Paolo85

EDIT: on second read, the question is different than I thought

20 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

After a busy year with the band, writing, recording and our first few gigs including a support slot with a thrash metal legend, I've come to realise gigging isn't for me.

I enjoy the actual gig but get stressed out for a couple weeks before and I've decided it's not worth the stress. We've got two more gigs in January and then I'm out of the band and selling my gear. I'm not much of a home noodler and don't really enjoy playing along to songs so I guess that's it.

Sorry to hear that. I can imagine recording originals, promoting them and sharing stage with bands you live and admire could be nerve wrecking. Could it make sense to change band, join one that is less busy, less good, playing music you care less about (maybe simple covers), all just for fun? That could be a temporary thing or a permanent thing, depending what you'll find makes you happiest

I am in. No doubt I'll fail but I don't "need" anything so no harm in trying!

Technically the best purchase was a Squier VM Jazz bought for a very good price. But for as playable as it was, it seems I am not a J person and I have sold it already.

Of the four bass guitars bought this year, three have been sold already. The remaining one is a Fazley fretless PJ paid £85 new which I guess was the most useful (best?) purchase. I feel bad I have butchered it as I was experimenting on it.

Excluding basses, the best purchase was a Gruvgear Duostrap.

Worst purchase may be my Stagg EUB, but it is too early to say. Ideally I would love to work toward playing the doublebass. I have bought a used Stagg for cheap but I was struggling. So I have spent more than the cost of the EUB in a professional fingerboard shooting. I am still struggling.

It seems I will either have to spend even more money - in lessons, low tension strings, or both - or cut my losses and sell.

Tonerider for lots of bottom end, Wilkinson (thr alnico one) for a brighter ("normal" bright, not oddly bright) sound

2 hours ago, MichaelDean said:

Just thought I'd take another look today and it looks like they've added pickguards. I think I prefer them without...

 

This is what I have cached on my phone.

 

This is what I found when I clicked on it on my laptop this morning.

 

The F also has a less grey burl now too.

That's comparatively better IMO

I think the GB5 is interesting. The lower horn does not look that prominent in that one. The Z series I guess is a good idea in principle. But that horn..

I can't say I am done forever, but I think I am done for a while with electric basses. I have a PJ bitsa with a magnificent Tonerider P pickup and a comfortable neck. I have a Cort musicman-inspired bass, which I bought when I was around 18, which is extremely funky with low-gauge stainless rounds. I have a butchered Fazley fretless which, with LaBella tapes, does the fretless thing surprisingly well. For as much as I have enjoyed GAS, after going through 15 basses in two years I can't think of anything else I may need, and that has been the case for a bit, other basses have come and goine, but the first two have stayed.

More importantly I have recently concluded that I want to be a couch player for another while. So the chances of "needing" something are flimsy.

Dangers now come from other fronts. I have bought a Stagg EUB and, ehm... a guitar 😳

(..actually, two cheap guitars, at once.. the sort of accidents that can happen to basschatters.. one will be sold at some point)

Maybe it's just a matter of creating a new habit? Maybe you could put something like painter tape on the bass body and around your wrist, lose enough that you can move around the P pickup but no more. Just for a few days until you get the new habit.

If then you want to play over the bridge because your sound gets out more or because it is easier to play fast it's all good, but it would be a conscious decision. In an ideal world one would mive the plucking hand around all the time to get the best sound for each song/part.

I think Jaco once asked about his signature sound of playing over the bridge said that aming other things it helped him go faster. I personally always found the increased tension at the bridge to be just hard work. But I play with a soft touch so it's not like the strings bounce up and down toi much. Maybe you could try that?

Now, the simple answer is yes, it does make sense sometimes to deviate from striclty alternating.

But, in my limited experience, it is best to make a decision about what style you want to use at least to start with. This, for me, helps prevent situations where my fingers just get entangled. I cannot "think" about my right hand when I play. I just need to have the patterns automated in my brain.

Now, it seems the two main options if you don't want to mix and match are strictly raking or strictly alternating. With strictly raking you "rake" any time you go to a lower string - but everything else is stricly alternated.

When I was playing as a teenager I was strictly alternating. As I restarted a couple of years ago I discovered raking and I just love it. I love the economy of movement, I get a better, cleaner sound out of it, I can play passages for which in alternating I would not be fast enough.

I imagine the perfect musician would just chose the best technique each time depending on context. But fot me that's too much to think about.

1 minute ago, The Attic Man said:

Thanks so much the encore is a heavy beast bit then again I'm used to playing ukulele 😆  but I do like it it does need checking over at some point thanks so much

Cheers. I hate heavy basses myself. From that point of view though, some Harley Bentons would not solve the problem... certainly not the two HB boat anchors I had

19 minutes ago, The Attic Man said:

Thank you. Yeah I know nothing about setting it up or strings. I'm very tempted to keep it. 

Ah yes, strings, forgot that! I'd much rather play a very cheap P with decent neck and strings of my liking (actually, that's what I do!) than an expensive Fender precision with strings not of my liking. Now that's a rabbit hole and not a cheap one. But worth considering that as well in terms of priorities. Old strings are fine if you like them, depending what do you want to achieve. But some age more gracefully than others. Some are known to last forever, some people tend to change them every few months. Some strings may just be described as dead and changing them is like buying a fresh new bass. Plus there's the tension issue. Some are very hard work to play, stiff, high tension. Some are effortless - though they tend to create other problems.

53 minutes ago, Bleat said:

If you are 8 weeks in and enjoying playing the bass, then I would go for it especially for £50 including the Peavey amp. You obviously like it!

 

This, totally agree. If you are enjoying the bass, it means the bass suit you and there is nothing particularly wrong with it. Which is no small achievement!

Harley Bentons are incredible value for money but they are not fairyland. Some are weird if you ask me. At the price they come, you have no guarantee that you won't get one without a terrible fretwork for example (yes sure, most people will be swearing theirs is perfect but guess what, even with Sires but the one I got was terrible, basses are always a lottery, the cheaper, the higher the risk).

I would not discount the amp, you'll never know. I mostly play at night with my daughter sleeping but lately I find I prefer the amp at minimal volume (it is not much louder than the acoustic sound of the bass, it beefs it up a bit) that having headphones on all night every day.

I would buy the encore, keep playing. If you feel like upgrading, consider a professional setup if this has not been done yet, it can make a world of difference in terms of playability and sometimes even sound.

I am not discouraging upgrading but to be honest I'd go around shops, build more knowledge (what type of bass suit you? A P, a J? A shortscale semihollow? A superlight and slim neck a la Ibanez? An active bass?) and put together a budget that gives you more flexibility to chose (which may still mean you buy a Harley Benton).

I started on a cheap P bass which was unlikely to be any more high end than an Encore (can't remember the brand). A few months lster I upgraded to an Ibanez Ergodyne. I swear, in hindsight, the cheap P was more suitable for me than the Ibanez

Well, before going to the repair shop I would try to figure out where the noise comes from. Maybe have somebody else play it, and go around rhe bass with your ear until you find the spot. If ot does not happen when they play, have them find the spot.

It can be frustrating goint to the shop, having the tech playing it one minute and declaring "it's all ok"

I thought the same. I cannot be sure it is the problem you are having but I had a similar thing at some point. It took me a while to figure out because the sound did not come from the string I was plucking. It was actually from rhe lower string. I would pluck a string, the finger would go and rest on the lower string, which would move so slightly toward the fretboard and make an annoying noise.

I seem to remember in my case it was nut slots cut too low (or not enough relief, depending how one looks at it)

As I said here,

" I suggest you have a look at the website Talkingbass.net with lessons from Mark Smith, not a famous musician but a great teacher. He is the teacher I wish I had had. The impressive thing with him is not when I watch lessons about things that I don't know. It's the lessons on things that I thought I knew. He always adds something new that I had never considered and makes things clearer and easier."

I went through two guitar teachers and two bass teachers over the years. I would say I am not sure they were worth the money. If they were at the time, they certainly wouldn't be worth it nowdays. The bass teachers did not even spot issues with left hand posture which in theory should be the thing where on-line information should struggle to beat an in-person teacher.

In-person lessons could be valuable, I am sure, but the teacher needs to be a real teacher and not just somebody that happen to know how to play and does not make enough money gigging.

If you are not getting a good vibe I would keep the money and look for somebody else. Especially as you have a background as musician already and it seems you are perfectly capable to study on your own.

In the meantime, I suggest you have a look at the website Talkingbass.net with lessons from Mark Smith, not a famous musician but a great teacher. He is the teacher I wish I had had. The impressive thing with him is not when I watch lessons about things that I don't know. It's the lessons on things that I thought I knew. He always adds something new that I had never considered and makes things clearer and easier.

Admittedly though, I did not take his sightreading course.

4 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

That's because all it takes to sing opera professionally is to sing in tune and really loud, you don't need to actually have a great voice that is pleasant to listen to.

 

In fact because singing loud is weighted so highly, combined with it being a very stylistic way of singing, making it hard to sound authentic and not forced, often the voice sounds really horrible and is really straining to listen to.

 

There are opera singers who are actually also pleasant to listen to, but they are a minority.

 

To sing opera professionally you need to have a voice that fits the role according to a canon because at the time music was not recorded and as such compositions required that all singers sound extremely similar. The same way a cello needs to sound like a cello, regardless of who's playing it anywhere in Europe or beyond.

Now, whether those "human instruments" have a nice sound or not surely is a matter of taste.

But beyond preferences over the mere "sound" of the voice, there is also an element of making a good performance as a singer. Opera singers at the highest level are absolutely perfect and expressive while performing technically complex passages. Look on youtube for more amatorial rendition of operas and it will be clear that it is not just something that comes natural once some technique is developed.

No doubt microphones have opened a number of possibilities to appreciate the voice of people that would not otherwise manage to be heard over a piano and two violins. This is a wonderful thing.

But opera is still there and has stood the test of time for longer than anything played through an amp has.

51 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Well yes but my point is that very, very few people who aren't musicians will have any interest in it

I think you are right. But for what I have seen over time most fusion fans I have encountered are not advanced musicians and no way they can identify chords just by listening. I do like a bit of fusion and I am just slightly above beginner as musician.

Partially that's because that's how it goes with musicians in general (most just play a little bit, a few get into regular gigging, almost none study at advanced levels).

For a quite a few (eg my brother) it worked almost the other way around: they are very much into well played music, so this gives them a push to try and give an instrument a go as well.

The fact is, I doubt many 8 year old listening to fusion, or death metal, or stochastic music for the first time would like them.

For some stuff, you need to go down a rabbit hole and get your ears into it over time. This often involves giving albums you don't like many chances, and revisit them a few times over the years. 

Playing an instrument is certainly one of the things that could bring you down the fusion rabbit hole.

Whether this says something good or bad about the music I am not sure. I guess in isolation it does not say anything, it's just a characteristic of the music.

EDIT: btw, that's the same with metal. Most metalheads I have known do (or did) play an instrument

I am definitely not an expert on DB but reportedly the Stagg's neck should be similar to an actual DB. And the Harley Benton DB as well. For what I understand, it's the Stagg's bridge (on top of the fact that it's stick shaped) that makes the playing experience a bit different. All strings are pretty much the same height. I have filed the saddles though and that's sorted.

I think some people were saying there were other things with the bridge but I can't remember

So, you may know already bit it turns out nine years ago Scott recorded three songs under the name "Scott Devine Project-Live". Slow tempo jazz, nothing to do wit this new album. Not bad at all

https://scottdevine.bandcamp.com/album/long-time-coming

I must say, maybe this thread works as advertising, anyway this weekend I have been listening to the new album way more than I was expecting. First impression confirmed. Great album, I wish keyboard and guitar sounded a bit less "typical" fusion - it's bit cheesy at times

Btw the bass is 7.7ls according to the bathrooom scale

On hold

Right, so this month I bought a battered Stagg for cheap on ebay. It's comparatively better than the one I had last time.

The plan was to put it on a DIY stand. But I did not wanted it to be fully vertical "left to right" as it looks to me most DB player keep it a bit of an angle, not just back to front.

While I was trying to figure out how to do it, I was also trying various things standing and sitting. In the end, I think I have managed to find a position to play it standing without squeezing with the thumb. This weekend I have tried a Yamaha SLB and it feels much more natural. Still, I think and hope that I have figured out how to play the Stagg "safely"

55 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

My thoughts on it are pretty much the things normal people would say about death metal. There's no space in it, it's too busy, it's just meaningless noise etc, etc

Maybe if he played it on a BC Rich Mockingbird and wore corpse paint I'd get it.

Well, I am sure you know there's quite a few death metal bands that are into fusion. There's totally some overlap.

Di Giorgio even recorded a fusion album (not great IMO). If you look at the late period of Schuldiner, there was a lot of that. In, say, Scavenger Of Human Sorrow, he has the same way of developing the song as this Scott's music. No surprise Di Giorgio said Schuldiner's compositions would get the best out of him.

Then there is Cynic. To be honest I still don't get Focus, but the bass player Sean Malone recorded a wonderful imstrumental album (Gordian Knot - Emergent), for which he had prog/fusion legend Bill Bruford as a guest. It's definitely not death, and it's not even that busy, but has a Cynic vibe. I was listening to it non-stop for a period. It's the album that made me realise instrumentals are not just a novelty thing to make one per album but can be the main dish. Which was massive for me as now 90% I listen to instrumental music.