gjones

I bought a Geddy Lee Jazz because I googled, what's the best Jazz Bass Fender make, and it kept on coming up again and again. I've never owned a Rush album. I've owned a couple over the years and they are excellent basses.

Oh....I also bring spare batteries and strings for the singer (who plays an electro acoustic guitar) and never brings her own (sigh..... )

I bought my GK MB 800 secondhand and when I first tried it there was a audible distortion when playing. I took the case apart and made sure all components and plugs were properly seated on the main board. When I put it back together again the distortion was gone and it's never failed me live but since then I always take a spare head, just in case. My gig bag is full of tools and batteries, spare strings etc. When recording, or playing a very important gig, I'll take a spare bass.

I don't know about the Ampeg but the Fender Rumble 500 V3 is an excellent amp. It's very light, it's loud and it's versatile. I have the 100 watt version and it's great.

In the good old days nobody would be able to run off with a bass cab, they were all too flippin heavy.

I've got some really nice high end Fender deluxe and Elite basses, plus a Stingray, but frankly the most versatile bass I have is my G&L L2500 Tribute. It cost me £350 secondhand and it does everything my other basses can do and more. If I thought about it logically, I really should sell all my other basses and go on a nice holiday with the money.

I have the very same G&L 5 string. It's a fantastic bass.

Put some tape over the top of the pickup to shield it from your fingers. If the noise stops it was because your fingers were hitting the pole pieces of the pickup. If not then it's a poltergeist 😱

The Sailors Hornpipe. I heard some guy throw it casually into a bass solo once and I said to myself, 'That guy doesn't take himself too seriously but it still sounds cool'.

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.