4000

Wow, those are big knobs! (No tittering at the back please... ) That figuring looks fab.

Awesome - looks good enough to eat!

[quote name='J.R.Bass' post='984340' date='Oct 11 2010, 12:47 PM']I spent a good 20 minutes on that Wooten, and god it was a hell of a bass. It played itself. Everything just seemed to work & sound better on it. Is it worth 6.5K, hmm i don't know but its still a insanely good bass.[/quote] I find this really interesting, as it shows how different people's expectations can be. I struggled to play it as the action was far too high for me; couldn't even use my trusty pick on it so had to resort to fingerstyle. I always set up my basses far lower than that; my Sei 5 has an action about half as high. Literally. I wasn't mad keen to be honest. Very nice meeting Molan though who was a thoroughly nice chap (as I suspected he would be ). My surprise stand out this year was the set neck Everson I tried; very nice indeed (although again the action was a bit high for me; something that could be levelled at every bass I saw, so I guess that's my problem ) , and another thoroughly nice bloke. Definitely one to consider from my perspective. Alan C's ACG 5 fretless was cool too. I tried to try the sweet Daphne Blue GB 4 (I've considered one in the past), but after going back 3 times without success I gave up. Was disappointed that Matt Garrison wasn't there though as had been rumoured initially. Loved the clinic chat though, especially Billy's comments. Oh, I agree with the height comments too. I'm 6ft and felt like a midget!

[quote name='Big_Stu' post='909213' date='Jul 29 2010, 01:31 PM']That's three times you've done that now and YOU are asking ME if I'm reading things properly??? I haven't even bothered reading the rest of your post it's obviously a complete and utter waste of time, you must get sleepless nights if anyone doubts the magnificence of the object of your undoubted obsession. I'm outta this complete waste of space. There's a bloke just gone for lunch here, he's "influenced" me into doing the same because obviously no-one's ever done that without him thinking of it have they?[/quote] Oh good grief. What, that I've gone on to make a completely different point after stating that I have no issue with you not liking him? Maybe if you'd read past that you'd have SEEN it was a different point. As for obsession, it's obviously you who are obsessed, but with not liking him. He actually wouldn't feature in my favourite 20 or so bassists; he may be even further down than that. Apparently liking someone's playing or admitting they're an influential player is obsession? Crikey, I'm surprised I haven't received a restraining order from Chris Squire, Lemmy, Stanley Clarke or Leigh Gorman. As for your last comment, nice to see you have a rational, logical argument to counter my assertion that McCartney has been AN influential bass player, not THE ONLY influential bass player. Big of name, small of reasoning..... Anyway, I think I've had enough of Basschat and I'm off to get a life somewhere where the rational people are. On the way I'll pop in on Pablo Picasso to let him know that nobody ever liked his paintings and that they had no impact whatsoever on 20th century art. Ta-ta!

[quote name='flyfisher' post='908960' date='Jul 29 2010, 10:01 AM']"Macca can't play bass for toffee" - Er, just a little bit silly, don't you think? Might be worth a bit of discussion to try to correct an obvious misapprehension.[/quote] I actually think this IS arguable, given your skill level and aims as a player. If you could play like Anthony Jackson or maybe Hadrien Feraud, you could argue that Macca can't [i]technically[/i] play bass for toffee, and I guess relatively speaking you'd have a point; not that I think either of those players would argue such a thing. But whether Macca is good, bad or indifferent as a bassist we could argue til the cows come home and there would be a thousand different equally valid viewpoints. What I find impossible to understand is people denying that a particular artist has been influential simply because they don't like them.

[quote name='Big_Stu' post='908917' date='Jul 29 2010, 09:26 AM']You say that, but you & many others do the same thing. You say you respect other people's opinions but then in the next sentence say why they're "ridiculous" or imply "tastelessness" (in this case) for having such opinions. My replies have merely been to say that it's incredibly rude to do such a thing. If it hadn't been happening this thread would be nowhere near as long as it has been. The last few pages of it have been more about pro-Maccas trying to brain-wash folk who think him "twee" or any other description into thinking that their personal opinion is flawed. I also believe that the word "influential" is thrown around far too easily; I've a list as long as my arm of people who believe their favourite artist was "influential". Again, it must go back to some ingrained need to see approval for their chosen idol. "Influential" in that it inspired someone to pick up a guitar to see what they could do? Yeah, sure, a cast of thousands, but in that respect Dave "Wammy" Walmsley, a mate of my dad's with the unfortunate band name "Wamm" was more influential to me, not McCartney. [i]Lemmy falls into that category, McCartney was part of his reason for going to bass apparently (in an i'view I read) because of the sound of it, not [i][i]his[/i][/i] bass, just the bass sound in general. And no-one is going to say Lemmy has any of The Eyebrow's style are they[/i]? "Influential" in that I copied what they did or a variation of it?? Absolutely not, far too boring (to me & many others on here) for that to happen. That is a mixture of my certain knowledge and my beliefs. Neither you nor anyone else will change them, no matter how many permutations of "allowing someone's opinion; aah BUT" they may come up with. What [i]I[/i] really don't "get" is why the Pro-Pauls are the ones who are having to keep coming back to harangue non-Pauls into changing their minds.[/quote] I'm beginning to wonder what filter you've got on your pc screen that makes you read competely different things than I've written. I've just explained that I have no issue with someone liking McCartney. I don't expect you to like him, it's fine that you don't like him and I don't expect (or even want) to change your mind. I do think however it's ridiculous to imply that he hasn't been influential because he so obviously has been. I don't like Marcus Miller and am not the world's biggest Jaco fan, but to deny their influence as bassists would be preposterous. It's not about who or what you like, it's about historical fact, or don't you believe in that? By your own admission, "a cast of thousands" have picked up the bass because of him. I call that influential. That's as influential as it gets. Maybe your idea of influential is different; it certainly appears so. I've been greatly influenced by Stanley Clarke, Mark King, Jah Wobble and Matt Garrison. Do I sound like any of them? Not a jot. I couldn't stylistically play like Mark King if my life depended on it. I probably sound more like (as my mate puts it) "fast Lemmy". Would you recognise their influence on my playing? I doubt it very, very much. It doesn't mean it's not there. After a gig John Pattitucci once told Sting what an influence he'd been, with all the space in his playing, and Sting famously joked "funny, I never heard that!". You're implying that to be influenced by someone you have to end up sounding like them. Why? How many Hofner Violin Basses have been sold simply because McCartney used one? The Rick 4001 C-Series was introduced as a tribute to him with the upside down headstock mirroring his. Ask Will Lee if McCartney has been influential as a bassist. If Jaco was alive you could've asked him. Same goes for Entwistle, who would probably grudgingly have admitted it. Ask Mani. And the same goes for many, many others, including by your own admission Lemmy. However I also never said that EVERYONE was influenced by McCartney. That would be ridiculous. I'm sure there are thousands he hasn't touched at all, you obviously included. But for every one that he hasn't influenced I'm sure there's another one he has, even if it is only to pick up a bass in the first place, which in my world qualifies as influential. Your judgement seems to be far more clouded by your dislike of him than mine is by the fact that I like his playing (I have no feelings either way on the bloke himself as I've never met him) if you can't even accept that he has influenced other people. BTW, at what point did I "imply tastelessness"? You're reading stuff into my posts that simply aren't there.

[quote name='Big_Stu' post='908837' date='Jul 29 2010, 06:01 AM']Oh I don't know, you're entitled to your opinion of course ........ but you'd be wrong. I don't think you realise how pivotal and pioneering some Pioneer can be. I still have my Pioneer A400X amp, it was one of the first, if not THE first non valve amp to feature a straight through non-adjustable sound, it's all about the tone you see, it seems uninformed to think otherwise. It's great at Jazz (as in Ellington, Basie, Kenton, Parker and worked through Pop to Prog etc etc) so my stance is not an anti-technical thing; my tastes in music run from that through pop, rock, metal, punk and pretty much everything else.[/quote] Hey, I charge by the word you know. FWIW, I don't think anyone is wrong to dislike him. If he doesn't float your boat fair enough, and he's certainly not a great technical player. I can completely understand why he wouldn't be some people's cup of tea. I do think arguing that he hasn't been influential is ridiculous though; that's not arguing taste at all. I don't like Clapton but to say he's not been influential as a guitarist would be ludicrous. Arguing that Macca wasn't at all influential is like arguing that the Romans never invaded Britain (I mean, what have they ever done for us? ).

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='905478' date='Jul 26 2010, 09:01 AM']To add to that; I'm sure I read somewhere that Foxton recorded a lot of the Jam stuff with a P bass and didn't a lot of GL's tone sound Ric(ish) when recorded with a Jazz! Get 'clank' and you've got the Ric sound. [/quote] That's because Foxton switched to Ps pretty much full-time part way through the Jam. You can easily tell when he's using one or the other. As for Lee, it depends how much of a geek you are. Live I think the 2 basses sound very different; in the studio not quite so much for obvious reasons (electrickery!), although personally his Ric sound on (for instance) A Farewell to Kings is very different (and very recognisable as a Ric) compared to his sound on Moving Pictures, which is where he started to favour the Jazz.

[quote name='JTUK' post='905126' date='Jul 25 2010, 07:31 PM']I'd say Chris Squires work with Yes kind of sums up the sound of a Rickenbacker... but he is supposed to have done a lot of that with a Jazz...go figure..!![/quote] Nah, only a bit of it. Parallels is the Jazz and there are a couple of other things from the early days (the low part in The Fish is apparently Jazz), but the bulk his most famous stuff is most definitely all Ric.

[quote name='Paul_C' post='908250' date='Jul 28 2010, 02:58 PM']4001s have the dark stripe down the middle - 4003s don't.[/quote] Not all of them. The skunk stripe started in mid-ish '72. Anything prior doesn't have it. So actually there were only around ten years when Rics [i]did [/i]have it; the majority of Rics therefore don't.

[quote name='JTUK' post='908582' date='Jul 28 2010, 07:50 PM']Scalpy. Songs....with a groove would be the stock answer. I don't have heroes or influences as such, just people who I like. I probably have as many drummers who I listen to as bass players, followed by a few piano players. If I could or would have learnt these instruments then I know who would have been the 1st references. I can't say Jamerson or Entwhistle or JPJ or whoever because I never sat down and studied them. Most of my formative years would have been listen to the NY stable of sessions guys and maybe a few of the west coast players, players who were about the groove, but not any one guy specifically. If I had to pick 3 bass players, I'd say Paul Jackson as someone who I liked enough, MM as he was about that time and the only one consistantly slapping on a few records..we are talking about early 80's here, and Anthony Jackson who has that timeless style. All 3 are players who have their own voice within a band so even as sidemen, you'd be able to know they were playing. Piano players would be Richard Tee and I'll stop there because he was the nuts, IMV, possibly Sample. Everyone can hear Gadd and Chambers. So with those kind of players, you can understand - or not- why you wouldn't even consider what McCartney may or may not have been doing particuarly as he was well past his sell-by date by then anyway. His playing output wouldn't even register. As I have stated enough times previously, whatever he does playing-wise or did, it doesn't do it for me so he is of no consequence whatsoever. Sorry. I don't think I want to repeat that fundemental truth for me anymore. People can say he was the best thing since slice-bread for them and I'll accept that they mean it but that certainly doesn't apply to me.[/quote] You know, I suspected you'd more likely be a groove guy. I'm a melody guy, which is why I like him so much. I'm less interested in groove orientated playing (and music for that matter, eg Soul, R&B etc), I was always more into melody; my favourite player is probably Chris Squire, who in some ways took the McCartney thing, combined it with a dash of Entwistle and ran with it. I was thinking about this before and I figured that (although I'm sure it's a sweeping generalisation) the groove guys would like Macca less; a groove player he certainly isn't, and a groove band the Beatles certainly weren't. However I'm sure that some of your favourites would rate him highly as alluded to in my previous post; far higher than you do. FWIW, I don't think anyone has a problem with Macca not doing anything for you (I certainly don't) but to think his contribution as an influential player was minimal, even if only in the 60s, seems really uninformed. Do I take it you weren't actually around in the '60s, or possibly that you don't read many interviews with well-known players? I'd certainly argue that McCartney is a far more influential player than any of the people you've mentioned (we're talking across the whole of music, from metal to indie to pop to rock and beyond, not just in a certain genre, and to players of every style and skill level) even if they can technically play the socks off him, and to be honest I'm pretty sure many of them would agree with me. I'll add that I grew up on Jazz (as in Ellington, Basie, Kenton, Parker and worked through Pop to Prog etc etc) so my stance is not an anti-technique thing; my tastes in music run from that through pop, rock, metal, punk and pretty much everything else. I'd say the guys you mention are slick players and Macca isn't really. However for me it's about the parts he wrote, that's all I really care about. EDIT: Having read some of the above stuff I don't think anyone would argue Paul is anything like a virtuoso bassist. But what does that have to do with whether he's any good or not?

I've read loads of articles where well-respected players comment on Macca as a player, particularly in in terms of his melodic sense. While we no-hopers argue about it, some of the greatest players there are have the utmost respect for his playing (or certainly for the way he wrote his lines, which IMO is the most important thing). I've never understood this issue to be about whether he's the most technical player on the block; neither was Hendrix (or Clapton or Beck etc) compared to many of today's players but anyone who argues Hendrix's influence must be living on another planet (not that I'm saying that McCartney has influenced the world of bass as much as Hendrix influenced guitar, before anyone starts). FWIW people like Ozzy and Dio of all people cite the Beatles as the greatest band ever in their opinion.

[quote name='Waldo' post='907317' date='Jul 27 2010, 04:58 PM']I was going to make a joke about onions then 4000 [/quote] Maybe I should have left it; might've lightened the tone. If you'll excuse the pun.

[quote name='JTUK' post='907126' date='Jul 27 2010, 02:19 PM']Well, there you go. All the sounds I can't stand, you seem to love. Who cares? I stated my opinion and you can either live with it or not. It is a thread asking for opinions.[/quote] Absolutely; couldn't agree more. However what I find weird is that you seem to have it in your head that the artists in question are/were [i]wrong[/i] to use those sounds. Surely that's up to them? Neither of our opinions matter one jot really, it's [i]their [/i]opinions that count.

[quote name='JTUK' post='905118' date='Jul 25 2010, 07:26 PM']Not really, because everytime I have seen their work on TV, the worst tone they get is from their efforts with the more boutique basses basses. It just doesn't suit McVies basic style and some of the recordings have been woefully weedy the way they come across on TV/DVD. If ever there was an opportunity to fix something, that would be it...so I can only summise they wanted it like that... and for a RnB gig, he needs a good talking to, IMHO.[/quote] In your opinion. Which I don't share. Just because it's your opinion doesn't mean it's fact. As I already stated, I love the Alembic sound that both use, and prefer both sounds to any P Bass I've ever heard (with the posible exception of JJ Burnel). And this may surprise you, but my opinion is just as valid as yours. [quote]As for Entwistle, his early stuff is as good as he got for him, I think. His work with Moon was great because they were both all over the place... and when it came off, it was something, but they were also very scruffy sounding players hence the car crach comment. He would never be my type of bassist anyway but I agree the chemistry between Entwistle and Moon worked ...upto a point. You couldn't have planned that and got aweay with it... Do nothing for me.........and niether have a cultured enough style to make the typical Alembic sound work, IMV. At lest McCartney knows his limitations soundwise with his Hofner..[/quote]

[quote name='jazzyvee' post='903502' date='Jul 23 2010, 07:14 PM']It is an incredible sounding bass. The normal body wood of alembics tend to be mahogany, but this one is all maple except for the purpleheart laminates in the neck so it is a very up front, with a very powerful bright, and with a heavy meaty tone. I'm not used to having that level of high frequencies in my sound so it is going to take a bit of time before I can find my starting sound on it in a live situation. I agree with you on the justification angle and if I was to I focus on the price of them it is probably quite hard to justify. I think the cheapest ones are at least the price of 2 or three good quality pro basses. But I rationalise it to myself in this way. I've been a guitar player for years and years and it has taken me so long to find get a guitar that I'm completely happy with and to think what I spent on duffers to get here. So when I decided I wanted to start playing bass as well to broaden my gigging opportunities I just cut out the middle man well most of them and went straight to the source of where I thought my voice on bass would be. I think i have made the right choice. I appreciate that many people think they are over priced and not worth the money and dated etc etc. I do think the sound is not for everyone and it does take a while to get your head and ears round the way that the alembic electronics work so that it becomes second nature, but for me Alembic is sonic ecstasy. If I'm ever gigging down your way I'll let you know. Jazzyvee[/quote] Having owned 2 it makes complete sense to me!

The second time I saw Rich my mate (who is a drummer) came along. At one point he actually fell out of his chair with amazement. Anyway, back to the amazing Billy....

Absolutely; Macca is another example. But think we know what the OP means.

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='904228' date='Jul 24 2010, 06:49 PM']Probably the greatest drummer ever.[/quote] Love Cobham, but for me the greatest drummer ever, by a nautical mile, is Buddy Rich.