Muzz

Can I just say that even out of context (especially out of context) that's the best one-line post I've seen on here in a while? 😁 Anyhoo, to the subject; yep, there's some great cheap basses - I played the biggest gig I've done in a while recently with a £150 BB414, and I even gigged a £32 (delivered from Thomann!) HB 50s Precision thing at a function event where the ticket price was five times that - but as has been said, although there are diminishing returns (ever more diminishing and more down to personal preference the higher up the price range they go) on more expensive basses, they're still at a high level of value/low level of cost for what you get compared to other Veblens like cars and the orchestral instruments mentioned above. What are seen as the eye-watering top of the scale basses are handbuilt by experts with the very highest quality components, and that clearly has a cost. My luthier-built instruments (Shukers, just in case anyone hadn't heard 😀) are unique, and are a thing I couldn't get for £400, or even £3k from anything factory-built. I know what I like and what I want, it's very specific, and only a luthier can deliver that. I've had (and moved on) basses from Alembic, Sei, Overwater, Status, MM (three Stingrays), Rickenbacker and the like; all £3k+ basses these days, but they were moved on not because they weren't value for money, or even poor basses (apart from the Rick), but because they didn't suit me, and for that money they need to suit me very very well. I gigged them all, to be sure, and I'd gig anything I bought; my 'justification' for that is 'I own it, I want to gig it.' I can also comment on the Dingwall thing, too; I have an ABZ, I've had two ABIIs, and I've played several Combustions, and there is a definite, substantial difference between the Combustions and the Canadian-built ones, in terms of quality, which translates into the bass feeling 'alive'. Edit: And I got all the way through that without mentioning tonewood once...ooops... 😃

Yeah, that description is kinda tonally vague and establishes the quality of the woods and construction without getting into anything specific, which is fair enough, and about as far as I'd like to see tonewoods described... 😀

There it is... 🙂

I've played a wedding there, a very special venue (not so much on the sound front, but hey, I doubt the Tudors were thinking about amplified bands when they built it 🙂 ), IIRC, the power situatation was...interesting, too... I posted a picture of my basses, right where yours is, on a FB thing I had going a while back entitled 'I've Played Some Sh*tholes In My Time, But...' 😁 Oh, and on the return journey to Manchester, the van broke down about 600 yards into the trip, at about 1:30am...we got home about lunchtime on the Sunday... 😕

Now there's a bass sound... 😃

Yep, much better for us OCD types...hang on a sec...what's that bottom cab?

It's interesting that a premium brand like Music Man who, while not quite in the luthier stratosphere like Sadowsky, have also built their brand on pros and huge exposure over decades, don't mention body wood at all (other than 'select body woods') in the sales pitch for their £2,800 Stingray Special H. They sell it on the small design improvements, the pickups and the preamp, plus the build....oh, and weight... Maybe they don't think the wood is much of an influence on the sound of the bass? More likely is their product is built around a different marketing model than Sadowskys (and a different production method), and this trumps any wood-based hoohah...

I agree with both of the above, (and only Roger S's sales records would show the ratio of buyers who are professionals to those who are podgy middle aged blokes (just like McLaren's or Ferrari's or whoever)), but I still contend that in the real world, for Pros and PMABs alike, there are much more important factors to a bass's sound (unless anyone's getting unamplified gigs) than the wood - pickups, pickup placement, EQ, construction, etc - but that doesn't seem to get the same emphasis that tonewood flim-flam does...perhaps because pickups and EQ can be placed in various positions in more or less any bass to get 90% of the sound, and that's not Sadowsky's gig, making, as he does, copies (albeit far better built and therefore expensive) of tried and tested designs. I've never discounted that different woods can make a different sound, only that it's marginal, and almost impossible to nail down scientifically, given the variances in wood of even the same type. There was a thorough list of variables given above, and that illustrates the murky waters we're operating in here; all sorts of claims can be made, but because they can't be empirically proven, they can't be disproven, either. There's no sense of that in the original info from Roger S, and he knows it, which is I guess what irks me... I had a maple-bodied, wenge-necked Warwick once (probably the furthest from a 'standard' set of woods that I've had), and it did make a very slightly different sound to the alder/ash-bodied, maple-necked ones I had, but amplified it was all about the pickups, EQ and placement. I've also had basses that in terms of wood content should have sounded the same, but didn't. I should add for full disclosure that I'm a Shuker fanboi, and yeah, when I've ordered basses I've specified particular woods, but that's been purely on a weight and/or looks basis. Jon and I stay diplomatically away from tonewood discussions... 🙂 There's a great Terry Pratchett line (referring to a bloke selling hot food of possibly dubious provenance) which goes 'To sell the sausage, you've got to sell the sizzle'

Not as esoteric on the bass front, but back in the late 80s I ordered a Yamaha BB3000A new via our geetard who worked in a big music shop in Manchester. There was a delay in delivery, because Yamaha UK didn't have any, and Yamaha EU only had two left, a black one and a white one. I wasn't massively bothered about the colour, but the delay was a customer had ordered one before me, and hadn't decided which colour he wanted, so they were holding both till he made up his mind. I was told it was AC (hence the preferential treatment), but kinda took it with a pinch of salt. Eventually it was resolved, and I got the white one. When it turned up the shipping case had 'Clayton U2' written on it...

Overhang...just enough to trigger my OCD, but then,as has been established previously, I'm as shallow as a puddle... 😕🙂 Bet it sounds glorious, tho...Too Much is never enough... 🙂

'Marketing flim flam'...it might be no worse, but it's certainly no better. Ceramic brakes, of course, actually do work better than their cheaper alternatives at high temperatures, that there's a scientific fact. Expensive custom paint jobs...look nice, if you like that sort of thing. And as for expensive perfume...I was bought some of that Johnny Depp's Sausage aftershave last Christmas, and I'm still waiting for my Mustang convertible... 😕 I doubt if Roger S said 'Look, it doesn't matter much what wood it's made from, but we make them really, really well, and they look lovely' his sales would go up...I'd still stand by the fact that yes, he has an expensive product to sell, but making extravagant claims which have no scientific basis* is chicanery and I'm calling it... 🙂 * I'm always willing to reconsider this should something actually be proven but, like James Randi's million dollars, I'm staying put till this happens.

Gail Ann Dorsey...there's more to being Bowie's bassist than just playing the notes...anyone who could make DB smile like he does at 2:31 is doing something very special indeed...

Hoicked up that high, it does look like one of the most uncomfortable basses I've ever seen...a full gig with your left hand stretched out at head height? Ouch... Still a fantastic bass tho...but I know I'd hardly ever gig it...

The suffering is real... #jesuismoaningbleeder

All very well, but she'd be useless loading the van at the end of the night... 😁 I do love watching kids play, even better if they're a band; as I mentioned in another thread, we gigged at a local bar and the (trio) band on before us were 14, 15 and 16...they were a joy to watch... 🙂

Surprise double gig night last night: first one was a freebie hour's set for a Charrridy Do, an easy one, with backline provided, we then shot off to drop the singist/geetard/BL at another bar (where we've gigged as a band previously) where he'd been asked to do a solo gig, and we (the drummer and I) decided to stay for one while he got going. There was a three-piece band still going in there, some kids (14, 15 and 16) who were fantastic; I love watching kids play - their enthusiasm and energy is a joy. When they finished, the singist had a chat with the bar owner, and then the Dads (and Mum) of the kids, and they very kindly let us use their drums and bass amp (drummer already had his breakables with him, I had my bass, obv) so we could do a couple of 45 min sets as a band and make some money on the night. A great end to a very musical evening... 🙂

Did anyone demand you play Sex On Fire, or 'Anything by Tina Turner'? 😕🙂

A man with exemplary taste... 😃 About a billion years ago...well, before Covid, anyway; it's a long story, but I'm in no massive rush, and Jon and I have spoken about it frequently. I'll be picking it up sometime soon(ish), tho... 🙂

I've got a JJB Sig Precision in the works with Jon Shuker...I do love JJB (and credit him with making me want to play the bass in the first place - see another thread for details) and Precisions (well, split coil pickups in the P position), especially in black/black/maple, and of course I'm a Shuker fanboi, soooooo...it was kind of inevitable...mine, however, has a verrrry slim Jazz neck (I don't really do big necks) without dots, so it might not count... 🙂 Like BlueMoon above, I nearly bought a new 4001CS a while back (and my boss at the time was a friend of CS, so a proper signature was on the cards, too), but it all fell through. That one, though, would have remained in its case, unplayed and accumulating value... I've also had a Jack Casady, purely because I fancied trying a semi-hollow, rather than any affinity with Mr Casady himself...and I had a Mike Dirnt, because I like the old Precision shape, rather than Mr D...

I'm enjoying the Carlton Palmer reference - the man about whom his manager once said 'He covers every blade of grass out there, but that's only because his first touch is so crap...' 😃

One of my Shukers I bought secondhand on the looks alone (OK, the price made it a pretty much compulsory purchase, too), and although it's got the best neck of anything I've ever played (with the possible exception of an early Warwick Fortress), a neck which I've had Jon subsequently use as a template for three others, it never quite found its place gigging - I'd play it a lot at home unplugged, but then reach for others to put in the gig bag. I've changed the pickup (twice) and the EQ, and been through several sets of different strings, but amplified, it wasn't quite me. There's good reason for this, as it has a single MM pickup (now a Nordy Bigman), and I've had three or four Stingrays, and sold them all on; that pickup/placement just didn't work for me. Recently, tho, because the music I'm playing in a particular band has changed, it's come into its own, and I use it a lot. I think I've grown into the bass, rather than the other way round... 🙂

I can see that this might be something to worry about in a tribute band, but I've always seen 'drift' as 'interpretation', and nuances can be added (and groove and edge, too), and it could be argued that the more a song is practiced by the same bunch of musicians, the staler it gets. I've listened to lots of songs we cover, and thought 'Well, I don't play it quite like that any more', but if I'm happy with the result, then that's all good. Very often, my band will play a song by a band that has more musicians, or the original has overdubs of more guitars, or keys, or biiiig backing vocals, or even brass sections; how do you keep nuances like that in the first place, without having all the musicians? (See 'tribute band' above, for the exception). Lots of negativity in your post (drift..nuances get lost...degrade...generic...essence been lost...travesty'), I don't think that's anything to do with rehearsals, more to do with the musicians. If the musicians aren't bringing anything to the song, it's more to do with them than any amount of rehearsing... You might be overthinking this...

I've found in situations like that it's always a good idea (as long as you have an idea of how good each other are) to set a realistic but not-too-far-away gig date (book one if you can), so there's a target to work to, and some pressure to get it right in a reasonable time, otherwise the people who would be happy rehearsing till the end of time will always find an excuse for more rehearsals...plus, in my experience, they're the ones more likely not to have learned their parts properly, either, and view rehearsals as their own personal learning space... I should add that's from the perspective of a band that wants gig (usually covers) - all bets are off with originals bands, as the writing process can completely different (from people turning up with pretty much finished songs to songs which emerge from jams), and the motivations of people in that scenario can range from the 'want-to-gig' to the 'happy to socialise* and never make much progress'... * The appearance of booze/drugs at the rehearsal is the red flag for this one...

+1 for the Beyer DT770Pros...with the addition of the velour earpiece covers, natch... 🙂

A very lovely thing (tho as I mentioned somewhere else, it'd suit me like a fish suits a bicycle), but that photography always makes me clench - I know it's resting on something very soft and forgiving we can't see, but that concrete car park surface gives me the heebie-jeebies... 😕