dc2009

Hi all, This is borne out of the need to properly re-set up my Warwick, who had a low B put on her for the first time in a year today, but I thought I could make it vaguely useful and generic, and if someone could provide a comprehensive list it could even perhaps do with stickying? Personally, the problems on my Warwick are; Truss rod needs adjusting (I have the tool just no idea even which way to turn it or why I should or should not do it). Nut/Bridge needs adjusting. There is fret buzz from the B, especially when played open, despite the fact that the action is quite high at the bridge, as it does not fully sit right in the saddle as the others do. The intonation is out on a couple of the strings (not by much), which way do the thingies in the saddles need to be turned for various pitches? Is there anything that can be done to make the B sit properly in the saddle? So how do I do all/any of the above? I've been shown some of them at some point, but am aware that getting them wrong can make things worse rather than better. And in a more general sense, what are the other main things to look out for when setting up a bass, and is there a routine/order/method that you would describe as foolproof and also the best? Dan

Chops quite often, whether incorrectly or correctly, tend to be seen as the extremes of how you can play, not necessarily the fastest, but perhaps the most difficult in each style. I think a well-rounded player with good chops should be able to play a very fast piece well, if presented with it, but similarly, a very slow and flowing piece just as well.

I play slap in my bedroom and not on youtube (or live if I can help it though it has been used sparingly in some of my material I have written in bands of the past), I'm just not good enough at it. If I could double thumb like vic wooten, or had an american-sized ego and thought I could, I'd probably show off my chops to the world too. I have to say I'm not a fan of showing off for showing off's sake, on youtube or anywhere, although a drummer mate of mine did post up a very popular drums cover of Capillarian Crest by Mastodon, which he does play better than the average bear, so perhaps it's alright!

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='1246987' date='May 27 2011, 12:56 PM']There's a long tradition of distance selling / mail order in Germany which quite dwarfs the equivalent British market. Bertelsmann (BMG), who are one of the world's biggest media companies (102,000 employees) started out in mail order in 1835. Thomann have been in business since 1954 and have presumably developed considerable experience at flogging things to people through the post. For them, the web must have been a [i]fantastic [/i]opportunity to expand their existing skills and customer base. By contrast, the web has been a very steep learning curve for British retailers. Many conduct their operations in an atmosphere of slip-shod craftiness. For others, their website is simply a static calling-card and thus fairly useless after the first visit. For still other guitar-shopkeepers, the interweb is an occult threat to be feared and reviled. Only a couple of years ago, I got a ferocious ear-bashing from a retailer when I mentioned I'd bought an amp online. And there's the problem. Rather than explore the possibilities, he'd rather stick his head in the sand and give his customers a bollocking for not doing things his way. And that's a very British thing to do.[/quote] Gotta love that German efficiency. As for buying online, I see nothing wrong with it. How many people on here buy a bass online simply on the name, or even moreso, get one made by a guy via the internet, and they just assume it's going to turn out as well as others he's made! Personally I know once I build up some money from summer work I'm planning on buying a Sandberg or a Gibson TB, and that's almost certainly gonna be over the interweb. My entire current amplification rig (in my signature) was bought on ebay/here without previous samples. I seriously hope Thomann get themselves a single UK warehouse and also have a come and try facility. I guess it raises the overheads somewhat, but I think they would sell a lot with their great prices!

[quote name='xgsjx' post='1245032' date='May 25 2011, 11:58 PM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtopic=72012&view=findpost&p=1158667"]Here![/url] I'm also using chorus, overdrive & some filtering but the exp pedal is controlling the LPF. There's quite a few great examples throughout this thread, so go & have a listen to everything.[/quote] o.O those are some neat dirty tones. Those moogs don't come cheap from what I've seen. I have Si's syb-5 coming soon and an expression pedal, that will hopefully work with it, so I'll start experimenting too Gotta say, for an octaver, I quite fancy the look of a 4ms nocto loco, anyone on here got one/know how well they work with bass? (only seen guitar demos)

Crafter Cruiser MM copy, still have it, with a set of steve harris sig flats on it, not that it's been played in about 5 years. Heavy as anything, seriously, seriously heavy, no idea how I ever gigged with it when I was a tender 14.

Bit off the radar of some of you have a decent music taste, unlike me, but I would say ...And Justice For All (the metallica album) seriously suffers from having the bass so far down in the mix it is inaudible even if you listen for it!

[quote name='pantherairsoft' post='1244586' date='May 25 2011, 06:32 PM']In the words of DanOwens... As an electronic bassist, the Low Pass Filters is your best friend. Low Pass Filters (or LPFs) serve many practical functions but the way they work is they let the ‘Low’ sounds ‘Pass’ through it. That is – they remove the high sounds from your signal. At which point in the audio spectrum they do this depends on the filter’s cut-off point, determined by the ‘Cut-off’ control. The ‘Resonance’ control creates a boost at the cut-off point, making it more pronounced. If the LPF is your best friend, the ‘Resonance’ control is their bad breath. Watch out!! We’re going to use the LPF in two main ways: the first is to create a static, ‘sub’ sound. If we ‘close’ the filter so it only lets very low frequencies pass and boost the resonance a bit, we are effectively turning the treble and middle knobs on our amp right down to 0 (or -15db as is more commonly found) and turning the bass control on our amp up to 10 (or +15db). This is the sound that will shake glasses off shelves and irritate neighbours 4 streets away. We like this! Remember to be careful of that resonance control though. Turning it up too high will be like turning the bass control up to 20 or 30 and can totally annihilate speakers, PAs and eardrums. The second use of the LPF is to create filter sweeps. This is where we move the filter cut-off point across the audio spectrum creating a wah-wah like effect (but one that doesn’t sound rubbish). You could sweep the cut-off over an 8-bar build or across single notes, the best thing to do it experiment. To do this though, you need to be able to move the filter cut-off whilst playing your bass with your hands. As such the sweep is usually done via an expression pedal operated by your foot.[/quote] Thanks for the explanation. I could create the static part of the sound via the 12 band eq on my trace head, or is this kind of thing only achievable through pedals? Being a london man I won't make it up to nottingham, but let me know if you play your wobble live down this way anytime!

Whilst I would agree with the principle of if it sounds good, I don't care either way, but many a time I've seen a band play live or heard music of a band playing without one, it often sounds odd or not quite right if the bass isn't there imo.

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1244555' date='May 25 2011, 05:57 PM']you can have my syb-5 for £45 posted if you like. i've got too much synthage at the moment, so it's surplus for me. PM me if you fancy it. i'd be looking for an LPF of some description, like the moog or the iron ether xerograph (or the deluxe for extra bucks)..[/quote] PM'd, what's the main aim of a LPF and what can it do for your sound?

I'm sure someone has seen my desire for an expression pedal and an syb 5, i've also currently got: boss odb-3 ehx bass balls (russian) ehx q-tron plus envelope filter (usa) boss ceb-3 i'm currently after an ehx russian big muff as well as the boss synth is there anything else i should be looking for in order to play qemists like stuff as the thread starter was on about, and dubstep wobbles in general?

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' post='1241493' date='May 23 2011, 12:54 PM']The Boss CEB-3 is a classic - and yep, I'm selling one [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=134212"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=134212[/url][/quote] Can't go wrong with that one, less than what I paid for mine

hey uke, do you mind if i asked how much yours was?

[quote name='obbm' post='1244426' date='May 25 2011, 04:05 PM']Quite right, GAK etc., because of their volume of sales are able to buy cheaper AND sell at a lower margin as they have a very diverse product range and much bigger turnover with which to cover their costs and return a profit. Exactly the same argument applies to supermarkets v local corner shops. We don't have many of the latter any more and the same will happen to the local music shop if no-one buys anything from them. Want to get rich quick? Get an industrial unit in a deproved area, stack it with equipment, sell it cheap on line, employ monkeys and pay peanuts. Someone tried in Liverpool and failed. Someone else tried to be the UK's equivalent of GC and failed. However they have one in Germany and it's still in business. Where do the Brits go wrong?[/quote] Which in my post before (last one of the last page I think) I alluded to :-). I quite like the idea of guitar supermarkets, and obviously it hasn't quite been done right with GC in the US, as you hear mixed reports, but I don't think it would be too hard to fix, to make a guitar store chain the Waitrose rather than the asda! I'm interested to know that someone tried it, I wasn't aware of it happening before here. I quite like Thomann, and I know they sell and ship internationally, but if I was to be their business development guy, I'd be pushing for largish stores in largish cities across europe, sure it will cost more for them to do, but I think they'll get more sales to make up for it.

[quote name='obbm' post='1244391' date='May 25 2011, 03:42 PM']Sorry but you have no idea what the mark-up is because you don't know what it is costing them. If you are comparing with the US price then this is an unfair comparision. I will reiterate what I said before, in the UK most US products are handled by an importer who forecasts, orders and buys from the manufacturer and resells to the store, so there are 2 sets of mark-up being applied. Fender have Fender UK. The profit they make keeps Fender UK in business. In the case of Musicman it's Strings and Things who do just the same. They have to provide local warranty, etc which all cost money. The exception are small, low volume US manufacturers who deal directly with UK sellers such as Bass Direct and Bass Gear.[/quote] True I don't know what it is costing them, but when the markup from a local store is sufficient to make you realise that another, larger UK based store, e.g. GAK will do it for significantly less, you know their markup is more than that of GAKs, or that it costs less for it to get to GAK, which either way makes it cheaper for you buy from GAK than the local store, regardless of where the difference is made up. EDIT: in that example I wasn't talking necessarily about US products, I just meant any product, let's take an Ibanez or a Dean as an example, on sale in a large UK store (e.g. GAK, dv247 among others) or my local music shop, typically the large retailer will sell it at a lot less.

@ Russ and Molan In my experience, small stores are equally guilty of the above. There are guys who you can think are a waste of space and there are guys who can be so knowledgable, helpful and friendly that they are the difference between a sale and no sale, equally I'm sure both types are present in GCs or other large chains - this is the nature of the business imo. I personally think it could be done relatively easy, to set up a chain of stores where there is a standard that you know you can find everywhere, similar to (i can't think of it, the M&S equivalent in the US where they have to remember your name for ages). It wouldn't be hard for GC to implement an 'every guitar/bass gets this standard set up before going on display' policy.

[quote name='molan' post='1244293' date='May 25 2011, 02:30 PM']I'm not sure the mark ups charged by UK Bass Retailers are really that crazy for new stock. I've never met one who seems to be making much more than a basic living out of running his business. We'd be really screwed if they all cut their margins down to 10% and then promptly went bust. They have all getting hammered by online only distributors for a few years now and what would we all do if there was nowhere to go and actually try anything out (other than our wonderfully organised BC Bass Bashes of course!).[/quote] True. But then music is a hobby, and guitar/bass shops are nothing more than specialist hobby shops, albeit quite popular ones, I wouldn't expect them to rake in a fortune. I appreciate they have to markup on anything they sell, but I do often wish there were fewer stores (with more of a monopoly) that could get away with charging less of a markup, because they sold that much more. Too many guitar stores I've been to are tiny affairs in an average sized town, where they have very few basses in, and the markup on any you might want is so huge, because the guy has to make his living off the one instrument he sells each week, that you know you can get it online or S/H for a lot less and don't buy it at all. IMO if we had a guitar center type chain, with stores all over europe, not just the uk, you would know that they weren't charging as much in markup, because they consistently sold more. IMO Thomann are closest to doing this (seem to sell the widest product range of any music distributor I've seen in Europe). This wouldn't put any current shop workers out of jobs, they'd just end up working for the big company/ies, as happened with corner shop workers and the supermarkets. People used to be anti-supermarkets for putting the small places out of business, but who of us doesn't shop in a supermarket now? People would be anti a similar conglomerate taking over the music equipment industry, but they'd sure appreciate it happening once they got used to it and the benefits it brought them.

[quote name='ras52' post='1244142' date='May 25 2011, 12:29 PM']Am I the only one who can read standard notation but is perplexed by tab - largely because most of the examples I've seen give no indication of rhythm?[/quote] Typically you go to a tab for a song you already have heard, so the tab only needs to give you the notes as you largely know or can get the rhythm. I use guitar pro/powertab, where you have both score and tab, and I use the tab for the notes, and the score for the rhythm. @ZMech, I see the idea, though it could be made to work if you had a frequency system based around the semitones we used today, i.e. one semitone is 100 dc2009's (the unit, obviously ) above the previous one. The current system of Hz relies on the 12th root of 2 to relate notes, does it not? Cos that is distinctly impractical.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1243593' date='May 24 2011, 10:31 PM']Like 1-1 1-12 2-12 2-5 etc looks harder than notation to me [/quote] and vice versa for me

[quote name='Higgie' post='1243739' date='May 25 2011, 12:45 AM']I managed to snag my mint condition unlined fretless Stingray, from the year of my birth (1989) with a hardcase from the States for £685 all in. Bargain.[/quote] Are you kidding? o.O That's ridiculous!

[quote name='JTUK' post='1243621' date='May 24 2011, 10:51 PM']the more competition the better..generally.[/quote] agreed :-) and gareth, she sure is lovely, congrats!