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Our Youngest wanted to play bass, but expressed desire for a fiver to start with. I got him a Cort fiver, but very shortly after, I got my six-string fretless. He nabbed it, and has played pretty well nothing else since. He now assures the bass for all of our repertoire, with apparent ease. Yes, one can start on a fiver, or a sixer, or even a fretless. It's the motivation that counts for most, I reckon. Just my tuppence-worth.

Chris Potter’s “Song for Anyone” Avishai Cohen’s “Seven Seas” Kenny Wheeler’s “Music for large & small ensembles” I’m grateful that others have mentioned albums I would also like to have mentioned, thanks @Bo0tsy!

Well our toilet went crazy yesterday afternoon The plumber he said ‘never flush a tampon’ This great information cost me half a week’s pay And the toilet blew up later on the next day Frank Zappa

A couple of white ones... An old white Ric. An RPG doubleneck.

And still no one has mentioned Joni Mitchell. The amount of good music in the world is mind-blowing, which is why I find it astonishing when people spend so much time listening to absolute shite. (I’m not referring to anything or anyone mentioned above, just to be clear.)

As I said, these are 3 of my real favourites. I just have more than 3. The Chris Potter album I listened to 3 times daily for three months solid when I got it. The AC album not quite as much but it wasn’t far off. And “Kind Folks” off the KW album is a melody that still makes me weep when I even think about it. Also, I thought that part of the point was to get a list of stuff that people ought to listen to. Therefore mentioning albums already mentioned seemed counterproductive. (Twist my arm and I might replace KW with “Mothership Connection” though. I remember dancing around my living room with my infant son in my arms the first time I heard that album.)

Rose has gone back to France; she was only here as an au pear.

I don't know the seller, but just spotted this in the marketplace. MB do warm vintage better than many of the lightweights and it looks to be in very nice shape. Worth a look? -

Scott Devine has done an excellent couple of reviews on transitioning to 5 and 6 string basses.The fiver one is here - don't worry about the title, its just to get people watching. And if you have 500 notes, I'd seriously look at the Sire range before moving on to any other lines.

@meltedbuzzbox, where are you based? I can heartily recommend a trip to Bass Direct in Leamington Spa, as well as the Bass Gallery and Wunjo Guitars in London. They’re all likely to have the Stingrays in stock, as well as a number of other options for comparison.

Main differences were the P34 sounded a touch brighter and nice and aggressive but not a lot in it tbh. The pickup blend obviously lends a different feature to overall sound which although more nuanced, I'm a man of simple tastes and quite like the simplicity of the switch (even though I know the switch has its problems). The knobs felt nice and solid, neck felt great to me, I'm a big fan of the bb neck dimensions in general. The main problem I had was that the P34 wasn't set up very well, very high action and it felt pretty unplayable as it was. So probably not a fair comparison because a decent setup might have changed my opinion. And when I picked up and played the 2024x, I felt I was home :-) action was way better, much easier to play, neck is beautiful with lovely grain. I should have spent longer comparing but I had a train to catch lol but in short for nearly £1700 for the bb P34, it's a shame it wasn't better setup as it will certainly affect players' impressions when trialling in the shop....it did for me. But I was pleased it made me look at the bb2024x ?

Best is to get along to a shop and try a few. Stick with it too, maybe take a lesson or two off an experienced teacher. A 5 string is as much about the positional benefits it offers as it is the extra 5 notes. I can never understand why people take a 4 and a 5 to gigs. Unless the 4 gives something the 5 doesn’t ie fretless or other distinctive sound, just use the 5.

You know what we’re like, once we start it’s hard to stem the flow.

Well, less effort than getting your money for nothing!

It'll probably feel like it....

As someone who doesn't like tweeters for bass, I'd say not at all important. But then, that's just my preference. Which brings me to the original question. Our tastes vary widely and what suits us may well not suit you. Good though they are, Barefaced (seemingly a universal recommendation on here - I wonder how many of those who sing their praises actually own/use them) and similar more modern flavoured cabs are relatively unlikely to satisfy your desire for "warm vintage tone". However, something like an old SVT 4x10, which will do that job well, is a pig to move around by comparison. So don't listen to us. Visit a few shops, go to a few shows and try some stuff out.

It's 90 per cent guitar but if you like trudging around gear and getting in on that sort of vibe, it's not actually a bad show.

Good luck with it, Life's too short to fall out.

Here's mine - bought on here a few years ago.

The Tangenitals

This thread has made me realise that I haven't bought a contemporary album all year I've mostly been buying King Crimson's back catalogue and old jazz albums. I think I need to revisit Santa's list! (but the Primus and Prophet's of Rage are both good shouts!)

been playing in original bands since 1980. Yep, made no money, played to far call people, but I enjoy it more than making a bit more money playing to a few more people, playing songs I hate. That's the choice we have to make. I'm happy with the one I made. In the old days we used to pad out 3 sets with covers, but now it's more of a 3 original bands on a bill deal so we all play our best 45 minutes worth of OUR songs. Yeah it'd be fun to play in front of 400 dancing chicky babes, but I'd be playing Katy Perry songs.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHWp6x24yRM This and pretty much everything else by Half Man Half Biscuit around that time. ‘Life changing’ lyrics for me and my mates, in that they made us realise songs didn’t have to be deep and meaningful, and could instead just be about stupid, mundane stuff. Totally transformed the music we were writing at the time - probably for the worse in hindsight! - and took our teenage garage band in a totally new direction, which led to loads fun. “Would you mind, dear sir, if I asked you a question? If music be the food of love, are you the indigestion?” ...and: "Frank was going through a state of depression in his bedroom When he reached out for the jar He swallowed every last pill and he lay back on his duvet A Haliborange overdose is perhaps not the right way" ...at a time when Bono et al were singing songs that we were supposed to take seriously. So it was the perfect tonic to all that '80s self importance. I hear a lot of Half Man Half Biscuit in what the Sleaford Mods are doing now. Another band who I think have broken the mould at just the right time.

If I wasn't getting myself a fretless for Christmas, I suspect my first fiver would be on it's way. This has to be one of the bargains of the year.

... (Face palm...)

I was passing yamaha store London the other day, thought i'd see what was in. I tried the bb P34. I went in for the B734a - they didn't have any in that day so I can't comment on how hey compare. The p34 had a good feel and sounded great. It probably needed a set up though. I was surprised that I missed the curved thumb rest in the the top of the P-pickup that's on the previous BB. A really minor change but I've just gotten so used to it on my 1024x. So for comparison I went and tried a BB2024x......I love the look of the 2024x versus the new ones (although the black 734a is ??), it was obviously familiar in feel as I have a 1024x. But it was just great, and the quality was amazing. It's a classic and I just thought I'd be sad if I never owned one.....cue moment of madness. It arrives Tuesday ?

Without taking anything away from Jaco (I am a big fan and adore his Weather Report era) I actually do find it very annoying that nobody ever wants to mention the contribution that the Welshman Percy Jones made during the same era with his fretless bass playing. His playing on Brian Eno's "Another green world" from 1975 is astounding, groundbreaking and it is blatantly obvious that he had a big impact upon the subsequent work of Mick Karn. In many ways his playing was in many ways more expansive and exploratory than Jaco ever was. Jaco stumbled across Percy in person once in the states (what are the odds?) and overheard him practicing...and was apparently completely blown away by his playing I remember the affect Percy's astounding bass work on the Brand X LP "Masques" had on me as a young player. As a British bassist he is criminally underrated in my opinion.

beautiful stuff. This is a 62-98. The same principle as your bass but in 62 RI. CTS , NITRO , Fullerton Pickup

Blue Maqams by Anouar Brahem.

Afternoon all, Well it happened didn't it. After much thinking and pondering I decided that with a bass as valuable (for me anyway) as the AB1, I'd be too precious with it and not want to use it out the house. So I set about getting a combustion. After a few emails and a phone call to Mark at bass direct, I put down my first payment on my first Dingwall. Really looking forward to playing it and can't wait for its arrival, but I think the AB1 will do me very nicely. Yep, irrespective of my own logic I went for the AB1. Heres the spec: AB1 5/3 candy cola finish maple board 3 pickup model Active preamp dual density ash body Dingwall USA strings Dingwall gigbag

This is such a stretch that it starts to resemble goalpost moving - deliberate or otherwise. I don't know whether joking is involved or whether this is to be taken seriously, and a any rate, I'm not gonna discuss this further. Sparked by this post, however, allow me to talk about some concepts. LONG POST WARNING: MOST PEOPLE SHOULD NOT NEED TO READ THIS. See, I already sense/understand that this post is gonna be way too long, and only part of that has to do with me struggling to be brief in a foreign language. My apologies. Also, I'm not writing anything that I do not assume is general knowledge. It's just that some posts in this thread make it seem necessary to remind some people of some things. Apologies, again. Anyway, Bassman7755, in his very own words, said: In other words: he is able to judge that I lack social calibration. He's possibly right, and me defending myself is not why I use his text here. The point however is: WHY can he judge this? Because he himself is socially calibrated on a higher level. In his choice of wording, one of the unspoken premises in the whole enthymeme-like construction is that people have social calibration on different levels. Bassman7755 happily is one of the people who can judge that people like me (or me only) operate on a lower level. Now, I'm fine with this. I'm just about resourceful enough to realise that I'm a far-from-perfect being, and my social calibration is mixed. I do not agree with his assessment entirely though, supported by my happy experiences in the area, but I do accept that at least I should've worded more carefully and empathetically. BTW, when I used McCartney as an example, I honestly was unaware that that name was even mentioned already, and mentioned even by Bassman7755 in the same post I quoted. I naively used the name in expectation of people mentioning McCartney later. I'm truly sorry about that aspect of my post that Bassman7755 reacted to, and would have worded more sensitively had I remembered that Bassman7755 has used the name. I only had noticed him mentioning Kate Bush. But at any rate, Bassman7755 himself seems to accept the very concept that is at play here: Some people are better equipped than others in different areas. Some are better equipped than others to judge aspects about others. My neighbour judged that I had no talent at football. He was right. But if I'd shown any talent, then we'd probably need someone else than my neighbour to judge exactly how far I could go in my football career. In most or all aspects of life there are certain statistical distributions, and a startling amount of those distributions roughly follow the Gauss curve (standard distribution). This would for example mean that only few people function on a bottom level and very few on a top level - the easiest example being that few people have an IQ below 50, and roughly equally few have one above 150. Most people are less than a standard deviation away from average. As to being musically talented, without going into theoretical debates about what it is and is not, but just going by the regular term as we tend to use it, those that are least talented musically, either just have no relationship to music, or they only like the least demanding forms of it, and more demanding forms of music are deemed to be noise or similar. That non-demanding music is still easy to judge by others who're higher up on the staircase. The rest gives itself. The more advanced the music, the fewer people are able to create it or appreciate it. Theoretically, only one person at the top is able to appreciate all existing music and to create that stuff. In real life of course it doesn't work exactly that way. Oh yes, I hear voices in my head, Bassman7755's voice amongst others, but bear with me: What music can become very popular, and what music can become popular classics that we hear on the radio decade after decade? By definition it's the music that large groups in society can appreciate (not too demanding) and at the same time: that will not bore them easily. That last part is essential as it is there some of the quality lies.The quality does not often lie in the three chord harmonic development. Are those popular classics written by highly talented people? Very often: yes. Sometimes: no. Burt Bacharach and The Beatles are certainly highly talented, but others exist as well who just are not. Are they written by the one, single most musically talented musician of all time? Not very likely. Why not? Because that person very likely showed talent at an early age, and got this talent developed. That person would experience popular music as demanding little, and also as giving little, and would turn his/her brain to other music - music that is not only food of love, but also food for brain. Mozart at an early age could write much more well-constructed, well-flowing and error-free music than most of us can ever dream of, and since he only developed upwards despite his life style and general lack of Bach-like driving forces. In all likeliness, the one single most musically talented person of all time, unlike the many highly talented people of more regular shape who write popular classics, is in the group of people who are somewhere in that ivory tower that many people hate, where new concepts are created, and the borders of what can be art are moved. Bach conservatively stayed within that old baroque music, but at the same time let it go on paths where no music had gone before. If you know your stuff, the gap between Bach and Vivaldi is enormous! (I may earlier have written about how Bach and Vivaldi react differently when a certain chord/voice sequence brings the music to steeper, narrower paths with higher danger level.) As an example of what I'm on about: In the eighties, I heard two interviews. One was with a highly respected Norwegian folk music player. The other was with B.B. King. Both in all essence said the very same thing: "People always ask me what music inspires me, and what rocks my boat. But at my level, what I love, and what inspires me, is not the same stuff that the people who love my music love, and when I answer, they always respond: "But that isn't even blues anymore" / "That isn't even folk music anymore!". But it is blues/folk music! It just is more demanding, and it's appreciated by the likes of me - not by the masses who love my music." There! B.B. King said it, so it must be true even though I said it too. I'm sure I wrote some unnecessary stuff and forgot some essential stuff, but I'm quitting now. Again, I apologise for the length and for the low speed in the thought development area. I know some people on BC could have said the same in one sentence. I can't. I've started and deleted an answer many times, and have also thought many times I'd delete the whole thing written above. But I didn't. I just hope it's of service to one or two people.

Free beer.

Find another £100 and get this

the name does not matter, pick a word , use it. People learn your name, if they like you. Lots of bands with awesome names never made it, lots of bands with rubbish names made it. The name is irrelevant

You can buy direct yes. Bergantino are also very much looking at ways to get them in to the UK, so certainly aren't forgetting about everyone else round the world - so hopefully there will be some news on that soon. Having experience with the B|Amp, knowing what I know now, yes I would most certainly import. I am a fan! I've not tried the Forte yet, but I would love to get one in to the magazine for a full video review.

Currently; Charles Mingus - Blues and Roots Ray LaMontagne - Trouble Bob Marley - Survival

Difficult to choose just three, but I never tire of these....some of the funkiest happiest make you dance music ever... Parliament: "Mothership Connection" Bootsy's Rubber Band... "Stretchin' Out In... " or "Ahh..The Name is Bootsy Baby!" (can't choose!) James Brown: "Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang" Just outside of the top three (for today at least!) : Stevie Wonder "Songs In the Key of Life" Roy Ayers "Destination Motherland" Isaac Hayes "Black Moses" Funkadelic "One Nation Under A Groove" Parliament "Funkentelechy vs the Placebo Syndrome" Bootsy: "Player of the Year" and "World Wide Funk" Erykah Badu "Mama's Gun"

Yes, Tech21 pairs very nicely with the TH500 - I used to have the TH500 and paired it with a regular Sansamp Bass Driver, all EQ set flat, so essentially getting the Sansamp flavouring added to the EQ of the TH500. For an idea of how this sounds, check out the vid below, that`s what I used to get that sound. As Danny says I now use the Para Driver, which gives me the same sound but all in one box.

All three have been mentioned before but not in by the same person... Pearl Jam, Ten Guns n Roses, Appetite for Destruction Paul Simon, Graceland

Miles Davis - A Tribute to Jack Johnson. Chicago Transit Authority ("Chicago's" 1st album). Revolutionary Blues Band (Tom Scott).

Wow, the "bassiest" of bassists. How much more bassiest can you get? None, none more bassiest.

In recent years I’ve had the TC RH460, Aguilar TH500 and now with the Darkglass 900. The Aggie was a definite uplift on the TC, although the fan noise was a bit announcement . Now, I’m totally sold on the Darkglass. Great build quality and looks, lightweight, bundles of power and a great tone paired with my Vanderkley LNT210. I dial in just a little overdrive and it gives a great sound. Whilst all the video ad’s show the head being used for metal, I’m playing soul and funk and it gives me a great sound and exactly what I’ve been looking for.

Hi mate I think it's likely to be the 3/4th March but haven't heard about tickets yet. We'll offer a Basschat discount so we'll announce it when we know.