4000

I think Stu Hamm had the same problem as me with the Kubicki, hence the Urge. I’ve always found them very ‘80s-sounding, rather back pickup-centric, if that makes sense, and burp was never my thing. Good luck with the other Vigier, hope you can sort something.

I always liked pretty much everything about the Kubicki except the sound. I could never get any real depth out of them. As before, if I was going graphite I’d get an early Vigier, no contest, although I do like Steinbergers too.

See I love ‘50s and ‘60s cars so I love em. As for curves, they’re one of the few that gets it right.😉

😂 Actually, the warm tint of the Fender neck against that colour looks fine. Just the plate I can’t get with. The Sad needs a tinted neck to do the same....and a different plate, obviously.😂

Cold colours, mother of toilet seat scratchplates, satin aluminium hardware, pale maple necks. Don’t like gold knobs either, even on basses with gold hardware. Love blue basses, don’t love blue to black bursts.

I had a Status with a warped neck once. Most of my issues (apart from the personal taste ones, which were insurmountable) were around electronics, which were always crapping out on me.

They do (or did) medium scale too; I’ve toyed with getting some for my Warwick Alien. Unfortunately it’s 40 years since I last played tapewounds so unsure of the advantages/disadvantages over flats. I seem to remember the tension was very low, which I’d probably prefer. Not sure if they last as long though.

Moollon are Korean IIRC.

Me too. In fact at the moment it’s quite painful being reminded of it, especially as I haven’t been able to go since 2013!

He said must be able to be bought new, therefore no vintage. 😉

Have you tried emailing Warwick for advice?

The Streamline is pretty light, yes. One thing is to make sure you like the sound of carbon fibre instruments. I probably preferred the sound of my Westone Quantum to any carbon fibre necked bass Ive played, and I‘ve played an awful lot. I’ve also owned 4 Status basses and didn’t really like any of them. Of course YMMV. Edit: I’d say Vigier are the comfortably best of the graphite necked basses I’ve tried. I liked the original ones. Loved the neck on the Peavey B Quad 4, didn’t love the sound, and found the body shape uncomfortable.

If I couldn’t buy vintage and couldn’t go custom I’d buy guitars. Seriously. Lots of Les Pauls. There’s virtually nothing off the peg that interests me, bass-wise.

Oh of course you can, and I’m sure I did and still do. But even right at the start I could always work stuff out pretty easily, certainly in terms of hearing what was going on. Maybe being bombarded with jazz from birth helped. 😉

I think the point about also doing backing vocals is important, as I also do bv and the occasional lead. Our current vocal monitors just aren’t great for bass, or certainly the sort of bass sound I like, so although I do go monitors only quite often I’m not happy with the bass sound when I do. We used to have another monitor that we used on my side, which was better - although not great - for bass, but not really that great for vocals, so we ended up getting rid. I guess at some point it may be worth biting the bullet, spending the money and replacing one of our current monitors with something that works better all round, at which point it may make sense to also eliminate the bass rig, for some gigs at least. The thing is, it would still have to be small and not too heavy. Given I’ve already stated we’re an acoustic band with cajon, and my backline is normally pretty small, if anyone can suggest a good quality small monitor that will work well for (slightly driven) bass as well as vocals I’d certainly be interested to hear about it.

I use a BF One10 for most gigs. But we are an acoustic band with cajon rather than drums. 😉

I think the conclusion I came to, for the time being at least, was that using a pa speaker was probably going to be more problematic than using my rig. I use 2 x BF One10s, max; in fact I usually use one. It weighs about 15lb. Plus micro head, what, 8lbs? Can tweak easily on the fly and sounds right pretty much from the off. A pa speaker would generally weigh more and I’d spend a lot more time tweaking to get my (admittedly very coloured) sound, especially given I hate what tweeters bring to the table. I can set up my rig in probably a minute and it weighs nothing. So unless I have some sort of epiphany then for me, it just isn’t really worth it. On bigger stages, it may be a different kettle of fish, but we seldom play them. Heck, many of the gigs we play I can backline with a single One10!

For me, I’ve played originals almost exclusively since the day I picked up a bass. There were covers in the first few gigs, but since then, maybe had a dozen at most? So quite honestly, I’ve never had much incentive to learn other people’s stuff other than out of interest. FWIW, I’m not convinced Jeff could play Hit Me as well as Norman. For all his chops, I don’t feel Jeff is the best groove player either (although YMMV).

I always had very good speed and dexterity, it’s something I worked on a lot from day one. I can’t play as fast as I could years ago, because I don’t practise as much (ever!) and I have nerve damage, particularly in my right hand, but I can still get a shift on when necessary. In terms of actually moving my fingers (which certainly isn’t the whole story), I can play at the sort of speed of the Berlins and Garrisons; however in terms of actual musical content, particularly at speed, I’m a long way behind them. 😉 The things that tripped me up were certain feels rather than chops stuff; I’ve never managed to play stuff like Rhythm Stick remotely as groovily as Norman (although admittedly I’ve never actually practised it), and the staccato finger funk thing was never something I really did, mainly because I spent most of my time practising to try and make my playing more legato (blame it on Frank Marino; when I first heard Frank I decided I wanted to sound like him but on bass). I always found Jaco’s and Rocco’s kind of stuff really hard to cop (although again never really practised it) just because of that staccato feel, which is completely alien to me. And to be honest it wasn’t my bag. I’d probably find it easier to cop some blazing Berlin solo than Bernard Edwards or Stu Zender, which probably speaks volumes (and I’ much sooner be able to play like Bernard or Stu). I certainly wouldn’t class myself as a groove player, but then I’ve never really needed to be so it’s not a skill I’ve worked on. I often wish I had. And since the nerve damage the limited groove chops I did have have suffered greatly, simply because using my right hand/arm for repetitive stuff is now like trying to do the Thor’s Hammer exercise in Worlds Strongest Man. My initial comment was more about learning by ear though. I’m not sure I’ve ever really heard anything that I can’t work out by ear, from day one, so it’s always difficult for me to imagine what it must be like when you can’t. Given I rely 100% on my ears, I’d sink very, very fast! EDIT: thinking about the above chops stuff, I suppose a summary would be to say that I’ve never really heard someone and thought “I can’t play that fast!”, but the instances of thinking “I can’t play that well!” Are countless. 😉

Its a great line, but I’ve never thought it was difficult (and yes, I’m talking the original). I’m sure Bilbo is more than up to it, given the stuff he listens to and plays. To be honest, and I’m not judging anyone here at all, but I’ve always been a bit baffled that people can’t work stuff like this out pretty easily by ear. Obviously some can’t, but it’s so outside my experience.

Dave Swift has to play with Jools. I’d sooner have root canal. 😂

Given that Yes are arguably my favourite band - certainly one of two or three - my first thoughts on buying my first Yes album back in the day (Classic Yes) were something to the effect of: 1)”Ye Gods, The Bass!” 2) “Steve Howe’s timing is a bit ropey”. I got used to Steve, over time. But it makes no difference to me, I still love them.

I just wish I could remember it better. But obviously it’s unlikely I’d remember them playing a song I’d never heard before, and more to the point it’s a long, long time ago... I love Subdivisions. One of my favourite Rush tracks.

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