EssentialTension

I've got a pre-Ernie Ball Music Man leather strap that I've had since 1981 and it's still going strong.

I'd agree that you need to sort out the length of your strap and the way the bass sits on your shoulder in order to improve your hand position. I think putting the strap button on the lower horn is going to make the position of the bass unstable and you're going to be holding it up.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='1090212' date='Jan 15 2011, 10:32 AM']Nope - the Sutcliffe bass had the original Bakelite pickups. Here's mine: That one on eBay is from a year or so later, when they introduced the Toaster pickup. Close, but no cigar.[/quote] Very nice looker.

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='1089380' date='Jan 14 2011, 02:32 PM']obsessing over minute tonal variations which will be lost in the mix? No ta! I'd rather stick to a single split coil pickup and hold down the low end. But that's just me.[/quote] Yep, that's it.

I'd have preferred a single coil pickup and the original headstock myself, but at least they got the colour correct. Earlier thread on this [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=108675"]here[/url].

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' post='1089338' date='Jan 14 2011, 01:51 PM']Apologies for my ignorance, but who is Michael Henderson?[/quote] Wikipedia is your friend. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Henderson"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Henderson[/url]

Great film. Thanks. [url="http://www.tdpri.com/forum/telecaster-discussion-forum/255984-fender-factory-1959-a.html"]There's an interesting discussion of this film at the TDPRI.[/url] Some argument that the film must be earlier than 1959, possibly 1957, due to the appearance of a Jazzmaster prototype. And a claim that this: is [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Tavares"]Freddie Tavares[/url] playing said Jazzmaster prototype.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1088608' date='Jan 13 2011, 09:15 PM']Similar to my reaction, only mine was... messier. [/quote] It would go very nicely with the Tony Franklin.

Oh!

You're on a roll with these. Thanks very much.

[quote name='Skol303' post='1086861' date='Jan 12 2011, 04:15 PM']"Music is an art form whose medium is sound." ^ Wikipedia definition... so it must be true, right?? ;-)[/quote] That's it for John Cage's [i]4' 33"[/i] then. Or we could try 'Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence'.

[quote name='BassMunkee' post='1086714' date='Jan 12 2011, 02:02 PM']... You can bring out as many theories as you like but [b]it boils down to what you as an individual think and feel about it.[/b] ...[/quote] That seems to be merely another theory.

[quote name='Tech' post='1086340' date='Jan 12 2011, 05:00 AM']... I think the common factor for art is expression.[/quote] Expression of what? Does that lead to asking 'what is expression?' instead of 'what is art?'? Anyway, theory number 7: 7: [u]The Expressive Theory[/u]: art communicates something, usually feelings or emotions. Leo Tolstoy said: 'To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced and having evoked it once in oneself then by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit this feeling that others experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.'

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1086316' date='Jan 12 2011, 12:56 AM']Getting the sense of a very large iceberg here.....[/quote] That often happens when you dive below the surface.

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1086285' date='Jan 12 2011, 12:17 AM']There must be a book on this topic out there somewhere ......[/quote] There are many many books on 'what is art?' and 'what is the value of art?'. Based on the the quality of his other introductory books [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Question-Nigel-Warburton/dp/0415174902/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_10"]Nigel Warburton [i]The Art Question[/i][/url] is likely to be a good starting point as is Cynthia Freeland [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Theory-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192804634/ref=pd_sim_b_1"][i]Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction[/i][/url]. Anyway, here’s six standard theories of what art is, put very very briefly: 1: [u]The Imitative Theory[/u]: art is copying, imitating or representing - [i]mimesis[/i] is the technical term - and this includes symbolic representation. [Plato & Aristotle] 2: [u]The Significant Form Theory[/u]: genuine art produces an aesthetic response (an emotion) in the relevantly sensitised spectator, listener or reader; artworks can do this because they possess 'significant form' (whatever that is, but, it is claimed, the relatively sensitised spectator etc., can respond to 'significant form'). [Clive Bell] 3: [u]The Idealist Theory[/u]: art is an idea in the mind of the artist, and is not the artefact (or fabrication) produced as a response to the idea. [R.G. Collingwood] 4: [u]The Institutional Theory[/u]: art arises in a social context and is always located within relevant social practices which we can call the artworld such that x is art if and only if x is an artefact and if and only if someone, acting on behalf of an institution (i.e. the artworld), gives that artefact the status of being an object for artistic appreciation. In other words, art is such when someone with the social power and authority to call it art does so (e.g. an art dealer such Charles Saatchi). [Arthur Danto, George Dickie]. 5: [u]The Historical Theory[/u]: for something to be art, the intention of the maker (i.e. the artist) is the crucial factor. [I don't know, without looking it up, who developed this theory] 6: [u]The Family Resemblance Theory[/u]: what qualifies a thing as art it is that the thing resembles already known art-works in relevant ways. [Ludwig Wittgenstein] Aesthetics is not really my field but I believe those are roughly correct although heavily simplified representations of some standard positions on what constitutes art. Of course, they are all problematic and they don't deal with why or how we might value art. There is a Basschatter who teaches philosophy of art but I cannot recall his name. Perhaps he'll be popping along later.

Malekko B:Assmaster

[quote name='fraff' post='1084701' date='Jan 10 2011, 07:31 PM']Dave you're a star! Will have a good root round all those links. Thanks a million. Ian[/quote] You're welcome. These are in my view great basses but they are also idiosyncratic basses with their own character. Although my go to bass is almost always a Fender P, I'd find it hard to part with the Decade. You'll want to check out the [url="http://www.lakland.com/ac_decade.htm"]sound samples at Lakland[/url] too.

And here's Dan Lakin talking about and playing the Decade: [url="http://www.gearwire.com/lakland-decade-walkthrough.html"]http://www.gearwire.com/lakland-decade-walkthrough.html[/url]

There is an ergonomic issue which some people on TB complained about. The top horn is short and finishes at the 13th fret rather than about 11th fret on a Precision. So the Decade hangs further to the left on the strap and the first fret then feels further away than you would be used to. With a good thick strap you can hang it to the right and, in my experience this is not a problem. The Jazz style necks on these (and owners of the one that sold this week on BC will I'm sure agree) are fabulous - very true, very fast, excellent binding and fret work. The Chisonic pickups are unusual I feel. They were influnced by Hammon Engineering's Dark Star pickups which were themselves a reverse engineering of the Hagstrom Bisonics (hence Chisonics) found in the Guild basses of the late 60s. The early Decades were fitted with Dark Stars as standard. I don't myself think that the preamp version is necessary. The pickups have a high output and a wide frequency response and are sensitive to where you play the strings and how hard you dig in.

[quote name='fraff' post='1084185' date='Jan 10 2011, 01:36 PM']Cheers! Not sure I need an active for what I do - hardly ever use the active circuit on my Sandberg TBH. Have seen a new passive one for £900 which is a nicer looking sum! 8lb 14oz from what I can see. I could live with that I reckon, doesn't sound too bad. Thanks both.[/quote] Mine is 9lbs and maybe 1oz.

[quote name='fraff' post='1083975' date='Jan 10 2011, 10:17 AM']A recent F/S thread has has reignited my GAS for one of these beasts. Anyone have experience of them within a fairly 'heavy' psych/rock band set up? I guess my main question is how 'vintage' do they sound? I love me Sandberg as my main gigging bass and I can get a good P sound out of it which works live (perhaps less so in the studio), but obviously it doesn't have that late 60s vibe that I'm thinking about. So, I'm hankering after something that gets me that late 60s birth-of-rock edge. Anyone with experience of the Decade think it will cut it? Or indeed any other recommendations? Remembering of course that don't have the funds for a late 60s J or P! Thanks everyone Ian[/quote] Well, it would depend on what you mean by 'vintage' and ''heavy' psych/rock'. First, although you can [i]approximate[/i] P and J sounds on the Decade, it is definitely not a Fender. It does an excellent reggae/dub sound on the neck pickup and on that pickup with some bridge pickup added does approach a psych/rock sound - it could be compared with the sound Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane was getting with his Guild Starfire with the Hagstrom Bisonic pickups, although bear in mind here that Casady is, I think, overloading a Versatone valve combo as well as a pair of Fender Dual Showmans - bass solo at 2.26: You can get a smoother non-overdriven sound too of course which has some characteristics of a Gibson bass without the mud. Here are some interesting links: I suspect that the white Decade (which will be a US model not a Skyline) may have a swamp ash body rather than the mahogany body of the Skylines. I think the mahogany possibly gives a darker sound. This is a dark sounding bass, especially on the neck pickup.