Simon C

Ahh unfortunately it goes to the thread, not the post. Here is the link to the video: And the text: “There’s been a fair bit of chat on this thread, other sites and in video reviews about the different pick ups available for these basses. I’m posting this one so people can hear what is achievable with the stock Bartolinis. This is the EHB1000S, so the shortscale. The on-board eq is active, a bit of bass boost, low mids boosted a bit, treble boost most (but not all), the way. The pick up blend is centered. I’ve some compression on, but really just to clean up my playing. I have a bit of drive on from my Spectradrive - not much, but enough to get the top end just breaking up. The eq on the Spectradrive is set flat. So not too much processing after the instrument, though the drive is undoubtedly contributing to the sound. if you want to avoid listening to me talking, the playing starts at about 1:45. And in case you don’t listen to me, the reason it’s not the full song is I was struggling with an RSI at the time I recorded it. I’ve posted this as I think it may be a useful contribution - hopefully I don’t unintentionally send us off topic.“

Hopefully you can hear the pick ups in the EHB series well enough in the attached link to understand that the opinions which state “Bartolinis in these are rubbish / poor / dark / woolly (pick your own adjective)” should come with an “IMO” rather than being a statement of fact. I also use this bass live. One thing it doesn’t lack (IMO) is lack of punch (at least in active mode).

Q1. I don’t have any trouble switching scale lengths. I guess I may spend a little while looking at the neck whilst I’m playing when I switch - but I’m not sure. Q2. My short-scale is headless, so I don’t get any neck dive on it.

Did it arrive by itself or did it have shaped wood and strings attached to it?😀

FWIW I have Barts in my EHB1000S. I like them.

In case I count as an internet validation stranger (certainly I’m on the internet and, many would say, a little strange): Old Fashioned = good.

1 and 2 I don’t know. 3. well done. I didn’t think that was possible. The answer to the question is also “I don’t know.”😀 4. I don’t think mine does. If you look at the coloured dots on mine above, the gold, red and blue dots are for finger, slap and pick on the same bass. If there isn’t a dot then the knob position is 12 o’clock. I don’t recall having to adjust volume on the bass when switching from pick to finger (I don’t really slap). I’ll check this the next time I use it that may not be until the end of the month though. I use the Rudy Sarzo Toneprint. You could try putting it in yours and see what happens with the blend. Also note that there is a relationship between the level and blend. If the level is all the way to the left, then if you turn the blend to the right you may well get a volume loss. 5. I can’t remember as it’s a long time since I did it. 6. I would have thought it will as (if I’ve understood correctly) you are in effect changing the compressor settings.

I've seen plenty of folks writing that they've hardly ever used the Rick-o-sound. So I'm posting this in case anyone would like a listen to the 1st recording I've done with Rick-o-sound . I say in the video what I've done with the pups so I won't repeat it here. Any good natured ( positive or negative) comments on the sound I get with it are welcomed.

I think that belongs on the "Rickenbacker horror show" thread, rather on this Rickenbacker Porn thread. Or maybe we need Rickenbacker Porn Star names. As I recall the formula is: the colour of your first Ric and the hair style you were rocking on your 21st birthday. So mine is "Walnut Bouffant". 😁

It looks pretty good on the Walnut I think. The neck being in natural draws the attention away from the lack of binding imo.

Indie. I'm going for the “Might not be the songs that immediately spring to mind, but we’ve played them live and they go down well” angle. It looks like YouTube posts are de-rigeur on this thread, but the following songs are all on Spotify so I’ll be lazy and just post the band and track name: Sea Girls: Violet The Killers: All These Things That I’ve Done Cake: I will survive I like the thread. It’s made me think about other songs that we could do in this genre. I need to listen to The Kooks, Libertines, Fratellis and so on more than I do.

I'd forgotten about that one.....and I'd only being playing my Ric (purchased on 2nd Jan 2024 after a 2023 of abstinence) about 5 minutes prior to writing 😀.

Things to spend your money on: lessons; strings; a set-up. They are all allowed as I recall.

It looks good with the matching fireglo lamp and wall paint. Are the other 3 corners of the room similarly attired in Jetglo, Mapleglo and Walnut? 😀

I use KZ ZS10 Pro IEMs. They cost about £45 from Amazon two years ago; they have a pretty good bass response. We each have our own mixer, so we set our own mix. The game changer for me is that the mixers are stereo, so I can pan band members left and right. As I’m usually central on the dias I just pan people to where they are on stage , but keep the drummer (if we have one) central. If I’m off at one side I mix people left and right as I see fit. The stereo field gives sound separation so you can hear fellow band members better than through a regular mono monitor. I tend to put a bit of ambient in the mix so that I can hear how the congregation are responding. If you want to do more research there is a thread called, ironically for those of us who are church musicians 😀, “The IEM (in ear monitors) Bible Thread”. It tends to repeat, so I’d guess you’ll learn most of what you need from the last 5 pages or so.

I haven't posted on this thread much. I think mainly because our service had become rather dull and I didn't feel like posting. Not all of the reasons were worship music related but some were. Congregation members had been negative in their feed back to the sound-techs, so the decent sound-techs left the service, so then no one wanted to play drums as the remaining sound-techs weren't putting any drums in the mix (fear of negative feed back / lack of ability). So a full band sounded like the leader's voice and guitar and not much else. So congregation members left. So the community spirit started to wane, so more left ...... and so on. Anyway - we identified somethings that were going wrong, corrected those that we could quickly (e.g. turn the lights on so that people can see each other), and have been working on those that take a little longer. We've now had 3 services on the bounce with really positive feedback from the congregation. So things are moving in the right direction. We are even getting people who had ducked out of the worship band rota looking like they want to come back. 2 in particular are singers who look like they are engaging with the worship which is good - a number of our people who sing or are otherwise at the front of the dias give off an "I'm bored" appearance (I've managed to muscle my way to the front, but it needs more than me looking like I'm enjoying myself). Anyway - moving in the right direction. I think we've still a way to go but the feedback we are getting is encouraging.

On the previous page of this thread there are some picture of my walnut 4003. If the skunk strip is the stripe running down the middle of the neck, then it does have a skunk stripe. It is a 2022 model.

Does it have to be a 2023 model? Guitar Guitar, PMT and Andertons will all take an order. I’m guessing they’ll all take a deposit from you, then you wait until Rickenbacker get round to making some that they allocate to your guitar shop of choice. I suspect the dealers won’t actually know when they’ll get stock. If it’s the new bridge and single truss rod you want and that’s why you are looking for a 2023 model, my 2022 4003 in walnut has both of those features.

12/8 - the Disciples

That's a good question. I can give you a short answer ("it depends") or a longer one. Hopefully you have your slippers and a cup or glass of your favourite drink with you 😉. My view is that you can start learning with no theory. You just need someone to show you where A, D, G and E are in the 1st 5 frets, and how to play notes and you'll be able to learn a load of songs. Shortly after you'll want to know where B , C and F are and then a little later where Bb is (though by the time you get to needing Bb you've probably worked it out for yourself). After that theory helps, but again you don't need much. I would say knowing the chord names as numbers (Roman numerals or Nashville numbering system - they are the same thing) is essential for someone wanting to jam or gig. It helps with understanding how chords fit together, transposing when a new singer turns up, and hopefully getting your ear tuned to how the chords sound in relation to each other. Also understand what a 4/4 time signature feels like. Learn a dozen songs or so and you are good to jam with people and start gigging. I don't think you need any more, but...... ......if you do decide to learn more, or you just assimilate it, it will help your playing....sometimes. A recent example for me was "Good Love is on the Way" by The John Mayer Trio. The Chords are A, G and D (they come in that order) - if you just look at the chords you'd think it was in D. But that confused me because it sounds like A is the key centre. But then I couldn't understand why the song had loads of G chords for something in A. It didn't sound "right" to me and as a consequence my bass line was rubbish and so so boring. I found out it's actually in "A" Mixolydian (one of the modes, that are quite a long way down most people's music theory education pathway). It was an aha moment for me. It then sounded "right" to my ear and my bass line became much more interesting. Could someone else have come up with an interesting bassline with no knowledge of the Mixolydian mode? Of course and most players probably would - it just helped me. On the opposite side - when I learned "Crazy Little Thing called love" by Queen, I didn't know enough chord theory to do anything other than play the chords (on keyboards at the time) as they were written in front of me. The chords in the song are a bit weird. I can kind of explain why they work now, but did my lack of theory knowledge make any difference to the song in a band context when I learned it 25 years ago? Not at all. I play classical piano, so my theory knowledge is beyond what I need for light rock covers playing bass. But there are bits of music theory I've learned for keys (in a band context) and bass that I didn't know, or at least aren't really taught to my level of classical music playing. The bits of theory you need is also genre specific. e.g. if you only want to play rock and roll based on 12 bar blues, you need to know triads for the one, four and five chords (all major chords) and be able to play in 4/4. If you want to play some minor blues you'll need to learn the triads of minor chords and probably be able to play in 12/8 (so a bit more theory). All the above to say - I think you should have the bare minimum of theory (the Nashville number system and understand the 4/4 time signature). But depending on where you want to go and where you do go on your musical journey, you will find more theory useful. If you are anything like me, you'll search it out as you need it and assimilate it as you go. My searching came from a mixture of books, teachers, band mates / fellow musicians and the internet. (Next on my list is the Dorian mode, but I doubt it should be next on yours 🙂).

Another hit for The Doors?

This was our closing song from my Ric’s 1st night out - last night’s Jam Night at McCafferty’s Epsom. I think the videographer (Mrs C) did a good job of getting it front and centre. It got plenty of attention from the other bassists, with also some “ooh a Ricky - nice” type observations from the guitarists and one of the drummers

For once I’ve managed to post on the “How was your gig last night” thread, on the day after the night before. It was a lively night with the pub being pretty much full from when the host band kicked things off. It was the debut outing for my Rickenbacker. It got plenty of attention, in the main from the bass players, but a few of the guitarists and one of the drummers also oggled it. The singer will be back next month, so I’ll probably be back to the shortscale headless to avoid any whacks on the back of her head.

I've done some adjustment on mine: intonation, action and string spacing. It was easy to adjust - I'd heard the older bridges were more difficult (but have never had the pleasure). I'd have liked to get the action a little lower (or at least tried with it a little lower) but can't lower the E string any further at the bridge. I think it is more to do with depth of the nut slot on the E string though, rather than just being a bridge limitation. So I'm going to play the bass for a while longer before deciding whether I want the nut slot cut a little lower or not. Mine will get its 1st outing tonight: Jam Night at McAfferty's Epsom.

I'm late to this one. It is a cool thread though. The first bass I had wasn't mine. It was a black Encore P Bass that I had on a permanent loan (for about 10 years) from an ex bandmate, who also happens to be Mrs. C's uncle. Once I bought my G&L L2000 the P-bass didn't get played. So I asked my ex-bandmate if he wanted it back. He said he fancied the neck for a fretless build and asked how much I wanted for it - he'd forgotten it was his. You'll be pleased to know that my conscience kicked in and no money changed hands 😊. He made the fretless out of it with 2 pieces of an old door used for the body. The burnt effect you see on the bass body is a technique called Shu Sugi Ban (burning) - it's cool. I've no idea what happened to the P Bass body. I haven't played the fretless yet, but will do at some point. The Encore bass is the black one over the piano. The other 2 are the completed fretless project.