Dingus

Maybe that bass is Jimmy's way of applying for a job at Fender ... Just kiddin' ! ( sort of )

On the face of it , this is a shocking way for AC to do business , but what I would like to point out is that there are always two sides to every story , and if we were to hear directly from Jimmy Coppollo his version of events it [i]might[/i] ( emphasis on [i]might [/i]) put a slightly different perspective on things , so I would be wary of Talkbass or any other internet forum acting as judge , jury and executioner in this case or any other such situation until the full process of legal redress has been gone through . That said , on the face of things , this is a very bad situation for all concerned , including AC . It's hard to understand why anyone would want to represent their business in such a way with that kind of shoddy workmanship and poor customer service , and the damage this could have done to Jimmy's reputation will be considerable . As someone points out on Talkbass , the amount of trade AC will have lost from the fallout from this one thread will far exceed what it would have cost them to give a refund and throw the bass away or use it for scrap . It's also upsetting to see the chap who has bought the bass with high hopes and the best of intentions end up with such a piece of junk . As it stands , everybody is a loser in this . It's up to Jimmy Coppollo to put things right .

[quote name='tonyquipment' timestamp='1376254244' post='2171450'] What if u had no thumb? [/quote] Then you would have to join Coldplay .

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1376253074' post='2171430'] I'm impressed! Two out of three's not bad! [/quote] I'm impressed with by fact that there is now a 33.3 % chance that I know someone who's knobbed Avril Livigne .And he's handy with a pick , by all accounts .

[quote name='davehux' timestamp='1376252748' post='2171422'] Yeah - that Chris Squire - what a waste of space [/quote] Unfortunately , for every Chris Squire there are ten bass players like Guigsy from Oasis or that bugger out of Coldplay who looks incredibly awkward and embarrased to be in a band masquerading as a bass player .

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1376252627' post='2171419'] What a good job I'm here to prove the exception to that tendency! [/quote] I expect you have no tattoos , have never been on a skateboard and have never had sex with Avril Lavigne , so that takes you well - outside of the demographic of the musicians I have in mind .

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1376252134' post='2171407'] I wonder what he would have to say about Steve Swallow? [/quote] Strange you should mention that . He had a heated row with Steve Swallow about it . Steve was a bit taken aback .

To inject some controversy , could I say that , despite there being some very skillful pick players who I enjoy very much , there are some incredibly ham-fisted ones , too ? I see a fair few young men in bands who look like they are trying to saw their bass in half with a plectrum . I think a lot of the bad press plectrum playing gets is because it tends to be the default plucking choice of "less able " players .

I usaed to be a snob about playing with my fingers - mainly because my first bass teacher was a jazz bassist who was vehmently prejudiced against pick playing - but I have come to appreciate that there are some great pick players and it can sound really good in certain contexts . The only problem is that when I try to use a pick myself , I find it nearly impossible . I would need to do some serious practise to get up to a decent level of proficiency with one . Fingers is like second nature to me , whereas a pick just gets in the way .

[quote name='Rick's Fine '52' timestamp='1376247380' post='2171322'] I always use Paisley Freight, shipping a bass in a hard case starts at £12, then add whatever insurance you want, if any. Used them over 20 times, without issue. [/quote] Thanks , I'll take a look . The bass is in its' hard case and the original cardboard carton , so it should be well -protected .

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1376246350' post='2171295'] Unfortunately there is no way of knowing if the insurance is any good until you find yourself having to make a claim on it. I've never had a problem with UPS via Interparcel. I make sure that what I send is packaged as well as possible and that's been good enough even for basses that went to France and Japan. Is there no Basschatter who could help you out? [/quote] Unfortunately , it's unlikely, as the bass is at my mum's house in the Yorkshire Dales and needs to go to Central London . The arrangement is further complicated by the fact that I have to organise pickup when someone is at the house to hand over the bass .

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1376244611' post='2171254'] I think if I had an instrument to send that was worth more than £1000 I'd be looking to deliver it in person. [/quote] I would love to do that , but unfortunately I have no time to do so anytime in the forseeable future . I suppose £1000 would be better than nothing . I used to use Interlink , but they require you to have an account nowadays , as do many others .

Thanks for the replies .chaps . I've just been looking at the Interparcel website and it says the maximum they can insure an item for is £1000 , and that would cost an extra £20 . The bass would need to be insured for more than that , anyhow . Does anybody have any suggestions , or am I getting it wrong ?

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1376241808' post='2171211'] I was going to say the same thing. What's funny is that I have known some drummers that would have said the same thing about Steve Jordan, the kind of stuff getting bandied around in this thread like 'overrated' and the suggestion that anyone could do what Jordan could do on kit. They couldn't. Both him and Pino are truly unique on their instruments, replaceable doesn't come into it. [/quote] I remember reading an interview with Anthony Jackson back in 1990 and they asked him who he rated out of the current crop of bass players and he replied without hesitation that he regarded Pino as the best in mainstream pop music , and we all know that Anthony Jackson doesn't mince his words when it comes to his asessment of other bass players . I have loved Pino's playing since I saw him on Top Of The Pops with Gary Newman , and if you could go back thirty years to the summer of 1983 you would see the young Dingus sitting in his bedroom with his first fretless bass trying ( and failing , very , very badly ) to emulate Pino's playing with Paul Young and Nick Heyward at that time . Pino is a special player , and I will always be interested in what he does .

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1374683475' post='2151833'] Take this guy, Neil Jason. Plays a great groove, serves the song etc. Why no kudos? [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAbmv70uvJ8[/media] [/quote] Neil Jason has had a very successful carreer as a celebrated session musician in New York for decades , so his talents have garnered some degree of acclaim , but the reason he isn't as widely regarded as Pino Palladino is because he lacks the same degree of flair and [i]panache[/i] that Pino has in his playing . Pino has a far more readily identifiable sound and approach , and it is a style that seems to appeal to bass players , record producers , other musicians and casual listeners a great deal . Populism is not something to be dismissive of in the world of popular music . Rather , it the most valuable of commodities . A case in point would be Neil Jason's playing on " Girls Just Want To Have Fun " or " Time After Time " by Cindy Lauper . It's far better than anything he did with The Brecker Brothers .

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1374664097' post='2151424'] If half of us had Steve Jordan (and, indeed, Mayer) to bounce off and played that often as a trio, we would probably sound that good. [/quote] No , you wouldn't .

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1374683156' post='2151829'] Agreed - but so have many, many others. Why is PP considered so exceptional? I am not slagging him off, just wondering why the cult of personality with this one player over 1,000 others of equal standing? Not that it matters [/quote] I completely disagree with your assertion that there are thousands of players of equal standing to Pino Palladino . There are not . He has had a stellar career because he is player of exceptional taste and ability , and above all he has a great feel in his playing , regardless of whatever musical genre he is playing , Appreciation of Pino's talents is not a cult of personality . Of course there are a lot of other great players , but you can't fool all the people all the time , and Pino Palladino is the real deal and his sucess and enduring popularity is a result of his wonderful skills as a bass guitarist . Any suggestion otherwise is sophistry .

I need to send a bass from one location in the U.K to another , and last time I had to do this a while ago I had real problems finding a company that would accept and insure musical instruments . Can anyone recommend me a good carrier to send a bass with insurance in the U.K ?

[quote name='Graham' timestamp='1376207252' post='2170717'] Now that's interesting, thanks for all the replies, at the moment I can't get the white/maple board one I played out of my head, particularly if I swapped the pickup and tone circuit over for a Lindy Fralin and equivalent tone control.... I didn't realise the Duck Dunn was an ash body, I always asaumed it was alder as it had a rosewood board and a solid finish [/quote] All Skylines have ash bodies . Alder is only an option on U.S Lakland models .

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1376227548' post='2171000'] IME, by the time you've got Klotz (or Van Damme) cable and Neutriks connectors you've got as good as you're going to get. Anything else is just brand hype and makes b*gger all difference. [/quote] I've got a Klotz cable too , also very good , and has lasted about eighteen years so far , and my Whirlwind heavy duty XLR to phono cable is still going strong after nearly twenty five years , so there is a lot to be said for buying good quality cables in terms of it being cheaper in the long run .

I've got a Monster Bass cable and it sound good and has lasted for the best part of fifteen years without any issues , so I have had good value out of mine .

About you upper register fills getting lost , less percieved volume and overall audibility on the D and G strings is a fairly common complaint from many players about traditional Fender -style basses , and was a reason commonly cited back in the 1980's for moving away from those traditional basses to the more hi- fi , hi- tech designs that were fashionable at that time . I usually play Fender -style basses I have never really felt it was much of a problem myself , and I am not averse to a swift upper -register fill myself . I enjoy the extra bit of clunkyness you get with those designs . If you want to try and bring those runs out to the forefront more , try adding some more mids to your sound , as much as you can without sounding too honky . It's those frequencies rather than the top end that will get you heard , especially above the twelth fret . If you could try a bass with a graphite neck or similar , that you knew had a very even output in all registers and then record yourself with the band a see if it remedied the problem then that would be one way to confirm if what was bothering you was just part and parcel of using Fender- style basses , as I suspect it is .

As far as I know , the only change was the introduction of the Custom Shop pickups . Your Duck Dunn will have a swamp ash body , whereas the Fenders would be alder , so that is one difference , but , from memory , the Fralin pickup is a vintage-style P Bass tone not dissimilar to the Fender CS Vintage one in the 2012 Am St Fenders , so in that respect you would expect them to sound more similar . The 08 Am St. P Bass with the stock pickup probably wouldn't sound hugely different to the post -2012 CS-equipped one , in all likelihood . Bear in mind that you presumably will have got your Lakland set up how you like it with strings you are familiar with and like the sound of , whereas the Fender in the shop might benefit from a bit of tweaking in those respects , most likely , which can have some effect on the overall sound and your perception of it . When all is said and done , don't forget that those Laklands are very good basses that are well-made with good quality componants and materials used throughout , so it's not surprising that your Duck Dunn would give something like a Standard U.S Fender a run for its' money in terms of how they sound .

It's ungainly to me , but as in all things , when it comes to matters of taste you can only please one person so please yourself . What I do know is that New York bass ace Francisco Centino , who played some fantastic basslines on a lot of hit records back in the 1970's and early 1980's such as Bourgie Bourgie by Gladys Knight and the Pips , uses one of these ( it might even be one of the cheaper versions ) as his main bass nowadays , so they can't be that bad as instruments .

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1376146065' post='2170223'] It's a pity that when someone makes an interesting looking bass with alternative materials and construction they feel the need to justify it with some completely bullshit "science" marketing. Having owned several basses with considerably more aluminium in their construction than sported by the Siro, I can safely say that it makes little difference to the amplified sound over an instrument made with more conventional materials and similar pickups and circuitry. In fact several of the people who've played my Born To Rock F4B have commented on how "woody" it sounded when amplified: [/quote] Hang on a minute , you've been telling us all this time that you think Fenders are overrated and poorly designed and unsuitable for modern music ( whatever that is ) , and in the meantime you've been playing a Precision Bass made from hammered - out of dustbin lids and a pair of leg braces ? You do realise your credibility is completley blown , don't you ? This is a revelation !