PTB

Welcome from another Midlander (now in exile). Enjoy!

You can certainly do what you are suggesting. Ensure you give the PA a strong signal, ideally from the D I out from your pre-amp. I assume you have one, if not I strongly advise you to get one to give you control of your sound. I play a central London venue where the stage is tiny & the house bass amp is either broken or locked away downstairs. I got fed up of struggling upstairs & through a packed club with it and started going direct into the PA. Whilst there's no monitor, the PA speakers are just above my head so I can hear just enough. Whilst I'd prefer my amp onstage, the practicalities make the PA solution the best for me.

+1 for Silver (or Golden) Slaps. I do 50s thud too & I find them great. My slapping ability is very basic but I find them easy to work with and the pizz sounds just right to me.

I had a couple near me at a gig in central London who sang loud & clear during the call & response choruses of some of our swing tunes. Eventually, I leaned over & told them they were the best backing singers we'd ever had which they loved. Turned out to be Alfie Boe & his co-star who had a night off from their latest opera. He was a lovely guy & left us a great message on our website guestbook.

I played Orlando Shearer's bass a few years ago which had Supernils on. He plays with West Weston & King David and many others on the London blues scene. I was playing Spirocores at the time and found his strings much too floppy for my touch and rather indistinct in pitch. He of course made them sound great. Like you, I now also play Innovation and find the sound, tension & definition just right for the jump blues & west coast swing we do. Personally, I wouldn't be trying Supernils again.

I shall be at B D this pm & am hoping there are Lulls to try.

Just bought some upright strings off Nick. His enviable record continues unblemished - a smooth fast transaction with clear comms. Thanks Nick!

+1 for what Bob says. I wouldn't be without my LS-2.

Why didn't you use AutoTune to sort the bongos? :-)

I bought both my DB's second hand from Peter Tyler. He's based off J7 of the M4. He was very patient in helping me choose and gave me loads of good advice when I was starting out. His website is limited but he will e mail you his current stock list. He offers a trial period with his basses which is rare these days.

If you do to the Bass Guitars section, you'll find a pinned section at the top called "Importing Basses" which is full of useful stuff. I Imported a used bass from the US about 7 or 8 years ago when the x rate was more favourable IIRC. I got a bargain & BassNW in Seattle were a pleasure to deal with. Hope it works out for you.

With the Westminster parking proposals imminent, I reckon more of us will be thinking this way soon. It's already hard enough to park close enough to certain venues. I play double bass @ Ain't Nothin But once a month (this Sat - end of plug) and just go direct into the PA. They have a house amp but its usually broken.

At the risk of stating the obvious, try a search on the Apple site, that usually gets me the answer to these sorts of questions.

Put me down for the sonic blue Alleva Coppolo LG5 I found on here recently. In reserve, I'll have Chris B's Lull PJ5 or one of the many Sadowsky 5s on display. There's a theme there you'll note.

I'm a fan of live albums so have enjoyed reading this thread & being reminded of some favourites & some forgotten ones. One not mentioned so far is Lay down & love it live by Sonia Dada. I love Erik Scott's playing, he always plays the right thing at the right time IMHO.

I have some on my Reverend at the mo. I don't use any pedals so this is as near as I get to an effect!

I think I used Elites back when I had a 36" Overwater Progress. If it were me now, I'd use D'Addarios as I find them consistent and good value. If you want something brighter, I suggest Pro Steels. I guess that doesn't answer your question about other options but that's my tuppence worth.

[b]First Bass Owned: Modulus Graphite Quantum 6 [/b] - I started on the usual crap copies everyone else does but they were all borrowed. Then a kind friend loaned me a decent bass for a few years while I saved up for my own. I was then seduced by the bling of carbon fibre, extra stings, exotic wood, EMG's etc for a couple of years before going back to reality when I needed the money for house renovations. [b][b]'Go To' Bass: MTD 535 -[/b][/b] Well, I think it is but I've only just got it. I had a Czech-made MTD 5 some years back that I regretted selling so this is a super-deluxe version of that one. So far, I'm really enjoying playing it but there's lots of active eq still to experiment with. [b]'Your' Bass: Reverend 5L - [/b]fine quality plastic, about as far away from my first bass as possible but it's a keeper.

I had a Dingwall for a few months this year. It was a passive AB1 but the previous owner had added an EMG pre-amp. This was hissy so I replaced the vol knob with a push/push to select active or passive. Once that was done, I preferred the passive sound - but not enough to keep the bass.

Really enjoyed this, nice playing all round. Must get to see you soon but have been gigging myself whenever you've been playing down sarf.........

Nice one Clarky! This is tasty playing, great tone, cool feel, what more could you ask for?! Let's hope it gets the airplay it deserves.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1318514992' post='1403172']That's a bit expensive. Mine was considerably less and it has an extra string...[/quote] Same here. Still, they are cool basses & this is a fine colour scheme.

2 unsung players who influenced me and I rarely see mentioned: Andrew Bodnar - Graham Parker, Pretenders Fernando Saunders - Jeff Beck, Lou Reed Both great fretless players as is Steve Greetham mentioned earlier in the thread. I still have the red fretless Stingray I bought off him in the early 90s when I was just starting out. I recall he put on an Annabel Lamb Cd so I could hear the bass. Thanks for the memories!