Naetharu

Alas, I have not tried a B10 but I can say that Takamine make some very nice instruments. My next-door neighbor plays a lot of folk music and all three of his guitars are Takamine, and each one is stunning to look at and beautiful to play.

Hi Golden Sonic and welcome! A few people have already pointed you in the direction of the Harley Benton basses from Thomann. I'd do much the same. I own two of them - one which is a copy of a Fender Jazz and another that is a six-string. Both of them are really good basses that I would be happy to gig with and they cost under £100 each. The other one to have a look at is the entry level stuff from the Ibanez Sound-Gear range (The so-called 'SR' basses). They are full 34" scale but the necks are very narrow and thin, so they should be perfectly comfortable for someone with smaller hands. They're very good quality too and can be found 2nd hand very cheap.

For me it would be pretty much anything by The Rolling Stones - I've honestly given it a good go and even learned to play a few songs to jam with some friends but I just cannot get into it. 'Paint it Black' being an all time low... And [quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1451428236' post='2940470'] Summer of 69 is probably my only absolute no. [/quote] Yep, that would put me off too. I had the misfortune to be forced to sit through a gig at a local charity event last summer, where a middle-aged lady sang a whole series of soft-rock/pop tunes slightly out of time and key with the backing-band - and they finished off with an extended and somewhat tortured version of 'Summer of 69'. I didn't much like the song to start with, and not I positively hate it.

I have a Zoom MS-60B which is the little brother to the B3. Just a couple of thoughts from me: (1) I LOVE the sub-octave you can get from this unit. It tracks very well and sounds massive when set up correctly. It reminds me of the sub-harmonic built into my MAG-300 albeit with a great deal more flexibility. (2) The drive/distortion/fuzz sounds are pretty noisy and don't really sound all that great - if you're into these you'd be better off with a dedicated unit. (3) It is very easy to set up the pedal - as close to being an analog unit as you could imagine. At the end of the day, the price that these units go for is just crazy given how much they offer. I paid around the same price as a dedicated floor tuner for my MS-60B. It works as a great tuner, and does all the other stuff too. The B3 is probably worth the extra cost given that it has the looper, audio interface and three pedal-buttons on.

I'm far from an experienced player but I have been working on the basics of theory a lot recently so hopefully this will help: (1) Get yourself a few lessons with a good teacher - it is well worth the money as if you go in knowing what you are after it's amazing how much you can learn in that time. I started with my hand around the 5th fret so I have access to the A on the lowest string. (2) Start by playing everything in just one position. It'll be a bit odd to begin with but it means you know exactly which notes you are going for. You can add positions shifts in once you are comfortable with the basics. (3) The bass staff is very easy to learn really, since the lowest note between two lines is an 'A' - the next a 'C', then 'E' then 'G'. Start by getting those into your head and practice with them. Then you can learn the other notes by reference to these. Those are the tips that I was given when I started a while back and it really helped.

Hi folks, I'm currently in the process of learning to play 'Give Up the Funk' by Parliament and I'm a little lost on how to handle the chords. At a few places in the song the bass is clearly playing more than one note at a time - these chords are either octaves or three-note 'root-flat5-ocatve' patterns. I'm a bit lost as to how to handle these with my right hand (plucking hand). I'm playing finger-style. Should I just strum them with my thumb or is there a good way to do it? I'm really not sure what is the best approach and I'm keen to avoid developing bad habits if at all possible.

I'm very tempted to order one of these in the new year - I could do with a second bass given that my main is set up in a manner that suits my band but not all the music that I enjoy playing. As far as single-cuts go I think these are stunning:

Played an Ampeg Valve head the other week and keep thinking about getting one. It's expensive, heavy, and difficult to use compared to what I have now...but it sounds so nice. Saying that, I'd rather like to have a look at the new PortaFlex valve heads too since they're far more home-use friendly.

Date noted - will do my best to be there

Nice new set of Schaller locks for me

The only total dog I have come across was made by Stagg. I've no idea what the model was - it was a bland looking 'modern' bass. (1) There was no shielding at all - the pickups were microphonic. Amusingly it also pickup up the wireless mic signal from the singer in the studio next door. (2) The neck was about as stable as a slinky spring (3) The nut was cut so that the strings were 3-4mm above the board making lower notes almost impossible to fret with speed (4) The pots crackled and hissed something terrible (5) The machine-heads were so loose there was no way it could hold tune through a whole song The only good point was that it balanced on the strap quite nicely and was reasonably light.

[quote name='hairychris' timestamp='1450270899' post='2931197'] Definitely go for a fixed bridge 6. I used a D-Tuna on a Floyd-loaded guitar and it never worked particularly well, and retuning a floating bridge guitar multiple times in a set unless you have a method of locking it solid (Tremol-no is a great gadget) is a non-starter. If you go to a 7 string guitar to avoid retuning he'd need to learn the songs with completely different finger positions. It'll completely muck up his chords so probably a non-starter as well. As for suggestions for an instrument, maybe a Fender/Squire Tele with humbuckers, or even a PRS SE. I was very impressed with the last couple of Squire Teles that I tried, and the PRS SEs are arguably the best built guitars at a budget and are generally reasonably priced used. [/quote] I'd heard quite a few people say that the SE machine heads can be quite slippy which worried me. Otherwise I think they are wonderful looking instruments - I almost bought one for myself since I was taken with the beautiful spaulted maple top. Alas I hated the flat radius of the fingerboard so it was a non-started but boy was it a pretty guitar for the money. Saying that, we're not looking at the Mensinger guitars (The guitar brand from the folks that make Maruszczyk basses) and wow the look good. The quality/price balance looks to be the same as Maruszczyk, which is to say I have no idea how they can sell stuff that good at that price. This one is on top of the list: Hand made, with the option of a custom spec on anything. The price is coming up at around £550 for one of these, with Husserl pick-ups, and with the bridge position as a stacked humbucker with a coil-split on a push-pull pot. Seems a steal for the money...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1450809857' post='2936115'] D-tuners (Hipshot extenders) work fantastically well on bass!!! I have them on three of my basses as I needed to alternate between standard and drop-D a lot in the past. I'd have them on guitar in a heartbeat to avoid faffing about. They're very reliable. They'll work just as well on guitar, provided there's a fixed bridge, or a floating trem that only does down-bends. [/quote] Interesting. I was really impressed with the idea of them but I heard a couple of reports from bass players that use them saying that they were a bit iffy when it came to keeping things in tune. I might have to re-investigate these then since they would be a dream for me what with all the swapping about between drop-d and standard we do in a gig.

Cheers for the update Andy, Mine sounded [b]nothing [/b]like your demo there. It just either did massive fizz or no gain at all and the sputter knob didn't work. The fizz was not just bass sound being a bit too treble focused; it was a high pitch nasty noise that made it sound like a dying trannie amp. After listening to your video I would be tempted to try one again.

Happy Christmas folks It's been great getting to know many of you this year, and thank-you for answering so many of my newbie questions with grace and patience. See you in the new year! James

If it was me I would: (1) Contact the others and suggest that you hold off with the new Sax until you have [b]all [/b]discussed it as a band (2) Have a chat with the guitar and drums to decide if you want to keep your current sax player, want to get rid or fancy giving both a go if the sound would work that way (3) Speak to the current sax player and explain your situation. (4) Then and only then think about asking extra people along If I was in his situation and just turned up to find someone else doing my thing I would be all kinds of furious with my band-mates. Changes might be necessary and no doubt it'll upset the sax player somewhat but there is a world of difference between being asked to leave for good reason and being pushed out by a newcomer.

Aye, don't fear - I'm not one to be a jerk to people. We'll be kind but firm about what we need and do our utmost to explain the reasons and encourage rather than berate.

Humm, I'm going to sound stupid here but what exactly would count as 'Thrash' - I know its a sub-genera of metal but I've no idea which bands we'd be talking about here. Anyhow, probably glam for me as I like a nice bit of melody more than noisy hi-gain stuff most of the time.

Sat down with the band leader and main song writer yesterday and had a good chat about the issue. He was aware we sounded bad but didn't know the cause and was just hoping we'd 'grow into our sound' A friend recorded the last gig we did so I was able to show him an example of the guitar in question doing a cacophonic solo which seemed to come as a shock. End result is that we're getting it sorted it seems. Guitar two is going to be asked to let us set his amp tone and volume for the time being if he wants to keep playing. We'll see how that goes and review the situation after a couple of practices.

[quote name='rungles' timestamp='1450776263' post='2935656'] ... (I live on the Isle of Wight which is quite a close-knit musical community). [/quote] Quite an elite one mind given it includes Mark King!

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1450774631' post='2935625'] At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man (especially this close to the season of goodwill) how about trying a forum search - this subject has been covered several times, once pretty recently: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/274641-god-help-me-think-im-starting-to-like-jazz/page__hl__jazz"]http://basschat.co.u.../page__hl__jazz[/url] which includes a link to Bilbo's God, I Love Jazz. [/quote] I did try searching but found so much about Fender Jazz bass guitars I decided to simply ask: also I was looking for advice on entry points rather than just general discussion of Jazz as such

[quote name='AntLockyer' timestamp='1450780658' post='2935746'] You sound like a grumpy old man. I'm happy for a new thread to happen, happy to participate and read it. Even if I wasn't it isn't causing anyone any harm other than maybe costing an extra 0.0001p in server space. [/quote] I did try a search but found loads of stuff about Fender Jazz bass so decided to simply ask

Given recent experience, my questions would be: (1) What kind of sound are you trying to achieve and how are you doing that? (2) How strong is your music theory? (3) What you see the role of a bass player as being? (4) What music outside of the bands style do you listen to/enjoy? My thinking is that (1) would give me a good chance to see if they had a cohesive sound in mind, and it would also allow me to check to avoid problems such as I have been having with my scooped-tone guitar-hero buddy. I'd ask (2) since I would want to know how difficult (or easy) it would be to work with them writing songs. I'd not be after super-levels of theory but I would like to check that they know their basic chords and scales. (3) is more to check that we are on a level. I'm very lucky at the moment in that my current band is keen for me to play some lead stuff on bass too - I get to do the odd solo and so forth in addition to doing lots of solid chordal work. I'd like to know that they want me to do more than just plonking root notes. And finally (4) would be a way of checking to see how musically interesting they were as people. Personally I listen to a wide range of stuff from 1920's blues to cutting edge electronica. I'd like to know that they had at least reasonably broad appreciation for music too since it makes song-writing a lot more interesting.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1450778403' post='2935691'] If you want to be serious about playing jazz then you need to make sure you know your music theory stuff very well. [/quote] Yep, I'm pretty much onto that. Been grinding away at theory and sight reading for the past few months and love it. To be honest that is what got me onto it. I've been doing the Rockschool grades which have forced me to learn my scales, chords, arpeggios, chord-extensions etc. It's really opened up my ear to music and I'd love to get into playing some stuff that I can really use these things with. To my surprise the stuff I have found the most fun to play has been the funk and jazz stuff for the exams. I'm really keen to learn properly and get my theory nailed - I want to become a proper musician rather than just someone who can noodle a few tunes on a bass. Cheers for all the pointers folks: looks like I have some serious listening to be doing today!

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1450714203' post='2935121'] True, but a big stick with nails in is LOADS more fun! [/quote] A little harsh! I must admit I did contemplate taking the fuses out of his amp head...it'd be a big sonic improvement.