EMG456

Mingus is a great album. It's also the one that finally frightened off most of Joni's original west coast singer songwriter fans.

I don't think we're going to see that I'm afraid. The original Steinberger blend composite necks and neck/ bodies in the case of the L series were custom layups with the carbon fibres hand laid into the mould in particular orientations and patterns to give strength and rigidity with the desired characteristics. That is a very labour intensive method of production and would be extremely costly today. This limited edition looks like it uses the Carbon mat weave "exoskeleton" process similar to Status Graphite or Parker guitars did. Still nice but not exactly the same as the original Steinbergers. Ned has talked before about bringing out an updated range of instruments based on the aesthetic/ ergonomics of the original L series and indeed is pictured with a prototype on the cover of Jim Reilly's biography He talks about both wood and all composite versions so who knows but I suspect that a wood with carbon reinforcements version like the Radius instruments is the most likely to see the light of day.

Fortunately for me I have all the Steinbergers I need (want?) and I don't really get on with fan frets but it's good to see Ned playing around with all composite construction again. I wonder if the bridge pieces are individual versions of the cutting/ clamping bridge in the Radius basses?

Long term hero and influence for me. Here have some Brothers Johnson with magic Q dust sprinkled on!

Is it not maybe a Tune bass? Japanese manufacturer first seen in the 80s with the Tune BassManiac. I may be wrong cause the cut in the bottom of the body looks the wrong way round. Looks like a nicely made instrument.

Just watched some vids so that all seems rather fine. You seem calm and confident on the videos - maybe the "not so good" bands don't think you'd be interested? You're obviously not a flash, "pushing the envelope" type of player but in a lot of busy working bands, that fits the bill. Don't be afraid to go for any gig- the worst they can say would be no which lets face it is the answer to the majority of applicants to any sought after position. And remember the best player definitely doesn't always get the job- personality and work ethic often are more important traits. Unless finance dictates that you have to sell your gear, don't. It's enough justification that you like and enjoy it. You know what will happen- you'll get rid of it all and then almost immediately somebody will offer you a gig lol! Also maybe consider bands that are not *entirely* within your ideal genre- variety can be good fun also. Best of luck to you.

This. I'm surprised (shouldn't be, right enough) that few people seem to have realised this so far. All the large language models can do is plagiarise the past - they literally are incapable of original thought. We're being gaslit by the media and AI companies to be enthused by something that can only give us back a result that a human has previously created.

Might be a confidence thing - maybe you could persuade her?

Well whatever it is, if it plays and sounds nicely, that's an absolute beauty! Nice one!

Are folks not just trying to do too much with these preamps? I love filter pre's and have 4 basses with them - 1 Wal, 1 Alembic, 1 ACG and 1 Status with ACG pre installed. For recording, the ACG's are unmatched - you can provide essentially a fully finished and eq'd sound to the board direct from your bass and it will be the sound *you* have sculpted. But live I just run them in wide open "flat" mode as described by @skelf in an earlier post in this thread. Do I need to set a different eq for each song? No- I can change which pickup I'm using or move my hand along the string to get enough variation for a live set. Once you know what's happening with each control it's easy enough to start tweaking live and use them intuitively but the bugbear comes if you're trying to insist on accurate repeatability. That's impossible with these setups. I would argue that it's not necessary for live work but others' circumstances may be different. There *is* an argument for recording when you might be required to revisit a section of a song at a later point. Would we like to see a programmable preamp in our basses? I'm just making mischief now lol.

Always fancied one of these...

Ah @neepheid... you speaka my language! 😂

Like Victor Wooten, Charles' bass pyrotechnics are unexpectedly musical. His playing does seem to be from the heart and his musicality and self deprecating sense of humour shine through.

Ah, my favourite band of that era/ genre. What's generally regarded as the “classic” lineup wasn’t fully in place till the 1974 Turn of the Cards album so anything from that up to ‘79s Azure d’or is well worth the effort. Also brilliant is the “Live at Carnegie Hall” double album recorded over three consecutive nights with the New York Philharmonic. Camp was/ is a great bassist and along with Chris Squire a massive influence on early me in my playing style and bass buying habits!

Don’t think anybody’s going to accuse you of that these days Alan.

My Japanese SD Curlee is one of my favourite basses. The pickup placement is broadly where the Stingray pickup is so the sound has a bit of that flavour about it too. Hope it comes back to life well for you.

I have an ACG that exhibits this very thing. The answer is to use a strap even when seated. If you follow the usual advice to have the bass at the same height standing as it is sitting then you won't even have to adjust the strap length.

Don’t know how long these have been available but I saw a Norway based band/ actor/ audio-visual thing at the Edinburgh Fringe pre-Covid and the drummer was using something like this ie invisible drums. Was impressed then with how good they were/ he was.

I read the topic a couple of days ago but didn’t have time to play the song. Now I have and I’m intrigued. There’s a version of Bohemian Rhapsody on there which is weirdly compulsive listening as well. More study needed.

Have voted for Squire, Gunnarsson, Pastorious in rough chronological order of when they started to influence me. Conspicuously missing from the list; Louis Johnson, Dee Murray, John Giblin

As usual, late to the party here... I had this issue actually way back at the beginning of the year with strings I had bought online last august! Bass centre swapped them for other sets I was needing but quite surprised that this is still marching on. I was led to believe it was only the .040 gauge sets which had the problem but that seems to not be the case. Status have their strings back in stock and so I bought a few sets from them- can confirm the lengths are correct. They're easy to deal with too.

Credit where due - really enjoyed your set!

Dee Murray has been hugely influential on my playing throughout my musical career. He could hold down the groove effortlessly whilst still filling in melody and harmony to not just support but enhance the song. You don't have to be hyper technical to be a bass god!