My new bass journey ...

OilCityPickups

So doing my first 24 hours as a double bass player ... 



First - cats hate double basses - seems to be a law of nature.

Second: wow it's physical ... never mind the fact the bass weighs 20+lbs ... the string tension on the huge orchestral flat-wounds is mahoosive ... so fretting is tough and slapping needs iron fingers. 

I have the strings thang under control - a set of Weedwhackers is on order from Thomann ... and changing the strings will give me a chance to address a slightly leaning forward bridge which needs to ideally be leaning back a fraction rather than forward. 

The bass is pretty much immaculate ... except for pretty much all the finish being worn off on the back of the neck ... looks way badass! 

So what have I managed to play in under 24 hours of double bass ownership? Well actually quite a lot: I can hold down a standard rockabilly 1,4,5  and even put in a little run or two in most of the normal keys ... I can do an 'ice cream chord' progression ... slapping when I remember to :-) 

Huge fun 

Adey

I think I need one and need to get into Rockabilly...

Funkfingers

Spin Astral Weeks and play along with Richard Davis.

Paul Chambers' repeated figure underpinning So What! (the composition) is a good stamina exercise - especially at a quicker tempo.

UnclePsychosis

Man, I'm so jealous.I've always wanted an upright but I just don't have the space to even consider one. 

OilCityPickups

UnclePsychosis said:

Man, I'm so jealous.I've always wanted an upright but I just don't have the space to even consider one. 

I don't really have the space or the money either ... but do you know what? Some things just gotta be done. 

Stop press - bought bass finger tape - blisters taped over - practising on. That's rock and roll ... 

ElectricXII

Props. You're hardcore @OilCityPickups !

Funkfingers

So, lie back and enjoy …

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g3baGyKUpx4#bottom-sheet

OilCityPickups

Funkfingers said:

So, lie back and enjoy …

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g3baGyKUpx4#bottom-sheet

I hadn't heard Terry and Gerry in years ... 
Last Bullet in the Gun is great, actually not their usual skiffle style ... below being much more typical 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNLVr7Pz9OA
And shows up slap bass :-) Not actually sure if the bass on Last Bullet is a string bass ... sounds more like an electric ... but the 'four string blues canoe' definitely was a feature of their other stuff ... especially live.  

Fun observation while having my first cuppa on my second day of being a 'roots four stringer':
I was playing along to Motörhead last night. Slap bass works over loads of their stuff, bafflingly. Mind you Lemmy was a huge rockabilly fan (and nerd). 

I'm still very bad at this ... but I can hear and adjust when my tuning slips. Sometimes it's only just a tiny roll of the finger out ... but it's easier than I thought to 'feel' yourself being sharp or flat through the vibration coming back to you from all that body contact with a big vibrating box! 

Another observation ... now is the perfect time for me to commit a crime ... I've worn my fecking fingerprints off! The down side is that my fingers are liberally depositing DNA everywhere from other areas that have lost the skin as well as the prints :-)   

Still - onwards and upwards ...

Tape up ... rock on! 

pt22

OilCityPickups said:

First - cats hate double basses - seems to be a law of nature.

Stray Cats seem to love them though! 

OilCityPickups

pt22 said:

OilCityPickups said:

First - cats hate double basses - seems to be a law of nature.

Stray Cats seem to love them though! 

My severest music critic Miss P. Perkins: resting her chin while intent on listening...

We discovered shortly after rescuing her that a sure way to get her to come out of hiding and socialise was for me to plug in a guitar and start playing ... this would immediately result in her coming out to either sit and listen, wind herself around my legs, or ... super stupidly-cute going around the back of my amplifier and looking in the open side to see where the music was! 

The issue is her musical taste ... generally loud, hardcore metal hardcore punk.  She also enjoys sitting on the arm of the sofa and staring intently at our TV screen if we are watching loud and preferably bloody horror or war films!   

Yesterday after I finished bass practise she stood on her back legs and investigated the f hole of my bass ... so perhaps progress is being made ... maybe I should try her on Necromantix ... 

Jonathangus

By chance, this popped up in my Facebook feed:

OilCityPickups

Jonathangus said:

By chance, this popped up in my Facebook feed:

Brilliant 

ICBM

OilCityPickups said:

wow it's physical ... never mind the fact the bass weighs 20+lbs ... the string tension on the huge orchestral flat-wounds is mahoosive ... so fretting is tough and slapping needs iron fingers. 

So what have I managed to play in under 24 hours of double bass ownership? Well actually quite a lot: I can hold down a standard rockabilly 1,4,5  and even put in a little run or two in most of the normal keys ... I can do an 'ice cream chord' progression ... slapping when I remember to :-) 

OilCityPickups said:

Stop press - bought bass finger tape - blisters taped over - practising on. That's rock and roll ... 

You're a better man than I.

... and a bigger one, too .

I tried playing a proper double bass in public once, at a folky jam session where the guitars were all taken and I made the mistake of saying I was a bass player, so they brought it out from a back room! It felt like trying to play a tree strung with overhead telephone cables - I could barely even get my hand around the neck, let alone play it comfortably. I managed a two-note vamp on the two bottom strings for the length of a song then had to give up as the blood had drained from my left arm and it was a matter of sheer willpower to even get that far. In my defence it was taller than me .

Adey

There was a lady in a Rockabilly band at Goodwood Revival last year. She was about 5' 0" tall and was playing a double bass. Actually, she was absolutely rockin' the double bass! Great band. Can't remember their name though.

OilCityPickups

ICBM said:

OilCityPickups said:

wow it's physical ... never mind the fact the bass weighs 20+lbs ... the string tension on the huge orchestral flat-wounds is mahoosive ... so fretting is tough and slapping needs iron fingers. 

So what have I managed to play in under 24 hours of double bass ownership? Well actually quite a lot: I can hold down a standard rockabilly 1,4,5  and even put in a little run or two in most of the normal keys ... I can do an 'ice cream chord' progression ... slapping when I remember to :-) 

OilCityPickups said:

Stop press - bought bass finger tape - blisters taped over - practising on. That's rock and roll ... 

You're a better man than I.

... and a bigger one, too .

I tried playing a proper double bass in public once, at a folky jam session where the guitars were all taken and I made the mistake of saying I was a bass player, so they brought it out from a back room! It felt like trying to play a tree strung with overhead telephone cables - I could barely even get my hand around the neck, let alone play it comfortably. I managed a two-note vamp on the two bottom strings for the length of a song then had to give up as the blood had drained from my left arm and it was a matter of sheer willpower to even get that far. In my defence it was taller than me .

Had a real fight today ... getting walking basslines out so I know and feel the tree/telephone wires analogy ... but size shouldn't be an issue ... one of my heroes is 'the Bass Pixie' the diminutive lady double bass player from Bamboozle. She's bloody tiny  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt_iQHmeAXY 

Just like anything else a good setup can make an unplayable double bass really work for you ... mine is super hard work at the moment because of totally unforgiving strings. Strings seem to be really seen as part of a setup for double bass as they can last decades and so choice of the right ones is vital. 

Actually the number of small female double bass players is fairly high ... Demonica ... Emma Goss, Linda Teränen of the Relax Trio ... and many more. 

OilCityPickups

Sooooooooo I'm pretty much counting the minutes till my Weedwhacker strings get here these monstrous flat-wound, steel hawsers are bloody hard work. Still ... I can now hold down a basic walking bass line with double slaps ... well I can hold it down for a while!! Mental note to thank the gods of music that most fifties rockabilly and rock and roll songs were pretty short ... phew. 

Another small woman playing bass ... just to make me realise that moaning about hurting fingers is wussing out! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuNTYtdVEKQ 

Adey

I managed to find some video of the band at Goodwood Revival. The lady bassist was barely taller than the body of her bass. She was great though. Really throwing her bass about.

OilCityPickups

Adey said:

I managed to find some video of the band at Goodwood Revival. The lady bassist was barely taller than the body of her bass. She was great though. Really throwing her bass about.

There's actually an almost irresistible urge to throw a double bass about ... it's so bloody physical to play that you get some serious endorphins chucked out by the sheer effort of playing. Couple that with the excitement of the music, and the sure and certain knowledge that if you slap that bass ... the biggest and most impressive acoustic instrument that anyone's likely to get up close to as an audience member ... everyone's going to be looking at you. It's not a shy wallflower's instrument. I would actually argue that the coming of the electric bass guitar actually made bass players blend more into the background. The introspective, serious  'quiet man' bass player image that's been a stereotype started with UK blues and prog. 

OilCityPickups

Well a week down the line from getting a Double bass ... and ...in spite of essentially being a guitarist: 

I can play the old favorite country style 'two step' 1/4/5s  in most keys ... with a moment to orient myself .. plus can get a pretty convincing slapped walking bass pattern ... with odd 'dropped' slaps when my hand gets tired. That familiar 'tick boom tack boom becomes hypnotic when practising ... and I have to catch myself for playing too loud. For those bass players who haven't tried it ,,,  slapped bass can easily shake a room and have stuff falling from shelves ... with no amplification! 

Anybody else trying this ... I'm using 'bass tape' on my right hand fingers to stop total destruction ... it's worth its weight in gold ... really! 

Observations ... my tuning seems better than I thought it would be ... I go a bit sharp when I get enthusiastic higher up the board ... but nowhere as difficult as I expected, and nowhere as hard as a fretless bass guitar. 

The sheer size of even a 3/4 double bass is a bit awe inspiring for a humble six stringer ... but I find I'm rapidly becoming very attached to my particular 'musical wardrobe'. I've had an afternoon of working how to fit it, an amplifier and perhaps a passenger too into my tiny Rover 25 ... it's far easier than you think. and am actually looking at 'time frame to gigging' because why buy one and not gig? 

For gigging I would need a transducer system ... and the Shadow Rockabilly Pro seems about the best bang for buck. and of course a small amp ... 
I'd love to get a Markbass with extension cab ... but that would be way outside my price bracket ... I may try and hunt down a Roland Bass Cube 100 ... not light, but reasonably compact ... suggestions welcome. 
 

ICBM

OilCityPickups said:

… and of course a small amp ... 
I'd love to get a Markbass with extension cab ... but that would be way outside my price bracket ... I may try and hunt down a Roland Bass Cube 100 ... not light, but reasonably compact ... suggestions welcome.

The old Gallien-Krueger Micro Bass amps are still popular with double bassists I think - being the exact opposite of the bass in terms of size! They also seem to have the right type of punchy sound without too much unnaturally extended bass sustain.

They’re probably not that expensive now due to being old tech (rather than vintage), but I haven't checked. If you buy one, make sure the speaker hasn’t started to disintegrate at the edge surround - they do - or get it cheap enough that you can afford to replace it. A modern neodymium speaker would make it even lighter.

OilCityPickups

ICBM said:

OilCityPickups said:

… and of course a small amp ... 
I'd love to get a Markbass with extension cab ... but that would be way outside my price bracket ... I may try and hunt down a Roland Bass Cube 100 ... not light, but reasonably compact ... suggestions welcome.

The old Gallien-Krueger Micro Bass amps are still popular with double bassists I think - being the exact opposite of the bass in terms of size! They also seem to have the right type of punchy sound without too much unnaturally extended bass sustain.

They’re probably not that expensive now due to being old tech (rather than vintage), but I haven't checked. If you buy one, make sure the speaker hasn’t started to disintegrate at the edge surround - they do - or get it cheap enough that you can afford to replace it. A modern neodymium speaker would make it even lighter.

Interesting ... around £300 - £375 seems to be the current asking price.