peteb

I thought that 96 was the first year of the smaller bridge. You must have had one of the last Rays with the 'transition' bridges! I never knew that there was a MIJ Stingray...

That's the first year with the new bridge without the mountings for the mutes. What other Rays have you had??

double post

A bit mellower isn’t such a bad thing for a Stingray – the black 95 I had was certainly rather fierce, one of the reasons that I have always wanted a Ray with a rosewood board. I’ve never really played a two band Ray (except a pre-EB one very briefly in a shop in Denmark Street once), always been happy with the three band version. Gawd knows when I will get a chance to gig it – I might set it up tuned down a half-step so I that get more opportunities to use it live…

A trip up to the north east included a detour to meet up with my old mate Captain John Morgan to pick up an early 90s three band Stingray. I had been chasing this particular bass for about four years, ever since picking it up after seeing the Captain play a gig in a bar on the banks of the Tyne in Newcastle. I had always asked him to give me first refusal if he ever decided to move it on, so I bit his hand off when he got in touch last week to ask if I was still interested. It is a deep wine-red colour with a rosewood fretboard, a six bolt plate and the old style bridge with the mutes still attached. John has installed brass bridge saddles, which seem like a great mod, but apart from that it is pretty much stock. It currently has a black scratchplate, but I have been looking for a s/h white one (mainly because I remember seeing a picture of Boz Burrell playing one like that back in the 70s). This must be the nicest Stingray to play that I’ve ever come across and has a great neck. I’ve had a couple of Rays in the past (a great natural 91 w/maple fingerboard and a pretty nice black 95 with the transition bridge with no mutes) and always regretted moving them on. I think that this one is going to be a keeper. Edit: I've just checked the serial number online and it was made in May 91

Thanks for that dude - I'm currently looking them up online. I've just seen a s/h oldish MM one on eBay, so I've put a snipe in for a couple of days time. Thanks for the help.

Does anyone know where I can source a 3 ply white scratchplate for an early 90s Musicman Stringray? They are advertised on the Ernie Ball site, but they only ship to USA for some reason. Is there anywhere in UK / Europe that keep them in stock?

I’m fine with people wanting to pay tribute to their fallen heroes. In the case of EVH, he was a major part of the lives of many musicians who play that type of music (including me), especially guitarists. It’s hardly surprising that many want to do something to mark his passing, given that the medium to do so (YouTube, etc) is well established. I would definitely participate in some sort of tribute given the opportunity. On a personal level, EVH may have been a hero of mine, but I didn’t know him personally. It’s always tragic when someone passes away relatively young, but he had been ill for several years and there were rumours that he had died three years or so ago. I find the public outpourings of grief by people who didn’t know the person a bit disturbing (I’m thinking more Princess Di rather than Eddie by the way). It’s a shame, but it’s not as if he didn’t get the chance to reach his full potential – a life well lived (on balance) and he isn’t suffering anymore. If anyone wants to pay tribute to everything that he achieved, then that’s OK by me…

There used to be a great clip somewhere on YouTube of John Paul Jones demonstrating on bass the differences in playing, on, in front and behind the beat. Unfortunately, it was buried in the middle of a clip about 40 minutes long with JPJ talking about all sorts and the quality of the video was terrible. This is quite interesting if you want to learn more about this; a session guitarist talking about how to play guitar laying back on the beat

Originally it was supposed to be a single album but they weren't prepared to edit down any of the tracks on the original playlist so that it would fit on a vinyl record. They included a couple of tracks that should have made it onto the previous two albums and a few outakes that they had hanging around, which generally were quite interesting if not quite up to the standard of the rest of the tracks. Still one of my top 5 favourite albums.

Well it's connected to groove, but not the same thing. You can have a goove that is bang on the beat, or one that pushes or lays back.

You sound like the first two Police albums... 🙂

Thread derail - back in the 80s I had a huge (8u) amp rack I could hardly lift on my own, featuring a Hartley Thompson bass preamp. Back as you were...

Very true, the Frankenstrat established a new standard format for the electric guitar (superstrat or other shape) i.e. humbucker in the bridge position, upgraded trem and a fender scale neck. Similarly, how EVH modded his amps led to a whole new industry of boutique hi-gain amps.

Remember, it’s the cigarettes that got him, rather than the booze or the Charlie (they just made him act like a d1ck at times, although I know people who met him who said that he was a great guy). Also, much as I would like to believe the Fred Durst story, it doesn’t really ring true with what I’ve heard about him. As far as I’m concerned, he was the GOAT rock and roll guitar player! He was up there with Hendrix for innovation, a terrific rhythm player and possibly the most distinctive lead guitarist ever. If you listen to his isolated guitar tracks, it is amazing how fluid his playing was, how clean he picked and his timing / groove were outstanding. Often imitated but never equalled…

More than anything else, being able to manipulate where you play in relation to the beat is the thing that differentiates the top pros from the semi-pros. It is not the same as playing too fast or too slow. It is certainly worth trying to learn how to play in the middle of the beat and then how to ‘lean on the beat’ or ‘lean back’. The only way to work on it is to practice with a metronome. You can actually do a lot without a bass. Set a metronome to a moderate setting (say 90 BPM) with an accent on the one. Clap your hands on the one and try and make the click ‘disappear’. Then clap on the backbeat (beats 2 & 4), then on every beat. If you are doing it properly then you shouldn’t be able to hear the metronome. If you can hear a ‘flam’ between the handclap and the click then listen to see if you can hear the clap first (in front of the beat) or the click first (behind the beat). Once you can consistently make the click disappear then increase the metronome by 10 BPM, then go down 10 BPM and so on. This isn’t easy and you probably won’t get it straight away – it is difficult to clap exactly on every beat for more than 3 or 4 bars. But if you keep at it you will be a far better player in a year’s time.

So you're a funk player at heart...! A Texan pro bass player mate of mine says he likes to play just behind the beat "cos that's where the funk is" (it works best if you imagine that being said in a Texan drawl)…!

Let’s be honest, detuning is a fact of life for bass players (and guitarists of course) these days. I prefer basses set up in concert personally, but I’m currently in two bands that detune a half-step and one that plays a whole step down. I once asked Jon Shuker about setting up a bass when you’re going to tune down and he told me that you should loosen the truss rod about 1/8 of a turn to detune a half-step.

You see, I'm the other way round. I ought to love Rush but don't - not enough decent songs and too many pointless time changes. I'm not a fan of Geddy's voice either (but then again, I could say the same about Jon Anderson). At least Yes have loads of great tunes amongst the pomp and circumstance...

Top of my head – And You and I, Heart of the Sunrise, Yours Is No Disgrace, Roundabout, Starship Trooper, Soon oh Soon, Long Distance Runaround and quite a few more (as you may notice, all of these are from the earlier versions of the band which shows when my prog phase took place).

Lady GaGa is a musician and an artist: she should play whatever her muse leads her to. It's up to the listener to then judge the authenticity of what she does and whether it's any good or not. As far as I'm concerned, she was great singing with Metallica and great singing with Tony Bennett. There's not many singers out there who would be able to pull both of those off...!

We’ve just had our last two gigs for this year cancelled; one in the north-east as they were struggling to make live gigs viable with the reduced capacity and another (that we thought probably would have gone ahead) when the 10pm closing time was announced. More worryingly, another in February has almost certainly gone as the venue (an established circuit gig with a capacity of 700) is on the point of going bust. All the places that cancelled gigs this year were pushing to rearrange for next year, but now they seem to be holding off to see how things develop. It’s going to be weird for gigs next year, with many venues going bust and others trying to rearrange all the bands they have had to cancel this year.

I have a couple of iGig bags (one single, one double), which are the business. I know that Mono make great bags as well. If you're not going to gig, then there are plenty of cheaper bags that do a good job. I used to have a cheaper fusion bag that was fine.

I don't really know Chris, although we have a few mutual friends (I remember seeing his Dad playing in bands 35 years or so ago). I have to say that the Leeds avant-garde improv scene is not one I am massively familiar with, obviously a fault on my part that I must put right as soon as we're allowed out again...! 🙂 Like you, a lot of my gigs seem to be all over the country, although I'm guessing that your theatres & function gigs pay more than obscure rock tribute bands and the blues circuit (at least I hope so)! I do try and keep a local gigging band going, so you may have bumped into me at some point if you have ever ventured out to local pub gigs. I did live in the top end of Great Horton for a while in the 90s, although I'm the other side of town now...