gjones

Be pro-active boys/girls. What you need to do is find a venue and start a jam night. I've started going to a jam night at the voodoo rooms in Edinburgh (where I live). It's a great venue with a good PA and the guy who organises it has even got Guitar Guitar (the music shop) to sponsor it.

You provide the backline and get a load of different musicians up to jam. A lot of the musos who turn up are at loose end or bandless and actively looking for a others to play with. It's like an extended audition and you can try before you buy because you hear them play before you buy them a pint and ask them to join your band. After a few weeks you'll have a whole room full of eager musicians to pick and choose from.

Problem solved and a good time into the bargain.

There will be a time when your MIM Jazz will be a sought after classic. Just put it under the bed and wait 50 years.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='1170769' date='Mar 21 2011, 03:23 PM']It's hard to make suggestions without hearing, if it sounds like a mess then there's probably two things going on.

You're too loud. If you're playing small venues and no one really understands EQing as a band, chances are that the volume is going to be too loud too.

EQing is fairly obvious when you talk about it, your bass should be EQd for the lower frequencies, rhythm guitar higher and lead instruments more trebly (within reason), it's much harder to actually do though. Try and play one instrument at the time, so start off with drums. Then add in bass, you should try and be bassy, but without being muddy and with enough mids and treble so your notes are all defined. Then add in the rhythm guitar, try and EQ it so that it sounds very fat in the mix, enough bass to fill out the sound but not so much that it interferes with you, mids and treble need to be there so that it fills out the whole sound. Then the lead guitar needs to sit on top, still enough bass that it doesn't sound weak, but it should sit a higher in frequencies than the rhythm guitar.

You want to balance the whole thing around your vocals though, vocals are the main thing that people listen to in bands, if your singer has a very high pitched voice, she should be sat around the lead guitar's EQ. If she sings a bit deeper, you could make space between the rhythm and lead and EQ the lead slightly higher.

Without hearing your band, especially hearing it live, it's very hard to tell, but that's a basic way to work it out.[/quote]

+1

I recently bought a Jazz secondhand with Fenders strings on it (roundwounds with yellow wraps not sure what type of string). I was very impressed with the sound though. I feel they're a lot like DR Hi-Beams which are my favourite strings (ie pretty zingy but good punchy mids and low tension).

Here's a webpage where Ed Freidland does a comparison of the whole DR range (with sound files). It's a very handy tool to allow you to make up your mind, considering the average price of a set of Hi - Beams is almost £30.

Intonation isn't a huge problem for most bass players as long as the bridge is set up correctly. But it is an issue for guitarists. I've noticed it myself, that even when my strat is set up perfectly, some chords sound less in tune than others. It would be awfully difficult to play bar chords though, on a guitar with fanned frets.

Well at least he backed out before you paid him. He obviously doesn't know how Ebay works. Tell him to put it up again with a reserve price next time. If nobody offers the price he wants he may decide to cut his losses and let you have it.

Did it throw you across your living room the first time you fired it up? Like Marty McFly in back to the future?

When I first started playing bass my hero was John Paul Jones. It took me years before I bought a Jazz Bass though, because I always had the impression they had a thin sound....duh?. After playing an old MIJ Squire Jazz and really liking the sound (which wasn't thin at all) I took the plunge and bought a Geddy Lee, then I aquired the old Squire Jazz mentioned above and now I have a MIJ 62 reissue, which was the bass JPJ used on all those early recordings.

It took me a long time..........but I got there in the end.

I was at a rather professionally organised blues/rock jam the other night and was amazed by the range in ages that were playing on the stage. The musicians ages' ranged from 17 to almost 70! And the olduns were rocking it up even more than the younguns.
I remember aged 17 having an earnest discussion about how the Rolling Stones should jack it all in and swap the rock 'n' roll lifestyle for a pipe and slippers once they hit 40. Yeah that'll be right! I'm not exactly a teenager anymore and when the hair goes grey and the teeth start falling out I'm definitely planning on growing old disgracefully.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1167858' date='Mar 19 2011, 12:53 AM']Sounds great... love the bass, too. What is it?[/quote]

As far as I know it's made up of Mighty Mite parts from the late 70's or early 80's. I got it secondhand in 84 (it was my first proper bass) for £130. It has a very individual sound probably because both pickups (especially the jazz) are so far back near the bridge. The neck is thicker than Mike Tysons and the action so high it could shoot arrows but 27 years later I still have it.

Ten years ago my old band played a festival in Princes St Gardens Edinburgh called 'Rockin' The Garden'. Surfing the internet the other day I found a couple of videos. My old faithful P/J sounds pretty good.

It's definitely a marketing/brand thing. I have a Geddy Lee Jazz, a Jazz 62 reissue and a Squier Jazz. They're all made in Japan and they're are all top quality. BUT if I had the money and the quality was on a par with my MIJ/CIJ basses, I'd probably prefer an American bass. Whether I would pay the extra for a custom shop model .........probably not. But I feel a Fender should be made in the US of A.

I just can't afford one that is........ that's all

I recently bought a MIJ 62 RI Jazz from 'starless' here on basschat for £380 in almost new condition. Great bass, great price, looking at this it seems I got a bargain!

I have a Geddy with a Badass bridge and a 62 Jazz with Knurled saddles. I've switched bridges around on my basses and frankly there's no noticable difference in tone or sustain (personally sustain is a quality I might look for in a Les Paul but not a quality I look for in a bass).

Badass II for £105 or Fender bit of tin for £6.99............doesn't make a bit of difference to my ears.

[quote name='bubinga5' post='1166338' date='Mar 17 2011, 09:53 PM']Not alot IMO.. certainly not £1700 worth.. not even close.. ive had a £3000 Fender and an £600 MIJ 62 Jazz really wasnt that different..

still a cracking 60's CS though[/quote]

Well I have a MIJ 62 Jazz and it's pretty damn good. I don't expect the custom shop version to be that much better........but it sure is purty.

Those Laklands are nice. If you like Jazz type basses a Geddy Lee is a cracking bass too. I think they have one in guitar guitar in Edinburgh. The neck and the build quality are fantastic. Some people are not too keen on the sound as can be a bit toppy but you can add bass at the amp to compensate.

But the neck is so slim it's effortless. I have one and it's the easiest bass to play I've ever owned. It's like playing air bass.

The only problem with expensive basses is playing the thing at you average gig. You'd never be able to take your eyes off it for fear of thiefs and lowlifes running off with it to sell it for £30 at crack converters.

Eh, and of course the fact that they're expensive in the first place.

[center]Hmmm that picture rings a bell?
[/center]
[center][attachment=74953:closet_classic_62.jpg][/center]

[center]MIJ 62 Reissue[/center]

I never (if I can help it) buy new anymore because of the depreciation. The cost of new basses have shot up in recent months and you'll never get anywhere what you paid new for a bass if you decide it's not for you and you want to move it on.

If you're going the secondhand Stingray route there's a nice Musicman Sub going on this very forum for a reasonable price [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=120652&hl=sub"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=120652&hl=sub[/url] not to far away from you either so you could try before you buy. I know nothing about Subs but a lot of Stingray fans on this forum say very nice things about them.

As a previous post said, Fender can be a bit slapdash with positioning of nuts and bridges which can mean the strings are not always aligned accurately (ie the E or G string can end up too near the edge of the fingerboard). I don't know about the difference to the sound of a bass they make but I have them on my 62 RI Jazz and it's really easy to adjust string spacing.

I can remember being asked to join a band ten years ago. I took it as a compliment and rather rashly said yes. What I didn't realise was that the type of stuff they wanted to play was just not my cup of tea. It was then that I decided I had to work out an escape plan.
The escape plan didn't mount up to much......basically not turning up to rehearsals and showing no commitment or enthusiasm (the cowardly way out - I should have just said 'sorry this bands not for me'). Eventually they gave me my P45 which I was over the moon about!
I think your fellow band members are showing similiar signals so it's probably time to let them go and sign up a new guitarist and singer who actually want to be in the band or you'll be rehearsing the same songs forever and a day.

If you're playing club gigs, frankly you'll have PA support and you won't need a hugely powerful amp. Your amp will just be used for a monitor because you'll end up going through the PA. 50w isn't going to be heard on stage in a club though, even if all you need is a monitor. So I recommend the lower end Ashdown gear - either the Ashdown EB 180 watt combos or the Mag 300 combos/amps/cabs. They'll give you more than enough volume onstage and they're cheap and have a great sound.

Yes, I'm a happy bunny with my new (preloved) CIJ 62 RI as well. For the price - £380 - it's a cracker. I've kept the Fender strings it came with on it because it sounds so good but will soon try out a set of DR Hi-Beams. The neck is almost as slim as my Geddy Lee and it's very easy to play and ooozes quality. I have to say, I've really liked every Jazz I've ever owned (even the bog standard Indonesian Squier that cost me £95) as they all had their own individual qualities. But because of the combination of sound and playability this one is probably the best of the lot.

I think you may be well and truly converted to 'The way of the Jazz' as well now. Long may the love affair continue.

After hunting around for quite a while I now get my sets of hex keys at maplins. The ones that fit my basses nd my strat are 1.5mm.

[quote name='The Bass Doc' post='1149295' date='Mar 4 2011, 10:42 AM']Looks real enough to me - Fender couldn't make a full decal fit to some left-handers so the main name is all you get in this case.[/quote]

Well you learn something new every day.