Russ

The Sterlings are awesome instruments. Tried out the Ray35 and the SB14 a couple of weeks back. Tonally, they're indistinguishable from the "real thing", and the feel is exactly the same. The SB14 actually sounded quite a bit better than an actual MM Sterling that was hanging on the wall next to it! Give it a few months, and the Sterlings will be hitting the used market for £400 or so. Then you'll have a real bargain.

Mutes, 2-band EQ, retro logo... awesome. I wonder if they'll sound like an older Ray though? The old ones sound so much nicer than the newer ones. How about a 5-string in that style (ie, more like the 5-string SUB)?

[quote name='henry norton' post='604559' date='Sep 21 2009, 02:17 PM']I always liked the theory of Alembics - advanced electronics, luthiery(?) etc. but in practice I don't understand why they didn't apply a bit of that thought to making them lighter and better balanced. There again I couldn't ever imagine having a spare 4 grand burning a hole in my pocket so I couldn't say I never would. I'd want alot of other things first though, and not just bass related stuff [/quote] Alembic have moved on since the early days - I had the good luck to try out a Balance-K Series I in New York recently. The new body shape balances much better than the older shapes, is lighter (it's nice to play an Alembic that's under 10lbs) and is a lot more comfortable, not to mention more contemporary-looking. I'd love one if they weren't so bloody expensive. £4k is actually fairly cheap for a new Alembic! You can option them up to over £10k.

[quote name='retroman' post='598378' date='Sep 14 2009, 03:40 PM']That's lower than low dude, take it your not mates anymore? [/quote] Absolutely not. The bloke was lucky I didn't break his fingers. It was my first ever guitar, and had sentimental value. The worst bit is, knowing Crack Converters, he probably only got about £30 for it. You live and learn, and all that.

I lent a guitar to a friend of mine years ago, since his was broken and he had a gig coming up. Didn't see him for several weeks afterwards, turned out he flogged it to Cash Converters so he could buy weed. I think I learned my lesson there... altruism doesn't always mean good karma.

I'm a lefty who plays righty, and, most of the time it's fine, but I do have a theory that it's easier to sing and play at the same time if you pluck with your dominant hand. The major challenge of singing and playing at the same time is keeping the rhythms together, and keeping my left hand in sync with the vocals seems a lot easier than keeping my right hand in sync. I've considered getting a cheapo lefty bass to see if I can learn to play it for that very reason, but haven't quite got around to it yet. I'm very interested to hear how you get on with it.

I played the SB14 in Guitar Center over here a couple of weeks back. Awesome. I A/B'd it with a proper Musicman Sterling that was also hanging on the wall, and the SB14 actually sounded and felt better... strange. I want to play the Ray35. Now there's a candidate for modding - add a Status MM5 graphite neck and you'll have an absolute monster.

Sligo's a bit out of the way, isn't it? You'd think he'd do a gig in Dublin or Cork or something. Very pretty bit of the country though.

[quote name='Lorne' post='588902' date='Sep 3 2009, 04:51 PM']That would be because Bernards and Chic parted ways in 1983 The Ironbird was designed in 1983 The Warlock 1981 The Bich,ok,1977 The Beast after Bernards death in 1996,the beast came out in 1999[/quote] Smartarse. Just making the point that Bernard Edwards' BC Riches weren't the extreme-shaped "metal" models. He played an Eagle, didn't he?

[quote name='Doddy' post='588739' date='Sep 3 2009, 02:36 PM']If you are playing metal on it then yes,it's a metal bass. But, if you play country on one,it's a country bass. A Bass is not limited to any one style,it's the person who plays it that makes the difference. Bernard Edwards played a B.C. Rich.[/quote] He did, but he didn't play an Ironbird/Warlock/Beast/Bich, etc. They might have a versatile sound, but aesthetically, these more extreme BC Riches only belong in a metal band (and even then, I think they look cheesy). A Mockingbird or Eagle would visually fit most bands, though. Also, the cheaper BC Riches are not particularly good instruments. The US-made ones are great, but the import line are very subpar.

It's not hard to spec up a new Alembic into five-figure territory. The cost for some of the options is insane. I have to keep reminding myself that five figures is pretty much the starting number for a good quality classical instrument, but when other luthiers are making bass guitars that are 95% as good as Alembics at maybe 25% of the price, I wonder how they get away with it. Stunning bass though. I do amuse myself occasionally by looking through the monthly specials on their website. There's some seriously stunning looking instruments on there.

Whatever happened to the original line of Iceni basses? I remember one being reviewed in Bassist magazine - they had graphite necks, a weird 3+1 headstock and a "unique" neck-body joint... the next thing I heard, he'd moved on to the Zoot basses, with nary a bit of graphite in sight.

[quote name='XxBassMastaXx' post='587939' date='Sep 2 2009, 07:42 PM'][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ImKQ53C-I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ImKQ53C-I[/url][/quote] Ah, from the old Flea bass instructional video... the bits with him being interviewed by a completely wasted River Phoenix are priceless.

[quote name='XxBassMastaXx' post='587881' date='Sep 2 2009, 07:06 PM']thats the thing about stingrays. They all have great deep full tone that i love![/quote] Stingrays do sound great. Just don't think you're going to get the recorded RHCP bass sound with one. I remember when BSSM came out, there were lots of very annoyed bass players who went out and bought Stingrays after hearing it, and were disappointed that they couldn't get anywhere close to the tone on the album...

[quote name='Linus27' post='587763' date='Sep 2 2009, 05:00 PM']Thanks, I am quite surprised by that list, especially the Spector, Wal and Alembic. I wonder why he never used the Spector live.[/quote] He used to, back in the day, before he started using Stingrays. Check out the videos for Taste The Pain, Nobody Weird Like Me, etc (should be on YouTube), and you'll see him with the Spector. He used a strange multi-coloured thing in the Higher Ground video, not sure what that was. Still want a pair of those teddy bear trousers though.

[quote name='cetera' post='587670' date='Sep 2 2009, 04:48 PM']Corrected for you [/quote] *blush* As a fellow Spector owner, I am ashamed!

[quote name='Linus27' post='587654' date='Sep 2 2009, 04:41 PM']Out of interest, what did Flea usually record with?[/quote] Different basses on different albums... this isn't comprehensive, but to summarise, the early albums, up to Mother's Milk were mostly a Spector NS4, BSSM was mostly a Wal (with a 5-string Stingray on two tracks), One Hot Minute was mostly an Alembic Epic (apart from Aeroplane, which was obviously a Stingray), Californication & By The Way were pretty much all the Flea Bass, and Stadium Arcadium was the Flea Bass and a '62 Jazz with flats.

[quote name='XxBassMastaXx' post='587625' date='Sep 2 2009, 04:20 PM']Mine is the Music man stingray. Mainly cos flea uses it and it looks the best![/quote] Just as a matter of interest, in your avatar, Flea is using his Modulus Flea Bass (now known as the Funk Unlimited)... he hasn't used Stingrays for years, and rarely ever recorded with one.

Heard a few of the tunes off his new one, Of Fungi And Foe. Interesting instrumentation - Les on bass and vocals, a cellist, and a percussionist (lots of tabla, etc on there). Lots of Les's usual obsession with American redneck/blue-collar culture. Interesting. Not up to Primus standard though.

Looks like a knock-off of those cheap Tanglewoods (same body shape, headstock, etc). So, what we have here is a cheap knock-off of an already-cheap bass. I'd say avoid. You can pay a bit more and get a Squier VM Jazz which is a far superior instrument.

TFF are amazing songwriters. Their stuff has stood the test of time very well, despite the rather cheesy 80's-style production and tacky clothes/haircuts/Roland Orzabal's weird dancing. A lot of it was also surprisingly dark. So much good music was coming out of the UK back then. That's the big difference between pop today and pop back then - today's pop stars are products of producers and songwriters. Pop stars back then, more often than not, were also the songwriters and producers. Even the bands who got classed as "boy bands" back then (Duran Duran, etc) could sing, play instruments, and wrote their own stuff.

Hope Chi pulls out of it soon. Shared a couple of pints with him and Abe at the pub over the road from The Garage (where they were playing) a good few years back, lovely guys. Although, it has to be said, Deftones are great on record, but Chino just can't pull it off live. Seen them several times, and Chino just can't sing in key.

Wish it was a Primus show - I find Les' solo stuff a bit impenetrable. Still, I'll be back in Blighty by then, so I'll probably go anyway.

[quote name='thodrik' post='582071' date='Aug 27 2009, 12:40 AM']Not bass related but I would invent a silent vacuum cleaner first. Then I would take the previously mentioned 'talent boost' pedal and see if I could modify it for football purposes in order to be used on the Scottish football team.[/quote] I've seen houses over here with "central vacuum" - basically, you've got sockets in the walls (like plug sockets), except you plug a hoover hose into them, then you can hoover silently, since the actual vacuum machine is hidden away in the basement or garage. Clever, but, as with most things over here, conspicuous consumption at its worst. Anyway, for me, I want a special glove with eBows in the fingertips.

I think I mentioned this on another endorsement thread a while back, but, about 6 years back, when I was in my old band, I managed to score a Warwick endorsement. The band was doing pretty well at the time, we'd just come off doing a big festival, had the album coming out, and so on. We sent our press kit to M.A.D. (who were distributing Warwick at the time), they liked it, and offered me a bass at 50% off trade price. I ordered a Streamer Jazzman 5, played it for a couple of gigs, but couldn't really get on with it (yep, it was the horrible big fat neck). Ended up telling them "thanks, but no thanks", and sold the bass on eBay for double what I paid for it. Back then was quite a good time to approach Warwick if you lived in the UK - they'd lost a lot of their most visible UK artists at that point. Stuart Zender had left Jamiroquai and left the spotlight, One Minute Silence (Glen Diani was a Warwick endorser) had split up, Jack Bruce was being seen out with his old Gibson... they needed endorsees. The two guitarists in the band were also offered an endorsement deal with ESP, but they went along to the distributor's warehouse, and couldn't find anything they liked enough to promote, so they ended up doing the thanks-but-no-thanks thing too.