BigRedX

A good bass tone (or not) is entirely dependant on the arrangement and overall sound of the track in question. Something that sounds awesome on one track would be hideously inappropriate on another.

Looking at the photos that look alike a handle specific to that make of case. Your best bet is to get in touch with the manufacturers.

Ishibashi shipping costs are entirely dependent upon the size and weight of the item being shipped. For example the Yamaha BJ5B which was big and heavy cost 18000¥ while the much smaller and lighter Fernades Pie-Zo was 12000¥. I don't have any problem buying guitars or basses without playing them first. All my current favourite instruments were bought on-line. The last time I did spend any time with a bass before paying for it I ended up selling it 6 months later. I suppose if you are buying something mass produced in great numbers with well-documented variations in quality between examples then it makes sense to play it first but for anything more specialised, I feel completely safe buying without trying.

But you can use playing in the same register as the guitar(s) to good effect. We do a couple of songs where I play exactly the same thing as the guitar in the same octave (or should I say the guitar plays the same as me since I wrote the music) which gives the music an extra thickness without the bass being obvious. Then when I drop down an octave it really adds some real heft and lifts the whole song.

[quote name='Kempy535' timestamp='1444030308' post='2879480'] They are a bit sneaky. If you try and by that bass and have it shipped out of Japan they will say no. [url="http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/u_box/e/eubox.php?word=2&key=Fender+Japan&equal1=&value5=&select5=down&sort=&print=40&T=gazo"]This[/url] link is where the sell stuff to customers out of Japan, we kind of get the left overs and stuff that doesnt sell. I have had ordered many guitars from Ishibashi always top service [/quote] That's because Fender won't allow them to sell new MiJ instruments for export. Anything second hand and pretty much any other make new is fine. TBH I can't really see the point of buying anything new from Ishibashi because IME pretty much everything turns up second hand at some point most often still in excellent condition and of course much cheaper.

3 strings!! What sort of prog rock nonsense are you people playing? All you need is one string... [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/DSC02853.jpg[/IMG]

I always browse the Japanese Ishibashi site. The text doesn't really matter as I generally know about what I'm after, and if I really need to know what they've said about an instrument I'll copy paste the text into the translation widget. I have an email saved from my previous Ishibashi transactions that I use to contact them about anything I am interested in. I've always used Ishibashi to buy stuff that isn't available at all outside Japan - Yamaha BJ5B, Fernandes Pie-Zo Hello Kitty, Atlansia Solitaire. The only exception was the Tokai Talbo bass, but the second-hand one I bought was about half the price and in far better condition that any of the new ones I had seen in this country which all had terrible casting marks on the body. If you want to cast your net wider in Japan try using [url="http://www.digimart.net"]Digimart[/url] although I've had no success getting any of the shops it covers other than Ishibashi replying to my enquiries.

Did you find something you like at Macaris?

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1443779230' post='2877575'] That Ishibashi website is not for the faint-hearted or the impatient. Hard work. [/quote] I've bought 4 basses from Ishibashi in the past. Excellent service. The only drawbacks are that the Ubox is completely dependent upon what they get in second had and because of the time difference between Japan and here and the fact that they are a chain of actual shops by the time you've seen something that you like, made an enquiry and got a reply back it may well have been sold. However you can narrow down your search to just Tune by clicking on the appropriate button [url=http://store.ishibashi.co.jp/ec/srDispCategoryTreeLink/doSearchCategory/11933261000/04-05/4/1?c=treemain]like this[/url]. No 8-string Tunes right now though.

[quote name='acidbass' timestamp='1443780843' post='2877599'] You should take a look at Waterstone Guitars, if you haven't already. Used by Tom Petersson from Cheap Trick amongst others. [/quote] Good call on Waterstone. I hadn't mentioned them because last time I looked they were only doing 12-string basses. Now I have GAS for one of their 2-string models!

But the current musical landscape is littered with time wasters - probably more-some than ever. The internet has made it far too easy for people who think they might like to be in a band, but when faced with the reality find that they don't have the ability time or general inclination to put in the work that is required. In the past if you wanted to be in a band you had to at the very least get yourself down to your local musical instrument or trendy record shop and browse through the ads posted there to find something that piqued your interest and them phone them up. Now all you have to do is spend a couple of minutes signing up to one of the Join My Band sites and then fire off a bunch of semi-literate replies to any and every ad without even having to shift your bum of the settee. They are the "musicians" who turn up to auditions clearly having not listened to your songs more than once who've wasted your (and the rest of the band's) evening and money as they struggle to play even the simplest of chord progressions, riffs and song structures. And then those who somehow make it through this process who once in the band suddenly can't be arsed to turn up on time for rehearsals, are only available for a fraction of the gigs the band is offered and are generally negative and grumpy about almost everything the band does. These are the time wasters and they should all f*** off and die!

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1443773662' post='2877518'] Bass Guitar Magazine rates them: [url="http://www.deanguitars.com/content/articles/pages/rhap.htm"]http://www.deanguita.../pages/rhap.htm[/url] The reviewer wasn't so concerned about separate saddles, though I'm not sure I follow his logic. 8lbs 8oz seems remarkably light ... [/quote] The review mentions the lack of individual height adjustment not intonation adjustment. Unless Dean have recently changed the design of the bridge (and that would be unlikely since this piece of hardware is shared by every other Korean-made 8-string bass) the bridge has separate saddles for intonation adjustment. IMO you shouldn't need individual height adjustment for each string since the bridge and the fingerboard should follow the same radius - especially on a bass that has specifically constructed for a particular design of bridge. IIRC Dean make several different 8-string models at slightly different price points. When I last tried them only the top of the range one was anything but meh. If I was in the market for an 8-string again I'd be holding out for a nice second hand Japanese Tune bass from Ishibashi.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1443681870' post='2876769'] Before you spend any money, try sticking Alchemy on your iPad. It's a free synth & you can buy upgrades for it if you need them. Worth a download to see if it'll run ok on your iPad. I've got an iPad 3 that's now running a bit slow, but there's no issues with Alchemy on it. If you want even semi convincing pianos or strings on a stand alone synth, you might need to increase your budget to about £200+. [/quote] The problem with iPad apps IMO isn't the app or the iPad but it's connections to the outside world which simply isn't robust enough to stand up to gigging. It seems to me that the better the technology and applications get, the worse the hardware for connecting them together becomes. Back in the days of dedicated hardware samplers, synths and sequencers, MIDI and SCSI might have been a bit of a dark art when it came to getting the devices to talk to each other, but the cables and connectors were a lot more sturdy and gig proof.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1443714580' post='2877114'] I dunno... that would mean they had two members who weren't good enough to play the guitar [/quote] Actually it's three members. After all an acoustic guitar isn't a proper guitar either ;-)

Good to see a band with 2 bassists...

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1443696811' post='2876926'] Thought it looked familiar, only proper old type of cinema left locally with that much space to perform in front of the screen. Of course cinemas were fairly common liv music venues in the 60's, not sure if the Savoy was ever used for it seriously though, there would have been others in City centre more suitable I guess. [/quote] AFAIK the Odeon that used to be next to the library in town was used for concerts including one by The Beatles (before it was converted to 2 screens in the mid 60s).

[quote name='cybertect' timestamp='1443695328' post='2876907'] Though, curiously, Chris Joyce and Tony Bowers of Simply Red were both previously members of The Durutti Column, who are often compared to the Cocteaus. [/quote] Let's face it though. None of the members of the Durutti Column other than Vini Reilly were really important.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1443696388' post='2876914'] Did you film the video at the Savoy on Derby Road by any chance? [/quote] Yes we did! All done in 4 hours on a Saturday morning, before they opened to the public.

At one point they had pretty much all of the Dean 8- and 12-string bass range in Macaris Charing Cross Road shop. Might be worth having a look to see if they still do.

Before you go converting any basses, just remember that unlike a 12-string guitar, an 8-string bass needs a much wider neck to comfortably accommodate the extra octave strings. The Carlo Robelli 8-string bass had a neck width that was only a little bit narrower than a typical 5-string.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1443639606' post='2876561'] was it recorded at JT soar? I heard another album that had been recorded there and it wasn't nearly as polished as this, did they do the mastering as well? [/quote] Yes, it was recorded and mixed at JT Soar. There's a whole thread about the recording [url= http://basschat.co.uk/topic/261888-the-terrortones-are-making-an-album/]here[/url]. I suppose polish (or lack of it) is down to the band's choice - mostly it's down to production. We spent 3 days doing the basic recording and another 3 days doing production and mixing. A lot of what is recorded at JT Soar is done a lot more quickly than that. The majority of the album was recorded live with just vocals and few guitars and other instruments overdubbed. Mastering was done by [url=http://mastering.ninja]Formation Audio[/url] who have mastered our last 3 releases and done an excellent job each time.

Taster for the album in the form of a video out now. [url=http://basschat.co.uk/topic/270428-i-cant-find-my-braincell/page__pid__2876461#entry2876461]Watch it here[/url]

Bear in mind that both those Kramer 8-string basses have a common saddle for both the bass and the octave string. Every time I've tried one out I've been unhappy with the tuning of the notes above the 6-7th fret.

Pressing was done in France by a company called MPO

As a taster to our forthcoming LP "SnakeOil For Snakes" let me present to you the brand new video from Dick Venom & The Terrortones - "I Can't Find My BrainCell" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd3DHTwbkJA So long as you don't have a problem with men cavorting about in skin-tight latex this one should be OK to play at work...