Bass Nation

So it’s been five days since I got my electric upright bass and I’ve been trying to play it at least a little bit each day. The other night I was just messing around with it unplugged and noticed a buzz on the lower notes of the lower strings, so I played around for a really long time adjusting the bridge height and the truss rod. I at least isolated the buzzing to 2 notes on one string which are less noticeable when it’s amplified, and I can get rid of it if I hit the string just the right way. I’m not sure if this is something that a simple professional setup might fix, or if it’s something I can eliminate through proper playing technique.

And speaking of proper technique, I’ve decided to take a few lessons just to make sure I don’t develop bad playing habits so early on. I think I may have found somebody who I can afford on craigslist.

But just messing around and playing simple lines on it at least is starting to sound good. Besides trying to develop some of my own grooves on it, I’ve been covering Hey by the Pixies and Walking on the Moon by the Police (links go to bass tabs). They’re both really basic but also very melodic and involve a little bit of sliding. Hey has a nice little walk to it as well. My sister took some great pix of me playing which I’ll post once I get them, and once I’m a little more confident on it I’ll take some video.

So last night I got about an hour of amplified practice in with my new electric upright bass. I’m not sure why I thought I’d have such a seamless transition. I had played a higher end version of the instrument that I got at a jam session last fall. It was a shorter scale one, so it was really easy to play. Mine is a full scale neck, so especially up top the notes are really far apart. It’s a physical impossibility to play the same way as I would my bass guitar. There’s more sliding involved, which sounds amazing on an upright. My upright is one of the ones with dot on the neck to show you where the notes are. A lot of bassists consider this cheating, but I consider it a necessity, at least at this point. So we played a few songs and I really had to strip it down to the most simplistic lines as possible. There’s one song that involves quite a bit of left hand fingering and that was the one where my intonation really needs work. Otherwise I wasn’t too bad. I’m definitely going to need to put a lot of practice time into this thing, and hopefully take a lesson or two. For now, here’s a beginners’ lesson from YouTube:

I am now the proud owner of an NS Design Wav 4 Electric Upright Bass! I could barely sleep last night knowing this thing was coming. I had it shipped to work and of course the second I bring it in my boss arrives acting all micro-managey, which is already annoying first thing in the morning but even more annoying when I’m finally getting my Christmas bonus 4 months after the fact and I’d like to check it out a little bit. I took it out of the box, put it on the stand, got it somewhat tuned up (it was at least tuned to itself, I don’t have a tuner with me) and played it for about 5 minutes. It feels great! The long scale is definitely going to take some serious getting used to, but the simple lines I’m playing for this festival gig should be a really good place to start. Tonight is our semi-acoustic practice night. It’s also our kids’ playgroup, so there’s going to be a room full of kids from 7 months to 6 years old there, as well as my mom, my sister, and my little nephew. I can’t wait to plug this thing into an amp, even if I only get to play it a little bit tonight. I’ll have pictures and a full review tomorrow.

I’d like to once again send profuse thanks to Bob and Mark Gollihur at Gollihur Music for getting this thing to me, for having awesome customer service, and for even including a couple of cool stickers. Hit these guys up for all your upright bass needs.

I’m so damn excited I can practically taste it. My NS Design Wav 4 electric upright bass is on its way to me right now! My months of waiting are finally almost over. I’ll have a tracking number soon and then I can go to the UPS website and obsessively click refresh to see when it’s going to arrive. Now that the frustrating part is over, the work begins as I get myself gig-ready with it.

I’ve got practice tonight, just me and the guitarist/singer. While I thought I got a pretty sweet tone at the jam session, he told me it was still a bit too sustain heavy for the stuff he’s looking to do and I think he’s probably right about that. He’s looking for more punchy thump with less sustain, and I am thinking that higher string tension is the best route to that. I probably should get my acoustic set up with heavier strings since I think I want to keep my Fender more set up for rocking out. I’m also thinking I need another pedal to really refine my sound. I’ve got a Boss 7-channel Bass EQ which definitely adds a level of versatility. But now I’m thinking of a compressor and/or a limiter/expander. What I really need is a better amp. I’ve got a 200 watt Peavy with a single 15″ speaker, and it’s seen better days.

The ongoing saga of my electric upright continues. I ordered an NS Design Wav 4 electric upright bass from Musicians Friend back in December. They had a ship date for the first week of January. That date came and went and they bumped the ship date up a week, then a month, then another month. As of yesterday, the ship date was set for tomorrow (3/36) so today I went to their site to check and they set the ship date back ANOTHER MONTH! Over on the TalkBass forums, Bob Gollihur from Gollihur Music has been posting about the status of these instruments for months. I figured that the manufacturer would get them to a big retailer first. But that was not the case at all. I should have gone to Gollihur from the getgo. It’s run by two bass playing brothers who know their shit and have great customer service and a dedication to the instrument. Definitely go to them first with all of your upright bass needs.

I look forward to posting a full review of this instrument soon! I just found out that the new band I’m in has rehearsal space available for us, and now we’ve got just a few months to get stage-ready for our really big gig!

I am not in any position to be getting any new gear. But if money were no object, there are some things that I’d love to pick up. First and foremost would be a real deal acoustic upright bass. I don’t know enough about that instrument to even speculate on brands or vintages or any specs. I just know I’d love to have one and learn to play it. I would also really really really love a serious Ampeg rig. 1000 watts of tube power driving a 4×10 cabinet and a 1×15 with a horn. Because as a musician who isn’t anywhere near gigging, I need that kind of power to tear the ceiling off my apartment. How about some pedals? I love the old MXR analog envelope filters which I can’t seem to find anywhere anymore.  Then there’s the Moogerflooger, which is basically a Moog synthesizer without the keyboard. Perhaps a little distortion. Perhaps a bit of compression. Of course these days you can get all of that stuff in one programable digital effects unit, but I’d much rather do it with seperate analog pedals. A loop pedal would also be good to have.

And what about basses? I love my Fender Musicmaster. No matter what else I have, that’s my main axe. But something fretless would be cool. And something with more than 4 strings would be fun. Active electronics might be neat. I’d want to go vintage over re-issue. I’ve always wanted to own any Gibson or Rickenbacker instrument. Or then there’s the opposite route, a custom built boutique bass with all the bells and whistles and beautiful rare wood and the advanced active electronics.

OK, back to reality. I should be practicing instead of daydreaming about stuff I can’t afford.

I ordered an NS Design Wav 4 electric upright in late Dec. It’s mid February and I still don’t have it yet. I knew these things were back ordered, but this is getting ridiculous! The online merchant who I ordered it from kept upping the delivery date. If you go on their site now, it says Feb 23, and it has said that since Jan 7. Since I was let down twice before, this time I went straight to the source to see if the Feb 23rd date was realistic, since I’ve been getting really excited about playing this thing in a couple of weeks. What they told me was that they’re expecting the shipment to get to them on the 26th, and then they need to set them all up before sending them out to retailers, and it probably won’t get to me until late March. I appreciate their honesty. And I appreciate their commitment to quality that has led to this instrument not being available for 6 months or so. Apparently they had to reject their last shipment and Ned Steinberger had to go to the factory in China and make sure they got this one right. So while I’m frustrated, I know this thing will be worth the wait.

I’ve got a couple of musical possibilities lined up for when it arrives. One of which is just jamming and maybe gigging with a friend. The other is another friend of mine who is recording an album of his own original material, kind of roots rock/Americana stuff that would really benefit from some upright sounds. He’s also probably going to play in our local music festival which means I’d have that gig too, in front of all our friends and neighbors. But really, I just want to start playing it. I got a small taste of electric upright at a jam and in a music store and I want more. I could probably cancel my order and get a Palatino shipped tomorrow, but I’ve played both and I really prefer the Wav 4. And the Wav 4 is more compact, lighter weight, has fret markers, and is all in all a better instrument.

Here’s a real fun song to play. It’s got three finger galloping and synthesized tapping. And it’s just a great song. I remember when I first heard Muse that they sounded like a bit of a Radiohead ripoff, but when I heard the whole Black Holes and Revelations album it rocked my world. It’s proggy and poppy at the same time and there’s some really great musicianship. They rely a great deal on synthesized bass tones. I’d really like to pick up a bass synth at some point. There’s one in particular called the Moogerflooger which is basically an analog Moog synthesizer without the keyboard. I ran my bass through an old friend’s Moog and it sounded ridiculous. Of course, those things are not cheap and I have other gear needs ahead of that. But anyway, back to Knights of Cydonia…

Here’s the tab. I usually like to provide a YouTube link that doesn’t have any video so you’re not distracted when you try to play along, but the sheer awesomeness of this video made me feel the need to include it.

So yesterday I got home, did all the usual after work routine of trying to keep my daughter from completely tearing up the place while I clean the kitchen, take out the garbage, run to the store and make dinner. Somehow I also managed to drag my beat up old Peavy TKO 60 amp out of our storage shed and make sure I had all the gear I would need to jam… my fender, 2 cables, my Boss Bass EQ pedal, my tuner, and the little speaker cable that connects my amp to the speaker (not a standard feature on a combo amp, but the guy who had it before me had bought another amp and was using this one as an extra speaker, so it was modified). After dinner was served and the little monkey was put to bed I loaded up and drove down to the rehearsal space to try out. I was both elated and nervous. As I said in my last post, I haven’t tried out for a band in a while and the last time was a total bust.

So I got down to the rehearsal spot and was blown away. It’s a huge warehouse with tons of locked practice rooms with 24 hour access. One of the guitarists was there with a sweet black strat with a modified bridge and really nice active pickups. He had  a Line 6 effects processor running into a laptop which was running Cubase and also controlling the effects, and that was running into a small PA. I plugged in my amp for the first time in probably 4 years and didn’t know if it was even going to work. There are some loose connections in there and sometimes you need to fiddle around with the knobs just to get some sound out of it. The first sound that came out was a loud screech, but eventually I started hearing my bass come through and after some fiddling around with the knobs and my EQ pedal I got a tone I was happy with, deep and low with ridiculous sustain and a little bit of mud. I’m amazed that this amp works at all. About fifteen years ago my old guitarist put his case through the speaker cone and a friend of mine repaired it with epoxy and then coated the rest of the cone with jesso to even it out and miraculously it worked. It’s not the cleanest sound, but it’s works for the kind of stuff I play.

So we started to jam. He ran me through some chord changes and I tried my best to make up the kind of fast and intricate lines I thought he would want to hear. The more I stumbled on it, the worse my playing got. I’m really not great playing over pre-recorded tracks and that’s what he had been using to work out these songs, but eventually I found my groove and we had finally had some good interplay together towards the end. And the guy was super patient with me which was cool since I was getting ready to just give it up.

So we’ll see if he asks me back. They’re going to be trying out 3 drummers over the weekend. I really hope I get a second chance so I can play with a live drummer. With a drummer it’s a lot easier to get into a rhythmic groove and then melody will come more easily.

When I first got my Fender, it came with very heavy gauge round wound strings and very high action. I was 13 and didn’t knot any better, so I learned to play on heavy, tight strings pretty high off the fingerboard. Later I put on medium strings (also round wound) but didn’t change my setup so it was a little easier to play. Much later I had my bass set up professionally for the first time with medium strings and low action and it was like a whole new instrument, so much easier to play. And my playing improved because of it. My current strings are GHS Boomers and I love their sound and playability.

Then I got my acoustic and it came with medium toward heavy brass roundwounds and at the suggestion of the guy who upgraded my Fender I replaced them with medium flatwounds.

Now that I’m starting to take playing more seriously, I’m exploring the idea of experimenting with different strings. I did a little research on Steve Harris recently and found out that he has his own signature line of strings by Rotosound. They’re very heavy flatwounds, and only come in long scale which means I can’t put them on either of my short scale basses. I love his sound and everything, but his stuff is hard enough to play on medium strings, so I’m not sure about going back to heavies. Plus I’d probably need a new setup to make them playable and that’s an expense I’d rather not make (though everything I make through this blog I plan on putting into my music in some way or other). And speaking of expenses, bass strings are not cheap, so experimenting with different kinds that I might not even like along with setups could be really pricey.

I’d always thought that rock was all about roundwound strings while flats were for jazz and other genres, but I am finding out that more bassists who I really like play on flats. Rounds are brighter and good for slapping and popping which I don’t really do a whole lot of, and flats are more warm and mellow sounding. I may just try some medium flats on the Fender and see how I like them.