JoeEvans

I think that the difference, if there is one, might be in the rigidity of the bridge not the mass. The (original) bridge on my old Tokai is similar to an old fender bridge in that it's basically a piece of flat steel plate with a 90 degree bend in it. I suspect that this allows a tiny bit of flex, which slightly damps the vibrating strings. A high mass bridge is much more rigid.

CiciBass, your playing is great but frankly I'm shocked that you're meeting people right now, in 2023, who find a female bassist with dyed hair who plays some high twiddly bits in any way surprising or wrong. Surely you'd need to go back to the late sixties for that to be shocking? I can only assume that the younger people you meet have led very sheltered lives and have completely missed out on everything except the blandest, most mainstream music of the last fifty years.

Yes - I don't think he meant that basses were no good until they were forty, more that if there is such a thing as a 'playing in' effect, it takes a very long time...

A luthier told me that basses 'open up' in tone after about forty years of playing. No idea if it's true but if you play it for forty years it will definitely sound better!

The Billy Jean baseline, for example, would sound great under loads of different chords and scales, because in my terms it's very 'open', just 1, 4, 5, flat 7.

Oops - don't know how to delete that! Anyway, what I meant wasn't that an E clashes with a C, but that it's more harmonically specific than a G, F or D. It pins down the chord to a major, whereas a baseline with just C, F and G works with both minor and major chords. In my mind as you work around the cycle of fifths in either direction from the root note, the notes become more harmonically specific, so they will only sit well against more niche chords, whereas closer to the tonic, they sit with more mainstream chords.

My observation is that a flattened 7th is used in a much wider range of chords and contexts than, say, a flat 6th, and that a flat 9th is even more niche. I see the circle of fifths as being the path you travel in as you move away from the root note. But everyone thinks about this stuff in their own way, luckily, or we'd all end up playing the same stuff which would be tedious as hell.

As a bass player I feel like I'm trying to support the rest of the band without limiting them. I think about the circle of fifths as a measure of whether a note is neutral, allowing other musicians to play whatever they want over it, or specific, defining a particular sound or harmony. So if you're on a C chord and you play a C under it, that's totally neutral - anyone can play any chord or scale of C over that. Go one step each way and you can add F and G - still very neutral and ok in almost any situation. One step more and you bring in D and B flat - still quite soft and neutral but starting to pin down the harmonies a bit more. That pattern of C D F G B flat is going to be very familiar and useful to any bassist. One more step gives you E flat and A and now you're really defining a chord. Next you get E and A flat and now it's going to clash if the guitarist plays the wrong chord, and a horn solo will need to steer clear of certain scales too. And so it goes on until you reach D flat and F sharp, which clash like hell with almost anything. Anyway, that's how it feels to me, backed by some science about harmonics etc.

I've started using a Turbosound iP300 for DB instead of a bass amp, with a Prodipe mic and an ART Tube pre-amp. It's the first time I've been really happy with an amplified sound.

You need something to give a very fine polish - the visible white of a scratch in lacquer is the rough surface of the damaged area. If you can polish it out, the actual scar will be pretty much invisible. I'd actually try T-Cut, for a leftfield option that might not work (but might).

I think the width should be ok, and I think (tentatively) that the depth should be the same for whatever strings you plan to use, unless you want to go from very high tension steel to very soft gut types, which might need a higher clearance than the steels.

The classic example of this type of thing always used to be Electric Ladyland in Bristol. The guy in there gave the impression that literally anyone short of Jimmy Page wasn't really good enough to be in his shop, and if Page had stepped in he'd have fawned over him but still bitched about him once he'd left. However, the gradual deterioration of the shop and owner seemed to suggest that there was a mental health component going on over and above the general twattishness, so I wouldn't now want to be too hard on the guy.

I recently changed my amp arrangements for double bass, to a Prodipe mic, into an ART Tube pre-amp, then a Turbosound iP300 active PA speaker. No tone shaping at all, and as little as possible in the chain. It's been a revelation - so much closer to the sound I want, compared to my previous set-up of pickup, pedalboard, bass amp. The Turbosound is 600w but I don't expect to use much of that as any time I need more volume there will be a PA to run a line out into.

There are half a dozen James Brown tunes, mostly with Bootsy Collins playing,that ought to be on the funk curriculum. Also Sly and the Family Stone and the Commodores...

The R and D on acoustic bass instruments was done pretty thoroughly about 400 years ago and it turns out that the answer looks like a double bass. Then 70-odd years ago another round of work was done in electric bass instruments and the outcome was the bass guitar.

I'd ask, do you sing as well as play the bass? Is there any video of you doing both at the same time, live, with a band? How many songs have you got ready to go? Are there demo recordings of any of them? It could be great but there are a lot of fantasists out there (probably all of us, at one time or another...) and you have to dig a bit to see if a project is ready to go or not...

Me too! Knowing the Bristol music world we probably have mutual friends, or have been in a band together and forgotten about it, or both have the same ex-wife.

I don't know the answer but the band sounds great, what are you called?

Yes - I was more thinking that if you're not going to bow a bass, you don't need it to be such an awkward shape to hold on your lap.

It's an interesting idea, although given that it can't be bowed, it doesn't need to be built with the conventional cello shape; a different shape might be easier to play on your lap like a bass guitar.

You could decide how your imaginary drummer plays then programme that in - for example, does he/she hit the snare slightly closer to the rim with one or other hand? Do they tend to whack the toms harder with their right hand? Is the left hand a little bit behind the beat on some snare patterns?

I play with my partner pretty often, so far so good... The couple that plays together, stays together! (Maybe...)