molan

A budget range of between £500 & £1,200 is pretty wide. Towards the lower end you're in good quality Fender & beginning to hit Musicman territory but once you go over £1,000 in the used market then you can think about serious high end basses that would have been close to £2K new. One relatively big decision that might help to kick off with is the core size & shape of bass. E.G. Would you prefer something smaller bodied like your SGC or a Fender 'clone' with a Jazz or a P shape? There is an amazing range of quality J shaped basses around from people like Overwater & Sei & £1,200 would definitely get you a nice one of these (there's a really nice Sei on EBay sitting at £1,000 at the moment). A lot will also depend on whether you're really after 'the one' bass to keep for a really long time or if you're prepared to try a few things and trade a lot. If you are going to swap things around then make sure you get something that's relatiely easy to re-sell if required. Simple answer to this is one of the nicer Fenders on the used market as these generally hold value well (although 5 string Fenders are a very mixed bunch). It really is way tougher to make a definitive choice up over £1K because there are so many choices, passive v active, exotic woods v painted, 'organic' wood v glossed, classic style v modern etc. As ever the thing to do is to try as many as you can get your mitts on

My (first) wedding cake was in the shape of a white P Bass, lol. Must have an old pic of it somewhere in the family vaults!

[quote name='steve-soar' post='648182' date='Nov 7 2009, 04:22 PM']Looks like Paddy McAloon, see my avatar. [/quote] That made me smile It also made me dig out my best of Prefab Sprout album

[quote name='Platypus' post='646753' date='Nov 5 2009, 10:10 PM']Silver Fox with A/C alert came across this on YouTube: [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/roosjeetje#p/a/u/2/AzCV5ntbDWM"]http://www.youtube.com/user/roosjeetje#p/a/u/2/AzCV5ntbDWM[/url][/quote] Some good playing in the various bass extracts here I can't work out who the bass man actually is though - Paddy someone? Roger Happel is a keyboard player & singer as far as I know (I've heard of him working with Candy Dulfer).

[quote name='Sibob' post='646135' date='Nov 5 2009, 11:56 AM']I definitly agree with that! I guess a lot of it is having a system in the room that joe bloggs recognises and is cheap and easy to replace. Si[/quote] I reckon sometimes it's simply that some people jsut want to see big old 'pro' looking rig in a rehearsal room. I've been to so many that have 300w+ bass rigs & 100w valve guitar stacks & everyone's cranking them up!

[quote name='Sibob' post='646117' date='Nov 5 2009, 11:33 AM']Isn't that a little bit like comparing a horse and a truck? lol Depends what you wanna do! You wouldn't take a 1x12 on a stadium tour for example Si[/quote] Totally agree - that's what I'm really intrigued to try out, lol. I happily run a pair of 12's to gig with. I have no idea why a rehearsal room would want a 4x10 & a 1x15. The money they spent on this would have been far better used on something more suited to the room but of higher quality than an Ashdown Mag system. I guess some people love the idea of a big rig for rehearsing though - The guitar amp is a Marshall half stack as well!

[quote name='Gwilym' post='645902' date='Nov 5 2009, 12:50 AM']... I don't believe you - got to be the amp [/quote] I did A/B the amp and the little Sadowsky pre - the Sad was sooo much nicer than the Ashdown! Next week i'm gonna take one of my Berg cabs and see how a single 1x12 compares to the Ashdown 4x10 + 1x15 combintion. . .

Hi All, Well - first thoughts are very encouraging! I arrived back pretty late last night so just grabbed the bass & used the studio amp (which I hate!). It's an Ashdown Mag 300 with a matching 4x10 & a small 1x15 extension cab. Way too bog for a small rehearsal space really. I did bypass the front end of the amp by using my Sadowsky pre-amp pedal (with tone controls set flat) running into the effects return. The core sound was really nice, all the band immediately commented on how much more punch & clarity it had than my MTD535 which I'd used at the previous rehearsal (albeit running through the Ashdown's rather 'murky' pre-amp). Thea biggest difference for me in 'everyday' use was the useable range of tones from onboard the bass. I set the trebel & bass around mid way & used the master tone control to soften things out for older style stuff or sharpen the tone for more modern songs. I also played with the pickup mix a fair bit & this is something I hardly ever do. I've tended to find that bridge pickup solo sounds are too thin for me and/or I've had to use a lot of eq to get a sound I like. However the bridge either solo or with a strong bias sounded really nice & cut through the mix really well. I actually found myself subtly playing with the neck pickup volume as the core tonal adjustment for different song styles. To be honest I've generally just picked a sound & stuck with it in the past & just moved my hand around to vary tones. I was also 'testing' the variations last night so probably wouldn't change stuff as much on a regular gig or rehearsal. The other big difference was that I almost always cut mids on my amp to get a sound I'm really happy with. I simply didn't need to dot his with the AC & I'm guessing this would hel improve overall bass definition at a live gig. I found it very easy to play as well, definiteyl allowed me to try stuff I would never normally play or would maybe stumble over. This even included using some slap parts in rock songs, lol. I NEVER do this normally and my slap technique is dreadful, I'm always leaving strings ringing. However the AC just seemed to 'work' really well on this sort of stuff & was a lot of fun to play on the umpteenth run through of the same song, lol. Weight & general feel was great as well. Maybe not as light as the MTD but not a huge difference & absolutely a good gigging bass. Neck felt vaguely wide at first but I that seemed to disappear as soon as I started playing. I could really feel the difference in the 34" scale as well, easier to play without losing any definition. Didn't use the B all that much as the songs didn't desperately need it but I did swap a few song positions around to give it a try & wasn't aware of any issues by having a slightly shorter scale. Everyone in the band said it looked really classy as well - surprising in a way as it's effectively just a J bass in a sunburst finish & the MTD they'd seen before has a flamed & spalted maple top. Maybe they are more 'traditionalist', lol. Will report back on more stuff soon & get some pics taken

It's arrived! Turned up yesterday and the box was really rattling around - I was seriously worried that something might have been damaged but it was just one of the latches on the case that had opened. It arrived strung with a set of flats (which I never play) but even these sounded really nice. A lot more punch & growl than any bass I've tried with flats on. I swapped them out for a brand new set of Elixirs & it's just lovely to play. The different strings made it a little buzzy so needs some fettling but I've got rehearsal tonight so will try it out there. It's in much better condition than it looks in the pics too - I'll try to get some new pics done at the weekend

As I currently have builders in almost complete control of my house I'm thinking of getting someone who actually knows what they are doing to fit a couple of wall hangers up for me I like the Hercules design and wondered if there's any real difference between the wooden mounted ones with 2 screws and the metal mounts with 3 screws: I was vaguely heading for the metal one because of the extra screw but maybe the wooden base gives a more solid contact with the wall? Basically I've never used these before so totally paranoid about putting a £2K bass on one & it falling off the wall, lol.

I'm a regular listener to Craig Charles' Trunk of Funk every Saturday evening on BBC Radio 6 (or on repeat play via i-Player). Last night's show featured the Fantasy Funk Band as voted for by the show listeners: Male Vocal-John Turrell Female Vocal-Dionne Charles Guitar-Eddie Roberts (The New Mastersounds) Keyboards-James Taylor Drums-Mike Bandoni (Funkshone) Horns-The Haggis Horns Bass-Ernie McKone Plus a 'bonus' appearance from Snowboy on percussion I didn't hear all of it last night but much of what I did hear was really good - I love the Haggis Horns and they were brilliant on Move On Up. There's a vid of some of the songs here [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/funk_soul/"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/funk_soul/[/url] if you just want to hear the horns doing their stuff then zap through to about 11 minutes or so and enjoy

[quote name='Sibob' post='641216' date='Oct 30 2009, 03:46 PM']I see where you're coming from, wouldn't want to bump the price of the bass up to silly money! Si[/quote] Good point Si - adding £12 to the overall price wouldn't actually have made the smallest difference to the overall cost!

[quote name='Toasted' post='641180' date='Oct 30 2009, 03:12 PM']What's it coming by? Seagull? [/quote] I reckon it actually arrived in the UK a while ago but ParcelFarce have only just got round to telling me about it (and asking for their £8 clearance fee!).

[quote name='Flanker2' post='611112' date='Sep 28 2009, 05:45 PM']Molan Is it here yet??? I played Birdy's 'new' jazz on Sunday and it is fantastic - I want one! Has he come clean about which bass it is yet?[/quote] It's finally arriving on Monday! I missed the deadline by about 30 minutes to get it today & didn't want to pay the extra £12 to have it delivered tomorrow, lol. It's taken an age to get here - was posted in the US on about 10th October!

Sounds nice - records really well

I used these guys for my house insurance: [url="http://www.ehomeinsurance.co.uk/"]http://www.ehomeinsurance.co.uk/[/url] And paid an additional premium to specifically cover musical instruments for professional use outside the home We've just had to claim for damage to a ceiling following leaky pipes & they were brilliant.

I am so envious of you all - it looks like such a good day. I was mostly shopping in Macy's Washington at the time Although I did receive a rather nice Alleva Coppollo at my hotel the day before so it wasn't an entirely bass free weekend