thisnameistaken

[quote name='Blademan_98' timestamp='1345923337' post='1783269'] Oh no! That's my set list decimated lol [/quote] O/T but is that your dog in your avatar? I've got a boxer with the same colouring and I thought it was him for a minute. He's the type of knobhead to wear a cape too.

When I used to break them a lot it was from finger picking close to the bridge. Similar story I suppose. Sucks when they go, too, because usually just the core breaks and then the floppy string gets stuck to the pickup and interferes with the other strings. Once I had to grab an A string and rip it off the bass in the middle of a tune and got lots of tiny fragments of winding embedded in my fingers. Blood everywhere by the end of the tune.

[quote name='bobbass4k' timestamp='1345929562' post='1783357']I've always been suspicious of "virtuosos", does anyone actually [i]enjoy [/i]solo virtuoso bass and drum music? It seems to me most people are just impressed with the ability and technicallity. Whenever I see or hear comments on the playing of people like Wooten it's always "wow he's amazing, that double thumbing is so fast!" not "wow, that melody is so beautiful". And if you bring up this point with these people, it's always the same response of "you're just jealous because he's so much better than you", it seems like a weird kind of hero worship to me.[/quote] I think a big part of the problem is that bass guitar just isn't a nice-sounding solo instrument. Particularly when players crank the treble so they can fanny about with harmonics. You end up hearing as much mechanical noise as you do note. Virtuoso double bass players are a different kettle of fish, although I suppose they have a repertoire provided for them, or at worst 'cello pieces they can make a decent fist of. They don't have to ruin some other instrument's music as much as bass guitarists do.

You're still allowed to slur your ustan da?

Interesting new music is usually made by interesting new people, not necessarily (or even likely) diligent music students.

Cheers man. I've got a couple of gigs at a local festival tomorrow and done quite a lot of rehearsals with various people this week with no problems, so I'm less worried about the bass playing than I was. I do need to take the shoulder seriously though because it does get in the way when it flares up. I'm not even 40 yet. Looking forward to seeing which other bits of me are broken by then...

[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1345893846' post='1782813'] I had one about 16yrs ago and it was a fantastic bass. I did mod it though. I put Barts in it (kept it passive) and replaced the scratch plate with a mirrored one. Always used to turn heads.[/quote] I modded mine too, but not through choice. Replaced the noisy Fender coils with active EMGs, then replaced the bridge because the E saddle kept losing height (I kept an allen key in my pocket during gigs it was that bad), eventually replaced the neck when it twisted, the only Fender bits left were the body and the pickguard and that's probably because nothing really CAN go wrong with those.

It's probably because both the pickups are quite close to the bridge. Same story with the Thumb bass. I'd be willing to concede it's 'tone wood' if someone wants to try putting Wal electronics in a plywood bass and finds it doesn't sound like a Wal.

Are you sure it's not just a standing wave emphasising that particular note? Try moving your amp and see if it goes away. If not, try lowering your pickups a little and see if that improves things - often if they're too high they can make strings behave weirdly as you play further up the neck (and consequently the strings get closer to the pickup).

My advice would be to turn up your backline. I used to break strings all the time, always down to my amp being too quiet.

For a couple of years in the '90s they made the Jazz with 22 frets, so the lower cutaway was further up the body and consequently the upper cutaway was brought further back too. That's what they call the 'longhorn' jazz now. I had one in the mid '90s and it was the worst bass I've ever owned.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1345845390' post='1782482'] There's that 'growl' word again. What does it mean?[/quote] It's what Jazz basses, Warwicks and (now) Wals sound like. Presumably they add more growl as you go up the price range of Jazz basses, and get even more with Warwicks and Wals. It's quite a valuable commodity. I don't know either. I've got a Warwick (apparently the most-growly one they do) and it makes more a purring sound. It might be broken.

OK so I went and saw a physio today and he says I've got shoulder impingement syndrome. We're not sure what's causing it but my poor posture is a problem so he's given me some exercises to improve that and another appointment in a couple of weeks' time. My shoulder hasn't been so bad today but I haven't driven for three days so I think it's the car that is causing the problem. He also said I shouldn't stop playing bass but I should try to find a way to play pizz without extending my right shoulder forward quite so much. But overall it seems to be lousy posture causing the problem and not double bass, so that's a relief.

Sounds like an analogue octaver to me.

If you're out, just go crazy with the vibrato!

Lemon oil should do the job. I've never had a DB dirty enough, or rather I do have one dirty one but I quite like it dirty. As for boiling strings: I have done that with bass guitar strings in the past when I was hard up, but I wouldn't want to do it with double bass strings as the BG strings had a tendency to break shortly afterwards and DB strings are 10x as expensive. I did pick way too hard in those days though, so that may have had something to do with it.

[quote name='yorick' timestamp='1345824538' post='1782101']I'm giving up live music next year, so I can have my life back. After 32 years in bands, no holidays etc, losing girlfriends. Time for a break.[/quote] Since I gave up on my last full-time band last summer I've picked up loads of ad-hoc gigs with interesting players I'd never have thought about playing with. And I don't have to fill up my schedule with gigs or rehearsals, it's all a lot more casual but the music is still really interesting and the gigs are good. Just saying, you don't have to be 'in a band' or gigging all the time.

Yeah surely if your current luthier does the business on it, it will be much easier to care for afterwards? If so I'd hang on to it and invest whatever you need to invest in getting it prepared properly. Especially if - as you say - it gets so many compliments and you're emotionally attached to it. I was never one to go all goo-goo over bass guitars but I do get soft about double basses. It's like meeting peoples' dogs.

Just a heads up for anyone who cares, you can now buy this film on iTunes [url="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/movie/everyday-sunshine-story-fishbone/id495825422"]here[/url]. It's a good flick, honest and pretty raw in places, funny, a bit sad, it's worth seeing if you are/were interested in Fishbone at all. The only thing not discussed is why Fish left the band. The rest of the departures are covered and all parties spoken to, but they gloss over Fish leaving and he wasn't interviewed, not sure why.

Some more examples of De La using mostly one prominent sample to make something new. It's obvious what the tunes were, but it's such a different feel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DTNsBrl8vQ And who would honestly rather this didn't get made. This is a great tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYw0NnHDRzc

Even some obvious/simplistic sampling has turned into interestingly original music. Like Public Enemy's 'She Watch Channel Zero'. Novel application of a Slayer riff and a great tune we wouldn't have had if someone hadn't sampled Angel of Death one day. I don't understand why anyone would object to it.

In the late '80s there were some great records made by patching together bits of old records. It's not practical to do that any more because it would be prohibitively expensive, so now a lot of rap acts just use one obvious sample to save on royalties, but when it was feasible to use loads of them there was some very creative stuff going on. Shame the industry killed it off IMO.

Weird. I got a Shuttle 6.0 recently and I'm pretty chuffed with the way the valve sounds when you overdrive it - it gets nice and full and vintage-sounding and then breaks up quite nicely as you give it more power. I didn't expect it to be any good at that sound but it does it very well IMO. Still, wouldn't do for us all to be the same.