TrevorR

[quote name='darkandrew' timestamp='1480891801' post='3187947'] I know a lot of people worry about active preamps' batteries going mid gig but in 25 years of playing bass I've never had that happen. It's a bit like running out of fuel on the motorway - over a similar period of driving, I've never run out of fuel on the motorway either. As long as you keep your bass well serviced, including regular battery changes, it really shouldn't be something to worry about. [/quote] +1 to this. Don't over fret about battery life. A single battery should last you ages... six months or a year maybe. Both my basses are active and get regular playing but only need battery changes on that type of time scale. Liking the feel and sound is much more important than the types of technical spec options that you seem to be fretting over. Here are the five main questions to be asking... do you like the look? Does it feel right in your hands? Do you like the sound/sounds it makes? Is it well made with decent quality components? And is it in my price range? Answer "Yes" to those 5 questions and you really won't go far wrong with whatever you plump for. PS Editorial comment: we will watch with interest as your bass collection shifts and swells over the next year or so. From the conversation so far you sound like a prime candidate for GAS and for "grasss always greener" bass purchasing...

I'd love to see some of the classical musos I know trying to cope with an authentic period 17th or 18th C classical music audience (to match their authentic period instruments). The ones where they'd cheer during bits which they liked (the equivalent to the round of applause 8 bars in to a hit on a live album when the audience suddenly recognise their fave tune, or after the lead guitarist does a blistering solo), make the orchestra play their good bits again, often in the middle of a piece, or call out in the concert for the orchestra to play some hits and oldies that they knew.

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1480885116' post='3187865'] Interesting comment from Chris Squire on his pick style (and a great master Class). Starts at 2:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cprcYnffK_o [/quote] Oooh, haven't watched that vid in yonks. So great hearing him run through the Tempus Fugit riff on the white Electra bass!

And you're not necessarily safe on a slightly raised stage. Was doing a corporate Xmas do at a Heathrow hotel a while back on a raised stage. In the middle of one song, once we'd got the crowd a bit revved up, the stage suddenly seemed to be bouncing a bit harder than our jigging would have suggested. Towards the end of the song I turned round to see three quite drunk ladies jumping up and down in their torrery high heels with my other Wal and the guitarist's Les Paul and Takamine slung around their necks (usherette's tray style). We quickly truncated the song and as quietly as possible extricated our instruments from them without them getting damaged. The girls remonstrated and were told that these were expensive delicate instruments. One of them tried the old, "Yeah, well if we'd broken it we'd have bought you a new one". When we pointed out that left to right the replacement value of the instruments were a grand and a half, two and a half grand and four grand they had the decency to turn a sickly green shade of white, start apologising profusely and trooped dutifully off the stage and round to the front where they continued to party on while flirting with us for the rest of the evening. We had them back on later in the evening to do backing vocals with me on Mustang Sally so it ended up all very good natured. From then on we always has cheap blow up guitars and saxophones available and ready to distribute to the punters.

I was playing in church this morning. As I was playing a few things occurred to me. The big thing that struck me was... Given the number of times I've heard the cliche about "it all being in the fingers when it comes to tone" it's amazing how few players I've ever acrually seen varying their right hand technique to vary tone. It is an absolutely fundamental part of my playing style and I find it can create a huge range of different different tones. Thinking about it this afternoon, across the seven or eight songs we played this morning I think I used pretty much all of the plucking positions and styles that I vary between. And that's bearing in mind that I don't slap or tap so those techniques aren't even included. I wondered how many others use a range of different plucking styles and who doesn't - just sticking to the same basic technique and/or hand placement. This afternoon I counted up nine or ten distinct plucking positions or styles. For those who are wondering what I'm talking about, here they are... (and in fact, you could probably add another, "side of the thumb over the neck pickup").

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1480598438' post='3185723'] P.S. Usually just the one bass, sometimes two if a short pause in the set while I re-string wouldn't be cool. Depends on venue. [/quote] I've always subscribed to the view... Not cool at Wembley, not cool at the Hammersmith Odeon (I'm old) but equally not cool at Bob and Mary's wedding or at the Dog & Ferret.

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1480705134' post='3186649'] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Not sure about those 3-bolt neck joints from Fender and others [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]And who said shimming in this day and age of super-flexible bridge and nut adjustment.[/font][/color] [/quote] It amuses me that I grew up with the perceived wisdom that 70s Fenders, esp 3 bolt ones, were shoddy rubbish and to be avoided at all costs. But now they're old enough to be considered "vintage" and are therefore desirable and commanding a premium price... How times change.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1480689782' post='3186453'] It'd be interesting to compare a neck through bass, with an instrument with exactly the same hardware, electronics, strings and wood etc, but with a bolt on neck. [/quote] My thru neck Aria SB700 always seemed to have a touch more punch and a much longer sustain than my chum's set neck SB600. Think they were identical other than thru vs glued. Of course a gazillion other factors may have caused this. But I just put it out there anyway.

One of the Sansamp Character Series overdrive pedals could be your friend here as it will give more of a guitar amp/speaker vibe to the sound and take the clinical full range edge off the overdrive/distortion sounds. Or similarly a small multi-effects unit with a speaker-sim function...

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1479659858' post='3178208'] I found that they are more more stable from a tuning perspective if I stretch them when putting them on. If I don't stretch them they take a lot longer to get to the point where they settle down & don't need frequent tuning. [/quote] [quote name='stuckinthepod' timestamp='1479730986' post='3178756'] I've always give the string a stretch of about an inch at the twelfth fret and then fretted and bent the strings (heavy finger virato style) at three fret intervals up the length of the neck. I did this on Saturday morning with a pack of D'addario EXP and played them that night with no issues. [/quote] [quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1479732514' post='3178773'] I lift the new strings away from the fretboard a couple of inches after restringing and tuning to pitch, then re-tune and that's it. I did that Saturday with my new-to-me Precision and it stayed in tune for th whole of that evening's gig. [/quote] Me too. Once at pitch just give them a few little pulls up. If I'm in a cheeky mood I might let them "splang" back down onto the fretboard. It seems to seat them in nicely and help them settle down quicker. Surely the "detaching the windings from the core and killing the strings thing must be pure bunkum, otherwise every slapper and plucker would have to change their strings after every... well, every song, let alone after every gig. Any set of Mark King's strings get a darned sight more abuse through a single rendition of Lessons in Love than I give my strings during a string change and tuning up session. How does he ever manage to get to the end of a whole gig with strings that have completely died by the end of the intro of the first song?

[quote name='vinorange' timestamp='1480410981' post='3184066'] I was considering a gentle trim of the socket collar to allow the jack to go in slightly deeper. It may be [i][b]all I need to do to avoid any change of cable[/b][/i] / socket.............I wonder if I should try that first with my dremel or a hack saw. [/quote] Risking hundreds of dollars damage to an expensive amp to avoid spending ten or twenty dollars on a new cable really shouldn't be plan A, or B or any letter higher than Z!!!

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1480414123' post='3184106'] Nooooooooooo. . . . have you tried other cables yet? If the socket is soldered directly on to the board you might break the joint and cause more damage. Identify the actual cause of the problem before you start hacking away at this fantastic and expensive amp! [/quote] This, this , THIS!!!! SO VERY VERY THIS!!!!!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1480329777' post='3183325'] Well, I'd reply that those are quite extremes of the spectrum, just the same. My snares are a Camco 14x5.5 maple, a Tama 14x6.5 Maple and a Tame 14x6.5 steel. To me, they're very different; to most, in a band context, I doubt if they could be distinguished, as I'd be adjusting the playing to suit the song. A different 'ring', different dynamiques, different 'voices', but just a snare in the mix, especially if mic'ed. [/quote] Agreed, and that's where I reckon the endless debates on ash vs alder Jazz basses or the difference between maple and walnut veneers on a Wal or a Ken Smith reside... And the original example of a maple vs a birch shell on otherwise similar snares probably gets us into Badass II vs Hipshot vs Babictz (or however they're spelled) bridge debates.

You could also try an angled Neutrik if it will fit around the front of the jack and knobs etc the new loop it through the rack/amp handle for double redundancy. Oh, and like HHH said above, get Dave (obbm) to make you up some nice new cables. You won't regret it.

This is a well trodden topic here but the OP does raise an interesting new twist. On the main issue, my main reason for taking two basses to gigs is, like many others, insurance and as a back up. But then again, I do have two lovely Wals (both bought second hand fifteen or twenty years ago and scrimped and saved for - so hopefully I can avoid the All The Gear And No Idea accusations) both of which have subtly different sounds and quite different necks. I could happily do a gig on either, of course, but on the basis that it gives me a bit of extra pleasure why not use different basses on parts of the set where for me the sound and feel of a particular bass seems particularly apt. Will the average audience member be able to consciously identify the difference? No, of course not but I can and that's all that matters when it comes down to it. Dad's drum comment was interesting but I'd ask a counter question. Could you differentiate a Yamaha foldaway kick from one of those big 25 inch 1920s jazz band kick drums? A 14 inch birch piccolo snare from a 16 inch deep stainless steel snare? That's much more in the ball park for a P vs J, EB3 vs MM debate. Then there is the question about the showoff factor which I don't recall seeing in this debate before. I think that you'd need to be a particularly self-deluded breed of bassist to presume that an average audience could determine the exclusivity of your bass collection. They'd be more likely to look at your Carl Thompson, Alembic and Dingwall and think, "Oooh, that one's a funny shape, that one looks a bit like a scorpion's bitey bits and why has that one had the little bits of metal put on all crooked?" If they thought anything at all. Or even noticed the basses at all. In about 10 or 15 years of playing in a function band I only once had someone come up and say, "Ooh, a couple of Wals, nice!" Once. That's about the show off hit rate I'd expect. A few times I had teenage boys come up and ask what effects I was using to get all those different sounds out of the bass. I was using a Boss TU2 and a Lehle 3@1 line switcher! A discussion then ensued about the versatility of the Wal tones but that most of the difference (even on a simple passive bass) came from varying where I plucked the string, the level of aggression in the plucking and plucking with different parts of the finger or thumb. I tell a lie. I did have several people complementing me on my basses. What did they say? On my Mk 1 Wal... "That wood looks very pretty." and on my Pro IIE... "Ooh, that's a lovely red colour." They weren't bass players so, so much for exhibitionism. It is a really lovely shade of red, though.

Andy "Wal" Coughlan on bass on the Shaky track. Top bloke, top player!

Yeah, Neil Murray can occupy a terminus/connection station on the Blues/Rock and Metallists lines. And I'll nominate Davey Paton for an interchange between pop and session greats.

I also think that it's great news. But, let's just ground the numbers in a bit of reality rather than throwing around meaningless numbers like £300m which are hard to actually visualise. What does that announcement actually mean? It's £300m [i][b]over four years[/b][/i], so it's actually[b] £75m per year[/b]. There are about 24,000 schools in the UK and 8m pupils. So each year that's actually [b]£3000 per school [/b](we'll ignore the fact that maybe some funds might go to community music projects too) and [b]£9 per pupil[/b]. Let's presume that only one pupil in every class of about 30 pupils takes the benefit of the additional money (because the rest are plugged into their X-Boxes). So that's [b]£270 for the single pupil in the class taking up a musical instrument[/b], singing in a choir etc. Which is [b]about enough to part subsidise their music lessons[/b]. Whether or not you like the rhetoric of the government their aims is that "[i]Opportunities are open to all not just the privileged few to... learn to play an instrument, sing in a choir, join a band..[/i]." The educational benefits which some form of a musical education can bring to those who are inclined and motivated are well documented. The discipline and application involved in learning an instrument are useful life lessons. The social, confidence building and developmental aspects of belonging to a group like a band, a choir or an orchestra are immeasurable - I know that singing in the school choir and in a local youth choir were absolutely formative and influential parts of my teenage years. If in every classroom one more child gets to have that sort of musical exposure and experience than would otherwise have done that seems to me to be £9 per pupil well spent. My little boy loves singing in the local community youth choir of which he is a member. It's cemented friendships, grown his confidence in his abilities and, I am sure, will over the years open the door for experiences he would not otherwise have had. The same goes for all the other members of the junior, middle and senior choirs - from 4 years old to 18 plus. That choir only exists because of the dedication and vision of our two choir mistresses, the enthusiasm of the children and the fund raising which the parents do. If a little bit of the £300m ends up supporting that sort of community initiative too then that can only be a good thing and will be some of the better cash that Government distributes for the rest of this Parliament.

Another cracking podcast this week on improvisation.

One of these sold a while back... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/264792-price-drop-aria-spirit-pe-les-paul-bass-l110-ono-sold/ The body shape is based on the longstanding Aria Les Paul variant, the PE series. Looks really cool.

Yes, I know that we've done this in many ways and in many places but this is really just a good exucse to draw everyone's attention to the new podcast from the brilliant Radio 3 programme "The Listening Service". This one explores what might constitute a cover, where covering stops and interpreting or arranging starts. As always with this programme it's never anything less than fascinating, engaging and entertaining... Here's the link. [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081t4vp"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b081t4vp[/url]

Love my Morley Dual Bass Wah and my EHX Pulsar Tremolo And my Tech 21 VTDI but in not counting that as an effect, I'm counting it as an amp AS most of my playing is amp free at the mo.

Lee Pomeroy. Top bass player and a bit of a progger. Currently touring with ARW (Anderson Rabin Wakeman) but also a member of Headspace and This Oceanic Feeling. Factoid... for the new ELO line up Jeff Lynne basically took all of Take That's touring band and added strings. http://www.leepomeroy.co.uk/wp/

Group hug!