gjones

Played at a local music venue last night, first gig in about 6 weeks. It went well and I really enjoyed it. Brought my new (old) bass with me. It's made from the maple neck of my first ever proper bass ( a P/J Mighty Mite bass from the late 70s) attached to a maple Squire, vintage modified, 70's reissue, Jazz bass body. I'd fitted it with a set of Fender 75 vintage pickups. The neck on the bass has been with me for decades and I must have played a thousand gigs with it attached to some bass or other. It sounded great through the house amp and although the bass is now all maple it didn't sound particularly toppy, in fact I had to turn the bass down on the amp.

Fretless can sound great but if you're not planning on playing in a fretless manner - i.e. you're just going to be playing the same stuff the same way as you would on a fretted bass - then there's no point in having one. If you're wondering what I mean, have a listen to Alan Thomson playing bass with John Martyn.

Having played with a horribly high action for decades, until I figured out what a truss rod actually was for (thank you bass chat) The difference in a well set up bass and a badly set up bass is significant. A well set up action does make playing easier, whether the neck is chunky or slim. I don't know about 'faster', as I don't do 'fast' - I'm build for comfort, not for speed.

Any old bass would be an improvement on that flipping Hofner Paul McCartney plays. He should have stuck with his Yammie.

I saw Tears For Fears last Summer, in a field in the grounds of Kelso Castle. Strange place for a gig but they had a great sound and they had a good crowd of about 3,000 there. They were fantastic even though they are both the wrong side of 60 (and Roland Orzabal now looks like Santa Claus). Unfortunately the day after that gig Curt Smith broke a rib and they had to cancel the rest of their tour. Hopefully they'll get back on the road again before they are past it.

The singer looked the spitting image of Dr Zachary Smith from 'Lost In Space'.

I'm glad you asked that question because it means I don't need to.

In one of my bands the singer (who's band it is) says learn this song for our next gig......and we then play it at the gig. In my other band we faff around for ages figuring stuff out and then never play it again.

Bass players were real men back in the Trace Elliot days. That 8x10 combo weighed 14 and a half stone. 😮

When you play bass regularly you'll get blisters and eventually calluses build up on your fingers and they don't hurt anymore. If you don't play regularly the calluses don't have time to harden your fingers and every time you pick a bass up and play it, after a while, your fingers will start to hurt again. I don't think changing the strings will make it hurt any less (and strings are expensive to experiment on). Most of my guitar playing friends, who occasionally play bass, tend to use a pick for this very reason. Maybe that would be an idea for you.

Back in the 80s they were manufactured in the US and thought of as high end brand. They brought out superior versions of Jazzes and Precisions and were pretty expensive. These days I know nothing about them other than their prices look like they're in Squier/Sire territory which I assume means they're now manufactured in the far East.

Ssshhhhhh..... 😂

Yes, pop music (whether in 2023 or 1953) is the equivalent of fast food. You have to make an effort to find something more nourishing.

It might be an idea to use a normal size pot and drill a hole to increase the size of the control cavity.

Interestingly, I watched a video of Eric Clapton's onstage setup and his tech says he takes 3 electric guitars on tour with him, and they're 3 identical copies of his EC Signature Stratocaster.

I prefer there to be a band leader, with talent, who knows what they want and has a good idea how to achieve it. I'm in two bands, one of which is a band-ocracy and the other which is a band-tatorship. The first has been going since before the lockdown and still hasn't managed to get a gig (our first gig was supposed to be last weekend but had to be cancelled as one of the guitarists had the lurgy). The second has been going for over a decade and operates like a well oiled machine.

I had my bass stolen and had to get hold of a bass ASAP. I had seen a friends band and the bass player was playing a red Charvel by Jackson which sounded excellent. The guy was selling it cheap and I bought it. It did me proud for a year and sounded really great but it was too pointy for me as I was playing in Blues bands at the time and it just didn't suit the genre.

I bought a Fender Precision Elite bass 4 years ago and the jack position is a right pain in the erse. I was always knocking the jack as it poked out from the bottom of the body. Recently the jack input (which is a plasticky, fragile, stereo one) gave up the ghost. I've just recently managed to track a replacement one down and import it from Spain. I'll be fitting it soon, hopefully it will last longer than the original one.

I play various venues where backline is provided and the guitarists in my band usually bring their own head and use the cabs provided. Bass players are not usually so bothered by what amp they're playing through, as they know they're going to be DI'd and put straight through the desk anyway. One of the venues I play has an Orange bass head, which is really bassy even through the DI, so I bring my own little Gallien-Krueger head and play through their cab. The sound I get onstage and out front is much clearer and the sound engineer doesn't mind. I'm sure the sound engineer won't have a problem if your guitarist brings her own combo.

After the incident with the tiny model of Stonehenge and the midgets, I kind of lost interest in Deep Purple.

He's a cheapo headless bass which might solve your problem https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363785824349?hash=item54b353285d:g:eQkAAOSwuNNjRZLK

I had a shot of the Alembic of the bassist in a renowned 70s Scottish Rock band and the action was shocking. Even worse.........he played with flats and a pick. 😱

Simply Beige

I used to play with my brother in law years ago - he is the front man and plays guitar. His usual bass player couldn't make a gig and he asked me to dep for him. After the gig he said how impressed he was that I played all the songs in his set flawlessly. I told him that it wasn't such a big deal, as he hadn't changed his set for 35 years (we played that exact same set together, for 10 years, until I left 25 years ago). Some people are just resistant to change.

I bought a Markbass CMD 121 P over lockdown. I've played it at a few gigs and rehearsals and am very impressed with it's sound and how much volume it can put out. It can compete with two guitarists and a loud drummer. At one blues gig I depped on, I brought my Barefaced compact as well as the Markbass. I ended up disconnecting the Compact as it was overkill - the Markbass combo managed fine all on it's own.