Leaderboard

As some of you know, by now I've had a fairly long journey in search of the Warwick bass that really works for me. I started out with a cheap passive Corvette with ash body (and slightly twisted neck it turned out), then moved that on in part exchange for a Thumb bolt-on, which was frankly great and was sold here only because I wanted to try the NT version and @Cosmo Valdemar was turning 40 at the right time. I then had Thumb NT5 for a while, but I realised my use of the 5th string is very limited and I don't like the string spacing, so on we go. Having just sold that bass to @Homelander, today I picked up a Warwick Thumb from ‘88 in great condition. The neck feels completely different from the previous models I've had and it's generally quite light and well balanced. The previous owner swapped the original EMG pickups with EMG JAX, but everything else looks original, based on very helpful advice from @Kev @DrDrill and @warwickhunt. All my previous Wicks had MEC so I can't compare them exactly but the sound is very punchy and clear. The only thing left now is to decide whether to swap the gold hardware for black, but this one is not leaving me any time soon!

On the difficulty scale of juggling both singing and playing Mark King even if we like slapping or not.

Am I the only one looking at this thinking the colours not particularly bold (apart from the shell pink) or particularly bright (apart from the shell pink)? Especially when placed next to the bold, bright text...

Esperanza Spalding. Meshell Ndegeocello

Agree, "bold and bright" immediately made me think of this recently released bass

Edit: 25/09/2024 For anyone visiting this thread now, I just want to inform you that Laurence passed away on 17th December 2023. I made a post on this thread at that time which can be found here: End Edit Hello everyone, My name is Matt and my dad is Laurence Canty. I have so many beautiful memories from the little pubs of Lancaster (UK) where he played with the local trad' jazz bands. Eventually he started his own band here in Lancaster called Quay Change. They peddled "modern?" jazz to the local area - weddings, university balls, and such like etc. He is perhaps best-known for his book Electric Bass Guitar, The Complete Guide which has had various titles and versions since it's inception around 1974. There was also a significant stint as lecturer(?) of bass guitar at Goldsmiths. He took over this post from Mo Foster! He taught me how to play bass guitar from about 12 years old. I remember long lessons spent on the correct pressure to apply to the strings. Unfortunately, he has mid-to-late Dementia. He still remembers significant amounts of his life however he suffers delusions and logic completely escapes him. He is in an a sad situation but the fact he can remember his life makes it all the more important that I gather stories sooner rather than later. I am looking for anyone who may know anything about him. You may have been his private pupil. You may have found his book and found it to be advantageous? You may have played gigs with him in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s or 10s and have something you remember about him? I am ultimately looking for the bass communities' experience of my dad. I'd love to see stories, photographs, videos or simply a memory of the way he was way back when. I'll be seeing him tomorrow. We'll probably talk about coffee and music, as we always do.

Randy Meisner - good call. Assuming we're talking about bassists who sing lead or bass-playing frontmen I have been known to admire the work of: Sting Lemmy Phil Lynott Macca Geddy Jack Bruce Greg Lake Suzi Quatro Gene Simmons Rick Danko Benjamin Orr (The Cars) Burke Shelley Brian Wilson and for his ethereal harmony vocals, Mr Timothy Schmitt.

Had this for a while actually, but forgot to NBD it! My poor SUB, always being the base for my graphite related tinkering, after having previously had a fretted Status neck and then being returned to its OG neck for a while, I thought it would be time to experiment once more. After wanting to buy a fretless and absolutely loving the tone a fretless ray gets, I'll be ashamed to admit it took me a while to realise that I didn't have to go and buy a whole new Musicman and could just change the neck on my SUB! A fair amount of money later, this was the end result. Now, It might just be the most resonant instrument I've ever had. The whole body and neck vibrate to an incredible level (even the tech who did the work commented, stating it was probably the most resonant instrument he had worked on) and although this might not be everybody's bag, the amount of mwah out of the graphite neck is off the scale - It absolutely *sings* Tonally, with 40-95 Flatwounds, the graphite just adds to that Musicman growl. It's an incredibly pokey instrument with the tone wide open, but roll it back, and there is a lovely, soft, warmth to be had, with total articulation. I'd describe it as a live 'studio' tone. The neck profile is the typical Status (what I'd term) flat 'D'. Narrower front to back than the stock Musicman profile, with stronger 'shoulders' but the same width. I'm not going to say it's better or worse as that sort of thing is totally down to preference. I went for lightweight, black Musicman tuners to set off the whole 'dark' vibe, which had the added result of making the bass a little lighter. Thanks for listening to my mini ramble/review, I'm off to go get my Pino on! *Stomps on OC-5*

The blocks ARE what I like about these. Sets them apart from the hundreds of other standard P basses out there...

Sting absolutely has to be at the top of the list for me.

If @Hellzero sees this he's going to go on a rampage and kill all humans...

Just received my second Sandy from BTM guitars in Germany. I’m actually a bit in awe at the quality of the woodwork, finish and hardware. the bass wasn’t outrageously expensive at all (considerably cheaper than a stingray or US professional fender) and it has the fit and feel of a premium instrument. I’m not into fancy wood finishes or too much glitz or crazy electronics but I really like the wood on this bass. I think the single MM pup in the sweet spot and 3 band EQ is the perfect set up. Enough versatility but not enough to cause option paralysis. It nails that stingray punch but the 3 band eq seems a lot more practical (I’ve owned a 3 band MM in the past). I had a small jam with it tonight and every note rings clear and is really well defined. Looking forward to some serious gigging with this bass.

A minor modification to help with my incompetence. Luminlay fret markers. I had them fitted by a local luthier. He's done a beautiful job, perfectly flush and in daylight you'd struggle to see that they're not just the original dots.

He got stung

There is no reason why a punter should know or care about what bass you use. If they do, it is likely to start and finish with Fender, the older looking the better. What punters are very good at, is comparing what your band sounds and looks like compared to the band they saw the other week. If you were to ask regular punters who know nothing about gear or playing who the best local bands are, you will find that they generally get it right! Band leaders just want you to turn up with great sounding gear that is suitable for the gig. If you want to give them confidence at the audition / first gig then turn up with a decent bass / gear.

No one has mentioned Glenn Hughes - a tendency to perhaps oversing at times, but what a voice and a good bass player as well...

I’d add Alan Gorrie to the list as well - loved the AWB when he and Hamish swapped lead vocals and bass duties.

Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins both led their own bands and did the lead vocals. Looking at who everyone else has been mentioned, against general perception there are a helluva lot of bassists that are band leaders/front men and not some anonymous bloke lurking among the amps.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the greatest singing, bass playing, rock god ever. David Paton.

I'd add Hamish Stuart to the list - he used to play bass occasionally, Still does, in fact. Martin Turner, also.

James Dewar

Our local, the Quicksilver Mail, regularly has a band in consisting of a number of post-Stackridge guys. The bass player turns up with a full all valve Ampeg stack and a vintage Jazz. I thought “wow, he must be good”. The funny thing is, me and my wife really do run the cattery down the road!

Time for an update! Since the last iteration I've lost the Looper (nah.... useful at home but not on stage); gone full digital with the effects; added a 3 way switch to the Morningstar; bought a Peterson because xmas work bonus 🙂 Tuner > C4 > Aftershock > Flashback > Mercury > HPF > Comp (always on 4:1). Morningstar MC6 MkII > MIDI 5 pin out > Neuro hub. Source Audio pedals connect to Hub using the usual SA TRRS cables (which are waaay too long for my board). Strobostomp HD: wanted to lose the buffer on the Boss (because the average pub really notices the difference!) and be able to store a bunch of different tunings. So this lets my cycle through them using the +/- buttons, and each has a different colour. It's far more tuner than 99% of users inc. me could possibly need. I use the DC out to power a Looper at home when I want to set up sounds. C4: Still love it. It's everything I need from a synth, filters and octaves are great. We know all this by now 🙂 Aftershock: A revelation! The tube drive is EXACTLY what I was looking for, and you can cop (at least) 90% of any dirt or fuzz sound you can think of. Despite the C4 being able to cop a nice muff, this is a worthy addition. Flashback: Using this for some slapback e.g. Folsom Prison Blues style thumpers; some longer delays for the odd pretty moment! Would love to go MIDI but cost outweighs benefit given my minimal usage. Mercury: Love this. Chorus, Phase, Flange, Vibe. Cut the lows or keep the lows. Great EQ section. The 12 Stage Phaser is awesome - add that to a juicy synth for "look at me!!" intros. HPF: No-one should be without one, really. Happier speaker cones ahoy! Keeley: 😍 If I could only keep one pedal (I'd cry like a baby) it would be this one. It just compresses your bass according to how you set it.... and that's it. No noise, drama, signal loss, distortion - just compression. It's always on, and I go at it quite hard on a shade over 4:1 ratio. Helps when the C4 starts chucking out mountains of bass too. Morningstar MC6 MkII + Hub: if your MIDI device supports it, and you can think it, this can most likely do it. Bank 1 (Home) is Core sounds: Page 1 filter, drive, octave, phase; Page 2 synths. Then many Song banks. Then generic banks for drives, octaves, filters, chorus etc, synths. And a browse / toggle bank for when I'm setting up sounds, auditioning new presets etc. I still address the C4 with CC commands, but now have a range of PC assigned on the Hub to: Mercury; Aftershock; Mercury + Aftershock. So on the MC I click new preset, add in the "engage preset" commands I want from my CC and PC User Library and there you go - any combo of sounds you like. The 3 way switch changes banks, toggles pages within a bank and lets me tap midi clock tempo in. Top-right preset on both pages of every bank does: (Double-tap) Jump to next batch of banks; (Long Press) Jump to Bank 1 (go Home). Still need to properly add in my expression pedal i.e. target mapped MIDI parameters per pedal with dedicated Expression Presets per MC Bank. This eats the guitarist friendly MIDI controller competition as a mere snack. Putting the hours in means you can completely create the sound switching environment that you want, on your terms. It's stupidly powerful. And bought one of those nice Brother P-Touch label printer thingies obvs.

Phil Lynott.

TC Electronic Spark Booster. Not just saying that because I’m selling one, it’s cos it hits the nail exactly on the head of what you describe - do a search on T***bass for opinions on it.

I just thought I may as well add a little thread about the much talked about Tech 21 VT 500. I had been tinkering with valve amps, longing for the warmth and grind that only tubes can give you - or can they? I tried an Ashdown Little Bastard but didn't like it as the tone is very limited. Next was a little stubby which was better but still oddly lacking. Next in was an Eden E300T which was much more like it but then I got tempted by a Laney Nexus 400w tube (all the while the internal walls were starting to deteriorate with the increase in grown up watts). The Eden had to go as the tonal options from the Laney are amazing - as it is itself. However I do find that I need to tinker with the controls for different basses; my 1980 Rick, my Shuker jazz and my bitsa P bass. Needing instant tonal gratification I decided to try the Tech21 VT500 and at £250 for a 500w 3kg head why not? It is fantastic and to such an extent that the other amps are going on the market (including my Eden Metro combo). All 3 of the basses sound brilliant through it without being processed or sounding the same and without having to alter any settings. They each retain their own character which is always a worry with a vintage Rick going through modern amps. The controls are really nifty too. The character dials from flip top to typical SVT to the left and to a fiery driven modern sound to the right (not for me thanks....) The 3 band eq is powerful too, being active you get boost and cut. The drive control is nicely controllable but it's the bite that adds that little extra that cuts through the mix. there's also a blend control to mix dry signal with processed signal. I'm pairing it with a highly efficient Barefaced cab so the 500w at 4 ohms is plenty. All in all it has all the zing I like, it doesn't need much to get a wonderful tone, it weighs 6 pounds and is astonishingly good value for money.

The quartet of Mother's Milk, BSSM, One Hot Minute and Californication are sublime. I've bought every other album as they have come out but nothing they have done since Californication has grabbed me at all. BSSM is perfect, though. It's genuinely a flawless album.

My OCD has a major problem with the siting of your amp not being equidistant from each side of the cab

Absolutely stunning. Leave the gold, I say!

I had this many moons ago. It was pretty damn amazing!

It's so easy to get pulled in to the whole "Deep" thing! I went through a very unhappy period of working it to death- modding cabs, hauling cumbersome gear around. It was pretty liberating to discover I didn't need anything special to play reggae. I use a hpf as a permanent part of my rig now, and pull down the mids with a lot of harmonic content (most of them, lol) out of my signal for the reggae band. I leave a touch of highs just to get a little definition to my attack, maybe pull the tone knob on my bass back a bit. I keep my touch light, play up closer to the neck with my right hand. I pretty much never boost the bass. Don't mean to "give a lesson", here! Just to say that getting the tone is probably something you can do with what you already have, or most good sounding modern cabs out there. I mean, really, most of us have gone through enough gear-hounding to have probably landed something that sounds pretty good... I'm as guilty as anyone...

Being oiled human league

Yes, things got quite badly out of hand for a while. I sort of went stereo. A bit of order restored now, though the sight of a lovely rack pre makes me go a bit weak.

No kidding!

I did the separate pre/power thing before and would happily do it again. I had a Trace GP12SMX pre (my favourite preamp ever) and a Soundtech class D power amp, gave me the basic Trace sound at a much lighter weight. It'd be fun to have two very different pre's in the rack and make up a foot-switching system between them. Mmmm... got me thinking now...

In a nutshell. If you care more about what others think about the name on the headstock then you need to have a word with yourself.

The Sire P5 is a straight up passive Precision. The P7 is the one with the EQ. I really like the look of the sea foam green P5.

I use an EBS HD350 head with an EBS ProLine 410 as my main amp for rehearsals, but I gig with a 19" preamp straight to the desk. In my rack are an Ampeg SVP-CL and an SVP-Pro, both brilliant tube preamps with the classic Ampeg tone. The CL is the preamp section of the SVT Classic in a 1HE housing, and the Pro is the preamp section of the SVT2 Pro in a 1HE space with the graphic EQ and a drive section. I also have an SWR Grand Prix (Prix / Pre, get it? ) which is very nice but which has some slight issues. I have barely used it since getting it, it needs some love and needs to get used more!

My Bogart finally arrived. Very happy how it turned out.

I would look at the MIJ Squier in the classifieds (400 quid) and use that as your starting point. Importantly, the nut width is correct.

All of the above and ME, for just one sweet memorable night! I could never play anything other than root note wonders when inflicting my singing voice on to the world but... During the brief period that I was playing 5-6 gigs a week and doing nothing else for a living, I found myself singing like a canary ( albeit one that sounds like a foghorn!), and flailing my fingers up and down the fretboard like some Geddy Lee tribute act. One memorable night, in The Courtyard Cabaret Bar (true story!) I was dutifully ploughing through a cover of Lyin' Eyes ( takes up 6+ mins ...handy for filling out the set 😉 ) and during "my verse" I found myself thinking about the bass line and how I could change it next time around AND what I could have for supper when I got home! THREE things all at the same time... I have never been so proud. 😎 Of course I am now back to only being able to play Down Down by Quo whilst warbling backing vocals these days but, you'll never take my moment of glory away from me. P.S. My absolute favourite is ( sadly was) Burke Shelley.👍

I'm not really good enough on bass to give advice from a bass technical point of view.. it's a second instrument. Musically, Charlie Parker's phrasing is where most of the beauty is, I'd recommend slowing it down until you can really get into his feel and duplicate it when playing along then gradually speed it up, even going a bit past the original tempo. You could forget the bass at first and just sing along, or even tap the rhythm, before taking it to the bass. A lot of blues and history has gone into what he's playing so don't worry if it doesn't fit into a binary definition of straight vs swung.. forget about all that, just keep listening to get 100% into what he's playing, that's all it is.. absorbing, internalising and replicating. Software like Amazing Slow Downer lets you loop sections and slow them down, even a couple of bars at a time, then work up the tempo. If you work on smaller chunks and really internalise how he's playing, like a couple of bars at a time, it'll pay off when you join it all together. Just bear in mind if you're doing this and slow it down a lot, there tend to be 'gears' of swung 8ths feel... so slowing down recordings with uptempo swung 8ths will very likely have a different feel to how it'd actually be played if it was a tune at that slower tempo. And give yourself enough time, Dave Liebman recommends around 50 hours per transcription, being able to sing it perfectly alongside the recording then play it. Good luck Caroline

A hat and/or a gilet. I've had cold hands and Reynard's since my teens and get stiff hands or white fingers at the slightest trigger. While gloves and hand warmers work well, I found that by far the best thing is to keep the rest of me warm. If the body is warm then it doesn't pull the circulation from the extremities to try to reduce heat loss.

Turmeric with curcumin helps - needs a month before you see a difference in arthritis also ask your GP if there is a hand clinic at your local hospital-I had a tendon loosening operation on my right hand wrist which took away all tingling, chills and numbness instantly -op took ten minutes under local anaesthetic