marcus bell

my set up is very easy to do these days as i go straight from bass into zoom b2 then into headphone so its as simple as boosting the bass and treble on my jaydee full and cutting the mid slightly. And the slight adjustments on the pedal to give me a titchy amount of reverb and chorus and eq messing around i click both the jaydees pickups on for slap and click back for the fingerstyle pieces. My squier jazz bass fretless is usually run with the bridge pickup solo'd and the tone on halfway this gives it a real jaco sound and just sounds lush. The precision is run with everything up and eq tweaking on the pedal including a slightly dirty drive feel, not fuzzy in any way just a kind of valvy sound. And the eq is bass up almost full low mids quite high mid dipped slightly high mids dipped slightly treble boosted lightly. The violin bass is run completely flat to preserve its natural character. The status is run with the bridge pickup almost solo'd the treble up full and eq adjustments made on the pedal im getting a laptop soon and the tc electronics desktop thingy so that will allow me to record some stuff im also getting a squier jazz bass vintage modified fretlted so ill have all the tones i need, the jaydee slappy mark king sound also great as a solo insttrukent and a great all rounder many tones available and can do a great jaco impersanation. Fretless jazz for the jaco moments and just great to mess around on and when your feeling different. Precision bass for a great 70's sound just sounds perfect on forget me nots by patrice rushen and the smiths stuff the status for when i want to sound like a dead piece of plastic, not my thing soundwise think its poor but playability wise its lovely and my fretted jazz soon for an amazing all rounder and so versatile for my u2 stuff that im watching check out thee vertigo tour dvd which is fantastic i cant stop watching it...and marcus! x

looks excellent buddy like the look of that three pickup jaydee... Ive decided that im going to have a jaydee made next year im either going to go one way or another with it, either stay witht the classic jaydee look of a series 1 in white or of course cherry red love it my dad has one and i also have a 1980 jaydee roadie active 2 which is one of two in the world with a cetral stripe so i am informed the other one is on a jaydee leaflet the only difference on that one is it has a squared body like my dads series 1 and mark kings cherry red jaydees's the other direction which i am considering taking is to get a series 4 jaydee with a quilted maple top. 32 inch scale front leds and then get side ones added later...a custome string spacing between 16.5mm which i loved on the kingbass mk2 and that of a jaydee or jazz bass which is 19 so 17 would be great. And i might get stars on the neck not too sure yet aswell as getting the top stained red whilst leaving the sides and back natural....sounds excellent has anyone got any pictures of the series 4? X

hi everyone ive been posting on here for a while now but this is my first project bass so good times! So here we go ive just traded my ashdown head and cab for a few things and this was part of the deal...a precision bass copy with a fretted and also a fretless neck ive got my squier jazz bass modified so thats all the fretless ill ever need its perfect, so anyways this bass when i got it was natural with a rosewood board and a fender style bridge and an emg select pickup and a pearrl pickguard its also got a smallish headstock rather reminiscent of a gb or something, and a rather scruffily added jazz pickup in the bridge position. So the things i have done are: took out the jazz pickup and this is for sale added a used badass 1 bridge which is great. And set up the neck to action perfection and slapped some new strings on it. The things i have got pllaned for it are: to fill the jazz bass pickup hole to cut the bottom of the headstock flat and then add a bigger piece of wood and cut it to fender diimensions. Maybe add decal blocks to the fingerboard and then laquer it again. Satin or gloss not sure? To refinish the body in black or white not sure yet? And maybe a slight relic finish matching head is a definate and a fender decal will be applied. Black scratchplate and maybe the covers? Maybe got some better tuners and a detuner for the e string. To allow drop d's easily My intention is to make a bass that is great for everyday use and is reliable and great looking...and as close to a real fender as possible...aswell as keeping the costs down as much as possible i will add pictures as much as i can throughout. Could people maybe give me some advice and suggestions.... thanks marcus x

i really highly recommend fretless now they really do sing and are quite unique sounding i really do think the squier jazz modified one is great too and for the money they cant be beaten ive got the fretless one and hopefully the fretted is on its way x

thanks for the suggestions so far... So far ive played on fretless these lines. Let me know what you think? Havona- weather report (incomplete but the main line and a few runs are down) teen town- weather report (already knew the slapped version by marcus miller, so was an easy transfer) its my life- talk talk the smiths- this charming man, heaven knows im miserable now. Level 42- seven years incognito- colibri jaco: bits of potrait of tracy, contiunuum e.t.c. i realize some of these are hard but i thought i better push myself instead of sticking to the easy stuff plus i have a lined fretless so its easy really... Any more suggestions?

happy 51st mark, ill still have to say hes my favourite musician of all time i dont care about how many times people knock hi and his tone and his music i think he is great regardless what i always thought was great about mark was how cool he made it all look so comfortable and relaxed whereas some players like wooten clarke e.t.c. Are like all hunched over their instrument all the time and they dont even sing! Well neither do i but thats a different matter. I just think mark king and level 42 are excellent and easily my favourite band. Mark king is the reason i started bass playing my dad started because of mark king and all the other brit funk stuff that was around in the early ninetys and got himself a jaydee roadie in the early 1990s a 1980 model with two pickups and passive electronics in tobacco sunburst which he had finished in cherry red and activized if thats a word lol. He then got a series 1 brand new made for him and the roadie got put in the cupboard for a few years. In the meantime my dad bought me a precision bass special which i learnt on later which then got traded in for a jazz and then when i got better he gave me the jaydee and ive studied it hard ever since....love to dad! x

right ive been playing years on fretted but have just got a squier jazz bass modified fretless so need a little list of tunes with fretless bass on to learn, just keep in mind that i am a beginner on fretless so dont go saying jaco= havona, or jeff scmidt, micheal manring e.t.c. thanks, look forward to hearing these suggestions x