EssentialTension

[quote name='PaulTMA' timestamp='1452086908' post='2946223'] This is proving to be a real head-scratcher. I wonder if what I have to is just go for the LaBella flats even though I'm not sure I'm going to like the added thickness, merely due to the recommendations from everywhere and the fact they have a set designed especially for Mustangs. Really just wanted something as close to a flatwound version of what I already have, though. Unless of course, I do go for the GHS set, which are 45-95 plus:[list] [*]Fits 31"-32" Scale Lengths [/list] Sound alright? [/quote] Both the Roto Jazz Bass and the GHS are medium scale which usually means 32". I cannot guarantee it but I would expect both will likely fit the Mustang. If you email Rotosound and GHS asking the speaking length if those strings then you can measure the Mustang and know in advance. Otherwise there is always a risk.

Rotosound Jazz Bass medum scale in this demo ... [url="http://youtu.be/vjlip2IpbcI"]http://youtu.be/vjlip2IpbcI[/url]

If I recall correctly, the Roto Jazz Bass are quite tense and bright sounding for flats that I have personally never been very keen on - no doubt others do like them. The GHS Precision Flats are my present string of choice.

There's quite a lot of songs being mentioned that are virtually unknown in the UK. Certainly stuff I have no familiarity with.

No.

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1451939093' post='2944861'] What is a Cash Converters? [/quote] It's an alternative name for Crack Converters.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1451980669' post='2945096'] ... it just won't be the bass guitar. [/quote] Actually, this is what I don't care about. It's not the instruments that matter, it's music that matters. But anyway, modern Western instruments like the bass guitar are still proliferating around the world so, among other things, it will be the bass guitar.

[quote name='TomRandles97' timestamp='1452015682' post='2945571'] As a young musician myself (18) I see no less attraction to 'band' music than people two or three times my age do ... [/quote] This is exactly the impression I get from the 17-18 year olds that I teach and from my slightly older son and his friends. [quote name='TomRandles97' timestamp='1452015682' post='2945571'] ... There seems to be a preconceived notion that young musicians can't be influenced by music that is not of their time, which is undoubtedly misinformed. [/quote] There is this bizarre notion, in the internet age with more music (from all continents as well as all times) more easily and readily available than ever before, that young people aren't discovering all that readily available music. Young musicians that I know tend to listen to and be influenced by a massive range of music from all around the world. They don't care who it was, or when it was, or where it came from and are much less narrow-minded than was my generation (I'm 64).

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1451939265' post='2944866'] I agree that kids are less interested in bands these days, but in my opinion it's because it seems to more about solo singer songwriters like Ed Sheerhan, Frank Turner and newer names like James Bay. Go to any open mic night... [/quote] Go to any open mic night in, say, 1972 and you'd find a proliferation of possibly not very good singer-songwriters. That's nothing new. And there are loads of young people in bands and going to see bands. It's easier than ever to be in a band. And given the ease of access by internet to the whole of world music and the history of music, it's easier than ever to be inspired.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1451925352' post='2944647'] ... it takes longer for bands to grow to the giant size of bands like Cream, Led Zep et al. [/quote] The music business today is undoubtedly different from the 1960s but Cream and Led Zeppelin didn't appear from nowhere overnight. The members of Cream were already successful in several other bands and formed a so-called supergroup. And Led Zeppelin were a continuation of the Yardbirds and contained two highly experienced session musicians plus a singer and drummer who had been playing in bands for several years. [quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1451925352' post='2944647'] ... Still, someone must be inspiring people; I've seen several really great young bands come through Reading/London in the last year (a couple of them looked like they were about 14). [/quote] Me too.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1451923096' post='2944625'] "band" based music really isn't that popular anymore (among the under 40s) ... [/quote] I asked 22 year old music student son who is in a regularly gigging band what he thought of this. He said ... (1) It's not true. (2) Although it depends what you mean by 'band' music. (3) But I guess someone over 40 said it. I also asked him who inspired him. The answer was 'everyone I ever heard including the bad stuff'. 'Give me an example.' 'Pink Floyd'

I went for an audition after being sent a setlist of sixteen songs. I had learned all sixteen. 'Did you get the setlist?' 'Yes, I learned all those.' 'Oh, OK ....... we only know four of them..' They really only knew three and I didn't get the job.

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1451922477' post='2944621'] Once we lose all the players of the 60's-70's, who's left? [/quote] You can be inspired by dead people; they have left recordings which are likely more inspiring than any recent gigs.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1451932854' post='2944760'] Two things occur to me. Firstly it was a lot easier to be ground-breaking and influential when your instrument and chosen medium was still new and seen as radical maybe even dangerous. As it becomes more and more mainstream, comfort and complacency set in. These things also go in waves and/or cycles. Right now popular music is mostly looking to the past and repurposing it in slightly different ways rather than tearing up the rules and starting from scratch. At some point, something new will happen, but it will occur in its own time and probably none of us here will see it coming. Secondly does it even matter? Those musicians being held up as inspirations from the past probably didn't see it themselves at the time. They just wanted to have some fun playing music (and having sex and doing drugs) and maybe earn a living without having to go to the factory or the office. [/quote] Yes, I agree. Whatever happened to no more heroes?

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1451922477' post='2944621'] ... Andy Fraser, Chris Squire, and of course Lemmy ... [/quote] Aren't they all about three generations ago?

I've got to agree with that. To my ear, the isolated Real Me is nearer to Casady but still not like Casady's rounded and warm but overdriven tone. Won't Get Fooled and Baba O'Riley are really very different. As I say, to my ear. Anyway, I recognize there's a subjective element in this and I admit I've been a Casady fan for nearly fifty years but never had much interest in Entwistle.

Very good.

Altamont .. http://youtu.be/D3JvyvgPtN4

[quote name='The-Ox' timestamp='1451924076' post='2944634'] what do the Alembic electronics contribute to here? In simple terms [/quote] [quote] [b]FlyGuitars[/b] When did you start using the [url="http://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/guild/bass/Starfire.php"]Guild Starfire[/url]? [b]Jack Casady[/b] I think '67 I found one. I'd heard from someone about the Guild Starfire and I can't frankly remember exactly how I arrived at it. I was probably here in Los Angeles cause we did all of our recording in Los Angeles. We'd spend a month at a time down here and then you'd wander around. We used Studio A at the RCA building on Sunset and Ivy for the first album ([url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=40"]Takes Off[/url]) we did in January / February 1966 and then later on in that year we did the second album [url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=41"]Surrealistic Pillow[/url] and I think the third album [url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=42"]Bathing At Baxters[/url]. We rented a place down here and we stayed for almost two and a half months off and on and then I did a lot of roaming around Los Angeles. One of the people in the studio I think, (told me about) that Guild bass and I bought that. I started playing around with it and brought it to the session, but I don't think I recorded with it. That third album was still a somewhat modified [url="http://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/fender/bass/Jazz.php"]Fender Jazz bass[/url]. I really liked the nature of the f-hole tone but of course it was a short scale neck, it was deficient that way. [b]Fly Guitars[/b] So you changed the electronics? [b]Jack Casady[/b] I really wanted to get not only more power out of it but I wanted to get more quality of tone because with the 31 and a half inch scale I wasn't getting the low end like I would have liked to get. I mean the speaking length was part of the problem but also I wanted to take that tone and expand it. A friend of mine, Owsley Stanley, (famous for other things) was into electronics and he also knew a guy named Ron Wickersham who later on became involved with Alembic. And we started talking about that Guild bass. So that was when he suggested that we put a preamp and run it with a 9 volt battery and also use components that were of a higher quality, including the pots. I took the pickups, that was my idea, and flipped them out and added another alnico magnet on the other side so each pickup had twice as much power. The other issue that expanded the quality of the tone that they suggested was to take it and bump it back down to low impedance. By low impedance I was able to expand the dynamic range and that's what Les Paul had used and still did use his whole career, he played a low impedance guitar. Though he didn't get the volume of the squashed up high impedance pickups, that became fashionable later on. [i]Jack Casady playing his first Guild Starfire[/i] The idea with the Guild was to experiment a lot with the preamps and also tone variants. It was nice and fancy, the one Owsely worked on. He made a nice carving, and a modular inset for the electronics. [b]FlyGuitars[/b] That was the bass you're seen using at Woodstock and on various TV show clips on You Tube? I think on You Tube there's a picture of the first bass with Jorma and I doing an NPR program. On that one you'll see the nice carved piece, beautiful the way I've stained it dark brown and it had all this inlay at the top. [b]FlyGuitars[/b] So what about the next Guild Starfire bass, the sunburst one? Later on when the (first one) got stolen I had another Guild. I (had) bought two Guilds at Chicago Music in '68 I guess it was. They were 1967 and matching. I've got one upstairs that's never been touched, but the other I sent out to Ron Wickersham. I said I've got to get this thing back out on the road. He says I've got some new ideas. I said great, I don't care about what it looks like just saw the front of the thing put in the plate, and he says well it'll be crude, it'll be a hunk of aluminium. I said great, just saw it out and bolt it in. The way we were thinking at the time, we were thinking well if you go in to a recording studio you see a channel strip with all the tone variants, notch filters and all that kind of stuff, can we put that in the bass itself and that's basically what was done. We approached it that way as if you'd have a nice long panel in front of you with all your controls and tone variants, band pas filters, notch filters all that kind of stuff and boosts which basically turned up enough would be a distortion boost but a bass boost where you could control the low end so pretty much just like you had a channel strip you know. So that's what he did he used the highest end components in there and that was the approach to the instrument. It was more an experiment with the electronics than it was the instrument itself. It looks like I literally just put a piece of aluminium with a bunch of knobs on the front. That's the one I loaned to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, it's hanging there. Source: [url="http://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php"]http://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php[/url] [/quote]

[quote name='AntLockyer' timestamp='1451927057' post='2944676'] That was the first one that got stolen I believe. [/quote] That's what I thought but it seems to have reappeared in 1970 if the date is correct.

A different Alembicised Starfire here ... http://youtu.be/mjfhsLuOEWI

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1451926238' post='2944660'] That is filthy. I'd love tone like that. And a band that it would be suitable in. So you guys reckon that tone is coming from the bass not just flatwound strings & an overdriven tube amp? [/quote] I think it's a combination of things including the flatwounds and the overdriven Versatone but also including the Bisonic pickups. What strikes me about the tone is it has a lot of warmth which, to me, makes it quite unlike John Entwistle's tone, especially his later tone.

No.

But obviously a big bargain.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1451915663' post='2944510'] For sure! It's an investment with a guaranteed return, no worries. The current mrs discreet would probably make me my favourite dinner and kiss me on the nads. [/quote] Alternatively, she might make your nads into a favourite dinner.