oakforest5961

[quote name='Mr Fretbuzz' timestamp='1389811941' post='2338209'] What software do you use? I've tried to write out my own notes above tab and it looks ridiculous. I'm looking for an app or something cheap I can use. I went looking to see if there was a stencil of notes/rests I could use, just like a school chemistry stencil, but couldn't find one. Maybe I ought to invent one and make a fortune [/quote] I use NoteWorthy Composer (www.noteworthysoftware.com). I started using it many moons ago, and with so many files in its format, continue with it. It does the job, and it is not expensive. It doesn't do tab. You can download an evaluation copy. If I was to start completely afresh today, it would certainly be a contender, but I think that there are other similarly priced music notation packages that are worth a look. To choose between them you would really need to be clear on what you want them to do. Strangely, perhaps, I would be more inclined to pay £50 for a package than go with a free one.

I do several things in the privacy of my own bedroom:[list] [*]play along to backing tracks, mainly ones from Scott Divine's web site so far; this is partly for learning scales/arpeggios/fretboard and partly for pleasure. There is much room for advancement here, and is my current focus. I can quite happily noodle about on the C Mixolydian scale to his C Mix. backing track on a loop for half an hour! [*]enter transcriptions of bass lines into music notation software so that I can learn the line and play along to the original recording. The transcriptions are from bought books or off the internet; putting them into software means that I can print them out on several sheets of A4 so no page turning, and I can get the computer to play the line which helps when I can't get the rhythm/timing right. [*]I write bass lines for traditional tunes and play along to them (computer plays the melody 'on the piano' using said notation software). On rare occasions Mrs oakforest5961 picks up her tenor recorder and she plays the melody. [/list] I don't have either the time or the talent to ever get above intermediate level. Playing bass is simply my hobby; I love it - I could retire tomorrow and not be bored. I've never been in a band. Don't think I ever wanted to be. I certainly don't have time, and would rather spend Friday and Saturday nights in with my partner anyway. This doesn't stop me getting my fix of bass though.

[quote name='spinynorman' timestamp='1389222554' post='2331706'] [i]"The first commercial unit of the Precision Bass was produced in October 1951. It had a “slab” (non-contoured) ash body with two “horns” .... a string-through-body bridge with a cover (with a mute), and two pressed fiber bridge saddles."[/i] [url="http://www.fender.com/news/the-precision-bass-in-the-1950s/"]http://www.fender.co...s-in-the-1950s/[/url] [/quote] I was only about 50 years out in my 'knowledge' then... Thanks for the history lesson spinynorman!

I always thought that through body stringing was quite new to bass manufacture, but perhaps I'm wrong. Does anybody know when strings through body was introduced to the bass?

"Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division" by Peter Hook, Joy Division's bassist, is excellent. Even better is the spoken version, which you can get from e.g. www.audible.co.uk, read by Peter Hook himself.

There is already a review of the H-850s here on Basschat: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/209580-phile-jones-bass-h850-headphones"]http://basschat.co.u...h850-headphones[/url] (Mine are scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25th.)

Title: [b]Bass Styles[/b] Subtitle: The Ultimate Guide to Playing Bass in Any Genre Author: [b]Stuart Clayton[/b] Publisher: smt (www.musicsales.com) ISBN: 1-84609-500-X Year: 2006 Format: paperback Number of pages that matter: 119 CD included: Yes Format of the written music: notation and tab Level: Intermediate and above Cost: in October 2013 it was selling on amazon.co.uk for £13.63. Does any piece of the written music require you to turn a page over: yes, two smaller pieces and all of the end of chapter pieces. The latter cannot fit on two facing pages, so it is fair enough for them to require page turning. I own a copy of the book and have worked through a lot of it. The book's subtitle is somewhat grand and over the top, since the book covers the following six styles: Blues, Rock, Disco, Funk, Reggae and Jazz. True, that covers a lot, but still... I suspect that the subtitle is just publisher hype. According to the Introduction, "Bass Styles is aimed at the bassist who is already able to play to a reasonable standard and has become confident enough on the instrument to want to develop a wider vocabulary." The book actually starts with the chapter 'Bass Playing Tips'. This chapter has no audio exercises. The chapter has subsections like Understanding Pitch, Understanding Tablature, The Major Scale and Fingerstyle Playing. I felt that this chapter was out of place in the book: there are plenty of books on these basics; a book on "Bass Styles" could surely assume this knowledge and start from there. That then reduces the number of Bass Styles pages that matter by 18 to 101. Each chapter has subsections called A Brief History of <bass style>, Defining Characteristics of <bass style>, 20 <bass style> Songs You MUST Hear, and Well Known <bass style> Bass Players. I found the 'Defining Characteristics' subsections too short given the title of the book. This, of all things, was what I wanted to really know about, but a much deeper drilling down, analysis, deconstruction and construction would be needed. Each chapter has a number of short example bass lines, with commentary, from that chapter's style, and finishes with a longer piece. The number of example pieces per chapter is:[list] [*]Blues: 18 [*]Rock: 15 [*]Disco: 15 [*]Funk: 15 [*]Reggae: 14 [*]Jazz: 14 [/list] What I really like about the book is that you can work through each chapter and then ask yourself, 'is this a style I really want to play?' Or be honest with yourself and ask, 'is this a style that I have the ability to play?' If it isn't then you can save yourself pursuing that style any further and concentrate on the style(s) for which the answer is 'Yes'. In other words, it can help focus your learning efforts and help you to understand your own preferences if you don't already know them. Alternatively, the book can also be seen as one for someone who wants to be a bit of an all-rounder; if you are good enough, you could work through the sections and figure out what makes bass lines of that style and then be ready to apply yourself fairly widely. I'm not sure that I would say that the book actually teaches you how to play in a certain style; it does give some pointers and examples, but the rest is very much up to you. If you want or need more hand holding, then you will need to look further afield. To give you an idea of where each chapter ends up you can watch the very capable Pornpot Pongsiwasathit on YouTube as he plays the end of chapter playalongs. (Sorry, it appears that only two links to 'media files' are allowed per post; for the rest you can still copy and paste the web addresses into your browser.) Blues: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcL6x3SPpiw[/media] Rock: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQANkzhb828[/media] Disco: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYxv-gkqyM Funk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzlyIae8tR0 Reggae: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9awORIAHVg&NR=1 Jazz: he hasn't done one for this (yet?) The included CD:[list] [*]95 tracks to play along to [*]the chapter example/exercise tracks are short - the longest is 1 minute 12 seconds; the end of chapter playalongs are all between 2 and 3 minutes long. [*]the music is real instruments played by real musicians [*]the bass is on the right channel, so can be 'turned off' [*]each track has a high hat count off [/list] So a definite thumbs up for the CD. I found playing along to most of the exercises was great fun, and I enjoy dipping back into them as and when the mood takes me. This book is a brave attempt at its goal, and might achieve that goal for more able players then me; I need more help than I found here, and some of my comments are coloured by my skill level. A book will never replace a one-to-one with a good teacher, but credit where credit's due, this book is excellent value for money. Although this book is published by smt, Stuart has set up Bassline Publishing ([url="http://www.basslinepublishing.com"]http://www.basslinepublishing.com[/url]) where you can find some of his other works. Stuart is an active member of basschat.co.uk, and if you are reading this Stuart I would like to say thank you for writing this book; I hope you feel that my review is fair and accurate. Of course, my opinion is just my opinion.

The perfect 10 is far from perfect. I owned one and didn't like it. It was 6 years ago, so can't remember all the issues. I do remember that the CD input wouldn't take the output from my computer without being noisy. I quickly sold it; the person who bought it said it gave him the sound he wanted. Each to one's own. I use a Marshall MB60 at home and think it very good value for money. (Its CD input isn't noisy...) Unfortunately, now that Marshall have bought Eden, they have discontinued their MB range. There might just be one or two still to sell off in some shops though.

Title: [b]Reggae Bass[/b] Subtitle: The Complete Guide to Reggae and Jamaican Bass Styles Author: [b]Ed Friedland[/b] Publisher: Hal Leonard Series: Bass Builders ISBN: 978-0-7935-7994-5 Year: 1998 Format: paperback Number of pages (not counting the valueless lead-in ones): 28 CD included: Yes Format of the written music: notation and tab Level: there's nothing too taxing, and with the help of the CD a beginner could use this book Cost: in July 2013 it was selling on amazon.co.uk for £8.99. Does any piece of the written music require you to turn a page over: yes, 1 piece. [u]Executive Summary[/u]: More a fun play-along than instructional. I own a copy of the book and have worked through it from start to finish. The book's subtitle is rubbish. The book is a bit more of a history guide, giving short example basslines from all the eras of reggae in the order, early ska (2 examples), rock steady (16 examples), reggae (12 examples), roots reggae (8 examples), modern ska (2 examples), and dancehall (6 examples). But since the basslines only start on page 11 and finish on page 29, it's very much a race through time rather than a "Complete Guide". The examples range in size from 1 bar to 40 bars. The basslines are all introduced as "in the style of" / "similar to" <well known song name>. The bassline is then pretty much the line used in a well known recording of the <well known song name>. You can use these references as a spring-board into listening to more material by the original artists of the styles you like best. There isn't a great deal of instruction. I felt that I would have benefitted more if there had been more pointing out of the detailed characteristics of the basslines, or bar by bar analysis, or even a 'notice the use of chord progression I-IV in this song'. To know at the end of each section that if you 'play like this' you will sound like you are playing reggae bass or ska bass, or whatever, you need to do most of the analysis/understanding work yourself. This may be the best way to a deeper understanding, but it doesn't help those who need more help generally, and I always worry that I might have missed something. To be fair to the book, it does not claim to be anything other than a "Guide"; but to be fair to the reader, the book should not claim to be "The Complete Guide". I suspect that most people's expectations of the book would not be achieved. The included CD:[list] [*]46 tracks to play along to [*]the tracks are short - the longest is 1 minute 25 seconds [*]the music is real instruments played by real musicians [*]the bass is on the left channel, so can be 'turned off' [*]each track has a drum stick count in [/list] The last three bullet points here are really important characteristics of play-along CDs, so it's good to see them. I felt that the CD was good quality, regardless of the shortness of the tracks. I thoroughly enjoyed playing along and have dipped back in several times to my favourites. If you want to see the man himself play along to some of the tracks on the CD, Ed has a sales pitch video for his book: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dAZrBlGOY[/media]. (It's not a hard-sell video, so worth a look.) It may not be quite what you'd hope or expect, but if you are just getting into playing reggae bass then I believe that you will not be wasting your time and that you will definitely get your money's worth buying this book.

A few days after my original post I noticed that, (a) quite a few people had looked at it, but not replied, which I took to mean that there is interest but a lack of owners, and (b) I spotted that Guitar Guitar, an authorised Ashdown dealer, had just got some in. I thought, sod it, there's only one real way to find out about this pedal... It arrived a few days ago on time and well packaged. Cost £125 + £5 p&p. Since I've only had it a few days, this review is facts (Ashdown don't publish the user manual on their web site) plus some first-impression experience/opinion. It is "Designed in the UK, Made in China". It is sturdily built and quite large and heavy. It comes with a 9V battery and the battery compartment does not need any tools to get into. It can also be run by a power supply (which is not supplied). It is switched on by plugging into the Input jack, if you are on battery, or by turning on the external power supply; you can tell it is on because the VU meter is illuminated. Plugging in an external power supply disconnects the internal battery. The equalisation is two-fold: the obvious 12 bands, switched on/off by the right foot switch, and being on is indicated by an led at that side; and then there is a fixed shape that is switched on/off by the left foot switch and being on is indicated by an led at that side. These two equalisations can be used separately or together. The fixed shape is described as, "+8db @ 50Hz & 4kHz, -8db @ 400Hz, filter slope 6db per octave." There are four knobs. 1. the Input signal knob. This is there to allow for different sorts of basses being plugged in; you adjust the knob until the needle on the 'trade mark' Ashdown meter is at least 0 whilst you play. This is a little more refined than simply active/passive - you can match more precisely the bass in use to the device. (At least, I reckon that that this is the theory behind it. However, see my experience below.) 2. the Shape knob. This adjusts the amount of the pre-shaped signal passing to the output (when the pre-shaped EQ is on, of course). 3. the Graphic Level knob. This adjusts the amount of the graphic EQ'd signal passing to the output (when the graphic EQ is on, of course). 4. the D.I. Level knob. This adjusts the level of the signal that is sent to the D.I. XLR on the rear of the device. The signal is post EQ. "The output signal from this XLR socket is set to a level and impedance suitable for connecting directly into the Microphone input of a mixing desk for either Direct Injection into the PA system or for recording. This must ONLY be used into a Balanced Microphone input, it is not intended for any other type of connection." There is no ground lift switch for the D.I. output. My experience now. A bad start. The battery that came with it, and the battery was cellophane wrapped, was not strong enough to power the device properly - the lights came on, but the EQ'ing didn't happen - leaving me thinking that it was broken! I put in a new Duracell; that sorted it. I also tried a 9V power supply that I had kicking around. The VU meter lit up wonderfully. But a loud low frequency hum out of my amp was also the result; it was unusable. The manual says that one should use a "9v stabilised power adapter". The word "stabilised" is important here. There was one result for "stabilised power supply" on amazon.co.uk, but plenty for "regulated power supply". I'm not an electronics engineer so I asked Ashdown about this and the implication of the response was that "stabilised" and "regulated" mean the same thing. I played safe and bought the power supply actually stated as stabilised from Amazon (£10) - this indeed sorted out the hum. Both my basses (one passive and one with a Redeemer) could not get the VU needle anywhere near 0 with the volume fully open and the input signal knob full up! This was, and remains, disconcerting. I don't see the point of this meter if I cannot adjust the input signal as instructed. I asked Ashdown about this and the response was that, "The signal level from your bass must be expecially low [...] It means you will not be driving your amp fully." Hmmm... I hadn't noticed that, but as a home bassist I guess that I wouldn't notice. Does my 2010 MIA Fender Precision really have an especially low signal output? I don't hear a great deal of difference when using the top two sliders. I also found the 30Hz slider to be pretty ineffectual. Maybe a 5-stringer would notice a difference. (The manual does say that the 30Hz slider is there for you to cut such frequencies "to a level that allows the speaker system to work at its maximum efficiency".) The sliders are quite close together and the part that you touch to alter them is fairly small. They don't have much travel (2.5cm) so one has to be somewhat disciplined in their setting. Once I had found a good setting I was loath to alter any of them because I didn't think I could get things back to how they were! I took photos as a way to record settings I liked. Here's one that I hope displays clearly enough: [attachment=136782:Ashdown 12 band graphic EQ-DI pedal.jpg] I really like the pre-shaped setting. Yes, the one that doesn't use the 12 band graphic equaliser! After some faffing around with it, I ended up finding a setting that made the combination of my bass, my amp, and my room, sound awesome. The setting used both equalisations together (with no added EQ'ing on my amp). Suddenly it all seemed worth it. I tried to reproduce the sound plugging straight into my amp and using its 5 band graphic equaliser, but could not achieve the same fullness of sound. I have not used the D.I. output so cannot comment on it. I don't play live so cannot comment on its use in that situation. Playing around with this has made me see the benefit of having a few pre-shaped equalisations, or being able to store a few of your own for later instant retrieval, because you could fiddle for days with the permutations and combinations here - 12 bands, a pre-shape, your bass's tone controls and your amp's tone controls. (I always started with my amp's tones at neutral, and tried to alter them the least, ideally not at all.) With 12 bands you can't easily switch from one shape to another. If you are going to alter the settings a lot then you will want a table by your side with this on it so that you are not forever bending down to tweak the sliders! I wanted more control over the sound of my bass than the usual 3 band equalisation on amps. After having fiddled with this pedal for ages I began to question if there is a God of EQ'ing or if simple is best and to just get on and play bass. Those who sing the praises of flat EQ would probably agree. But they won't have even started to read this thread! However, my experience is that equalisation is an essential ingredient of getting the sound you want; just get good at it so that you aren't forever messing around with it. If it broke or got stolen would I buy another to replace it? Well, this is not the first piece of Ashdown kit that I have had niggles with, so I think that I might look at alternative options first. In the meantime I will enjoy the full rich sound that I've got. I hope this helps and that you feel that you got my 140 pounds worth!

This looks appealing (to me) but it seems to be quite a rarity to find one in stock online. On amazon.co.uk every one of Ashdown's own pedals is there [i]except[/i] this one. And search as I might, I could not find any discussion of it here on Basschat. What's up with it? Supply problems, or is everybody steering clear of it for some reason. Can anybody shed some light on it (or actually have one that they would like to give their opinion on)? Thanks.