lownote

At last years Dereham Blues Festival the band I was in at the time were dropped last minute into subbing for a band in a dark club venue. Despite not being able to see no worries because i had fretless muscle memory.

I think with a knowledeable audience, like at blues club or jam, expectations are raised, just as they are if you rock up with a six. It's kinda "you better know how to play that thing, man". And TBH I know that because I'm guilty of that prejudice when I'm in the audience. On the positive side I find getting an unlined out at a jam yields at least one gasp of astonishment from someone, usually the younger and more impressionable.

yes, but think where Jaco could have got to without lines

Why fretless? Makes playing a more crafty thing, less mechanical. You don't have to mwah.... I really dislike it. Think carefully about nut slot height. I have mine so I can drop the action and get 'mwah' if I want it, which is rare, but raise the action a tad and it sounds likle a normal bass. For me around 0.3mm at the slot usually does. For those who ask what's the point if you don't mwah, I would say you have the choice with very little adjustment. I'm an unlined lover. If you going to have lines you might as well have frets, IMHO only, obv. But I would strongly urge you to consider buying one with dots on the notes: having to interpolate between the side dots to work out where the note is is just masochism. It shouldn't cost much if you have to have the dots 'moved'. Bass Gallery charged me £30. Cheap unlined fretlesses: Revelation, Vintage V940FL.

Loved it. If I may suggest, Christian McBride would likely be good value too - good talker and a doubler. McBride has performed and recorded with Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Joe Henderson, Diana Krall, Roy Haynes, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Isaac Hayes, Carly Simon, Bruce Hornsby, and James Brown.

So at the beginning of this year I vowed to abandon bass and focus all my energy and money on sax GAS. And I got to February really well. And bought loads of sax stuff. I didn't touch the Revelation, and it wasn't even a battle to do that. I eschewed the BC For Sale section (well, a little light window shopping p'raps). Then. Yesterday I watched the SBL Thursday vlogcast as usual, and there's Ian Martin Allison bigging up Leyla Sneary, a capable young bass sister on Instantgram. And she's playing a 5 string 'burst alder Sire V7v2, which sounds rather well. And IMMEDIATELY I'm on BC FS section scouring. This is DESPITE having had four Sires in the past, including an alder V7 5 and moving on. AND knowing that just because she plays it well doesn't mean I will. Doh. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoFrzn_uhyJ/?hl=en

The radio industry lives by playing music that the target audience wants. And that yields a play list based on 'music of your life': the music most of us love is what was around when we were in our early to mid teens, cored on the age 14. So when you're designing a radio station you come up with your target age group (say 25-55). You then work back to when they were 14 (11-31 years ago) and play music from then. Works for me. I was 14 in '68 and I just love music from round then - a bit earlier to a bit later. But that doesn't mean quality stopped then. I'm hearing some great stuff (bass and sax) from the yoof of today, and respect it. I had a friend much older than me who used to rant on about good music stopped in 1949. My old dad thought good music stopped with Bach.

I wiggle back and forth. Started on four. Went to six because of the lovely high chordal possibilties. Went to four again. Then five. Now back on four fretless. But increasingly none (gone to sax). If I stay with bass the obvious answer for most stuff is a wide strung five.

Is the Cort A5 Artisan 18mm? I used to have a single cut Ibo Cerro SRSC805, which I think was 18mm

Maybe we could open this out. Are there some places that are more - or less - magic, and others that are ghastly s***holes? Or is everywhere a bit of both depending on our personal experiences? Personally, as discussed, I adore Newcastle, my missis loathes Sunderland based on having to live there, and I loathe the whole of Devon based on personal experiences. But I like Warwick, and Norwich is nice, but Ipswich isn't. Is it possible or even sensible to generalise? Maybe not. And not least because places change with the years.

True Newcastle story. I (short bald fat unhealthy looking guy of late middle age) was up on business from the South. As I tottered miserably out the rail station heading for my hotel, coming the other way on the sidewalk/ pavement were three girls, happy, laughing, not drunk - this was mid afternoon. As they passed me one of the girls grabbed my ears, turned my head down like Snow White does to Dopey in the movie, and planted a kiss on my bald pate. Then they waltzed on, still laughing. I fell deeply and permanently in love with the Geordie character from that point onwards.

Having pushed the same questions around with my nose in the past, my technical understanding from others is that the difference between 300 and 500 watts is not what it might like in raw numbers. And from personal gigging experience this year I have found that number/ size of drivers is far far more important (as someone says above). I variously ran a BF 4 ohm 2x10 and a Mark Bass 410 8ohm off my 500w head. The latter cab completely blew the former out of the water, especially outdoors. Just my tupenny worth.

I think I'm in too. More interested in getting my sax right nowadays. Split with my band and decided I loathe gigging, the local venues and the people I get to play with and for. Plus I'm happy with my fretless and my MB rig. So the first purchase of 2023 is a sax, not bass. and we may stay that way.

You live in a golden age of online learning... Scott Devine (Scotts Bass Lessons https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTj3vCqkQIsrTGSm4kM34g), Mark Smith (https://www.talkingbass.net/) and a dozen others all post quality free videos on YouTube. Note you don't have to buy into paid-for content. All these people post useful free stuff Two things helped me get off the ground: 1/ realising bass plays chords like guitar, only one note at a time b/ learning a handful of shapes on the fingerboard which can be moved around will give you everything you need.

I don't like mwah and prefer a conventional sound so I go with conventional settings: 0.3mm at the nut, ditto relief at the 8th fret with string held down at 1st and last fret position, and string height above the board at 12the fret marker of 2.4mm E, 2mm A, and 1.8mm D&G.

Escape now before you while you still can!! Or maybe it's too late.

D'accord. I had that one and it weighed 10 / 6 !! Couldn't sell it quick enough. That's why I asked about the PJ.