Krysbass

When I practice at home I tend to walk/move around while I'm playing - that somehow feels more natural than standing in the one spot. But the real problem is that at gigs the stage area is invariably too small to allow any sort of movement (whether vertically or laterally) without risking personal injury and/or damaged gear. Even in the larger venues, I always end up with a small patch about 1 metre square between the rhythm guitarist and the side of the stage.

It depends on your point of view. The overwhelming school of thought seems to be that choosing the same "iconic" basses that the world and his wife has chosen for the last 50+ years is still cool somehow. I prefer the opposing view, where true cool is about not running with the herd.

As a music non-reader who’s happy to also admit to not being able to name most of the notes on the bass fretboard (though not saying I’m proud of that) I think my lack of musical theory is due to one simple reason: As a bassist in covers bands and currently an originals band, I’ve never found myself in a situation where I’ve needed it and never had any difficulty in communicating with other musos due to my lack of it. Believe me – if I thought it would benefit my playing in any tangible way, I would somehow find the time to do some swotting up on it. And that shouldn’t be too difficult for me, because when I was about 12 (a very long time ago) I had to read music to enable me to play clarinet in the school orchestra. But I’ve never needed to read music since, so I’ve totally lost that skill. The point I’m trying to make is that in most things, most of us tend to learn only what we need to know to enable us to achieve what we want to achieve. – For example; you don’t need to read and digest the entire Haynes manual in order to do as good a job as a qualified mechanic in safely replacing the brake discs on your car.

Dyed in the wool bassist here - never played guitar, and from the moment I started enjoying listening to music it was bass that had my attention. Besides; I just wasn't interested in having to learn chords and put up with constantly breaking strings! (only broken a bass string once in nearly 30 years).

I use my Ashdown Little Giant 1000 with two 250 watt cabs without any problems. For the uninitiated - that's two 500 watt power amps, each going into a 250 watt cab. I get all the volume I need in my rather loud originals rock band without any problems. I think it's just a question of using your ears - if the cabs start "pharting" (and mine haven't yet) then it's time to rein things in. I have this setup to ensure the amp is always well within headroom, which will hopefully help with long-term reliability - it certainly never seems to get hot and bothered, which I know is a problem some Little Giant owners have reported.

That's a major shame, coz it increases the risk that Westone may now drift into even greater obscurity among players who are too young to have been around in the brand's heyday. By the way, just to correct a common misconception - yes; Westone were best known for their "budget" or "entry level" guitars and basses, but they also made some tasty mid to higher priced stuff too, such as the Thunder II or III. When I bought my Thunder III back in 1985, I could have had a USA Fender Jazz for about the same money - never regretted that decision! But there is still a glimmer of hope - check out [b]forum.westoneguitars.net [/b]- maybe they can step in to help fill the gap? KB

I’ve been using a Little Giant 1000 for 12 months and have had no problems. But one thing some users may overlook is that the underside gets quite hot in use and since the amp is supplied without any feet on the underside, this surface is in direct contact with top of your speaker cab. This is bound to prevent efficient cooling, which is not a great idea for longevity. To get round this I just put some self-adhesive feet (available online from Maplin) on the underside of my LG, giving a gap of around 1cm below the casing to allow better airflow. When deciding how much to spend on an amp, my view was that even an expensive amp can break down (and posts on this forum confirm that they do), so however much you spend, it’s still wise to have a backup - at least if you're gigging regularly. Much as I’d like a high-end amp, my worry was that if it goes wrong, is it going to cost more to repair – a bit like owning a BMW as opposed to a Ford? The Little Giant and the Superfly that I have as a backup cost me £240 and £199 respectively and at this price level, if one of them breaks down I would probably consider just ordering a new amp as an alternative to waiting/paying for a repair. Hopefully just some food for thought.

Have to say that I was annoyed by the reference/picture of the "Aria Pro II". The blurb referred to John Taylor and Cliff Burton as noted players - fine. But both these guys played an Aria Pro II [b]SB[/b][u][/u] and this was not the bass pictured. This information is so well-known in the bass domain that it just smacks of plain laziness to not have it presented fully and correctly. Rant over.

• Features: ***** • Action, Fit, & Finish: *** • Sound Quality: ***** • Reliability/Durability: **** • Ease of Use: ***** • Customer Support: not used • Overall Rating: **** Cost: £465 from Gear 4 Music, November 2010. [attachment=75551:SR600FULLL.JPG] [attachment=75549:SR600BODYL.JPG] [attachment=75550:SR600HEAD.JPG] I had tried out a friend’s SR500 before buying this SR600 - these 2 models are very similar; the 600’s body is ash instead of mahogany and hardware is matt black instead of a “cosmo black” finish. The electronics and other features are identical and there was only £5 difference in the price, so my choice came down to preferring the light wood on the SR600 – marginally influenced by having read somewhere about avoiding mahogany for ecological reasons. [b]FEATURES & EASE OF USE[/b] The bass is made in Indonesia, but the pickups are Bartolini mk1’s - apparently USA-made. It arrived well packaged, with instruction manual, a basic quality lead and a set of 3 allen keys. 2 of the allen keys are for adjusting the truss-rod and bridge and the 3rd is to tighten or adjust the screws holding the knobs onto the 5 control pots. The controls are intuitive; there’s a 3-band active EQ with centre-notched boost/cut rotary controls for bass, mid and treble. Each EQ knob has a small white dot so you can see the setting. Then there’s a single volume control and a centre-notched rotary pickup-blend control. It’s worth mentioning that neither of the latter 2 controls have any sort of marking, so unfortunately you can’t see what volume or pickup settings you’re currently using. A new feature on the 2010 model is a switch enabling either 250Hz or 600Hz to be selected as the mid-frequency. The chosen frequency is then either boosted or cut via the mid tone control, giving this bass a much broader range of tonal options. The output from the active pickups is strong and battery consumption is low – the supplied, non-alkaline, single 9 volt PP3 battery was still going strong around 4 months after the bass arriving (for me, that’s about 110 hours’ playing). But this bass won’t work without battery power, so carrying a spare is advisable – changing the battery is easy and needs no tools to open the battery cover. The neck is a 5-piece laminate of jatoba/bubinga; two similarly coloured dark woods, evidently with a lot of inherent strength as the neck is quite slim. The fingerboard is rosewood, inlaid with oval abalone markers. Elixir strings are fitted as standard – I like the tone, but the coating started to peel off after less than 2 months leaving the strings looking increasingly furry and distressed. Although the tone is still fine, it looks terrible! Once the strings are dead, I think I’ll be going back to my favourite uncoated stainless steel roundwounds. [b]ACTION, FIT AND FINISH[/b] The medium sized frets were well finished and the action was set fairly low. I wanted to make some very minor adjustments and this was easily done by sliding open the truss-rod cover (no screwdriver needed) and releasing the truss-rod tension by a quarter turn. I also raised the bridge saddles by a quarter turn. The intonation was fine as supplied. After about a month of owning the bass, I was playing it unplugged and noticed a slight rattle when playing certain notes. To check the bass over, I removed the strings (quick and easy due to the bridge design) and found that the nuts holding the tuning heads to the headstock were all very loose as were the small screws holding a couple of the tuning heads to the back of the headstock. I checked the bridge and neck securing screws were fully tightened too, and although most of them could be tightened further, none were as loose as the tuning heads. Perhaps some of this will have been the bass settling after manufacture, but it looks like the QC was a bit lacking too – if it hadn’t been for this, I’d have given full marks for action fit and finish. Putting the strings back on, I re-checked the intonation, finding that it now needed adjustment, but the annoying rattle has been absent ever since. I’m pleased with the quality of the hardware on this bass – the bridge is solid and visibly better engineered than the piece of bent steel still favoured on some new basses, and the tuning heads feel smooth in operation. [b]SOUND QUALITY[/b] The overall tone of the SR600 is bright, but cutting the treble on the active EQ tames things substantially, so the natural brightness of this bass doesn’t have to be a problem if you don’t want it. Some basses have a very obvious drop in volume between the neck and bridge pickups, but this isn’t one of them – the volume is very evenly matched. I’ve found that soloing the bridge pickup with a cut in the treble and a boost in the bass cuts through the wall of sound from the 2 guitars in my originals rock band. Using both pickups equally gives a more bassy, mellow tone, but even this can be given more presence by boosting the mids at 250hz. The placement of the neck pickup and the space between strings and body encourages my rare attempts at slap bass – rewarded by some really good tones. Using the neck pickup on its own remains uncharted territory for me, since so far I’ve found all the tones I want through both pickups or just the bridge pickup. Experimenting with getting a powerful bass-heavy tone, I found this was best done by using both pickups equally, fully cutting the treble, switching the mids to 600hz and slightly cutting this frequency, then boosting the bass – the result was thunderous! When practicing at home I play along to a wide variety of musical styles and have found this bass is as versatile as it needs to be. After I’ve set up at a gig or practice I never alter the tone settings on my amp and can get all of the tonal variation I need from the controls on this bass. [b]RELIABILITY/DURABILITY[/b] I only have one reservation on this bass withstanding the rigours of life on the road: whilst the amount of wood removed from the heavily contoured body gives it a light weight and a great look, gently tap the wood around the control knobs and it sounds thin. I may be wrong there, but I’ll be taking care not to find out the hard way! [b]OVERALL RATING[/b] I’ve always preferred basses that don’t conform to the traditional vibe of Fender and its copyists, but I know there are many players who have the opposite view. So the looks of this bass won’t appeal to everyone and even I wouldn’t have bought it on looks alone. Where it’s really showing its worth for me is in a band situation where my tone cuts through much better than ever before and this bass is so comfortable to play for long periods of time that despite the minor issues and reservations I’ve had, my only regret is taking so long to check one of these out. Overall, I think the Ibanez SR600 is good value for money and if I ever decide to replace it, it would probably be to upgrade to one of the higher spec SR models.

I think JT only played 2 basses - Peavey Cirrus 4 and 5 strings. Noticed he seemed to have his bass slung much lower than back in the 80’s – has cool won out over ergonomics? Happy to admit to being massively influenced by JT’s playing – but never much into DD. Nothing against the band themselves – it just didn’t seem worth going to one of their gigs, knowing that it would be impossible to hear or see the band due to the demographics of their fanbase. I enjoyed the programme, but the ad-break after every 2 songs was a reminder of why the licence fee is a good idea.

Simple answer is that I haven't! - and I've been playing since 1982. I've tried to apply myself to learning it - I've even got a coffee mug at work with the fretbord map on it, so it's constantly in front of me, but still the motivation just isn't there to fully commit it to memory. Problem is I've never found myself in a situation where I wished I knew it, because not knowing the names of all the notes I'm playing (by ear) doesn't seem to hamper my playing. It certainly would do if I had to read music - but I don't do that either. Don't get me wrong - I'm not recommending my approach, in fact I know I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself

and another +1 for the Ibanez SR600 - I bought one back in November 2010, mainly because I was suffering back and shoulder pain due to the weight and neck-heavy balance of my other bass. My shoulder and back pain were gone within 3 weeks of the SR600 arriving and have not returned. I've tried both an SR500 and a 600 and I couldn't tell if one was heavier than the other - so as they were roughly the same price I opted for the 600, partly because I read somewhere that mahogany should be avoided for environmental reasons, but mainly (being honest!) because I liked the aesthetic of the light ash against the black t-shirts I always wear when gigging!

[quote name='BluRay' post='1156505' date='Mar 10 2011, 12:44 PM']Westone Thunder 1a. First bass - and still gets used the most 25 years on[/quote] My 1984 Westone Thunder III - second "proper" bass (the first one was a Thunder 1A). In its 26th year and going strong. [attachment=74523:WTIIIangle.JPG] EDIT: Thinking about it, I [u]would[/u] actually have no objection in principle to selling this bass, problem is that no-one would pay the money I’d want for it.

My fretted '84 Westone Thunder III has a rather nice looking ebony 'board. I can't really comment on how this may affect the tone compared to rosewood, but on a totally superficial level it looks nice and I've always enjoyed the fact that it's just something a little bit different, given that rosewood is by far the more typical wood used.

As with everything, it all comes down to personal preference. I’m totally opposite to an earlier post in this thread in that I took up playing bass a long time ago to be able to play some of the wide range of music I enjoy. Creating my own music has never ranked high on my list of priorities – for me constantly improving my bass-playing is an end in itself. Even though I’m currently in an originals band where I create my own bass-lines, most of my home practice time is spent playing other people’s music – because I enjoy it and it improves my overall playing. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with tribute or covers bands – no more so than any other type of band. I recently saw Brit Floyd at Liverpool’s Echo Arena and they were so good that it was a “shivers down the spine” experience. I came away from that gig having been thoroughly entertained and that’s what it should be about.

Yes I usually do get paid, but even at best it maybe only just covers the overheads of hiring the rehearsal room, petrol, strings etc. But I do this for [u]enjoyment[/u], so I'd never let nil remuneration stand in the way of doing a gig. C.

First bass: A secondhand, nondescript, short-scale, very tenuous Precision copy with a plywood body and a knackered pickup that I had to re-wind by hand. 'Go to' bass: My current Ibanez SR600 'My' Bass: My 1985 Westone Thunder III

[quote name='jmstone' post='1129722' date='Feb 16 2011, 03:00 PM']Wow! Didn't expect to hear this - very interesting! Did you have to buy your own PA etc. for these gigs? And how did you go about getting the gigs originally? James[/quote] We were a 5-piece band and the singer owned the PA. We didn't have a demo CD or even a band website, but set the ball rolling by doing 2 or 3 "mates rates" gigs at a local frequented by our 2 guitarists - we then asked the landlord to be a reference for us when we booked other venues - he did and it took off from there. I have to say, I'm not that big a fan of indie music, so a lot of the stuff we played I'd never heard before, but I enjoyed the challenge of having to learn those songs completely cold. We also dropped in some late 70's/early '80's punk and new wave - we sometimes opened with the Sex Pistols "Pretty Vacant" - that went down a storm! Not everything we played was obscure and I think if you can mix those songs with enough songs that at least most of your audience are familiar with, you'll get away with it.

[quote name='jmstone' post='1129282' date='Feb 16 2011, 09:45 AM']Getting slightly tired of the originals circuit in London, and was thinking of setting up a band to play some 80s/90s Indie, a bit of Beefheart maybe, some Fall.. But my question is - is it possible to get gigs for such a band? Would anyone book us? Would anyone listen!!??[/quote] I was in a covers band doing exactly this sort of stuff, mostly playing pubs. Every gig we did we were getting repeat bookings straight away and out of that we even had one booking for a private party. We had plenty of positive comments from landlords and audiences alike, saying what we were doing was a welcome change from "the same old stuff". - But we were based in the mid-Cheshire area, so I can't say how well this formula might work in London. The band folded in June 2010, having to cancel a number of bookings - the problem was that our singer got Lead Singers Disease and went weird on us, so I guess the most important thing is to make sure everyone in your band is going to be committed to the type of music you are playing.

Constant repetition is where it's at - the songs will soon become second nature. I never use anything written down to work out or to help memorise a song. I just put mp3's of all the songs I need to learn on my Micro BR and then both listen to them carefully and play over them as part of my home practice routine. In my case, the 90 minute round trip to/from work is useful time to listen carefully to the songs, count repetitions and work out where cues are - no bass needed for that one!

Being able to master both styles is ideal. But I began playing with a pick back in the '80's and then switched to fingerstyle. Now I only play fingerstyle. I'd like to be able to do both, but I don't have the time to do the neccessary amount of practice to do them both well, so I'd rather be good at my chosen style than poor or mediocre at both. My choice of fingerstyle is based on my personal view (ie not expecting everyone to agree) that this is more versatile across a variety of musical genres.

Has anyone read the copy in the Bass Cellar ad in BGM? - I fell asleep one night just trying to count the spelling and grammatical errors! I appreciate that the copy of that ad isn't the responsibility of BGM, but maybe the errors in the Bass Cellar ad are infectious? Seriously though - apart from the odd slip-up, I think the standard has noticeably improved overall in the 3 years I've been a subscriber. Still waiting for the issue that came out on 22nd December though Edit: I made a grammatical error!

I recently bought an Ibanez SR600 and it ticks all the boxes for me for sound, versatility, playing comfort, looks and price. But I didn’t arrive at this after sampling any bass exotica – in fact, it’s only the 5th in a line of low or mid-priced basses I’ve owned since I started playing in 1982 – and I still own the 3rd and 4th of those basses. Having played for so long, I’m a reasonably solid player and in those circumstances I guess many people could justify investing in something "reassuringly expensive". And I GAS over high-end basses as much as anyone, but if I actually owned one I’d be afraid to take it out of the house to a gig or rehearsal in case it was stolen or damaged. I can’t just see a bass as a tool and ignore whatever scars the instrument may pick up along the way – I’d lose sleep over stuff like that and insurance companies would love me, as I'd rarely trouble their claims department! I’d get so hung up on an expensive bass’s value that I’d even be afraid to play the thing with a degree of enthusiasm that might scratch the finish or damage it in some way – so it would probably hinder my playing. So, for me the Ibanez SR600 sits at a price point and a level of ubiquity where if something happened to it, it shouldn’t be a major problem to have it repaired or replaced. Besides; I’m not a professional player and short of coming into a substantial financial windfall, I’d find it hard to justify spending £1000+ on a bass, so as I’ve said; the SR600 does the job on many levels yet doesn’t cost a fortune.

I admit to owning a cheap Korg AX3B multi-effects unit - but I rarely use it and have never used effects of any kind when gigging or rehearsing with a band. The AX3B just gets brought out for a bit of fun every year or so and then goes back in its box again! Back in the '80's I bought an Amdek (remember them?) octaver and compressor, but soon got bored of them and moved them on. Personally, I find all the messing around ("knob-twiddling") needed with effects is a distraction from what I really enjoy - just playing my bass.

[quote name='redstriper' post='1057355' date='Dec 13 2010, 03:40 PM']How does it sound ? I want a light bass, but all the new ones I've tried are too modern sounding - I like an old school deep smooth tone for reggae, soul, jazz and funk. My old Fender jazz has got the tone, but it weighs a ton. I haven't tried an Ibanez yet.[/quote] The SR600 does sound quite modern and some people have said they couldn't live with its bright tone. But I moved to it after only playing more traditional basses fitted with P and J - type pickups for the last 25 years and I've found that the SR600's brightness is sufficiently tamed by just cutting the treble on the 3-band EQ. The SR600 has a strong bass presence too and I reckon it's actually very versatile in the tone department. I'm in the process of writing a full review on this bass which I'll hopefully be able to post on basschat shortly.