Cosmo Valdemar

One of my all-time favourite basses is, I believe, a Peter Cook special - It was played by John Entwistle on occasions, notably in the 'Eyesight To The Blind' section of the Tommy film, and in The Who's appearance on the Whistle Test miming to 'Relay'. It's got a black hook-shaped body with what looks like Thunderbird guts, and the longest headstock you've ever seen. It's just the coolest looking bass ever. Weirdly, for what I assume was a one-off, it also pops up in the 1973 film 'Horror Hospital', being played by a proto metal herbert. I'd love to know more about this bass.

I could waffle on endlessly about my love for Yes, but I'll just say they are the only band whose logo I have ever considered having permanently inked into my skin. The Yes Album - musical perfection.

[quote name='andyj' post='1028488' date='Nov 18 2010, 09:28 PM']Hi folks, i need a bit of advice. As an old retired player, i have in my collection an old Fender P bass Lyte. My 15 year old son has been giging for a while using a P bass fitted with EMG pu's or my Stingray, so he obviously like that type of sound. He has a asked for a Duff Mckagan bass, which i am willing to buy for him out of his gig earnings but i wondered how this bass compares with the Lyte that i already have. Has anyone experienced the two basses.[/quote] The current Duff sig bass is a fine bass but very overpriced in my opinion, for what it is. I've seen the original basses from the 80s/90s from time to time and they go for a lot less.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='974851' date='Oct 2 2010, 11:47 AM']IMO Andy Fairweather Lowe's "solo" was far more interesting and inventive then the recycled blues licks paraded by the other two guitarists.[/quote] Damn right. I thought it was great! And as for the bass, considering a black on black Precision with all maple neck is one of my fave colour combinations, I don't like the look of this one at all.

He he, War Wick. There is another vid where Mr Ed is trying out the Squier Classic Vibes side by side to the genuine Fenders. And you know what, I'll be damned if the Squier Precision bass (the split coil one) doesn't sound better than the Fender.

I once played a venue where the back door backed onto Sainsbury's loading area. We were due on stage about 3 hrs after arriving, and when our time came we began to set the gear up, my bass wasn't where I had left it. To cut a long story short, the guy at the venue had neglected to lock the room which was doubling as gear cupboard, and some charming local had taken the chance to pinch some gear - namely, my '79 Fender Precision. I didn't have a spare and by the time the hooha died down it was too late to play so we left. The sound guy phoned me on my journey home. Guilt stricken he had searched for the bass, and lo and behold he found it dumped in one of the Sainsbury's bins. Presumably the tea leaf was disturbed in the act. We can only assume he returned later to collect his prize as at some point during the night, the cars parked in the loading bay were all torched. I got the bass back the next day, but as far as I know the police still have the case it was in. It's strange but I didn't feel anything until I knew it had been recovered. Sounds a bit OTT but I was just a bit numb. I've retired that bass now.

[quote name='jazzyvee' post='960142' date='Sep 18 2010, 08:33 AM']Maybe you can enlighten me here. I can't understand why someone would pay the amount they do for an Alembic Bass which is renown for it's clean tones, then put some overdrive on it. Once you put the overdrive on it, to me, you lose a lot of the sonic reason for buying the bass in the first place because I'm sure it's gonna sound pretty much like any other bass with distortion. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SZ__yGE7y0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SZ__yGE7y0[/url] Forgive my ignorance in this matter as I don't play rock music at all but enjoy listening to it. That maybe the norm in rock bands as far as I know. What does an expensive bass like an alembic, etc give you when you add overdrive to the signal? I've seen clips of Metallica and John Entwhistle on you tube with distortion on their alembic basses and sound does noting for me at all and makes me wonder why you would do that to such a great natural sounding instrument.[/quote] IMHO, Entwistle's 'distorted Alembic' tone is not only one of the finest bass tones ever achieved by man or beast, it also retains the unmistakable Alembic sound. I know in those days he ran the bass in stereo, the overdrive was added to the output from the bridge pickup and the neck piclup was kept clean. If you listen to the Led Zeppelin song 'Ozone Baby' you can hear JPJ's Alembic bass in stereo, only without the distortion. As for Newsted, I think the sounds he got from his Alembic were wonderful in their own way (not so much the solo bits), but sounded more like an 'off the shelf' instrument.

[quote name='The Twickerman' post='822066' date='Apr 28 2010, 03:57 PM']That's EXACTLY what I would have thought - but I am pretty sure I read somewhere else that it was the other way round.[/quote] I have a copy of Bassist magazine from 1996 I believe, in which CS says he had his original Rick modified for stereo partially bicause of pickup imbalance, but also because his distortion pedal at the time sounded great with the neck pickup, but awful with the bridge. So you may be right!

Epiphone Thunderbird. Good for low-slung rawk posing (if you don't look too closely), but nothing else. I also had an Ibanez ATK, one of the ones with the 24 fret neck, no scratchplate and J pickup. Such a weedy sound, unless you just had the J pickup running but then you sacrificed any clarity or punch. And, the ferrules on the back of the body were too narrow for Rotosound strings.

Pics!

The Japan-only ESP guitars and basses have some truly astonishing names. Most of them escape me but I always remember one called the 'Halibut'.