Pete1967

It's all about balance... and the strength of the hair. If a bow is tip heavy, you have to play lifting it off the strings all the time and it become really uncomfortable. Too tip light, and it's the revrse and hard to get grip. Either way your technique is compromised and all the nuances become impossible. A good bow, either French or German should sit in the hand and feel natural and almost weightless - that's not to say it won't weigh anything, it'll just feel easy. I confess I've never used a CF bow, but I'd definitely recommend a good Pernambuco bow, the best your budget can afford - due to some incredible good fortune I learnt to play using a Sartory. Amazing. My personal preference is for a mixed hair. White hair is softer and gives a more mellow tone, but breaks more easily. Black hair is stronger but gives a harder tone. Consider and try different Rosins. I use Pops which is softer and gives better grip but a slightly woollier tone (I'm lazy). Nymans is poplular and harder and giver a more strident tone. I was taught by Duncan McTier who uses violin rosin of a brand I don't recall.. but harder still but a really bright tone and you have to be a genius to control it - great for solo work. Re-hair your bow regularly - depending on how much you play, but I do (did) mine annually. Fresh hair has good grip and is much easier to play. Never touch the hair - oil/grease is your enemy!

I'm probably voicing the same sentiments as others on this thread because I admit I'm too lazy to read it all, but truly, my Shuker (soon to be the plural) is the best bass I've ever played - and that was one of Jon's stock instruments. He's building one to my spec now, so I'm wetting myself about that. However - in the past I have loved Warwick and Yamaha (still do) and I sorely miss my stolen Jaydee. :-(

[quote name='dannybuoy' post='681525' date='Dec 11 2009, 05:23 PM']Ashbory?[/quote] +1 great tone, but odd...

[quote name='fatgoogle' post='681776' date='Dec 11 2009, 10:31 PM']Ya i play with a french bow, but maybe a i could get a make one of those little sack things i see some players use that hang from the bridge and can hold the bow. Ive found my biggest trouble so far is speed especially when bowing to actually make the notes clear but i suppose thats practise. Thanks[/quote] Yup.. practise the changes. The 'quiver' you refer to is popular with jazz players but a bone fide classical player wouldn't be seen dead with one.....

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='681683' date='Dec 11 2009, 08:30 PM']The problem with putting the bow through the bridge legs is it can make an ungodly racket if you're not very careful- fine when you're changing between pieces but good for provoking the conductor's wrath if done in the middle of a piece! Also, I would worry about it rattling? Pete1967, I take it you play German bow? If the OP is also playing German the last method you suggest is excellent (from what I've seen of other German bow players); if you're playing French bow though it doesn't really work, for me anyway- my fingers are too big to fit through the frog! Instead I just use the second and third fingers, without changing the bow position much- that works for all but the most frenetic pizz stuff IME. [/quote] Re the bridge 'technique'... yes true it's true it can be noisy... I once got a hell of a stare off Simon Rattle (no pun intended), so the key here is to be careful... once safely lodged though it's usually quite secure. Gravity is working for you. I do now use a German bow - but I started with french bow and changed to German when I studied with Duncan McTier. The German technique is to slip your little finger into the U of the frog and grasp the shaft, and it's quite quick to do with a bit of practise, a bit like a wild west gunslinger. With the slimmer french frog you can grasp the whole frog, but I agree that it's more difficult.

I'd agree with everything said above... especially that practise is the key. Parctice Practise Practice. A tip to hear yourself, looks a bit odd, but reasonably easy to do if you really need to hear... press your left ear against the neck where it passes over your shoulder. You'll 'hear' the vibrations in your head... Pizzicato without a bow... if you're CAREFUL, place the tip of the bow in the arch of the bridge so that it's wedged with the tip resting against the back of the left leg and the shaft against the top of the right leg. Just be careful 'cos you can take the bridge off if you're not! The other option is to grasp the frog of the bow with your last two fingers so that it's pointing towards the floor, leaving thumb and first two fingers free. Have fun!

How about a Lakland...? [url="http://www.lakland.com/hollowbody.htm"]http://www.lakland.com/hollowbody.htm[/url]

[quote name='cheddatom' post='672964' date='Dec 3 2009, 10:55 AM']So after going on about how stable my XP Cubase Reason system has been for the last 2 or 3 years it's finally failed me just before finishing an album. Everything's working fine apart from Rewire and I have 2 songs on this album which i've used Reason for, and I need to get them finished!! Reason (version 2.5) works on it's own. Cubase is fine. There's been no change to my system since I last used reason successfully. I did a system restore to a month ago just incase. I've installed Reason 4 in the hope it would help but it's the same. I really don't want to reinstall Cubase 'cos i'm not sure if I have all the installation files for all the plug-ins i've used, and i'm very worried about inadvertently changing one of the other songs.[/quote] Eww..... I had a similar problem but for me rewire did not work in Tune when I installed Waves Diamond from fresh. It suddenly started working when I installed Ableton Live 7. Being curious (and as a professional IT person I can't allow magic to happen!) I investigated and traced the fault to an issue with the location of the rewire dll which the Ableton installer corrected. If it was working for you before, it could be that the rewire.dll has become corrupt, and when you reinstalled Reason the installer checked for the presence of the dll from the previous version and didn't bother replacing it with a good one... Alternatively if could be that rewire.dll has somehow become unregistered and the OS doesn't know about it - this could indicate an issue with XPs registry. Two things I can think of to do - but either way be bloody careful, and back up the whole damn machine up! 1) Check that rewire.dll exists on your hard disk and is in the right place. If the software is legal talk to Propellorhead support about getting a known good copy of the dll and the location to put it in if it's missing. If it's not legal (and who am I to judge) try installing Reason stand alone to another machine if you have one, and copy the dll across using a USB flash drive. Either way make a copy of the original dll. 2) Try re registering the dll with the command Regsvr32 "[i]C:\Windows\System32\example.dll[/i]". You'll need to replace the bit in speech marks with the actual path to the rewire dll. Hope this helps, but you're in the realms of serious buggering around here so please follow tips with caution, and understand that they come with good intention but no warranty!!! Pete

Folks, Shock, horror, my band has actually got it's collective a*se in to gear and we're doing another gig... one of only three opportunties this year to catch this bunch of 40 somethings deliver a set of totally original tracks - except the covers that is ;-). Anyways we're sharing the bill with Uncle Reggie's Magic Radio another eclectic York line up. Venue is the Basement Bar (City Screen) in York [url="http://thebasementyork.co.uk/"]http://thebasementyork.co.uk/[/url], doors open 8:00ish. Tickets a fiver... £2.50 a band - what kind of value is that. Sorry it's short notice, but hope to see some Basschatters there. Cheers Pete

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='556761' date='Jul 31 2009, 06:59 AM']Thanks Pete [/quote] No problem... if you get the DRs to fir with this cunning technique let me know would you...? I've been eyeing up a set of Fat Beams but won't waste my cash if it's definitely a no goer...

I have Ernie Ball Slinkies (45-130) on my Shuker 5 at the moment (not great but they were on when I got it from Jon) and Elites 130 also fit having checked. Although the bridges are slotted at the top the trick seems to be to insert the string about an inch or so up from the ball and then slide upwards... if you get my drift....

[quote name='thedontcarebear' post='534530' date='Jul 7 2009, 11:27 AM']Keep an eye out for a used Shuker on here I would say.[/quote] +1. A grand won't get you a new Bass from Jon (I've just ordered a fairly simple design for quite a lot more) but it'd probably get you a lovely 'pre-loved' one from what I've seen here. Jon's always happy to do setups and tweaks, PUP swapouts etc.

Hi Nick, The Black Swan... know it well. Dodgy stairs when you're pissed! Actually my band is York based and we've played there twice. Sadly I have to be in Gatwick on July 15 - business calls - but hopefully we can meet up some other time.... P

[quote name='PapillonIrl' post='530479' date='Jul 2 2009, 12:15 PM']Welcome Pete (even though I'm pretty new myself here ) How was it getting back into playing after all that time ? Had you been playing at [i]all[/i] ? Cheers, Nathan[/quote] Hey Nathan, I never really stopped playing. Amazing what you can do with a Korg Pandora and an MP3 player. There's no doubt that skills have seeped out of the ends of my fingers - or is that just age? but I s**t myself first time out... It comes back quickly though. I can now dodge bottles with the best of them It's great to be back on the horse, but I'd had several GAS free years - It's now back with a vengance. Good job I'm married to a financial advisor! Cheers Pete

[quote name='FuNkShUi' post='530473' date='Jul 2 2009, 12:12 PM']Im thinking of getting an acoustic bass, as we play acoustic gigs with the band, and rather than just plug a normal bass through the P.A (which sounds toilet!), i fancy a acoustic ones. Not very knowledgable on this subject though, so was looking for recommendations? Ive got about £600 to work with thanks in advance[/quote] I've got a Michael Kelly Dragonfly 5 Custom which I actually bought from the US and imported, but you can get them in the UK now. They also do them in a version with a string missing Would recommend and not a bank breaker - fits the budget. Good punchy tone unplugged - if a little bright, but softer strings sorted that (Thomastik-Infeld AB34xx). Low B is OK, not wow, but good if plugged in. Electronics are Fishman and do the job fine. Perhaps a little different from the usual Ibanez/Washburn route...

Folks, I've just ordered my second bass of Jon Shuker and I'm pretty sorted on the spec, with the exception of PUP selection - so I'm hoping that the good followers of Basschat will share their wisdom with me. The bass will be a 5 string BO with White Ash body, maple top, Jon's great laminate neck and a Ziricote fretboard. 3 band Mk2 EQ, Black Gotoh resolite hardware. I'm decided on an MM/J PUP config and I'm rapidly narrowing to either SD (Basslines) Alnico MM and Hot for Jazz J, or Delano MC5HE/JC5HE. THe MM would be split/series/parallel. When Jon asked me to desribe the sound I wanted the best I could think of was "Flea does Marcus" - so big bottom, plenty of growly mid lows and some sparkling highs when needed, but mellow enough to let me off the odd players indiscretion Any thoughts about my option choices or other recommendations? Wizard? Other custom? TIA for any help.

Hi All, After a few months of reading the forum and gaining some incredible advice (I'll come back to that) I thought I'd better introduce myself. My name is Pete and I'm in Leeds (I notice a healthy WY contingent here). Ive been playing bass since I was about 10 - the product of a bass player father and a singing teacher mother and studied Double Bass at the Royal Northern in Manchester, but unfortunately my sister spoilt that by buying me Level 42 (Level 42) and Heavy Weather (Weather Report). My life changed and I picked up a bass guitar. I used to play a lot on the pro/am circuit in the Midlands/Warwickshire, but I moved to Leeds in 2000 for a career change and a lady - now my wife of 7 years (love her to bits) - so I didn't play out for about 8 years. Big wrench, missed it a lot. In 08 an old contact looked me up who had moved to York and we put a little 3 piece together playing a few covers but mostly oringinal material - Blues/jazz/pop fusion. Nothing major, we all have careers, but it's fun to play out again. The advice - yes a huge thank you to the wise people that alerted me to Jon Shuker. I've owned a raft of basses in my time (including a very sexy one that John Diggins made for me and was stolen in a burglary ) and had settled on a Warwick Corvette and a Yamaha TRB511 but I fancied a new plank recently and you kindly pointed me in Jon's direction. I bought a stock 5 string BO that he had and it is truly magnificent - for those of you that are regulars to Jon's website it's the Custom with the cooked maple top and EMG TW/40P. Seriously it's way up there in the top very few I've played. So much so I've ordered a second this week; and he's such a nice guy - you have to love dealing with him. I need some help on PUP selection but I'll post that elsewhere. Anyway - that's me. Good to meet you all. Stay well..... and play lots. Pete