bassbora

I never thought string spacing would be a problem. You would read here about people discussing different specs on basses and I never understood it and thought it was just people moaning for the sake of it. I only had my Thumb 5 for years and just played that. Later I got a Stage 2 5 with the same string spacing and never got understood this problem. Then I got a Stage 1 5 broad neck and finally I got what people meant. I did notice the difference quite a bit and how much more comfortable I was with the smaller spacing. But I just looked at it as two different things and found a way to adjust and I like both now. I would say just keep playing and you will get used to it (hopefully).

Thanks for that. Absolutely brilliant.

First glance it looks like I was roughly playing it correct but I see I have done few things differently. Really nice to see it how it was played, I was just too lazy to learn it properly. Thanks again its fantastic to see and play this.

Thank you so much for this. I need to start and try transcribing myself.

Hey man don’t worry about it. I just posted here on the off chance someone had transcribed something. You were kind and interested enough to say you might give it a go. If you have the time brilliant but don’t worry about this at all. If you don’t have time it’s totally cool. I just hope you enjoy the music.

Wow thank you so much. I just posted here on the off chance someone had done it and had a copy. You are an absolute star kind sir 😃

Has anyone done any transcriptions of their songs? I have always loved Brad Houser's playing (fretless). So I was just wondering if anyone had transcribed perhaps Circle or What I am?

Thanks for a very comprehensive reply. My bad re the Unichorus. I dont know the pedals well enough and I just remember the old blue one (are there more versions??) and then there is this studio version and it looked like all the other revamped ones. So I was curious what the difference was between the old one and the studio version.

Hope I am not hijacking the thread but I noticed that EBS have revamped all the pedals. I was thinking of the Unichorus and BassIQ and same as with the Octabass is there much difference between the older models and the newer? Sorry again for straying outside of the topic

Is there a big difference between the old 2 control pedal and the new 3 control one. I am more thinking is it worth looking into the new one if there is not so much difference between the old and new pedal. Thanks

I did notice and also the thickness of the neck

I remember the EXB series from the very early’90s and saw few death metal players using them. I love that look and when I saw this thread and realised what the RGB was I started looking for a 5 string. I have no idea why because I don’t need another bass. I did look at the spec and like what has been said before I think the SR is the more substantial instrument with build and hardware. What I would say they seem to have a different neck profile which you might want to consider. Electronics in the SR seem to offer a lot more flexibility but personally I would go for the RGB since I wanted one 30 years ago and I like PJ config.

Hey thanks for the reply. I thought when I was listening to this isolated part this was not JPJ but someone trying to out do him and it was in few places but most notably in the solo. It did not sound like the record and I even spent this afternoon listening to it with headphones few times and was certain it was not him. It was interesting but just someone trying to put too many notes in, not as tasteful as the original. I think I might have looked at your transcription if you posted it on here. If not yours I think I found it through here.

I stated going through all my music books and pdfs I have collected over the years these last few months and dusting off my reading. I have been going over Jaco, Jameson, Nathan Watts to name but few and John Paul Jones which is up there with them. So as a student back in the '90s I played Good Times from some book and I was just happy to be able to keep up with JPJ and play what was in the book (it was a photocopy from my teacher which I still have all these years later). Anyway so I find this other transcription the other day and I was going to have a look and its very different from that old photocopy. As we all know these old books were quite often wrong if not very wrong. So I thought I would see if I could find an isolated bass track on youtube and see what the man did. I am now more confused. I found something (Good Times isolated track) but that is so different from both transcriptions. I have not included them here but I have a question, does anyone know if that is really JPJ in that link??? Its the verse and chorus part which I am totally confused about and even what is played in the solo. This is really bugging me

@Drax said it best. Its just an opinion and what one person thinks is great you might find awful. I happen to have only played Warwicks since '97. I think they are brilliant and have everything that I want in a bass. It probably could have easily been other brands but I just happened to find what suited me back then and I have not had the time, space or finances to buy and sell basses to find out how other brands would suit me. I am sure Mayones are great but I have never played one so I really cant comment. @warwickhunt has had every single Warwick under the sun and can probably give you the most in depth answer you might be looking for. I can just chime in with my experience which is from owning 5 Warwicks (currently 4). When I got my first one I was upgrading to a 5 string and better bass (to me). I got a Thumb NT. I have never experienced any of the known problems mentioned above with any of the hardware and they have never failed me over few hundred gigs. But there are probably few other things you might want to consider before getting one. Neck profiles are really different. I have late 80s early 90s basses and they are flat and thin. Other years/models might be chunky and baseball bat like. I had a FNA Jazzman 2004 which was on the chunkier side but I got used to it and gigged it a lot but this might be an issue for you. These basses are heavy at least the ones I have had (the FNA was the lightest) so if you are gigging and you have this around your neck for good few hours you are going to feel it and you might find it something that you would not want. The last thing I want to mention is the access to the 1st fret. This applies specially to Thumbs, because of the body shape and the upper horn the 1st fret is further away than on many basses. I am quite tall so this has never been a problem for me but I had a student few years back and he really liked my Thumb but this issue was too much for him, he found the stretch too much. I do find the price of a new Warwick today eye watering and I would never buy a new one. There seem to be quite a few for sale here and worth a look. I hope I am not putting you off and these are great basses and that Warwick growl is quite something else and I think they look different but fantastic. Just give the first 3 Jamiroquai albums a spin to hear some great Warwick tone.

I have only had Thumb and Stingray. My Stingray was though fretless and 3 band EQ. Its long gone because it was not a patch on the Thumb in all areas. So my vote goes to the Thumb. But in true BC fashion my Stage 2 is way more aggressive than the Thumb..... just saying

I bought my ‘89 5 in 97. I had been lusting after any Warwick for years and I would probably have bought any model. This one has stayed with me since then. It is heavy but that’s never been a problem for long gigs and I am tall so I have never had an issue with the issue of reaching the 1st fret which the Internet seems to be obsessed about. I have nowhere the experience with different Warwicks like Warwickhunt but I have played my Thumbs in all styles and settings and they always fit in. I have an 89 6 fretless and that bass is the best sounding bass I have ever touched. It is the combination of being fretless and also the Bartolini pickups. I have played these basses in quiet acoustic setting, jazz combos, classic rock and metal. What I find sets them apart from other basses is how it responds to right hand technique more than other basses. And as you said yourself the necks are quite something else. The neck on the 6 is even better than on the 5. But all this is of course my opinion and others will have very different tastes from me and disagree greatly. Lastly I just want to say I have not played other Thumbs than my two and never tried a bolt on. And my main gigging bass has been the last few years 91 stage 2 5 which I think is fantastic bass but OP asked about Thumbs. I did though rotate my 5 Thumb with the SS2 to keep it interesting.

There are few different Warwicks if you are wanting something different. FNA is a Stingray version, I gigged FNA Jazzman for few years which had greater tonal variety and there is a Streamer version of them.

Funny you should ask because I was going through my collection of books and printouts I have collected since the early 90s when I was studying just that. Books I have bought some years later I thought was great was the Ed Friedland and specifically Bass Improvisation and Gary Willis books, Fingerboard Harmony for bass. Of course a fantastic way to learn is to transcribe solos from different instruments or find transcriptions of solos. I would also suggest books going over different styles such as Latin grooves and even classical music. I did a lot of both and cello music was really good. Bach is brilliant for technique. I would also echo Standing in the shadows of Motown, I have gone back to it and taught from it over the years. Teaches reading, rhythm and phrasing in abundance. Sorry for the rant

I thought I would just respond a little to this since I started this. I was just randomly listening to YouTube when that video came up on my feed. I thought it looked interesting mainly because I saw Tom Morello was in the title and Vai actually as well. Then Nuno started to play the bass and I thought someone else might find it interesting and posted here with, in hindsight, not the best title. This got me thinking about my influences and what inspires me. I have been listening and playing music since I was a kid. I realised I was mostly interested in the bass because I seemed to like to listen to John Deacon and John Taylor when I was a kid. I got my first bass at 16 or so and since I had no one to show me anything I just played along to records and Love by The Cult was the first record so we could say that Jamie Stewart was my first bass influence as a player. I then studied bass and jazz for few years and then you realise you are actually studying music and not bass. It just happens to be the instrument you are using to be involved. I had sax and piano players as teachers for improvisation so the influences have been varied. I had to play also a lot of classical music. The point is influences can come from any period and any type of music. I still get excited listening to new music of any genre, it does not matter if it is a virtuoso on any given instrument or just kids starting out. I can learn something new from most people even just how they approach their instrument and their view on music. I guess the point is you can get inspired by anyone or anything as long as you dont approach music (this applies to anything in life really) with preconceived ideas with what can or should be done. Open mind gives us innovation.

Well my brand new HDN arrived today and I only had a chance to play through it for few minutes. I tried my Stage 2 and Thumb 6 fretless and as expected sounded great. Everything I like about my AE212. It would be handy to have two of these and not the big one but I am not going to do that. Trying to shift a big cab from Scotland to somewhere else I dont think I would have many interested. Anyway I think it looks and sounds fantastic. I cant wait to try this one in a band situation and see how it holds up. As I suspected I got a message about possible sale of AE112 this afternoon after I got the HDN delivered. I knew this would happen and now the classifieds are going to be filled with 1X12 cab of every description known to man since I just bought one.

Hey thanks for the brilliant detailed report. I think I got my Berg back in 2013 if I remember correctly and at the time I was looking at Barefaced as well and I would have preferred 2 112 cabs but it was too much money for me back then and the Berg came up secondhand and it worked so brilliantly for me. I am looking at finding more and different musical projects so I thought having 112 would be so much easier to have at smaller gigs or jams than grabbing the big one. I actually gave up waiting and ordered another Berg HDN 112 on Friday. I guess I went with that because I have been so pleased with my experience of that brand for the last six years so I decided to go with that again. I think you are absolutely right when you get to a certain price point and all the components are top notch any cab would probably sound good and then it’s just down to a personal preference. I don’t want to start to buy and sell many cabs to find the right one so easier to stick with what you know.

I totally agree with you and I only posted this for fun.

I just thought it was cool that a guitar hero like Nuno would be happy to play the bass. I did see that Stu Hamm came on stage after but I didn’t watch the full video