thisnameistaken

It's a really rewarding instrument to learn, very satisfying to play, but don't dive into it expecting to reproduce your fretless bass repertoire immediately (or at all) - treat it as a different instrument and don't be despondent if it humbles you in the beginning. Take pleasure from the simple stuff at first and gradually build up your stamina and technique. Also as far as your band's sound is concerned, if you've got a loud band you might struggle to get heard at all. IMHO the upright works best with sparse instrumentation.

Pedaltrains are a great design and really light, definitely worth a look, especially if you're still chopping and changing your pedals or pedal order around - it's really easy with a pedaltrain. I got a PT-1 with a hard case new for £100 off eBay a couple of years back - I've got an M9, an Octavius Squeezer, four Boss-sized pedals and an EB-Jr expression pedal on there, with room for another two Boss-sized pedals, power blocks are stowed underneath the board.

I've been meaning to order a Frantabit because my Bugcrusher is my favourite pedal by a mile and it couldn't hurt to have a bitcrusher in the same box. I haven't really had a need for more pedals lately but new band on the horizon so he might be getting an email. His fuzz and filter look cool but I'm all set for fuzzes and filters. Maybe a basic Xerograph would be handy for the end of my chain though.

I tend to use a pretty deep sound anyway to allow more room for everything else happening on top. Quite often I'm part of the 'everything else' too because I mess about with pedals way too much, but I always have a deep sound going on in parallel too. Those full-range bass sounds you hear at clinics and on bass solo videos are all very well for clinics and bass solo videos, but they just get lost live unless you're mixed way up or the band leaves you lots and lots of room.

I take one bass guitar or the double bass to gigs (never needed both so far), recording I use the double bass or a 4-string with rounds or a 4 with flats, but can't see myself needing any more basses than that, it's all the bass guitar sounds I want.

Stop telling everybody to buy a DB, you're pushing the prices up!

A click might not work. IME when drummers change tempo it's because they played a note out of time and they've adjusted to that time - usually it's playing a note too late and then slowing down as a result. The drummers who speed up are very rare. With a click they'll still make the same mistakes but then they'll have to catch back up to the click so it just compounds the problem, leading to a bar or two of weird timing instead of just one event. Try to spot what it is that's throwing your drummer off. It'll probably be certain fills he plays - either get him to practise those more or play something different. Of course if he is just up and down all over the place with tempo and there's nothing in the music that is causing it, maybe he shouldn't be a drummer. I've never met any drummer that simply couldn't keep time at all though.

It's like a jazz with a glass of water infront of it.

Usually I find song ideas tend to start in my head, and then I pick up an instrument to extend the ideas a bit. That is nearly always bass first, but eventually I end up with a guitar or a keyboard if/when the harmony gets a bit too complicated for my rubbish musical mind to imagine from the bass arpeggios. On holiday earlier this year the house had a spanish guitar in it so I spent a lot of time noodling on that and found that ideas fleshed out faster than using a bass, and it was refreshing to have a different sound to work with. So I would say get a cheap guitar to work with - you can get decent used guitars for £50 if you look around.

I've ended up on 4s, had a couple of 6s, I do miss the low B sometimes if I'm honest but not the high C, but I like the feel of 4s for gigging. It's a pickledicament alright.

I think he probably played badly in the first clip, I don't think the audio quality can be entirely to blame, but I'm sure even Victor Wooten has duff performances. For me though, the bass guitar always sounds bad when it's played like this - you get more mechanical noise than music, and not very musical mechanical noise at that.

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1326114652' post='1492415'] Well, yes I'd agree with that. But if you then played a G major scale per the video do you suddenly shift to using finger 1 on the A? It has the potential to confuse me! [/quote] Yeah I would play your first pattern with 1-2-4 and then shift up to still use 1-2-4 for the Gmaj scale (and down again to continue it down to the A and E strings). I think it's a good system for beginners, can't comment on how it works out for advanced players, but it certainly helps give you confidence with intonation and avoids any heroics with the left hand. Can be a bit of a pain if you're playing a triad though, depending on the pattern. But it's not like bass players are stuck playing triads often eh?

I would want a hard case or some other solid box before I put a guitar in the post. If you really don't want to drive down there and collect it (and he can't / won't meet you at some point along the way) then maybe send him a case to pack it in? It will add to your parcel costs but at least provide some peace of mind.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1326097122' post='1492084'] I'll clap the tube driver this morning then, when I arrive at my destination. If he's working. [/quote] I remember when Cud reformed for a few shows in 2007, their bass player said it would be encouraging if in future people could come to his office each day and applaud him every three minutes.

Dave was always the talent IMO. So they're still gigging with that chubby kid on bass?

A full-size piano has 88 keys, so 7 octaves and a bit.

I'm actively looking for a better double bass but won't be too surprised if I don't find one that ticks all the boxes this year. So no real full-on GAS to be honest.

Should go in a Clio. I get my bass in my girlfriend's little Daihatsu with a few inches to spare. TBH I've seen a youtube video of a guy loading a DB into a four-door by reclining the passenger seat and having the pegbox in the footwell, so it will probably go in your scooby too with a bit of craftiness.

When I was a kid I wanted two basses - a Warwick Thumb and a Wal fretless. I got the Thumb in the end, never could afford the Wal fretless. Great instruments. Sad news.

I haven't played an EUB for years but I found them a bit difficult to get comfortable with. The DB - being more substantial - seems easier to handle. For me, an electric upright wasn't much of a draw because I wanted an acoustic instrument and the sound of a double bass, so it was obviously going to be a double bass I bought. I thought if I'd bought an electric I would have been constantly driving myself crackers trying to make it sound like a double bass.

The guy I jammed with yesterday was excellent btw. Much better than me! And he's keen to do the same sort of stuff I want to do. Quite excited. Now time to round up the rest of the posse and start demoing some tunes.

I took my Thumb out for a spin yesterday having not played bass guitar for 6 months, it's still a champ!

I know what you mean but fingers x'd, it's taken me six months just to find someone who sounds like they might be able to play...