LinuxBBQ

Guitar, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, bass and other string instrument discussions, opinions, reviews and useless talk goes exactly HERE!

There must be at least 5 or 6 of us :)

I'm mainly bassist, secondly guitarist. My first 'real' bass was the previously mentioned Gibson G-3, but I switched it to a custom-made USA Fender Precision Plus, sunburst, with active pickups. On the picture it is the left one:


Later I added a 5-string OLP MusicMan, exactly this:

Damned heavy piece of wood, and it had quite a punch.

And then I also played this one over years: a 50th anniversary MIJ Fender P-Bass, very traditional:



This one is probably the best bass I ever had the pleasure to play on. If you are into basses, and you see the Japan-made Fender Precision, and the price is OK, go and get it.

Dammit, this thread will make me so sad :(
In any case, what amp(s) are you using for the basses?

I have two, but not because I like it loud, but because both do sound drastically different. One is an 'acoustic 220' top, and the other one a 'Randall RB-120'. The 'acoustic' has an overdrive switch and a brightness button, the Randall has a gain function by pulling the master volume knob.

I have a Thomas Buchanan mandolin, a Paul Hathaway Octave Mandolin, an Epiphone Mandobird (Electric) ... and best (and cheapest) of all, a Vintage Resonator Mandolin ......



..... which I am totally in love with.

[added]
When I have to play it 'electricked up' I use a really sweet Microvox clip-on mic. The nice lady at Microvox measured all my mandolins and then made a custom 'clamp' that works for them all :)

I don't 'do' amplifiers due to them being the Devil's trumpets and me being an old folkie - I just go (reluctantly) direct into the PA. My Mandobird is use almost entirely to drive my Sonuus midi-interface thing for noodling around on DAWs and the like.

Nice, the resonator reminds me of Dobro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobro)

Do you have sound samples of it?

May have posted this before : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfssNjZLsYU
.. and : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRRhY12aJ4E

We played for the local radio charity show.

We are not a serious group - just a bunch of 'old scrotes' who need an excuse to get out of the house every now and then.

BTW - love the basses - I started off on bass, but I was shit.

I have little titchy hands and no wrist bend - hence the mandolin :)

[added]
5 strings!! - man they made that wrong - count your fingers, 4 right?

Thanks for the songs! You're way too humble, actually this sounds great, especially for a live recording! Are you guys a trio: Mando, guitar, bass?

And yeah, the thing with the little titchy hands - you should have tried a Fender Jazz Bass, or the Squier Bronco. The Jazz Bass has a thin neck, and the Bronco is a short-scale bass. Or, of course, the Gibson/Epiphone EB-1. Also a short-scale bass.

LOL - we know our limits - we are not called 'The Old Scrotes' for nothing :)
I am 'young scrote', being only 55. The bass player on that clip is in his seventies.

Due to age taking it's toll, we can't play anything without the song sheets in front of us.

We were a 5 piece, 3 guitars, mandolin and bass - but the bass player left recently due to ill health. As we don't have a drummer either, this somewhat limits our repetoire :)

If you ever find yourself in North Wales, and have your bass with you, there is a spare seat at the table :)

Those clips are from the Irish set we do - but most of the rest is blues and rock stuff.

We do 3 or 4 gigs a year, and the rest of the time it is just an excuse for a bunch of old guys to hang out at the pub and jam.

Don't know about you guys, but I find playing music is an essential work out for that side of the brain that doesn't do the computer stuff.

re: bass and small hands
I may end up going for a short scale - there are many songs we do where the need for a bass exceeds the need for a mandolin (actually, apart from the irish stuff, that applies to pretty much EVERY song we do)

I want a Double Bass, can't play anything with strings on, but doesn't stop me wanting one.
guy next door, where I grew up has one, makes quite a good living doing recordings for various people. plus he gigs with it.

I will surely call you if I ever find myself in North Wales :)

As for the bass, there are super-nice acoustic basses that are not much bigger than a guitar. I mean, for most of the stuff you would play alternating bass notes, so a short scale acoustic bass guitar would fit the bill. They are comparably loud for being not amplified, some do have piezo pickups though. -> http://www.activebass.com/item--EM.MSB1

Edit: there on the right are some ever cheaper models, and one is a fretless - this would replace the double bass, especially if you play a bit percussive (two fingers of the right hand parallel hitting the strings right at the part where the neck starts)

oddly enough, his son came to stay with us in France, he had a lovely acoustic bass, not like the munchacos at a mexican restaurant, he was planning to tour/busk around europe with it.
He soon gave that up after lugging it around a couple of train stations.
We didn't have a pickup, so we shoved an old sony mic into the box and recorded it like that.
https://soundcloud.com/les-reves/06transformationmas2
sounded pretty good, one single take too.
"there ain't a problem I can't fix - coz I can do it in the mix"

Nice collection Bacon.

wow , you guys are awesome! LinuxBBQ should've got its own soundtrack i think

i play a wee bit of guitar , play gamelan ( traditional music instrument from the country that i live in, something like angklung and kolintang) in my high school days , djembe , cajon , and drums
though i'm not really good at all of them. My main instrument is my tongue ( i earn some of my living as wedding singer on weekends )

Wedding singer on weekends, awesome. :)

Hmm, so what all do I have currently: Gibson SG, Fender Telecaster (Semi-hollow body), Fender Telecaster (gutted with Seymore Duncan "Pearly Gates" in neck position), and a myriad of acoustic guitars. Takemine 12-string, Fender cut-away CD-60CE, and a few other little toys sitting around.

I saw the other day someone here mention some BC Rich guitars. I had a custom Rich V when I was playing some black metal with EMG 81/85pickups in it...truly that was a monstrous guitar.

As far as amps, in my old days (now), I went from the Mesa stacks to really liking a little VoxAC4-tv that I use for jazz and blues. It's funny how I went from playing the heaviest things I could find to just chilling on some jazz.

I will post images later if you really want to see.

I have a Fender Tbucket 400CE Acoustic/Electric, Yamaha FD016 Acoustic, Gretsch G9110 Acoustic Ukulele, some random blue $30 ukulele with no sound quality what so ever, Meinl bongos, and I just picked up a violin from a pawn shop a couple of weeks ago.

i have:
- some relatively cheap acoustic Spanish guitar
- some relatively cheap acoustic steelstring guitar

i never play the steelstring.

^ I have only played steel string acoustic guitars. I am actually looking into getting me a nice nylon string one. One of the smaller made guitars also. They look like a lot of fun :)

bumped for nomnom et al.