Bilbo

I seem to see them all the time in Gamlins, Cardiff (not that that's any help to you...) but I can't find 'em online at all You a Cardiff boy, QOTD (or a girl??)? Actually, I just went onto your profile and it says Cwmbran - guess where I am from originally - the Valley of the Crow (Llanyravon). Croesy Comp 1974 -1980! I left there in 1987 - that'll be before you were born!

I think there is a point to be made here - I have an Eden Metro and love it - it is versatile (jazz, funk, lating, rock), the eq is fantastic, it is loud enough for anything I have asked of it (if it had to be louder than I have it, there would be a full rig/PA). People I play with compliment me on the sound etc. It's a winner every time. But its heavy. This matters when I put it in the car and when I take it out. It has wheels so I push it everywhere else. THis is a problem when we have kerbs, steps, grass or gravel to contend with but this is usually resolved with the help of a colleague/another muso. In a nutshell, its not THAT big a deal. I could, of course, get a smaller combo. Lots of jazzers talk about the GK combos etc but I have had one of them (I also have an SWR Electric Blue head and a seperate cab ) and, whilst they are 'adequate', they don't really deliver satisfactorily over all frequenceies and there is no real bottom end. You'd get away with it in a trio but not with a big bnad or a rock/funk/latin outfit. My point is, we are in the business of sound and should NEVER compromise on the tools we need to make those sounds as good as possible. If anyone knows of a combo that sounds as good as the Metro but is a quarter of the weight, then let me know. I haven't met it yet! To compromise your sound just for an easy ride is a cop out and, in my view, indefensible (disabilities excluded). I know loads of musos who turn up at gigs with second rate gear and, what do you kjnow, they sounds second rate. Get a Metro and a sack trolley!

Mine broke last night. After 20 years holding my fretless Wal, the bloody strap has broken (no damage to the bass, tho'). I think a new guitar strap is like a new leather jacket - too, well, 'new'!!

Pretty much - its a resistance thing. The number of ohms refers to the level of resistance.The more ohms equals the more resistance. If your cab is 8 ohm, the amp needs to work twice as hard to power it than if is 4 ohms. Its not as simple as that, tho, because connecting speakers in parallel or unison effects the resistance (ie 2x 8 ohms in series is 16 ohm while 2x8 ohms in parallel is 4 ohms). In fact, your amp is not losing power at all, it is just using it to do more work. Go to www.bassbacke.de/hints/bass/cabproperties.htm for a fuller explanation.

Go to www.waynejohnsononline.com and look for audio tracks of Arrowhead, Grasshopper and Villagers. Great early examples but the cds are worth it if you like the tasters. I have all of them on cd or vinyl.

I struggle to see how you can progress without it. If you learn the scales (as scales then in thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths) you can pretty much play anything. You can also HEAR stuff better so your lines open up a LOT. The 'play by instinct' concept is a dead end!

Can't get there but wish I could. Flim has been a fave since way back. Have you heard his early stuff with Wayne Johnson? Stunning.

Every venue will have a PA? You clearly move in different circles to me. I NEVER see a PA provided!! I am an 80 gigs a year man. The answer is several bands and a bag of freelance work! Learn to read so you get those gigs. Do every gig you can in every genre. Be professional (turn up on time, sober, dressed as per instruction, ready to play) and NAIL that groove! You'll gig forever!

Neil Murray did some pretty useful stuff with seminal jazz rock legends National Health and some other great jazz rock with Colloseum II. Some less obscure but rarely mentioned bass players on this forum: Jimmy Johnson - s string bass innovator - was playing an Alembic 5-string in 1976. Johnson can be heard with a very diverse range of artists, including Allan Holdsworth, Michael Landau, James Taylor, Rod Stewart and Ray Charles, as well as his own work with Flim & the BB's. Flim is at his best on three Wayne (no relation) Johnson LPs 'Arrowhead', 'Grasshopper' and 'Everybody Is Painintng Pictures'. Jeff Andrews - Mike Stern (before Lincoln Goines). Great grooves and interesting lines. Zev Katz - great bass with Bob Mintzer Big Band + 1 for Victor Bailey Arthur Maia - Gilberto Gil and 1,000 other Latin/Brazillian bands - tasty Mike Mondesir - he deps for me sometimes. Great tone and groove. Dudley Phillips - London based 6-string player - cool. I may come back with more!

Say, Dood, where are you playing the big 7? I am in Felixstowe!

ARGH - many thanks for your erudite and considered response. Your points are noted and fully accepted. I think the problem here is me. I used to be a bass nerd, buying Bass Player magazine every month, drooling over gear I couldn't afford, looking for faster and faster soloists (Jeff Berlin, Jaco, Patitucci, Haslip etc) etc but, as I have got older (I'm 44), I began to listen to the music a lot more and not the technique. As I got more and more involved in it, I began to even move away from the instruments themselves and started to listen to the music as pure expression. I began to realise that the instrument on which a piece is performed (and this is not genre specific) is important only in as much as the sound it creates defines the timbre of the notes played on it. If the music is good (subjective, I know), the instrument it is played on disappears! An example would be 1960's big bands using the electric bass. The walking bass lines were often more of a 'ping, ping, ping' than a 'doom, doom, doom' and they stood out like a sore thumb; ugly and brash. The electric bass got a bad press in jazz for that and is still trying to live it down. As intruments and (probably more importantly, amps and speakers) have improved, this problem has all but disappeared and it is now perfectly credible for an electric bass to drive a big band in a sonically satisfying way. Now when I listen to a big band with an electric bass (I do occasionally play in one), the bass fits better in the overall sound and, consequently, disappears! I can now listen to the MUSIC the band are playing. I guess that, where ERBs are concerned, I am still hearing the technology. That Manring track I mentioned, Selene, sounds like music, not just (just?) a bass player doing strange things with a bass. Am I making sense (I clearly lack ARGH's ability to express myself)? I actually agree very much with what is being said about thios being early days for the ERB crowd. I actually think that the electric bass is still only now beginning to find a grudging acceptance within the 'serious' jazz fraternity (as opposed to the jazz/funk fusion circle). I only play electric bass but still lose gigs to double bass players with only rudimentary technique simply because they HAVE a double bass. If they were sh*t hot, I'd say fine but they ain't. Anyway, to all you ERBists (I DO like that word), good luck, I wish you well and will be listening for many years to come. If any of you ever get your instruments over to Suffolk, I'll be in the front row.

I agree re: past loves - I have a HUGE soft spot for some of these guys and still look out for them and their products. Geddy Lee was a favorite for a long time but I have a wider perspective than I did then. I'd still like to buy him a drink tho'. Jeff Berlin still makes me smile with some of his soloing. I'd love to argue with him 1:1 (I like a lot if what he says but not all of it, not by a long way). Despite having moved on, an occasional dose of Jaco is a delight (recently saw some of that footage from Montreux - his grooves were unassailable!!) These guys are still great. They just got knocked off the top spot.

Steve Swallow - no Victor Wooten but what a musician!

Thanks, Alun. This kind of stuff is ok/interesting but it still feels a little stilted to me. Moments are ok, but the ERB bits seem superfluous or superficial. Carbonne sounds like a very creative musician but I would like to hear him in another 15 years or so! I followed a link of his page to Manring's MySpace page and listened to 'Selene' - its not perfect but it is music that transcends the instrument and has the capacity to move me. And all on a 4-string!! Thanks for the link.

queenofthedepths - I recall saying I love Antony Jackson so I would guess that would mean I have heard (and seen in his case) ERB players and (in his case) enjoyed them. My opinions on ERB players is based on what I have heard - how can it be otherwise? What is your based on? What you have seen? As for valuing the opinions of others - I asked for them. Why would I not ask for them if they held no valule for me? My point is not objective (it can't be) - I simply have not heard any of the VERB (very extended range bass) bassists doing anything beautiful, emotionally satisfying, nice, groovy, profound or generally yummy. If I hear any, I will jump up and down, go all gooey and probably comission a 9 string. Michael Manring made me realise that, whilst I in no way like everything he does, you CAN make good music using tapping techniques. Same for Michael Hedges and a few other guys on Youtube. I just want to hear something moving on a VERB. If you hear anything you think will fit the bill, [i]please[/i] let me know. PS - if you look REALLY closely at my picture, you will see a Status 6-string hanging up behind me. ooooooh!! Just don't tell anyone.

Welcome to the world of IT - 40% inspired technical expertise and 60% magic, gremlins and bogeymen!! Learn to love that egg-timer!!

'bassplayer magazine apaprently didn't believe jaco's portrait of tracy was a bass guitar when they first heard it' I thought bass player magazine didn't exist when Jaco released Portrait of Tracy? Anyway - I am now able to report the conclusions I have drawn from this debate. These monstors are called Extended Range Basses or ERBs for short (that's a new one to me). Personally, I thought they called them pianos but there you are. I have looked at the Youtube clips and see a lot of tractor noises and guitar like noodling but nothing that is even close to emotionally satisfying (extended range noodling!). I have learned that most people on this fourm assume that, if you question the value of a concept, it is because you have a closed mind and it couldn't be because the idea in question may be a bit iffy. The problem I have with these instruments is that the practical physiological problems created by these wide necks reduces the flexibility with which the player can phrase. Because of this, the music that is played ends up sounding more than a little stilted (to me). I have a nagging doubt that this 'movement' is about the instruments and the players (as people) and not about the music (like the double basses they used to make that were 11 feet tall and needed two people to play them - they are museum curiosities now). I guess I will have to sit back and watch and listen until some little genius is able to find a way to rise above these technical problems and come up with some beautiful music that doesn't sound like tractor noises and bad guitarists. I am sure it will happen one day.

No it didn't

Turn your amp up and play less hard. I had a great gig with a funk band is Suffolk called Swagger. The material was a kind of funk-rock hybrid with lots of 16th note lines at ridiculous tempos (think Francis Prestia with attitude). And what was worse I had Suffolk legend George Fothergill on drums (loud, confident and loud). Every time I did the gig, I would get the same problem. Ouch! Then, one evening, I thought 'f**k this' and turned the amp up a lot (Eden Metro combo) - I relaxed, the grooves were stronger and funkier and I didn't bleed. Sorted. As long as the sound is good (not just loud), its cool.

Not 100% on this kind of thing but I had major latency problems as a result of an inadequate ASIO driver. The driver in many soundcards is not good enough for music technology as the time it takes to convert audio to digitial is enough to put thing s out. On the advice of a friend who knows about this stuf, I upgraded to an external audio interface (Edirol) and got rid of the problem. Hope it works out.

You know what I am saying? Who are the people you used to think were the dbs but you have now got bored of? The people you bought everything they recorded but now avoid like the plague. Mine? Jaco Pastorius - was he the greatest? Not sure but definately the most influential. I have dozens of his recordings and some of them are superb but some are just not emotionally very satisfying. He could soooo repeat himself! I guess he could have been so much more if he hadn't been ill. Jeff Berlin - set phasers to stun. Early Bruford stuff, Allan Holdsworth's 'Road Games' was a real head turner for me but I don't like his solo bass stuff after 'Dixie'. His sound is too 'clean', not enough depth, enough 'bass' ness! I know he really wants to be a commercial success (or why would he arrange Norah Jones tunes) but, until he understands that the music is not about the instruments or the bass playing but about the emotions, the sounds and the arrangements, he will remain in iconic obscurity. And he'll never be taken seriously by the music business until he shaves off that moustache. Percy Jones - liked him when he was current (early Brand X) but he still sounds the same 25 years later and it doesn't work so well for me anymore. Shame - he really did break new ground. Steve Harris - he got me into bass playing when I was 16/17 and I remember being astonished at the fact that he played with his fingers. Now I am only astonished that Iron Maiden are still going and his fingers still have skin on them. Geddy Lee - Used to love Rush but now, when I go back to listen for old times sake, I wince at the pseudo-technicality of it all. It's all so transparent! And the lyrics? I thought Peart was such a deep man! So who have you left behind as your ears have moved on???

My! Haven't you got a big one?

OK - I get the five string thing. I can even see the point in the six (Anthony Jackson is soooooo musical). But what music are you people playing on 7, 8, 9 or 11 string basses? All I ever hear is sub-bass tractor noises and pseudo guitar noodling, all circus tricks and never anything I would call enjoyable music (and, trust me, I am not narrow minded about it) . I have been out playing and watching live music for three decades now and rarely even see anyone playing a 5-string, never mind a 6. But what and where are you guys with the 9 string basses playing? Or do they never get out of the bedrooms?

Nice to see that Wal's still feature. Mine is an '86 Custom Fretless (4-string). I own a Status six-string as well but it has frets and I don't like frets!! Don't know what model it is, tho' - doesn't seem to matter that much to me.

I think you are right about the volume thing, Wulf. The electric bass doesn't need to sound like an upright but it does need to find the same place in the overall sound; underpinning everything, providiing body and support but not taking over and overpowering everything. Jaco did jazz (not fusion) bass a little disservice when he came front and centre. (I love jaco, by the way). He could be sooo musical but also, when there was no-one around to temper his ego, he could be very tasteless (did you hear the trio cd he did with Brian Melvin and Jon Davis? The bass was, well, in the wrong place in the mix. Now listen to Anthony Jackson on the Michel Camilo CD 'Sundance' -WOW!! Or Steve Swallow with John Scofiled 'En Route'? Brilliant.... beautifully integrated, musical. The bass has to make the music better - you have to get off on making other people sound good! Be cool, people.