Been playing for 1 week

[organic]

Played guitar for over 40 years, off and on, but never got round to trying my hand at bass. These days I mainly record at home, and with playing the bass on a keyboard, which I'm not great at, I felt it was letting me down so I decided to get me my 1st bass. Went for a Squier as I have a CV50 telecaster and I'd say it's superior to anything with the Fender logo on it until you hit the £1000+ price range. I went to buy a precision as I prefer the sound, but ended up with a VM 70s jazz as it's much easier to play for a beginner.

Things are going surprisingly well, my only bugbears being:[list]
[*]it's hard on the fingertips even though I play acoustic fingerstyle on medium gauge strings
[*]getting an awful lot of string squeak which is annoying, I take it it's practise that's the cure for this(?)
[*]recording by miking up my amp gave a disappointing, thin sound (found most mics roll off a lot of bottom end). Getting much better results by DIing but still not as good as it sounds playing through an amp
[*]I prefer the sound of a precision or a rickenbacker. May try fitting a high mass bridge with brass saddles to get some more oomph.
[/list]
So a big hello to everyone, and any useful advice much appreciated.

[Highfox]

Welcome.
Most of the upgrades I have ever done on my basses have been a waste of time and money, I don't do anything now that doesn't need changing.
DI-ing the bass should give you a full sound.. maybe try a preamp first, I usually use a Aguilar tone hammer for shaping when recording
For more oomph, you might need that P

Edited January 7, 2015 by Highfox

[JapanAxe]

Welcome Organic!

Some advice (useul or otherwise):[list]
[*]it's hard on the fingertips even though I play acoustic fingerstyle on medium gauge strings
[*][color=#0000FF]- I find I fret with a different part of my fingertip when playing bass, so no surprises there.[/color]
[*]getting an awful lot of string squeak which is annoying, I take it it's practise that's the cure for this(?)
[*][color=#0000FF]- string squeak comes mainly from roundwound strings and/or high treble settings.[/color]
[*]recording by miking up my amp gave a disappointing, thin sound (found most mics roll off a lot of bottom end). Getting much better results by DIing but still not as good as it sounds playing through an amp
[*][color=#0000FF]- when you say DI, do you mean bass straight into DAW, or have you tried the DI out on your amp?[/color]
[*]I prefer the sound of a precision or a rickenbacker. May try fitting a high mass bridge with brass saddles to get some more oomph.
[*][color=#0000FF]- closest approximation on a Jazz will be neck pickup on its own, but if you like a Precision, get a Precision - then swap the necks![/color]
[/list]

Edited January 7, 2015 by JapanAxe

[planer]

Hi mate welcome to the site

[discreet]

Edit: Changing your bridge is unlikely to change your sound in any way.
But do it if you like the look of another bridge, or your current bridge is hampering your playing style. Edited January 7, 2015 by discreet

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='organic' timestamp='1420636410' post='2651558'][list]
[*]getting an awful lot of string squeak which is annoying, I take it it's practise that's the cure for this(?)
[*]recording by miking up my amp gave a disappointing, thin sound (found most mics roll off a lot of bottom end). Getting much better results by DIing but still not as good as it sounds playing through an amp
[*]I prefer the sound of a precision or a rickenbacker. May try fitting a high mass bridge with brass saddles to get some more oomph.
[/list]
[/quote]

Welcome to the light side!

1: Yes
2: DIing is probably the way to go, maybe with a preamp.
3: Will make no difference at all to the sound. If there is actually a problem with your bridge, it could make it a bit brighter or improve the sustain. The sound of a P is mostly made by putting some kind of PBass style pickup at the exact point where it is in a P bass.
However, with the right preamp you can get a similar sort of sound.

[pfretrock]

Welcome from another Worcestershire resident. I have Thomastik Infeld flatwounds on my P bass. Flats have higher tension than rounds but these are a little less than some other brands. Nice and smooth and no squeak. Downside is they are expensive. I'm just about to put some Status flatwounds on a short scale bass, I'll let you know how these are in a few days. I've got soft small hands and don't have a problem with these. But I do tend to play too hard with right hand fingers and lose skin (cannot use a pick to save my life)

Sounds like you need a DI box, pity you missed the Hartke Bass Attacks for £37

A new bridge is 99.999% cosmetic

[paul_5]

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1420639829' post='2651614']
A new bridge is 99.999% cosmetic
[/quote]

The other 0.001% is pure, unadulterated MOJO.

[Coilte]

Hi and welcome. [size=4] [/size][size=4]Playing the bass will be hard on the finger tips at first. Play for small periods at a time for a few weeks. Otherwise the dreaded blisters will form.[/size]

[Allie]

Hello organic

Welcome to BC.

Allie.

[madshadows]

Welcome to basschat

John

[organic]

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1420637768' post='2651575'][list]
[*][color=#0000FF]- closest approximation on a Jazz will be neck pickup on its own, but if you like a Precision, get a Precision - then swap the necks![/color]
[/list]
[/quote]
I tried a few P's in the shop where I bought it, the squier VM 70s precision sounded utterly awesome, particularly the bottom end.

But then I'd also have a Jazz body with a precision neck... don't suppose anyone on here wants to buy such a combination?

[organic]

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1420641238' post='2651634']
The other 0.001% is pure, unadulterated MOJO.
[/quote]
I'm sold on it!

[organic]

Thanks to everyone for all the advice.

I think when the strings need changing I'll try a set of flats.

As for the recording setup, I'm currently using a DI box into a focusrite saffire audio interface. A pre-amp (or maybe a bass practice amp with a line out?) would probably make a huge difference. Particularly as the other problem I'm having is that I'm having to turn the gain up pretty high but then if I accidentally play a string too hard it just goes straight into the red. May try a compressor pedal in the interim.

[organic]

As for putting a precision pickup on a jazz, as the jazz's string spacing at the nut is much narrower, would the pole pieces line up if you dropped it in at the current jazz neck p/u position?

Not that I'm going to be doing any mods for a while, I may well feel very differently about this bass, if not playing bass in general, in say 6 months.

[icastle]

[quote name='organic' timestamp='1420636410' post='2651558']
[*]it's hard on the fingertips even though I play acoustic fingerstyle on medium gauge strings
[/quote]

Of course it is, you're playing a manly instrument now.
In all seriousness though, even the thickest string on an acoustic is only going to be as thick as the G string on your bass and it's going to take some time to get used to that.

The natural inclination when moving from guitar to bass is to use the same parts of your fingers (the very tips) to fret the notes.

It takes a while to adapt, but the usual contact point is a little bit further back down the 'pad' than you're probably used to .

[quote name='organic' timestamp='1420636410' post='2651558']
[*]getting an awful lot of string squeak which is annoying, I take it it's practise that's the cure for this(?)
[/quote]

Pretty much.
Cutting back on the treble will help, as would using flatwound strings, but (there's always one of those somewhere ) if you want a particularly bright sound then, IMO, you'd be best off working around the issues with technique during the learning stages than revisiting it later and trying to unravel it.

[steve-bbb]

you could try a very simple modification which would involve a bit of re-wiring and add a small 2 way selector switch to swap the pup configuration from parallel to series which i am informed would change the cleaner sound of the jazz to more of a P thump

[organic]

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1420744437' post='2652990']
you could try a very simple modification which would involve a bit of re-wiring and add a small 2 way selector switch to swap the pup configuration from parallel to series which i am informed would change the cleaner sound of the jazz to more of a P thump
[/quote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSdDH7ayZws

I like the sound of this; I shall be talking to the guy in Brum who I get to do repairs/mods for me.

Edited January 9, 2015 by icastle
Link Fixed.

[pfretrock]

[quote name='organic' timestamp='1420723806' post='2652559']
I think when the strings need changing I'll try a set of flats.
[/quote]
Just arrived a set of Status Hot Wire flats for my short scale bass. Absolute bargain at 13.99+VAT, post free. The Jaguar has lost a bit of its 'growl', but still sounds good, a little more rounded perhaps, I can turn the bridge Pu up a bit. Slightly smoother feel than XL Chromes or TIs. It's a 40-100 set so tension not too high. Not sure what the string life will be, the other sets of flats would likely last forever, G string on these looks a little fragile. (0.04)

[pfretrock]

The Status Hot Wire flats have now been taken off! Played them over the weekend, could not get the tone back with any amount of knob twiddling. If you like playing with foam under the bridge, they would probably be fine. They are quite stiff and do allow a very low action, which was nice. Might be OK on my P, but I'd rather the Jaguar growled a bit!

[discreet]

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1421087918' post='2657032']
The Status Hot Wire flats have now been taken off! Played them over the weekend, could not get the tone back with any amount of knob twiddling. If you like playing with foam under the bridge, they would probably be fine. They are quite stiff and do allow a very low action, which was nice. Might be OK on my P, but I'd rather the Jaguar growled a bit!
[/quote]

You should try the Status Hot Wire Half Wounds, they're smooth but have some twang and growl to them as well as thump.
You can still get a low action with them, too.

Edited January 12, 2015 by discreet

[Bassnut62]

Best recorded bass sound I've ever got was by blending three channels on desk, one was a DI feed from back of amp (a silver face Femder Bassman 135), the second channel was a mic placed right in one of the speakers of the cab and the third was a mic placed further back from the cab to get the thrown bass sound. It was awesome!!

[pfretrock]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1421088214' post='2657036']
You should try the Status Hot Wire Half Wounds, they're smooth but have some twang and growl to them as well as thump.
You can still get a low action with them, too.
[/quote]
Thanks I might give it a go. I fell in love with TI flats, but are rather expensive with GAS.
The Status flats seem to be tightly wound (you can't see the windings like you can on D'Addario or TI's) so I guess this is why they are stiffer. A nice blues thump if that's what you want though.

[ubit]

I too , play guitar and bass and as for the calouses, I'm sure being a guitarist, you've been through it before. It's just you get different ones with the bass because your hitting the string slightly different with playing big bits of wire instead of slender twine. Good luck and welcome

[organic]

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1420931490' post='2655321']
Just arrived a set of Status Hot Wire flats for my short scale bass. Absolute bargain at 13.99+VAT, post free.
[/quote]

Only place I can see to get them is from their website (which has to be the worst design I've seen in ages) but I think I'll try a set of half wounds when the existing strings start to get a bit knackered.