drTStingray

I think you're right and everyone has a different playing style. The factory spec setting in my view is a good start point to tweak from to suit individual preference.

I guess the compilations were designed to appeal to a very broad range - and Edwards/Rogers generally followed the Motown tradition - start the song with the chorus... no 45 second wait for them. I do see where these guys are coming from but I think the premis is possibly wrong. I quite like the music served up on my local commercial station but the fact the song and artist is shown on my car's 'infotainment' system has alerted me to the fact that every song seemingly contains three diverse artists - presumably to sell to three lots of fans and boost or to make enough money to justify the outlay. At least Calvin Harris has very audible bass on his stuff!! (the Sam Smith one sounds like Bernard Edwards at the height of Chic).

I've come across a couple of people who've commented negatively on his playing with the Who. However for me he's actually improved the role of the bass in that setting because for once you can hear it properly!! Pino is a great rock player - just listen to the John Mayer clip - in fact he's a great all round musician/bass player. The fact is Entwhistle was a national treasure (along with Keith Moon) and it is difficult for anyone to stand/sit in the place of national treasures - especially for some fans of the band. I think Pino does a great job of it to be honest - I've heard him play some great renditions of the classic solo in My Generation.

It happens every so often from what I've experienced - if we are talking music which contains crunchy guitar rock, for instance The Darkness and Muse. I'm not sure if the guys in the video would recognise those bands in the same way. I also don't see why rock music should be rooted in the blues - surely it progresses and has different influences. That there are a limited number of producers dominating is surely reflected throughout the last fifty years - I well recall loathing Mickey Most and the Chinneychap production line of the early 70s, but actually love some of those old songs now (but only a few of the very many) - same with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Back in the 60s I remember watching a tv documentary where various jazz musicians and officianados denigrated the Beatles work as worthless. How wrong they were. I think it's just people out of touch really (and basically saying they don't make em like they used to). When bands like Hendrix and Deep Purple appeared on chart tv shows I really don't think they were there because they appealed to the teeny boppers and 'crossed over' - they were there because a different audience bought sufficient copies to put them there.

I generally have mine set to factory spec or thereabouts. I've taken the view that as they design the things, they should know how they perform best. I also use the same string guage as you on my SR5 and find them excellent. I play blues/jazz/jazz funk/soul on mine and whilst having a slightly lower action than the factory spec helps when playing very fast and complex lines, I find too low an action doesn't help when playing straightforward grooves - the factory spec also allows a little more scope for dynamics in the weight of plucking the strings - too low an action and you easily get to Stanley Clark style string popping when that wasn't the intention (as the strings clatter against the fretboard). Maybe this is why I tend not to encounter the string balance issue some people mention on some basses. I've often wondered how much that is down to compromised set up. All bass designs are different and those thinking that setting say pick up height as per a Precision on every other bass design (I've come across a lot of people who think this) are likely to get peculiar results (such as individual strings sounding comparatively quiet). I guess the factory specs are there for a reason. It's certainly a very good starting point in my view.

Which is probably the reason rock and roll is dying for some people - unfortunately it is that they are so out of step with the youth of today they overlook the fact that 'rock' music is well and truly alive and kicking in the metal and various other genres. Dear old Eric Clapton has one of those little Martin guitars I believe! At the height of rock music (as I guess some people view it through whichever brand of rose tinted spectacles or era one chooses) the pop charts were always carrying artists like Clive Dunn, St Winifred's Choir and the Singing Nun (some of them even sporting now revered sessions musicians on bass and guitar etc)..... I think some of us older folk are just too old to see the wood for the trees. Surely the golden age of rock and roll is the first RATM album - on a par with the first Black Sabbath etc etc - take your pick there are some in every era and decade! It certainly isn't dead in my view!! It may not be mainstream pop chart just now but there again, it only has been off and on for selected songs over the last 60 odd years - dependant on what you count as rock and roll.

Very sad - apart from Heads Hands and Feet I first came across Chas's bass playing on Jerry Lee Lewis's London Sessions album - which I bought because one of my favourite guitar players appeared. Chas's bass playing is excellent on it. Taught me a lot about playing bass on rock and roll and country music. He was playing bass a lot earlier than that, with Ritchie Blackmore and others, with Joe Meek in the early 60s.

I thought they were both lyrics from rap songs .... or maybe I misheard against the adjacent bleeps over naughty words.

I think we're suffering from a resurgence of the '70s Rock drummer syndrome'. Messrs Bonham and Moon may be ok in a stadium but people trying to play like them in a small pub is plain daft unless the band is exactly that genre perhaps. I have come across these sort of drummers, playing fills over entire bars (music bars...), using double bass drum pedals so always playing a roll where one bass drum beat should be, (including on reggae - and on beats one and three instead of just three). These guys seem to take pleasure in the physical work out and rather than using the wrists to play are actually using the entire body to create the power.... Of course, back in the early 80s many drummers got replaced with drum machines for financial reasons - or was it the ability for the band, duo or whatever to control the volume 😏

There's no problem with mine.

Congratulations - great basses 👍

These were my two basses for this afternoon's gig - the Fretless being 25 yrs older than the 4HH Special.

Regarding rounds, I'm not sure he uses them any more - he was using Cobalt Flats at one point recently. However more to the point I have read that he has had the board re-shot or replaced multiple times. It makes sense really because rounds wear grooves eventually (think fret wear of a fretted) - if you have grooves and deep swirls it can affect playability and presumably tuning. I also read somewhere that Pino's wife said that the bass had been signed by Rocco Prestia, presumably one of his heros.

He may be better off getting a refund on that one and putting a deposit down on the one he wants to buy. To be honest that is the only one I've seen with that issue - not sure why it has it - the pocket gap is a little bigger than some would desire - although not unusual for other manufacturers. I doubt the one pictured by Hiram K actually came from the factory like that. Generally, stock items tend to be the ones which are more likely to sell - same with Guitar Centre - the spread put on by Andertons was most unusual (and included my customer order...) !! As I said before if you want something unusual placing an order is the best way to get it.

What an interesting reply...... they've obviously overlooked the fact that the neck is actually unadjustable as the adjustment facility they provided has broken. Id be interested to know what climatic tolerances their neck design is intended to deal with - a house in the UK hardly seems to pose extreme conditions - suggesting their design or manufacture is at fault. Best of luck!

Yes it is I think. The two pick ups together as Hs is a great sound also but the single H version is also a very versatile bass - particularly responsive to moving your plucking position around plus the new EQ has the same characteristics.

Thanks - and yes the combination is very nice. Feels great to play, with the ebony also.

Nice playing - sounds great - I saw Ronnie Laws around 79/80 - great gig 👍 Encore eh? My son still has one of them (was his first bass many years back) - has used it to record several times and people have asked him what year of Precision he was using to get such a good sound!!

I quite like it (though am not a great fan of his singing) - can be great to play, with a good singer and tight band (hopefully with a light touch drummer - B and Q shed assembling moon lighters can ruin it!)

I love Max Bennett's playing and along with Larry Taylor was a big influence on my own playing in the late 60s/early 70s. Ive come across his bass on several albums but standout ones for me were:- Gumbo Variations - Frank Zappa - Hot Rats - what a funky bass part all those years back with a great bass/drum solo which I still quote from now! Scratch - The Crusaders - some great bass playing on this. Sad to hear he's passed away but 90 is a good age, especially for a musician.

These are my roasted maple neck Musicman basses - 2014 Neptune Blue mahogany Sabre with roasted flamed maple neck, and 2018 4HH Special, Aqua Sparkle with roasted maple and ebony board. They both have stainless steel frets. Note the back of the neck colour is consistent, and although the headstocks are darker (lacquered) there's not a huge difference. My 4HH Special was a customer order placed on 14/4/18 with Andertons - so you can get the colour you want if you persevere - the same was true of the Sabre, and various other 'odd colour' Musicman basses I've bought new. Note the new tuners have a much thicker tip area - feel really comfortable to use. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but think my 4HHS looks great. Ive used it now in two gigs with a fairly loud blues/R and B band (v loud drummer!!) - outdoor gigs. The bass sound has fitted the mix very nicely (generally using the dual humbucker or single bridge humbucker settings). I've used the outer single coil setting a couple of times but it simply encourages me to play Marcus Miller quotes. A couple of things I've really noticed - using the classic single bridge humbucker setting, even cranking the mid range (yes, to hear myself v said drummer on occasion), the sound simply becomes more focussed but retains that Stingray Bernard Edwards type sound. I rarely crank the mid on my regular 4HH in H mode as it sounds too much to me - that bass needs a bumped mid in dual H mode though as it naturally scoops. Altogether I'm really pleased with this bass - super playable, light, sounds great, big range of very usable sounds and also turns heads - Saturday night, under a lighting system our lady singer danced over playing an item of percussion and said 'is that a new bass you have there' as it shone in the multi coloured lighting - and then proceeded to make female Kenneth Williams/Frankie Howard sounds of approval - she looked well impressed!!! 😂

The necks on the Stingray Specials are standard (not highly figured) roasted maple - head stocks are lacquered and the back of the neck has an oil and wax finish. Mine has quite quite a lot of figuring in it but generally not birds eye or flame. I like mine a lot - the darker maple looks cool in my view. The ebony board is very dark.

What's the betting JPJ never played Lemon Song exactly the same twice!!?

Not to diss KT Tunstall and her ideas (as I think she's a great artist), but then so is Ed - but if you really want to look retrospectively, John Martyn was doing this sort of thing in the 70s. You could argue that the likes of Dave Gilmour and others are just doing what Hank Marvin did - whilst you'd be right that they were influenced by Hank they are of course excellent artists in their own right. No doubt Ed's lyrics and imagery have a synergy with today's young people that us more elderly can't comprehend - in the same way my dad could never entertain the thought that Hendrix - or even the Stones, were bona fide artists. I quite like some of Ed's songs and indeed have had to learn two or three for deps I do - I find them fun to play. Great that some youngsters like Led Zeppelin and why not. That many others think it's irrelevant to them is understandable - after all in 1969, few of us mid teens would have been that interested in something from 1919 🤔

Yep similar pattern - different feel - also appears in I Feel Good - James Brown - in all cases as riffs 👍