chris_b

Unless they are total howlers, you might know the notes are not the ones you intended to play, but no one else will. Why are they going to pick you to pieces just for a bum note or two? You can get it wrong and screw up the song, or you can be playing the wrong line every time, I'm sure they'll notice that and will probably mention it. If your mistake was one riff or only for a bar or 2, why bother to bring that up? They'll know it will be right next time and if you're getting the feel of the song right, what's a couple of bum notes between friends. You might describe a few dodgy notes as poor choices but if they are in the same scale they're not technically wrong.

As far as I can see there is a pin that performs the same function as a guitar bridge on pianos and harps. The 36 and 22 string Harps with levers that I'm looking at have a bridge pin per string and those strings are at an angle going around those pins. The video of a Steinway has a similar arrangement.

I can't think of any other stringed instrument where the strings are kept straight at the bridge. Even the top classical stringed instruments have an angle at the bridge. If keeping the strings straight at that point provided any benefit to the sound it would have been adopted centuries ago by those builders.

My neck dive tip. . . . sell any basses that have neck dive and buy ones that don't.

I've had 2 and this one for about 5 years. I've never had a problem.

I would have put my money on David Hood with the Swampers at Muscle Shoals Studio, but Discogs says it was recorded in Nashville at the RCA Victor Studios, so that could be any one of dozens of studio bass players.

Zigaboo Modeliste and George Porter Jr with the Meters Willie Green and Tony Hall with the Neville Brothers

No, but what problem are you trying to fix? You have a bass that you like, a lot, and now you want to change it to something that you don't know how it sounds. Why? I added a J pickup to my P bass. I was happy to embrace the "more is more, and more is always better", philosophy and found it was largely a waste of my cash. The benefits didn't match my outlay. The routing was expensive and the great sound of the J pickup never materialised. OK it was slightly better but not the night and day improvement I was expecting. What are you hearing that would be improved by the addition of a J pickup? I'd suggest a better first step would be to upgrade the P pickup and move from a good P bass sound to a great one, before you consider anything else.

Don't forget to record your performance. I wish I had my first gig on tape. Note to self: find a band and get full gig number 1 in the diary asap.

Mick Fleetwood and John McVie Laval Bell and Reggie McBride with Keb Mo Ricky Fataar and Hutch Hutchinson with Bonnie Raitt Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney Lyn Williams and George Hawkins with Delbert McClinton Max Weinberg and Gary Tallent with Bruce Springsteen

You don't get good music without a good drummer and a good bass player is the heart and soul of a song. Put the two together you get a great band.

Al Jackson and Duck Dunn at Stax Roger Hawkins and David Hood at Muscle Shoals Steve Gadd and Nathan East with Clapton Hughie Flint and John McVie with John Mayall Gene Crisman and Tommy Cogbill and Mike Leech at American Sound Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt at Motown Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce with Cream Mickey Waller and Ronnie Wood with Jeff Back

The pickup on my 68 P bass sounded pretty anaemic. Sadly not one of Leo's finest. The Barts that replaced it sounded much better.

Can you not get it by ear? Chorus A // B | A | D | A | A // B | A | F D | A // B | A | Verse A C | D | G | A | A C | D | G | F C B |

Your Traveller is a small cab and so will attenuate the low end. The 112 cabs are bigger so will sound bigger and lower if you don't control the EQ. Sounds like you're pushing the EQ to far. Dial it all back. On my LM2 I had the controls at noon and the 2 filters off, that's fully anti-clockwise. It made a great sound for me.

I've been using OBBM/Dave's instrument and speakers cables for years.

It has, although it was seen as limiting and dropped in favour of notation about 1000 years ago.

IMO these basses are great instruments and the preamp is the usual place where upgrades start, but how about upgrading the pickups and turning it into a passive bass?

No, because tab is an incomplete and limited system that, so far, only seems to relate to a limited set of stringed instruments. How does tab on a piano or trumpet work? They don't write novels in short-hand because there is a much better way of expressing yourself, words. Notation has developed over that last 1000 years to be be a comprehensive system of writing any musical idea for any instrument. It's complicated and tough to learn, but that's what lessons are for. That you and most of us have got this far without notation and tab is probably an indication that neither is really a requirement for a Rock n Roll bass player.

The beauty of notation is that it gives you all the information you need to be able to play any piece of music on any instrument, from Mozart to nursery rhymes. So far I have not seen any tab that does that. If you can find tab that is as comprehensive as notation it will still be a complicated set of instructions and you'll still have to learn it. If you really want to learn any skill and are having difficulties, get lessons. When I left school I could sight read music, at a basic level. I've forgotten most of it since but, IMO at the semi pro level in a Rock n Roll world, the really useful skill to be cultivating is playing by ear. If you can hear the notes then you don't need tab.

His website says, "He's s one of those geniuses that flies under the radar". If he can talk us into buying this bridge for $158 each rather than the current boutique bass favourite, the Hipshot A style for just £99, does that make him a genius or does it make us just plain gullible.

As long as the DB sounds good through the MB, that would be my choice.

Markbass would be on my list too.

A few years ago I tried the Suitcase and found it a very awkward lift. It has 2 handles and trying to use just the 1 handle doesn't work! I also preferred the sound of 2 cabs rather than just the 1. My preference would be for any of the 112 cabs (Mesa, Genzler, Aguilar, Bergantino, the Greenboy cabs in the classifieds or Barefaced ) on the market rather than the Suitcase.

I've just had this. The band leader told me I was playing one of his originals wrong. I asked him to play it the right way and then had to tell him it wasn't anything like the mp3 he sent over! I told him I could play whatever version he wanted, so which one did he want. He insisted the mp3 was right. I sent him the mp3. Silence since!! To the OP, get him to tell you exactly what is wrong and what he thinks you can do to put it right.