OutToPlayJazz

I had a couple of 'lessons' with Fred in the late 80's at South East Derbyshire College. Even then he was an amazing player, but at the time his idea of a bass lesson was to take your bass off you and play it at you for half an hour. He did introduce me to "The Literate Bassist", though. Great book & a pity it's out of print now. Lovely guy, though! Best of luck to him Rich.

Thanks for that, guys... Looking forward to playing with my own filter preamp at the end of the year... Rich.

Congrats, Steve! That's a really individual and personal bass for you. And such a versatile machine, too. With the midi system, the possibilities for music making must be virtually endless Rich.

We need players like Wooten. He pushes the envelope of what's possible on the instrument. And this in turn inspires us to become better bass players. Otherwise we all might as well just play 12 bar, 3 chord tricks in pubs for the rest of our lives.

As long as I can pay the bills, I just buy what I want. After all, they are working tools for me, not a hobby. And I write the cost off against tax, too! Rich.

If you hear Victor playing in context, you'll understand it better. Most of his playing is some of the most utterly musical bass playing I've ever heard. Remember, Victa is not God... God works [i]for[/i] Victa!

Can someone explain to me what the four stacked controls do on an ACG? Rich.

As a big Victor Wooten fan I'm very disappointed with Foderas. I love the look of some of them, but I've played two. A Yin-Yang Monarch & an Empire 5. Both were okay, but no more special than a JayDee. I found the sound very unsubtle & particularly harsh on the Empire. I'll stick with what I know & what I'm looking into at the moment. Rich.

Now I can see why you went nuts over this one, Shaun! Rich.

LOL! He's obviously never played an ash bodied Yamaha TRB-6 II for a couple of hours straight through! Yes, the jazz is a big bodied bass, but that's all part of the appeal. A good jazz sounds like nothing else! As for the necks being "Herculean", I think the writer is confused with the baseball bat style Precision necks of old.

Nice, Simon - That looks incredible! Jon Shuker keeps bliping my radar occasionally, too. Rich.

[quote name='al embic' post='412067' date='Feb 17 2009, 03:22 PM']my sparkley s2..... [/quote] I've always liked that bass, ever since I first saw it on Statii.com. There's one very like it on the stock bass pages of the Status website at the moment.

LOL, Alex - Sounds as if my Streamline is a little bass with big attitude, yours is about to not only spit it's dummy out & chuck it's toys out of it's pram, but orbital toys may be the order of the day! Rich.

There's still a brand new MM22 (the active twin humbucker one) hanging on the wall at Electro music in Doncaster. I've played it a few times & it's a lovely bass to play with a great sound, too. Someone should buy that at under £300. It outplays almost all the basses in the place & it's one of the cheapest as well. Rich.

I forgot to mention another Ibanez on this thread... BGM rated the SR300 as the best value for money bass out there... Three band eq with style sweeper mid control as well. What more do you want for £230??

Have a look at TransGlobal. They use DHL. I only paid £65 to send my KingBass to Texas.

It's well documented on these pages that I don't get on with MusicMan basses, but wow! I'd love one of these!

That's a tough one, flychris... The bolt on S2 has a slightly dryer and grittier sound, more like a KingBass. A little more top end, but a little less sustain. My bolt on 5 also has a slightly softer sound than the others as it has the phenowood fingerboard as well, so if you dig in you get the classic Status twang & growl, but played gently, double damping with both hands, it's great as a jazz instrument. The through necks have a bit more sustain & a glassier sound. Still very similar, just a little more of everything. The tone block (for me) puts the icing on the cake. The tone block around the longer graphite spine on a through neck gives an almost three-dimensional sound with a stunning tone. My walnut S2 4-string & myrtlewood 5-string are both made in this way & both have a very similar tone. (My favourite sound!) The all-graphite models like the Stealth and the Streamline have another sound all together. The 2-band preamp is bassier & the all graphite construction gives you even more growl than the others. Hope that helps in some way! Rich.

I started off as a classical musician (and still am), and so read everything. I learned to improvise as a bass player, the same as many others, at jam sessions. I joined blues bands and then progressed onto other things. Basically, the more you get out there and play, the better you get. For example, we had a young guitarist on the Boogie Nights stage show I've just done. He's a London College of Music student, but it was his first professional show. He was in utter awe how the rest of us just sight read the whole pad on the band call without having ever seen it. He was shocked as he'd had the parts for a month! But we all told him the same as I've just said here, "You're 19, Nick. We're all significantly older, and we're just good at this game because we've had a lot of practise at it! You get better at things by getting out there and playing & reading as much as you can!" Rich.

I recently got the bulk discount 6-pack of 4 string sets of 30-90 double ball end HotWires. Still extremely reasonable.

Classy looking Staus-Ray, WooleyDick I'm a recent Streamline convert, too. Just played mine for a whole week in a stage show. Awesome sound.

[quote]Just to throw a bit of crazy out there, why don't we tune in 5ths? Unless I'm mistaken most string instruments to that, except of course guitar and double bass. Anyone know why this is?[/quote] Could've sworn I already explained this...

The original G D A E tuning on a bass comes [as already stated] from the double bass. Remember that your electric basses are, in essence, double basses turned through ninety degrees. The practice of tuning the strings a perfect fourth apart comes from the fact that with the significantly larger scale length than that of the cello [which is tuned in perfect fifths], it is not practical for the player's left hand to span more than one tone for a large proportion of the fingerboard. Even as a double bass player, I've never detuned. One of my double basses is a 5-stringer with the bottom B string, the same as most 5-string electric basses. That gives me all the extended range I need classically. In the case of the electric bass, I've always found that again, having more strings is the perfect solution to the problems of range or more challenging keys. On some jobs I'll use one of my Status 5-stringers for extended range and on others I'll use my TRB-6 II. The Yamaha comes in especially handy for big band jobs where I've got lots of flats due to the arrangements and transposed keys of wind instruments. It all depends on what I'm playing at the time. Rich.

I really wanted to get to this one, but I ended up having pupils this morning, a gig at lunchtime & a showcase for promoters this afternoon, then more teaching this evening. Ah well.

Heh, it was me that told him to try the HotWires. I'm not exactly sure of the difference, to be honest. I always go for the rounds as I like a bright and zingy sound. To give you an idea of how long they can last, I've just done a week of the Boogie Nights stage show. That's at total of about 18 hours' playing for the show over the whole week & I played the same bass again today for a showcase for promoters & they still sound really bright. I put the new strings on for the band call as the show started last Sunday. Just read up on the Status website that the hex cores give a bright sound with the feel of a traditional round wound string. Hmmm... Can't tell you much more. Rich.