mario_buoninfante

I know this is probably not a solution for you now, but I recently travelled from London to Turin by train and that allowed me to bring my bass without any particular hurdle. Generally speaking the journey is more expensive than flying, but if bought months in advance tickets can be reasonable. Eurostar London-Paris and then train Paris-Turin, return can be around 150£, and no issues with luggages. It does take 8h though

Oh man, I'm not currently looking for a bass (actually selling one), and I have a Spirit XT-2 that I like, but the XZ has (almost) always been the one I wanted! I like them headless, but I like having a standard body though, and the XZ to me is kind of iconic, it symbolises an era. Just so rare to find, especially left handed! Great bass!

This made me spill my tea!

I think a Jazz Harmony course is what you would be looking for. There are few online, SBL included. In general I'd pick one that is for bassists, that means you'd probably be learning and analysing songs from a bassist point of view. I haven't done a proper Jazz Harmony course yet, but I have done a bit of "classical harmony" when I was studying at the Conservatoire, but afaik in a jazz context it'd be a lot to do with learning/breaking down/analysing jazz standards. And I think that is awesome. Despite some standards do sound quite "dated", the harmony behind them is still quite relevant.

Bass > pedals > Laney Digbeth Preamp

Like with other things, I think who really needed ramps still uses them. But yeah, it seems there was a bit of hype too though.

I think a different bridge might help too, if you don't wanna go 35" scale (that'd change playbility too). MusicMan for example, make 34" scale long 5 string basses and I remember them saying in the video below that "they don't need to use 35" scale because 'the secret (for a tight B)' is in the bridge". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mPCtATs02B4

Reggae/Dub is one of the trickiest genre to play. It's a lot to do with feel, syncopation, swing, and it can't be hidden behind effects (eg distortions). Even really skilled musician that are not familiar with it struggle to play it in a convincing way. Just my 2 cents.

Why wouldn't it matter? It's true what you are saying about the amp, etc , but that doesn't make the main question less valid. The simplest example where this would matter a lot is if you were to use the line/DI out to record. But, it might even be just curiosity. Or one might want to take the eq out the amp and use it somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying about using whatever settings sound good, but that's not the point, at least reading the main question. We shouldn't "dismiss" things so easily

My MBSIII does color the sound (and I like it ). Here's a quick test I did few months ago

Fair enough. At the end of the day, personal tastes do matter One of my wake up call, as banal and obvious as it is, was Jaco. I bought his Word of Mouth CD when I was 17-18 years old, and listened to it maybe twice. I just didn't get it! Never touched it in 15y then in the last few years I listened to his music properly, solo stuff but also the work with Weather Report and Joni Mitchell, and this time I was definitely ready for it. Ready to appreciate the composers (all the people listed, not only Jaco) apart from the amazing musicians. Take the classic Portrait of Tracy. That track is really important for the development of bass guitar. Nobody had played a whole track that way until that album came out, and that makes it unique, but also it is a really beautiful track from a compositional point of view. It is harmonically and melodically solid and would sound great even played on a harpsichord. Also, the contemporary London Jazz scene helped me a lot getting into it. There's so much Carribean and electronic music contamination going on there, it's insane. And the funny thing is, all the best/old school Carribean musicians who developed Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae and then Dub (all genres I love too!), were jazzists! So, it's a circle in the end. But again, de gustibus

... aaaaand, that's me!

for those who like knobs and switches... and strings. It's in the US, I know, but I couldn't not post this! https://reverb.com/uk/item/64546293-electrical-guitar-company-custom-12-string-bass-2010-aluminum-lefty

Jazz! I always respected it, but as a teenager and until my late 20s I secretly thought it was "old music", that as a genre was dead and that jazzists were mainly showing off. Well, I couldn't be more wrong! In the last years I got really into it and discovered that is more alive than ever, actually has never been dead. Contamination is the bread and butter in jazz and there is quite a lot of experimentation too. I found it one of the most "open" genres of all time, and one of the best form of art and expression ever! Less straightforward than other music, so it took me a bit to understand it, more "life experience" and some studying too. But, it was definitely worth though.

Yap, absolutely. And just to be clear, I do love the interaction with other musicians when playing, and I believe it's a big part of what makes music great. But I understand others might feel different about it, and it's just fine.

I do agree, but what does being a nice person mean? What is the interaction people have with their electrician? If being a nice person means being well mannered, I agree. But I don't think anything more than that is "required" in 90% of the cases. As in, one's electrician could also be a philanthropist, but I doubt it'll come up that often in conversation with their clients. Or, I doubt that it is the main reason why they get called in the first place. With this, I'm not trying to say being nice is not required, it's just that I was surprised to see how many times this got called out as THE thing to have in order to be a pro. I still believe that being able to "deliver" is as much important as, if not more important than, being nice in order to get jobs. ie one's nice but can't play. Don't think they get the job one's not nice but can play, they could get the job.

I'd defo second this. Being a pro musician is not different from being a pro "anything else". I think first thing first, one needs to be able to get the job done. Now, what the job is may vary a lot. The examples above give a good idea. Being a nice person would make things easier, but I think it's a nice to have more than a must have. Clearly, being an a**hole is not recommended I mean, do people call plumbers/electricians/lawyers/etc. based on how much of a people person they are? I think they get called mainly because of their skills. Now, I know music is not exactly the same as plumbing, but at the same time being a pro also means one gets jobs that feel like plumbing, but hey, work is work.

+1 about the pick-up height. This is something I only learned about quite recently tbh. And it's really important in order to avoid a muddy sound and also because pick-up height affects the sound quite a lot! I found out about it when I watched this

I found this useful too

I use this as guideline, and check how it feels. https://www.jerzydrozdbasses.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-perfect-bass-guitar-setup But tbh, I think I rarely measured the string height, mainly to make sure I respected the neck radius (ie for consistency). But everything gets signed off only after a round of playing, regardless what the measurements are.

a classic I've been listening to recently (the whole album)

Absolutely. The instrument seems in good shape and the price is really good. But, it's not the right time for me to buy anything. I have a bass that needs to go first. No point in me piling up basses if I don't use them. This will also give me more time to investigate the market and think about it

Nice. That's a good shout. I started thinking about this since the fretless around atm aren't exactly what I'd be looking for.

Had several Soundcrafts over the years. My current mixers are a small Folio for the keys and a Sprit FX 16ch with Lexicon fx, penultimate generation. They get the job done. I mean, the small one is really small, that's why I got it. The Spirit is more or less the same size of the classic Mackie VLZ 1604. It sounds good and has the right amount of send/returns/busses/inserts for me. The Lexicon fx on it are good too. Clearly they don't sound like the PCM ones, but have "personality". It has a 3 band eq with parametric mids, that works well. Only thing, the low freq in the eq is bit higher than I'd liked it to be, more in the low-mid range. Overall, I'm really happy with it, especially considering its price, 350£ second hand in really good conditions. I'd really recommend this, and also the Mackie VLZ, especially the US made.