Wolverinebass

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1397599495' post='2425630'] A unique technique for sure. I've experimented with it at various times out of curiosity. The key is to lower the action so low that conventional fingerstyle technique sounds terrible, but you can dab the strings down near the end of the neck and 'ping' out the notes you desire. It is relatively easy to get speed up this way, especially if you have good finger strenth from conventional playing styles. You then have to use enough distortion to turn the fret buzz into musical harmonic content. A compressor helps as well, but I would personally keep the chorus and flanger pedals [s]in the bin[/s] away from your rig. I don't like playing that way at all, but it does work if you are patient. I admire John for being unique, and for carving out a unique voice on the instrument, far beyond how much I admire him as a musician, sadly. Rather like Ray Manzarek of The Doors (RIP), he does enough to sound flashy, but not enough to stand up to scrutiny, personally. That tuition video really highlights this, as he struggles to explain away a lot of his technique. How much of the content of that video is actually useful? Again, hats of to him for experimenting with treble, roundwounds and distortion at a time when nobody wanted to know. I am a big fan of The Who, but I prefer the band as a musical unit far beyond my personal like of any of the individual members (I just finished Pete's autobiography as well). [/quote] With respect, that isn't really true in part. If you have a bass which you can set the action suicidally low and have a light touch for fingerstyle, it will be fine. As long as you don't play even mediumly hard, there will be very little tone difference. As long as you don't overdo the chorus, it works fine for typewriter. You are quite right about flanging though. It sounds awful with tapping in this method. Yuck.... Isn't it obvious why he doesn't explain his technique? It's because it's all showing off!! He knows this, you know this. Nobody plays bass like that if they want to be a backup man. Obviously, he can't really say that on a mainstream production as (heaven forbid!!) a bass player doing more lead work than the guitarist is always wrong. Apparently. I suppose it depends what you define as "useful." If you're looking to check something out and steal a few bits of technique then yeah it is. If you're looking for a tick box of where something can be used in, well, it is total pants. I always took it as being down to the individual's imagination. I never had any problem retroactively going through songs I play to use it. It's just such a pity that my favourite members of The Who are both dead.

Don't do it. If that bass isn't worth the sacrifice of having no money for a while then it's just pointless. In my own case I bought ALL my basses for cash with the exception of the buzzard. That was thanks to the legal malarkey with the design, so although I'd saved about half of the cash, I got a quick loan from my father in law and lived on baked beans for 8 months whilst I paid him back. I don't regret it for a minute, but if I'd not liked the bass, nothing would have been worth the sacrifice as I couldn't do anything that cost money.

Both bands are using 12 strings. There aren't that many good 8 strings. ESP Ltd maybe, Dean are okay as well. The Shine ones aren't great. Depends on what you want to spend.

[quote name='AttitudeCastle' timestamp='1396482379' post='2414287'] I think John Entwistle's Status Buzzards have/had the lowest action of any basses I've ever seen. I believe Wolverine on here used to have one and agreed with this a while back. [/quote] I still have the buzzard. You can get the action supernaturally low on them. Almost beyond anything you can imagine being possible and mine is about 0.5mm at the 12th fret. I do play very lightly though. It makes it so stupidly easy to play that after a week of playing something that you can't do that with like my 12, the it feels like you're playing a toy...

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1396645871' post='2416134'] yes but there is no Shuker or Sei even at there top end, that you will have to pay 15 + grand for.. by the way i didn't mean to offend anyone who goes on stage with these instruments. i apologise if i did. [/quote] Yeah, that is true and I didn't make that point clearly enough in my post. Unless it's a vintage instrument owned by someone famous or somewhat rare nothing "normal" should really be up at that sort of level. On the other hand, I'm sure people could argue that the Series 2 basses would wipe the floor with anything. Having played a couple, they are amazing basses and probably the most flexible sounding basses I've ever tried.To compare Shuker or Sei basses is an apples and oranges one at that level as they're not similar in functionality or sounds really at all. I'd have to win the lottery to get one though.... 15 grand is somewhat steep though to put it mildly. Ouch. No offence taken and I hope my post didn't suggest there was.

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1396619842' post='2415756'] sorry i just don't buy it. some alembics are nearly three times the price of a Shuker, or a Sei. and Alembic don't put three times as much effort in to there making there basses than these makers. . they ride on there image, and can get away with the huge prices of there basses on that fact. its nothing to do with capturing peoples imagination. its about very cleverly forming an image, with top players, endorsees etc. and riding the wave and overcharging because the can. just like Fodera, fantastic instruments no doubt, but overpriced. yep. i think its very naive to think otherwise. i personally would feel like a bit of a wally, walking on stage with a Fodera or an Alembic. [/quote] It depends which level of Alembics you mean. The Series 1 and 2 basses are stupidly high for for what is just electronics differences. I think at the signature level, they're about right, though I've had mine for 12 years. You're not going to see much change out of 4 grand for either a Wal, Sei or Shuker once you've added almost every bell and whistle or fancy wood top and fingerboard you can think of. It's all relative really and how much you think something's worth. You don't think they're worth it, fair enough, don't buy one. Having played a Shuker and a Sei, I prefer my Alembic. I played a Ritter and thought it was so-so. The Fodera I tried was great, but sadly passive so I wasn't interested. I don't think that in all seriousness even if money were no object anyone should be paying more than 5 grand for a bass. I personally think that Rickenbackers are hugely overpriced. They're a £400 bass. £1700?!! Jog on, pal. As I said, all relative really. Plenty would swear by them. I regularly go onstage with my Alembic. I don't feel like a wally (regardless if I am one or not!!) I don't go on feeling like that anyway, but then again, I don't own a bass I don't like for that reason.

This is pointless. Just open all the options up or I'm not interested. If I can't get a precision with black blocks I'm not interested. They only do one (some 70's reissue), but the nut width is thinner than usual so no dice there Mr Fender. Plus the fact that it is £900 for a MIM bass they can poke that. I think that if I were going to ever get a precision I'd get one from Warmoth.

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1394805110' post='2395421'] There's a couple on eBay at the moment (one I suspect is the one you've seen), both in Edinburgh. £2.5k for one, £2.8k for the other. Thing is, they'll probably sell for this much, or not far under. Mine sold for about £2k a year or two ago (see ad qv in basschat - but it took a LOT of work to get them advertised to a standard they deserved, ie more so than an ebay listing saying "yeah they work fine") [/quote] Those were both the ones I was referring to. Surprising that I've seen them go for $1100 and yet these folk want almost 3 grand in crisp Sterling. Good luck as those listings have been there for months with no updates or anything. It just seems somewhat overpriced to me, but I'm sure someone will buy them at that level. "Works fine." Love it. 40 year old gear, no inclination of servicing or anything. How I laugh.

I recently jumped on this bandwagon myself. I really wanted to find a set of T3's but after looking for quite some time it seemed to be a dead end. So I ended up going for a set of PK6's and a Moog Slim Phatty. That's pretty devastating. I notice with interest there are a couple of clowns in Edinburgh are trying to sell the original Taurus pedals for more than £2500!! Jog on, pal. I'm still in the whole "midi hell" stage of it as I notice that switching between mono and poly mode is sending midi cc messages (127 and 126) which is changing the settings on the Moog. Naturally, Roland weren't that helpful. Looks like I'll have to get a midi filter or something to block them. Anyone got any suggestions? Unless Moog were going to lose money on every T3 they made I kind of wonder if they've dropped the ball by only making 1500. Surely they could have sold twice that amount at least. I certainly would have bought a set. Maybe at one point in the future they might re-issue them again.

Thanks chaps. I didn't want to hassle them, I just wondered if my emails had been lost in the ether. Will see what transpires.

About a month ago one of the screws which hold the adjustable nut on had fallen out. Okay, it's a really stupid imperial size 5/64ths of an inch and worse still happens to be an allen bolt. In other words it appears to be about as rare as unicorn tears to find in the UK. So I thought I might get a replacement and a few other things from them as well that might come in useful. However, after more than a month aside from an automatic system generated reply I've not heard anything. Surely someone on the forum has had some reason to contact them. Is this typical or not? It just kind of strikes me that a month to reply to an email seems a tad long.

What about the cabs? Are the powerhouse series worth it? Having never played them, I've been offered a Powerhouse 4x12 for a quite nice deal, but as even at that it's still a massive wodge of cash. Is it worth it? Has anyone ever played one? Are they transparent or heavily coloured cabs? Any info would be good if anyone has it.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1380894323' post='2232063'] Played with one for a couple of hours at the SE Bass Bash - they are monstrously loud, my measely 500w MB sa450 head into one literally emptied the hall with the other 30 or 40 bass rigs, because no one could hear anything whilst we played with it. Once again apologies to everyone who put up with my getting very excited with filter sweeps into brown note territory at extreme war volume. Apparently you can jam 1600 watts into one all day and it will just turn your internal organs to jelly... It sounded fantastic, effortlessly loud, but more than that a great tone. Killer cab... [/quote] I happened to play through 51M0n's rig into the Big Twin 2. I think 2 words can be used to describe it - limitless brutality. I've never played anything like it. I'd never seen anything have speakers which move so far and yet still work afterwards. Never had I played a bass rig which had such low frequency extension. Might put some off, but we had the Markbass at 10 for all of a minute and it just ate the power and continued to just get louder and louder as we turned up. I'm sure that people were being turned into some sort of strange fleshy liquid in far off countries when we played it. I did favour the treble end as hey, that's what most important to me and I went for the "full treble grind." Just ate it. That new waveguide horn is brilliant. Biting, but smooth and not shrill. Si used some evil octave, filter and fuzz fx. It just took it without even breaking a sweat. At the volume it was being played at and the notes being produced with the octave, I didn't think it was possible. The whole off axis thing was ridiculous. I played the same figure as I walked in a wide arc of almost 180 degrees in front of it. The sound stayed virtually constant. That's another one I've never experienced. Furthermore, I used to honestly scoff when people say "it's a one hand lift." I always thought that the people who said that played rugby for New Zealand and were made of solid muscle. I picked the thing up with one hand and I'm only 5 foot 9 and weigh in (dripping wet) at a portly 9 stone 4. It really was like it was made of.... well, nothing. They're not cheap, but nothing good ever is. It's not for everyone I don't think as the bass extension was just soooo monstrous, but I thought it was the best cab I've ever played. Directly before that I'd played 51m0n's Bergantino 4x10. That was the best 410 I'd ever played. Brilliant.

Am I the only one who when they read "a certain pickup manufacturer" immediately thought SGD? I would never, ever have bought anything that SGD had done. Not because I doubt the inherent quality of the work, but because when you read the 5000 page thread on talkbass "Won a wal pickup on ebay," you realise that every 6 months he said "soon" it's either never going to happen or it'll be a total car crash of customer service. Crap. Sorry, just total crap. I did toy with getting some stuff from Warmoth and bunging those pickups in, but decided that if I wanted a Wal, I should just..... get a Wal. Shock, horror of realising the total bloody obvious. For anything similar I'd get an ACG. I suppose I've never really had a custom build. My Alembic was off the shelf at the Bass Centre in Wapping, the buzzard was pretty much standard. My 8 string was custom in that I chose every single part myself. Pity I didn't figure out how amazingly heavy it was going to be and that I'd be a foot shorter after wearing it for 4 hours at rehearsal. Oh dear. However, it's like everything else. Roll the dice and take your chances.

This is the most insane thing I've ever seen!! Get in!!

Loved it. Top quality in every way. Was brilliant to meet people and put faces to names and try out some of the most amazing gear I've ever seen. Fantastically good fun.

Typical. Another good brand that Fender have killed. Surely GB would have been making money?

Will be popping along. As I don't have a car I'll only be bringing one bass. Probably either the Alembic or the Buzzard.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1375365780' post='2160339'] I recall a quote from John Entwistle saying the opposite was true of him, cos he thought picks sounded better, but fingers looked cooler. I may have imagined it though. [/quote] Partially true. He said a pick looks less flashy. It's on the hot licks DVD. Plus playing with a pick meant folk thought townshend was playing his bits as it wasn't so obvious what he was doing.

If that was me I'd be having my name off it right away. If it's not me, it's not me and that's the end of it. It's a difficult one, but I wouldn't care if my playing got substituted with Jaco Pastorius. I'm not taking the credit for something I didn't do. If I had a stinker at the session, I wouldn't have been bothered about having my playing removed provided I had a conversation about it. Someone removing your playing unilaterally is totally wrong. The fact that the playing has been based on what you've done is somewhat of an insult as well. Say something now or forever let it eat away at you....

[color=#222222]I generally hate sound engineers. All of them have tended to make my gig experiences less enjoyable than they could have been. I used to use a pod but then I used to get undermixed despite how nice/polite I was about hearing myself properly. Plus they quite often used to do frequency pans on me. Xillddx says there is more control. In an ideal world, yes there is and it's the perfect solution. Except when people set out their stall to screw with you, because [i]they[/i] have the control over you. Even after the original Bass Pod being more than 10 years old most of these lobotomized “sound guys” still don’t know what to do with it. I put that in inverted commas as I know that there are good ones. Pity I’ve only ever met 4 of them.[/color] [color=#222222]Another belter I find is what happened to me last time I played up London. At this particular gig I was assured that there would be an Ashdown amp as part of the house backline so bringing my own gear was uneccessary. “A 4x10?” I ask. “Yes” came the reply, so I presume that you can see where this is going. I get there and it's a 40W Perfect Ten. Great. That’ll be punchy if I was playing in a matchbox.[/color] [color=#222222]The band before us were playing dual guitars through 2 4x12s at devastating volume and both of these cabs were mic’d. When I asked the sound engineer if he'd mic this miniscule practice amp, he said "no" because “the bass would spill all over the stage” and that this 1x10 behemoth was "more than enough" for me to hear myself. The bloke despite my increasingly agitated and progressively less polite assertions that this was utter bollocks refused to budge, nor let me put it up on a table so that it’d be closer to ear level. Then just to mess me up even more I hasten to add he then didn't put my DI'd bass through the PA into the wedge. So I couldn’t hear anything. [/color] [color=#222222]To make matters worse, after 3 songs of silence when I looked down at my fingers he turned the bass on but without any content under 350Hz. Even if you don’t like Alembics, imagine that your bass sound was reduced to that of a clicky banjo because some moron didn’t know what he was doing and was exercising his own power trip. I was beyond any level of enraged and were it not for the timely intervention of a few of my close friends I was going to probably have done some serious physical harm to this imbecile.[/color]

Townshend isn't bleeped on the DVD, but to be honest it's a reasonably rose tinted view of Entwistle's life. The manner of his death is completely glossed over, as is his almost stupid shopaholic/alcoholic/cocaine addict nonsense. What I wouldn't give for someone to write a decent biography like what Tony Fletcher did with Keith Moon.....

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1369218662' post='2086354'] He went after Hipshot for daring to make a compatible bridge that worked properly. [/quote] But that was because the tail lift was a "registered trademark." Not to mention the intonation and saddle adjustment problems. But hey, come on, that's worth paying for isn't it?!!

[quote name='Hamster' timestamp='1369213528' post='2086253'] It may be much easier to make Basschat a totally 'Rickenbacker Free Zone' so the admins don't get any more[i] bullsh1t[/i] emails and live under constant threat of legal action. [/quote] Fixed it for you my dear boy. On a serious level though, enough is enough. I agree with Happy Jack in terms of saying "...'moan then!!" (said with my own Scottish accent). I'm sick and tired of this bloke threatening everyone and anyone. It's become beyond silly. How many more things are going to get sued on? Don't DiMarzio offer replacement pickups as well? Why not copyright maple wooded basses? That's only ever been used by them. Obviously. How ridiculous can we go here? How about the black jetglo colour or even the specific pots for volume and tone? STOP. IT. Every time he does this he's making people refuse to buy his brand. The reality will probably be more along the lines of what BRX has said about going after the weakest point and all that. Erase every single post/thread/piece of content on this site that relates to his infernal brand. Leave only the porn threads for fakers as being active. Just for a wind up. They're not for sale!! Unlucky. Then we can see him set up his own anger management/lawsuits anonymous therapy group. Ha!!

That's it. I'm never buying a Rickenbacker bass. If I want something similar, I shall be taking up Mr Foxen's more than generous offer to get..... a FAKE one!! Woooo!!! What you going to do about that? What's next? Will Mr Hall try to sue the manufacturers of the screws used on his pathetically awful tail lifting bridge? That's a trademark surely of Rics? Or maybe the triangular neck inlays? When does it stop? The answer is simple. When this bloke goes out of business. I had really thought about getting myself something nice for my 35th a couple of years ago and toyed with the idea of getting a Ric. Then I played one. I then suitably re-considered. His posturing and threatening I truly hope ruins that company as has ruined their reputation and any smidgeon of goodwill associated with it. It's just the icing on the cake for some people, but he's never going to see one penny of my hard earned cash. See ya Jonny boy, I'm buying a Wal!!