TimR

[quote name='Clarky' post='755384' date='Feb 23 2010, 07:54 PM']Doesn't matter what grounds I had to buy, I was merely pointing out that its a fallacy that you cannot commute on a Harley as they are actually very practical (well the Sportster definitely was). I really am not sure what your point is. Harleys are nice bikes, they are iconic, they are objects of desire, last forever if treated right (and not nicked like mine were) ..... And?????.[/quote] Because we consume with our eyes. Regardless of whether something is best fit. Look at the adverts for Porsches, Lamborghini and Harley verses those for any hot hatch. Do they figure commuters or women getting loads of shopping in the boot? No. Harley don't make commuter bikes, doesn't mean you can't commute on one though. Watch the marketing for this bass. Lets see how quickly the price drops. Advertise it for £5k+ in loads of mags, put it in the shops while everyone lusts over one then drop the price £2k and watch the rush for a bargain. Cynical? Who me? If they've done their market research, there are people out there who like them. If they haven't does it matter? Are they built to order? If they don't mass produce them there will hardly be loads sitting in a warehouse somehere.

[quote name='Clarky' post='755303' date='Feb 23 2010, 06:43 PM']Erm, I commuted to work in London on a Harley for years (a Sportster to begin with, later a Fat Boy). Very reliable, massive torque, low seats (so easy to clamber on in a business suit), looked wicked (the Harley, not the suit).[/quote] So, did you buy a Harley because it was a cheap bike, economical, you could nip in and out of the traffic, drive it in all weathers and it wouldn't matter if it got covered in road salt or if you scratched it when you got knocked off, or because it looked wicked and was a head turner. People from all walks of life ride Harleys? Do you see many people turning up at the dole office riding them? Do you see many couriers riding them? I put 'rich' in inverted commas to reflect that again its a relative term. All I am saying is that it is the hobby musician with income independent of music that subsidises all of these things, Guitars, effects units, boutique amps etc. If the company making these bases makes a loss on them, and you have to hope they've done some sort of market research, I will be very surprised.

[quote name='silddx' post='754897' date='Feb 23 2010, 12:37 PM'] I was talking about [b]inspiration [/b]not getting a good deal. Even so, I am not at all clear on the point you are trying to make.[/quote] Your OP was how can you justify spending £5350 on a new bass? If I know that there is a second hand market then I'm not spending £5K+, I'm spending £5k - resale value. If there was no second hand market then the prices would have to be much lower, but there will always be people who are prepared to spend more for a new bass with warranty etc. You could buy a £5k bass, do 30 £100 gigs with it. Sell it for £2k and will have broken even, and had good use out of an expensive bass and someone would have a top expensive bass for less than half price. Put your own numbers in and see if you can justify it. BUT this only works if you are a hobby musician with a job supporting your hobby. Hobby musicians who want the lastet gear (people with GAS) are what the industry relies on. Someone posted about Harleys earlier, same thing, they don't make bikes for cummuters, they make bikes for 'rich' people to play with. By 'rich' I mean anyone who has the ability to save enough to buy one.

[quote name='silddx' post='754476' date='Feb 22 2010, 10:28 PM']... In my case, it was inspiration that made me up my game and get a Warwick, I needed something reliable, ergonomically designed and versatile. I did my research, bought one second hand and it remains, most of the time, my number one bass. ...[/quote] So you got a good deal. Someone had to originally buy it new. Not you as you couldn't afford it, but someone did, decidided to move on or up and sell their old one. The guys who designed and built that bass have to eat, feed their kids, drive cars, and live in houses. How much was the first fender in relation to a weeks money. Many people sitting in the building where I work get £5000 a day! They're not proffesional musicians though, but they are the sort of people who are subsidising the rest of us and giving us the ability to buy second hand high end models at a good price.

I guess research and build costs have pushed the price up, especially if they've recognised that they will have limited appeal and they'll only sell a limited number. Give it a couple of years and if they are still making them the price will drop. There are people around who would be happy owning and playing them just because it grabs attention just like headless basses did in the 80's, and still do to a certain extent. £5k on it might be worth it if its going to become a collectors item. Buy one and store it, especially if it has a serial number in the low 100s. There are plenty of people who do that.

[quote name='Bloodaxe' post='751512' date='Feb 20 2010, 12:39 AM']Get a fretless & there are notes between the notes...[/quote] Or the Geddy Lee Jazz which has notes within notes.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='745322' date='Feb 14 2010, 09:44 PM']Something I've never been able to work out, are the dommies guitar or bass amps? I have a mkIII I'm trying to flog and I've always used it as a guitar amp, but I've wondered if they started off life as a bass amp and went through the same transition as some Fenders. It's cool looking back over the gear from yesteryear. Lots of people seem to be starting out on Peaveys and Carlsbros. I'm sure people talking in a similar thread in 20 years would all be talking about their old Ashdowns they wished they never sold hehe.[/quote] And not suprisingly mainly 100w 15" combos.

At least you can take comfort in that it probably didn't take you a year to get to the standard that you were happy gigging. It just took a year for them to get a gig that the other bass player couldn't do.

As Jenifer says Rushing is speeding up so the song gets faster at the end than it started, although as I say often this will happen just over one phrase and settle down again. Maybe Drawing is an American term, in the UK we'd call it dragging and again it's slowing the whole tune down and can happen over the whole song or just one passage. Maybe as the drummer gets tired. Playing ahead of the beat but with constant tempo drives the song. Listen to 'Crazy Little thing called Love' by Queen and note how the drums, bass and Vocals are ahead the Guitar is playing on the beat. We've tried to play it but the singer and drummer couldn't get the feel and it sounded like a bad Elvis cover.

Rushing and dragging are not the same as playing in front of and behind the beat. Rushing happens when the musician gets to a hard quick phrase and tries to jam it all in too quickly rather than taking their time over it. Dragging is more likely to happen when the phrase is hard rhythm wise and the player struggles to get it or is not listening to the rest of the band.

[quote name='ped' post='738510' date='Feb 7 2010, 09:41 PM']OK Tim, here is a square crop, and to satisfy Rasta's request for a black and white image I put it to greyscale too. ped[/quote] Nice crop, you have a better eye than I do. I like the colour though the light green and brown are really complimentary. Anyway - Avatar?

I know of at least 3 rehearsal rooms who have storage space. You only pay a nominal monthly fee think it was £5 a few years back. They make their money because they know you will rehearse there. Just need to work on a bit of logistics when you have a gig and need to pick up gear and return gear.

I would crop that shot square. Taking off the top 4 visible frets and half of the bottom chair cushion.

I find that when I struggle to get the tone I want from my bass its usually time to change the strings. Its not possible to AB strings to see if they are dead yet, they just slowly die and that creeps up on you, all of a sudden you're playing one day and you just think "I need some new gear this just sounds so awful".

Absolutely. Ham and Cabbage or Ham and Sprout Pizzas for me from now on then.

Ultimately there are only two catagories of people who listen to the bass tone at a gig. 1) The Bass player. 2) A Bass player in the audience. To most people we're the big guitar at the back. Other players have complemented me on my tone. I assume my playing sucks, but the piece of wood and other expensive hardware I bought to smash those notes out sounds good.

There's always another option. Keep the Hawkwind tribute band going but become the 'leader' and get a new musician to fill his place. He's the one who wants to change direction. I assume you have gigs and the rest of you already know the tunes. Join his band and play his lines (and ask for some pay if your that way inclined and see how long he insists you play them, or play for free for a bit of fun with a mental note to play until it is not fun or you start getting paid) Why only play in one band? I can't see that you will suddenly get lots of paying gigs in a start up originals band.

I still have one in white. I paid £350 for it in 1987. Not much bottom end, I used to boost with a Boss graphic EQ. Apart from that very low action and very nice tone. I took it to get valued and I was quoted £50 for resale. BUT for insurance purposes the shop owner said that to get a new bass of the equivalent quality I would be looking at paying £1600. I occasionally look on ebay to see if any come up, just out of interest, but have never seen one sell. I've seen a couple not make the reserve bidding stopping at £50.

I asked my wife earlier if she would ever give me an ultimatum like that. She replied "What band? What basses?" Then went back to facebook, MSN, and texting someone..... all while watching Eastenders.

Very sad news indeed. As if things couldn't be any worse, on BBC London yesterday his father was interviewed saying they had no travel insurance and they are looking at bill for £10,000+ each to repatriate to the UK. That's just terrible.

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' post='721431' date='Jan 22 2010, 05:35 PM']Indeed, it isn't. But it might be a problem for the band leader, he might be upset about it, and I want to exercise a little sensitivity to that. S.P.[/quote] It depends on your reason for leaving. Maybe explaining why you are leaving to the band leader would force him to sort the problem?

One issue I had with the drummer in my last band was that he thought to make anything sound better we had to play it faster. (I believe this is known is most pro circles as "the amateurs disease" or similar) It came to a head one night when we ended up listening to the original of Walking on Sunshine because I was fed up with playing it so fast, and him saying it was still not fast enough. A quick trick is to count the number of beats in 6 seconds and multiply by 10. So after a couple of bars I said it was somewhere between 100 and 110. I didn't really care whether we played it at 100, 110 or even 120 I just wanted a definitive tempo rather than his attempts at playing it faster each time to try to get it sounding 'good', to the point that singer couldn't get the words out and people couldn't dance to it. He disagreed with 110 straight away and said it had to be much faster, then continually speeded up his metronome to try to get it to match. Eventually he got it up to 180 before giving up and trying again from 100, finding something close and giving one of those looks people give when they've been proved completely wrong and still can't admit it. Another thing he used to do was go with the bass, so if I played behind the beat he slowed and if I played ahead he speeded up. He would then complain I was rushing or dragging. His background was marching band where everyone plays on the beat! But he was solid, start it fast and keep it fast regardless, which meant that there was no lift for the chorus and then drop back for the verse or any other subtleties like that, certainly no slowing, even if it was obviously too fast to start with. Once the tempo was set, it was set. In the latest band the drummer sings some numbers and has a habit of slowing during the songs he sings if there is a syncopated bass drum, and he also has a habit of compensating for the guitar solos that slow down and speed up. We've sort of got round the singing by getting him to play straight bass drum and let me worry about the syncopation on the bass. The guitarist needs to practice his solos, I'll find away of broaching that subject soon.

The Circle of fifths is easy to learn because its already mapped out on your bass. Imagine a six string bass with top string as C, next one down G, then D, A, E and B. That's the major # keys starting with C no sharps and ending on B with 5 sharps. Now up one semitone but this time ascending the strings. C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db. Gives you all the major b keys. C no flats up to Db with 5 flats. All you need to do now is learn which sharps and flats are present in each key. If you look closely this is pretty simple to do as well. Clearer? If you ever see a piece of music in F# or Gb run!

So if we agree that music is a language. Most of us can understand by listening and most of us can speak it. Some of us can read and write and get good jobs because of that. Some of us understand the rules of its grammar and can use that to create our own music, and get even better jobs.

[quote name='thunderbird13' post='698250' date='Jan 1 2010, 06:53 PM']I'm the total opposite I trained myself to think in terms of notes . I thought this was more "correct" to do until I had an audition last year and the guitarist changed the key just before we started playing, If I had just learnt patterns I would have been ok but instead I ended up trying to tranpose the notes and them play then. Suffice to say Iot totally lost and didnt get the gig [/quote] This is why you should be thinking in terms of intervals.