RhysP

This is such a shock, so sad.

[quote name='CHW' timestamp='1452463362' post='2950218'] Re the whole they couldn't play thing. I have seen them state that at the time they toured the first album. That was the entirety of their repertoire. I decidedly remember them mentioning that as a band, they couldn't even play Johnny b Goode. [/quote] I saw them on their first tour & the tracks from the first album were all that they played. For encores they played most of them again.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1452449082' post='2950040'] Agreed - and I think it's fingerstyle and JT. Yes, JT did/does have Bernard Edwards' Stingray - he talked about it in a BGM article a couple of years back and said he'd used it a lot for recording at that time. [/quote] Bernard Edwards bequeathed the Stingray to Taylor after his death in 1996. Taylor also has Edwards' BC Rich Eagle bass now too - THAT'S the one I'd want to get my hands on.

I don't know what it is as I ignore measurements & just go by feel. It's over 4mm though.

[quote name='kusee pee' timestamp='1452446553' post='2950008'] I've never had a reason to believe it wasn't JT. The style of playing on the first two albums is pretty consistent and the line is pretty straightforward to play with fingers. Every time I've seen them live he plays it with fingers and it doesn't seem problematic at all. Harder to play with a pick IMO. [/quote] You're absolutely right, it's much harder to play with a pick. It just feels right when you play it with fingers. There are so many great bass parts on that album - one of my favourite "put it on & play along" albums ever.

Just pick one & get used to it. 3mm isn't a high action BTW - if you think that's high you'd never manage to play any of my basses.

Wasn't Rio recorded before he got all chummy with Bernard Edwards anyway? That didn't happen until all that godawful Power Station supergroup bollocks.

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1452442035' post='2949952'] RhysP: most of the arpeggiated parts were Jupiter 4 rather than 8. A very different synth from the later 6 and 8, quite limited voice architecture in comparison but the 4 is still a great synth. I own one, and if I could only keep one instrument then it'd be the JP4 rather than any of my basses! [/quote] I didn't know it was a 4. I'm well aware of the differences between them though, I've owned a 6 & an 8 in the past.

Why would it not be live? It's not a difficult bass part to play fingerstyle by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the "sequenced" parts are the arpeggiators on a Jupiter 8 which were very much part of the Duran Duran sound.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1452427264' post='2949776'] Crikey what a great bass part!! My thought on JT was that he played with fingers with the occasional pops. As epitomised on Girls on Film. Not sure whether this is pick or fingers. Very gnarly sound. I like his playing - had certain elements which gave him a unique style. On an Aria? [/quote] He's a good player, and was a good player from the first track on the first album. He's used lots of different basses over the years (Ricks, Wals, Kubickis, Peaveys) but was favouring Aria SB models at the time, which are very toppy, aggressive sounding basses. Play that line fingerstyle on an SB & that's what it sounds like.

[quote name='Old Man Riva' timestamp='1452380018' post='2949519'] On a similar theme I always liked Curt Smith's playing in Tears For Fears but he stood aside to allow Pino to do his thing on Badman's Song for the sake of the track. [/quote] I really likes Curt Smith's playing on the first Tears For Fears album. Never liked anything they did after that, they changed completely.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1452376469' post='2949472'] Ah ok. Autism explains it perfectly. You'll only need to hear it once, or possibly only the first part and you'll know where it's going. My son is dyslexic. Some things (academic) he just will never get. Some things (physical, dramatic arts) he just gets straight away. Quicker than anyone else ever could. Just wired differently. But that's all the more reason not to dismiss theory for other people. [/quote] I have never dismissed theory for other people - I can see no downside to learning as much theory as you can. I've never been one of these people that thinks theory stifles creativity, far from it. I wish I'd been able to learn theory but, as I said before, it just makes no sense to me.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1452375286' post='2949454'] Wow, you must be blessed with a particularly good ear and note memory. I know a lot of decent players would really struggle in that sort of situation. [/quote] Well, as I said earlier in this thread, in November at the age of 50 I was formally diagnosed as being on the Autistic spectrum, so maybe that has something to do with it. I don't understand it either. The downside to this is that over the years my sensitivity to aural stimuli (my hearing has been recently classed as hypersensitive) has become so extreme that I am unable to even listen to complex music of any kind anymore, it completely overloads me. Quiet acoustic music is pretty much all I can cope with. Luckily I've always loved folk music too.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1452371842' post='2949406'] Do you not know what any of the notes on the finger board are? [/quote] Not very well, no. But, despite all this lack of knowledge I spent 36 years playing bass in various bands, mainly original material but also a few covers too, I've played at jam nights where most of the music has been blues (I can play it, despite not liking it, it's very easy) & I've done some well paid session work in Cardiff. I still get people contacting me to ask if I'll play with them. Most of the music I grew up listening to & learning to play to was fairly complex (progressive rock, jazz fusion) but I was able to listen to the stuff once or twice & then play it. I'm sure there are plenty of situations where I wouldn't have been able to play because of my inability to understand theory, but luckily these appear to have been things I had no interest in anyway. I don't really play bass these days because I got bored with it. I play more guitar these days as I find it more satisfying. And I don't know what I'm doing on guitar either.

Well, you obviously have a Musicman Sub bass of some kind. Pictures would help a lot.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1452366266' post='2949345'] This is interesting. You must at least know the names of the notes of a scale and where they are on the fretboard. Do you just have perfect pitch and play completely by ear? You wouldn't last one minute in any of the bands I've played in. How can you dep if the band leader says 'blues in E'? [/quote] No, I don't know the names of the notes of a scale and where they are on the fretboard. My ears are pretty good. I probably wouldn't like any of the bands you've played in, and I wouldn't play a blues of any sort because I f***ing hate blues. I didn't dep, I was never interested in doing that sort of thing, largely because the sort of bands that usually require deps play the sort of music I don't like.

[quote name='chardbass' timestamp='1452347610' post='2949114'] Was it played with a plectrum? Planet Earth was and still is but he plays Rio fingerstyle now. If BE had played the original I think it would have been tighter tbh. JT's a nice player but he's no Nick Beggs :-) [/quote] Sounds like fingers to me. It's one of those lines that's just really natural to play fingerstyle.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1452333252' post='2948886'] I currently have the best 2 rigs I've ever owned sitting in the room behind me so, of the gear I've sold, I have a dead heat between my 80's-90's rig a Dynacord BS412 115 combo and my 90's-00's rig an Ampeg SVT3 PRO through Mesa Boogie 210 & 115 cabs. These all used EV speakers, sounded like a force of nature and weighed as much as a small planet! Unusually for me I was actually sad when I sold these rigs. [/quote] Those Dynacord combo's are fantastic. I had a chance of getting one when I bought my Trace rig many years ago. With hindsight I really wish I'd gone for the Dynacord.

I'd love to have tried my Zon Legacy Elite through my old Sunn Beta combo.

[quote name='Naetharu' timestamp='1452274623' post='2948439'] I'm not sure you quite understand..... [/quote] Would you like to try & be a little more patronising? I know exactly what you mean.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1452246309' post='2947928'] Yeah - even allowing for the colour not photographing well, that's not even close to the Fender Burgundy Mist is it? Not a bad colour in itself, but not exactly what it says on the tin [/quote] I think it's a nice colour too - Musicman used to do a colour called (I think) Lavender Pearl & it's much closer to that.

The other thing you could try, if you haven't already, is playing with the wider, rounded end of the pick instead of the pointy end. This is the way I hold picks normally &, to me at least, it does have a mellower sound than when I use the pointy end. Try not to bite my head off this time, I'm only trying to help......

You can only pay in Nazi gold too.

[quote name='gs_triumph' timestamp='1452200995' post='2947630'] Is it normal for strap locks to rattle? [/quote] Do you mean the bit that clips onto the strap button? Yes, it is normal for them to rattle.