spinynorman

There was a fairly long discussion and quite divided opinion on mods [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=20984&hl=spend+on+mods"]here[/url].

I think this is the first strings thread I've seen where 90% of the replies didn't say TI Jazz Flats. Last time I used juststrings.com their overseas postage charges were horrendous because they quote for a courier service. If you email them, they'll give you a price for standard airmail, which makes the deal much better. That was a while ago though, so may be different now.

That SG RI is a nice bass, used ones don't come up that often outside the US and importing one, assuming you can persuade the seller to ship it, would cost quite a bit more than that price. Gibson bass lovers tend to huddle together for mutual support so an agnostic site like Basschat probably isn't the best place to catch them. It's a small market, but one that's used to paying serious money, so pretty ideal for eBay. Prices on eBay are just bizarre sometimes. I recently sold a used Behringer DI for a fiver more than the new retail list. I suppose some people just don't do their homework.

[quote name='stevebasshead' post='245575' date='Jul 22 2008, 06:15 PM'][b]You're all compl-e-t-e-ly wrong.[/b] I get my sound out of my cabs. I checked, I put my ears next to them and it's [i]definitely[/i] the cabs. I then tried putting my fingers in my ears and got no sound at all, not one chuffing note, so I definitely don't get my sound from my fingers. I now have earwax on my strings and they sound dead. Would using Elixirs help?[/quote] That's all very well, but how does your sound get into the cab before it comes out? I think it's the ohms, or maybe the watts.

I read somewhere an interview with Carol Kaye where she dismissed "learning a song" as something only amateurs did and said she always worked out what to play based on musical theory. At the opposite end of the spectrum, somewhere in Dick Heckstall-Smith's autobiography he refers to a jazz bass player who knew no musical theory at all, but could still play anything and improvise with the best. I suppose that works a bit like a snooker player - in order to play those shots they obviously have to calculate angles, forces and velocities, all in their head in a fraction of a second. Except they don't, and when was the last time a maths professor became world snooker champion?

Yes, but that means I have to know that the picture I'm looking for is a GB. I can't see any way I can just browse all the pictures in the vault without going into the specific page for each model.

MIJ 89 Precision, black on black. It's my main gig bass, really because the rest of the band like it. I have to admit it does fit better than anything else I've ever had, but it doesn't stop me trying to find something better.

[quote name='johnnylager' post='245336' date='Jul 22 2008, 01:25 PM']Punter - 'Oi, you're sh*t' Me - 'You're still not getting you're fiver back' Crowd - laughs Punter - leaves[/quote] I suppose the Churchillian answer to that one would be "And you're a dickhead, but I might get better with practice."

Do what I did at one gig and take a good hard look straight into a Par 56 floor can. Couldn't see anything for three songs, let alone the neck.

Possibly I'm just being thick, but I can't see how the Wiki would provide a browsable gallery of pictures. I'm also totally put off by the mention of syntax. Really, life's too short. What I envisage is somewhere I could upload a picture, tag it with keywords and provide some additional description. Then people can either browse the pictures till they find the one they want, or search using the tags. Which is what Photobucket, Flickr, Picassa etc already do, but not ideal because they're outside our control.

So does anyone pay good money for this stuff?

Somebody's been at the Maplin catalogue again.

So we turn up at The Robin to see Steve Gibbons. There's a band already on stage. Friend: [indicating bass player who is singing] Is that Steve Gibbons? Me: No, he's playing a bass. Friend: How do you know? Me: It has 4 strings. Later Steve Gibbons comes on and his bass player has a 6-string bass. Friend: Don't they have a bass player? Me: I think I need a drink.

I've got a pre-2004 Rebop 5, which doesn't have the fancy finish, just a plain slab of alder. The neck is great but I didn't get on with the Tonepump pre-amp, so I replaced it with an Aquilar OBP-1. It is a lovely bass to play, but it does come across in look and sound as quite aggressive, so if you're not in that kind of band (which actually I'm not) it mightn't be the right choice.

Worth reading the sticky thread under Bass Guitars [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=139"]Importing Sticky[/url] Main thing to remember is you'll have to pay import duty and VAT on top of the shipping cost, so what may look like a great bargain, because of the exchange rate, may turn out not that much cheaper than buying here. Can't comment on shops, basses I've bought from the US have been eBay or someone I know. Watch shipping - USPS is a good service and not too expensive, somewhere around $100 for a bass. Other couriers can be a lot more, and of course shops can also charge what they like.

Marie Curie used to do a charity gig at Catton Park - we opened the last one in 2006. The headline band was Roy Wood and the promoter they'd used to hire him was clearly absolutely sh*t scared of the great man and terrified that any of us plebs might come anywhere near him. So we weren't allowed on the main stage and had to play in a tent to one side. So that was the biggest stage we almost played on. I have a t-shirt from that which I only wear under shirts or jumpers - under the list of bands it says "Sponsored by Saga FM."

Long discussion about it [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=12081&st=0"]here[/url], including the buy in bulk idea.

I've just run across the Short Scale Bass Blog. It's actually quite a short scale blog as well, it only lasted 5 months. Just enough time for some GAS inducing pictures. [url="http://shortscalebass.blogspot.com/"]Short Scale Bass Blog[/url]

Doesn't seem like there's much left that would be suitable, if you really think about it. Even "Wonderful Tonight" is about an alcoholic.

I'm really not into jazz at all, but our ex-keyboard player has decided he is and tried to get me interested in a jam session. Proposed pieces included 'Summertime' and 'Fly Me to the Moon'. I think he got his 'Summertime' from 'Gershwin Made Easy', because the most complex chord in it was D minor. But then I based my 'Fly Me to the Moon' on The Shadows' version, which I don't think went down too well. He hasn't asked again. In our rock band, he wanted to do 'Smoke on the Water', which we did, usually as a very drunk encore. And 'Stairway to Heaven', which we didn't. There's a good version of 'Summertime' by Leslie West

I think somewhere between £700 and £1000, depending on condition, colour and where you buy it from. $1000-$1500 in the US, but then you have to ship it and pay tax. There's a few been up recently, first one looks expensive, but it's sunburst . A black one went for $1500 recently on ebay.com. [url="http://www.vintageguitar.com/classifieds/item_detail.asp?ItemID=128527"]VG Mag[/url] [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=250238470764&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=015"]Ebay.com[/url] [url="http://www.guitarvillage.co.uk/product-detail.asp?id=3002"]Guitar Village[/url]

I've had a couple of short scales - a Japcrap EB-3 lookalike, similar to the Ibanez ones, in that the body was slightly longer and narrower than a real one, and an Epi Elitist EB-3. We were doing Cream and Free covers amongst others and I swapped to the EB for those, then back to long scale. That really didn't work, the change in scale from one song to the next threw me completely. I had one dreadful gig where I came home and if the computer had been on the whole lot, long, short, rig, everything, would have gone up on eBay. When I calmed down, only the short scales went. Whether it really was the scale I don't know now, the Epi had terrible neck dive as well. So I wouldn't rule out having another one sometime, but a) it won't be an EB0/EB3/SG b ) it'll get used for a whole set, no swapping mid-stream.

When I got my MIM Jazz 5-string the tone control did absolutely nothing. While changing the pickups for Basslines I also changed the cap and tidied up the sloppy soldering on the pots. It sounds a lot better now. I think the cap I used is 0.47, it was in a bag of bits left over from a previous project and I didn't really look. Also put on a new set of Fender 7250s, which seem to work better than the Roto Jazz flats I tried first.

Recently I've noticed an outbreak of former bass players. A group of geezers will come in before we start, survey the band's setup and then someone will say "You used to play bass, Cyril." And they all laugh and look like they expect me to freak out because there's someone who last touched a bass 30 years ago in the room. I think guitarists get the geeks more than we do. Ours usually has to spend his break discussing pedals with some bedroom artist.

[quote name='bremen' post='239129' date='Jul 14 2008, 01:26 PM']Possibly, but there's more to the bass than the sound - it's got to be fun to play, stay in tune, not be uncomfortable (thinking about weight, neck dive)...[/quote] Surely neck dive is just a "feature" of certain designs, not a quality issue. Otherwise Thunderbirds and EB-3s should be dirt cheap. I've had basses that were fun to play, stayed in tune and were nicely balanced that cost me £150 or less. The only thing they lacked was the right name on the headstock.