Linus27

My rig of choice, playing last night at the Wesival Festival held at the West End Centre in Aldershot. Barefaced Two10 and MarkBass Little Mark IV. Sounded great although I wished I'd used my Warwick Gnome head instead.

58 minutes ago, kwmlondon said:

I recon Elvis is probably the most surprising one here. Maybe he just liked the look of it, but he seemed to enjoy being pictured with a precision.

I also read that he loved playing bass and owned those basses in those pictures. This is him playing Bill Black's 51 Precision.

23 minutes ago, kristo said:

Yeah, they were 'Kaj_japan' and 'bigupspirit3'

Thank you, that's awesome.

4 minutes ago, kristo said:

I bought a couple of Japanese Fenders earlier this year. Both transactions were fine, delivery was only a few days each time. Fedex handled the import charges on my behalf and I paid them back (both times after the basses were delivered). As long as the seller is decent, does the correct paperwork and packs well it should be easy. 

Do you know which Ebay sellers you used?

I had a 1977 Fender Precision and a 1973 Telecaster Bass. The 1977 Precision was a thing of beauty, it played and sounded phenomenal and I wish i had it now still. The 1973 Telecaster bass sounded huge but was basically a tree trunk slightly shaped into something that looked like a bass and had no ability to be setup or adjusted. It was so heavy and chunky that you needed a rest after playing it for more than 5 minutes.

I also have a Japanese 1986 ESP 400 Series Jazz which was made in the same factory as the Japanese Fender's and it is the best bass I have ever played. My other Japanese 80's Fender's are also the best basses I have owned. I would love to own a genuine 70's Fender again just to have in my collection but I won't pay silly money for one.

Brilliant video, both the Jazz and Precision.

I really like the simplistic design of the Gnome and the new 600w version. Its lacking in features compared to other amps but the really competitive price reflects this and I can see manufacturers actually selling this for £299 in time. I've been using my 280w Gnome quite a bit recently and it sounds fab through my Barefaced Two10 but I have just bought a Mark Bass Little Mark IV which is nice but I'm thinking for the price I should of waited and bought the new 600w Gnome. The only thing I'm not so keen on with the new Gnome is the size, it would of been nice if it was a little smaller but hey ho, we can't have it all.

Oooh, thank you, I love my Gnome I Pro 280 so this is super interesting.

Songs I Hate,

Red Red Wine

Alright Now

Anything by Celine Dion

I've not really seen these connections with basses and cars apart from referring to a Fender bass as being like a workhorse or a Ford Mondeo. 

8 hours ago, xgsjx said:

I used to get my sub bass sound by using a Boss OC3 with just the -1 oct & then into a Moog MF-101 low pass filter. 
Now I get it with a Roli Rise & Equator. 
 

If you’re determined to use bass guitar & FX, then a -1 octave into a low pass filter with the cutoff dialled back a good bit should get you very close. You can add dirt & chorus just after the octaver if you want a thicker sound. 

Just reading up about a low pass filter as this sounds like it might be an interesting idea. 

I've actually played their three times and on all 3 occasions the sound was shocking and on all 3 occasions the headline artist, Paul Weller also had terrible sound.

Great thread. My introduction to Supertramp was back in 1998. I was recording an album in South Wales and we were living at the studio for 3 months in a small cottage. In the cottage along with a pool table were thousands and thousands of CD's and VHS videos. I started to go through the CD's just to pass the time and I discovered the Breakfast in America album and oh my, I was absolutely blown away by it. I simply couldn't stop listening to this incredible masterpiece. The producer we were working with, Mark Wallis of It Bites, Travis, U2 fame suggested I also listen to Crime of the Century and again, I was not disappointed, another masterpiece and I would say that Breakfast in America along with Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring and U2's The Unforgettable Fire are my favorite albums of all time.

6 hours ago, 0175westwood29 said:

Oc5 can do an oc2 just think of the direct dial as dry, set the switch to vintage turn the octave up off and -1 octave all the way up

Ok cool, will give that a try, thank you.

14 minutes ago, 0175westwood29 said:

seems like you want some sub bass for sure not just a standard octave, however i know for the dua lipa track sound you could get close with an oc2 ( turn off the dry) and a subtle chorus

 

for me id only use the dod meatbox into a di, and i use mine as an always on sub under my main sound, i think as salt says you might be better using a standard octave

 

 

Ok, thank you. I have an OC-5 but it doesn't have a dry knob. The Sub n Up suggested earlier might do the trick.

1 hour ago, Salt on your Bass? said:

What sort of music do you play? I'm surprised your going for a 'subby' sound if you're playing a retro 210 as they roll the lows off to provide that vintage vibe. 

Do you want it to sound subby, or do you want it to sound like a 'normal' low B? 

I found the meatbox unless everything was cranked and you wanted to all out sub, was a little unversatile / less effective. 

not sure if a more standard octaver would do what you need?

just a thought ✌️

So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm not being totally clear in the effect I'm trying to create but you are right in it sounding like a normal low B rather than stubby.

It's very hard to describe the type of music we play but we have a singer who plays an acoustic so think of a Damien Rice singer songwriter type set up. Plus he adds vocal layers etc. Our drummer plays a small percussive kit using brushes only and shakers. I play fretless and either fill the bottom end or play a more cello role but my tone is the other end of the guitar if that makes sense. I also use a lot of octave to really fatten the sound but it would be good to try and have an effect that creates the low end but doesn't give the doubling up of notes effect that an octaver produces. 

In the studio, for certain moments in the track when everything drops out or ends, we boosted the low end on the bass or I played an extra track of just a single low note and then the low frequencies were boosted to have that big bass push 

So I'm not sure if this will show what I'm after, and this is absolutely nothing like the music we play, but listen to about 2m 55s of this song, the bass is subtle but very low and it's probably done on a keyboard but it's this sort of thing. You might need headphones for some of these examples or I might just need a 5 string bass 😂

From about 1m 14s of this song, very subtle but the second note is super low especially.

Again from about 42 seconds in this song,

1 hour ago, Daz39 said:

TC Electronic Sub'n'Up?

It that not just an octave pedal that will do the octave note as well or can it do just the low note?

9 hours ago, DGBass said:

I did a support gig back in the late 90s for a US band called 3D House Of Beef and those guys knew all about sub bass. A lot of their tunes were played at around 30 BPM and the bass was also tuned to drop D. I recall speaking to their bass player to ask him what he was using on his board and his main pedal was a DOD Meatbox. Never heard anything like them since and to get the best from it I suspect you will need amplification that can cope with serious low end.  The 3D House Of Beef guy was using a full SVT 8x10 rig with additional 1x18 subs 😲 Their album 'Low Cycle' is a good indication of the sub bass tones a Meatbox can do.

Awesome and thank you. I'm hoping my Barefaced Two10 will be able to cope as I'm not planning on having anything too deep, loud or heavy going but more of a case that if I play a B for example on the A string, it will give me a nice sub B, not too dissimilar to playing the B on a 5 string or the equivalent of an octave down.

Thanks guys, just watched a demo of the DOD Meatbox and it looks like it might just do the trick. Thank you.

Is there a pedal that will allow me to create some low deep sub bass tones? I do have the Boss OC-5 Octave pedal which does thicken the sound nicely but it also gives that typical Pino/Tony Levin octave sound which is not what I am after. I would like to create a smooth low sub bass sound. Is there a pedal that can do that?

I had one of these basses as my first bass and they are amazing. Whoever buys this will not be disappointed. Steve is also a lovely guys so buy with confidence.

Friday: Sigrid, John Mayer, Soil and Pimp Sessions, Peter Gabriel, Foo Fighters

Saturday: First Aid Kit, Dua Lipa, Kalandra, Simple Minds, The Walker Roaders, Rage Against The Machine

Sunday: London Grammar, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Tears For Fears, Bruce Springsteen, Sting

I loved my Ampeg PF500, an absolutely fabulous sounding amp head but by today's standard they are quite heavy and chunky. I've not tried the pedal but I would imagine it will give you more tonal options.

8 minutes ago, ezbass said:

As much as slides, vibrato and mwah are great fun and are pretty much the de facto, trademarks of fretless, also set some time aside avoiding these and try and make it sound like a fretted bass (accurate fingering, using the fingertips, without vibrato). The ability to move between these techniques means that when you break out those trademark, fretless tones, they’ll stand out as features, rather than being full on, all the time.

Yep, I agree with this also and would also add that you should try and find your own voice, rather than trying to sound like a fretless. I describe my tone as Jamerson Motown played on a fretless but occasionally I break into a bit of Pino/Giblin which gets people to sit up and then I drop back into holding the bottom end. Typical example of this was last Wednesday, I was playing a gig and a drummer came up to me after, complimented me on my playing, said he had to stand up at the back as he wanted to listen to my playing. He said he could hear a lots of Mick Khan in my playing and very fretless inspired playing and it would sound amazing on a fretless. I thanked him and then pointed out I was playing fretless 😝

You shouldn't really have too much difficulty transitioning to a fretless from a fretted as long as your technique and ear are good. I'm not saying you have bad technique but a player who has weak or lazy technique will struggle moving to a fretless and a fretless will really highlight this as theres no hiding. You should approach playing a fretless no different to a fretted bass, you play them the same despite having a different voice, personality and expression but bad technique will show, be it a fretted bass or fretless bass. The other thing is it's really really important to get very familiar with a fretless fretboard. They do differ and just because you have lines, doesn't mean it's the correct spot to fret. So learn your fretboard and make sure your fretted technique is strong and the transition to fretless should be painless. Start slow and stick at it.