Re: Re: Re: You HAVE to hear this


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Posted by Rick Denney on February 21, 2004 at 17:02:00:

In Reply to: Re: Re: You HAVE to hear this posted by SHS Tubamaster on February 21, 2004 at 16:12:42:

It's not, at the moment. Too much work.

I spent a little time figuring out the machinery of it. Turns out, it is not a completely typical P-bass. It's a Precision Bass Plus from about 1990, which means it has lace sensors and a Jazz bridge pickup in addition to the standard Precision neck pickups. It also has a 22-fret fingerboard, and a longer upper horn to make that look right. The controls confused me, but I figured out that the push-in/push-out switch changes the Precision pickup wiring from series to parallel, and it has a three-position toggle switch to switch between the P and J pickups (or both). The tone control is a dual-function thing, too.

I spent as much time as possible figuring that out so I could postpone the inevitable of plugging it into the amp and sounding truly, horribly, frighteningly terrible.

I can palm a basketball (read: big hands) but I can't do a four-fret stretch without pain. Much dexterity work going to be required there. But as bad as the fretting is, it's still better than the picking.

The amp turned out to be a big-enough 75-watt Peavey with reasonable features, but I'll probably only be using the headphone output for the time being.

But I wish the valves on a tuba changed the instrument in perfect fourths the way bass guitar strsngs work. It would be nice to learn grooves without every key being a different pattern. Much work required there, too, when I try to move electric-bass grooves back to the tuba. I may even make myself a book of basic grooves for four or five different styles in all keys and start memorizing them, like scales.

Rick "looking for a set of flat-wound strings to save his fingertips" Denney


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