Grimalkin

 "Back to the E as a pedal"

Back to D. I couldn't be bothered to detune the bass a tone.

It isn't that easy, alternating back to the E as a pedal constantly in different parts of the bar. It's sequenced, just as the Muse tune mentioned earlier. Something you have to 'automate', and build up slowly from there.

Ligaments and tendons work best in a straight line, straightening out the wrist a little helps. A lighter touch and turning the amp up, also mentioned earlier, is the way to retain and release energy over time, but with a louder volume, muting has got to be kept on top of. With the fretting hand, don't use more pressure to fret than is needed. It takes less than you think.

2 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

Aye , serious bits of kit but 2-3 times the price.

 

Centred on the same spot as 51 single coil P-basses .

I briefly tried a Tune BM at the same time I bought the Aria SB-R60. As I remember the Tune was £699, the Aria was £300, in the mid-'80s. I finally bought a BM that came up locally a couple of years back. It's one of the 'mixed' Tunes, Korean bridge but original Japanese crescent neck pocket. Very nice weight, the 'D' neck profile is one of the most playable 4 string necks I've tried, balance is spot on. There's a lot to like.

1 minute ago, Quin said:

Well, one thing i do find important is that the bass doesnt really get drowned out by the guitar, I play with a little band sometimes but we really play a lot of different genres so that would be hard to say. A big benefit for the westone is that i could switch it active or passive and between pickups etc. But i grew up listening to duran duran because of my dad and John Taylor used an SB700 on the first album, and I do like that bass tone a lot. I'm just slightly scared that the aria is not as flexible as I want it to be

The SB-R60 single pickup Aria I had, had its own sound, quite middley, but I couldn't describe it as that versatile. Then again, I think the P pickup on the Westone, is a little far forward than you might like, if you're going for '80s definition. I'd be a lot happier if that front pickup was moved back by an inch. Ideally, you need to play them. Are you dead-set on an '80s bass? Older is not always better.

Those two basses are going to sound very different. What kind of sound are you after?

I owned an Aria SB-R60 in the '80s, I had a Westone Thunder 1A fretless too. What I should have bought, is a Tune Bass Maniac, but they were expensive at the time.

"A couple of years ago when Ibanez decided to hand-build the GWB1005 using master luthiers, it was an opportunity to rethink the design and I was determined to see if I could solve the problem. I did a lot of experiments – relocating the nut, moving the bridge – etc. The final result was that if you want to use the lines on a fretless as a reference, then you’ll get the most consistent relationship by intonating the bass with the line directly in the center of your finger. At the time (some 20+ years ago) I was still switching between fretted and fretless and I was determined to try to take advantage of the muscle memory that I had built up by playing fretted just behind the fret, so I intonated the fretless the same way. What I didn’t realize is that it throws off the whole scale length of the fingerboard and creates the inconsistencies. Around that same time, I had noticed a company called Novatone making swappable magnetic fingerboards that had the lines on a fretless with independent lines for each string with lots of variations in the fret lines from string-to-string, so I assumed that these discrepancies were normal. So I taught myself the wrong way to play in tune and have been doing so ever since.
As for your own inclination to compensate for this kind of setup – well, if it ain’t broke . . .
But if you’re just starting out, make it easier on yourself and put that line down the middle!"

Gary Willis.

Locating just behind the line means you have to back off slightly on the upper frets above the 12th, and come forward slightly for notes below the 5th fret. Those are the inconsistencies Willis is talking about. As far as he has found, if you fret directly on top of the line it's far more consistent positioning and intonation.

On 24/01/2022 at 22:47, NickA said:

I really don't understand that.  Being a bit thick perhaps.

 

 The only thing you can change is the position of the bridge cars, 

 

Which on a fretless, changes the position of the note on the board. I could set my lined basses up to intonate directly on top of the line, or slightly behind them. Pino set his intonation to were he visualised the notes naturally, to him. Perhaps it was to do with the parallax view.

There were not a lot of lined fretless basses around in the '80s, I don't remember seeing one in the music shops I used to frequent back then. It wasn't "the done thing."

A friend of mine, was set on a course of wickedness after imbibing to much alcohol at a wedding gig. There were other things going on but he preceded to: Fall into the wedding cake, later he was found crawling around under the top table while everyone was seated, then he topped it off by driving the band van over the golf course.

Cost to put that right: £5000

Sea foam green Yamaha SBV550.

2 hours ago, martthebass said:

lemon oil or not to lemon oil ....

“Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master Ittei commented, “Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai.

Decorum please. That is serious business.

"They had just wrapped up a session with Common when Palladino learned that the Who’s bassist, John Entwistle, had died – and that the band had declined to cancel their forthcoming tour and wanted Palladino to replace him … on stage at the Hollywood Bowl, in two days."

No pressure then...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/06/pino-palladino-pop-greatest-bassist-adele-elton-the-who

10 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

If I did it would be something a bit more innovative and interesting than a Fender Precision.

It doesn't matter so much if your playing is innovative and interesting.

10 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

And lets face it, if you want to get something off a high shelf, he is going to be invaluable.

Apparently, his Piño Coladas are the business. Perfectly blended by all accounts.

He's not one for woofing off, he doesn't have to. Another reason people like using him. 

9 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I suppose that if people were prepared to pay me enough money to live on for playing in their band(s) I'd be prepared to play any old shït too.

 

Pino's a weird one for me in that I really like his fretless bass playing, but think that in a the context of the whole music he plays on that's the only musical bit of merit. He's the only only redeeming thing about the Paul Young records (apart from the truly awful version of Love Will Tear Us Apart which even he can't salvage). Go West was just fake 80s pop for people who don't really like music. Unfortunately in The Who he's not a patch on Entwhistle to the point that the band had to have a second guitarist to fill out the sound.

He's done quite a bit more than Paul Young or Go West..

"Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that once was directly lived has become mere representation." Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."

Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle.

People put too much store in the instruments... It's the playing that counts.

There isn't one I can think of, not one that I wasn't positive about moving on. Probably for very good reason.

I sold a lovely original Fender 1962 P bass in shoreline gold, I regretted it almost as soon as I had sold it. How was I to explain that to the friend I had borrowed it off only 3 days prior? I decided it was best attempted from an upstairs window, out of harms way.

9 minutes ago, Rich said:

Super TrouperNaut?

Into the Voulez-Void?

2 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

 

Possibly endoresment £ ?  

 

 

Fender is the only endorsement I'm aware of, MusicMan after he got a name? He doesn't seem to want to tie himself down with what he plays.

11 minutes ago, Paul S said:

Best I can come up with isn't even a Sabbath song but Ozzie's 'Mamma Mia I'm Coming Home'

Agnetha Wears Boots?

7 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

Just to remind people that Pino is known for playing Stringrays, Laklands and vintage Precisions. 

 

Like many session players, he may have odd curiosity type basses that he uses for getting different, one-off sounds, but the above have been his core basses over the years. 

 

I wonder why he stuck with industry standards when he could have any boutique he wanted.