Dingus

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1393979992' post='2386668'] The strings aren't for me, lol. I have a good friend in the USA who's been looking a discontinued line of Dean Markley strings. There's an odd shop that stocks them but they are all huge money. Strings.ie not only have them but they are half the price of anywhere else. Reason for asking questions about them was just that it's odd they are so cheap [/quote] Ah , you must mean the Randy Jackson Alchemy strings. I noticed them because I used to use them , and they are intriguing strings in many ways, with a unique sound. It's a shame the Dean Markley discontinued them , but I don't think many bass players were willing to fork out that kind of money for them , and after RJ jumped ship then that was probably the death knell for them. Those strings had a lot of good points and a nice, sophisticated sound, but I found that the gold coating came off and they died pretty quickly. However, when they were dead they had a really unusual sound a bit like half rounds or even flat wounds that was quite fun to play with. I would venture that this retailer has done a deal with Dean Markley, either in the U.K or in the States, for their remaining stock. I noticed in a branch of Guitar Centre somewhere or other in the States a couple of years ago that they were selling them off cheap, and probably were doing so nationwide. .

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1394040413' post='2387289'] a friend of mine has Krell separates and sone fancy B & W speakers, it is incredible. possibly as good as you would want, sound wise. he spent £9000 i think. £350,000 is very silly. its like those in ear headphone's i saw fro £1900. what sort of moron would spend that.?? [/quote] That is what I would describe as "sensible" crazy money, if that makes sense. Always bear in mind , if you buy really expensive hifi equipment, you also have to budget for the price of a property with a space you can use as a dedicated listening room, because unless the environment is correct you won't hear anything like the true potential of the equipment. I have had most of my own relatively modest system for several years, and none of my components are the latest thing by any means- my CD player dates back to the mid-1990's( but it is recognised classic), and the newest thing is my Exposure amp that I bought about five and a half years ago- but a good sound is a good sound , regardless of the age of the equipment, and I am very happy with the overall sound it makes. I know people who have spent a lot more money than me and ended up with systems they are far less happy with. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't recognise the superior performance and potential for enjoyment of much more costly and impressive gear than my own. If I had a more normal and settled home life I would probably have bought a much better system by now, but there seems little point when I seem to hardly get time to listen to it. .

[quote name='White Cloud' timestamp='1394043193' post='2387327'] ....you owned a Fender during the 80's??? Most of us were feeding our wood burners with them at that time. Next you'll be telling me that it had flats on it [/quote] Yes, exactly right. Never had flats though, and I told myself that I was just like Jaco ... but just not[i] quite[/i] as good. Other kids used to take the piss out of me at school because I didn't have a preamp. That's when I decided that if I ever had children I would either buy them the most up-to-date musical equipment or send them to private school instead of the kind of rough inner- city comprehensive I went to. What has actually transpired is that I decided not have any kids and buy the up-to-date gear for myself instead . Result!

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1394031225' post='2387120'] Interesting! I'm not saying that there is no difference at all, just that under normal circumstances (i.e. while playing with a band at fairly high volume) it is highly unlikely (IME) that anyone would be able to notice any "improvement" to tone or sustain. I have recently owned both a Fender Geddy Lee and a Marcus Miller. Both are fitted with BadAss II bridges. In both cases, they felt and sounded different to other fender J basses - but the differences were much more (IMO) down to the necks, pickups and onboard preamp (in the case of the MM) than any contribution that the bridge may have made. I also think that fretless basses (when compared like-for-like with their fretted versions) have less sustain anyway. YMMV of course. Although that will, to an extent, depend on fretting-hand techniques. If the OP wishes to install a high-mass bridge, then he should go for it. But as part of a quest for improved tone and sustain, I think it will follow the law of diminishing returns. [/quote] I would completely agree with you that you aren't going to hear a night and day difference to the bass overall, Geoff, but I do think that the bridge can and does make a difference to the sound of any bass overall. As a bit of background history, back in the mid-1980's I had a vintage Jazz Bass ( despite the fact that what I really longed for at the time was something modern that looked like a coffea table with active electronics) that was totally stock , and I noticed that as I played hugher and higher up the neck , thee was a noticeable loss of clarity and sustain compared to a lot of more modern basses. Also, the bridge saddles would slide about on the untracked baseplate and bugger up my intonation settings. Switching to a Badass sorted out both problems, although I would also acknowledge that, for most purposes, a Fender with the bbot bridge will have ample sustain for most people practical needs. The relatively lightweight steel bridge is a big part of that Fender sound, in just the same way that a very heavy brass bridge contributes a lot to the sound of Alembic basses, for example. The steel gives a lot of a harmonic overtones to the note , and those overtones help define that sound of a Fender bass that we all know and mostly love. A fretless is indeed much more muted than its' fretted counterpart by virtue of the fact that on a fretted you have got a steel string making contact with a steel fret . Once you change that for your finger pressing the same string down into a fretless wooden fingerboard, the tone and dynamic envelope of the note will change dramatically.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1394036238' post='2387205'] I actually agree with most of what you say but, when it is broken down, hearing what it sounded like when the musicians played it HAS to be the whole point of it all. Not in the sense that no-one is allowed to make any alterations to the recorded sound but in the sense that the inherent VALUE of the art form is in its production not in its reproduction. Shirley? [/quote] The point I am making, Bilbo, is that the sound as it is mixed in the studio is not an accurate representation of the performance anyway, and was usually never actually designed to be so. It is a version of events that has been manipulated to take into account the effect that domestic playback will have on the final effect. If you are talking about reproducing live performance then, yes, the ideal would be to reproduce the sound that the actual event produced, but even that is open to a large degree of subjectivity. For example, what was the real sound of the event, was it the backline on stage , the monitor mix , the mix at the desk or what came out of the P.A? I suppose it's fair to say that hifi is a rendition of a rendition, but a good quality rendition on decent equipment is far more likely to capture the spirit and actual experience of the original event than a bad quality rendition on poor equipment. Could I also draw attention to the fact that decent hifi doesn't have to be expensive ( luckily for me) or elitist, and comes in many forms. For example, nowadays you can get a decent pair of headphones for about a hundred quid and a USB DAC/ headphone amplifier for around the same price with stunningly good results, and use them turn your P.C or laptop into a source of high quality listening pleasure with an endless supply of free music.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1394031344' post='2387123'] Well then where are they? Certainly none of the articles I've read in the last few years in Sound On Sound about big name studios or recording/mixing/mastering engineers seem to feature any of these systems. Many of the facilities described have some impressive amps and speakers but they have little in common with the sorts of systems of the "high-end HiF" world. One of the things that annoys me about "audiophile" hifi is that is appears to be aimed at a very narrow range of music. It's all very well going on about enhancing "clarity" "separation" and "detail", but a lot of music is recorded and mixed deliberately so that the all the instruments stick together sonically and separation is probably the last thing the people involved in the recording want. I had hoped that with the coming of digital delivery mediums the HiFi nuts and their "willy waving" systems would go away but in fact they seem worse than ever. That digital would be the great democratiser when it comes to audio reproduction and we could just get on with enjoying the music that we were hearing, without worrying that spending more money might make it sound "better". Having spent a long time listening to lots of different speaker systems when I was setting up my home studio all I can say is that they all sound different. Which sound better is entirely subjective. [/quote] What you are saying here is both factually inaccurate and, more's to the point, apparently motivated by some kind of idealogical grudge that sees the aesthetic sensibilities of others as inappropriate, superfluous and overly ornate whilst asserting your own supposedly utilitarian values. A lot of top professional studios as well as mixing and mastering facilities [u][i]do[/i][/u] have domestic hi-fi equipment in service at various levels of the process, and there an increasing overlap between the two industries. .Even if they didn't , as I have pointed out to you previously, it would have no bearing on the subjective value final listening experience on domestic hifi equipment . Someone posed the question earlier in this thread "what is the point of a high-end hi fi system ? ". The answer is simply this: to sound good. And, as the old adage goes, if it sounds good, it is good. I can't speak for "willy waving" hi-fi nuts, because I have never encountered any myself and I am sorry these people seem to be harassing you in some way as you seem to suggest , but I do know that a well-put together system can have a persuasive and thrilling sound that is a source of great joy and pleasure for many years to people who love music. Your assertion that high -end hifi is aimed at a particular kind of music is very wide of the mark , too. You would be very surprised at a lot of the music used in the designing of a lot of audio products, and the irreverent attitude of the people who design it. I could play you some high -end hifi systems that will take your Ramones records and pin you against the wall with the sound they put out, if that is what you want, as well as be capable of great subtlety at the same time. Great systems can reveal the essence of the music, whatever it may be, and that is their enduring appeal.

Well, my experience is the different bridges do make a certain difference in the sound of a Fender-style bass, and not just to sustain , but more so to overall clarity. Most Fender basses will never have super-long sustain regardless of what bridge you put on them , but a slightly more substantial stainless steel bridge like the Badass or similar seems to give a bit more sustain and clarity particularly in the upper registers. Such bridges are also far less susceptible to slipping and losing their adjustment positions than the bbot bridges tend to be. I would stick with a relatively lightweight stainless steel design, though, because that style of bridge seems to be quite integral to making a Fender have its' characteristic complex sound. Heavy brass bridges on a Fender can be detrimental to the overall sound.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1393975474' post='2386618'] I suspect the use of batteries was less to do with heavy currents than to ensure a perfectly clean DC power supply with no mains ripple or regulator 'noise'. I also suspect it made no discernable audible difference. Did you miss out a 'dear' in that sentence? [/quote] Power supply makes a very noticeable difference to audio quality on most decent quality equipment. How you channel and condition mains power definitely influences the final sound .

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1394024457' post='2387004'] The important thing to remember about "audiophile" HiFi systems is that no-one who is in the business of actually recording, mixing or mastering music uses any of those sorts of systems. [/quote] Actually, at the highest level of the industry they do.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1394024457' post='2387004'] The important thing to remember about "audiophile" HiFi systems is that no-one who is in the business of actually recording, mixing or mastering music uses any of those sorts of systems. I think the average HiFi fanatic would be appalled if they saw the sorts of very ordinary (but perfectly serviceable) cables and the distances that the audio signals run through these in a typical recording studio. However it doesn't seem to have done the actual [b]MUSIC[/b] any harm. [/quote] Once again, you are completely missing the point. What king of equipment was used in the studio is largely irrelevant. It's like saying that a painting is pointless because it doesn't look the same as reality.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1393965953' post='2386439'] IMO, most HiFi is pointless. Unless you are listening on exactly the same system as was used in the studio where the mastering was done, you won't hear what the recording was supposed to sound like anyway. I find it all a bit sad really can't we just enjoy the music? [/quote] [quote name='gjones' timestamp='1393980927' post='2386672'] What is the aim of a top notch Hi Fi system? Surely it is to replicate the sound of an album as it would be heard in a top notch recording studio. I doubt Abbey Roads CD player, Amp and monitors cost £350,000 combined. I suspect it's just an exercise in separating the obscenely rich from their money. Nothing wrong with that. [/quote] This assumption that the point of hi-fi equipment is to try and reproduce the music as it was originally heard in the studio is[u] completely wrong[/u]. Firstly, even in some of the best equipped recording studios in the world, the playback equipment and the studio monitors in particular are quite harsh-sounding and unforgiving by the standards of most domestic hi-fi. The people who mix and master professional recordings are quite aware of this, and the music is mixed and mastered taking that discrepancy into account. In that respect it is far more accurate to say that the converse is true, and that the point of how it was recorded in the studio was to take into account the kind of equipment people would be listening to it on at home. The people who make records are acutely aware of the kind of equipment they likely to be listened to on in the real world, and usually tailor the sound accordingly. The result is that a lot of records sound worse on expensive high end equipment that they would on a crappy system. In fact, , in the very best recording studios in the world, they actually incorporate high-end hi-fi equipment into both the monitoring and playback process to assess how the the recording will sound on domestic equipment. Last time I looked, at Abbey Road they were using electronics from Chord, solid silver cables and the top of the range B&W speakers for final playback. That system wouldn't cost you £350,000, but it would be in the tens of thousands of pounds range. One of the reasons that properly equipped professional studios use multiple sets of differently sized speakers to listen and mix through is so they can get an idea how the recording is going to sound through various kinds of equipment that people are likely to be listening through, and to strike some kind of a balance between the different demands of different kinds of audio systems. Historically, the sound of popular music has been influenced by the kind of equipment people were using at any given time to listen to it on, and that is just as true today as it was in the early 1960's when Berry Gordy would get the local radio in Detroit to play the rough mixes of Motown tracks so he and his team could hear how they sounded on A.M radio, because that is what would most influence sales.Nowadays, digital audio and mp3 players mean that an unprecedented number of people are actually hearing music in relatively high quality, and that has in itself influenced how music is designed to sound. The idea that if you aren't listening to the studio playback then you aren't hearing the ultimate realisation of the music is completely spurious. The simple fact is if you enjoy music and you listen on a decent hi- fi system, the chances are that you will hear nuances in terms of not only in the details of the music but also in terms of the overall tonal balance and , most importantly, the pace, rhythm and timing of the music. If you love music then listening on a good quality audio system can be a sensual pleasure that ranks along with the very best that human beings can enjoy. Being dismissive of that pleasure is akin to saying "why bother planning and cooking a fabulous meal when you can get a Pot Noodle from the corner shop?". It is philistinism of the worst kind. I wonder how many people who are sceptical about good quality audio have actually heard any for any length of time, because I can remember the first time I heard decent hi-fi equipment , and from that moment I couldn't wait to get some of my own. Yes, audiophilia is a hobby that attracts a fair few nutters and weirdos , and a large proportion of people who are actually looking for something to do rather than listen to music, but good quality sound is not the exclusive domain of those kind of people. Besides, before anyone on here starts being too scathing of so-called audiophiles, how many people on this forum buy expensive bass equipment despite the fact that the harsh reality is that they can't actually play very well, and would actually be much better advised to spend their money and their energies getting some lessons ? People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, as the saying goes. I am most certainly not an audiophile, but I do enjoy listening to music in at least a moderately good level of playback , and I make no apologies for that. Like Ziphoblat says, the law of diminishing returns applies to hi-fi to a very large extent, and a well-chosen budget system could surprise you with how persuasive it can sound. £350,000 is undoubtedly excessive by most standards, but if you listened to a good system costing £3500 or even £35,000 then you might find it far more of a revelation.

Glad to be of help!

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1393882146' post='2385512'] I quite like this girl. Not my kinda music, but her Strange Alien track is interesting. Beats Scooch and / or Blue anyway. Not sure if this is catchy enough to trouble the top of the leaderboard too much come the competition, but good enough not to embarrass us at least. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wFUPCkmlOo[/media] [/quote] "She" should turn out to be a bloke. Worked for Israel in 1998 . It's time we ate our pride and resorted to the same kind of dirty tricks that Johnny Foreigner is using against us. Not that being a transsexual is dirty in any way , I hasten to add.

[quote name='White Cloud' timestamp='1393939094' post='2386002'] Never mind the OP....where can I find one of these! Looks the bomb. [/quote] ESP LTD Vintage 214 fretless. It's a brand new model. I nearly bought one myself , but opted for a Lakland instead. £283 from most retailers . This is the fretted version ( no fretless examples on YT yet) , and it sounds like a proper Fender to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGcZNsES-MU

Which strings are you after Barrie, if you don't mind me asking? They all seem fairly generic to me.

Funnily enough, the Fodera basses that I personally find most appealing are the more plain ones , with less ostentatiously figured woods , like Richard Bona's bass with the Olive Ash top.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1393936019' post='2385953'] Very true that... Taste is obvioiusly subjective but quality is undeniable. I can appreciate the craftsmanship that's gone in to a bass regardless of it's resemblence to an ironing board... [/quote] Maybe Anthony wanted a bass that would indeed double as an ironing board . If he is on tour and wants his shirts to look nice, it could be a very handy way to kill two birds with one stone!

Hi Sara As it sounds like you have noticed already, there is not a huge amount of choice in fretless basses at the less expensive end of the market. The plain fact is that fretless bass is a fairly maligned instrument nowadays in most genres of popular music, so manufacturers are catering to a pretty low level of demand.That said, there are still some pretty good affordable alternatives out there . When you say you you aren't that keen on a Jaco style bass , is that specifically Jazz Basses you are set against, because if you are willing to consider a Precision style bass, this could be a likely contender: I haven't played one of these myself, but the ESP LTD range has a very good reputation , and for under three hundred quid I think you will struggle to do better, providing you can cope without lines on the board. It's got a solid alder body , maple neck with a thin "U" profile and rosewood fingerboard, so , on paper at least , it ticks all the boxes to give a proper Fender-like sound and feel. That P+J pickup configuration is very versatile, can still sound pretty modern, depending on how you play it, if you want to allude to the 1980's- style players you mention , and a Fender-style bass will feel pretty familiar to you , which is always a good start. If I am being brutally honest, I think you may struggle with the intonation more than you may think without lines, not least of all because for all but the most capable of players correct intonation on fretless bass is a constant struggle even[i] with[/i] the aid of lines, but in the end the decision is yours and don't let my personal prejudices influence you . Some people find lines more helpful than others do, and if you are buying the bass primarily to experiment with at home and in the studio then you have got time to practise with it and adjust to not having frets( or lines. ) Anyhow, it's great that you are interested in playing fretless bass, because it's such an appealing-sounding instrument . I have recently started playing fretless again myself after a long lay-off, and I am enjoying it immensely, except for the fact that it is giving me flashbacks to my first dalliance with fretless bass in my youth , thirty years ago!

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1393920067' post='2385717'] I go through periods of thinking I'd quite like one... Then I see something like the single cut they had on the bass gear stand at the weekend and I come to my senses. God that thing was ugly, looked like an expensive ironing board with strings. [/quote] It just goes to show you how tastes can differer, because I think that AJ Presentation model is absolutely beautiful, and have done right from the first moment I saw it. I like the way that essentially it is styled like an acoustic guitar, albeit a very big one. The new hollow body Fodera is even more exquisite. I need a 36 inch scale six string like I need a hole in the head , but I can't help but admire the aesthetic beauty of the design and the way that the body shape references the conceptual ideas behind that bass, i.e that it relies on its' acoustic properties more than its' electrical ones in order to produce its' remarkable tone. . Some of the other single cuts look good to me, too, like Richard Bona's bass.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1393887614' post='2385593'] Nah, this is a real alternative... [/quote] Is that a different hat, or did you have your head re-routed? Either way, your resale value is knackered.

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1393924289' post='2385766'] Maybe it's a bit like having wonderful sex with a woman you thought wasn't very attractive - once you've experienced it you have to keep going back for more [/quote] Is there something you want to tell us about, Barrie? ...because if there is, we're here for you:

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1393870838' post='2385329'] i awlays wondered what a bass made out of MDF would actually sound like with high quality pickups etc, as it has such an even density throughout. ? just a thought. not sure how much of a percentage of the wood is glue mind. and how that would effect sound. [/quote] It would probably sound better than you might think. Conversely, there are plenty of basses made from very dense exotic woods that are dead as door nails in terms of resonance.