Musicman666

yep ...i got that deal ...  that fret kisser is such a great tool, i have used it a few times, only wish i had bought it years ago. The file is quality too. 

20 hours ago, Cat Burrito said:

Personally I like the tones of Simon Gallup (The Cure) and Craig Adams (Sisters of Mercy era), and both helped shaped my early playing days.

...add hooky and severin while your at it...  opening bars of israel and rock and a hard place ...less is more. 

6 hours ago, ezbass said:

Mick Karn, Pino, Alan Spenner on Roxy’s Flesh & Blood, John Giblin, Geddy, Derek Forbes.

permission to add a certain mr tony levin to this list. 

2 hours ago, Mudpup said:

I've experienced the same when we downtuned to D to suit the singer. Everything just sounded a bit flubby. I have a D tuner on each 4 string and that sounds great usually in normal tuning so could it be something to do with taking the tension off the neck maybe? Maybe get a Digitech Drop pedal or a new singer?

funniest part is the neck tension jibe ..

6 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Another option is to only tune the E string down to D and keep all the others standard. It needs a bit of thought in terms of playing, but I find adapting to that not too hard (I often use a drop D tuner for songs that require those extra lower notes).

yeah ...personally i find my brain can't cope so well ...

ok ---i'm using 50 to 110 on rounds  ..seems to work ok. i could give you the gauge on d dario chromes if u want?

i will check when i get home 

i think you might need to increase the gauge ..half my basses are tuned to standard d and they don't sound muddy but i do use heavier strings ...regular gauge would probably be too loose and floppy. 

i also have the musicman version with the wider neck that i got decades ago when the bass vi was truly a rare commodity  ..its very capable of bass vi duties but it's achilles heel is that musicman used regular guitar tuners thus cutting itself off from being able to fit the superb heavy gauge fender bass vi e string even if you managed to track down as set in those days  ..so you ended up having to use the specific ernie ball vi bass set of strings made for it which lacked a certain clarity on the low e that i can now thankfully get today from the vintera which of course is designed specifically for the fender bass vi set ...so now after acquiring my vintera i have relegated the musicman to baritone g to g duties which is another very interesting area to get into. I find within the bass vi format it's more about string choices than the bass itself and the area that sorts the men from the boys is that low e ...i am so fussy about low e string definition ...this is what ultimately made me veer away from the classic vibe ..it seemed that with the classic vibe it was all a bit of a kludge whereas with the vintera it just does it straight out of the box  ...no shimming or third party bridges or particular strings needed ...ironically i did end up getting a stay trem for the vintera not because it ever needed one in the slightest but simply because my ocd wouldn't allow me not to, since i already had them on my avri jazz and jag .... in fact if the truth be told only the jag every really required one.

6 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Width-wise the neck is very much in skinny 70s Strat territory.

the strat is slightly larger but yes in the same territory ...i think the squire is faithful to the original bass vi in terms of neck width. 

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

The nut is cut fine. The strings are already a little too close to the edge of the fingerboard. The neck is just much too narrow for bass guitar thickness strings, which isn't surprising considering that my skinny-stringed guitars have wider necks (and string spacing at the nut) than this.

 

 

 

well it looks like the original bass vi has a thinner nut than a strat so presumably on that score alone you are not comfortable with the bass vi.

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Is that the width of the nut or the distance between the centres of the two E strings?

 

The nut width on my Squier VM Bass VI is 41mm but the distance between the centres of the two E strings is only 35mm which puts the strings much too close together, and even more so when you consider that they are much thicker than guitar strings. For me this second measurement is the important one. Overall nut width tells you nothing about the string spacing. Compare this with the Eastwood Hooky which has a nut width of 50mm and 42mm between the centres of the E strings and is consequently much more playable (for me).

 

As has been said shimming the neck is required to get a decent string break angle over the bridge. The increased downward pressure of the strings on the bridge by changing the break angle also goes along way towards stoping the bridge from wobbling around without needing to fit inserts. Wobbly bridges are fine on Jaguars and Jazzmasters if you want to do MBV impressions, but IMO have no place on a Bass VI. Plus once you've replaced the E and A with something more suited for playing bass, the vibrato mechanism goes from extremely subtle to almost inoperative.

that does sound possibly like a badly cut nut ...i will measure mine and get back to you on that one. 

42mm is about the nut width of bass vi as well as the jazzmaster and jag ...the jazz bass is 38mm! ...strat and les paul are about 43mm ... so sounds like the squire is faithful to the original design as is the vintera vi. Why were you fitting a shim ..action too high?

i was checking out the squires ...a couple or red flags being the potential intonation issues on the low e and some kind of acceptance that the neck pocket was a little open to neck swivel on the secondhand one i checked out ( maybe some would consider this a positive feature?) ...so i ended up paying about twice as much for a vinterra ...hard to point to any one particular thing other than to say the vintera just felt and played and sounded better ...why?   i have no idea ...maybe im just imagining it since i didn't have both side by side to compare at the same time but it does seem to ooze quality...

16 hours ago, SumOne said:

The general consensus/cliche is that musicians are artists - creative, expressing themselves, communicating emotions n'all that. But is that what you think of yourself? Seems a bit pretentious to me! 

 

Perhaps I've got no soul or artistry, but the more I play music and learn about it the more I think of it as a process, a technical skill. 

 

Is being in an orchestra and sight reading artistic? Is playing a cover version with some embellishments? Is even playing some sort of free-form Jazz? After all, even that is mostly about applying technical skill and music theory. Is making original music? Usually that seems to very heavily rely of pre-existing musical formulas. 

 

I think there are some musicians that are genuine 'artists', people that really do something original that transcends technical skill and know how, that's only a small % of musicians though. 

playing and creating new music influenced by music that i already like and primarily just to please myself ...is this art? .. i have no idea but I'm doing it constantly. Do a lot of home recording.

It definitely comes under the category of self expression but its expression back to myself... if i get paid or published for it then that's a bonus but that's not the prime reason. If i do a gig its for my own pleasure, definitely not for the money.

If i was the last guy on earth i would still be noodling on a bass as well as all my other gear....don't crave an audience.

look mum no strings....

 ... it's like the bass is just a tool that you no longer need ..interesting concept. 

14 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Well now, for the very first time, I've listened to a whole Rush track from beginning to end, and with no regrets, to boot..! Thanks for the 'heads up'. 

so early that its not even peart on drums ...

Just now, prowla said:

I just listened to Grace Under Pressure; it’s a great album. 

i did try to trawl their post moving pictures 80s/90s catalogue not too long ago ...put on a few tracks and quite enjoyed them but never felt compelled to come back for another listen ..i might try putting their albums on the car jukebox instead to subliminally break through my mental block.

12 hours ago, Bass Direct said:

 

We reply to all emails that come into our inbox, if you could resend then we will reply instantly, thank you

well i finally did get an instant response after the fourth attempt .. forums can be a useful place for constructive feedback.  

7 minutes ago, prowla said:

Sort of the other way round for me - they evolved and matured over time.

They were influenced by a number of bands over their career but remained Rush identifiably and unquestionably. 

yes rush will always be rush ...but my point was that for me they had lost their edge ..it was now rush minus the mojo. 

16 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Rush trying to be the Police worked pretty well, I agree. It was a refreshing shift in direction. By the time they were trying to channel the Foo Fighters, however, the game was up. 

i think rush at some point early eighties must have crossed paths with king crimson just long enough for the spirit to jump ship ... crimson were on fire early 80s. 

8 hours ago, prowla said:

I thought they just played music, regardless of the decade.

(Some of their fashion sense and hairdos were always a bit dodgey though.)

they were in a good place at the end of the 70s but like many bands during that period felt the need to reinvent themselves to try and stay relevant and in many ways from an economic point of view they were correct to do so. Rush were a bit obsessed with the police and the similarities were there ...the shift was obvious. This did indeed keep them more acceptable to new audiences but somehow, hard to put a finger on it but for me their sound got diluted and homogenised with too many other influences ...that bit of rush that i initially latched onto ...that hard rock edge got mellowed out and caused me to lose interest ...it was the changing of the guard from one set of fans to another ...genesis was another band who trod a similar path ...the parallels are hard to ignore. Some fans stuck the course and no doubt will defend rush to the end ...i honestly wouldn't mind seeing them again in this new format but this time around it will be more to do with a change within myself than them. 

i have dealings with the main three  ... if pressed i would say the gallery is the best by just simply doing what they are supposed to do ...followed by direct and then bbros but i wont get into that one.  Bass direct need some serious email etiquette tips ...like i know you guys are busy but reply to an email ffs, how hard can it be?