Russ

[quote name='s_u_y_*' post='104823' date='Dec 16 2007, 01:08 AM']Didn't your mother tell you guys? Obviously the good ones end up in Bass Guitar Heaven like these lot, and play Spinal Tap's Big Bottom forevermore. [/quote] I got to play that Alembic Stanley Clarke with the Bigsby trem on the right of the picture a while back... I was in The Gallery, and the guy who'd won it in the auction of all Entwistle's stuff brought it in to get it looked at. Awesome bass... very skinny neck and tight string spacing though. It's kinda weird seeing an old pic of The Ox and being able to say, "I've played that bass"...

You'll get more for it if it's got the wenge neck, as opposed to the newer, inferior ovangkol one... was thinking of picking up a Streamer LX5 if I can find a good, older one at a reasonable price.

A few more (mostly about technique and so on): 13) Play in such a way that you keep your wrists straight (strap height, fretting hand technique, etc) - less chance of RSI or carpal tunnel setting in. 14) Play with a light touch and let your amp take care of the volume. 15) You can play as many notes per bar as you like - as long as they're all in time and in the groove, and if it works with the song. 16) Less isn't always more, but less is usually the better option. 17) Use the technique that's right for the song. If a song will sound better played with a pick, use one. Don't be a technique nazi. 18) It's hard, but try to listen to the song as a whole, without separating out the instruments in your head, and do what's right to make the whole thing sound good. 19) A live gig is a feedback loop - take the crowd's energy and channel it back into your playing. 20) Don't ever get into the mindset that "you only play the bass" - your voice in the band is equally as important as anyone else's. 21) The ability to hang and not to be an ar$ehole is just as important as the music. 22) A gig is worth 20 hours of rehearsal time. 23) Never play for free. You're undervaluing yourself and doing other bands a disservice by setting a precedent that bands will play for free. 24) Record EVERYTHING you do and listen back to it as a group. 25) Never be afraid of constructive criticism. 26) Listen. Then listen some more. A good ear is the most valuable thing a musician can have.

Always been in originals bands, and don't see myself wanting to do covers anytime in the future. The fun in music for me is the creative process - playing other people's music just doesn't do it for me. If I can't write the bassline, I'm not interested. If that means I'm condemned to working in front of a computer screen for the rest of my life, only fitting in music on the evenings and weekends, then so be it. As for what I've learned... here's a few sage tips. 1) Save the drinking until after the set. If people liked your set they'll buy you drinks. 2) Pick anyone who will be working for the band carefully (management, etc) - the wrong person will totally change the band dynamic and mess things up badly. 3) If playing in a band stops being fun, get out. 4) Lead singers are always pr!cks. Deal with it. 5) Loud is good. If you think it's too loud, don't turn down, get earplugs. 6) Always be pleasant and humble, and ready to talk to people. You never know who you might meet. 7) NEVER take a pay-to-play gig. 8) Having 50,000 friends on your Myspace is pointless if only 50 of them have bothered listening to you. 9) iTunes is your new best friend as an originals band. 10) Make time to socialise with the band members away from the band. 11) The rock press have only one good feature - their expense accounts. Make them buy you drinks. 12) Don't bother slogging your guts out all the time, gigging at the same old crappy venues. Only take the quality gigs where you'll play to more than your mates. .. if I think of any more, I'll post them.

My custom Sei singlecut 5 has a MM+P pickup config (the P is in a humbucker-type housing though). I requested it specifically, as I wanted the bite of the MM pickup combined with the low-mid thud of the P. Works brilliantly, wish there were more basses with that configuration.

[quote name='3V17C' post='54065' date='Sep 1 2007, 11:54 PM']woah! they were a cool band with some nice bass playing - saw em at reading and went and bought the album..still sounds quite good[/quote] I think the gig we did with them was at the Harlow Square, around 1996-ish. Yep, the bassist was also the co-lead singer, and played fretted and fretless 5-string Wals. Great player. We had a short bass-related conversation afterwards, if I recall. I wonder what became of them? They were pretty bloody good back in the day.

Saw some live Santana on TV recently, and, at least some of the time, he has two bassists (although one switches to guitar on some songs). The main bassist plays various Laklands in a more traditional manner, and the other guy plays a Modulus and does lots of high chording and so on.

[quote name='Brother Jones' post='91191' date='Nov 19 2007, 11:51 PM']I owned a couple of Rays about ten years ago and although they nailed one thing really well, I found them really limiting. Could never seem to get good harmonics out of them and they always seemed to end up sounding a bit treble-bass-nothing-in-between. Always liked Sterlings though - never played a bad one. Although I'm very much a Jazzer, might have to give a Sterling a try. Wish they made a 5 string Sterling....[/quote] The Stingray 5-string is more or less a 5-string Sterling, what with the coil-switching, the dummy humcancelling coil in the pickup, and the same 3-band EQ. Although I do hear that a proper Sterling 5 is on its way. Hopefully it doesn't have that huge, ugly expanse of scratchplate that the Stingray 5 has.

[quote name='birdy' post='94169' date='Nov 25 2007, 04:41 PM']From Wikipedia.... Flea's main basses have almost always been ones with active electronics. His signature live bass up until Californication was the Music Man StingRay, which he also used to record the albums The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Freaky Styley. In the studios for The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother's Milk Flea used a Spector bass. Blood Sugar Sex Magik was recorded with a Wal Mach II, Stingray 5 string and One Hot Minute with an Alembic Epic. From Californication onwards, he received a signature model from Modulus Guitars, which is based on the StingRay. For Stadium Arcadium, he used a '61 Fender Jazz bass. The Jazz Bass was initially used during the subsequent Stadium Arcadium tour, but Flea later decided that he wasn't cutting through enough, and went back to using his Modulus Signature. Flea can be heard using several different effects pedals throughout his career; current pedals listed below. This was pretty much my understanding also before reading this after various threads on the subject on talkbass. Steve[/quote] This is more or less correct. I believe the bass he used on RHCP and Freaky Styley was, in fact, a Musicman Cutlass (basically a Stingray with a Modulus Graphite neck - this is the bass the Flea Bass was based on). Other than that, yep, it's all pretty much right, apart from the fact that Stadium Arcadium is roughly half-and-half the '61 Jazz and the Modulus. The '61 J was strung with flats and sounds very different to the Modulus Flea - you can seriously hear the difference between the two basses on the album tracks.

I know he has one of his Jazzes strung up in BEAD tuning, so that might be what you have to do...

I played that very same bass at the Bass Cellar a couple of months back. Sounded great, although I found the neck profile to be a bit on the chunky side for me. I also played a maple-fingerboard version in the US last year - felt and sounded quite a bit better to me. The neck profile wasn't as chunky for some reason, and the sound was quite a bit punchier with the maple fingerboard. I'll have to see if I can track one of those down.

I've worked out bass versions of Stairway To Heaven and Under The Bridge for guitar shop (and occasional bass solo) usage... usually elicits a surprised response from the staff, as they're not used to hearing them on bass! Other than that, nothing too unusual... Mr. Pink, A Certain Shade Of Green, Tom Sawyer, Mountain Song or Three Days, a few tunes by bands I've played in...