thodrik

I have never really liked Stingrays, there is just something about the neck profile that I just don't like (and the looks, and a bit of the sound) . Saying that though there are certainly basses that I feel 'at home' at, which make me feel like I'm playing better than I probably am. Beer and exaggerated self-confidence can also achieve this.

I would agree that the Sandberg California series are in the same class as the Metro line and they are generally a bit cheaper since the recent Metro price rises. From my experience the basses sound fairly different though. The Sadowsky's to my ear have a lot more of a modern 'snappy' sound to them, especially the maple fingerboard ones. Some people have described the sound as generic, but I thought it was just a really good clean sound that had a lot of natural bite. The Sandbergs jazz bass types I have tried I thought could deliver a sweeter more old school Fender sound. I loved both the Sandberg and the Sadowsky but I ended up with the Sadowsky, though this was before the models I tried were separated by around £800 in price as they are now! A strange sale tactic perhaps, but I always find suggestions like that to be helpful though as it gives you more information to consider before making a purchase. It also makes me more trusting when they actually do suggest something that they have in stock. If you are around the Glasgow area, CC Music should have a few Sandbergs in stock if you want to try them. Not sure if they have any five strings in though.

I have the Jazz version. Plays well, sounds like a passive jazz bass. I can't complain really for the money it cost.

I'm a lefty playing righty, but then again I probably do most things right handed apart from writing. I am pretty much ambidexdrous, equally useless no matter how I approach any given task.

I must be sitting in the middle here, but I find no evidence on which to find that she isn't at least very good technically. There is no way she would be able to keep getting the gigs she has if she wasn't capable of fulfilling her role when playing with top musicians. If she wasn't good, then I'm sure her detractors would find ample youtube videos of her making mistakes, which obviously would have been brought up by now if they existed. Of course connections and networking help, but she has been able to back it up pretty well over the last few years. I don't know how her position is any different from any other bassist that has networked or used contacts to get a gig. That said I'm not that fussed with her solo stuff. It is nice and technically fairly good, I just find the tone a bit 'safe' and the playing seems to lack the dynamism or excitement that I would expect from a top solo player. In this sense my opinion of her isn't that different from my opinion of John Mayer, another very good musician whose solo work and compositional skills do nothing for me personally. I just find the argument of 'if you don't think she is amazing then you are a sexist pig with severe jealousy' to be a bit of stretch. However, I do think that her looks have prompted people to claim both that she is a lot worse, as well as a lot better, than she actually is. I think that my opinion on John Mayer would apply here too!

Sometimes I think that Jeff just says stuff to annoy people on bass forums and to keep his name out there. Good for him. I'm glad he is comfortable enough in his own skin to bluntly give his opinions to the world. It doesn't mean I have to agree, care or resist the urge to laugh out loud. I understand at the time he was coming through, to play a fretless bass would probably scream 'Jaco clone'. So in his strange way, and in his chosen genre of music, he has a point. Really though, I just don't think that a fretless has any more of an built in tone than a 'fretted Fender Jazz-type bass being played fingerstyle, with the back pickup soloed, with the eq run flat, apart from a bump in the mids'.

I hear so much 'back pick up of a Jazz bass' bass players, I often find it difficult to ascertain what is good and what is not. I think that what makes her stand out from the crowd is that she is young woman and she does not wear a hat. She obviously has a good deal of talent but I think that a lot of the attention she gets (both good and bad) is based on how she looks rather than what she does. Shocking that such a thing could happen in the music industry!

Not really, but I remember at that time really wanting an EBS amp and the Warwick didn't quit persuade me to go for it. I couldn't fault the Warwick amp on anything though, well maybe I wasn't entirely impressed with the looks, but other than that not much.

I would say bad luck. I have been playing through them for years at rehearsal studios never suffering from any problems.

I tried a 5.1 a while ago. Very nice head, lots of power and fairly easy to dial in a tone. I though about getting it but nothing about it screamed 'I need to buy this amp!' so I decided against it.

I have to give Cliff Burton some props for getting in the top ten despite being buried in the mix in most of his recordings. I really find these lists to be pointless and every time there is one everybody gets in a flap about who is in and out. So I'll join in regardless. No Peter Hook? Come on!

Depends on the bass. There are gems and dogs throughout the decades when it comes. Wouldn't change my old 78 Precision for anything, including a pre CBS one. I played a few older Jazzes (69, 71 and 75) last year that I really didn't like and I newer one that I nearly liked, and a Sandberg and Sadowsky that were amazing. A different person would rank those same basses in an entirely different order. It is not something that bothers me.

I don't mind the look of some of them but I would never buy one. From playing the double bass, I have always enjoyed cutaways when it comes to electric basses! Plus I have always liked SGs more than Les Pauls. So I'm probably not a single cut guy in general.

I have a Kamen-era GP7 SM300 1x15 combo and an SMX300 that I am pretty sure is also from the Kamen era (it has the fluffy carpet thing going on). I have played some Mark IV and a series 6 stuff. I would not necessarilly say that I have found that one is 'better' than the other. I prefer my SMX head to my GP7, but never really found that the Mark IV series 6 stuff was so much 'better' than what the SMX can do. All the TE stuff tends to have a certain 'sound' to it, so with the preshape engaged there is quite a lot of similarity across the board. I have not played the new amps but use the cabs. I. I would love to try the V series stuff or the older valve stuff though.

Good to hear everything turned out great after the previous problems. I love that pick up combination (Jazz and big humbucker), be it on Sandberg,Musicman or anything else! I hope the Rh750 issues are resolved soon too.

Unless you have your own soundman/woman at all gigs that will DI you happily at all gigs I would advise to invest in some kind of bass amp, even if it is purely for on stage monitoring purposes. From experience I have found that some soundpersons are totally opposed to DIing and sending bass back through a monitor. Also some PA systems in venues are really only much good for vocals, or there are there are no monitors available for bass. You probably have more of an idea than me when it comes to using slaves and a couple of speakers. I would think for convenience a half-decent combo would be easier to lug around, and it is easy to find lightweight stuff nowadays.

Very cool idea

So how many gigs did the Warwick last for? Well it looks like a sparkly Precision. So Fender make a few, Mr Clayton selects the best ones and the ones he doesn't want get sold off at a great profit. Good business for Fender. I'm glad at least it doesn't have one of those relic finishes that are so common now. I'm guess the finish shines nicely on stage when you are playing in large arenas with one of the most famous bands on the planet. It is what it is. I personally think Mr Clayton has shown more imagination when designing basses than when writing basslines. (In seriousness though, he is a competent player.)

[quote name='Dave Vader' post='1253640' date='Jun 2 2011, 10:15 AM']Yeah, check the high sellers they've done on BBC4 recently, Nick Drake, Sister Rosetta Thorpes.... (getting my coat...)[/quote] Fair enough, though in rock music/classic rock music they don't seem to push the boat out as much. I think that my main point is simply that documentaries on Queen, Deep Purple, the Who and Led Zep have been done to death, ignoring a lot of artists that could be the subject of an interesting documentary. Whether Queen are better or have greater mass appeal than the Smiths does not concern me, as I am not likely to listen to either one of them.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' post='1251810' date='May 31 2011, 05:40 PM']Looking at the list of bands below - I rest my case! I wouldn't put any of them in the same league as Queen. Don't ever recall The Smiths selling out Wembley!![/quote] Umm, I was obviously wasn't using the names based on commercial sales (though AC/DC for one have sold a boatload over the years). I never knew a requirement of 'selling out Wembly' or selling as many records as Queen was required before the BBC will consider doing a documentary, but looking at the BBC's track record. maybe it is! I was listing a bunch of bands that would provide for interesting documentaries that have not already been done to death over and over. I'm not dismissing the merits of Queen, Led Zep, Deep Purple and in all honesty prefer them to many of the bands I listed. I just find that the BBC take a very narrow view when it comes to 'rock' music documentaries. Most of them are great admittedly, but usually we've seen most of the stories and talking heads before. I just think that as a public service broadcaster BBC should be providing a bit more.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' post='1251566' date='May 31 2011, 02:38 PM']To be fair to the Beeb this had plenty of bits and pieces that were new and unseen and I have seen them all! Trouble is there are very few bands about since those that you mention that you could make a documentary about - apart from Metallica of course.[/quote] The Smiths, The Cult, Stone Roses, Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Nazareth, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, the Kinks, Free, Yes, the Clash, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore, Robin Trower, AC/DC(though the BBC like to pretend they don't really exist!), New Order, Buzzcocks and Depeche Mode. I'm sure all of those bands/persons have interesting stories that would make for a 'aren't they really awesome' BBC documentary. If the BBC focuses on any of these groups its usually in a big compilation documentary where they get a few sentences in before talking about Queen, Live Aid, Led Zep, Clapton and the other usual suspects. The new footage was great but didn't really provide much really to the normal narrative of 'Queen were a great band, (insert footage of them being great), they had some tough times (insert Freddie's solo album), but they were really awesome at Live Aid and made a great comeback (insert Midge Ure and footage of them being awesome at said show), then Freddie got ill and died, but not without recording some great songs (still photos/videos of him being ill, followed by footage of Wembly concert). It was a great documentary though, I'm just saying that I didn't really get anything new. Though I am now starting to see similarities between Roger Taylor and Lars Ulrich that I didn't see before.

Good show last night, though hardly different from every other BBC documentary focusing on Queen/Freddie Mercury/Live Aid/rock music in general. I think at 25 I can do without seeing another BBC 'rock' documentary focusing on any one of: Live Aid, Queen, Led Zep, the Who, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Rolling Stones or anything involving Eric Clapton. Its not that I'm not a fan, its just that I am fed up of the BBC essentially making the same documentaries over and over, when they could just repeat the one they made before. Its not like they are going to get any new information, or that the subject matter is focusing on anything new, (the Paul Rogers/Queen thing was pretty much glossed over entirely).

[quote name='JTUK' post='1251282' date='May 31 2011, 11:48 AM']I would start flat and centred..most people say they want mids when they can't really handle them style/sound-wise. That is why the smiley position is used..and maybe even constitue a pre-set..depending on the TE model. Starting with an open string is a good idea... and just tweak a slider to hear what is happening. Don't use the extreme max or cut as you have nowhere else to go with it.. IMO...and depending how close the next Freq point is ( fader/slider) that will impact on the other freq as well.. So slowly and with logic..so you don't get all confused. These thinsg can be a powerful tone shaping tool and you can tie yourself up in knots. Tweak slowly and a little at a time.. Of course, the best idea... is not to have to do any of all this..and just plug in with the EQ switched off of flat to that amp...ie, centred. Don't get carried away with 'flat'..some amps and cabs are tuned to anything but..just consider it as a return /starter point on your kit.[/quote] Pretty much this. It depends on the bass, the amp, the cabs and personal taste. From experience I have found that running a Trace Elliot amp 'flat' (no eq and no preshape) is very different from running say, an Ampeg SVT, Gallien Krueger or the Hartke etc flat. I found the 'flat' TE sound to be very mid-heavy when using a passive bass, but it can sound great with a bit of tweaking. I think that the Trace Elliot mosfet amps are designed with the idea that everybody pretty much uses the preshape and the graphic eq and feels comfortable tweaking things to get the sound they like. With Trace Elliot amps the preshape will also have a pretty big effect on the sound if you have it on. So cutting around 500Hz with the preshape on could produce a much more scooped sound than if the preshape is off. As a rule of thumb I would just avoid boosting much below 60Hz and above 5Khz or having one fader maxed out, but the next one to the left or right cut out entirely. If I mind right the TE manuals used to have a basic guide on the EQ system. You could just download a manual from their site to have a read through.

I have been using the Trace Elliot 1028H and 1518 separate cabs and they sound fine. I have either been using it with an EBS Fafner (440 watts at 4 ohms) or an older Trace Elliot SMX (300 watts at 4ohms). I have never felt like I have lacked power/loudness and I have not suffered from any phasing issues. An efficient 300 watt at 4ohms amp should manage to cut through in most environments, unless you are playing with 2 guitarists using Mesa Dual Rectifiers through a full stack. There seems to be a mixed reaction to the newer Trace Elliot amps. Some love them and some think that they are nowhere near as good as they were back in the day. The new cabs are a lot lighter than the old ones, though consequently I think that they lack the old 'built like a tank' build quality. I would advise to try one of the new amps to see if it is up your street. You can pick up an older Trace Elliot amp for less than half of the price of the new line. Trace Elliot is now a subsidiary of Peavey now anyway and the amps are made in the Peavey plant in the US, though designed in the UK (I think so anyway...). I think that Hartke is better value for money than the Trace Elliot amps when doing a price comparison when new. However if you want a good Trace Elliot amp, then get a Trace Elliot amp.

Prices like that are a dagger in the heart to the next generation of youtube bassists obsessed with Tool! I'm guessing that for a small workshop delivering a unique product with a high level of demand from consumers, the prices are not far off similar companies. The waiting list is just what it is. I'm just glad they are still in production really.