The basses
Early days
The first bass I had, I bought for a couple of quid from someone at school. It
was a rather vile thing, a green sunbursty semi-acoustic, called something like
a Rosetti 7 (it is some decades ago now), with a body apparently made of
hardboard, or maybe papier-maché. I don't remember what happened to that
(probably amnesia induced by the trauma of owning the thing). That would have
been somewhere about 1973.
Hayman 40/40
A couple of years later, I went to London University, and four of us in the
hall of residence formed a band. As the inferior guitarist, I got the job of
bassist, which I initially did by playing the bass strings of my guitar. Then
there was a fire at the Fender Soundhouse on Tottenham Court Road and they sold
off the stock that had been there and was possibly water- or fire-damaged.
Hayman had also just gone bust, and there were lots of Hayman parts in there.
Originally I planned a twin-neck but all the bodies had gone, so I put together
a Hayman 40/40. This was to be my bass for the next seven or eight years. I
didn't do much playing after dropping out of university in 1976, and was more
interested in the guitar than the bass. However, I moved to Tamworth in 1980
and decided to get back to playing, and bassists were in demand, so out came
the Hayman again.
Burns Bison and a missed opportunity
For some reason, I bought a Burns Bison in about 1982. The man I bought it
off was also selling an original Hofner violin bass for the same money, which
I tried but didn't like (they are really quite unpleasant things to play). With
just a little foresight, I could have sorted out my pension arrangements...
The Fender years
Ultimately, both the Hayman and the Burns went in exchange for a tatty but very
playable Fender Precision. This got various changes, like Di Marzio pickups and
(for a while) active circuitry, with the scratchplate modified somewhat with a
brass end part, rather like a Jazz bass. Oh, and stripping the extremely tatty
sunburst off the body. It had a very good neck on it - very good for slap bass,
given my level of imprecision, because the strings were nice and widely spaced.
Fretlesseses
I decided to try out fretless some time after getting the Precision, and bought
a Frontier, which was, in retrospect, a good bass. For some reason (can't
remember exactly why), I later part-exchanged it for a Fender Precision
fretless, which initially led to some confusion, as the dot markers were in
different places - I can't remember which way round it was, but on one they
were where they'd be on a fretted bass (midway between frets), and on the
other (I think it was the Precision), they were where the actual fret would be.
Headlesseses
A Hohner B2 also came my way, a very convenient bass for carrying around and
also very playable, though the strings were a bit closely spaced for slap bass,
which I had recently started experimenting with. The passive electronics worked
well enough for my needs. I think in the modern climate of fear and guns, I'd
be rather more reluctant to carry it round in its gig-bag as I was then, as it
has a certain gunnish quality about it...
The Warwick road
Then I went into (what was then) Musical Exchanges in Birmingham to try out an
effects pedal (an octaver, I think) and they put a
Warwick Streamer in my hands
to test it with. The Streamer had rather a high action and thick neck, not as
good as my own basses, and I got a Thumb bass down instead. That proved my
undoing, as it was simply the best bass I'd ever played and I really wanted it.
My big fear (and bear in mind that I do, and did, rate myself quite highly as
a bassist) was that I wouldn't be able to do it justice. I persuaded myself
that I would, and the fretted Precision and the Hohner went in part-exchange
(along with a bass belonging to our singer that he wanted rid of, one of the
ghastly aluminium-necked Kramers). This was in about 1988, and that Warwick (a
JD Thumb, named after John Davies who designed it) remains my main bass.
More fretless
I hadn't given up on fretless, and my next fretless bass (replacing the Fender)
was also my first five-string - a Maison. This was a good bass, but I felt I
wasn't really using the fifth string and that I might as well go back to four
strings and a slimmer neck. Incidentally, at this time I was playing in a duo,
Bleeding Hearts (the current Bleeding Hearts is a direct descendant of that
duo, though rather musically different) and we did a demo tape. Brum Beat, a
now-defunct Birmingham music magazine, reviewed it and said that one track, a
song of mine called "Love Lies Bleeding", would benefit from being done with a
fretless. I'd have been more impressed by that bit of musical insight had it
not been for the fact that it was, indeed, done with a fretless, that very
Maison 5-string.
Anyroadup, the Maison got replaced by a Bass Collection four-string fretless.
I never managed to really bond with this, probably because my favourite
instruments (the Fenders and the Warwick) were heavy and the Bass Collection
was very light (although the neck was excellent, it was a lovely bass to
play, and very attractive), and so I replaced it with a Vester which had been
professionally defretted. This is a Warwick Thumb copy with a bolt-on neck
but, although the defretting had been well done, the nut grooves hadn't been
taken down to match. I took it to Guitar Spares in Birmingham, who did the
nut grooves properly and set it up for me for £15.
More headlesses
At some point, I was having problems with cars, and so I bought a Westone
Quantum headless bass so I could (with the Gallien Kreuger 200MB) carry
all my bass gear round by bike. That finally got sold on in 2004 - didn't get
much use but I did once go down to near Canterbury with it and the GK on the
bike, around a 400 mile round trip.
I still had fond memories of the B2 (which is a Steinberger licensed copy), and
when I saw an advert for a 5-string Steinberger, I went and looked at it. It
wasn't the cricket bat Steinberger, it was an XZ-25, but I decided to buy it
anyway (bargain price!) and that spent a while with me. The neck was very
playable and felt very solid and stable. Ultimately it got sold on, as I just
wasn't using it.
Less and less
The next arrival was a Brice V2 fretless five-string. Flippin' 'eck, I thought
the pickups on the Vester were powerful. This blew the doors off...
The weight was nice - marginally lighter than the Warwick but heavier than the
Bass Collection was. The neck profile was rather unusual, the central part of
the rear of the neck being very flat. Position markers were at the fret points,
which I find helpful. Setup was good from the factory, I felt no need to do
any adjustment to it at all. The one thing I found was that the sound, though
the pickups were hugely powerful, wasn't as biting as I'd like - I needed to
edge the treble up somewhat. I used it for a little while, but never really
settled with it, and parted with it again.
Six strings
While I was having the Vester set up, I made the mistake of wandering round
a couple of music shops nearby. It didn't actually cost me money at the time,
but I did have a play on an Axl AAB-336 Tiger Pro six-string bass. Very nice,
I thought, very manageable for a six-string. And then, a few weeks later, one
came up on eBay. Damn you, eBay! Damn you, music shops! So it was that I bought
a six-string to exercise my left hand. The neck was really good - I've since
compared it to various other six-strings (generally costing twice as much) and
it's actually the nicest to play that I've encountered. However, I didn't
really use it, and because I have fairly small hands, the extra reach across
the top string put a bit too much strain on my fingers and my left hand tired
rather quickly. It's now gone, and I can't see myself bothering with a 6 string
again. If I did, though, I'd try to get hold of another Axl.
Dream team
Sometime in 2005 I found something else on Ebay - a Warwick Thumb fretted
4-string, which seemed a bit of a bargain. So I bought it and had it defretted
by Joe at Guitar Spares (just by Sound Control in Birmingham) to replace the
Vester, and the neck reprofiled. It's a late model Thumb, so it had the great
thick neck rather than the slim neck of the JD Thumb that is my fretted bass.
Joe measured up the neck of the vintage Thumb and skimmed the neck of the
(now) fretless down to the same dimensions. The fret grooves were filled with
a slightly lighter coloured filler, so it's discreetly lined. At first I had
flatwound strings on it, but I never felt very happy with them so it now wears
roundwounds - Elite Stadiums, like the fretted Warwick. That simple change
transformed the feel, making me much more comfortable with it. Now the only
reason I'd part with it is for an actual JD Thumb fretless.
Up right and outa sight
Another ambition was to have an electric upright bass. Ebay yet again provided
the answer, a BSX
upright bass, similar to their current Flip bass. It has the same scale length
as a standard bass guitar, piezo pickups in the bridge, and stands on a camera
tripod. I used it with
Second Time
Round, the acousticish duo I'm in, and with
Breakaway, the
covers band. I also used it with
New Corona Band,
the barn dance band I play with, prior to getting the Palatino (below).
I later tried out a proper double bass to see if I would get on with the long
scale length. That didn't prove a problem (I have a good span, even with size 9
hands) but I found the right hand awkward, probably because I was standing in
the wrong place (getting behind it, as per bass guitar, rather than beside it).
Anyway, it wouldn't fit easily in a Mondeo. So I kept an eye out for a 3/4
scale electric upright bass and finished up with a
Palatino VE-500 -
in fact, with two, as the first one was broken in shipping and the shop
(Martin's
Musikshop in Germany) replaced it. This has an endpin rather than a stand
(although it's possible to use a cymbal stand with it).
I used the BSX bass for Breakaway and Second Time Round, and the Palatino for
New Corona Band. This was mainly due to the stand situation - with a barn
dance, there are big rests between playing and plenty of warning to pick the
bass up (I can't stay standing all the time - an old back injury from a
motorcycle crash places certain limits on me, like not standing for more than
about 30 minutes at a time, which is why I perch on a bar stool when playing
with Breakaway). I did like the full scale neck though, so I went on the
lookout for a Ned Steinberger bass or possibly an Ergo Bass, both of which are
full scale and have stands.
I finally cracked and bought an NS WAV-4 brand new from Musikhaus Thomann -
this is the entry-level Ned Steinberger bass, with passive electrics (so I'm
using a hi-z preamp to cope with the piezo output, either a Behringer ADI21
or a Behringer MIC200). The BSX and Palatino are now both gone.
Later still, I bought an Ergo Instruments 5-string upright. This and the
WAV-4 are the two current uprights - I'm finding that at the moment I use the
WAV-4 more, but that may change.
Five alive
Sound Control in Birmingham (who were once Musical Exchange, where I bought
the Warwick) have a "Deal or no deal" section where you can make an offer for
instruments they're trying to flog off. I bought a Squier Standard P-Bass V
(or some similar combination of letters), a perfectly competent 5-string with
passive J-type pickups in a Precision body. I played it a bit - must admit
that part of the reason for buying it was for possible resale, and part of the
reason was because I thought it should be getting played.
However, I found myself unable to resist the lure of Antonio Tsai's inlaid
instruments on ebay, and so it was that I bought a lovely 5-string bass. When
it arrived, I was smitten by it straight away - like the JD Thumb, the neck is
shallow and fast, and a little narrower than the Fender. So the Fender went,
and the Tsai got promoted to gigging bass. I've played 5-strings on and off
over the years, and I've actually managed to settle with this one. It's my
current gigging bass for the rock/blues covers band The Lightning.
Seven - heaven?
I decided to take on new challenges - one of them being a 7-string bass. Again
I went for a Tony Tsai bass, but this time it was something of a disaster. It
looked lovely and the neck felt good, but only six of the strings sounded - the
active area of the pickup was marginally too small to span all seven strings.
The fretting wasn't terribly good (it's all in the right place but needs some
tidying up) and the nut was rubbish - on two of the middle strings, if you fret
between the 2nd and 3rd frets, there was no clearance from string to 1st fret.
Some modification was in order, starting with a pair of Bartolini G66JD pickups
and a new bone nut.
Fret not
Still on the quest for a 5-string fretless that I was happy with, I chanced
on a Mazeti 5-string fretless that was being sold on the Basschat forum. I
travelled down to near Portsmouth, had a go, liked it, and brought it back
with me. It is now my main instrument for the originals band Different Glory.
Bump and grind
Did I say I'd probably not bother with a 6-string again? After playing a few
5-strings in PMT, I decided that the Peavey Grind was a very nice instrument
but I had no reason to buy one. Not a 5-string anyway. But when an as-new #
6-string Grind appeared on ebay, I found temptation impossible to resist.
The fact that it's a passive bass is a bit of a drawback as far as I'm
concerned, but I'm not overly bothered. I may fit a pre-amp in it at some
point. It's now my main gigging bass for the covers band Spiral Six.