Woodinblack

Indeed - only equalled by 50 cent and drake. Generally I would put that at a sign of a very poor year with not much around. Same as a few years ago when ed sheeran had 12 songs in the top 20. And recently Taylor Swift had 5 songs in the top 20, and that album wasn't as good as the previous one!

Honestly I would think that Maria Carey and Madonna probably got most of their hits before the streaming age.

Yep, would be interested in that. It is really the only blot (not that it is a major thing) on an otherwise splendid instrument

Indeed, chart position is important - they got one more number one song in the top ten than Mariah Carey, and almost as many top 10 hits as Drake and Madonna. Also only 10 weeks less cumulative time in the charts as Justin Beiber.

I won't play oasis, because I really hate the sound. I am not bothered by blur either way and they are not of my generation either. TBH, although the whiney horrible sound of oasis puts my teeth on edge, what I hate more is "cover bands playing oasis" and "drunk people in pubs singing oasis" Beatles, not so bothered about either way, we do "come together" and "twist and shout" (I know that's not really Beatles but it is), and I enjoy doing both of them, no particular desire to do more. pin the grand scheme of pop I think he was a good bass player, singer and songwriter even if not particularly my thing. I think they moved music on. Also seeing them playing live on early recordings they are very tight as a group and confident, I would be happy to be in a group that tight, whatever they were playing

So not really today, it was last week. After much deciding on a short scale bass, I decided I wanted to get the TMB35 but turned out there aren't many around until things are restocked . I had a previous bad experience of dealing with Bax, but as this is quite a cheap bass anyway (and a tenner cheaper from bax), I thought I might as well try them. Was disappointed when I saw from the tracking that it was in Amsterdam, but it spent a weekend travelling and turned up without trouble on the date when it said it would, so full marks for them, and it seems like apart from having to deal with our UPS guy, they seemed to do the job too. So the bass is a 5 string 30" scale with wider than I like string spacing and quite a fat neck for an ibanez - nothing like an SR. It has a P pickup and a J pickup, and is passive with a tone control. It was £193. It came setup fine, and I haven't had to adjust anything at all. The tone control was loose as the bolt had fallen off the pot, but turned out I had to take them all off to get the plastic off anyway. The colour is probably best described as 'toothpaste green'. It is reasonably light compared to most of my full length basses but the headstock is a bit massive and the machineheads are large, so it is noticably headstock heavy both sitting and standing, which is unfortunate, not sure if I can do much about that. I find the headstock ugly but on a bass like this I don't mind so much. It is hugely fun to play and it is an easy thing to just pick up and play which is what is happening with it, it sits behind me at my work desk and gets picked up a lot. Sound wise it sounds great, especially the B string, which is very useable and it doesn't sound like a short string, or like you are missing anything. the P pickup is great and with mixing of the j pickup there are a lot of really useable sounds. The J pickup on its own is a bit noisy and thin, but its ok. It is definitely playing above its cost. I would have no problem gigging this - in fact at some of the more 'down to earth' venues, I almost certainly will! The bass - Pigeon for scale

Does this help at all? bass.mp3

Hmm.. We are 3 pages into a conversation about McCartney, and haven't heard anything from @Bluewine, hope all is ok?

I find it hard to image that the Hofner looked better than anything!

Hard to imagine that Paul McCartney could be under appreciated when hardly any time goes by on here without a thread on how excelent he was. So I think he is probably appreciated enough!

I am sure he is playing enough BPM to make the gold standard

We have 2 in July, 2 in august and 2 in september so far for the summer, (and others further out as well as some posponed weddings next year) so far. I thought we had something for the end of june but it doesn't seem to be in the calendar, maybe not sorted yet.

If the 16.5 feels good, it seems like it is the right thing to play

What - no gold knobs?? 😮

Oh ok, sorry. I have no real problem going between 4 and 5 strings, just the spacing. As much as I only play 5 strings, and the 5 string fretless ibanezes are great, i never really found the B string on fretless all that useful. They don't seem to work well as flatwounds and they are a bit flappy on roundwounds!

Remap the fretboard? hardly, the strings are just a bit further apart. It is an inconvenience yes, but no real difference apart from the muscle memory of location.

Same here - on the 'what do you do if you turn up at a place and someone gives you a P bass to play', then yes, of course I would play it, and it would be fine. Seeing as I was obviously not expecting to play anything obviously they are presumably not expecting a virtuoso performance, so it will be fine. But at home I have other basses that I prefer to play so it wouldn't get played, so what is the point of buying it?

Yes, I agreed, more versatile, but better? I mean when you get a concert violinist whos left their stradavarius at home and borrows one from the local school and doesn't sound as good, does that mean they are not a good violinist? I mean, that jaco was a rubbish bass player, I never saw him playing a dingwall!

Certainly makes you more versatile - does it make you better?

Hardly a minor difference, it's almost 50% more. In your example it is like getting in my car and the pedals are now 4 foot away. in reality it is more like playing a mini key keyboards vs a full size one. Obviously, I could play both, but if I want to do something fast or intricate it is going to fall apart on the mini keys, it's why they don't have them in concerts. I can go from 15 to 18 pretty well without problem, although 18 is pushing it, but a 19mm 5 string frankly is no fun to play. Yes, I could play it but if there was anything else there to play it would get played instead, so it would be useless to me. so yeh, I wouldn't buy one because I know I would just end up selling it.

No, but you could just tag him on here. The one I had worked fine

Lovely, but first rule of the SS club, don't call it the SS club

I love the look of these too - can't get on with the spacing on the 5 string or I would have one!

It is a bit poor! The neck is very different from most of them I have had, and the ones I currently have - a lot more P bass'y. The dimensions are on the website: both 45mm width at nut, the sr 68mm by 24th free, the TMB 72 at the 20th (where they both end), makes sense the spacing is wider on the TMB at almost but not quite 18mm vs 16.5mm Front to back the TMB is 21.5mm at 1st and 24.5 at teh 12th, compared to 19.5mm and 21.5mm at the 12th on the SR, so way chunkier there and you can feel that, it reminds me more of the G&L2500 neck wise. I suppose it is similar to the ATK too. Neck access isn't bad, joins right near the top so even though it only has 20 frets you can reach them without too much trouble. My wife hated the colour on the website but it person she says its not such a bad shade of toothpaste. I think it looks better in person than the website shows. The pickups seem nice and clear - I was expecting noisier, but didn't hear anything on my brief try. The controls move well, although the knobs are cheaper than a cheap thing!