uk_lefty

Gigged it last night. Not at all dissatisfied! I could have EQ'd better really and the style of music isn't entirely suited for fretless but I played the whole gig with it anyways. Very comfortable bass with a consistent sound. Towards the end of the gig I was maybe missing my US Stingray a little for some of the finer detail and finishing around the neck but that's only after two hours of solid playing. Really this bass is more a toy for me at home but will happily take it out to gigs or use it as a main bass in other contexts.

Decent gig despite some reticence beforehand... Playing a town centre pub, it's been in the diary for a while... We see an ad by the pub on Monday advertising a Great Gatsby themed party. I'd love to play in a swing jazz style band, but I don't. We do early 2000's covers. We were a bit nervous about what to expect but it turned out to be a great night. The party was off in the corner and people in fancy dress occasionally came forward for a dance but the usual Saturday night crowd were well up for some loud music. Somehow there was even a conga, or a "train" as the youth were calling it, a first for me, shame I wasn't wireless.

Never had a problem with the Sire I used to have and the one I have now. Shielding tape is incredibly cheap on Amazon and a very easy job to do, definitely worth giving a go. I know some people say any kind of DIY job is easy to assert some kind of alpha male thing, like "fitting a bathroom is easy, it's just Lego", but shielding a bass really is just putting some sticky tape in nearly then screwing it back together, even I can do it and I can't put up a shelf straight.

This is the answer I needed! Thank you. Weirdly my six year old is learning piano and I'm learning to read the clefs by helping her learn piano! If she sticks at it I will be recommending to learn theory when she's older. In the meantime I'll find some time to get hold of some resources. Like you, I always think of theory as like grammar. Having tired to learn foreign languages you just can't learn vocabulary because the grammar is what stitches it all together and makes it flow and make sense.

That's the thing, you've got to be damn good to do that! Loved them for twenty or so years since someone played me them doing Immigrant Song. Same guy first played me Frank Zappa too.

Just what I was thinking. If you're not a reggae band, or Dread Zep, you should not attempt reggae. My band plays Blinding Lights "straight" probably every gig. Is an ok song that most punters recognise but I don't think it's the one they're humming in the taxi home. You can play around with the baseline a lot though, so it's ok from a bassist point of view.

Just been watching Scott Devine's interview with Marcus Miller. Marcus talks about how Jaco's Donna Lee sounded like random notes until he played the piano chords over it and then understood how Jaco was using harmony. Marcus goes on to say how important it is to understand harmony. I read something similar in reading a biography of Jaco. My theory knowledge is very basic. Could anyone please point me to where I could get started in learning about harmony within this context? Thank you!

I wouldn't call it heavy, no. It's not super light but I generally don't weigh my basses. My Sire V9 five string is heavy, so I wear a good quality strap but on a long gig it can get a bit uncomfortable. This bass is ok for weight but the only strap I have spare is a big thick leather one anyway. I don't expect it to be uncomfortable at a gig. It's probably lighter than the old MIM Jazz I had.

I've been away a lot since receiving the bass and had a band practice cancelled due to illness so yesterday was the first chance I got to give the bass an extended run out. It was only through a Positive Grid Spark with it's little 4" speakers but the bass really, really sings! I'm so impressed with it. I had thought I'd need to upgrade a lot of it but I'm not going to for now. The pickups are really nice and punchy, even through a small amp, it's just pure fretless jazz sounds. The tone control isn't just an on/ off as they are on lots of cheap basses, granted it could be better but it's definitely good enough. The controls feel cheap but plastic knobs always do to me, I might stick on some chrome ones out of the spares box later. I don't know of we will get a band meet up in this week but there's a gig on Friday and this bass is playing.

Sounds like you need to clarify with these guys what the purpose of the band is: 1. Mates who met up and play a few songs together? 2. Playing a few gigs a year in the same places for an "audience" they largely already know? 3. A gigging covers band that wants x number of gigs per year and is actively looking to fill a diary and broaden their reach? There's a massive jump in mentality and approach needed from each one. And the problem with music types is often that they only have the ability or commitment for 1 but think 3 will magically just happen for them, or expect to be playing Wembley arena this time next year if they can just play their favourite Faith No More B side down the local because "everyone will love it". I'm in a band that is actively looking to fill a diary. They'd been going ten years before I joined and went through the motions and a few bassists and rhythm guitarists. I knew what I was getting into. I play a lot of songs I really, really don't like to listen to. Some songs I do like don't go down well with the audience so reluctantly I have to suggest we drop them. But we have a full diary and it's giving me gigs I'd never have got before with previous bands, and it's fun!

Been there so many times... A good gigging covers band that wants to get more gigs needs to keep adding new songs. We make sure when we go back to a venue three months after playing there we mix up the set and add some new stuff in, I feel like we are cheating them if we don't. Our band is pretty clear on what type of songs we will and won't do though. When it's not so clear what songs should or shouldn't be considered a quick way round it would be something like: "Walk this way" goes down well, what other Aerosmith song could we do to mix it up a bit? That way you keep in with the style and genre, so you know your audience will like it and you appease the person who first suggested it/ loves it more than anything.

Still on offer if anyone needs

Awesome! I've had mine just over a year and love it. It's great for unplugged practice and regularly gets played on gigs. Also recently got an Epi Casino guitar too, persuaded by the quality of the JC Bass. Enjoy the bass!!

Am walking about at the mo but I remember there being a website where you could plan your pedalboard by dragging and dropping scale images of pedals. It really helped when I bought my first board.

That's a giveaway at that price. The seller is a decent guy, I sold him a Fender a while back.

I bought this recently and it's a bargain, I'd happily gig it. Secondhand the Korean made Warwick's and even German made would fit your budget. Sire do both V5 and V7 around £500 with a nice glossy fretboard.

I've recently acquired a fretless jazz bass. The stock strings are ok for now but soon I'll want to change them for something better. I'm thinking of buying groundwounds for the first time... I want the sound of a round but the fretboard-kindness of a flat. Will I get this from a groundwound? My other fretless has stainless steel rounds, I've also used flats and tapewounds before but I think it has to be either biting the bullet on roundwounds (maybe nickel instead of steel) or trying out ground wounds. Grateful for any opinions and recommendations. Thank you!

Symmetric body... Interesting! Looks amazing.

My board continues to move and change. The SY-1 was not being used much so I sold it off and received an HOF mini in trade. There's room back for the AMT Wah. I had a Thomann order so got a green underlight too just because I could.

Tough one... I'm going to say my Darkglass Duality Fuzz pedal. I was never really one for fuzz, having only had it on multi fx pedals and never really needing it. The last year I've played a lot more modern music and guitar versions of pop songs so the fuzz has become essential for replicating synth tones, especially with a boss OC-2 in front. The Duality is a great pedal, there's so much flexibility in what you can get from it, including a soft and subtle fuzz sound which I've never been able to find before. It was, of course, bought on the BC Marketplace too. Honourable mentions: ABM600 amp head, Sire V9 five string bass, Harley Benton jaco-alike fretless jazz which I've barely touched as it arrived on the day I went away on a work trip.

With my old LMB3 I used to use two settings which were both from the recommended settings in the manual. One was a nice but of compression, nothing extreme, the other was the enhance setting which worked great with fretless bass.

The "Jaco-alike" Harley Benton, in left handed! I wanted the Fender MIJ one but the cost of those is ridiculous and this Harley was obtainable and priced at the amount I received for selling off some pedals. Opinion... Well, I wasn't expecting much. Though these get rave reviews I'd heard good things about Westfield basses and when buying one thought it was awful. This is an excellent bass "for the money" though. My number 1 bass is a US Stingray. It's not as good as that, but it's not 12x worse either. I'm very pleased. My nearest reference points are a 90s MIM Fender jazz I owned for years and possibly one of my Sire basses (I owned a V7 Vintage and now have a V9). The body is not very well matched in terms of woodgrain, you can clearly see the three pieces when up close but gigging I don't expect this to be obvious. The neck feels lovely, I don't know if it's unfinished, but if it's finished it's finished very nicely with satin rather than sticky gloss. The neck is quite chunky, which I like, it is solid and resonant. The finger board is laurel and I want to see what it's like after a bit of oil, at the moment it's a bit dry looking and there's patches that look like wear but could just be how the grain is. Hardware-wise the tuners are functional, I'm not keen on plastic nuts but not offended either, everything seems ok. The electronics are better than expected but if course not to the standard of a Sire or MIM Fender, maybe not far off though. Soundwise this does what I want: jazz fretless sounds! I own a five string fretless but it sounds very dark, this bass has more brightness and natural mwah to it. It feels good to play, not super light but I wouldn't call it a heavy instrument, and the fingerboard is nice and smooth. The bass arrived set up with a decent low action and I haven't checked but to my ear I'm not picking up on any intonation issues. I've only played it through a Positive Grid Spark practice amp and not my ABM rig but amplified it makes the expected sounds! It doesn't scream "premium, complex tones" but it's unmistakably a fretless jazz bass. I'm going to gig this sucker next year. My band mates had never encountered a fretless bass before until I brought mine out on a few gigs and now they're seeing the benefits and understanding it more. This is more a "play at home" tool for me though to explore stuff I do t usually do in the band. I'm very pleased with it. If it cost three times as much I don't think I'd have been disappointed. While I could work through some upgrades to everything except the body and neck, right now I just don't see the need. This bass is likely to be played with not-so-subtle EQ shifts, reverb and frequent chorus, maybe even octaver, so the amount of processing it goes through means I don't think I'll hear much benefit from hundreds of pounds worth of upgrades. Overall a very good use of money if you're after a first fretless, or a backup for gigging.

Also never seen one before, that looks fantastic!! Peavey used to make some brilliant basses.

Good one last night. Marking a year with the band, going back to our "home" venue, also the place I first played with the band on 10th December last year. First half had a few issues... Effects board lost power mid song, so pulled the cable from the board and went direct bass to amp. After the song it turned out plugging my effects power extension into a different socket fired it back up. Then we had an issues with the electronic drums, we had the same in soundcheck but this was really persistent and seemed like it was coming from my bass amp. I was losing volume, or maybe it seemed like that because of the noise coming from a loose connection on the drum kit, and it messed me up for a few songs. I've had issues with the battery pack in the back of my bass coming slightly loose and losing volume so I swapped basses, went direct to amp, tried loads of stuff but just ended up creating more issues. Sorted it all out at half time, second half went without a hitch, all gear worked fine, decent gig with a proper crowd enjoying the festivities. I've been really working on my harmonies and backing vox and feel it's improving a lot. I'm also playing the songs a lot more naturally now rather than desperately trying to remember structures or tricky parts.

Yeah I spotted that one. I know they did these from the US in the late 70's and early 80's but it was the Japanese one specifically I wasn't aware of.