peteb

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1323467410' post='1463810'] I only ever think, after 30 years of playing, that I let myself and music down, when I don't make magic happen through laziness, lack of ability and understanding, or through self-loathing. [/quote] To be honest mate, I think that you (and a few others here) ought to stop over-thinking things and just f**kin play and enjoy it – this particularly applies to yourslf as you obviously (unlike some of the others) can actually play!

When I was in a fairly typical British rock/metal band back in the 80s, I played a black Guild Pilot (mainly to stand out from herd who were using pointy headstock Charvels) Great sounding and looking bass but not the easiest to play! I would go for the aforementioned pointy Charvel, unless you can afford a Spector (the bass I really wanted back then but couldn't afford)!

I've just got a Jazz in lake placid blue with a RW board / white scratchplate Always liked that combination....

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1323353242' post='1462358'] Another agreement here. What puzzles me about Bruford's autobiog is there is absolutely ZERO affection for any of his colleagues - just dry observations about the record industry. Very public school. [/quote] [size=4][color=#222222][font=Arial]I actually found Bruford quite annoying![/font][/color] [color=#222222][font=Arial]There he was, having pretty much hit the jackpot as far as being a rock musician goes, in a well regarded band with great players, great music and a number 1 album! As someone said in the Chris Squire thread, it must have been a blast being on the Yes tour bus at that time with Squire and Rick Wakeman in tow![/font][/color] [color=#222222][font=Arial]Yet, all he can do is moan about Squire being always late and that the manager is supposedly a bit of a cockney wide boy![/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1323028010' post='1458465'] Sadly, my memory of Sweet is from 1989 (ish), somewhere in Europe, dragging Brian Connolly from his bed while the rest of the entourage (bands and crews) are on the bus waiting to get to the airport. [/quote] My mate's dad used to play in a band with him, I think around about that time He had a bit of a drink problem himself, but nothing compared to Connolly's by all accounts.....

You can get the John East knobs from Bass Direct - they look pretty classy! [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/East_Knobs.html"]http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/East_Knobs.html[/url]

Played a pub in the centre of Leeds to a room full of Norwegian Leeds United supporters who had come over for the Millwall game. There were also quite a few blokes in LUFC suits & ties - the younger ones were obviously players but didn't recognise any from the first team Our Nordic friends were obviously well lubricated but were a great audience. We even had one guy try to book us for a blues club somewhere in the north of Norway for next year!

[quote name='lonestar' timestamp='1322928795' post='1457430'] Yep that sounds a pretty good summing up of the book to me Pete. I always like the idea of listening to very avant garde, technically brilliant, out there music as practised by both of these two but when I listen to solo Fripp projects and Bill Bruford's later output I find myself asking what it is that people actually find to like in such "challenging" music. [/quote] I think that we may be in agreement here!

[quote name='lonestar' timestamp='1322927832' post='1457411'] I'd suggest reading Bill Bruford's biography if you want the reall measure of 'The Owl" as Bill refers to him; not altogether affectionately. [/quote] I have unfortunately! Fripp is painted as rather a malevolent, unpleasant sort of a fellow and Bruford comes across as possibly the dullest man alive!

Personally I think that some people tend to over-intellectualise things!

I was going to suggest the iGig, which is excellent I got the iGig in preference to the Mono (which also looks great), mainly as it has more storage space

It's a fashion thing - top line Warwicks are terrific basses but not as popular as they once were and people are part exing them against more fashionable models.....

Yep - saw it there and asked Jon about it! No hardware on it at that time if I remember correctly, but looks like it's gonna be very nice indeed.....

Was it left-handed??

Greetings from just down the road (Bingley)! What colour jazz is Jon building for you? Just been over to his workshop and wondered if I saw it half finished!

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1322300265' post='1448991'] Interesting comment - for me the selling point of the P-Retro is its simplicity. Just two knobs (boost/cut and sweep) and you're never more than half a second away from a useable tone. Perhaps your luthier was referring to the wiring? [/quote] No, he was referring to the whole unit - he had done some work on a P bass with one fitted and wasn't impressed. As I understand it (from from the JE demo video - I've never come across one) the knobs are not quite that simple to use Just one man's opinion, albeit one who really knows his stuff! As I said, I am really impressed by the East curcuit on my jazz......

I have heard a very well respected luthier say that he was less than impressed with the East P-Bass circuit (he thought that it was too 'fiddly')! However, I have a East j-retro deluxe in a jazz, which is just awesome.....

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1322239562' post='1448521'] [/quote] Brilliant! I was going to click on the green 'like' arrow for this but can't due to being an admin and therefore buttonless! So have a 'like' on me!

[quote name='Pete Academy' timestamp='1322082296' post='1446405'] It may be just me, but I don't think so. I used to always go to this forum to find some interesting stuff and good debate, albeit sometimes controversial. That's what attracts people, in my opinion. Just lately, I don't see the usual suspects (you know who you are) very often. I recently started a thread that was mildly controversial and was pulled up almost immediately on it. Is it just me? Fair enough if it is, but it mainly seems like stuff for sale and little else. [/quote] [quote name='ped' timestamp='1322082648' post='1446412'] Just remember it's a bass guitar forum, Pete. [/quote] Not sure if I totally agree there! If you want controversy, just head over to Off Topic! There are a few people regularly posting there (some who wouldn't know one end of a bass guitar from the other) pedaling a reactionary political view point on a whole range of subjects, which can at times get quite unpleasent Indeed, sometimes it can get like the readers comments on the Mail Online on a bad day!

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1321821964' post='1443530'] I guess there's no "one answer fits all" to this query. Based on what I've read on this thread and a few others along similar vein i've decided to put ego to one side and try a few other techniques to see if it works. Pick will be the last resort for me simply because i find it difficult to get comfortable with it. I'm much more comfortable using my thumb or index finger as a pick but it doesn't have the same edge as an actual pick. Not sure how we drifted into the covers debate but there you go it happened. Again differing opinions on that one too. Like most bands i guess if my suggestions to try various other techniques don't work then this will probably be forgotten in the realms of time. Still it was certainly an interesting topic which obviously some people have very strong opinions on and i have respect for all who commented. Hopefully my own decision to at least try and adapt something to accomodate will not offend or displease too many who made the effort to comment. Thanks to all - its been fun. All best Dave [/quote] I can see that you are tying to back away gracefully from this thread but it does raise an interesting issue beyond whether you play with fingers or a pick – the differing attitudes that people have to their role in a band (and I dare say to their day jobs and life in general)…!!

An interesting thread but some strange posts! To me the keys player made a reasonable suggestion that I would have answered “but I don’t play with a pick”, and that would have been the end of it – I wouldn’t ask a drummer to play with an orthodox grip if he had spent years developing a technique based on playing with a matched grip! As far as whether you should sound play covers exactly like the original, well it depends. Until recently I was playing in a classic rock covers band that used to do songs artists as varied as Van Halen, Ozzy, Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Deep Purple and the Osmonds! We used to play the VH and Ozzy covers pretty much note for note, the others we played in much the same style as the VH and Ozzy songs! It seemed to work pretty well and we always did well. Now me and the drummer find ourselves in a blues rock band, doing loads of gigs all over the place, playing covers that we have never even heard the original. Again, audiences seem to like it….. I have spent many years developing a style and a tone so that I sound like me! I can adapt to an extent to fit a different musical situation, but only to an extent. People ask me to join bands because of the way I play, so why would they then ask me to play completely differently?

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1321693654' post='1441947'] Far from it. He learned his mistake from losing the 1st Vai gig & managed to adapt to get the right sounds needed. He can now happily switch from getting a rounded bass tone (that's associated with fingerstyle) to a more sharp aggressive tone very easily just by how he plays. I wasn't disagreeing with your advice given, more like the opposite. A bassist should always know that his sound/style affects the groove of the song & he should be willing to use whatever technique he can to make sure it fits. Whether that means adapting his fingerstyle like Beller does or uses a pick or some other object makes no difference. See when you say Beller "developed" that technique, do you mean he actually came up with it or just learned how to do it? I grew up listening to Sheehan in the late 80s with Talas & he had a very aggressive tone back then. [/quote] I don't think that Beller invented this technique any more than I did, he just started playing like that to approximate the sound of playing with a pick. BS (and others) had been playing like that for years. To the OP - the band picked you as they liked your playing and your tone. The rest of the band seem to think that you sound great so I wouldn't drastically alter how you play just to please a keys player who was probably just wondering out loud what you would sound like with a pick!

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1321665951' post='1441897'] I don't think I can add much to what's been said, other than listen to the song you're playing & decide what's gonna sound best for it. A good bass player will happily switch how he plays, even mid song. I mainly play with fingers & it's what I prefer, but we have a couple of songs that just need the pick & even one with some slapping (though that's usually the guitarist for noodling during a slow vocal part). [/quote] But by your definition, is Bryan Beller is not a good bass player then??

It seems to me that the fashion for playing with a pick or fingers alternates in classic rock – pick in the 80s, then fingers and now pick again. Certainly all the recent bass players in bands like Whitesnake seem to mainly use a pick (Marco Mendoza, Uriah Duffy, etc) even if they are predominately finger players in other bands! I think that it is likely that your keyboard player has picked up on that. TBH, for the life of me I don’t see why it is so important, using fingers or a pick is only part of your sonic imprint and can easily be compensated for by many other factors! If you can play fast enough to nail a blast beat and can get a good solid sound when you play eighths I don’t see why it should make any difference if you play with your fingers or with a pick! I was persuaded by a band leader to change from fingers to pick back in the 80s and it was the worst musical decision I ever made! Unfortunately, I was not as strong a player with a pick and I spent what was probably the most important part of my musical career (such as it was) not playing to my full potential. After a few years I went back to playing with my fingers and was a much better player almost instantly! There is a technique that you can use to get the best of both worlds and get the attack of playing with a pick whilst using your fingers. This is something that I have been doing for years and was most gratified to find that that it was a technique that Bryan Beller developed after missing out on the Steve Vai gig first time round, mainly because he didn’t play with a pick! Basically, it involves striking across the strings at a bit of an angle to get a ‘chime’ that sounds a bit like a pick. It may seem that you are just digging in more but you are not necessarily playing any harder, it is more about the the action and angle that you attack the string! BB describes it much better than I can on various clips on the net, including an interview with Janek Gwizdala that Doddy posted a while ago on here and I think on the Bass Player magazine website as well. Billy Sheehan uses a similar approach when he plays his more basic bass lines and if it’s good enough for someone as anal as Vai (who now uses Beller as his first call bass player) and for King Billy, then it certainly should be good enough for your keyboard player!

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1321478653' post='1439778'] Not being from the guitar relm don't they have things called Kapos or Capos? Couldn't they stick one on the 5th fret and pretend the rest of the guitar don't exist? [/quote] No...!