Favorite Gear (bass)
 

I just wanna discuss some gear with the fellow bassists on this website.

Right now my favorite bass is my Schecter Stiletto 5, played through my Ampeg SVT4-PRO w/ Hartke PRO 4200 cab and Hartke 215 BXL cab.
I also have a Peavey Grind Neck-thru 5, A Cort B4, and an Epiphone Les Paul 4
along with my Boss Bass Overdrive and Ibanez Weeping Demon Wah.

So let's hear it.
Whattaya got?

i know there's a thread specific to basses somewhere but the mods don't seem to notice this subforum much.

my personal bass of choice is a Samick 5 string fretless. my backup is a 4 string fretted Aria Pro II cat series. both are strung with d'Addario chrome strings (flatwound).

i usually run them through a Warwick Sweet 15 combo amp (first version). got a great deal on this when the 2nd revision came out, 8 band EQ vs. 4 knobs. my alternate source is a custom traynor cabinet and acoustic head. 300W or so, it's something my drummer had picked up from his buddy's older brother back in the day haha.

as for pedals, my most consistent bass effects are a russian big muff, Danelectro delay, Ibanez phaser, Crybaby bass wah, and a volume pedal.

Fender Jazz

right on, man. What's your main forte as far as playing goes?

Right on,man. I learned on a fret-less Fender Jazz. Nothing like it in the world. I appreciate your honest simplicity.

my main forte is sound intensity. i don't approach music the same way as most, it's not to be pretentious, it's more like the difference between being right or left handed.

my friends and i only play for our personal enjoyment. we don't know what we just did, nor do we have any clue what we'll do next, but we most definitely know what we're doing in the moment (most of the time haha)

what about yours?

In my band we tend to write music that would help us to become better players. That is to say, most of the riffs we write are some of the most challenging we can try to imagine.
Personally, Most of my riffs just come from freestyling. Or, I'll have a beat or a beat idea in my head, and I'll jut build a riff from that. A lot of my guitar riffs tend to be more bluesy and mellow, probably because I'm not the best guitar player. Whereas my bass parts can either be as spasmodic and fast as possible, or in the tradition of the "bass player" I write an even, underlying simplified bassline to keep things grooving and solid.

I don't know if you're the guy that checked us out or not, so here's a link.

AFTERMATH

I play the Schecter Elite 4. With the EMG Dual pickups. I run that through my Boss chorus pedal and a Bootzilla Bass Wah Pedal. Ampeg SVT-4 Pro head unit. Rackmounted along with my dbx 166xa compressor/limiter/gate, bbe sonic maximizer/ and furman power conditioner. Playing through one Ampeg 4-10 HLF at the moment. May add a 15 at some point. im also currentlu shopping for a rackmount multi effect processor, not sure if you have any reco's, but if you do let me know.

p.s. I HATE 5 strings.

Bass Pods by Line 6 are actually really nice. I usually use one in the studio, and I'm pretty sure they have a rack mount version.

p.s. not much of a jazz man, are you?

Not a huge fan of the line 6's they sound too digital for me. Im looking for something with some accurate sounding effects. Might go to GC this weekend and play around.

p.s. yes actually i was in a jazz outfit for about 9 months back in Indiana. I just prefer a four string Bass is all, and i noticed you and dave say you play 5 strings. Thought I would throw that out there.

that's pretty cool. reminds me of a mash-up of pantera and meshuggah. good recording quality too, what did you guys use? or did you pay for studio time?

my one concern with the method you describe above is that it's an easy way to trap yourself into a corner. you seem to have a good attitude to get around that though, so long as you remember that sometimes 'not' playing a single note is more challenging than playing the entire scale.



as for CO's 5-string hate, whatever :p: my co-worker thinks they're redundant instruments too. i can understand people not liking the extra width of the neck, that's quite understandable and it 'was' an adjustment when i made the jump. on the other hand, crapping on the instrument because you think the extra string is superfluous is foolish.

for me it's all about tone, it's the same reason one of my guitars is tuned down to C. my approach is not that i'm playing bass so i should plunk down some root notes on my low-B, but to consider its full potential range and to apply it to the moment as necessary.

Yeah I had one in my early days, it was a Stagg... nothing special but i thought i would try it. It just wasn't for me. Not to say i don't like to listen to it. I think it sounds great in certain apps. and i'm sure you can jam out some funky lines on yours, so more power to you.

p.s. I wasn't trying to generalize and say all people who play 5 string suck. It's just not my thing. You'll find my on 4 strings 4lyfe. :pimp:

Dude, if you need a bass get a Fernandes.
if you need an Amp, get an Acoustic 8 by 10 cab.

PROBLEM SOLVED lol

I am a die-hard Fender Mustang ho. Its comfortable, yet punchy. My hands aren't too large, so the short scale works best for me, although, I can play a full scale just fine if the neck is right. Its just got that one small split coil pickup, (its way smaller than the P-bass' pickup) but it has its own fat flavor. I went from a Thunderbird to this, and Ive just gotten a lot better from being punished by that awkward Thunderturd...(Im not completely hating on the tbirds; they sounds good.)

I have my Mustang plugged into a Trace Elliot combo 130 watt 10" and it has the front enclosed with a narrow slot, connected to a Trace 1 15" cab. It has a ton of bells and whistles and a 7 band EQ... I also have an Ampeg BA115... Its supposed to be not-as-good as my Trace, but the Ampeg has this fatter tone I like... Maybe I like "crappy" xD I dont know...

And yeah... Like someone said earlier, 5-strings and I dont play well together... Its gotta be very playalbe first to sound good, in my opinion. If you can play them well, and at your best, then psh, have at it! More bass to you.

I will pass. Never been a huge fan of fernandez. What kind of power are you recommending along with the 8 10?

Yeah, at Guitar Center they have this Accoustic set up that has a 600w, 6 band EQ head on 8 10"s.. Probably what he's talking about... Its just over $1000, so, it appears to be a good deal vs. power, but in my opinion, you really don't need a budget atom bomb of volume that might sound bad because of its low price... (btw, I really dont know about its sound quality.) Read some reviews on it if your interested in more bang for your buck.. ;)

it's all good, i didn't think you were making the generalization but i've seen it done before hehe. i actually feel the same way about 6 string basses hehe i find them gaudy and too wide, 4s are usually a little too narrow (especially Peaveys), 5s fit my hands just right.


as for Fernandes, i've never looked at their basses but i like the idea of their sustainer pickup. their vertigo models look really cool to me, i just don't like the idea of needing to get an elite model with a floyd rose if i want a sustainer built in.

Whatever works for you friend.

And I agree, about the fernandez pickups.

yeah dude. that's my setup. I also have a 100 watt, fridge-sized Acoustic. They're easily the best amps on the planet.

As for basses, I can run with a 4 string, but i usually like 5 strings. I just kind of dig the low B. The Fernandes just has tone I like. I play a Fernandes Atlas 5 in cherry red. I also own a Squier J Bass, and it's not bad, but i don't play it too often. it ran about 400$, because it came with a 50$ Fender rumble 15 watt. that's still my practice amp.

So long as you like what you got, and it makes the sound you want. Thats all thats important man.

quite.

I also run my gear through an octave pedal and a Bass Microsynth. that set me back:usehead:

I was just reminded of when I went to a presentation by Steve Bailey, and he said something about when 5 strings first came out, he had a guy in Canada make one for him. He was playing for Dizzy Guillespie at the time, and he mentioned how those deep deep bottom end notes are like a big sofa to sink down into. That's mainly the reason I really like 5s. Can never really get too deep.

True. very true. whenever I have a 4 string i want to detune, it sucks because i have to restring it with these huge mutherf*ck*ng strings and it sounds too crappy. that's why I like 5's.

Yeah, I used to do that, too. But then it started fucking with my intonation. But I gotta admit, whenever I discovered 5s as a kid I was rather intrigued. I still have 2 4s tuned down to drop C#. My 5s I actually drop tune down to A.

Holy sh*t arew you in Korn or somthin'?

Hey, thanks a lot, man. Pantera was a very transitional inspiration for us. We actually used to be a classic rock cover band, playing 4 hour shows when I was 11-15. It definitely helped to develop necessary chops and hand strength. But then Pantera, Rage Against the Machine, Alice in Chains and puberty took over, and we went in our own direction with our original material.

I hear you on the whole genre-trap folly. That's always been a trap that we've been wary to avoid. Our full-length should demonstrate that pretty well. And I've always been grateful for bands that have had the guts to expand their repertoire regardless of initial scene notoriety. A good example I think is Between the Buried and Me.

Shit, we're getting totally off-topic here, aren't we? You think we start another thread? :usehead:

Perhaps we can just keep talking here and completely ignore that lol

**** YOU!! HAHA! I hate Korn...

Yeah LOL i do too, they got too poppy. But they tune down to A flat, Sometimes to a 2nd low B.

Yeah that play 5 and 7 strings though. Makes it alot easier to pull that off.

yeah the instruments sub-forum is pretty relaxed.

as for korn i'll always remember the time they aired a video on beavis and butthead :laughing: beavis chokes himself or something and has a long stream of consciousness rant about the band. like a moment of clarity that could only last one breath haha.

holy crap hehe that's pretty nuts. i went through the whole classic rock phase too when i started out. there's nothing wrong at all with starting out there. like you said, great foundation hehe.

it's not so much of a genre trap that i was commenting on so much as a competitive philosophy. the whole 'most challening riffs you can imagine' isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as you're able to recognize that complexity for the sake of complexity becomes rather boring to most listeners. i'm not hearing anything close to it yet, just pointing out a potential obstacle further along the path.

Yeah, I hear ya. Even I can only listen to so much sweeping arpeggios and blast beats and bass tapping before I lose interest.

A balance between challenge, feeling, rhythm, intensity and subtlety, melody and harmony are always something I look for. That and originality and honest dedication are paramount. Any band that just writes songs to try to sell them I can usually see through in a heartbeat. Not to say that all rock stars are generally stupid, but if they're not, they're using their intelligence in a terrible, perverted way.

What was it that Hunter Thompson said?

"The music industry is a world where thieves and whores rule and good men are left to die in the street like dogs... There's also a bad side."

that's a very good quote hehe.

i've never been directly involved with it but i've had family members who've danced with that devil which afforded me with a rather unique perspective on the violent relationship between art and business.

so long as people are willing to support the cult of personality and celebrate celebrity it's going to continue perpetuating itself. the individual's revolution might not be televised but their violation most definitely will, and most of them will be begging and pleading to be picked first.

How true... my band just started this year and we're already damn close to booking our first gig. we must be serious assholes then:)

:laughing:

congrats on your first gig (potentially). now if you were shopping around for a record deal then yeah you might be in a band of douchebags :p:. getting a gig after a few months isn't a bad thing hehe.

Thanks man:) anyways, we'd post our shit but we're all computer dumbasses.

http://www.flyguitars.com/graphics/G3.jpg
I don't know how many times I've posted this, but this is easily the coolest bass ever. I dream of this thing.

How very, very true.

Mang, that's old-schooly. And don't feel bad about having your first gig within a year of forming a band. Around here (SC), where bands are a dime a dozen, you'll have some bands getting together to play shows after their first month of practice.