Huw Foster

[quote name='Balcro' post='710757' date='Jan 12 2010, 11:18 PM']I don't know if you could call it a trick, more of an amazing facility with a six-string acoustic. At a folk-club in the back of a pub near Romford, a guitarist played normally, then in mid-song, without missing a beat, flipped the guitar over and played it left-handed... and back & fore several times!! In those days he was known as "Shaggis". By 1977 or so he was better known as Davey Johnstone, Elton John's guitarist. Balcro.[/quote] I'd still classify that as a 'trick' of sorts though - it has no real musical application... right? Whatever. It's still ridiculously impressive!

My Schecter is fairly narrow by my judgement. They're pretty hard to come by in the UK though - I got lucky on eBay with mine. New retail price is around £400. Mine was essentially unused and I got it for just shy of £300. It's really, really good value for the money. However, I have a couple of criticisms - the neck is obscenely long, and because of the very lightweight body (it's the lightest bass I've played by a mile) there's a fair bit of dip at the headstock. Both easily manageable problems, though. (I'm just too lazy to sort them out )

[quote name='drthirkenstein' post='710107' date='Jan 12 2010, 03:34 PM']i want a fender jazz deluxe. but the 75 reissue looks cooler. this is a problem.[/quote] Haha, too right! Perhaps you could reach a compromise by getting the 75 RI and upgrading the electronics so it's similar to the deluxe? Don't know much about either, so I don't know how well that'd work. Just a suggestion though.

Thanks for posting that! I've been watching some clips of the 'Legends' tour - the addition of D'angelo makes it even better. From the same gig: When Gadd drops the groove it's MASSIVE.

[quote name='KevB' post='709734' date='Jan 12 2010, 09:34 AM']I'll get shouted down no doubt for raising the name of the much accursed Behringer but their pedal tuner works fine, had one for a while and it seems to do everything that other more expensive pedal tuners (like Boss) do. My only slight irritation is if you use it in chromatic mode the notation for being perfectly sharp is a very small dot after the note letter which can be hard to see, a proper # symbol would be clearer. If you use it in other modes it is clearer to use.[/quote] Despite it being a Behringer, I'm sure it does the job fine. It'd be a sorry state of affairs if they couldn't even get tuners right! Still, the Korg gets my vote 'cause it just looks too damn cool.

[quote name='FuNkShUi' post='703343' date='Jan 6 2010, 07:47 PM']cool stuff. Having a drummer that grooves is a huge bonus eh?!?! Like it all though, nice tone on your bass. Seem real tight with the drummer, and like your singers voice.On all the songs. Think my favourite is Scarlet Blue for what its worth. Very cool!![/quote] Thanks man. The Scarlet Blue stuff is a few years old now. I'm still very proud of our material though - it was my first band, which formed when I was... thirteen?! Wow. I genuinely feel old for the first time.

Yeah it's great! What swung it for me was an incredible YouTube demo by a man with very limited English. If anyone's seen it that will make sense to them. Most of all I like it because whenever I use it someone always asks 'What's that?', and I can reply nonchalantly, 'Oh, it's just my tuner.' Then I hit them with the [b]four different LED settings [size=6]SKADOOOOSH![/size][/b] Also, it's apparently 1 cent more accurate than the Boss TU-2, not that it makes any difference.

[quote name='Lylodile' post='707929' date='Jan 10 2010, 05:51 PM']RHCP. Flea's bass playing made me realize that bass wasn't just plodding along, but that it could be interesting and expressive.[/quote] Actually, +1 on that. I often forget how influential Flea was on me as a fledgling bassist, as I rarely listen to RHCP these days.

'Sunshine of Your Love' by Cream.

You sir, are a bad man. That is one pimped bass. I doubt there's much more you could do to it without rendering it unrecognisable!

[quote name='Changles' post='702137' date='Jan 5 2010, 09:12 PM']I'll tell you what, the jaguar is a masterpiece of marketing. It looks cool, and if you plug it in in the store the active eq sounds amazing. However if you buy one, which I did, you'll almost certainly find that on the active setting it won't fair well in a mix. I really hated the EQ on mine and started using it on passive. It was a slight improvement. It was still very muddy. To answer your question on "parallel" it sounds unbelievably thin and will not cut through, and series will help you to cut through, but don't expect a lovely sound from it, as it's pretty muddy on that. The jaguar was my second bass and I played it for a year. I found it very heavy, a real pain to do a long gig with it on my shoulder. About 6 months after buying when I really learnt the bass' limitations I was really frustrated with it. Also you may find that the cutaway isn't that good if you want to play in the upper register. When I finally got another bass I was so relieved. In fact I picked up my jag for the first time in a while the other day and it felt like such a clumsily made bass compared to the one I use now. Also to get the jaguar anywhere near playable I had to pay out for a bad ass bridge. I would have bought new pickups too had I not concluded that it was a lost cause. Oh! And I almost forgot to mention the numerous dead and buzzing frets, even with high action!! Sorry to be a downer, just felt I had to contribute my (largely painful) experiences with the jaguar. It seems to me a lot of people buy guitars and basses in a shop when they're not set up & the playing experience in the shop with just the instrument on its own is different to how it is when you actually have the instrument in a band situation, on a gig, in a mix, where it's really a whole different kettle of fish. Mmm, fish. And it really takes a long time to get "into" a bass (in my experience) and really see its flaws and, occasionally, what's good about it. A half hour or less in a shop really tells us little. -C.[/quote] Don't apologise - it's interesting to hear a mostly negative review of the Jaguar for once! It might be blind optimism on my part, but perhaps you had a dud instrument? I'm fairly sure Fender isn't always renowned for its quality control! Of course,when I'm next trying one out (hopefully with a mind to buy something, funds permitting), I will make sure to not only scrutinise it, but also have a go at comparing to similarly priced basses.

I'm such a cynic. I had to try really hard to suspend my disbelief when the long-lost brother started posting. Here's hoping for a positive outcome!

[quote name='Moos3h' post='702579' date='Jan 6 2010, 10:50 AM']It's really not too hard - there's a couple of youtube vids to get you started (not exactly correct, but it's ballpark). It helped us that we played it in Eb (not sure if that's the original key), so it just required a quick detune to get that monster low note. Cheers, James[/quote] I agree, it shouldn't be too hard once you know what's going on. It took me ages to realise that Tony Levin plays the line on a fretless Stingray with an octave pedal. Once I knew that, I could transcribe it a lot easier. It is in fact in Eb, although the tonality switches a fair bit between Eb Mixolydian (essentially major scale with a flattened seventh) and Eb Aeolian (natural minor). No detuning required though - the octave pedal provides all the fatness.

[quote name='Paul S' post='698612' date='Jan 2 2010, 11:16 AM']It is what swung it for me, if I am honest, in a play-off between a USA jazz and the jag. The idea that I have a good quality fender bass that looked a little different from the herd is quite appealing. Mine is black and, with a black pick guard on it, looks even cooler - my Panther! [attachment=39160:jaguarblacksp2.jpg] [attachment=39161:jaguarblacksp3.jpg] [attachment=39159:jaguarblacksp1.jpg][/quote] Nice! I think I might have to get a tortoiseshell pickguard if/when I get one. I did a (bad) mock-up to illustrate it: [attachment=39415:jag.jpg] Not sure though. It's definitely not the 'classic' colour combination for a Jag, but I think I like it, and it'd stand out from the countless other red and white ones.

D'oh, IMDb doesn't list that info, it's 4oD. Silly me!

Tried using Shazam? It's the number you ring that tells you the name of a tune, or if you've got an iPhone (or a friend with one), an app which I use at every opportunity, haha. Not sure of the actual number though - I think it's 2580 (right down the middle of the keypad). It might also be worth looking up the episode on IMDb, as music is sometimes listed somewhere in the episode information.

Thanks Jimmy. You should hear the demo we did the year before - we've come a long way since then! Thankfully we had a very much needed line-up reshuffle and everything's much better now - we got a drummer that actually grooves, haha.

Only a tenner?! Fakkin' hell. Might just have to see that!

[quote name='Paul S' post='697193' date='Dec 31 2009, 01:56 PM']My only concerns about it are how much of the value of the beast goes into the slightly substandard electronics. Given that I now use it only passively, would I have done better spending the extra on a simple passive guitar? But that's just me. I love the looks and the way it plays and sounds, so I suppose it matters not at the end of the day.[/quote] I think I know what you mean - when I was trying it out I loved the array of passive tones so much, the active switch seemed a little unnecessary. However, I reckon the active preamp is still good enough for slap tones, particularly that Marcus Miller-type sound if I want it. It would also be ideal for the rare occasion when a bass solo is required of me and I need to jump out of the mix a little, haha. I don't know enough about similar basses in that price range to really assess value for money though. I do know, however, that I [i]love[/i] the way it looks, and a shallow part of my mind would never, ever allow me to buy an aesthetic disaster, no matter how amazing it is in all other aspects. I hope I'm not alone in feeling this! I'm certain 80-90% (well, a lot anyway) of an instrument's desirability is down to looks alone.

Cheers for the replies. I did think it sounded a little bit meatier, but like I said, the combo it was going through made it hard to differentiate. Still don't know how it works though. I'm going to assume 'magic'. [quote name='BurritoBass' post='697126' date='Dec 31 2009, 12:34 PM']You also know (I assume) that the top switch switches from passive to active?[/quote] Yup, I knew that. Actually, I have another question about that - are the bass and treble dials boost only? I got that impression, but I wasn't sure.

I'm not entirely sure why, but over the course of the last week or so I've had a real craving for one of these. It must be a combination of things. The red finish with the matching headstock is one, the block inlays are another... but it's not just aesthetic. I had a chance to play one for half-an-hour or so in my local PMT today, and although the action wasn't amazing, it pretty much sealed the deal for me. I want one. I want it now. Unfortunately, that will be nigh on impossible unless I get some work over the next couple of months, as gigs are far and few between until the spring. However, while I'm gathering funds I thought I might as well ask some questions about it. Actually, just the one: can someone explain to me what the series/parallel switch does, in simple enough terms for my brain to understand? I did some quick research on the matter, but my knowledge of electronics is almost entirely derived from GCSE Physics lessons where I wasn't really paying that much attention most of the time. I noticed a subtle difference in the tone when the switch was activated, but it was difficult to decipher through the Roland Cube it was going through (which, surprisingly, didn't sound too bad overall). Sorry if this has been asked many times before! Huw