pick up a bass.  Listen to him on the live version of Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!  Solid, solid stuff.

Welcome @Girlarms - rambling is obligatory here.  As you will find... 🙂

8 hours ago, dave moffat said:

Finally got my now fretless back last week

The fretted is drop-dead gorgeous. It looks shorter than the fretless - hoptical hillusion?

Just now, Marc S said:

Hi @jazzburger as per my post above, I had the 5 string version of the Ibanez Mikro bass, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how good it was.
Good quality construction, good finish, and the B string was particularly well defined and nice & "deep" sounding - which really surprised me.
The bridge was pretty heavy duty too, and I wouldn't have changed that. Same re the tuners.... Perhaps I would have only changed the control knobs, which were a bit light & "plasticky" feeling.

I had played a 4 string Mikro, and that convinced me to buy a 5 string. If the string spacing hadn't been a tad too close for my clumsy fingers - Then I would have kept it.
Anyhow, enjoy your Mikro, they're great little instruments  

Hi Marc, I saw a YouTube demo of the 5-string and I loved it.  I'm just not sure I'd get the use out of a 5-string.  The string spacing on the 4-string seems to suit me perfectly.  I read about flimsy control knobs before I bought the Mikro but these feel really solid and smooth and that was a nice surprise.

Hi, I thought I'd sneak in here as the new and very happy owner of a GSRM20 - a diddy Mikro Bass.  I have the walnut flat one and I've made no changes to it (yet).  Not that I'm a bass-modder or even a particularly talented bass-player.  I just love quiet electronics - which for £159 I did not get and did not expect.

It's a lovely little thing and it encourages me to play Herbie Hancock stuff that I thought I couldn't play.  This and the Zoom B1on pedal that I got on eBay are two things I should have bought 10 years ago.

On 15/08/2020 at 09:58, Silvia Bluejay said:

 

My cheap but very cheerful SR375E.

 

Edit: more pics HERE.

This is a SEXY machine

On 08/05/2021 at 16:08, Harmony1954 said:

So low on space we sleep upright! 

So, upright bass players. Welcome to the house of thumb.

29 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Once you learn to solder well, there’s no going back. IMO, flux is key. I decided to build an amp and after that my soldering chops were pretty good (just as well as I also had to do it occasionally for my job at the time).

I have a friend who works as a fencing armourer and has to solder new connections to the weapons all the time. I plan to ask him to give me a Soldering 101 class 🙂 Then I can do some rewiring in the VW and then tackle the Ibby 🙂

1 minute ago, ezbass said:

If the Aria is quiet, that shoots my theory in the foot. The Ibby clearly likes as much isolation as possible. 

Yes, well done me for telling half the story.  Apologies.  I'll play around with power supplies but it looks like I'll be shopping for conductive paint and learning to solder soon.  62 and I can't solder - pathetic or what?  Thanks EZB.  I am inclined towards some EMGs eventually because I have an EMG Select J pickup in my Aria and that made it a nice creature to live with.  I'm just tired of pulling bits off an old VW - I was hoping not to have to do it with a brand new axe.

Just now, ezbass said:

Could be the power supply, I have one that’s particularly noisy.

Thanks EZB - I was using a USB cable that I'd fitted an RF choke to (a bit OCD maybe) and was surprised by the noise.  If I play my old Aria through the same pedal, all is silent or damn near.  I had the USB cable connected to an Apple charger.  Maybe that's not ideal.  I'll try other options before I start chucking daft money at this.

Hi, I apologise for having been a proper lurker for a few weeks.  Work has been a bit bonkers.  I finally got the Ibanez Mikro Bass I mentioned I'd ordered when I joined the group.  It's everything I hoped it would be - looks good, light, nice neck profile and I can play things I've never attempted on the old Aria.

And both pickups are silent.  Yess!!  Well they are if I go through my Zoom B1 pedal and I'm powering that with batteries.  If I power it using USB - oh dear, what a racket!  The neck pickup is even noisier than the bridge - and the neck is a split coil.  I've read articles about "is it grounding or shielding that you have to fix".  I take my hands off the strings and it hums and fizzes so it looks like shielding.  I know I can just carry on powering the Zoom pedal with batteries but sooner or later I'm going to be using a rig where I don't have that option.

Has anyone managed to silence one of these little devils without sticking a set of EMGs in there please?  If money were no option, I'd get an active EMG P/J set and pay a luthier to do a nice job for me - hoping that would give me the silence I enjoy with my 1985 Aria.

As I say, sorry to lurk for weeks and then come out with this...

2 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Hard to think it's the same group who played on songs like Leader of The Gang!

Dodgy song title, but this has got loads going on. Like you say, this has shades of AWB - and I like it a lot. Thanks for airing this hidden gem.

I've loved this since it was released. That's not changing. This bassline gets better the more I listen,

22 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

You might have missed the most recent edit of my post above that you quote from, there is another piece of information added which you would be best off knowing when planing to swap the stock pickups of the Mikro Bass.

Noted BB - thank you - now where's my sandpaper??

10 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

The Geezer if you want absolutely dead quiet pickups, as they are shielded internally, meaning that no shielding of the bass is required, and if you want a vintage-esque kind of tone, just a bit hotter and slightly more aggressive than you average vintage P, and with a nice upper mids snap and bite.

And the Model P if you want a somewhat more modern, quite hot, aggressive, and overall fuller sounding P pickup, with a nice amount of lower mids punch, though not quite as articulate and dynamically responsive as the the Geezer, and definitely more noisy. 

BB - that's very reassuring advice - thank you. I'll probably always go for quiet pickups because a lot of my playing and practising is going to be through headphones and a noisy bridge pickup does my head in. I'm a soul and funk player and I enjoy a bright-ish top end. The sound samples on the Thomann website make me think that if I'm happy with the size and balance of the GSRM20, the pickups will be liveable for long enough to put some money in the piggy-bank for some Geezers and maybe some Gotoh tuners, but from what you say, the tuners are up to the job anyway.  Do you have any advice on strings?  I have only ever had flatwounds once since 1985 and they were on a fretless, so I'm a roundwound player.  Rotosound, D'Addario, LaBella, Ernie Ball have all been on the Aria over the years.  LaBella were my favourites but, blimey, they went off quickly and they were pricey.  Thanks again.

15 minutes ago, scrumpymike said:

I had a GSRM20 for a while.  Nice little bass but I realised that for me anything with a sub-30" scale was just too short.

I'm preparing myself for that. The number of used ones for sale has made me think it's either a) too dinky or b) too compromised in the J pickup department.