GreeneKing

I’ve been learning to play on old favourite ‘Brass in Pocket’ by The Pretenders. I’ve got an aged copy of Bass Tab White Pages and I’m using that. I use the tab for fretting and the notes are good for rhythm feel. The first four bars sound great but bars 5&6 are tabbed G# and sound plain wrong. The notes and chord notation are F# and that is sounding good. Bar 7 is tabbed open E but the chord is D/F# so I reckon I should be playing F# (the notes are dropped D). The tab online mirrors the tab in the book. Looking at the musical notation and using chords the tab seems way out in places. It also sounds right when I ignore the tab and use the notes/chords and slash chords. My question is, is it me or is the tab rubbish? Peter

I've had a bit of a bass journey over the past couple of years. After 20 plus years of bass playing, owning and fettling the whole band shenanigans finally drove me to selling my rig, several basses and a host of other gear. I was just left with my ACGs and Rita my Sterling. They haven't been touched for over a year. I'd completely lost interest. Brilliantly, I'm at it again but with a better practice routine and I'm working on the basics as opposed to learning songs from tabs. I'm enjoying myself more than ever. Back to this story. I was hankering for a Jazz. Back to basics again. I bought a lovely 2008 MIM Jazz from Nick Carey on here. Its playability ranked with the best I've used (speaks the man who's owned over 100 basses). The fretwork has had a professional dress and setup and it shows. I am a serial tinkerer. I fitted upgraded electrics (still passive) and saw some overwound neodynium pickups that I thought might add something. They were great, looked lovely, well made and they sounded very punchy. Therein lies the rub. The bass was perfectly setup and I had to raise the saddles a whole turn to a turn and a half to stop fret buzz as the neo magnets were so powerful that they were bending the strings towards the board. I told myself that this was okay but yesterday I thought, no, I'm putting the old pups back in. With exactly the same setup I lowered the saddles by the same amount I'd raised them and normal service is resumed. My Jazz is back and it actually sounds bloody wonderful. I don't know if the pickups I've put back in are originals but they are very good. Lesson learnt.

It's a subject that I addressed elsewhere so I'll look for the info. Every now and again someone will say 'remember ...... that I bought from you' and my mind will go 'kerrching, +1' 😆 To be honest, considering my abilities with the instrument, it's a little embarrassing..

I keep on remembering basses that I forgot to add to the total too.......

Just a request to ask if these are standard pups or modified ones. It'd be nice to know as they sounded better to me than I expected.

Well time moves on and I’ve actually got playing again. Just home stuff in my little practice room. I am really enjoying getting back to ‘bassics’. I bought a Lakland Skyline P/J £600 off in the recent GuitarGuitar sale as I wanted a P with just 4 strings. I love it, such a good bass and the Plek’d board makes it a real joy to play. Then the desire for a matching 4 string J sorta grew and I bought a Mexican Jazz from Nick on here. In part I grabbed it because it had Hipshot upgraded tuners and luthier refined fretwork. It’s a joy also, two great basses (and my 2 ACGs and Rita) I’ve already added a Hipshot Type A bridge and some new pickups so some things don’t change.... What is different is that instead of learning theory followed by picking up tabs for songs I’m working on learning to improvise and use my ears more. Loving it all again. I hope a band opportunity doesn’t come along as I can’t afford a rig:)

I saw some overwound neodymium Martin Herrick pickups on eBay with a 'make an offer' tab. I offered £75 and was well chuffed when it was accepted. That is £45 less than the usual price. I fitted them today and after some fettling I'm very pleased. Punchy and bright with great mids. I think they look good too. I initially installed them the same height as the original pups that came out (that are actually surprisingly good anyway). The Neo magnets are so strong that, particularly with the E string they were seriously affecting intonation and causing fret buzz! Lowering the pickups solved this although I was a little confused about what was going on at first. The originals have magnets epoxied to their underneath. I wonder if this is a mod? As I say they sound surprisingly good for Mexican standard pups. Here's a photo of the bass now and the magnets stuck onto the old pups: