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gafbass02

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Posts posted by gafbass02

  1. I too have found a massive amount of ignorance often tinged with a sort of patronising amusment towards the bass, noticeable when i try to explain things like how a bass wave behaves, how our ears are 'tuned for mids', how string tensions affects things etc etc.
    (ie NO!! i dont want to tune down to blah blah, i spent hours getting my bass perfect at normal tuning, if i change it, it sounds and feels all wrong!)

    Its like 'look at the cute failed guitarist trying to make his job sound more important' (which is another tag/assumption that gets my goat, I never wanted or tried, or was interested in playing guitar or anything else ive only ever wanted to play bass.)

    I find bass a massively complex instrument with a difficult sound to understand and manipulate, its easy to learn, but hard to play well, and forms the link between rhythm and melody, giving the music its 'heartbeat'.

    How many times must i get a 20 second riff at soundcheck compared the guitarists?,(before its, 'alright mate, OK ..guitars!) I have many different sounds too, many more extreme and potentially more difficult to manage in a mix than 'clean and distortion' that Jonny guitar hero over there has!, (synth, octaver) Why not think to ask Mr sound guy, and no, i dont want to use your £20 behringer DI box, i have a much better one thanks, and while were on it, how about a mic to mix in there too!
    Recently in a studio i got just a nasty dry sound while they spent forever on amp/cab sims for the guitarists....hello!!!!!!!!!!, im here too!!!!!! When we got the result back, sure enough, the same totally unaltered tone, nothing done to spice it up at all.

    This is why when i soundcheck i try to play harmonics, chords, melodic pieces, low notes, flurries, slap, and a nice funky finger line that uses a wide range, hoping the engineer will notice that i tend to play more than just 'dum dum dum', and think, 'oh hang on, this guy can clearly play and does a bit more, Ok, lets make sure its sitting right so we can hear it all', but nope. They give me 20 seconds and set the same woofy settings that they 'always use for bass cause it sounds best innit'

    NO!!!! Im not supposed to be just an inaudible low end mush under the guitars, im an integral part of the shape and form of the song contruction, if I add subtle details its because it improves the music (not just to show off) and as a band we have decided thats what sounds good, so why should you as an engineer who has preconceived notions about how bass in rock bands should sound/be mixed/EQ'd be at liberty to so dramaticlly curtail my additions to our songs?, would the chorus work so well without that high chord being heard?, NO!, we like it!, else i would have left it out! etc etc

    Rant over!!! (and yup ive done my time as a sound engineer too, but i just find on the whole the attitude to bass outdated beyond what it should be, esp when you consider that many of the guys out there werent around in the 'kay bass, 30w amp' days of yore, and even if they were, they still lived through the 80's with all the tech advances in bass and it coming to the fore, as well as the 90's and the likes of Flea et al, so WHY the 1950's/60's attitudes in the year 2010!!!!?!?)

    Ok, rant def over this time!
    :)

  2. That sounds fekkin lush!!! More so with the F1 IMHO. Also I like the fact that he spent five minutes talking about shifting this and that to emulate the sound of just turning the vpf on the f1 lol.
    God I want one of those cabs now!! (and an active jazz, even though those days are behind me now heh heh!)

  3. Im a huge MIJ fan, both my main basses are Jap Fenders, a 19902 MIJ '62 and an '07 CIJ '75 ri ive had sooo many basses now and these two are just perfect for me! and the white one, wa sindeed from ishibashi just before the ban!

  4. just thought id bump this up for some new pics of it in action, really nice high res pics that show the new aged pickguard really well
    all here:
    [url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34605698@N04/sets/72157623937813540/detail/"]My Jazz[/url]

    heres a sample

    and yes, sadly now i do match the guitarist in a stripey way, what are the odds lol!

  5. okey dokey ive lots of spares to clear...
    hard to photograph but this is a NOS '80s solid brass, gold coloured kahler jazz bell plate, unfitted: £12 posted


    string retainer, gold, £3 posted



    'aged' pickguard screws imported from the US both bags £7.00 posted


    gold jazz bell plate, unused £6.00 posted, two chrome plates both scruffy £5.00 each posted

  6. Okey dokey £60 delivered (neck off) poss trades for jazz bridge pickups/p/jbody/gig bags/interestingthings
    or just £50 cash collected :)
    the body is good it all works I just think the neck is too thick and needs tlc
    particularly after a gold gb7 (Warwick style) hipshot extender

  7. The bass was originally known as 'altus' however another manufacturer claimed they already owned the rights to the name so it became known as the 'FNA' or 'formerly known as altus' (sic) should really be fkaa.
    The really depressing news is my tatty one only went for £400 :-( although it was well used with some heavy wear.

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