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There seems to be a general "I don't need that theory stuff, I'm a natural!" attitude that's common amongst all musicians, but it seems more prevalent with singers and drummers for some reason. My theory is that with both instruments, a lot of people can initially get started without needing to formally learn notes or whatever, therefore they think that this is the way it's always going to be.

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1430892838' post='2765550'] See this is what I'm talking about. There have been occasions when a drummer might have started a piece slightly too slow or quickly. You as a bass player will obviously follow to a certain point , but you will try and influence the way you want it to go by edging slightly one way or the other. The thing that gets me is, you would be wanting the drummer to , say, slow down, so once he has done this, you would be back on the beat. [/quote] In my understanding, ahead or behind the beat are not related to tempo. They're related to exactly where in each subdivision you choose to play your notes. There is a precise point that you get for each note by exactly dividing each measure up. If you play on these points, you're "on the beat". But if you choose to play each note slightly before you're "ahead" or if you choose to play late you're "behind". But this has nothing to do with tempo. However, if yourself and the drummer don't understand each other and you start playing ahead, the drummer may think you're trying to speed up, and start increasing the tempo - TimR's point above. I have a very similar situation with a drummer that I play with, but instead of ahead or behind, it happens with swing/shuffle. So he feels the difference of note placement that swinging brings as an attempt to speed up, and he increases the tempo and it ends up in a bit of a train wreck. So he needs to internalise the rhythm of swing and stop feeling it as an attempt to speed up.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1430828847' post='2764930'] I think in the drummer example it is exaggerated slightly so you can hear it rather than just feel it [/quote] I think there's a point beyond which it starts to sound crap, and we all have different places where that point lies. For my taste, the D'Angelo clip earlier in the thread sounds a bit too behind, but I can still appreciate what they're doing.

I think that Bilbo is your man for commenting about Paul Chambers, but my comments are based purely on how I think it is supposed to be done, not on what I'm actually capable of! But it's fun trying....

Those chords look like a a minor ii-V-i-vi in Dm, although the ii is usually be Em(b5) and the V should be A7(b9). So I think your question is can you just stay on the D dorian for the whole progression, or should you play to individual chords? As Bilbo says, just because a note is 'right' doesn't mean that it will work in the context of the line. As a bass player, one of your main jobs is to outline the harmony of the piece - the easiest way to do this is to outline the individual chords. As you get more experienced, you'll learn to modify this requirement somewhat to create lines that more smoothly connect the chords, introduce tension and all the other good stuff in Bilbo's post. Having said that, if you find that playing a single mode over certain chord changes works for you, then it's worth taking the time to analyse what you've played as this will help you to figure out what to play over different changes.

I usually go with 2 & 4 as others have said, but sometimes just on 4 can be nice as this forces you to concentrate a bit more on timing. I tend to play walking bass lines so this might not be as applicable to other styles.

I know sod-all about mixing, so my opinion is probably pants, but I often get annoyed at the drum sound at concerts. It seems to me that the engineers spend too much time getting the individual drums to ring out separately, rather than treating the kit as a whole. So you get the big thuddy bass drum and sharp crack from the snare, but to me they sound like they might as well be separate instruments, whereas great drummers always seem to work the kit as a single thing. But maybe I'm unreasonably expecting a live mix to sound like my favourite records or something.

It seems like the question has a lot of answers. I'm not for a second dismissing people who make a living through music in a variety of ways, but when I think "pro musician" I think of someone who is good enough to just turn up and play to a high standard, ideally across a variety of genres. This includes session musicians but I think also covers some people that I've seen in function/pub bands. However, it excludes a lot of musicians who are in well-known bands and who make a decent living, so I've no doubt that people will disagree with my version of "pro". Another definition that I quite like is "someone who is a lot better than I am"

I've just read the compression thread. I can't speak for anyone else, but when someone with a track record suggest something, even if it goes against what I believe, I think it's always worth considering that they may in fact be correct. I always have the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect"]Dunning Kruger [/url]effect in the back of my mind in such cases i.e. that maybe I don't know enough to know how little I do know!

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1423004346' post='2679579'] It would be nice to see some pro-players opinions on gear and how much they either get into it, or don`t. Having listened to quite a few bass isolated tracks the impression I get is that we on here are much more into the search for the eternal bass sound than they are, as many of those isolated tracks sound quite rough. [/quote] I agree. My guess is that many pros would say something like "get the best bass you can afford and then practice a lot" whereas many posts here are in search of the perfect sound. This is not very scientific, I know, but the fact that the "Bass Guitars" and "Amps and Cabs" forums here have 21,000 topics whereas "Theory and Technique" has 2,000 does indicate that most people come to this site to discuss gear.

Geoff Chalmers has a ton of excellent lessons - they're most about DB but his soloing lessons apply just as well to BG:- https://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoverDoubleBass/videos

I'm pretty sure that this Kay was like mine:-

This is supposed to be very good, although I haven't personally tried it:- [url="http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html"]http://www.seventhst...e/overview.html[/url] It'll mean going back to staring at the computer though [EDIT: Looks like Hector beat me to it!]

If you mean squeaks and string noise that are so obvious when you're playing alone then I wouldn't worry about them as they tend to get drowned out once you're in a mix. But it's possible that there are other things about your playing that might stand out when you're solo that you should work on - as @SubsonicSimpleton says above, learning to play evenly with a metronome is always going to improve your playing.

Great lesson Geoff, really useful as always. Thanks for sharing!

If you want some great versions of jazz standards then I'd recommend the Miles Davis Prestige albums - Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin'. They're really well recorded and Paul Chambers' bass playing is very clear.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1418921238' post='2634918'] More likely impossible because both tracks will be heard on the same system and if you're listening to both through a pair of crappy laptop speakers for example, you're not going to hear the slightest difference between them, so it's a moot point. [/quote] I agree that a crappy system won't be a good test bed, but a decent pair of headphones in a laptop, ipod or whatever will probably be capable of showing some difference, even if it's small.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1418920154' post='2634885'] I'm in the studio tonight. I'll do two exports from Cubase. One 44KHz 16bit WAV, and one 320Kbps mp3. I'll put them on my server for you (or anyone) to download. I'm confident in my ears and systems, and I can't tell the difference, so I'll be very interested to see what you think [/quote] It's probably too much hassle, but what would be really interesting is if you don't tell people which is which, then ask them to vote somehow. Of course, people will be able to guess by the file size so it might be impossible to do....

[url="http://www.mcelhearn.com/music-not-sound-why-high-resolution-music-is-a-marketing-ploy/"]This article[/url] doesn't explain why music from the 80s sounds better, but it's a very good explanation of how the various digital formats affect sound quality.

It always amazes me how hard it is to find decent drummers. To be honest, if I could find a drummer that could keep time, play some basic patterns well and hit a cymbal occasionally when the song goes from the verse to bridge I'd be happy, even if they never played a fill in their life. My theory is that a lot of drummers spend their time thrashing out big rolls round the kit without actually practicing basic rhythms and limb independence. But maybe my expectations have been driven to unreasonable levels from listening to Sly Dunbar a lot while I was learning bass

I'm going to buy a bow in the next day or two - from reading here and on TalkBass, the bows from Yita music on eBay are supposed to be good value:- http://www.ebay.com/usr/yitamusic?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

I've used both a Bass Max and Rev Solo - the Rev Solo sounds a lot better to my ears, a lot more natural. In both cases they sounded better going straight into the amp (GK MB150) rather than through the pre amp. The only thing about the Rev Solo is that the sound is extremely sensitive to the pickup's position in the slot. It seems like a millimetre difference make the sound go from nice-and-woody to horrible-nasal-stuck-in-box so a bit of experimentation is required as well as pencil to mark out the sweet spot once you find it. Hope this helps

[url="https://handbrake.fr/"]https://handbrake.fr/[/url] is pretty good, and it's free and open-source so you don't have to worry about trial versions etc

I'm no expert but I think that it also depends on which minor scale you're using - In the Jazz Theory Book, Scott Levine goes into the melodic minor diatonic chords as these seem to be what many modern jazz compositions use, but I believe that harmonic minor is also used a lot.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1410964039' post='2555113'] Friction, combined with the noose-like action of the strap and the length adjustment. On mine I added a small loop of cord to slip over the endpin as that seemed a better idea than trying to clip to the tailwire, and I have the length adjusted so the neck part of the strap sits a few inches above the heel. They're not great in place of handles for manoeuvring in and out of cars etc, but excellent for carrying the bass in a vertical position and walking with it. [/quote] Thanks for that - it does look like I need one of these alright because I'm going to put my back out one of these days trying to carry my bass by the remnants of the straps attached to the case. Cheers