fatback

And what about crosswinds? Took girlfriend and cello on my motorbike many moons ago and crossing every intersection was, to say the least, interesting.

[quote name='The Hat' timestamp='1365190729' post='2036677'] Whats this 1,2,3+4 technique ? [/quote] Using the third finger and little finger as one. The third finger is the weakest. Works well.

+1 to the taxi. My alcohol consumption has collapsed since I started gigging db. Worse thing about the instrument is not being able to cadge lifts from the singer and his girlfriend. In fact, since taking up this beast, musical life dramatically improved, social life f*****d beyond redemption.

[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1365027608' post='2034457'] I'm at the stage where I can either work with my hands or play bass. When the weather gets warmer it may get better, if not there's going to be a bass for sale as I have to earn a living. Steve [/quote] I know a bass-playing mechanic, so I understand this. Very tough call. Some jobs are just hand-wreckers. No kind of gloves practical at all?

[quote name='lowlandtrees' timestamp='1364632958' post='2028987'] It also seems that I have to turn the amp up to 3/4 volume to get a sound. [/quote] That may be why the hiss. If the original signal is very weak, you'll be amplifying the background noise. Presumably the preamp batteries (if you're using them) are ok?

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1364516592' post='2027722'] That was probably one of the hardest things I've had to learn to do in years. Dry your eyes, pick up your toys and try again, you'll get there in the end. [/quote] Here's hoping. Meantime, remember Basil Fawlty beating the car with a stick?

Frustrated by the lack of originals bands to play with in my part of the world. Got one long-distance gig, but need more. I get my kicks mostly from good new songs, and I can't get enough (and no, i couldn't write one if my life depended on it. ) Other than that, frustration is... learning to bow the double bass. No doubt about it. Reduces me to an infantile state of weeping and gnashing and throwing my toys out the pram in minutes.

Nice to have a choice. My baby is an old Czech solid top, and it seems a good compromise between sound and general resistance to feedback, temperature / humidity changes etc. I think an all solid bass would be going too far for the rough gigging we do. Go for the Czech laminate, I'd say. It's a cool bass.

For OFPF thumb pivoting is the best technique, but you might want to keep it for the higher positions and use 1-2-3+4 where the stretch is a bit much. If you think you'll ever want to move to fretless, you can make the transition easier by learning the pivot based on a small number of fixed thumb positions, like the Rabbath double bass method. Then if you get used to strictly positioning the thumb in only a few of the possible places (say below the G, A and B on the E string) rather than wandering it up and down the board, you'll develop a lot of accuracy in shifting your hand.

To take some of the boredom out of scales, and to try and make things a bit more relevant to my band playing, i've started taking a different approach that's a bit more interesting. What I've started doing is taking a major key and playing the scales, arpeggios and modes for each diatonic chord using as much of the board as possible. Our singer/songwriter favours certain keys and I'm starting with those. Maybe the feeling of relevance is an illusion, but at east it's systematic. Anybody else do this?

[quote name='blinddrew' timestamp='1364156030' post='2022685'] Loving the idea of the drinks cabinet inside. Not sure I've used the bass as anything other than a hat stand, but it does occur to me, appropos of nothing, that the hard case would be quite a convenient thing to transport a dead body in. Just sayin'... [/quote] Or a live, naked girl. Remember 'Romance with a double bass' with John Cleese? Mind you, it's a long time since I've seen it, so maybe I'm just fantasising that bit.

Does that Fishman have a notch filter? If not, you might find EQ bands just too wide to be useful in killing feedback. I've found that raising the cab really helps, although too much height can cause a loss of output (boundary reinforcement etc). A lot of people report Full Circle to be very resistant to feedback.

Social ice-breaker. [i]Everybody [/i]talks to the db player. It's like having a dog but without needing the poop scoop.

[quote name='goblin' timestamp='1363895191' post='2019144'] I've had TWO double basses, my 1x15, head and hard cased Warwick in the back of a Polo...so yeah you should be alright! [/quote] I am trying so hard to picture this.

I found it's a combination of different resources that helps most. Books: Micheal Moore - Bass Method' (Very systematic). Rufus Reid - 'evolving bassist' (inspirational and great for getting reading going.) Vids: Rabbath - Art of the Bow (totally the biz imo and inspiring too); Ed Friedland - 'Jazz upright bass' (another systematic one) Simandl nearly made me quit, and for that I'll never forgive him. There's something wrong with assuming that you can't do better than a method developed more than a century ago. Anyway, once you're into scales there's tons of stuff out there. Everybody praises Tarlton, but you'll make your own mind up. I'd say learn theory as a separate exercise altogether. There are loads of good sources on harmony. I've found stuff on jazz improvisation to be most interesting and helpful, even though I don't play jazz. I suspect that getting a keyboard is part of that process, and I guess I'll be doing that too. Where I'm gonna get the years to do all this is what I'd like to know.

[quote name='Owencf' timestamp='1363890793' post='2019066'] Round christmas i posted this one Fatback followed up with No replies. I wonder if you've breached some kind of DB taboo, there. A sort of lese majeste. Well,. I'm going to say I think it's cute. I might even do it myself. [/quote] And I did too. She looked fab, a right diva.

Welcome! You'll like it here. A friendly, helpful crew and even the odd ranty, flamey politico-religious thread doesn't cause too much collateral damage.

I think we obsess about sound when we're bored with the notes we play. imo very few players a have a sound so distinctive it justifies all the effort, and few bands have room for a bass with so distinctive a sound in the first place. And on stage if you want to hear yourself you have top have a crappy middy sound more than likely, and the actual sound is in the hands of the guy on the PA and who knows what that sounds like. As long as the sound you hear yourself make isn't so awful it ruins your feel, I say forget it. it's a P sound or a J sound or a Ricky sound. It's a valve sound or a clean sound. That's it. I just want to play the best notes and the best rhythm for the song, and that's enough to be worrying about.

On the teacher front, do get at least one lesson so your basic technique is ok. So easy to hurt yourself on this beast.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1363723882' post='2016653'] Only just had a little play, I have notice that the lack of earth on the bass end does not help with hissing but what can you do? It raises the gain being input on the amp quite a bit which was one of my main issues (is this what you meen by impedence matching?) I have certainly got a fuller sound now too although I do have a really good amp as it is which many people find OK with no extras at all. I will report back once I have had a play around with it [/quote] Any idea if the hiss is the preamp trying to lift a very weak signal or is it just a noisy preamp?

[quote name='Glyndwr' timestamp='1363721724' post='2016600'] Hi, I am a new to double bass, but I have played bass for a while now. I love to play jazz so I really want to buy a double bass and teach myself (I'm 17 and can't afford to pay someone to teach me), my question is what is the best double bass to buy as a beginner? Also, I don't have a lot of money so a combination of cheap but also quality (i.e. nothing too bad but not top of the range) would be good. Thanks [/quote] Good on you for taking the plunge. Wish I'd done it at 17. A lot of good info on here: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/200585-lets-just-say-i-was-looking-at-basses-for-arguments-sake/

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1363720102' post='2016559'] Loving my Gedo now, I have the J-tone fitted and an Artec EQ pedal so I can get a bit more volume or maybe even do a gig! [/quote] Great. How does the Artec sound? Does it do the impedence matching biz alright?

I feel that a good tutor should be willing to adapt to your needs. For example, if it's important for you to be able to gig the bass quickly, playing a particular genre, the tutor should be willing to focus on that, rather than say bowing and scales. I'm not saying bowing and scales aren't important, just that you might want to get working pretty quickly, and it's more important to get those parts of technique sorted so you don't hurt yourself etc. I have a bee in my bonnet anyhow about how unwise it is to try and learn too many new things all at the same time, but I know from various people how commonly teachers insist on starting at the beginning (like you were 12) and have people struggling with the bow when they haven't even got a left hand yet. Tin hat on.

Love it. The original makes me so nostalgic though as it was my first amp.

The 'why do we need to perform live?' Q puzzled me for years until I heard the great Rabbath explain. He says the adrenalin slows down time, so you have forever to form each note, and that's a very special thing. Spot on. No amount of rehearsal gets that adrenalin going. You have to have an audience.