Gee-tar

[bob perry]

"Talk about mud flaps, my gal's gottem"

Keith:
I pretty much hate RUSH but I have been looking at that Geddy Lee sig Jazz bass. Just can't neglect old faithful.
I almost bought a Jaguar bass. It played really well. It was about $850. Cheap! I thought about it overnight and passed.

When I was 18 I packed two Fender Super Showmen cabinets , side by side in the trunk of my 1960 Pontiac Bonneville Coupe. That car had the world's largest trunk. It was a tight fit but you could do it.
That was an awful car. But it looked cool.

I know that gal bass player. I've seen her on TV. She's amazing. Kind of cute too.

[kdh]

I think Esperanza is beautiful. Girl bass players are cool. The only other one I can think of is Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads. She definitely doesn't have the chops Esperanza has but for her purposes they were fine.

[VALIS]

Girl bass players? I know of more than few good ones:

MeShell Ndegeocello -- brilliant composer, singer, and player. Plays whatever she wants.
Tal Wilkenfeld -- played with Jeff Beck, others. Young, cute, and very talented.
Rhonda Smith -- played with Prince for a long time, with Jeff Beck on his recent tour.
Gail Ann Dorsey -- played with Bowie

Of course there are lots more out there. I wonder what the male / female percentages are for the various instruments.

I've been playing a fairly new Jazz bass for about ten years now, and it's a nice axe. My daughter plays a new P-bass, and I'm kind of jealous. Her P-bass neck is *way* skinnier than old baseball-bat neck on the P-basses I tried out in my teens. I kind of wish my J was a 5-string, and I also had a 4-string P. Of course any good bass is going to be much better than I can play it, but that's OK with me. It's kind of like boats: they can usually take way more punishment than you can.

[kdh]

Paul, see Ish's pic of Tal on the other thread. I wonder if I should try one of the new basses. Hell, I just traded out my stereo gear (well, just the amplifier) for new stuff. It sounds great.

[tdw]

My musical loves cover a pretty wide spectrum but I've always had a great liking for electronic particularly back in the 70s and 80s. Tangerine Dream, Kraftwork, Jean Michel Jarre and of course Brian Eno. Ergo I thought Rick's piece was pretty damn good. Well done that man.

Hey Ish .... Gentle Giant not very good ? A bit out there I grant you and sadly I never saw them live but they did some pretty interesting stuff on their day.

Andrew B

aka ... Wombey, Fuzzy, all things Marsupial.

[bob perry]

Womby!
Good to see you. Let me be the first to buy you a cold one.
The protocol is that you go to the introductions page and write a short bio so we can get to know you better. You can make all kinds of outragious stuff we won't know. But we have been trying to keep it "real" here.

[kdh]

Andrew, I was a pretty serious Eno fan. I think you have to be just the right age and disposition to have gotten into that stuff, tho. Didn't Eno do some stuff with Robert Fripp? King Crimson Discipline might be the pinnacle to me in that genre.

[bob perry]

Spike was an Eno fan. He had several Eno lp's, I think it was Amati who turned him onto them. Paul may have even give Spike the Lp's he had.
I was so busy in the 70's and 80's getting my business up and running that I pretty much missed all of that music. It may have had something to do with the transition to cd's and the fact that the sound of cd's slowly turned me off listebning to much music. Maybe. I'm not sure I even played another lp aftet I got my first cd player.
"Perfect sound forever" Right.
I put on an Earl Wild with the Chicago Symph version of Rhapsody In Blue LP the other night on the Chesky label. The sound was jaw dropping good. The kind of fidelity that makes you stop what you are doing and just stare at the speakers.

[Soñadora]

Womby! Great seeing you here!

[tdw]

Rick .... thanks for the welcome.

BP .... although I have a Brian Eno collection on CD most of my Eno is vinyl. An amazing soul methinks.

Gee .... I don't think Eno did any work with King Crimson as such but he certainly made a couple of albums with Robert Fripp. He also worked with one of my all time musical heroes, John Cale, as well as producing for heaven knows how many people including of course U2 and Talking Heads.

[Soñadora]

Ahhhh...King Crimson. There are two things that are burned in my head from King Crimson.

The Mellotron chords in 'Court of the Crimson King' and the guitar in 'Frame by Frame' from Discipline. Those two albums are 180 degrees from one another and they're both awesome! I ripped off the Mellotron chord in Lullaby in an Ancient Tongue (at about 2:18). And appropriately, that guitar sound is a sample from Robert Fripp

[Tim OConnell]

Check out this amazing craftsmanship on this bass at my local guitar porn shop. Scroll down until you see the bass.
Custom by Letain
http://bluedogguitars.com/Letain_Guitars.html

[BeauV]

Check out this amazing craftsmanship on this bass at my local guitar porn shop. Scroll down until you see the bass.
Custom by Letain
http://bluedogguitars.com/Letain_Guitars.html

NICE! I played a hollow body Guild bass for a while because I adored the nearly-an-upright sound you could get. I suffered terribly from feedback playing at the volumes our band played at, so I could never use it on stage. It was a real joy when jamming in a small room or club, such a sweet rich sound. Tim, you've got me thinking now.... ponder ponder ponder....

b..............

Edit: Found a pic of a Guild just like my old hollow body, it's the middle one below

[kdh]

I'm really tempted by this Steinberger. The active pickups, requiring batteries, are holding me back a little. Anyone have any experience with active pickups?

[bob perry]

Keith:
No. That is a headless dick.
It is stupid looking.

A man has to have some pride.

[kdh]

Bob, I've always admired its simplicity. Also, I'm 5'5". If I play a bass that looks like a guitar I look like a small guy playing a big guitar. Maybe in black.

[bob perry]

Beau:
Those are some weird axes. Whatever convinced you to buy that Guild bass? I'm not saying it was not a good bass. I'm just saying I don't recall anyone playing that axe. I'd like to have one today.
Why dont you track one down, buy it and mail it to me for safe keeping.

Keith:
That being the case I'm surprised you were not a Hofner guy. They were on the small side and you could get that cute Paul McCartney thing going. Of course they sounded like shit but that disn't stop the Beatles.

[Ish]

Bob, I've always admired its simplicity. Also, I'm 5'5". If I play a bass that looks like a guitar I look like a small guy playing a big guitar. Maybe in black.

What's the purpose of the meat hook on the neck?

[bob perry]

Ish:
My guess is that is for the strap.

[VALIS]

I always thought a Steinberger would be cool. I thought they sounded good, they are lightweight (great for my back!), and they carry easy. Of course it's a style thing, and probably a tone thing, but as I recall the tone was decent for rock & roll.

And then there's the "Stick". Does anybody still play this? I'm thinking of Tony Levin and Crimson.


There's nothing wrong with actve pickups, but you need to listen to them. There is as much variation in them as you will find in passives. Good active electronics will sound transparent, and bad electronics will sound muddy. The coil configuration also makes a difference, as it does in passives. Active pickups do well when driving long guitar cords, where a passive pickup (and passive tone control) can be affected by the cable, mainly in the "sparkle and snap" end of the audio spectrum.

You need to listen to them.

[kdh]

Great advice Paul. Thanks.

I love Tony Levin. I saw Crimson in a small hall at UMass during the Discipline tour. I missed him in Boston on that tour, which still feels like a loss, because I had a physics exam. Tony is an example of a guy that, along with being inconceivably good, looks cool playing a bass. He's long and lanky.

I listened to a bunch of Esperanza and Tal last night. Esperanza, though she looks cool, to me sounds like she's stamped out of the Berklee College of Music mold, unfortunately. Tal is a different story. Great chops, creative, seems to be moving bass playing forward. I'm a fan.



She's actually pretty small. She completely upstages Jeff Beck in my view.

[bob perry]

That's essentially the same speaker cabinet that I use with a tweeter in the middle of four 10's. I love my set up beacsue it sounds great at low volume levels. I agree with you Keith Tal does upstage Jeff. I have seen Esperanza before and I found her music a bit on the dry side for me. I like to hear some sweat.

[Soñadora]

ok, I'm looking for a cheap bass guitar I can hack on. Just a general purpose one. Something that can stay in tune with having to fuck with it all the time. I've seen plenty of p-bass on ebay for reasonable prices. Would that be a good start?

[LarryHoward]

ok, I'm looking for a cheap bass guitar I can hack on. Just a general purpose one. Something that can stay in tune with having to fuck with it all the time. I've seen plenty of p-bass on ebay for reasonable prices. Would that be a good start?

Rick,

P Bass if fine but over the years, Fender has built a wide variety of quality from top of the line to "Walmart Strats" so you have to look carefully. Ibanez got sued by Fender for their P-Bass knock off back in the 70's. I picked up one of those in great shape with a hard case and a Peavy "Basic 40" amp for $300 a couple of years ago. Sounds good and has that "vintage" aura. I was looking for a P Bass at the time.

Larry

[VALIS]

There are lots of decent basses. Even a cheap Fender will probably be more than adequate. Basses generally stay in tune -- they're way more stable than guitars, at least in my experience.

Back in the 1990's I played a friend's Ibanez for a year (my only bass was the one I got when I was 13 years old, and, OK, it wasn't that good). The Ibanez had great tone, and played well. I then got a Carvin 5-string with active pickups. It had a good fretboard and action, but I did not like the tone. OK for smooth jazz, but not enough grind and punch for rock. Now' I've got a pretty good P-Bass. My daughter had a cheap low-end P-Bass, and it was perfectly good for a couple of years. She now has a higher-end P-Bass, and the tone is probably better.

With electric guitars, a huge part of the sound is the amplifier. With basses, this is less the case. Sure, you can hear a difference, and that can be important to you, but often in live performances you're just plugged into the house sound system anyway.

It's all so subjective, and it really depends on the type of music, and the venue.

Yes, I'm talking in circles here. You probably won't go wrong with an ebay Fender, or any quality bass for that matter, as long as it hasn't been trashed. Before I bought a bass though, I would prefer to hold it in my hands, check out the neck and the frets, and listen to it plugged into an amp and cranked up. Used basses in music stores can be good deals, and you get to try them out before making a commitment.

[bob perry]

Paul's right. I can't imagine buying any axe without playing it first. When I found my Jazz Bas I took it off the wall at the music store one Saturday morning, played about a dozen notes and said, "I'll take it." Same experience I had with my Guild accoustic. Sometimes a guitar just speaks to you right away.

Rick:
CNC guitar manufacturing means that the cheap guitars of today are not as bad as the cheap guitars of years ago. Maybe look at a Mexican built Fender, their low line. I use the SWEETWATER catalog. They are very good. If you don't like the axe you can send it back. Still can't imagine buying a guitar from a catalog. Where's the fun in that? I have an old Peavy bass I never play anymore. I'll check it out and if it still plays OK I could ship it to you. I did lend it to a friend who kept it for years. Not sure if it's up to snuff anymore. I'll let you know.

[Orestes Munn]

Love to hear you mokes play some day.

I studied cello for a few years (no I didn't play it on the boat while the prawns were marinating). Fingering had strategy, that is, the sound you wanted for the note, and tactics, i.e., what you could reach or jump to quickly and accurately (no frets on a cheller). a real virtuoso sacrifices little strategy to tactics.

[bob perry]

Eric:
I have a cello. My wife took it up about five years ago. She didn;t want me to play it. She thought that would intimidate her and her beginner efforts.
But we can't talk cellos here without AMATI/Paul. He is quite the cello player and can roll off Bach one moment then play a counterpoint part to a Garth Brooks tune next. Paul is fun to play with. Paul and Spike were huge friends.

[Orestes Munn]

Eric:
I have a cello. My wife took it up about five years ago. She didn;t want me to play it. She thought that would intimidate her and her beginner efforts.
But we can't talk cellos here without AMATI/Paul. He is quite the cello player and can roll off Bach one moment then play a counterpoint part to a Garth Brooks tune next. Paul is fun to play with. Paul and Spike were huge friends.

I studied as a child and then took a few more lessons in college. My first teacher said I had hands like Janos Starker.
I was a disappointment, lacked discipline.

I taught myself a little guitar and still have one, along with the cello. I need to get rid of both in our new little house.

[Soñadora]

When I was in 4th grade, the music teacher asked me to play tuba (because I was the only kid big enough to carry it). I brought it home and my dad said, "eh, you'll never play. You'll quit after a week."

And you know what? he was right.

That's the only 'formal' music learnin' I've ever had. I taught myself keyboard, but all I really know is where the chords are. Can't read music (at least, not quickly) and never found it much fun to do covers. I love to "compose", which is like "yacht design" or "architecture" or "painting" (note the quotes). I find great joy in improvisation and discovering note progressions or combinations by surprise. Stuff that's probably very academic to skilled musicians. The downside is that my "music" is a bit flat. It's like all those other things, the 95% of it that most people can do is no comparison to the 5% that the accomplished people can do.