fretmeister

There's a lot of isolated bass tracks available on youtube. If you listen to the bass parts alone, 99.9% of the time you won't feel the heartbreak from the bass part. That emotional content is due to the interplay between everything you are listening to at the same time. If you changed the guitar or the vocals or even the drumming style in "Go your own way" then the bass part would not be as effective in being moving to you. Without the rest of the instruments in that song there is no context by which the bass part can be interpreted as having heartbreak. Sometimes a very simple root note only bass line is exactly what is needed to make the entire arrangement have that emotional content and if a busier bass part was used that emotional content would be ruined. Lots of people think "support" for other instruments is somehow limiting or otherwise diminishing the role of an instrument. It really isn't - that is the difference between say "just" a guitarist or "just" a bassist as opposed to a musician / composer. There are wonderful solo pieces for Double Bass that several bass guitarists have done a great job with for solo bass guitar, and then there are people like Michael Manring and Zander Zon who have built careers from playing solo bass. But that approach wouldn't be right in a Jackson 5 tune (lots of James Jamerson in Jackson 5 tunes) - it just wouldn't work. The best approach is not to think like a bass player - think like a composer and that all the instruments are equally important for the song. Try swapping parts round. If you have an idea for a guitar part, see what happens if the bass or keys, or sax plays it instead. It's up to the composer to decide which instrument (including voice) is going to carry the main hook of a song. Sometimes that is the bass (Chic's Good Times for example), sometimes it is the guitar (a lot of metal), sometimes the Vocal (Aretha Franklin for example). It's the composition that gives any individual part it's emotional content. This is the isolated part for "Go your own way" it's a great part - but I know the song so well my brain is filling in the rest of the instruments in my head. It's quite an easy part and JM is keeping the pulse of the music - thus supporting everything else - giving the bridge between the drums and the rest. Here it is just adding the drums: See how massively different it sounds just because it now has some context? If you haven't got it I really recommend you get the Moises App for your smartphone / tablet. You can loads songs into it and then adjust the levels of each instrument at will. You can listen to loads of tunes with and without other instruments to see how your impression of the bass parts changes when the other elements change too.

That does look very close. Nice!

Other than Sea Foam Green I've never been one for green basses but that is just lovely. I don't know who the guy playing is, I just saw the post on social media.

Anyone know what colour this is? I can't quite find an actual match and I really like it.

JS Bach Jack Bruce But ultimately the bass is the bridge between drums and the rest. That is the primary role. Over do the “emotion” and you’ll be like Billy Sheehan off his Ritalin and on the Red Bull. A bassist is simultaneously the least visible of the band and the reason why people are dancing.

Next time you do this can you do a video of the process? That would be very useful.

Lovely! I’ll join the dibs queue!

Because it means V and not 5. Basically Sandberg used to use P and J terms and Fender got annoyed. So the PS (precision) became VS, the JJ4 (two J pickups) became TT4 and so on. PM used to be a Precision and a Musicman pickup and now it’s VM, JM4 (jazz and mm) is now TM4. The OP bass is technically a Lionel VS4. Lionel because it’s short scale and as it has a solitary precision pickup and 4 strings it is a VS4. These days you can get a Lionel TT4 as well. And for that matter, any pickup configuration you like if you special order it. Mine was a special order made to Superlight specs so it weighs 5.7lb.

Also, that red is really nice. Much better in your photos than on their website.

It’s definitely a Lionel. I have one as well and I love it. Such an easy instrument to play.

They are brilliant!

I went for the guitar one as I play a lot of guitar as well, and most of the time for bass I like a clean tone with compression so it works well. I do wish Boss would put the drum machine in both models though. That would be excellent. The hardware appears to be the same so it's only a firmware issue.

Mushroom Double Swiss. I still haven't forgiven Burger King for taking that off the menu.

Thank you but that's 8lb for the body alone! Too much for me these days.

I used to use red ones, but I like that green!

Stick a 2 inch thick bit of foam rubber to his upper lip so it bangs into the mic first. Then tell him it's just 'training wheels' for a couple of weeks until he gets used to being further away... but warn him that after a month you will hot glue it to his face if you have to.

Get foam ones and make it a feature. For each gig use a foam that matches his shirt. Or if he decides to get a purple mohawk, get purple ones. That sort of thing. Or just use a plain black one that nobody will notice at all. The punters have no idea about differences between microphones anyway.

Apparently the new UK service centre is going to be something called Sontec in Norwich.

If you send a message to Frank Ritchotte via the massive facebook Helix users group then he is usually the best contact to find stuff out like that. He's the Senior Director of Operations and deals with stuff like that in the group.

SX website seems to be down. Boo. And the shops stocking them only seem to have black or blue ones. I'll set up an eBay alert wotsit.

I quite fancy doing a bit of a Duck Dunn tribute bitsa, but there's not many sensibly priced Candy Apple Red bodies around so now I'm looking at complete basses. I will be swapping the neck for a Jazz type so whatever I get will need to have the right neck pocket. Any ideas? I know Duck was seen with a variety of P basses, but apparently Candy Apple Red was his favourite, with a maple board and that's why the very short run Japanese signature model was done like that. If I had the money I'd get a chambered Warmoth and have them paint it but that would be about $550 + shipping, Vat, Import which works out at about £550 including all that.

If you can find one then a Jim Deacon Precision is a perfect "try it out" short scale bass. Used for under £150, pretty light in weight - 3.6kg ish and best of all, the basic build is definitely good enough to warrant upgrading the other bits. I got my first one a few years ago as I just wanted to try a shortie. There was a bit of neck dive so I fitted some Hipshot Ultralight tuners which completely solved that. The vol and tone controls were pretty much ON/OFF cheap things so they were replaced, and as I don't like pickup polepieces that stick out I stuck in an Aguilar that I already had. It has turned into my very favourite bass. It has La Bella short scale DTF strings on it for that Jamerson / Duck Dunn thing. I love it so much I recently bought another one. It will get the same tuning head upgrade, but this time I'm going for modern tones. I have a set of EMG PJ-X pickups that will go in it. I'll get the slot for the J routed out professionally as I should never be trusted with power tools. The string spacing at the bridge is quite narrow at 16.5mm but it turns out I like that - but if you like wide spacing then it might not be the thing for you. However the advantage with that is that the neck stays slim all the way up to the top fret and that makes it very easy on the left hand. Nut width is 38mm and the neck shape is a pleasingly full C shape. Even if you don't like it you'll have no trouble moving it on. After I bought the cream one that was on here I had messages from 2 people asking me if I was going to keep it or going to sell again.

I am loving the La Bella LTF on my TT4. Sound ace, feel superb under the fingers. I got a short scale set for my Lionel and I’m not quite sure about them on that bass as they might be a little too flexible for the short scale but they feel so nice to play I’m torn! That bass also has relatively low output pickups compared to the fire breathing TT4. I have been planning a pickup change in the Lionel to a set of EMG PJ-X so I’ll leave them on until I do that, and then decide. They are definitely staying on the TT4 though.

New Moon for me too.