TheRev

As ahs already been said, a lot of the DB sound is in the fingers of the right hand. If you're using a bass guiray plucking technique i.e. with the fingertips, you're going to get a bass guitar like sound. Using the whole side of your finger, with as much 'meat' in contact with the string as possible will give you better tone. Dumping the stock strings will help too. I replaced mine with Helicore hybrids which was a big improvement, followed by Innovation Honeys which were really warm and mellow and tamed a lot of the Aria's inherent brightness.

Hmmm. I don't think you'll get a better sound than that from a Stagg or HB/Pally bass. Sounds like you don't get on with the feel of your EUB rather than the sound. Is there any way you can add an endpin and a body frame to allow to play it without the stand?

Annoying, isn't it? You really want to try DB but you don't want or can't afford to spend £1000+ on something that you might not get on with and all everyone an say to you is 'don't pay less than £1500 as anything costing less than that will be s#*t'. As long as you're not expecting great tone, then your £500 will easily get you started. Someone on here has a Gear4music bass that they bought for about £400 and they love it. Tone wise, there probably isn't a lot of difference between basses at this price- you'll get a lot more tone improvement from a decent set of strings and a few lessons to sort out your technique that you will from the solid top over the laminate I reckon that you're right about the cheap laminate being a better buy than the solid top. Most of the CCB horror stories are about solid top basses that haven't been seasoned properly and split as soon as you introduce a bit of temperature variation. Bear in mind that your new bass won't be playable out of the box. The soundpost and bridge will be down and you'll need to have this set up professionally, so make sure you allow for this in your budget.

[quote name='pete.young' post='865646' date='Jun 13 2010, 12:22 AM']I think it's a 310. I have one which is identical. What's the serial number? The first two digits will give the year of manufacture, at least for the Japanese ones.[/quote] Ah, but the 301 & 401 look exactly the same as the 310. IIRC, the 301/401/501 etc model range was overhauled in the late 90s and renamed 310/315 etc. They added some different colours and made the whole range with active EQ, but on the surface they were identical.

[quote name='RhysP' post='865040' date='Jun 12 2010, 11:34 AM']I'd buy one if I thought I could play it as well as Danny Thompson does. That, however, is extremely unlikely.....[/quote] There's no secret to Danny's playing. All you have to do is practice for 6 hours a day and play every gig & session that's offered to you. Repeat this for about 30 years and hey presto! instant Danny Thompson. Easy.

You could just buy a really light 10" cab to go with your F1. THe GK extension cab or one of the Barefaced 10s would do nicely. Over on the Talkbass DB forum there's a lot of love for the EA Wizzy cab, but they're a bit pricey.

I've played both and I preferred the Harley Benton feel wise. The construction on the Stagg was also a bit ropey, but I've since seen others that were much better so it could have been a one off. They both sounded ok though. My choice would be the Harley Benton, partly for aesthetic reasons but mainly due to the huge modding thread on Talkbass - with a little bit of fettling and very little money you can apparently get a decent sounding bass.

Looks like a late 90s SB301 or 401 The black plastic nut suggests a 301 or 401 - if the bass is active it's a 401. The SGC logo on the pickups was on the top edge in the original models but was moved to the bottom edge in the late 90s, just before the model range was overhauled. Dave

Are you playing pizz or arco? If you're mainly playing pizz, then orchestral strings aren't going to sound great - they'll be too dark and thumpy as they're designed to be bowed. Obligatos muy suit you better, or a set of Helicore Hybrids if you want to play both pizz and arco.

Fate has intervened - look two threads down and buy Lemmywinks' Stagg. You'll have £50 left over to put towards a decent set of strings.

£300 puts you firmly in Stagg and Harley Benton/Palatino (same bass, different names) territory. Both are fine as an introduction to upright bass playing but bear in mind that they sound more like a very big fretless bass than a acoustic double bass. The Stagg and Palitino are of pretty similar quality, so which one you go for will depend on your own particular asthetic tastes. However, there's a hooooge Palitino modification thread on Talkbass which will tell you how to get a very reasonable sound from a Palatino for not very much money, so If I were in your shoes, I'd buy a Harley Benton from Thomann plus a nice set of orchestral Helicores or Innovation Honey strings and then fire up Talkbass & read the posts on sticking bits of bicycle inner tubes under the bridge. Just my 2p. Dave

When I started playing it was Jack Bruce and Andy Fraser, now it's probably Danny Thompson. I'm influenced just as much for his philosophy towards playing bass as his actual bass playing.

If your missus gets suspicious you can hide it round my house if you like.

The String Emporium plywood basses (RM-100) have a good rep over on TB and are generally considered superior to the Shen basses. They website says they'll ship basses to you - you could give them an email and check they'll ship to this side of the pond? Closer to home, the Thomann Kontrabass 22 is very nice (although it's a hybrid).

Hmm, I have 4 now (down from 6) but only use 2 in anger - the Sterling and the Eminence EUB. My Fender acoustic gets living room use but my poor old Bass Collection fretless is just gathering dust so I'm thinking of selling it. I'd actually be very happy just to have the Sterling and the Eminence - they do everything I want. I've been electric bass GAS free ever since I bought the Sterling in 2000, I've had amp/cab gas up til I got my Markbass/BFM rig together about 2 years ago so now all I have is double bass GAS (and DB string GAS and possibly high end DB amp GAS....).

I use this image as a background for our posters and flyers. I've given up trying to get a decent picture of the actual band as someone always looks like a goon. This sums up our 'jazzy soul blues' vibe well enough.

I played a new venue (for us) with my blues band last night and it was bloody frustrating. The pub was one of those places where you just can't seem to get a good sound. My bass was muddy with no definition and I just couldn't hear myself in the mix, no matter how much I fiddled with my EQ, moved my cabs around or cranked the volume. The rst of the band were having similar problems which just led to everyone turning up their amps as the set progressed, which really didn't improve things for me. I found myself digging in really hard, just to get some tone, which on a 3 hour set on double bass left me with very sore fingertips and completely mentally drained. The punters loved it though - just a shame the crappy acoustics meant I didn't have anywhere near as much fun as they did.

I called my Eminence 'Barbara' when it (note: not 'she') arrived but I've no idea why as none of my other basses have names. Does that make me only half weird?

[quote name='uzzell' post='812808' date='Apr 20 2010, 05:26 PM']I'm having trouble finding any relevant websites on the above artists, any chance of a few links?[/quote] They were all back in the early/mid 90's so they probably didn't exist on the internet but there's stuff on youtube from the Mighty Ging

Si Johns is a fantastic player and a bloody nice bloke to boot. It's well worth checking out some of his other bands (Finger, Federation), especially The Mighty Ging - a jazz/breakbeat/rock/hiphop 'supergroup' made up of the coolest musos in Bristol at the time.

Hector - what a great exercise, painful, annoying and yet eventually extremely productive. I like your style mate, looking forward to more nuggets of DB wisdom from you.

+1 for getting you cab up as high as possible - at ear level if you can. At the moment I'm having reasonable success with downward firing cabs a la Acoustic Image. I screwed feet onto the front corners of my BFM Omni10 so that it sits about 3cm off the floor 'face down'. Putting it in corner really brings out the bass without feedback and the whole sound is quite nice and omnidirectional. You do need to be careful with hollow stages though, as it can quickly get overpowering. I'm going to try it with a Gramma pad at some point to see if that adds consistency to the sound. Dave

If it gets you out there and playing then why not? You may find that there's elements of the blues that you do like, or you can add your stamp to it and make it more funky, jazzy or rocky, depending on your preference. Like yourself, I'm not a great fan of the blues, it can be formulaic and a bit limiting bass-wise. However, about 8 months ago I was asked to dep for a mate's mate's blues band. I wasn't keen at first but 8 months on and I'm still there, playing 3-4 gigs a month with them. I'm still not into the blues, but the guys in the band are great and I love playing with them, which makes up for a lot. I'm also using my double bass as much as possible so I can 1) Work on my fast playing and slap technique and 2) pull the whole thing in a jazzier direction. Untimatley, you'll get something out of it if you put something in.

[quote name='Steve Amadeo' post='778591' date='Mar 18 2010, 01:53 PM']Hi, I just thought I'd record a few bars of nonsense into Garageband using the internal microphone on my Mac, having just put some Innovation Honeys on my Michael Poller Romanian bass... it's not a top quality instrument, I only paid about £900 for it so it's definitely budget compared to some... but, it's reasonably comfortable to play and is a decent workhorse 'til I can afford something better. I like the strings, I think they'll sound great when played in a bit, but this recording is a fairly good impression of what I'm hearing in the room. Please excuse all faults, clanks, heavy breathing etc....! (The text message received in the middle of the recording was John Patitucci. The message read 'HA HA HA HA HA HA....' Cheeky git!) Hope this might be helpful to someone... Steve[/quote] Lovely sound there Steve! How do you get that lovely growl? Low action? Light guage strings? Technique? I tried some Honeys on my Eminence EUB but that were all thump and no growl.