Jean-Luc Pickguard

If you use standard tuning, have you looked at the ultra cheap Planet Waves Bass SOS tuner? It very quick to tune up wih it & much more accurate than the other tuners I've used.

I'd go for a secondhand Jazz, either a highway 1 or CIJ.

[quote name='Merton' post='362017' date='Dec 23 2008, 02:30 PM']I used TI's once, they were sh*t. IMO. [/quote] Thomastiks are not to everyone's taste as they are very flexible and respond better to a light touch. They're all I use on most of my basses and I've never had a bad set. They're certainly not sh*t IMO. Rotospounds on the other hand...

I've had that when the bass amp & the PA are on different circuits. The shocks cease when both are plugged into the same extension.

[quote name='AM1' post='360581' date='Dec 21 2008, 11:11 PM']Actually that book looks good. What does it say, if anything, about ganglion cysts (if that is what it is). Rgds AM[/quote] on p34/35 he says (among other things) "don't whack it with a bible" it can be drained with a hyperdermic needle or surgically removed or if left alone it may go away on its own.

I would normally recommend you get a copy of Randall Kertz's book "The bassist's guide to injury management,prevention and better health", but he's a doctor (& bass player) so I guess its not an option. Only available from [url="http://www.drkertz.com/buy_book.html"]http://www.drkertz.com/buy_book.html[/url] as far as I'm aware.

+1 for John East's excellent preamps - I love my J-retro [quote name='dub' post='358691' date='Dec 19 2008, 11:55 AM']I recently bought a John East BTB-MMSR 4 Knob preamp to replace the original Musicman preamp in my 1990 Ernie ball stingray 5. Although I liked the tone of the original, I found it a bit noisy and was interested in getting a sound closer to a 70s Musicman. I had already swapped the pickup for a seymour duncan alcino a couple of years ago which was a step closer to what I was looking for. It has a fantastic sound and much quieter S/N ratio that the original. The mid sweep is ideal for cutting a bit of low mid when switched to humbucking or boosting 100Hz for a massive dub sound. It is very close to a 70s MM sound with a bit of extra boost on the bass. It's the best sounding preamp I've come across so far.[/quote] I dare you to post that on the EBMM forum though

Give Andy Blake at wizard pickups a shout. I bet he could rewind it for a reasonable charge. [url="http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/"]http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/[/url]

It is certainly a lot more transportable than a double bass and wouldn't look out of place in a more traditional jazz setting compared to one of those new fangled fenders, so maybe that is its market? Before I upgraded to an NS upright, I heard a few comments from other bass players about the dean pace EUB being nothing more than a skinny BG on its end, OK everyone has an opinion but I suspect the people making those comments probably never spent any time with a pace so were basing the opinion on what it looks like rather than what it is actually like to play. I don't know about the barker, but I found the pace has very different characteristics to a BG (thick chunky neck, piezo bridge, 35" unlined fretless) but more importantly, due to it being vertical the hand positions to play it are totally different. I found that because of this I tended to approach it very differently, not just in the physical way of stopping, striking and muting the strings but also in the feel of the music and note choices. It was great fun to play and the audience always reacted well to it. I think without my experience of the pace I would probably dismiss the barker as fairly pointless, I can see it as a valid instrument in its own right, albeit a fugly one.

Sounds like me about eight or nine years ago when I restarted playing bass after a ten year gap. I'm now in two bands, one of which gigs regularly and has released a CD of original songs. When I got back into bass I had an '81 Precision and a Hohner B2A "cricket bat". I now have far too many basses according to the missus including fretless, upright, shortscale and rubber-stringed very short scale fretless.

[quote name='chris_b' post='357009' date='Dec 17 2008, 02:43 PM']I wish more development was going into Laser and Piezo pickup technology for bass, and then string materials could broaden even more to include gut, plastic, rubber, etc[/quote] Mmm silicone rubber

The only thru-strung bass I have flats on is my mustang which is wearing a set of Thomastik JF324 jazz flats with no problems at all. I recall a thread on the old dudepit where some flats were being manufactured specifically for thru stringing on 50's style precisions and were to be sold exclusively by Steve under his 'vintage bass trading' label. I think LaBella were going to make them and they were going to be similar to Deep Talkin' flats, but with the outer ribbon wrapped obliquely around the core to prevent it frombreaking at the bridge, but I don't know if they ever did get manuactured or if any are available anywhere, but I'm sure there were some pics posted at the time. I wonder whether a company like picato might be interested in [s]nicking [/s]developing the idea?

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='338670' date='Nov 27 2008, 05:23 PM']I would guess it will be less fender-like, probably a paddle-shape or something hoogly like a johnson.[/quote] Spooky

[quote name='Buzz' post='355218' date='Dec 15 2008, 05:53 PM']Oh, just as a heads up, you don't have to buy a Mac to run any of the Mac OS's now, Apple relased their OS's for normal laptops a couple of years ago. Dual boot as you see fit and get a much better specced laptop for your money.[/quote] 'Fraid not- they only sell the latest version of MacOS as an upgrade for Macs. Any monkey business to make a 'hackintosh' is unlicensed and unsupported.

To confuse the issue my unlined fretless precision is anything but precise in my hands.

In my experience Vista is such a shoddy pile of sh*te that my next machine is likely to be a macbook. Vista was terrible for music production when I tried it so I had to make my PC boot into XP to run cubase. I had no problems mixing an album on cubase 4 on XP which was originally recorded in a studio running cubase SX2 on a mac, so cross-platform compatability is not necessarily an issue. Also with a mac you can run bootcamp to boot into windows while you wean yourself off it, or run windows apps seamlessly using parallels or vmware fusion.

My '81 Precision (S8.. serial) that I bought new for £260 in 1982 is monstrously heavy due to cheaper Northern Ash being used instread of Leo's preferred Swamp Ash, the pick up sounded weedy compared to my other Ps (Is this due to cheaper wire of the wrong gauge being used?) and had dodgy frets that buzzed & rattled from new. I swapped out the Pickup for an EMG (not very good until I ran it at 18v) and Martin at the Gallery sorted out the frets. Its great now, but for the first 20+ years of its life it was a bit of a dog (but a very nice looking cherry sunburst dog).

[quote name='Liam' post='353892' date='Dec 13 2008, 09:23 PM']Hi there, I'm thinking of a new one in the new year, not spending a great deal of cash, but these are the two I'm thinking of: Ibanez GSR300 or Squier Classic Vibe 60s Jazz Bass in Olympic White I normally play an Aria Pro Tab 60 and a Fender Precision through a Trace Elliot AH300SMC with a 2 x 10 and a 1 x 15 cab. Love the Aria, but leaning more to the Precision with my current band[/quote] To answer your questions: 1. No I don't own either of the basses listed 2. My advice would be to list the basses you're asking about in the thread title

[quote name='thebeat' post='353501' date='Dec 13 2008, 12:39 PM']...was the bass playing equivalent of wearing my girlfriends pants..[/quote] The consequences of the wife finding a pair in your jacket pocket?

[quote name='redzombie' post='353468' date='Dec 13 2008, 11:57 AM']Anyway, this thread's about Tokais, what I'm getting at is I want to find a shop with one I can go try.[/quote] I've seen & tried Tokai T-birds in Regent Sounds & Rokas in Denmark Street, but as they tend to rotate stock around the MusicGround-owned shops they might be in one of the other shops.

Although we're called 'Obviously 5 believers' we're not a Dylan tribute band and usually do one or two Dylan songs each gig. One of my favourites is "tell me momma" from the "judas" era '65/'66 tour and until fairly recently only available on bootlegs from that tour (afaik).

What about Rick James? [spoiler]...Oh yes he mostly used it for photos & Oscar Alston played a musicman on Rick James tracks[/spoiler]

[quote name='beerdragon' post='352612' date='Dec 12 2008, 12:08 PM']Sorry to be a pedant but i know he played bass in the Buggles who had a hit with Video killed the radoi star are you sure he was in the Glitter band?[/quote] Its mentioned on the [url="http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=6"]ZTT web site[/url]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='352144' date='Dec 11 2008, 09:01 PM']CDsourcing charged us £500 for 500 copies - pressed CDs with one colour silk screen print on a white base with jewel cases & full colour front & back with b/w print inside the foldout 'booklet'. Excellent quality and very fast problem-free turnaround.[/quote] They'll do 1000 with printed & pressed CDs, full colour 4 page booklet for £649.75 inc vat & del

CDsourcing charged us £500 for 500 copies - pressed CDs with one colour silk screen print on a white base with jewel cases & full colour front & back with b/w print inside the foldout 'booklet'. Excellent quality and very fast problem-free turnaround.