bassace

Thanks for the plug, Spencer. I haven't played the Upton for about a year now but there would be a bit of a tax liability if I sold it. So I'm keeping it for the mo.

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1393455375' post='2380656'] Nice looking beastie. The bridge is cut very oddly and should have a rounded sweep where the strings cross. For a good luthier check this thread [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/204959-db-luthiers-thread/"]http://basschat.co.u...uthiers-thread/[/url] [/quote] Ooh! Ouch!

There's a lot more sources of walking theory about than when I started out. But just consider an alternative approach. There is no substitute for getting the stuff firmly in your head. I collected my lines from all sorts of influences, principally jazz, but there was a lot of other good music about; popular music used the double bass to underpin the rhythmic content. Fats Domino's bassist had some great lines for instance. But getting back to the point, try to listen to some of the jazz trios and hear how the bass walks under the improvising pianist. The obvious place to start is anything by Oscar Peterson where Ray Brown's bass playing is a joy. If you can find Andre Previn's rendering of the My Fair Lady tunes you will hear Leroy Vinegar who is regarded as one of the best walkers. And there is this: A piano trio with Scott Lafaro playing bass. Not the tricksy stuff with Bill Evans that we know him for but just playing some great solid walking lines. [color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,] [/font][/color][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXG4ES-4FiM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXG4ES-4FiM[/url]

I'm happy to send one or two out FOC is anyone would care to PM me.

Agree re scaffolding.

With my double bass stage right (audience left) so I'm looking into the band rather than the wings. It's not only about the drummer, there are others in the band.

Thanks Keith. UPS via Interparcel both ways dead easy. Highly recommended.

What a nice guy. He brought a Crazy 8 cab out by train to Oxford. Very pleasant to deal with and easy to keep in touch. Laurence, there's a PM for you. PS, the cab had Clarky's fingerprints all over it.

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' timestamp='1391545611' post='2358484'] I played my Eminence through a GK MB150 combo for a little while, though with Kolstein strings, an AptFlex pickup (similar to the Gage) and a Fishman Dual Parametric DI as the other elements in the chain. I liked it but found I missed the presence/air a tweeter gives so had one rigged up to the extension output. As for body - I found the only way to fatten it up was with a proper extension speaker, in my case an Epifani UL112. Certainly helped a lot. You could try borrowing a separate speaker cab, hooking it up to the GK and then disabling the internal GK speaker. That way, you can judge if you like the sound of the GK preamp on it's own. Then try mixing the internal speaker with the external one. To be honest - amplifying double bass is a crap shoot. All the great gear in the world goes out the window if the singer has too much low's in the monitor or your keyboard player can't control the left hand, or cymbals eat up all the high frequencies in the room, or the room sounds like an empty swimming pool, or....or....or....... GOOD LUCK!!!!!!! [/quote] Ho ho. At a gig last week I suggested that the keyboard player move his seat a foot to the right.

[quote name='andyonbass' timestamp='1391144011' post='2353750'] Make sure you have a good right hand technique as well, Geoff ⬆︎covers this in one of his lessons iirc......... [/quote] Yes. Reminds me of the old double bass chestnut - Q 'Why can't I get a sound like Ray Brown?' A 'Because you're not Ray Brown!'

Congrats, Clarky! Still the happy owner of your previous one. I do a monthly gig at a pub whose stage area has probably the worst acoustics I've encountered. Problem is a conventional DB is 'too much bass'. So I use the Kolstein with an Underwood pickup through a Genz Shuttle. Dead easy. I take the Kolstein to other gigs where space is at a premium. It's been a good investment. Enjoy your new bass. - BTW, what pickup?

So fed up with the drummer getting his snare right, saxes taking ages to figure out what's the 'right' reed, brass [i]literally[/i] warming up, I don't warm up at all - apart from tuning up and getting a decent eq.

To hell with all this bass stuff - I got a Sage juicer. It's an amazing piece of kit and well put together.

Congratulations to both of you. What a wonderful Christmas present.

Ok, probably not a popular suggestion to most of you but how about going back to the fifties. Denis Preston was described as Europe's first independent record producer, making recordings in his Lansdowne Studios and selling the results to the major labels. The Lansdowne sound applied to the discs of the day was quite special, having a clarity but also mixed with a smidge of reverb. He recorded Bad Penny Blues with Joe Meek as his engineer and soon afterwards Meek left to do his own stuff.

Some of the nicest people on the planet populate the DB section. Christmas greetings not only to the experienced members who have contributed so much but also to those who are starting on their DB journeys. I'm not too bad right now, just getting over a bout of pneumonia and looking forward to resuming on 30th Dec. My pizz fingers are a bit buttery but I'll just have to start practicing again! Wishing you all a lot of DB fulfillment in 2014.

Not where I play.

Before I play I stand the bass on its side and pull out the end pin and by fiddling about make sure that the screw is properly located in the pin's indentation before I tighten it up. May be a good idea, Rob, to make sure that your indentations/slots/why have good square shoulders on them, and if necessary fettle these up with a file.

I like to have my gear in soft bags so they squeeze into the corners of the load space. I seem to carry so much stuff that I now have two small bags. One gig specific so I can easily find those leads that I'll need on the gig and a second bag that stays in the car with all the back-up stuff in it, just in case.

Oh dear, is this how it gets?

In USA - 'bridge' and in UK - 'middle eight'. So how do you get on when a tune has a middle eight [i]and [/i]a bridge?