XB26354

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='431348' date='Mar 11 2009, 11:02 AM']If you fellas will insist on putting batteries in your basses........[/quote] Actually I wire mine up straight to the mains. Saves lots of money on hair gel.

I felt very much the same way that a lot of you do up until recently. Every Stingray I played sounded thin, and 5ers had a dull, unfocussed B string. I've long been mystified why they design a 5 with the G string 1mm from the edge of the fingerboard. Total design flaw if you ask me. I saw a thread about this on TB and the Stingray lovers overs there said there was nothing wrong and it was "user error"! However, all has changed since I picked up a natural Stingray 5 recently. 2002 model, tortie plate with a maple board. This bass sings and growls. All I need to do to get the perfect fat tone is to put the pickup selector in the neck position and add a touch of bass. For me the eq does actually work. It does however sound a bit thin on the bridge position. Best bass I have ever played with a pick though - and the tight string spacing works a treat. The build and finishing quality is also first class - lovely wood grain, solid, well made parts, and just a bombproof feel. Far better than current American Fenders imho. In short, I think part of it is knowing the Stingray sound - if you don't like the tone you probably won't enjoy it as much, and part knowing how to get the best out of it. Tony Levin is one of my favourite players, and I doubt he would have used A Stingray for so long if there wasn't something there (freebies or not). Like any other mass manufactured bass, I guess you have to try a few first.

This comes up in every music-related forum I have visited. How far would most of us get in everyday life without being able to speak, understand, read and write English (or whatever your chosen language is)? Sure there are some who never learn properly (or people who emigrate and can't/won't learn the native language), but they miss out on massive chunks of society. Why should music be any different? If you make music and don't understand how it works then you miss out massively. A lot of indigenous music isn't written down and doesn't need to be, and that is fine. Standard notation is the de facto standard for writing out music for other people to play (often without rehearsal). I don't think that Leland Sklar, Nathan East, Marcus Miller, Will Lee, Pino Palladino, Freddie Washington, JJ Burnel, David Hungate, Anthony Jackson, Tony Levin, James Jamerson or Chuck Rainey suffer/suffered from being able to read music! You may totally dislike classical music, but just about every musician and composer there has ever been was a reader. They have far greater technical and emotional challenges than we do playing bass, to the point that they don't really have a choice if they want to make the music happen. Once they get it under their fingers then they use their ears, experience and heart to turn it into real music (just like every other musician). I started playing by ear, had a good ear, then decided to teach myself music theory from a book. I went from there into understanding "jazz" harmony and arranging. I still love playing along with records or jamming, and as I get older appreciate all forms of music. It all reinforces itself - a good ear puts sounds to what you see on the page, and the theory formalises and recognises the patterns that occur in music (as well as nature). I blame the lack of decent music education in this country and the woeful standard of a lot of private teachers (of all instruments). Learning to read is not difficult, it just takes a bit of practice and dedication. The reward is the last 500+ years of music history.

I must admit the Wenge top one in the For Sale forum did look nice. Maybe it was because a Wal was my second bass - saved up the £1100 (back in 1986 when the Bass Centre stocked them) hoping to get that Geddy Lee tone, only to find that it sounded nothing like him. A cautionary lesson in buying a bass just because someone else plays it... Paduak top and mahogany core it was, and after a couple of years I traded it for a 5-string fretless Status (number 0005). If only for what they go for now I wish I'd kept it! I met Pete the fish a few times too, very nice guy and very accommodating.

[quote name='Rich' post='429271' date='Mar 9 2009, 12:37 PM']If a Warwick or Fender was handbuilt to the same extent as a Wal -- i.e. completely -- they'd be just as expensive, probably more so. OK so yes, I'm a Wal owner and a tad biased -- but if it was my choice between a Warwick, a Fender J and a Wal at the same price I wouldn't even fart in the general direction of the first two. Yes, you have to work at the tone controls. No, it's definitely not plug and play like a J bass. But the rewards are there to be had, and how. If the filter preamp was such a bad idea, the same basic idea wouldn't also have been used by Alembic or ACG for theirs, true? My Wal thinks your GBs look ugly too [/quote] Don't like Alembics and have no experience of ACG - two small manufacturers is hardly conclusive proof that a filter/sweep preamp works on bass though is it? If you record in a studio any software or hardware eq unit, or decent effects box will be more versatile anyway, and having boomy/mushy tones available to hand isn't very useful live. If I had £20K I wouldn't fart in the general direction of a Wal, having given them a chance a number of times - the last one I owned - mk III 5-string - had a naff boomy bottom B and tipped the scales at just over 12lbs. Still at least I got it cheap and made a small profit

I've owned three in my time, mkII 4 string, mkII 4 string fretless and a Mk III 5-string. I know that the preamp is capable of a wide variety of tones, but I always thought the basic sound is too thin and weedy - and the same goes for a lot of the well-known users. I am a little mystified why a lot of people here seem to hold them in such high regard. Well made and finished, but heavy as hell in a lot of cases, unergonomic and with 75% mushy unusable tones. Of course each to their own!

Nah, cut round Lyme Terrace about 40m before the railway bridge by the side of the canal, turn right across the road at the other end. Saves you at least 2 minutes

Don't ignore the BTB series - lots of people here seem to love the SR's but I have always liked 5- and 6-string BTB, and the new thru neck ones in walnut are very, very nice for the money (even with the price hike due to the collapsed Yen-Sterling exchange rate). Massive piano like sustain and a richer, less stringly tone than (for example) the SR5065. Balances better too...

Port of Entry from Night Passage. If that doesn't give you a work out, nothing will.

[quote name='YouMa' post='414939' date='Feb 20 2009, 03:12 AM']I have learnt to set up my own basses its not hard,there is no way i would let some one else do it. I also have learnt about electronics enough to be able to build/service my own instruments/amps/effects. I would not let anyone else sharpen my sword and with the internet if you care about your instrument you can learn to. I would be suprised if the bass gallery lasted much more than a couple more years. I really am being honest here you can learn in a couple of weeks what they charge you a lot of money for,you are being taken for a ride.[/quote] I'd guessed this was a 3.00AM post because it don't make no sense boy if you were charging someone else to set up their instruments and it took, say, 1-2 hours, how much would you charge? £15 an hour? £20? Sure you can set up action and intonation but how many players have the skills or time to do fretstones, or check warped necks, or fill in cracks in a bass (or guitar)? If you have a problem that the Internet can't fix then what do you do? As 4000 said they make fantastic basses and also [i]sell[/i] basses, you know, like a shop! So I would expect that the bulk of the business lies there. If the Gallery were not to be any more it would be a massive shame, just for the wide selection of new and secondhand basses they have - better even than the Bass Centre was in its heyday. However they have a large and varied customer base from beginners to some of the best players in the business. If bass playing continues to happen the Gallery will, I think be around for a long time to come...

Something that gets me about today's "top" bass players is that they may have squeaky clean technique and be able to slap, pop, tap, double thumb and thump their way to the moon and back, but when they make their own music, why is so much of it a boring endless one chord vamp? It seems to be the fusion disease! It's also amusing in the first video Mike posted above that Victor says "expression is the key, the technique or tools you use are secondary." To me what he is saying in that short insert is that he has great time and can play one helluva lot of notes in Em/E7#9!