thisnameistaken

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='734311' date='Feb 3 2010, 06:18 PM']I have to admit to loving this. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k3kqYDm44M&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k3kqYDm44M...feature=related[/url][/quote] Just for future reference: Are you admitting to loving Kenny G, muscly men with mullets, or music to buy chinos to?

[quote name='Jerry_B' post='735650' date='Feb 4 2010, 11:28 PM']I like a bit of both. Not that I'd call it 'tone' as such. It'd be something I'd expect along with 'whoomf' and 'chunk'. And I'd say that non-musicians can still appreciate it. After all, to a certain extent someone else's sound probably drew us to playing the bass in the first place.[/quote] Is it the bass "tone" in and of itself or the space it occupies in the music though? Most of the time you can't even tell what the bass would sound like in isolation, yet we tend to worry about it. I've found lately that I rarely need anything above 500hz in my sound, 1k if I'm feeling modern! I doubt anyone notices that a huge chunk of my sound is missing - I certainly don't.

[quote name='51m0n' post='735607' date='Feb 4 2010, 10:45 PM']Just for the record, when I record, I normally ...[/quote] Wait. Run that bit by me again?

[quote name='silddx' post='735433' date='Feb 4 2010, 07:37 PM']Old Holborn and green Rizla?[/quote] Green Rizlas just make sense, but Old Holborn is foul, smells like my dad. [quote name='Johnston' post='735395' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:49 PM']I done a thing a few years ago for a blues band. For The first nights practice I was told there was an amp, it was a wee roland cube and it was crap. I plugged everything in as usual including a wee zoom 506 pedal I used as a tuner, I went straight through it nothing added. At the end of the night I was told 'they weren't really a band that used pedals'. The next nights practice I took my own amp this time I unplugged the 506 and went straight to the amp. I was told 'thats far better alot more natural'. The only difference was in the amp !!![/quote] I had a guitarist recently complain that because I had pedals in my signal chain my bass didn't sound bassy enough. At the time of the complaint my bass was going through one (switched off, buffered) mixer pedal and (ironically) a low-pass filter. The guitarist put it down to signal degradation because there were some other pedals nearby, which he assumed were involved in some way. I think he's looking for a bassist at the moment if anyone's interested.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735319' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:47 PM']Yeah I know, I'm just being pedantic. My original point was it's a mistake to think the tone of an instrument no longer matters because you can dial in tone, when "good tone" (ie the tone you want) is about maximising the quality of the signal from start to finish and taking control of it through whichever means are best. It's not about thinking "Well, I can't tell the difference, swap it out for an inferior substitute", because, that is the road to sh!t tone. [/quote] Well I kind-of agree with you there, and I wouldn't want to piss about with digital modelling if I actually needed a ton of different sounds. Fortunately I don't - I never need more than two or three different bass guitar sounds (not incl. effected sounds, fretless, etc.) so I keep one bass strung with flats and the other with rounds, job done, no more gear required.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I'd like to see / hear of someone who has successfully (with or without a supercomputer) recreated a specific valve amp which stands up to aural and spectral scrutiny.[/quote] As has already been said though, spectral analysis is pointless - who looks at music? If it sounds ballpark then it's fine, especially on bass. We're the only people who listen to bass guitar sounds critically anyway.

[quote name='Mykesbass' post='735081' date='Feb 4 2010, 02:35 PM']The other factor that you have no control over where tone is concerned (if playing live of course) is the room (and the mercy of a sound engineer if you're gigging at that level)![/quote] I think any bassist who gigs regularly with unknown-quantity sound men soon learns to be less precious about "their tone". If you're lucky you won't be reduced to a boomy sub-bass sludge that ruins the sound of the rest of the band. Anything more than that is a bonus. Imagine saying to the sound guy in some pub somewhere that you can't hear the inherent brightness and bite of your bespoke bass's AAAAA maple top in his mix.

You could always look for one of the old Hohner Steinberger-licensed basses. That's about as small as a (34" scale) bass is going to get, and they're good basses.

That list does a good job of showing just how many brands now think their gear is worth twice as much as anybody else's gear.

Just watched the video. Tearing it down looks surprisingly quick but I imagine setting it back up again would take a lot longer.

I left a band last week because the guitarist was telling me what to play. If he'd had ideas that were well thought-out I wouldn't mind but basically he wanted me to play whatever he'd been doing with his thumb when he wrote the songs on acoustic guitar, meaning 1 and 5 on boring beats and an almost country-rock feel to everything. No ta. Shame because the drummer was cracking, and he was obviously bored too.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='732587' date='Feb 2 2010, 09:37 AM'][/quote] That bass is a racist.

I've got a little computer chair (more like a stool really - the sort with a little back but no arms) that I took out of a skip once, I usually sit on that to play bass at home and it's pretty comfortable, nothing gets in the way of the bass. And I plug into an awful little 30w 10" Laney combo that someone gave me once. I sound like a right tight arse don't I? I suppose I am!

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='732959' date='Feb 2 2010, 02:14 PM']Why not? Jimmy Page uses a bow on his Les Paul [/quote] Nigel Tufnel used a violin on his flying V!

Well I spoke to this bassist acquaintance today. He says there's a ply bass that I could have for £4-500, it's already well set up with quality strings on it, structurally good, etc. I should have a chance to try it out in the next few days so we'll see. He was making positive noises about it and he's not the sort of guy to wilfully sell a lemon to somebody. I'll report back when I've played it - and more importantly heard him play it, so I'll know how it's [i]supposed[/i] to sound!

Fretless can sound really aggressive if you want it to (and you can play). It does take discipline to play in tune, but it's not a massively different experience to playing a fretted bass. I played only fretless for a few years and never had an issue with making it fit in with the bands I was playing with. Nobody ever batted an eyelid. Avoid if you're one of those metal bassists whose sound is mostly clang though - you'll struggle to get clang out of a fretless for obvious reasons.

It's surprisingly easy to break bass strings at the bridge, even with no issues with the bridge itself (I broke strings on every bass I owned). If you dig in too hard and pick down by the rear pickup they go eventually. It was usually E and A strings that I broke, maybe because I was attacking them at a more perpendicular angle, or with more strength, or because thicker strings are less flexible I don't know. Rarely broke the thinner ones though. For the record I was mostly using Rotos 66, sometimes DR Lo-Riders, and I changed strings regularly because I liked a fairly bright tone.

[quote name='project_c' post='732250' date='Feb 1 2010, 09:25 PM']I'm really curious about how this will affect the future value of second hand Warwicks from the 90's? Does anyone think they will become highly collectable / sought after?[/quote] Well it's not happened yet. I think at some point the body styles will come back into vogue and the used prices will go back up (or some famous bassist will start using them and everybody will want one) but until then it's bargain old Warwicks all round! FWIW I'd never sell mine anyway.

I used to break strings because I couldn't hear myself properly. Buy a bigger amp?

"Creamy" sounds like a Muff to me. Best Muff-a-like I ever had was the Wren & Cuff Pickle Pie 'B', but try the EHX models too you might find one you can use. The green Sovtek boxes in particular are very popular with bassists.

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='731861' date='Feb 1 2010, 04:05 PM']These are in the Ritter price range, and at least I can see the work put into Ritters.[/quote] It's not really relevant though is it? Either you like a bass enough to pay for it or you don't. Personally I don't like the look of Ritters so I don't understand their high prices, but obviously there are people out there who think they're worth the money and are happy to pay it. Same with the Warwicks no doubt.

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='731801' date='Feb 1 2010, 03:09 PM']I thought the Warwick Zender was expensive, but I'ver just noticed the RRP for the Bootsy model is £5399. How are Warwick justifying this price tag?[/quote] How much are Alembics? However much people are willing to pay.