Delberthot

The found the Corvette $$ 5 string to be one of the fastest playing basses I've ever owned but I've been playing for 24 years and have had about 70 so I find it pretty easy to adjust to a new bass. I used to get the cramping pain when playing a lot of octave bass lines and you have to concentrate on not tensing up. the same when playing something that requires you to play fast with the right hand. Before I discovered he used a plectrum, I learned Parallel Universe by the Chilis using my fingers. That was really difficult to get right without my right hand turning into a claw with cramp If you can consciously learn to relax and build up your stamina, you should be able to play for longer periods without pain.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1168283' date='Mar 19 2011, 02:33 PM']Keeping it to drummers..... Steve Gadd is still the man,and he's in his mid 60's.Players like Louis Bellson and the recently departed Joe Morello were still blowing people away in their 80's. Dave Weckl and Vinnie Colaiuta are in their 50's. Even someone like Jojo Mayer,who has been around for years but has only relatively recently become a massive name,is in his late 40's. As far as electric bass players,guys like Will Lee,Nathan East,Marcus,Stanley,Anthony Jackson and Pino are all in their 50's. Tony Levin is in his 60's. There are great young players,and there are great older players,it makes no difference.[/quote] Ooh, three of my favourite drummers - Gadd, Weckl and Colaiuta. The fourth being Mikkey Dee from Motorhead who is 47: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlecTBevmzc"]Overkill[/url] My all time favourite, Buddy Rich, played right up until he died at 69 Roger Waters - how many bass players have to wait until they get to be 67 before having a signature bass made?

Didnt Bilbo get a 5 string a couple of months ago?

It really depends on what kind of stuff you're playing as has been mentioned before. The trouble I've found listening to bands with effects is unless you're playing venues with a sound guy and good acoustics, most of the time you don't notice the change from effect on to effect off unless its something very obvious. I've had quite a few multi and single effects over the years but the main reason I don't really bother with them now is that I can't be bothered mucking about with them. I'd rather just turn up, set up, maybe make minor adjustments to the tone/volume controls on the bass and maybe adjust the volume of the amp. I'd rather concentrate on playing the songs. I only use an OC-2 and a Korg DT-10 tuner now. One thing I've discovered is that it possible to get quite a variety of sounds from Epiphone pickups depending on where you play and how hard without having to adjust anything. I've never noticed this on any other bass before. I was going to buy myself a VT Bass but I already get the sound I have I've had in my head for ages without it.

I found Nathan East Signature Elites which they don't seem to do anymore were the best on my Stingray

I had one of the bleeding midnight blue ones. turned the binding on the neck pale blue. Luckily I bought it brand new and was able to return it. There's been talk on the rickresource about a new bridge for years now with nothing to show for it yet. I guess if they can have an 18+ month backlog on basses with a sh*te bridge, questionable paintwork, a stereo output that most people don't use, a double truss rod that most people are afraid to touch and a pickup suround that doubles as a cheese grater and get away with it then why should they change anything?

Yip. My first ever bass when i was 12 was a Marlin Slammer in red with maple fretboard after seeing john Deacon use one that looked identical to me at least on the One Vision video. Later on finding out what it really was First expensive bass was a 5 string black Stingray after seeing Flea use one playing Funky Monks on the Funky Monks video. Modulus Flea for the same reason, Rickenbacker 4003 because of Chris Squire and a Shine 12 string semi acoustic bass cos it was the closest I could find to Tom's Waterstone. gallien krueger 800RB because of flea as well If you listen to someone like Chris Squier, he tends to sound the same regardless of what he is playing. the long and the short of it is that unless you're really lucky you're going to sound damn all like them, even if you use identical gear. The closest I got to a Chris Squire sound was with a Stingray and the closest I got to a Stingray sound was with an Epiphone Thunderbird with DR Red Devil strings.

How about a pickup surround and raised bezel from Pickguardian? That's what I had on this bass

I always thought they were one off colours but I also see Blueboy and turqoise on the website as well. Blueboy:

[quote name='Ancient Mariner' post='1168124' date='Mar 19 2011, 12:15 PM']Most people mellow after 2 or 3 decades of playing, and bands that are lively and exciting at first very often become more refined and less 'fun'. There are exceptions, but I find sometimes that I miss the reckless energy and raw performance from a mature band's performance: for me, refinement and subtle technique are no substitute.[/quote] must be 3 decades for me then. I'm playing with more energy and improvisation than I ever have. I've been playing for 24 years and I am fortunate in that I am still improving and enjoying it every bit as much as i did when I first picked up a bass when I was 12 One band I was very impressed with a couple of years ago were The Eagles. For a band that have been about as long as they have, they still had a genuine love for the music and entertaining the crowd. Moreso Cheap trick. They only used the house lights as far as I could tell but they were absolutely brilliant. And lets not forget that Flea is going to be 50 next year and Lemmy is going to be 65 this year

I completely agree as far as amplification is concerned with a few exceptions. You pay peanuts you get monkeys. I've never bought cheap amps or cabs cos there's more that can go wrong with inferior components and you never want to muck around with anything involving electricity. As far as bass goes I'm all for gigging anything as long as it can be adjusted to be playable. Its only a couple of pieces of wood and some metal after all.

I was going to suggest a 4 to 5 string conversion but there's nowhere that you could locate the 5th tuner without it looking messy - a bridge with adjustable string spacing is probably your best bet

Read this earlier today - very interesting: [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/scrap-lumber-bass-vs-alder-bass-can-you-tell-difference-743932/"]Scrap bass V Alder Jazz Bass[/url] I've had expensive and cheap basses and no longer feel that it is necessary to spend more than £200 on a gigging bass given the quality of the lower end stuff. The last time I played the venue I'm at tomorrow I had a Warwick Thumb NT5 and a Modulus Flea bass which have a combined new cost of around £5000. Tomorrow I will be gigging an Epiphone Gothic Thunderbird and one of the slightly older Saein made Epiphone Les Paul basses with the mahogany body and carved top which would've set me back about £400 if I'd bought them new. I've not gigged the les Paul yet so cannot comment on that but so far have had the Thunderbird much longer than I had either of the other basses and am much happier than i ever was the others. There will, however, always be a place for everything from the Sue Ryder basses of the world to the coffee table snake oil ones (my personal opinion) as everyone is different and for some, only a bass made from 25000 year old lumber pulled from a swamp in the everglades and hand carved by Scooby Doo will do. do (heh heh - do do)

You'd have to add some wood to the neck pocket of whatever body you went with. These necks don't taper as much as Fender ones so are several mm narrower at the body end. but yes, I had thought about doing something myself like that but went and bought an Epiphone les Paul Standard bass instead

looking at the website, I think they may be using the same neck for the 4 and 8 string models and possibly using a scarf joint to add whatever headstock is required which would explain the extra width

[quote name='Roland Rock' post='1166333' date='Mar 17 2011, 09:50 PM']Of course, everyone has the right to try new stuff and switch brands, but IMO putting out a signature bass should mean "this is my go-to bass, it's a major part of my sound and has helped make me the player I am today" rather than "[b]I quite like this one at the moment[/b]"[/quote] Doesn't that sound like a lot of us? I know I've had about 70 basses so why should a pro be any different, especially because most, if not all of them are getting them for free.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1166919' date='Mar 18 2011, 11:55 AM']At least you found out the day before. It's not uncommon to turn up at the gig,have a quick chat about what tunes you'll do,then start.[/quote] indeed. I did a gig with a band I'd never played with before on boxing night and didn't find out until about 10 minuts to go that they tune down a semitone. even learned Big Fat Mama by Status Quo (proper Quo song) which is a bugger and ended up not doing it.

My gold Warmoth had an ebony board cos it looked cool

when I first began mucking about with pickups etc I firstly began by taking some pictures of the wiring in situ. that way, if I made a balls up, I could bring them up on screen on the computer and see exactly what they looked like when they worked. Of course, you could just view the relevant diagram on somewhere like the Seymour duncan website but I didn't stumble across that until much later. one thing to remember, if they're normal passive pickups, remember to connect the ground wire from the bridge one other important thing to note is make sure the pickups will fit into the bass you're transferring to precision pickups are much of a muchness but some Jazzes use 2 neck pickups and other a narrower neck one.

the true answer is whatever people are selling at the time as you can see from the answers above. I would add another + for Gallien Krueger. Been round the doors with a lot of stuff and ended up back with a 700RB II again Try it all if you can, preferrably in a gigging environment

big one and compact one but there was a shallower one around at some point.

Is the B tuner really close to the nut? I had a similar problem when using Elites with my Thumb 5 where the full thickness of the string would end up going round the tuning post ending up in a snapped string. the solution was to buy a single tapered Elites B which tapers very quickly after it passes through the nut.

I've been using the Rotosounds for a few months and they're still quite bright for flats. Tension is between TIs and Chromes and they have red silk.

I use a Roksak for my goth thunderbird which interestingly begins life as the same bass as the Blackbird but gets different pickups and wiring You can get them [url="http://www.hwaudio.co.uk/product/gator_25504.aspx"]here[/url] very well padded with the headstock velcro roundy thing to hold it in with padding round it. A large pocket with velcro to hold your cables and a smaller one for sundries. Been using mine since I got my thunderbird and its still looking like new.

The gold sparkly 54 p that I had had which is for sale by its current owner has a wenge neck and ebony fretboard for no other reason that it looks nice and if the neck gets a bit sticky you can just take some steel wool down it and its smoothe and quick again. I couldn't tell you if it growls more than a standard maple / mape & rosewood neck but its warmoth so the neck ain't moving anywhere regardless of the conditions I had it in.