tauzero

The Peavey range are worth looking at - I found the Grind a better neck than the Cirrus, and both of them better than the Millennium. You'd need to stretch the budget a bit for a Grind (but a second-hand one should come in under budget), and more than that for a Cirrus. Not quite Jazz-style though.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='855101' date='Jun 2 2010, 05:05 PM']Those JD Thumbs are cool, got any pictures?[/quote] Indeed I have. The Thumb twins (I prefer the one-piece bridge of the JD to the two-piece of the later Thumbs): The Tsai 5: And the Mazeti fretless 5:

1 and 2 are the Warwick twins - a Warwick JD Thumb 4-string fretted, from 1987, with a beautiful slim neck, and a Thumb from 2000 which I had defretted and reprofiled so the baseball bat neck was reduced to the same dimensions as the JD. 3 is the Antoniotsai 5-string. I've played a lot of 5-strings and this was the one with the best neck so far, until I played mcgraham's W&T. It's my main gigging bass. 4 is the Mazeti 5-string fretless that I got from Wooks a little while back. I still haven't satisfied my 5-string fretless quest though. 5 is one I no longer have - my 70s Precision went in order to finance the first Warwick. While I don't regret that, I was fond of that Fender - tatty but the second-best P I've played.

Peavey Grind 5, Schecter Stiletto Studio 5, Ibanez SR505.

My twins: They were born 13 years apart though.

KT Tunstall, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree". There's a nice relaxing song for a bassist, nothing in the verse and 15 notes (nice relaxed crotchets) in the chorus.

Everything I've got is dual pickup, almost all of them active. I use roundwounds (for a few months per set), put the bass up a bit to thicken up the bottom end and then what I do with the treble depends on how I want any particular song to sound - knock it back to get a smoother sound, bring it up to get more bite. My default sound has the treble up a bit, a sort of Roger Moore smiley face.

[quote name='witterth' post='853368' date='Jun 1 2010, 10:28 AM']it was years ago but still makes me cross to this day[/quote] You see, you have mistaken his intentions. You thought he was just making a few snidey comments, when in fact he was destroying your whole life and leaving you a crumpled, wretched shell, preyed on for years by the thought of his remarks.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='848423' date='May 26 2010, 01:01 PM']Agreed - Squier + scabby refin + Westfield neck = £60 bass.[/quote] Westfield do make exceedingly good necks.

A swift google comes up with a page where Forbes says he got sacked for womanising. [url="http://www.simpleminds.org/sm/news/n2001/rint1.htm"]http://www.simpleminds.org/sm/news/n2001/rint1.htm[/url] All sounds pretty bland in the general way of rock'n'roll. Is there some deeper, darker seekrit?

[quote name='Bilbo' post='849348' date='May 27 2010, 12:46 PM']Being a musician should actually remain more important to you than being a bass player.[/quote] What, you mean it's possible to be both? Knowing what's right for that particular song with that particular band on that particular day, having the technical ability to translate ideas into notes, and knowing which ideas are good ideas and which are bad ones. Never making the same mistake more than twice in the same performance of the same song.

I started as a guitarist. When the band I was in at university formed, there was no bassist and two guitarists, so I switched to bass. After I moved to Tamworth, I pimped myself on a local music shop noticeboard as a rhythm/lead/bass player and got recruited as a bassist. Since then, I've stuck to bass in bands, but still play guitar to a reasonable standard (except lead, I'm crap at lead) and accompany Mrs Zero when we do acoustic duo stuff. I enjoy both, but in a band situation I prefer to play bass, and if Second Time Round ever recruits another guitarist, I'll happily switch to bass.

[quote name='Golchen' post='847208' date='May 25 2010, 09:30 AM']You could have done with one of those tiny Ashbory basses, they are supposed to be really good:[/quote] They're excellent. Plus a headphone amp, or maybe a Tascam bass trainer.

[quote name='Conan' post='846434' date='May 24 2010, 12:29 PM']The thread is now locked! [/quote] It would appear that new registrations aren't being exactly speedily processed...

[quote name='OldGit' post='847747' date='May 25 2010, 06:01 PM']Out comes the pitch shifter [/quote] And the half-second delay in the foldback...

We start playing the intro to "Sweet Child O' Mine". Guitarist says "You're really out. Are you out of tune?" Me: "No, it's a fretless. It's in tune." Him: "It sounded really out of tune." Me: "No, the bass is in tune, my fingers aren't.". I thought he'd have known this, his dad being a bassist... Oh, and yes, it's a pig to play on a fretless, as is the middle 8 to "All Right Now". Practice, practice, practice... and maybe get a 6-string so I can play it five unfrets further down the neck

Has your brother Francis Ford got any films about basses planned?

[quote name='chrisba' post='847406' date='May 25 2010, 12:34 PM']Hmmm. My daughter is at Warwick University. I feel a surprise parental visit coming on...[/quote] Hasn't she told you that Warwick University is in Coventry?

[quote name='Mykesbass' post='846935' date='May 24 2010, 09:58 PM']Apparently (at least from the Turkish kids I went to school with 30 years ago) Cack means sh1t. In Middle eastern cultures, the left hand was reserved for wiping one's ar$e, and to offer the left hand to shake hands was a huge insult. Therefore, to call a left hander cack handed I would have thought fairly insulting.[/quote] The word "cack" or "keck" (in cack-handed) is an old English word meaning "clumsy". The excremental meaning has been absorbed into the language more recently.

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='844505' date='May 21 2010, 06:57 PM']Also i thought Tennessee basses were usually a couple of hundred dollars? This is over $3000![/quote] Tropicalmoonmusic seem to be trying it on a bit. They've got a 10-string Stick "clone" on there which I have thought about buying - their previous auctions for them have finished up at $150-$200, they're asking something like $1500 BIN now. No spare cash ATM so won't put in a best offer of $100.

[quote name='arsenic' post='845030' date='May 22 2010, 12:45 PM']Ahh! but which incarnation... When they used to be in a little shop on Broad Street with guitars and basses on the ground level and mainly amps in the bassment - the selection was small but ranged from pocket money stuff to high end gear. They had a mint Burns Bison in there for about £25.00, hanging right next to the stairs to the basement. A couple of the guys from local band Cryer used to work there if I recall. When they moved to Snow Hill and took over the old Yardleys store, the selection increased, but so did the prices....[/quote] I went to both - I first went to the original one when I was still at school. It wasn't till they'd moved that I bought a bass there - my first Precision, as it happens. I remember Gary (who is now at PMT) showing me photos of the burnt out Broad Street shop.

I think Fair Deal in Birmingham have got quite a good balance - a meatspace shop with a reasonable selection (but why were both the Stagg classical guitars that I'd have liked to try out left-handed?) and an online store. For some reason, the online store is a bit cheaper - I tried out a Variax guitar in the real shop then bought it from them online, something for which I feel no guilt. I happily mix my online and meatspace musical purchasing. I don't know how representative the non-lurking BC members are of the general bass-playing public - there was a poll a little while ago about number of strings on people's basses, and of 143 responses, it went 84 4-string, 47 5-string, 14 over-5-string. That's a ratio of about 4:3 for 4-string against over-4-string. I'll be playing in a local Battle of the Bands soon, and of the 30 bands in it (oh, 29, just remembered that one band doesn't have a bassist), I'll lay odds on over 50% (probably 2/3) of the basses being Fenders or clones, and no more than 5 basses with more than 4 strings, and one fretless (that'll be me then). The point of all this blather being that the average BC contributor is less likely to be satisfied by a shop which contains assorted 4-string fretted Fenders and clones of all price ranges than the average bassist on the street. My quest to try out a few fretless 5-strings was doomed to failure, but the bassists from most of the local bands will be able to find something to make them happy from the stuff dangling on the walls at PMT (Reverb Sound Musical Station Exchanges would have been able to help too, before they went titsup*2). Come to think of it, one thing that has declined over the years is second-hand music shops. Musical Exchanges in Brum was a marvellous place. Now it's all gone to ebay and Crack Converters.

[quote name='OldGit' post='844742' date='May 21 2010, 11:41 PM']With All Right Now though it's all of the verses ...[/quote] As it is for Honky Tonk Women, on the record. I've just fired up the stereo and had a listen. Bass on chorus and solo only.

[quote name='twowheeledwriter' post='844701' date='May 21 2010, 10:33 PM']On a serious note, is it just the first verse? I usually only play for the chorus and the solo, and avoid the verses. I use the verses to do some dancing in the style of Bill Wyman... ( - song idea #73 - (Si Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star)[/quote] That's how it is on the record. Just like All Right Now, another one that some bassists just can't resist.

Congratulations. I'll let the Big Beef Chief know right away.