The Silliest Cliches' You Hear on TalkBass...

[plangentmusic]

...on a regular basses.

For me, it's when people talk about the "consistency" of a product line.

I recently mentioned I bought a Squier CV that was the best playing J I've felt in years and the response was; "Oh, yeah, some of those basses are good, but they aren't consistent."

Well, guess what...I only need ONE! I'm not buying the whole production line! I'm a customer, not a retailer. Who cares how good the rest of the line is!

Another thing is "attention to detail" on custom built instruments." Well, the reality is that even on custom built instruments, about 95% of the work is still done on machines -- no differently than a production line model. It's just a smaller operation. Most of the extra money you pay for a custom built bass is for the carpentry.

And finally when people talk about wood. It's WOOD. Sure, some basses use cheaper wood. Hey, I have a Carlo Robelli bass that's made of compressed sawdust. The finish is simulated wood plastic coating. It sounds and looks GREAT.

Any piece of wood can warp over time. I've seen Sadowsly's warp, meanwhile I had an old Ibanez that I played outdoors in the sun and rain, left out in an apartment that had dry heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and the neck stayed straight as an arrow.

Okay, let me have it. Or...if there's anything that you wanted to get off your chest that needs addressing, let's hear it!

[AltGrendel]

Actually, I think you have it pretty much covered.

[snyderz]

'On a regular basis', I find that some people post every minute thought that enters their head to Talkbass. Makes for some interesting follow-ups.


Whoa....my cat just walked by my door. Anybody's cat ever do that?

[bass_lord_mutha]

Originally Posted by plangentmusic

...on a regular basses.

For me, it's when people talk about the "consistency" of a product line.

I recently mentioned I bought a Squier CV that was the best playing J I've felt in years and the response was; "Oh, yeah, some of those basses are good, but they aren't consistent."

Well, guess what...I only need ONE! I'm not buying the whole production line! I'm a customer, not a retailer. Who cares how good the rest of the line is!

Another thing is "attention to detail" on custom built instruments." Well, the reality is that even on custom built instruments, about 95% of the work is still done on machines -- no differently than a production line model. It's just a smaller operation. Most of the extra money you pay for a custom built bass is for the carpentry.

And finally when people talk about wood. It's WOOD. Sure, some basses use cheaper wood. Hey, I have a Carlo Robelli bass that's made of compressed sawdust. The finish is simulated wood plastic coating. It sounds and looks GREAT.

Any piece of wood can warp over time. I've seen Sadowsly's warp, meanwhile I had an old Ibanez that I played outdoors in the sun and rain, left out in an apartment that had dry heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and the neck stayed straight as an arrow.

Okay, let me have it. Or...if there's anything that you wanted to get off your chest that needs addressing, let's hear it!

+1

All it takes is one good bass and you're set, unless you're like me and need different basses for different situations hehe, but I've known guys that have just one bass not even considered a top-line instrument, but they bougth the one that was made really well, and they ran with it. Consistency is a quality control thing, having nothing to do with the quality of one singular instrument. I also have owned a Carlo Robelli 5 string that to this day has one of the top 5 necks I've ever played on, and was a solid instrument overall.

My TalkBass cliche: Bassist describing good fretless tone as 'mwah'. It's not a freaking kiss, ok? Besides, I like fretlesses that have good 'merrr', that's alot less nasaly tone to me :P

[THand]

I have a 2008 cat that is built like a tank.

[KJung]

Disagree 100% with literally everything the OP posted That doesn't happen very often.

I guess what bothers me is people making overarching statements with very little experience or knowledge of what they are talking about.

[unclejane]

Originally Posted by plangentmusic

...on a regular basses.

For me, it's when people talk about the "consistency" of a product line.

I recently mentioned I bought a Squier CV that was the best playing J I've felt in years and the response was; "Oh, yeah, some of those basses are good, but they aren't consistent."

Well, guess what...I only need ONE! I'm not buying the whole production line! I'm a customer, not a retailer. Who cares how good the rest of the line is!

Another thing is "attention to detail" on custom built instruments." Well, the reality is that even on custom built instruments, about 95% of the work is still done on machines -- no differently than a production line model. It's just a smaller operation. Most of the extra money you pay for a custom built bass is for the carpentry.

And finally when people talk about wood. It's WOOD. Sure, some basses use cheaper wood. Hey, I have a Carlo Robelli bass that's made of compressed sawdust. The finish is simulated wood plastic coating. It sounds and looks GREAT.

Any piece of wood can warp over time. I've seen Sadowsly's warp, meanwhile I had an old Ibanez that I played outdoors in the sun and rain, left out in an apartment that had dry heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and the neck stayed straight as an arrow.

Okay, let me have it. Or...if there's anything that you wanted to get off your chest that needs addressing, let's hear it!

"Tonewood" is probably my favorite cliche' because it's considered such a very very vital property of a bass, but nobody seems to be able to define the "tone" and which type of wood that tone is supposedly connected to. If somehow it does get defined, there are so many counterexamples that it just becomes a meaningless definition.

Ultimately, it turns out to make no difference what type of wood is used since that's way down in the noise of what makes a bass sound the way it does, but people get unbelievably (and hilariously) upset when challenged on the "tonewood" notion to produce any kind of evidence that it really makes a difference. In the end, no evidence is really ever presented, but it makes for good fights on TB.

The other I'm fond of is "quick", as applied to amps. The notion here seems to be that certain amp types (such as SS) are "quicker" than other types, an apparent reference to transient response.

In reality, the transient response of any amplifier is far, FAR, FAR faster than any audio transducer ever designed so it's basically a totally mythological term. Other explanations such as dynamic range and distortion profile are much more applicable to the types of coloration and voicing that are usually being discussed. Yet the "quick" thing is becoming all the rage as a description of an amp's sound...

Too funny, both of these terms....

LS

[Kwesi]

Originally Posted by unclejane

"Tonewood" is probably my favorite cliche' because it's considered such a very very vital property of a bass, but nobody seems to be able to define the "tone" and which type of wood that tone is supposedly connected to. If somehow it does get defined, there are so many counterexamples that it just becomes a meaningless definition.

Ultimately, it turns out to make no difference what type of wood is used since that's way down in the noise of what makes a bass sound the way it does, but people get unbelievably (and hilariously) upset when challenged on the "tonewood" notion to produce any kind of evidence that it really makes a difference. In the end, no evidence is really ever presented, but it makes for good fights on TB.

You say this as if if you have absolute proof that wood doesn't affect tone. Do you? It's best to keep opinions relegated to the realm of opinion and avoid confusing them for fact. Furthermore, pretty much everyone I've seen that does believe in the concept of tonewood can easily describe (or "define", as you put it) the differences between the woods in question given that they've played at least a couple of basses made with those woods.

Frankly, it looks like your trying to start one of those pointless arguments.

[flipper_gv]

Originally Posted by unclejane

"Tonewood" is probably my favorite cliche' because it's considered such a very very vital property of a bass, but nobody seems to be able to define the "tone" and which type of wood that tone is supposedly connected to. If somehow it does get defined, there are so many counterexamples that it just becomes a meaningless definition.

Ultimately, it turns out to make no difference what type of wood is used since that's way down in the noise of what makes a bass sound the way it does, but people get unbelievably (and hilariously) upset when challenged on the "tonewood" notion to produce any kind of evidence that it really makes a difference. In the end, no evidence is really ever presented, but it makes for good fights on TB.

The other I'm fond of is "quick", as applied to amps. The notion here seems to be that certain amp types (such as SS) are "quicker" than other types, an apparent reference to transient response.

In reality, the transient response of any amplifier is far, FAR, FAR faster than any audio transducer ever designed so it's basically a totally mythological term. Other explanations such as dynamic range and distortion profile are much more applicable to the types of coloration and voicing that are usually being discussed. Yet the "quick" thing is becoming all the rage as a description of an amp's sound...

Too funny, both of these terms....

LS

1. If you can't tell apart a jazz bass with ash body and alder body, you need to check your ears, it makes a BIG difference. Or again, take Cirrus basses with different wood combo, and tell me you don't hear a difference. OR a warwick corvette std bubinga vs the ash version. YOU WILL HEAR the difference. It's all down to a couple factors : air pockets in the grain (like ash), density, oil content. Take 2 similar tone woods: Mahogany and Koa. They have a similar grain structure, density and oil content. Surprise surprise, they sound VERY similar.

2. The quickness of SS amps is not really how "quick" the note is produce, it is not about a kind of "lag". It's about how much each notes have better articulation. It is the attack that is quicker, aka less compressed. The initial punch of the attack seems to last not as long, that is the quickness of D class SS amps.

[flipper_gv]

Oh, and cliches I'm tired to hear is people saying "their basses nail that jaco tone".

It's not that it is annoying, but everyone says that about almost any bass with a bridge pickups :P.

[Woodchuck]

Paging Ken Smith......

[roadkill2309]

'Tone is all in the fingers' is a statement that should come with a twelve-line footnote to the effect that this is true based on a 1,000 bass player sample, all using the same bass.

Whereas I agree that the above statement is true to a certain extent, the simple fact is that two J Pups versus one MM in the sweet spot are going to sound different, no matter how many guys SXs can outplay my MIA fender.

...which brings us to yet another example...

[Kwesi]

Originally Posted by flipper_gv

Oh, and cliches I'm tired to hear is people saying "their basses nail that jaco tone".

It's not that it is annoying, but everyone says that about almost any bass with a bridge pickups :P.

I need to find these guys basses and steal them . I've only heard two basses, live, that could cop that exact tone and one of them was specifically built to do so. Luckily I'm having one built for me .

[Lublin]

"Burpy"

"Nails that *insert word* vibe"

[Edward G.]

Tone wood: Custom luthiers are responsible for this brand of snake oil. They say it's important, so we follow. In my world, wood mostly looks nice, finishes nice, and/or holds screws nice. All are equally important. If there were no timbre inherent in the wood, there would be ZERO sustain and no instrument.

Growl: Does this mean you can hear the details within the vibrations of the string? Or does it mean you can sound more like a guitar?

Tone: Tone is a meaningless idea as a metric. No two people can possibly perceive it the same way.

[over_the_moon]

Originally Posted by snyderz

'On a regular basis', I find that some people post every minute thought that enters their head to Talkbass. Makes for some interesting follow-ups.


Whoa....my cat just walked by my door. Anybody's cat ever do that?

Jaco didn't need a cat.

[Kwesi]

Originally Posted by roadkill2309

'Tone is all in the fingers' is a statement that should come with a twelve-line footnote to the effect that this is true based on a 1,000 bass player sample, all using the same bass.

Whereas I agree that the above statement is true to a certain extent, the simple fact is that two J Pups versus one MM in the sweet spot are going to sound different, no matter how many guys SXs can outplay my MIA fender.

...which brings us to yet another example...

LOL, I do like this one.

Commenting on the first point, I definitely agree with you. The fingers are only one part of the equation. How big a part depends on exactly how you play and the bass in question but to say that, without question, tone is all in the fingers is pretty baseless. I think the problem there is that a lot of people confuse tone and style. While related, they're hardly the same thing. Sure you'll sound like "you" on a Dean Sledgehammer or a Fodera Emporer but in terms of tone alone, there will be differences.

On the whole idea that SXs, Squier, Budget Brand X basses can own MIA Fenders and other similar quality basses, I dont' doubt that it's possible but I think it gets played up quite a bit. I also think that the likelihood of finding that budget bass that owns a higher quality one is lower simply because of how they're made. I wonder how many of those higher quality basses were set up to the players liking? If you own a bass for any length of time, the neck relief, string height, pickup height, and strings will all be to your specific liking. You won't get that picking up another bass of the wall so naturally you'd like yours better.

[unclejane]

Originally Posted by Kwesi

You say this as if if you have absolute proof that wood doesn't affect tone. Do you? It's best to keep opinions relegated to the realm of opinion and avoid confusing them for fact. Furthermore, pretty much everyone I've seen that does believe in the concept of tonewood can easily describe (or "define", as you put it) the differences between the woods in question given that they've played at least a couple of basses made with those woods.

Frankly, it looks like your trying to start one of those pointless arguments.

What'd I tell you guys? Here's how it usually goes, I say:

The "Tonewood" advocates are the ones making the original claim that certain wood types produce a certain type of tone. All I'm doing is asking them to Prove it:

- Define the tone that wood X is responsible for producing
- Demonstrate that wood X produces Y tone
- You have to eliminate all other variables that affect the tone of a bass, such as construction, overall design, electronics and so on. That is, _only_ varying the wood type should vary the tone _and_ only in the claimed direction.
- Explain the counterexamples. I.e. a bass made of wood X that actually has a tone W instead of tone Y.

And on it goes... It's great...

LS

[spade2you]

Originally Posted by KJung

I guess what bothers me is people making overarching statements with very little experience or knowledge of what they are talking about.

Ya think?!

[treekiller]

Guitard, but actually I love it because many times it's so true!!!