Wylie

[quote name='markdavid' timestamp='1487441720' post='3239866'] Maybe you have a bad set ,personally i love new strings and mine get changed monthly but that's just me [/quote] I love 'em too, but monthly?? Are you rich?

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1486928916' post='3235667'] A bit of a line up here. [color=#333333][font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif](Steve Gadd, Marcus Miller, Eric Gale, Joe Sample, Paulinho Da Costa, Neil Larsen, Al Jarreau)[/font][/color] [/quote] Wow--great stuff. I heard his 'We Got By,' the first album, back in 1974. It's still in print. Almost, or all, written by him. What a great singer, writer, performer--sad to see him go. W

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1486549048' post='3232605'] Recently I have been listening to "Bed of Roses" by Bon Jovi. Cheesy as hell but I love listening to it, and singing it in the car at full volume. I would never play it on bass or want it in any set but I still cant get enough of that cheese. Anyone else have any cheesy song secrets? [/quote] "You Light Up My Life," Debbie Boone. Please don't tell anyone.

It does look interesting. Picking it up tonight from Amazon, thanks, Jules.

Nick Seymour of Crowded House. Consistently inventive, sometimes great bass lines.

His album Speak Like a Child features Ron Carter as both composer and player; and the bass is right up front in a very tight production. Some wonderful tunes.

It is just stuff, but when it's really [i]great [/i]stuff...? I sold a Fender P for less than good reasons and have ground my teeth ever since.

I have short- and long-scale basses. Hand size, and relative ease of getting around on a short-scale neck aside, play one to see if the string tension of a short suits you. A longer string requires more tension to bring to pitch. After the somewhat floppy strings of my short-scale, my long-scale Fender feels great.

Reading the ad copy, I see they call it 250 watts, but reading further into the specs it appears to be 150 watts using the built-in speakers and 250 watts only if you add an extension cab. 150 is probably plenty enough wattage for the built-ins, but it still seems like a drastic cut-down of wattage. Anyone agree? (or am I just off here? wattage is a fractious issue)

Hard to imagine someone actually reading all this... to be brief, a 90-watt Behringer combo that worked great till you turned it up; a Hartke 250-watt bass amp that worked great but weighed a ton; a Schroeder 12" cab that was great, but not enough; then a Schroeder 2x10 that is the Crown Prince of all 2x10s; a Carvin mini amp (250 watts); and finally a Carvin mini-amp combo that is great for practice and for small rooms. All the Carvin stuff I've bought is top-notch.

[quote name='radiophonic' timestamp='1482221936' post='3198496'] About Bass, about music, about playing in a band. I've had an odd year - playing music that should have worked, but didn't because of the people (well, one person in particular), getting very depressed about the lack of a music scene where I live - to the point of almost giving up / selling all my gear - and then accidentally stumbling on a whole new group of musicians who I never knew existed, playing music that I totally love. Given that my technique can't have improved in the space of a week, but that leaving one band and joining another has made me feel like a much better player almost overnight, I conclude that synergy and personality cannot be underestimated. I [i]knew [/i]this already, but recent months have really rammed it home. It's about people as much as chops. Technically, I've been learning to follow the singer rather than relying on knowing exactly what chords the guitarist is playing.This has opened up a world of unusual possibilities, since the melodies rely on scales that you don't find often in Anglo-American music. I'm looking forward to 2017 a lot more than I looked forward to 2016. [/quote] Learned to read music, also learned to look at a jazz tune in a global way, so to speak: find the key center(s), play over those chords in major or minor scales.

[quote name='rhcp128' timestamp='1480974378' post='3188683'] I am sure these are lovely basses, but they seem extremely similar to the outgoing US standards and that's one hell of a price... [/quote] There is no end, apparently, to the Fender wish-fulfillment juggernaut. And what the hell is a 'professional' bass? A bass that has an MFA? A bass that can converse in two languages equally well? What a load of crap.

Thanks to all for very helpful suggestions (well... perhaps no hairspray). Much appreciated! Wylie

This didn't seem like a question for Amps & Cabs, felt more general. It may not be an award-winning question, either... I have a Schroeder 2x10 that I hardly use anymore. The trio I play with plays (and practices) so seldom that all I've needed in the last six to twelve months is my 10-inch Carvin practice amp, both for practice and for small-room gigs. So the Schroeder just sits. My question is, Does a speaker need to be exercised, used, played, in order to retain its elasticity? Will it deteriorate if not used? Thanks. Wylie

... An '80s P-bass currently residing at my bass teacher's house: natural aging to the honey-colored finish, tuners totally corroded by sweat, the whole thing beat up and ... what a sound! What a bass!

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1477834501' post='3164706'] My US standard Precision has a few chips and scrapes here and there as a result of gigs in small spaces, the most serious happened when the drummer knocked the bass over while it was resting against my amp & cab, but now I look on them fondly as reminders of gigs past. It still sounds and plays great! [/quote] I also like the idea of my bass's dings, etc., as being part of its history. I brush off the dandruff now and then (the body is shiny black :-)

Rotosound flats are stiffer than GHS flats, in my experience. (And Rotosound rules.)

[quote name='slingo' timestamp='1473506908' post='3130809'] I'm looking for a little amp to practice alone at home and I'm considering these:- Fender Rumble 15 Laney RB1 Eden EM15 All reputable makes but not sure which is best. Has anyone got any experience of these to help me decide? I also want to be able to use my electric guitar with it for practice too (not at the same time though!) Thanks all you lovely bass people! [/quote] Carvin 1x10 combo amp = 200 watts with the perfect Carvin Microbass amp. Can't miss. If you add a cab, you get 250 watts.

I use one, set low, for any of our 'aural wallpaper' gigs like farmers' markets. For a concert situation, I want to have everything memorized (or very nearly) so I don't have to use one.

Two. A Fender Geddy Lee, and a Hofner Contemporary Club.

[quote name='72deluxe' timestamp='1452091383' post='2946281'] Thank you, that helps a bit. I suspect I am overthinking it. I have always added runs in my playing that are basically going up and down a scale (or pausing and doing it twice, for interest...), but based on the "root" (dominant?) key of what we are playing in, is it permissible to play any of the modes over it? I am mainly hung up on the fact that the actual notes played are all [i]identical[/i] between the modes. If a song is in E minor, I know I can play G major over the top and they are identical notes. This is a mode, surely? But they are still the same notes so I don't fully understand (at all?) how it helps with playing because I'll still be putting in exactly the same notes. So the mood of the song does not suddenly change, as they are the same notes. [/quote] This replies to an older post, but I think the answer to your question is yes, you are playing the same notes in each mode within a key, but the relationship of those notes in each mode determines its 'mood.' For example, in C, the D Dorian mode has both a minor flavor and a major flavor: play the first three notes--sounds minor because of the third note being in the flatted-third position of a minor chord. The rest of the scale does not sound minor. So, yes, all those notes are in the C major scale, but the 'mood' of the Dorian mode/scale is distinctive. The trick with playing modes is to avoid running through them indiscriminately. You would be hitting the right notes, but risk ending up with alphabet soup instead of a focused improvisation.

I have a Contemporary Club--can't tell if yours is one also, or some other. LaBella makes a 'Beatle Bass' set of flats, and I love them. Besides the sound they provide, they also add some tension to what is otherwise a fairly loose-playing bass.

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1459724859' post='3019063'] 'Jazz Bass' strings? [/quote] [b] [font=courier new,courier,monospace]RotoSound Jazz Electric Bass Monel Flatwound Long Scale, .045 - .105, RS77LD[/font][/b]

Rotosound!

Live With Me, Rolling Stones. Apparently played by Keef.