All Activity

What strings come stock on that bass, does it not have the D'addario nylon core ones? The cheapest Ibanez (PNB something or other, stupid Ibanez and their stupid names) has them on from factory, can't imagine much else working with that scale tbh. I briefly had one but mine was very badly finished, seems like an isolated incident from what other owners said though. If you send the HB back keep an eye out for a used Ibanez AVN parlour bass, they're excellent.

Red River Rock - Johnny and The Hurricanes

As the non rock n roll bassist, I also sing, but I sing in classical choirs - choral societies and chamber choirs... The nearest I usually get to modern music is arrangements for choir of American Song Book stuff. I sing baritone (roughly the two octaves up from the F at the bottom of the bass clef). I'm a very experienced singer and I've been chair of various groups over the years - I know how they run. Anyway, for the last year I've been singing with a local choral society. They have a number of problems.... They have an MD with an inflated ego and it looks like the committee aren't up to challenging him. They don't have a separate accompanist, which is a major hindrance. The main issue though is the tenor and bass sections are weak. The basic cause is a lack of younger voices. At 65 I'm younger than any of the tenors by a large margin and I'm the second youngest bass... None of the other first basses (baritones) is strong which means I feel as though I'm always leading the line. This is where a good MD comes in and works to get people singing out. It makes rehearsals very tough going for me. I have to be on point all the time as if I'm not there's just nothing there. If I go off the rails, which happens (it's easy to come in a third too low or something) I've got no way of fixing it as there's no one else there. If this were a vocal consort with just three or four voices to a part, then that's a different thing, but this is supposed to be a 60+ member choral society. The current repertoire in rehearsal includes complex 8 part a cappella stuff. I've sung all of this repertoire before, so it's stuff I'm aware of. It's obvious that most of this stuff is new to most of the choir who've not sung this rep before. I pushed back to the MD a couple of weeks ago and told him this isn't working. He was very dismissive although words were said at the next rehearsal where it was evident I'd had some impact... The next rehearsal was hopeless. You would never know that there were 9 basses. It's supposed to be fun and this has become hard going. The choir just isn't up to this repertoire (don't get me started on sopranos unable to maintain pitch in the a cappella numbers). I've called it a day.

It’s not a huge problem. I am lazy and I don’t like change. The pink bass I have does everything I need and has done for 5 years. I think I’ve used it for 40 gigs a year for 5 years all with the same strings.

We don't have access to the village hall the night before so we will setup in the morning. I'll have access from around 0830 and will start putting tables out from then, for a circa 0930 start. I'm at a rugby club end of season presentation the night before but am driving so will be sober. There is no definitive start time though, but I'll be there from 0830. We'll set up tables for everyone we know is coming.

It touches which other tuning peg?

Marshall MB 15 is also worth considering if you see one.

I am not sure if Ed played that bass 3 hours/day 20 years. There’s couple of basses in my warehouse too I haven’t touched for 20 years.

There are plenty of options out there. A GruvGear GigBlade bag stands up to a Mono bag. Get one secondhand if you want to keep costs down.

What sort of time are proceedings likely to get under way, do we reckon?

I previously recounted the tale of my Vigier Excess on here - despite An Post’s best efforts to mess things up, Ishibashi went above and beyond to make sure the bass arrived with me safely. I’d not hesitate to order from them again.

I have not encountered increasing tuning stability problem with aging strings You mention. Anyway it should be logical as metal weakens under stress.Yes, loving Your strings is a bit of a problem if You break a string.😉

Ed Friedland famously has La Bella’s that are over 20 years old.

It's "forever", isn't it?

Red Water - Type O Negative

Red Rain - Peter Gabriel

Phrases such as: 1. Always had it. 2. You must have forgotten the colour, its always been bright silver 3. it was so cheap, it would have cost money not to buy it. 4. I sold some other stuff so its actually cost nothing welcome rob

All in you've made quite a lot of changes to how you play these days Lozz. I've had a set of the Elixir steels on my Warwick Thumb for over 12 yrs now and they still sound ok. TBH i only play it in the house on rare occasions. My gigging basses will get approx 6mths to a year before i notice the tone rolling off. I need to try the steels on my VM4 to see if they sound any different. Dave

Are we looking at the same bass? 😆 I can see what looks like a standard Rickenbacker, two pickups, chrome hardware.

White willows - Kadabra

I love the sound of my flat wounds and I have done 50 or more gigs with mine. What I do find is that the longer you had them, the more frequently you need to tune them. Ultimately, I love my bass and the strings, so will change when they break or drop out of tune during a song!

Pussy Willow - Jethro Tull

Yep, I tend to go for Vans myself, except that I tie the shoelaces! I used to wear Converse but, even though they are undoubtedly the coolest option for urban footwear, unfortunately they are too narrow for my feet...!

You’re exactly right😀