How1

Sinead O'Connor - All Apologies (Nirvana). Absolutely no need whatsoever.

M-Audio Solo is about 38 quid. It's kind of a plasticky cheap thing, but it'll do the job. Limited outputs though (RCA only).

Oh great, thanks. I'll have a measure up and get back to you when I get back from work.

I would say you absolutely don't NEED to know any theory, but there's probably a minimum that you could learn that would make your life a lot easier and your basic understanding of what you're doing a hell of a lot more interesting and engaging. It's also nice to be able to communicate to some degree using the language of musicians. Same as its easier to know a bit of Spanish on holiday 😁 - a little can go a long way. Also if you learn some basics, it soon has a snowballing effect and you pick up other bits.

Does anyone know if these can be bought separately? Owing to the usual care and attention Fender pay to their instruments, I've found out one of the screws is the wrong size and basically just spins in the hole, so I want to replace it. I've got a gnarly looking wood screw in it currently, which does the job but looks awful.

Go for it 👍

It's actually going pretty well. We've kind of settled in a bit and got a few bits recorded, albeit roughly at this stage. We're still coming up with rather disjointed ideas, but the stuff we're jamming out and coming up with 'on the spot' is beginning to find it's feet. He's also notably improved.

When I was younger I was always looking for something better (for better, see pointlessly more expensive!)or unique or something just different for a change. The first time I went to a music shop to try a bass, I was determined it would be anything but a Fender, because they're so ubiquitous and 'boring'. Guess what I walked out of the shop with?! The jazz bass I bought was the most comfortable bass I tried that day, but I was never happy because I wanted something 'different'. These days I'm completely the opposite. After all the pointless GAS, I always came back to fenders, because I like how they feel and sound and that's where I stick these days. I know how they'll feel and sound, I know how to record and eq them, I know roughly what they'll weigh...If they break I know how to fix them, and that parts are easy to get. If they got nicked I could pretty much pick up a very similar one, or a Squier if Im skint from pretty much anywhere on the planet, straight off the net or from a shop and be relatively confident of what I was getting. Are they the best basses available? Absolutely not, but there's a comfort and continuity to Fender, which goes a lot further than looks. And nothing is perfect, so if you know their weakspots you can work round them or fix them. I do like how they look anyway though.

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know it was mostly in my head! I'm not interested in making any money from music. I think ultimately that would pretty much be a pipe dream, so anything I'm doing is purely for the fun of it. I'm happy carrying on working on my own stuff and working with the guitarist, maybe something will come of it, but would like to play with a band basically, whether it's that stuff or something else. I'm relatively open to the kind of music I'd be playing. There are time constraints like work/family etc to consider though, so that is gonna narrow things down a bit...

So after about 15 years I decided to start playing again. Skill wise I'm happy enough and picked things up after a few months and I'm happy with where I am skill wise, I actually find it easier now to pick things up and play stuff - I've even started writing a few songs. I've found myself completely out of the loop and a bit aimless though. I thought I'd be happy at 45 just noodling and playing through some covers etc etc. but I'm not. It'd be really nice to do something more. I don't really know any musicians any more. One of my friends plays guitar, but he's ok(ish) but the type of stuff he plays doesn't really float my boat. Every time we get together we're playing really random stuff, like different genres every song. It's fun to some degree but it's not really working for me. How do you even get started anymore? I'm totally out of the loop and a bit disheartened. I thought it'd be nice just to pick up a bass and learn a few songs for fun, but I'm getting bored of playing with myself lol. At this age it's not like I can just 'just a band'. Or that's how it feels.

The one with the scratchplate off looks pretty accurate to me (at least on my screen). Here's another one in daylight.

It's one of those songs I've always been aware of but for some reason never played! I'm not the biggest Sabbath fan but do like them. I'm a typical child of the alt 90s so it was all Chili peppers and Rage Against the Machine etc when I started playing.

I've being playing this recently and am sort of in the same boat. I can and do on a regular basis play much more complex stuff, but this continues to give me grief! To be fair, I underestimated it a bit. I think it's just a personal style thing and a difference between playing styles. What might feel 100% easy and natural to one person might feel odd and unnatural to another. Some player's styles you can just be more at home with, irrespective of difficulty. Some of the fingering and timing of the changes don't seem comfortable to me.

Worth the money already 😁

Thanks, I've an app for the same thing after your suggestion, although it's probably not gonna be nearly as good, but it has the chord sheets.

That's pretty much what I'm after, just a chord sheet to work from so it sounds like that might do the trick. I think the Ed Friedland book might be too basic after reading up Amazon.

That tap should come in handy in this hot weather 😁

Are jazz fake books suitable for making your own walking bass lines? I want to try some improvised bass lines rather than just learning them note for note. I've been looking at the Real Book(s). Is this what I want? I'm not completely new to walking bass lines, but am by no means very good at them. Can anyone recommend a good book? I seem to remeber there was an Ed Friedland one from years back that is meant to be good..?

That's making my brain hurt 😁

That's what I originally had on my PJ before I swapped to the chromes. I twisted one though and it was never the same again so decided to try Chromes out of curiousity and stuck with them in the end. I liked the Fenders though. In fact, Fender strings aren't bad at all. I have some nickel rounds somewhere that I got on my p-bass that sounded pretty good. In fact, I need to buy another bass to put them back on 😁

May as well be hehe. Tbf, I actually quite like that sound in some situations (Andy Rourke/Smiths or JJ Burnell springs to mind). In isolation it sounds really good, but tends to get lost sometimes. Paul Simonon said he learned to play bass listening to reggae because he couldn't tell what was the bass and what was the guitar when he listened to The Who (or something to that effect).

Don't get too carried away, you might like it. One minute it's a tad more tone, the next thing you know you'll be playing fresh Rotosound rounds with a pick 😁 It was more in comparison of other strings tbh. The chromes rolled off don't sound anywhere near as good. It takes away a lot of the character of the strings. The LaBellas on the other hand hold onto it, probably even sounding better. They're really nice sounding strings.