Bloodaxe

Which hand? Fretting or plucking?

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1148912' date='Mar 3 2011, 09:01 PM']If you adopt the fretted technique for the fretless bass, it's a nice way to dig a trench in your fretboard, especially with roundwounds [/quote] This is an oft-stated opinion that I'd like to get to the bottom of... 'Tramlining' runs [i]longitudinally[/i], yet conventional vibrato pulls/pushes the string [i]transversely[/i], so how, exactly, can transverse vibrato cause longitudinal tramlining? Logically it ought to cause an oval 'scallop' around the point of bending. I've got some lovely trenches at the money end of my fingerboard which I put down to a fairly aggressive left hand technique. My theory is this... As you stop the note (let's say it's Bb on the A) & slide it up to Eb (or D#), the string is stretched slightly along its length, which abrades the board especially with roundwounds. The effect will be less with ground/pressurewounds & minimal/nonexistent with flats. It'll also be mitigated depending on what your fingerboard is made from or treated with. As an addendum to the above, I just spoke to Martin at the Gallery & he largely agrees with my theory. He also made the interesting comment that in his opinion it's much more important to sound like YOU & to hell with 'correct' technique but accept the consequences. He also said that Jack Bruce has a bad technique & treats his instruments abysmally He didn't know how long JB goes between reshoots though (watch almost any footage of him & you'll see he likes a bend). Pete.

[quote name='cameltoe' post='1145086' date='Feb 28 2011, 09:46 PM']Was he predominantly a pick player? I normally use fingers, but I'm fairly competent with them. Great posts btw. I think he's a great player, I'd like to take some of his style into my playing.[/quote] TBH that footage of Space Truckin' is the first & only time I've seen him playing fingerstyle - maybe keeping that root/fifth pulse goimg in the 'improv' bit is easier than a pick. That's a short version, mind, there are bootlegs that top 30 minutes! Alternatively... maybe he just dropped his pick at a crucial moment & had to carry on regardless. If so, I bet it hurt afterwards As to style, he's largely a pentatonic player - a bit like Geezer Butler. There's a lot of blues in Purple, & Sabbath started as an R&B band.

[quote name='3below' post='1144987' date='Feb 28 2011, 09:03 PM']Get a Rick 4001 if feeling flush (but not essential)[/quote] Then rip the pickups out & stick a couple of Jazz p/ups in Around 4:07. Or just go for a bog-standard sunburst P & spank the pants off it Oh, you'll need a floppy hat too.

[quote name='kiat' post='1144679' date='Feb 28 2011, 05:28 PM']Have learnt some great tunes (mainly soul/pop, early funk) from transcription, tab and by ear - but sometimes I can't find anything online so learn by ear. Am tempted to do a transcription, though I have zero formal music theory and only know what I see in transcriptions and the play along type books I have. So as I convince myself to do one ("Say a Little Prayer" likely the first), I'm wondering what other players have done. If you've written a transcription, what was your first one? (sneaky thought: might help extra transcriptions surface! ;-)[/quote] Go for it, you'll learn a lot from having a crack & that's no bad thing. I've fumbled my way along with regards to 'transcriptions', started with tab & have progressed a bit towards just using notation. Tux Guitar is a good (and free) way to get to grips with it all. The first hurdle you'll hit is note duration. Text-based tabs don't really bother with this, so you're left groping for the phrasing in each bar. Trial & error worked for me, & it's still a work in progress. Tux won't let you write an 'illegal' bar - it automatically decides how long the last note is, & if you find it completing a bar with a dotted 64th the odds are you've got something wrong earlier. It (and the commercial Guitar Pro) allow for MIDI playback of the score, which helps a lot in figuring out those fiddly tails & that. Next up will be Time Signature. Sometimes it's obvious (like 4/4 vs 3/4 or 5/4), other times it's not at all obvious (e.g. the apparent interchangeability between 6/8 & Triplet-feel or 'swung' 4/4). Key signature follows on, but omitting it for simple arrangements probably won't bring about the apocalypse. I've yet to finish the first bassline I set out to transcribe... thought I'd go for something dead easy that everybody knew, so I picked Willie Dixon's line in Johnny B. Goode. Bad move. The 'proper' line to this badly overplayed classic is absolutely mental - WD scarcely plays the same thing [i][b]once[/b][/i], let alone twice I keep coming back to it, & one fine day I'll post the results. I've posted a few in this thread: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=97180"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=97180[/url] & there's a recent one here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=122564"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=122564[/url] Make of them what you will. I've also [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f66/old-school-rock-n-roll-r-b-tabs-680702/"]cross-posted them on TalkBass[/url] in their 'Tablature' sub-forum, and on Finnbass - some of the responses have been very helpful in sorting out quirks in the notation. Pete.

[quote name='Rumple' post='1143051' date='Feb 27 2011, 09:32 AM']On a seperate note do they still have the jam sessions at The George in Beckenham? I think it was you that told me about them![/quote] Doubt it was me, I don't have a visa for Beckenham However... I *think* the jam still happens at the Cherry Tree by Norwood Junction station on alternate Sundays (trouble is I can never remember which week it's on). Also, the long-running Tuesday jam at the Forest Hill Hotel has relocated to the Perry Hill Tavern (formerly The Two Brewers) 78-80 Perry Hill SE6 4EY. Still on Tuesdays, kicks off about 9 ish. They also run a Blues evening on Thursdays (the old Rutland Arms lot) and are putting bands on other nights too - plus they serve Spitfire, which is no bad thing.

There's a little machine shop under the arches at Catford Bridge station: C & R Metalworks, 12 Station Approach Catford Bridge London SE6 4RE 020 8690 3336 Maybe worth a wiggle.

You can also enter notes directly on the stave(s) when the tab is hidden. Very handy for learning the notes whilst simultaneously doing something practical at the same time. However... this method can generate some fanciful fingering suggestions in tab, which might explain some of those hand-knotting 'transcriptions' that are out there. TuxGuitar has a very similar feature.

[quote name='owen' post='1140661' date='Feb 24 2011, 11:35 PM']I am not saying that I am right and you are wrong, but we are dealing with insurance companies here. They are not cuddly and friendly and [i][b]if it is not specifically stated in the policy document, they just will not pay out[/b][/i]. You can huff and puff as much as you like after the event. They will not care. They are not your friends. Bitter, moi?[/quote] Totally agree. Irrespective of what someone quoted me on the phone I'd want it in writing before paying them a penny in premiums. Unfortunately my circumstances are such that I couldn't take it further, so I can't be absolutely certain that it wasn't sales spiel - I'd be surprised if it was though, the Co-Op are normally pretty straight.

[quote name='owen' post='1140602' date='Feb 24 2011, 10:47 PM']If you go with house insurance and it gets stolen on a paying gig the insurance company will not pay up. For real.[/quote] Depends on the insurer. I've banked with the Co-Op for yonks and got a quote from them last year for house insurance & asked about musical instrument cover out of the house. I was pleasantly surprised to get a "Yes" to the question "So if I'm playing in a pub & someone pours a pint of Guinness over my amp & it blows up, am I covered?". Ditto for having a bass nicked while at a gig. Works out about £13/month for household plus instrument cover. Pete.

[quote name='bartelby' post='1139153' date='Feb 23 2011, 08:49 PM']Bugger off and get your own idea! [/quote] Bindun... Abney Park:

[quote name='robocorpse' post='1130835' date='Feb 17 2011, 12:11 PM']That said, its getting hard to find 60/40 tin/lead solder now.[/quote] Too right. However... these guys have it: [url="http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=56#solders"]http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?opti...emid=56#solders[/url] Items C2004 & C2011 seem to fit the bill. They've also put up some very informative factsheets: [url="http://www.finescale.org.uk/images/stories/pdfs/ds002.pdf"]Solder & Fluxes[/url] [url="http://www.finescale.org.uk/images/stories/pdfs/ds003.pdf"]Soldering[/url] P.

[quote name='Mrs Tinman' post='1128067' date='Feb 15 2011, 10:27 AM']Wedge it firmly in your cleavage [/quote] I much prefer to poke it between my saddles:

As stated Gold Leaf is unbelievably thin - hold a piece up to the light & it'll actually refract green - however, I'd be more concerned with maintaining conductivity. Gold Size isn't conductive as far as I know, & you'll destroy it if you were to attempt to solder to it (assuming you can use ordinary solder on gold). Copper tape is probably the best cost-effective solution, the adhesives tend to be conductive & it's thick enough to support a 'tack' of solder at joints and soldering the grounding wire to it. [url="http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A3133&rt=nc&_nkw=copper+shielding+tape&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_sop=2&_sc=1"]Plenty on Ebay for less than a fiver[/url] P.

I went for 'Disco' at first, but then settled for 'whatever sub-genre you'd pigeonhole Blondie & The Eurythmics in'. This [url="http://www.vagabondage.com/genres/index.cgi?1297380682"]Genre Generator[/url] turfed up 'Global Techno-Funk' which is vaguely appropriate, whereas [url="http://thund3rbox.com/genre"]this one[/url] came up with 'modern world miami power trance'... which isn't. Sorry. Not much help. As you were. Carry on.

Humble Pie's re-working of the Small Faces 'Tin Soldier' [url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8453031/Tin_Soldier-HPie.pdf"][color="Blue"]PDF[/color][/url] [url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8453031/Tin_Soldier-HPie.gp4"][color="Blue"]Guitar Pro 4[/color][/url] Usual caveats re accuracy, but it's pretty close. Left out a couple of the 'swoops' as the software's playback of 'em was extremely unconvincing. Pete.

[quote name='Stuee' post='1122578' date='Feb 10 2011, 01:28 PM']Try it! By the way, turpentine & white spirit aren't the same thing either.[/quote] By Turps, I mean 'Turps Substitute', which is very similar (but not identical) to White Spirit. The two are usually interchangeable. No way would I use real Turpentine (usually sold as Venice Turpentine), mainly because it's as thick as treacle! Distilled Turpentine could work, but would be likely to leave a sticky residue, plus it's bloody expensive. I only use that for thinning gold size & yacht varnish and for 1st stage cleanup of my Purdys. Pete.

[quote name='mez6d657a' post='1122085' date='Feb 9 2011, 11:24 PM']I tried soaking my (ahem, two year old) strings in meths for the first time the other day, and I was really pleased with the results - it's made a huge difference to the sound and feel, and I haven't had any tuning or intonation problems since they went back on. They still look a bit gunky though, so next time I'm going to see if a gentle pre-soak scrub using the meths and an old toothbrush makes even more of a difference .[/quote] I give mine a pre- & post-soak blow over with one of those thin pan scouring pads dipped in meths. I've also been known to do them in situ - slide a black bin bag under the strings & give 'em what for with an old nail brush dipped in meths, then follow up with the pan scourer and finish with a dry cloth & a bit of Fast Fret. No issues to report, but all my basses have a two-pack poly finish which is impervious to most solvents. Good to know that turps works - can't be that much stinkier than meths, surely?

[quote name='Spike Vincent' post='1117072' date='Feb 5 2011, 09:19 PM']Awesome bit of wood,but it's got too many strings.[/quote] +1 And far too many frets as well

Two words are conspicuously absent from that rather impressive list James Brown.

All four types... Rock, Roll, Rhythm [i]and[/i] Blues. Don't slap, won't slap; & I ain't got the Funk. No great fan of the 'solo' as it's too hit & miss, plus I don't see it as my real function... Which then begs the question "what do I see as my 'real' function?" Simple. They Rock, I Roll. Pete.

Try 'em as VBRs, IMO that's the best compromise & my BT1 seems to handle them OK.

[quote name='icastle' post='1111888' date='Feb 2 2011, 12:52 AM']Woodstain? Paint it on and then rub it off - seems to stain the plastic tubs I use when decorating...[/quote] I was thinking along these lines too... but I reckon you'd need to 1) key the surface of the plastic with very fine wire wool or a Scotchbrite pad & 2) put the stain on with a cloth & rub well in. Providing you used spirit-based stain it'd be possible to fade it/clean it off with turps. It'll still wear off, but ought to give a more subtle effect. P.

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='1108139' date='Jan 30 2011, 02:01 PM'][b]Mars bar[/b][/quote] Is Marianne Faithfull a regular at your gigs then?

[quote name='deaver' post='1107481' date='Jan 29 2011, 06:39 PM']If it's in any consolation my second (or third) bass was a Burns Flyte. I was convinced it had a plastic body and an aluminium neck. I'm still not entirely sure[/quote] Mate of mine had one of those & was adamant that it had a fibreglass body. He maintained this theory in spite of what appeared to be wood showing beneath the chips in the finish. As my first bass was (& still is) a 'skunk stripe' Aria, I've never thought of it as being made of anything other than wood - albeit Granitewood. Pete.