thisnameistaken

[quote name='josh3184' post='1019617' date='Nov 11 2010, 03:18 AM']First I've heard of someone not liking the slap sound on a Thumb! What was it about it that didn't work for you?[/quote] I think it's a bit trebly for slap too. With fresh strings you can roll the treble all the way off (on the old 2-band Thumbs) and it is still brighter than a Fender full-up. But tell people your bass is a "Thumb bass" and they think you're a slappy arsehole regardless.

AFAIK callouses are dead skin, so moisturising them shouldn't have a long-term effect (the skin will still be dead after the moisturiser has f***ed off). But I should not have to remind you that men do not moisturise.

I think a lot of people with money get sucked into the big brands and will buy whatever they put out, just in case it happens to be the best thing ever made. Best bass sound I've heard recently - live - was a guy playing an '80s precision through a ton of pedals into an Ampeg head and an Ashdown 4x10. It looked like he'd ended up with whatever gear had survived a tour. He was a great player though. I don't see the point in going hi-fi with bass gear, unless your only bass gig is in your bedroom to the audience of YouTube. Otherwise use whatever you can hear clearly on stage and you can load in and out on your own without requiring spine replacement surgery. I can understand the DB players having to try a lot of gear because they are trying to amplify an acoustic instrument, sometimes an acoustic instrument that cost tens of thousands of pounds and sounds achingly beautiful before you try to amplify it. But making the same effort with a bass guitar seems pretty futile to me. Talkbass is much worse for new toy GAS than this forum though, from what I've seen.

If that Streamer had a 2-piece bridge it would be my dream bass. I also got an old '91 Thumb bass off eBay a few years back, I paid £670 for it and the guy insisted that if I was to sell it again I should give him first refusal. Watching Warwicks on eBay a couple of years back I watched him replace it, with another 1991 model, but he paid £1170 for that one. I felt a bit bad, but not massively bad. WH - maybe you know him, he's up in the northeast somewhere, might've been Newcastle. IIRC I think his name was Jason. Nice bloke, great taste in basses!

I take it you play a lot of slap stuff? I know a very good rockabilly bassist who uses spirocore solo sets, downtuned to regular orchestral tuning, to get the sound of steel strings with a low tension for slap. Perhaps that would work for you on the EUB if the scale suits Thomastik strings? Although that particular bassist - when I asked him what he was using - told me to use the heaviest gauge I could find and tune them up because taut strings were better for slap and you just have to build the strength to cope with them. Given that I was suffering with severe tendonitis in both wrists at the time and he was aware of it, and I already knew that slap players use lower tension strings, I've since stopped talking to him altogether. It was a friend of his (who is a better bassist too, FWIW, and a guy I have always admired) who later told me what strings he was using. Some people just don't have that musician spirit about them I guess.

Hi Andy, Quite jealous of you and all the tasty Warwicks. I didn't stick with the video beyond the first tune because I was a bit disappointed with the sound of that tune. I've quite enjoyed the stuff you've demoed before even though I don't usually like "bass guitar solo" music, but that tune on the video sounded like a hotlicks midi-drums-and-soloist recording. I hope that's not what you've aimed for on your first record.

Where do you lot usually buy components? Do you think Maplin will have everything I'll need?

Like your first respondent, I tend to use my whole hand to mute the strings if I'm playing muted notes. Or I'll actually stop a note with one finger and use the next finger to mute it, so I am sort-of still playing a tune, just you can't hear the notes, if you see what I mean. I do that more when raking than when playing lots of mute notes on the same string though.

I can't do just three, but I would put Aston Barrett, Mark Bedford and Norwood Fisher up near the top.

Incognito were my least favourite band out of that acid jazz scene, they just sounded so very tame all the time.

Sorry bro but it still looks like a Bongo. Twenty wasted quid, that.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1017858' date='Nov 9 2010, 05:00 PM']I like where reading (and writing) has taken me over the years and value it highly. ... Its a truckload more useful than two handed tapping.[/quote] And hands up how many of you tried two-handed tapping before you tried reading music? I know I did!

No, I don't like cats deep in my pockets they may freak out and present a mortal danger to my nutsack. Out of jazz I mostly like bop I think, and I especially don't like fusion. Funk-wise I don't think anyone has done it better than James Brown yet, but I also like a lot of old-school rap music.

[quote name='jakesbass' post='1017590' date='Nov 9 2010, 02:30 PM']Can he read? I'm very sorry it was irrisistible [/quote] I have no beef with the readers. I would like to be able to read and understand harmony better than I do, but I struggle to find the time where I'm awake enough to concentrate.

[quote name='wotnwhy' post='1017535' date='Nov 9 2010, 01:58 PM']To an extent, yes. But then the difference between the 2 is far, far greater to changing the pickup in a bass from ceramic to alnico [/quote] I don't know what the pickups in my basses are made from. If I find out my Warwick has ceramic pickups will I only be able to play Def Leppard parts from that point on?

I actually have used that board before where it's all rows of copper strips and holes. I did a GCSE in electronics, I got an F. In my defense everybody in the class got an F, except Andrew Jackson, whose dad was an electrician.

I know a pianist who works as an MD doing mostly pit work. He makes it look effortless, but he's actually conducting everyone in the pit, cueing and being cued, usually with five to seven consecutive pages of score open infront of him, and he still somehow has capacity left over to ad lib a lot of his own parts to keep him entertained. Not to mention all the arranging and re-arranging he must do in rehearsals. He is basically the don, it's almost like music is his first language (well he is Welsh, so who can blame him). He's one of the best musicians I've ever met.

Most people can't play funk convincingly. My advice would be to join a function band, you'll be in good company.

You should be absolutely fine, certainly if you leave the EQ on your bass relatively flat. The output from your bass won't be that hot, it shouldn't trouble the outboard pre. If your output is too loud you will get some distortion, but that won't damage anything. Just turn stuff down until it goes away.

Ooh the Muff might be handy, it was a green Russian I was thinking of building. Actually do you think the Mammoth schematic might also be useful in working out which bit of the Muff to tweak to get it to do gated sounds?

Yeah I sold my Woolly Mammoth this summer, I wasn't using it. I do miss my old NYC Muff though, I used to like to crank it and make Robert Sledge noises. Cheers for the link, and encouragement.

[quote name='gjones' post='1013870' date='Nov 5 2010, 11:33 PM']He says that the last thing to be recorded, with the Beatles in the later days, would be the bass. Which meant he could take his time and get it right.[/quote] I like to re-track bass when a recording is nearing completion too. Mostly to move around emphasis phrases depending on what other people have played or what extra guitar/voice/brass tracks have gone down. Or to create a bit more interest if there's a part that is sounding a bit flat.

I've never built a pedal before and I don't really understand electricity drawings either, but I love Big Muffs (and I cannot lie) and I've always thought it would be nice to have a Muff that can also go gated, and I've always fancied building something. Anyone think this is a really bad idea? Chances of me actually dying I think are fairly slim, I suppose I could annoy myself to death.

[quote name='BigJim' post='1016559' date='Nov 8 2010, 04:47 PM']It's a steal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/quote] Well, they are £102 [url="http://www.thestringzone.co.uk/daddario-helicore-double-bass-strings-set"]here[/url], so I suppose this is a saving of £2. Which set are they?