DoubleOhStephan

I gave a longwinded reply to this on another thread yesterday. I'm going to link to here cos it took me ages to type out 😅

They're on BBC breakfast atm. The look in Marcellas eyes when asked again about Stay again... 😕

Yes mate! That's exactly what I love about another of my all time favourite albums; The Arctic Monkeys. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. The feedback from the guitars, hearing the click of the recorder, background noise, the occasional wrong note, all that combined with the "real life" down to earth subjects of the songs gives the album an unbelievable grit and authenticity. Makes me feel like I'm at the birth of something very special. Perfectly imperfect production. Love it! 😁

I'll have 2 flat, a round and a Two points, ah, two flats, and a packet of gravel 😬

Blasphemy!! 😂

I think it's about 12 or 13ish per year, but don't quote me on that 😁 Seriously though, I think people are putting too much onus on a good set up or decent instrument being a reason for beginners quitting. Take yourself back to when you first started and try to remember just how hard it actually was to learn to play the guitar. All the hours of dedication and practice needed, playing the same repetitive scale or same few notes over and over again to get it just right. I believe that it takes a certain mindset to play any instrument. Bass in particular really isn't suited to an awful lot of people which I believe is a much more important concideration than set up, low action or poor quality. It's not easy to keep a new player interested, especially in bass! It's not like an acoustic guitar, where you learn a couple of chords and can quite quickly have a sing along. Beginner bass lines can be really very boring, especially unaccompanied. Unless, of course, you have that particular mindset and take pleasure from that repetitiveness, which I'd argue, most if not all bassist do. Thing is, people give up playing instruments all the time. Sometimes they find it's just not for them, sometimes it's just too hard, or it takes too long to get good, or they've got no one to play with (this is a killer for bassists imo). Sometimes they find a different instrument, or they actually don't want to sit on their own for hours playing the same thing over and over again, they'd rather be out playing sport, drinking beer, chasing the opposite sex or whatever, a million different reasons. I just think that, as the general consensus is that pretty much all new entry level guitars are now built to a much higher standard than 20+ years ago, playability being the reason for quitting should, in theory, be much lower down the "reasons for quitting" list than its being given credit for. On top of that, learning material has never been so abundant! And I don't mean learning how to play, but how to set up and maintain a guitar. That pushes set up etc. even further down the quit list. Low quality instruments didn't seem to put off a whole load of players who started in the 60s to 90s. I know "earning your stripes" has been dismissed already, but in the heyday of guitar playing, I would suggest very few people could afford a nice Fender so would start playing cheapo Kays from the catalogue. We'll never know how many people quit then because of that, but I have this nagging feeling there is an element of survival of the fittest at play and the harder it is to break out of the shell, the stronger the complete package will be. If you can't get out the shell, you die in the sand...

Congrats, enjoy!

Yeah, fair play. As I said right at the top of the post, I wasn't sure how to think about this either, it was a thought experiment for me as much as anything. I'm still not 100% convinced that a high action = poor technique & injury. I'm thinking double bass players who started and continue to use high action without issue? Either way, I'm glad you found it interesting 😁

@Nicko & @skej21 ahh you got me! 😁 Yep, I hadn't concidered that, good points. Interesting thought about having a more difficult bass to as you progress, much like the Jaco anecdote yesterday. Cheers!

Good shout. Thinking on it, it's also been recommended that he get in touch with a local BCr to go shopping with.

Hmmm that's the one I tested... I played it for 5 mins through an amp, without changing any settings so it's highly probable I didn't give it a full going over, which you as an owner would definitely have done. In other words, you're much more qualified than me to review the bass! Do you find it has any neck dive though? If I recall, the bass was really light, and that's a bit chunk of wood at the end of the neck. I don't remember if it had lightweight tuners like my Cali (which still suffers a little)?

Genuine question, if the OP is a new player and can't actually play yet, what advise would you give to him when testing out different basses? It seems a little like asking a new driver to test drive cars before he's had a first lesson if you get me.

Maybe, don't know really. I'm a fan a the P tone, I've got a couple in the collection. I'll have to give an Electra another try I think. It could be I was in the wrong frame of mind because I wanted to try a TT, which PMT said they'd get in for me, but when I got to the store they'd got the VS instead.

Interesting! I'm glad to here that tbh, I love Sandberg and find myself fancying an Electra. As @dmccombe7 says, there are a few bargains to be had. I've just found the Facebook Post I wrote after I tried it in March 2015 in case I'd misremembered it. I kinda had, it was the VS4 I played not the TT, but everything else is as I thought. 🤔 Is this the same one the same as yours?

I did play the old model electra (I think the TT4) a few years ago and remember how disappointed with the tone or lack of, the balance was a bit divey and matt finish was a bit patchy. I've not tried the new one but would hope they'd be better. Try before you buy 👍🏻

If it's good enough for Jaco... 😂😂

Thanks, that's the main thing. Hey, no one ever said I was successful! 😂 I inclined to agree though, this is what's been in the back of my mind when I think of properly successful people like Hendrix who's first guitar was a piece of junk. I'm not sure that I learned bad technique though, I genuinely do think it was a valuable learning experience. In particular, having to learn to support a heavy headstock I think improved my playing cos I had to learn to move up and down the neck whilst countering the weight. Once I moved to a better balanced instrument, I instantly felt the benefit. Don't know if I'd blame the quality of guitars on lack of players. You could argue that with today's quality of instrument there would be more players than ever?

I think they also added the Sandberg dots on the body to the newer models

It definitely could be and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was the cause. As I say in the OP, I have no idea about this, I'm debating myself as much as everyone who's replied so far. I actually play with a very light touch now and a super low action, but I can't decide if that's because I took such a long break and have forgotten everything I learnt as teen. I did suffer a lot of pain in my left wrist when I first started playing again, but because of that long break, I don't know if I'd still have suffered if I'd continued. I personally think it was fatigue and more practice seems to have cured it.

Haha guess we should both stick to playing bass eh? 😁

Hmmm... Don't know. I feel like a heavy club should theoretically require less effort (at least on the downswing) as the additional weight will create its own force and cause it to swing faster on its own..? Dunno, I can't play golf for toffee, but I do know that part of my inability was I tried to hit the ball too hard, rather than let the club do the work, like a hammer or a saw.

You could be absolutely right, but what about this... If a golfer learns how to swing a club incorrectly at the start, it wouldn't make any difference to their technique if they have cheapo or really expensive clubs. It's the technique that is the problem, not the club.

Yeah, exactly. Should that be something that new players do on purpose knowing that it's encouraging strength and dexterity? Its even better than a finger spring thing because you're actually using the instrument at the same time, so when you do upgrade it's not unfamiliar at all, just easier.

That's a really interesting point. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone recommend that a new player starts on a 5 or 6 string bass, or even a fretless. Not sure about the rsi thing, can't you get an injury playing a high quality bass if your technique is bad? I'd even argue that playing a bass with high action and neck dive could prevent injury as you're building up more core strength.

I guess it depends on how you look at it, it's definitely true in nature. Think about this way. If you consider high altitude training, athletes do this even though its much harder as they know they'll gain an advantage later on when back at sea level. Maybe playing a poorer quality bass for a 12 month is like high altitude training, really hard at first, but you'll see the benefits when you upgrade.