ezbass

Any updates on this now that you've had a couple of week's worth of ownership?

Every Woman I Know Crazy About An Automobile - Ry Cooder

With my recent purchase of an EUB, I rather feel that I might be game on for 2023, in fact, there could be a net reduction next year. However, the new shorty HB, Mustang-alikes might put paid to that. 😬

I hope you’re not building a bass with Lego.

Ah ha! We’re onto something here. Going down this route, we could have a somewhat cryptic name: The Ted; The Nugent; The Duke or The Amboy. For the record I disliked Wango Tango and Cat Scratch Fever back when I was into TN (pre his more publicised, outspoken views) and this has intensified over the years. I loved the Ted Nugent - Ted Nugent album, but Free For All was disappointing and Cat Scratch even more so. Sorry for the derail.

I started on TB, but the ambience here suits me better. Hopefully, you’ll have the same experience.

From the little you can see, it doesn’t look great, which comes as no surprise. What colour is the question? I reckon black would look great. What say you @Stub Mandrel?

Strange Brew - Cream

Adam Ben Ezra does this too, here’s a link to his gear page https://www.adambenezra.com/gear/

The Fender Roscoe Beck was/is a marvellous instrument.

My current dilemma is that I have a bright, shiny, new EUB to play, but I suddenly have an audition/rehearsal in the first week of January and 22 songs to learn, only one of which I already know, so the WAV is receiving quite as much love as it normally would. However, this probably isn’t such a bad thing as I’ll hopefully avoid too many new aches and pains. It has received some love today, nonetheless. I tried playing it with one of the adjustments loose, allowing some back to front movement, aah! Much better. Quite pleased with my rendition of Africa and Cornflake Girl.

Does not matter how you arrived at the bass, you are here now and that is what matters. Plenty of other people here who started on guitar, myself included.

I'm hoping 'Awesome' will be appropriate.

Sounds like a courier company. It also puts me in mind of the old word processing equipment company Wang. They used to answer the phone with that office's location, for instance, "Hello, Wang UK." Fairly innocuous until they had a temporary, exhibition office in Cologne.

It’s a revelation so far. I’ve got the action where it’s comfortable (for a value of comfortable for what is really an entirely new and different instrument) and I’m trying to get to grips with the ergonomics and relax. I’ve watched a couple of beginner videos for height and left hand position to make sure I’m not ingraining bad habits from the get go. I’m slightly frustrated when my intonation is way off, which isn’t actually intonation, it’s totally the wrong the place on the board 😂. Trying to relax is an issue and I find I’m clenching my jaw a lot when I’m trying to play things from my normal bass repertoire (this is probably a mistake). However, this all falls away when I play something slower and incorporate open strings (which, I believe, you’re supposed to do more of with DB anyway) and that DB growl kicks in, then I can’t help grinning. I’m finding the static tripod a bit of a challenge and can see me investing in the end pin + frame that NS sell if I don’t learn to work with the supplied stand.

This is classic failure to go in and amend profiles. I signed up yesterday to loo at a particular account, the basic sign up questions give a ridiculous wide array of what you do and what you're looking for. You really have to go back and make changes. On the JMB front, I put an ad in a while back and had radio silence and really couldn't be bothered to reset the ad every three days or so. Yesterday, out of the blue, I received an enquiry from a band, just half an hour down the road. I now have a list of tunes, a rehearsal/audition date and 2 gigs if it all goes well. Good things come to those wait? Hmm, more like dumb luck and right place, right time. Anyway, less of this, I have songs to learn!

I like the term moveable anchor, sounds more like what I feel.

That would help, as it looks OK to me in the ones above. Ultimately, if it bugs you, refinish it, if it doesn’t, keep adding that mojo through playing it.

Probably the same for me, it’s very much a personal indulgence, without any thought of gigging with it. Today’s task, along with action adjustment, will be to work out an initial height and angle for playing comfort.

I was looking of photos from our last Jersey visit and wondering when we might return. That was autumn 2020, so a try out might not have been appropriate given the Covid restrictions back then, but I appreciate the belated offer.

I can make the stretches too, but I do it for muting purposes. My teacher, when I started playing bass, was very hot on muting.

Santa has come early to Ez Towers. I’ve wanted a DB for absolutely ages, but none ever came up for sale that suited. Then I moved 500+ miles north and suddenly a good number of proper uprights and EUBs appeared back down south where I could’ve gone and tried/collected. Harrumph! 😤 I decided that an EUB would be the most sensible way forward, but didn’t want to spend a fortune. I saw a Stagg EUB 2nd hand at a well known bass purveyor, phoned up but sold. However, “We have KK Baby Bass,” they said. Hmm, 3 times more than the Stagg, thought required. Thought about it for a day or 2 and then phoned up to buy it; sold! Then, a few days later, they had a 2nd hand NS WAV advertised on FB, phoned the next morning; sold again! I could’ve gone down the Harley Benton route, but opinions varied and the strings would have to be replaced to get closer to that DB sound in my head. That was it, for the extra few quid (still way more than I started off wanting to spend) than 2nd hand or a lesser instrument, I decided to buy new from the distributor. Phoned up, “We’ve just had an NS delivery,” they say and I wait for the negative report about that delivery. But no, they have the very one I want (NS WAV 4 in honeyburst). Trigger pulled straight away (I didn’t want to be stung for a 4th time). UPS delivery info received, scheduled for tomorrow, but no, it arrived at 5:30 today! Happy days. Needs a bit adjustment action wise (for me anyway) but I’ll leave that for tomorrow once it’s warmed up properly (poor thing has been in vans and warehouses since it arrived down south only to go through it all again to get to me). However, had to test it just to make sure it was working and as I use Phil Jones gear, it should be just the ticket and it is. Sounds properly fine straight into the amp, but put it through my Sadowsky preamp pedal and it sounds even better (I understand the more expensive NS EUBs have active circuitry, but are really way above my budget, so the addition of a preamp makes sense). Now to learn to play the bugger! Ooh, I almost forgot. Thanks and blame must go to the folk who unknowingly influenced me in the final hurdle of this venture, namely, our own @NancyJohnson, David Swift and Tony Levin. And props to Barry at The Bass Centre for making it happen so quickly and easily.

Pickup cover or strategically placed thumb rest for E string and higher (I play 4 stringers), resting on the E string when playing A string and higher and, finally, resting on the A string when play the D and G strings. I’m not sure whether this counts as floating thumb or not.

Thorsday Child - Bowie