Vibrating G String

I often hear people recommending basses that are already inflated as a good investment, I don't agree with that. Also if you look at what has gone up the most, it is lower end stuff that sold millions. For a collectible to command a high price it needs a large group of people who are nostalgic about it and some famous players who are well known for using it. You want something that can appreciate greatly from what you have to pay not something that has already skyrocketed. A 70's jazz bass in the 80's cost $300 now it's $1500 or more, a 500% increase. Buying a vintage Fender today for $3k you'd need it to go to $15,000 to make the same return. What's hot today are generic mass produced models of the nostalgic peoples youth, strats, teles. A closet full of cheap Ibanez's may be the ticket for investment. Buy them for under $100 today and sell them for $500 in 20 years and you'll beat all but the best guitar investors.

[quote name='JustaBass' post='1332712' date='Aug 8 2011, 12:35 PM']Wow! do they all sound like this.[/quote] That sounds just like my Fernandes Jazz copy. Nothing against the bass but it's just a jazz tone and a very good player which is often mistaken as the gear doing the playing. Put most J basses in his hands with a good setup and new strings and the tone will be indistinguishable IMO. The Biarnel basses are beautiful but they won't make other people sound like that.

[quote name='Delberthot' post='1331563' date='Aug 7 2011, 04:11 PM']They obviously make them stand out more than they do for the website to showcase how bright they are but I would have to tilt my bass forward for anyone but myself to see mine.[/quote] That's a plus for me. I don't want bright lights in my eyes I just want to see some dots. What I don't like about mine is how it obscures the old dots so It's harder to see when it's not turned on. It's fantastic on a dark stage. I've toyed with high quality glow in the dark paint but if you don't charge it under a bright light first it doesn't seem to help much at all, at least for me.

[quote name='bassman2790' post='1329681' date='Aug 6 2011, 02:36 AM']Most of the basses I've bought in the past have been sold, due to GAS, usually at a loss.[/quote] I think the emotional element makes investing in some toys you love a bad idea. Without it you can be more disciplined to buy and sell only when the deals are in your favor. GAS and investing don't mix I think a more reasonable goal is to minimize the cost of GAS, I try to do this by knowing what I want and then watching eBay for deals that fit. Though sometimes I just have to have it and buy anyway

When will they get the strings to line up with the fret markers?

[quote name='Sonic_Groove' post='1330234' date='Aug 6 2011, 11:25 AM']It's a wonder no one else has commented yet. But Jaco had a JayDee deal just before his demise. (He played a Supernatural & Jazz type copy). There is one of the jazz types in the JayDee porn thread somewhere. B[/quote] I was there that day, that's not Jaco's bass it was a students. He'd never seen the bass before that day and was playing it because he couldn't stand the jazz bass a Jaco clone loaned him. You can see the Jazz he didn't want to play anymore with the Corn Flakes pickguard in the Jeff & Jaco video.

[quote name='fingerz' post='1329914' date='Aug 6 2011, 06:11 AM']I think it's incredible, and admire him for turning down no doubt countless offers to play something more fancy that just wouldn't be right for him.[/quote] To be historically accurate he did sell out to Guild, put the Jazz away and endorsed & played the Pilot bass. So he seemed to care less than his fans did about the Jazz.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1329738' date='Aug 6 2011, 03:32 AM']Jeff can play pretty too. [/quote] The first thing I transcribed at BIT was Jeff's solo melody in this tune. Since he was teaching there I brought it in to him to read and he sight read it. I asked him if her remembered it and he said something like no but it's very good, it sounds like me.

Patrick Djivas with PFM. Jump to 2:05 if you're impatient.

[quote name='ficelles' post='1328174' date='Aug 4 2011, 06:17 PM']And another thing... I'd like you to prove this ludicrous statement. Please relate everything that has ever happened, ever, to prove you are right. ficelles[/quote] Thank you for sharing your understanding of the scientific method Thank god for the internet huh?

[quote name='ficelles' post='1328172' date='Aug 4 2011, 06:14 PM']Not only can I hear woods, I can talk to them. They tell me they are unhappy with your aura and you should only play brass instruments. You do play a musical instrument of some sort, don't you? Ego? Moi??? You must be confusing me with someone from California... ficelles[/quote] My prediction of taking offense as the next step seems to have proven true. Shame, I would love to see one of these gods one day...

[quote name='Killerfridge' post='1327747' date='Aug 4 2011, 12:34 PM']I am pretty confident you could pick up the differences out between different pieces of wood with scientific equipment[/quote] I'll bet you can't, mainly because none of these gifted golden ears even specifically defines what the difference they are hearing is. It's always some vague easily modified touchy feely nebulous term like rounder or more friendly to cats. I would dare anyone who feels they can perform auditory taxonomy (and that has to be true, just look at the size of those words and how confidently they were written) to put their neck out and give anything of a scientific definition to these wondrous things they can hear. Like a frequency response that would identify a species, or genus as most don't even know what a species is.

[quote name='ficelles' post='1327717' date='Aug 4 2011, 12:05 PM']Thank you Lozz Re the Talkbass experiment, it was clearly flawed in 2 major ways: 2 - they relied on hearing tests of observers, not the hearing-and-feeling test of players.[/quote] In other words they did not know the answers ahead of time. It's easy when you know in advance.

[quote name='Lozz196' post='1327395' date='Aug 4 2011, 08:49 AM']Yep, I played 2 Epiphone Thunderbirds - a regular one, made of alder, and the Gothic, which was made of mahogany. As far as I know, everything else on them is the same. The Gothic was far deeper in tone. I don`t know about at gig volumes, but at trying out a bass in a music shop volume, the difference between the two was very noticeable.[/quote] Could you tell us the brand and age of the strings on each one?

[quote name='Killerfridge' post='1327328' date='Aug 4 2011, 08:31 AM']And as a side note of interest, could you explain how you got to the figure of £50,000 for a pilot study? (not doubting you, I would just like to know where figure came from).[/quote] I think you just have to take that on faith

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1327322' date='Aug 4 2011, 08:29 AM']Hmmm, there is a big difference between the questions 'is wood a contributor to tone?' and 'is wood the most significant factor?' Clearly the answer to the second question is no - pickup position has a demonstrable (and predictable in nature) large effect, it's characteristics as a filter do also, and the mounting wood is only one of several factors contributing to the acoustic resonance of the system as a whole. But basic engineering/physics tells us that it is a contributor. I am honestly disappointed to see that talkbass experiment still being used to assert that wood has a negligible contribution to tone. It's just not the right experimental design to address that question at all. What it does show is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on body wood for an instrument, and that in a lot of individual cases the tone of two nominally identical instruments (but for the body wood) will be similar or at least neither will be subjectively better than the other. That is in itself a useful conclusion, but it is not an answer to the question 'what contribution does wood make to tone'. What puzzles me is where people are disagreeing. Is it that it's hard to connect the idea of an electric instrument to the general physical models that describe it's behaviour, or that people actually don't believe Newtonian physics is any good, or that people haven't ever seen any data demonstrating variable acoustic properties of wood (even aural appreciation of the sound a piece of wood being knocked will do for these purposes) ? Or is it that different people are asking different questions? I think that last is the case with lanark's question, but maybe for other people as well.[/quote] I think it's people with a minimal grasp of science thinking they can create natural law by typing with big words and condescension. You criticize an actual experiment yet you try to back up your case by simply saying you know more than we do and you're a real scientist. By the way, what are your degrees and actual job title & employer? And I only challenge that since you're using it as your proof.

[quote name='ficelles' post='1326972' date='Aug 4 2011, 06:02 AM']Clearly there's a DIY opportunity for someone here Go and build two 100% identical P bodies, making one of oak and one of pine. Put identical necks and electronics on them. Now plug them in and see if they sound the same. Hint: they won't... ficelles[/quote] Make 2 identical basses and see if they sound the same, hint, they won't. No one has ever shown the ability to identify wood by listening. Ever. And this has been going on for decades with the faithful always saying this should be tested and you have to prove their faith wrong in a way they will never accept as that's the definition of faith. It has been tested, it doesn't work. If you can hear woods I would be happy to have you demonstrate this. If you just want to boast and not demonstrate I'm going to assume you're arguing from ego only. Usually at this point taking offense is the next step.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1326949' date='Aug 4 2011, 05:50 AM']I'm sorry but that is ridiculous. The principles behind vibration analysis are very well characterised, with huge amounts of data already in existence for loads of different materials. The maths to describe mass-spring-damper models has been understood since the 18th century! As for data - despite the fact that it would be completely reinventing the wheel, I outlined a basic overview of the experiments required and gave an estimate of the cost to do pilot studies up to a publishable standard. On the other hand I asked you for a link to evidence that you assert is out there and you didn't provide it. Rather than addressing any point directly (like why mass-spring-damper models are or aren't inappropriate for describing a guitar, or why you think all pieces of wood have identical resonant frequencies, or where the energy magically comes from to maintain the resonance decay characteristics when a guitar is acoustically amplified resting against a table) you choose the route of ridicule. Err, why? The main reason I said that is because a) If I tap a few different bits of wood I hear different characteristic resonance properties, which will fall into the output bandwidth of a bass guitar and b ) I understand what a transducer (pickup) is. Not exactly, because this is not new science in that sense...it is an applied model where all the science that describes the system is already defined and tested and there is an awful lot of direct measurement data on vibration analysis as applied to wood. So in this case Occam's razor applies. You expect the model to behave as predicted by it's component parts. As for making assertions, well, I feel I've backed them up by linking to well-described physical principles, referencing simply verifiable examples and then outlining further experiments that would generate hard data, and made some reference to the appropriate methods for then analysing that data.[/quote] You've have provided nothing to back up your claims except your appeal to authority fallacy. You claim to be a research scientist, which I really doubt you are, yet seem unable to use google when told data is on the internet. I'm sorry but I don't do free research for every charlatan who feels they are the first one to make a ridiculous claim. The burden of proof is on you. Not me to make the faithful see reality. I understand that you may be able to baffle most people with your springs from the 18th century line but for I need to see something remotely scientific and not just internet posturing. Any real research scientist would know this.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1326376' date='Aug 3 2011, 05:07 PM']It's worth noting as well that if we understand and trust in science at all then the answer to question 1 is obviously yes, the answer to question 3a will be yes, and the answer to each of 2a and 2b will be 'lots'.[/quote] I think that one line kills any hope of sounding scientific.

I don't think verbosity is a satisfactory proof. Others may disagree. If you're a "research scientist" you may be familiar with the concept of data and not just conjecture leading to a conclusion.

[quote name='BottomE' post='1324650' date='Aug 2 2011, 10:32 AM']In some other threads i have seen a lot of love for Wizard pickups. Being in the same boat as you i am watching this thread but think i am gonna go stock Fender as i want the bass to sound like a Fender Precision. I am figuring that Fender pickups will give the most authentic Fender sound with other brands being a variation of the stock sound?[/quote] My Fernandes sounds more Fendery than my Fender does. Also you may be surprised how many times you thought you were hearing a Fender but it had different pickups. It's such a common swap it is part of the tone.

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1324637' date='Aug 2 2011, 10:23 AM']So the love seems to be for Lollars, SD Antiques, SPB1's and Fender originals. Thanks folks [/quote] I love Barts, they look different so they'll never sound right to the vintage crowd but they don't click when the string hits a pole, they're shielded and hard to break. Also the original EMG P has been amazing in my experience but is now way out of fashion.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1324984' date='Aug 2 2011, 02:32 PM']although it does show you that there are lots of ways to skin this particular cat so there's no need to get too fixated on wood species per se.[/quote] Another peeve of mine is that in almost all these pseudo science claims the person does not even understand what a species is. Yet we are supposed to believe they can hear the difference in something they can't even define properly.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1324984' date='Aug 2 2011, 02:32 PM']But, the pickups pick up string vibrations, whose properties are determined not only by the string itself but the damping and resonance characteristics of what it's attached to.[/quote]Funny what gets completely discounted, like the player who's belly it's resting on. [quote]If someone gives me a nice £50'000 research grant (minimum) I'm quite happy to do a proper controlled scientific study In all seriousness, that probably wouldn't be enough money for more than a couple of pilot studies...[/quote] The research has been done and it's conclusive. It's available on the internet for anyone wanting to search. Just don't search for articles written by musicians and advertisers. Look for science.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1324818' date='Aug 2 2011, 12:29 PM']Just a thought here,but the pickups don't pick anything up from the wood,and if they did as soon as you cut it and put lumps of metal on it it would change the vibrations anyway?[/quote] Oh ye of little faith Here's a puzzler, if wood really has a major role in tone why does the bridge and neck pickup on the same bass sound drastically different? More so than any wood difference. Why don't they both have the unmistakable tone of whatever wood or finish is being claimed to have all the tone? Tapping a block of wood is a party trick for special needs children. First it's a serious bastardization of tapping a violin top as it's being carved completely missing why it's done and what it tells us. And you can tune any kind of wood to any note, even the same piece of wood can be tuned to different notes. That should mean something to a critical thinker.