LowB_FTW

I have one of these in black (see below) and, for the time being, it's the main bass that I use. Mark

Can we take a moment to talk abut nuts? I'm totally at a loss for selecting one for a bass build. What's the 'best' nut to use? By 'best' I guess I mean what are the relative benefits of one material over another? What files do you recommend for the grooves? Files seem to be the preferred method, are there any others? How deep do the nuts need to be (steady on in the cheap seats)? My fretboard is gonna have an infinite radius (ie it's flat!), do all nuts come radiused, so will I have to file the top flat? Does the thickness of the fretboard have any bearing on nut depth/type? For reference, it's a 5-string build with 45mm nut requirement. Anything else I should know about? As you can clearly see, I know nothing about this subject, but I'm here to learn. Mark

It seems fitting for me to put this here today, as it's his birthday, it was Rick Savage and more specifically his white Hamer Scarab bass that set me on my bass journey. I was watching the news (I think it was BBC six o'clock news) and Def Leppard had just released a new single and it was getting some news coverage, I suspect because the album it came from was doing stellar sales at that time, and I just recall seeing him playing that bass, and hearing that sound (which I later found out wasn't actually a bass guitar sound but a sequenced synth bass sorta sound) but I thought I'd be having me some of that. It was some time afterwards I picked up a guitar and tried playing that because I wanted to play rhythm guitar specifically - all the guitar soloing never appealed to me. I very quickly discovered that whilst I was doing great playing all the open chords, I just couldn't get my fretting fingers to work properly with barre chords, so after becoming deeply frustrated with my inability to progress as a rhythm guitar player, a friend suggested I try lessons, which I had absolutely no money to pay for, but luckily the place I was doing my YTS (remember that?!?) course at had someone coming in and giving lessons for free, so I made use of their availability, and after a few lessons I think he was fed up with my inability to play anything other than open chords too and suggested I try bass. Cue my memory flying back to the time I saw that TV news report and I went straight to one of the local instrument shops that weekend to try stuff out. It took me ages to save up for my first bass, I was only getting paid something like £35 every fortnight, but after placing a small small deposit and paying some off each month, I managed to get me a 4-string Squire. I detailed what happened to that original bass in my introduction post, so I'll not repeat here, but I still have the second (first 5-string) bass I ever bought. Mark

I don't do Spotify, but last.fm tells me my top five artists are … Def Leppard Queen The Who Pink Floyd Pearl Jam Mark

You are not alone in this. My shoulder issue (outlined above) means I now have to play right at the end of the neck, and that position has to be right in front of me, which makes the lower note access fantastic, but I struggle higher up the fretboard for notes, especially as I play 5-sting basses exclusively, reaching for that low string up past the 8th fret can be a challenge. Sometimes I feel I may as well be playing an upright. Mark

Thanks for that, much appreciated. The scale of bass doesn’t really impact me at the moment, as the issue is with my right shoulder so playing standing up the bass is slung on my left shoulder, and despite having some lower back issues, as I am only playing for my own pleasure I don't need to be stood up for three hours practicing - also, for the moment at least, the weight of the bass isn't an issue for me. Lighter weight/shorter scale basses may be something that I'll have to look into at some as yet unspecified time in the future, but for the time being I am managing the situation. Mark

Frozen right shoulder in Dec. 2020, couldn’t get to see anyone about it for ages, so it was just pain management for a long time until I finally got a GP appointment to confirm the issue. That lead to physio treatment and I now have exercises to do and I don't think I'll ever get full 100% movement back in it. This all means I can't now play bass sitting down, so I have to stand whilst playing, and my posture has changed whilst wearing my bass so I now have to play it in a different position than how I played it pre condition. It's like I have literally had to start playing again from scratch. I've had to invest in a better strap to accommodate the longer time playing whilst standing, so I guess that's one positive that came out of this for me, but I do find it a PITA that I can't just grab a bass and play whilst sitting on the settee to fill a bit of time, it all seems much more formal when I have to play standing up, and I don't even play with others, it's just me by myself for myself. I understand this is just a minor inconvenience compared to some of the things already posted in this thread, but it's still something I have to deal with on a daily basis and it does impact other aspects of my life as well. Mark

I've re-listened to this, and I still like it. Some thoughts … There's a weird gap/break between the end of the first track and the start of the second. I thought this was just my internet connection the first time I listened to it, but it happened the second time and it's just weird. It totally took me out of the listening experience, which was a shame because I like the first track and it just didn't work for me. Listening to this I get vibes from a couple of bands I like, La Bottine Souriante, and Placebo. I've no idea what the former of these bands is singing about in any of their songs, just like this AotW. 😂 For me, listening to the tune and instrumentation comes first in music, the lyrics after that, so it really doesn’t bother me what language is being used to sing. Mark

❓ Mark

A Fender Bass V. Which, in reality, I'll never be able to afford. Mark

That's a very handy link, thanks for posting this. Mark

I had a bass delivered to me over the summer from England and that only cost me £36 using UPS Express Saver. Might be worth you checking that out. Mark

This time, it's bass players. Saw this and I thought of this place, so here we are … Thomann's Top 10 bass players, 2023. Mark

I like this. I'm about half way through it at the moment and won't be able to finish it until later, but immediate impressions are very favourable. There's some funky bass going on in it to. It gives me vibes from a couple of other bands that I listen to, but I'll reserve name ing until I've heard the full album, but at this point I'm actually looking forward to getting back to this. Mark

Right, well, I listened to the whole thing, and once was certainly enough. There's only one track (9 - Voodoo Posse, Chronic Illusion) that I came close to liking, and it took a long slog to get to that, all the rest, nah, not so much. Ambient, background music I can generally put up with, but this just did absolutely nothing for me for the most part. Mark

They always are. I still like going through them though, more often than not there's people I haven't heard of, which allows me to go and check their stuff. Mark

Vernon Reid is #42 Mark

#82, Mark

I liked this, though perhaps not quite enough to buy it, which isn't really the point here, but that's my take-away from it. I like a lot of Björk's stuff that I've previously heard, both her well known and more obscure stuff (I've a mate that's a fan of hers), and I don't really have anything bad to say about this album, but I also don't have anything great to say either. I think it just seemed a little rushed and under thought, if that makes sense? I really liked the concept, but the tracks just didn't seem to be finished, almost like they were demos. I found it interesting without finding it good. If nothing else, I've finally got around to listening to the album in full, which I've always intended to do but never actually got to do, so thanks for that. Mark

An Ampeg SCR-DI might be nice. Mark

It's worth noting that the RightOn straps mentioned earlier also have emergency plectrum storage at the other side of the strap as well … Mark

I was going to post the same as above. Mark

You don't have to be considered broke to not be able to afford $3199 for a bass. I know this is BassChat, but let's be sensible about things here, hahaha Mark

I never got around to the first album from last week, but I've been following this thread. I'm deffo on-board for this album though, so I shall be reporting back in a few days. Mark

Apologies if I missed it, but I couldn't locate a link to the song in this thread, so here's a YouTube link to it. It's OK. I wouldn't buy an album based off of this lead track, but that's not what this is. As a standalone, it's just … OK. I really like George Harrison's playing in general, so I'm kinda glad there's enough of that in the song to keep me interested, apparently it was a 1995 recording of Harrison's guitar that plays on this track, again AI was used to lift that recording and isolate it for this release. I found the vocal weak - thin and tinny, which I suppose is what you get when you have to use AI to lift a 40+ year old vocal from a tape recording. I'm sure other record companies are taking note of how this will be received to see if they can also get away with mining their back catalogue of long dead artists, but I guess that's a discussion for another thread. I like this track, but it's nothing great. Mark