Beer of the Bass

I do it on one tune - it's great with the bow, though it loses a little definition when played pizz. Also worth noting, it sends my A string a few cents sharp every time and I have to retune. I'm using Spirocore mediums like yourself.

Red Mitchell used to tune in fifths on double bass, and his playing didn't sound at all limited, so it must be at least possible. He went for CGDA an octave below cello tuning. With your tuning, I presume the .020 E string is a typo, as this would be the E found on the second fret, D string of a standard tuned bass, yet .020 is lighter than a standard G string.

I quite like it!

LaBellas seem like a big investment though - even D'Addario come out a bit cheaper if ordered from the states. Anyone tried the Status tapewounds? Prices are very good, though I don't know if the conventional gauges mean that they'd be floppy.

I'm curious to hear some opinons on tapewound strings, and I know a few BCers will have experimented with them. I'm using Ernie Ball flatwounds at the moment, and I'm finding that flatwounds with the treble boosted slightly give me a sound with just the right amount of growl and edge which sits in the mix nicely, while sounding more "earthy" than roundwounds. I've seen a few posts on another bass forum saying that nylon tapewounds actually have slightly more of this sound than some flatwounds, but still with the interesting percussive attack when played with a pick. So, which ones are worth checking out? It's also worth mentioning that I play 5-string, which I think rules out trying Fender tapewounds, among others.

Stainless steel is just a steel alloy with Chromium in it, so "Chromes" and stainless steel strings are likely to be pretty much the same material. The Ernie Ball flats are nice strings, very similar to D'Addario Chromes, which are at the brighter end of flatwounds.

Yesterday evening I had a try of mixing the same track in Reaper and in Studio One Free to see how I got on with them. Reaper doesn't seem too forbiddingly complicated, but I'm getting some kind of weird aliasing thing going on with bass notes, which isn't there when I play the same files in Studio One. I presume I need to adjust my audio settings. Studio One seems pleasingly straightforward - the only worry is that I would have to be sure I liked the reverb and compression that come with it, since it doesn't use VSTs. I haven't actually installed Cubase LE yet, but I'll give that a try too.

Thanks for the various advice, I think I'll have a play around with both to begin with, since there's no financial commitment if I just want to try Reaper. I've found Steinberg's page on what the limitations of LE actually are, and I suspect that being limited to 16 audio tracks is unlikely to be much of an issue for the things I have in mind. But I'll have a try of both and go with whichever seems more intuitive.

I've recently picked up a Zoom H4N to do some basic recording with, with the intention of capturing my tracks on the Zoom then exporting to my laptop to mix them. It came bundled with Cubase LE 7, which I gather is a "light" version of Cubase. I also have a couple of friends who seem to rate Reaper quite highly, and it's very cheap to buy. I'm unlikely to use it for anything much more complicated than mixing a few tracks of audio and applying a bit of compression and EQ, maybe the odd reverb plug-in. Probably no VSt instruments either, as I don't have a MIDI interface and I'm quite attached to my physical keyboards. Are there any situations where the limitations of Cubase LE might bite me in the bum, that would make Reaper the better option, or should I just stick with LE as I have it already?

I've been very happy with my MB200 so far. I can't comment on loudness since I'm using it with a single 10" which can reach its limit with any >100w amp I've tried, but it seems a very musical sounding amp with the EQ centred at useful places. Although it's inherently slightly scooped, the EQ is more than capable of undoing that. It'll be interesting to try gigging it with my 2x12" some time.

It's an odd idea that manufacturing a cheaper line in-house must be an indicator of Gibson's decline. They've been doing this since the 1930s with the Kalamazoo branded instruments and others, so it's more like business as usual.

Take this with a pinch of salt, as I've no covers band experience, but it seems that some of the best received covers bands I've seen have been the ones who react quickly and include a couple of this months (or even this weeks) hits in their set. It doesn't even seem to matter if the style is totally inappropriate, as forty-something rock dudes doing Lady Gaga or whatever can make for an entertaining night. If Pulp, Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and the Stone Roses (which could be 10-20 years old depending on song choice) are the more recent stuff in your set, this might be worth a try.

Yeah, the Highway One finish does tend to go glossy in the places your clothing rubs it, so I'd think it would buff to a semi-gloss finish quite easily. When I had mine, I always wondered whether someone could spray a nitro clearcoat over it and buff that to produce something more like the traditional Fender finishes.

It's a shame the five-string only comes in black, otherwise I'd be a bit tempted. They'd be a great candidate for a DIY stingray/sabre type preamp too,

As an alternative suggestion, if you want to try a non-piezo contact pickup, the AKG C411 is well worth a look and is a lot cheaper than the Ehrlund. It's a condensor contact mic, which needs a mic preamp, but I've found mine very useful when I want a more natural sound than a bridge piezo, especially as my current project involves a lot of arco playing. [url="http://www.dv247.com/microphones/akg-c411pp--3323"]http://www.dv247.com/microphones/akg-c411pp--3323[/url]

If you're using alcohol to clean strings, Isopropyl Alcohol is a bit more pleasant to use than meths, as meths leaves a nasty smelling residue after the alcohol has evaporated (the stuff they add to make it undrinkable).

It's an interesting point, that the discipline of being a hired gun means that we don't know what Jamerson would sound like doing his own thing. Though I reckon one of the things which made Led Zep a bit more interesting than your average rock band was that JPJ and Jimmy Page had done several years of pop sessions, so had some of that discipline, versatility, and JPJ's killer arranging skills to boot. I think this enabled them to have a bit more variety in their music than a younger band fresh out of school would have had.

I don't bother with it myself, but you can set eBay to save your regular searches and send notifications of any matching results. Some people find it useful. If it's all such a waste of time, what are you even doing reading this thread?

[quote name='Rick's Fine '52' timestamp='1345452621' post='1777541'] [size=3][font=Verdana][color=#000000]As for adapting programmes and software to recognise common words, and send flag messages etc, Christ, do we really need to waste time doing something I assumed, wrongly, could be done by the human brain, by the individual.[/color][/font][/size] [/quote] Just a suggestion, and no different to the way many people use the search functions on eBay, for example. Why the condescension?

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1345448033' post='1777473'] Who cares. Carol Kaye wrote them both. [/quote] Led Zepellin could probably have taught Ms Kaye a thing or two about claiming credit for other peoples work, given that on Led Zep II alone, they pinched one Muddy Waters song, one Howlin' Wolf song and one Willie Dixon song without crediting them!

I think it's important to remember that JPJ wouldn't have come up with a line like that if he hadn't been listening to guys like Jamerson. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that...

It's this bass; [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/137533-swamp-ash-5-string/page__p__1337575__hl__swamp%20ash__fromsearch__1#entry1337575"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/137533-swamp-ash-5-string[/url] with Ernie Ball flatwounds on, going through an 80's Locobox chorus, DI'd to FOH.

We played a gig in Edinburgh's Wee Red bar on Thursday and a friend filmed parts of it. Here's one of the tunes; I'm pleased with the overall sound, cheesy chorus pedal and all, though we should maybe move about a bit more. Anyway, here it is; [url="http://vimeo.com/47789205"]http://vimeo.com/47789205[/url]