Owen

What marks out a great bass player FOR ME (YMMV etc etc) is someone who makes the whole band sound good. It is feel rather than technique. Technique cannot ever hurt, but it is only a tool. Many guitarists can shred like food processors, but they will only ever be guitarists and not musicians. The difference is painfully obvious when you have two guitarists in the same band, one being a guitarist and the other being a musician who plays guitar. A decent technique is not rocket science and should be achievable fairly quickly, but sympathy and empathy to the song and the band takes real-time gigging and band rehearsal. It's like playing with a good drummer - you do not notice it until a bad drummer comes in. Why do Jazzers fill the ranks of the session pros? Partly because they have learnt to listen to what goes on around them and making it work. Just some musings

[quote name='steve-soar' post='518816' date='Jun 19 2009, 08:06 PM']WHAT?[u][/u][/quote] I was young............................Nope. I was stupid............................Yep, that's the one.

I traded an early Overwater 4 (original shape) in purpleburst for a pair of EMG Jazz pick ups. What was I thinking?

The guitar teacher's manager is probably and ex trumpet player who has NO idea that the techniques are different. Finding a proper DB teacher is really difficult. Giving one enough work to make it worth their while getting out of bed is hard unless it involves teaching 'cello as well. The guitar teacher is payed by the hour. "Can you teach bass? It will mean more hours." "Of course I can, when will I start?" Bass, how hard can it be? You know how that works. Try and talk to the guitar teacher personally. She/he will probably be cool about it and might even welcome input. There are elements of technique which are easily adaptable between violin and DB, especially if the teacher has had some training.

[quote name='redstriper' post='514215' date='Jun 15 2009, 02:20 PM']It doesn't matter what the bid history looks like. You decide the most you want to pay, then place your bid and wait and see.[/quote] I would have put £700 on it, but someone else obviously REALLY wants it. I guess that I can see the pattern more clearly now. I had not considered the "one huge bid" and someone else testing it theory.

To be fair to the bulider, he does actually make it all from planks of wood. I was going to bid, but the bidding pattern looks...........er............manufactured.

[url="http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=130312460735"]http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...em=130312460735[/url]

Small mixer.

Mike Lull makes some nice looking ones whoch come up on TB now and again. [url="http://www.mikelull.com/Instruments/P_Series.htm"]http://www.mikelull.com/Instruments/P_Series.htm[/url]

a canvas covered styrofoam case at 10kilos and £650. Or buy a bass from Gear4music for £400 and get the styrofoam case for free.

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='496743' date='May 24 2009, 06:45 PM']Are there such things ? Does anyone do a coated set or a wrapped set. I'd like a set in black, they'd look prettly cool on my NS CR4M. They'd probably also sound pretty good I'd have thought, nice and mellow.[/quote] Rockabilly Innovations warm and lovely. [url="http://www.stringexpress.co.uk/dbass.htm"]http://www.stringexpress.co.uk/dbass.htm[/url] No metal so be aware of that if youare using Mag Pick ups.

The most double bass sounding EUB is the one which is set up like a DB. I could not believe the difference lifting the strings up made to the sound of my NS5 EUB. There are allen screws on the back. Fabulous.

Plays like butter. That is the best one.

If I was dropping £4K on a bass (and would happily do so if I had the disposable) I would have to be sure I could get that amount of wedge back out of it. Hardly anyone has THE ONE and two years down the line you might fancy a change. If you have bought wisely then you can change and still enjoy the £4K. If you blow it on something new and bespoke you can wave at the very least 40% of that goodbye. Buy a second hand piece of exotica. Play it for a bit. If you like it keep it. If not put it out here and get your money back and buy something else. The amount of times you will get £4K to drop on a bass in your life can be once or many times - it just depends how you spend it.

Hmmmm............ I have too many basses (9) A few are vintage so those are going nowhere. Unfortunately they do not have enough strings. Several 5 strings are cheap and cheerful but I really enjoy playing them and they are worth more to me than what the market would offer me. One is the only 5 string that I have which is immune to the induction loop system in church. I do not enjoy playing it as an instrument, but it has a piezo sound like no other. When I find something that has a similar sound I will sell this one. One of the good things is being able to lend basses out to people to "have a go on bass". I very infrequently have all the basses in the house at the same time. (I used to lend my '66 Jazz out to loads of different people and then I thought about what could go wrong so that stays at home.) I have too many, but have no need to sell them for financial reasons so just enjoy rotating them for different gigs. Not sure what that has added to the conversation really.