chris_b

I'd not heard of Joe Cleveland before. Not music that I would normally listen to, but what a nice player.

Not as many as GAK (well the last time I was there). Andertons could do better. The Camden and Epsom Guitar Guitar stores had a reasonable selection when I was last there.

You asked for opinions. That my £1.5k+ bass should annoy anyone because of the price is totally absurd. These people should be doing more interesting things with their lives and not raising their blood pressure over such trivial stuff. YMMV

I'm happy to be playing a niche instrument. Didn't seem very niche at last night's jam though. Out of 4 bass jammers there was a total of 0 4 stringers. So including me that's 5 5 string bass players in one small corner of London. Nice. I don't see local music shops catering for anyone other than school kids or absolute beginners. If the sales aren't there then they won't stock it. That's just business. There are plenty of retail alternatives for the discerning 5 string bass player.

Not even remotely reasonable.

So did mine. As a kid I hated going to their loo in the winter. You could end up iced to the seat if you took too long!!

Root note with index finger, octave with middle finger.

Slow it down to a speed you can maintain for the duration of the song. Then speed up. It might take weeks but you'll get there.

I'd rather not be a "brand fan", but some definitely seem to have "magic" in their designs. Brands I've used over many years and bought more than one item, Aguilar, Thunderfunk, Barefaced and Bergantino.

All my cables are coiled correctly and groups of them (2 speaker leads and a power lead) are cable tied for convenience. I have a totally disorganised life and a shed I haven't been able to get into in the last 5 years, but my cables are neat tidy.

So far I have never used a pedal. I owned a Thumpinator, once, but never got around to buying a power supply.

The worst thing about any solo is when it is being played by someone with less ability than confidence.

No it's not. You might not be impressed, but it is very impressive bass playing.

My sound is for me, my playing is for me and the band and the sound of the band is for the audience. There are overlaps but don't read too much into this. It doesn't mater to an audience what the individual musicians sound like as long as they play together well, the band sounds good and the songs work.

My P bass has been fine with all those genres, plus Americana, Folk, Reggae, Ska, Soul, top 40 pop covers and original bands. Freddie Washington played, Forget Me Nots, one of the most notable slap riffs, on a P bass. We all have our favourites, but IMO you can play anything on any bass. Music isn't related to instruments.

I like a good solo, if it's played by someone with an imagination. Solos can be fantastic, a tour de force, a technical and melodic masterpiece, but as mine dwell firmly at the embarrassingly inept end of the scale, I don't do them.

Where is the benefit? My untechnical guess is that 2 4 ohm cabs running at 8 ohms, with a series cable, would sound like 1 4 ohm cab running at 4 ohms.

Forget this "finding the one" business. Get a Precision that sounds right and then learn to love how it feels.

This. Lately, I'm finding that after buying stuff and comparing it to what I already have, I am left wondering, "Does the difference really matter to me?" Even the gear that is significantly "better" might not be worth the price tag, when it's only me that will notice the difference. It's dawning on me that I've reached the limit of my bass gear wants/needs. I feel strangely relieved!

Who gives a stinky poo! There are thousands of bass players on this site and 14 year question or not, if this information is useful to someone today then it's a worthwhile answer.

With an injured back IMO the only sensible thing to do is buy 2 112 cabs. Each lift needs to be the lightest you can find.

double post !!

I was house bassist on a jam night and when I went up, after a friend had finished his "spot", I found a lighted cigarette smouldering away on the side of my cab! It hadn't burnt the tolex but it was close. That was all I needed to make me stick to the "no lending" rule.

Put some foam under the strings to deaden them a little. IMO Vaseline wouldn't deaden the strings but it would mess up anything else you touched! In the 60's Binky McKenzie, a bassist with Alexis Korner's Free At Last, put Vaseline on his fretting fingers, but that was only to speed up his playing. I never saw him but friends who did were very impressed. Unfortunately his career as a bassist was cut short when he killed his parents and brother in law!!