What are you using for an amp (if you don't have power)?No more excuses, after 8 years I can finally practice when outdoors camping.
Minor melodic modes in 6ths anyone??
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
How often you playing your Miezo? I don't use mine nearly as much as I thought I would, but I'm keeping it.
New release today, the last from my collab with ambient guitarist Matt Borghi. This one has 7 shorter excerpts from all of the songs from our three-album longform series Fragments of Distance. I didn't really use the synths on this, for the most part. Most of the textures are the 6-string through the big board.
We had a blast doing this, and Matt's kinda well-known (he's been doing this for quite some time). He's given me a lot of pointers about promoting this kind of stuff, and he's got a pretty big BC follower list, so hopefully this is going to move me forward a bit. It was interesting doing things this way, with the excerpts album. I went through and did some deep listening to the longforms, looking for the perfect 10 minutes in each, and as a listening experience, it's quite different from just listening to the longforms. Hope ya dig it.
It's been a really productive year with this, the Flood album (which got some good critical reception) and I already have my first longform solo album ready to go, which I'll drop in the winter. Between that and the recent changes going on in the US over the past 2 weeks, it's nice to just feel good again for a bit.
We had a blast doing this, and Matt's kinda well-known (he's been doing this for quite some time). He's given me a lot of pointers about promoting this kind of stuff, and he's got a pretty big BC follower list, so hopefully this is going to move me forward a bit. It was interesting doing things this way, with the excerpts album. I went through and did some deep listening to the longforms, looking for the perfect 10 minutes in each, and as a listening experience, it's quite different from just listening to the longforms. Hope ya dig it.
It's been a really productive year with this, the Flood album (which got some good critical reception) and I already have my first longform solo album ready to go, which I'll drop in the winter. Between that and the recent changes going on in the US over the past 2 weeks, it's nice to just feel good again for a bit.
Last edited:
I have power but I play acoustic.
Best $$ I’ve spent in years.
It actually improves my playing since I have nothing to do but practise.
I go for technique rather than « touch » and finesse tone practice since I can’t hear the minute details of the instrument.
Seriously, for a beater outdoors camping instrument its definitely good.
Does it have flaws, yessir but imo the possibility to practice with space constraints and outdoor conditions outweighs the negatives.
Get better the hard way, woodshed.
Ok, not better maybe « less suckage »
Very rarely. The neck and fretboard are troublesome for me with my hand/nerve injury. When I was planning the build I spent a lot of time playing high on the neck of my Spector Euro 5 thinking it would appropriate the Miezo. What I realized later is that my thumb needs to be on the B string side of the neck to keep my fingers flexible. The single cut and flatter shape of the Miezo makes that impossible. I’ve also found that the sweet spot for me is between the 5th and 15th frets on a 34” scale. The Miezo’s shorter scale gets the fret spacing tighter than I like pretty fast.
Again, this is largely due to a very specific nerve injury I have that causes my hand to behave in an uncommon way. I think I’d enjoy the Miezo much more if I had normal hand function. At this point I’m considering selling it. I’m going through a closet cleaning phase and there are a few basses on my potential chopping block. I’d like to move a few things out and then experiment with something like a bass vi or baritone.
Next step is finding a way to tune that 30 much scale bass to C standard.
Any help is more than welcome.
I’ve googled a lot but no definitive/good answers found.
Maybe Kalium strings?
Once here they would be very expensive though….
Any help is more than welcome.
I’ve googled a lot but no definitive/good answers found.
Maybe Kalium strings?
Once here they would be very expensive though….
I've heard sketchy reports about Kalium customer service. No first-hand experience though so take it with a grain of salt.
Have you checked out Stringjoy? They have a pretty decent range of gauges and you can buy singles. Prices seem reasonable too.
FWIW I really like GHS pressurewounds, which I order directly from GHS.
Do they have short scale string sets for C or B standard tuning?
Will skip Kalium thanks for the heads up
That I don't know. What is the scale length? If it's close to the Ibanez Mikro then you might also want to consider the sets Ibanez sells for the Mikro (you can get them on Amazon). The 5 string set is made for B standard, and they're decent strings.
waaay back when ...Fair. I’m 53 which is definitely old to my students. I consider myself firmly middle aged.
i had been on the road for three years. i quit the band to go back to school, where i had to take some freshman music history classes, etc.
one day i'm talking to a true freshman (18) and they ask me how old i was.
me: "i'm 23."
them: "wow, you're old!"
re kalium.
skip had some rough times that created issues. i think he might have righted those.
the last two orders i made came through quickly. (the second one was not too long after his dad died—which i had not know—but he still made it happen.)
admittedly, i was somewhat concerned, as i too had heard there were issues . . .
a caveat is that i've had a relationship (not artist deal or anything) with kalium for a while.
so . . . dunno, but they've worked for me and i'm about to make a bigger buy pretty soon.
This first-hand experience is obviously worth way more than my blatant hearsay.
afaik, kalium doesn't do it by length, they just do it by gauge. when i got my baritone (28-inch scale) strings from them, i asked this question and the answer seemed to be that length wasn't the issue.
one good thing about kalium is that they have gauge/pitch/tension charts so you can fine-tune your sets so the tension is even across the whole range. (their whole deal is basically about balanced tension.)
as a friend has remarked, they also last a pretty long time.
well, yes and no. it's good for people to know if there are (or have been) issues—and there were issues at one point.This first-hand experience is obviously worth way more than my blatant hearsay.
I’m not partial to the sound of their strings but they wear well and last a long time. Never had a problem with service either.
Man this place has been quiet! Or so I thought, until I was looking at new posts and saw one from here! I thought maybe I had somehow unsubscribed from notifications, but they were still set up. I think I missed 4 days or so lol - it was fun catching up.
My AlFeMbic (Alembicized Fender PJ) is back in the rotation - cuz I have a gig on Saturday! Sitting in with Brian Wong, the koto/shakuhachi player - and his mom! Shirley Muramoto - she is also a multi-instrumentalist and teacher - she recently played the National Anthem for a Giants game in San Francisco, and also the Oakland A's. I've known her for a long time, but this was the first time I played with her. So I need to get back to reality, get my gear sorted out, and start practicing/warming up! I am going to try and play it simple effects-wise, but plan to mess around a little bit, at least in the prep phase. OK, gonna try and hit it!
My AlFeMbic (Alembicized Fender PJ) is back in the rotation - cuz I have a gig on Saturday! Sitting in with Brian Wong, the koto/shakuhachi player - and his mom! Shirley Muramoto - she is also a multi-instrumentalist and teacher - she recently played the National Anthem for a Giants game in San Francisco, and also the Oakland A's. I've known her for a long time, but this was the first time I played with her. So I need to get back to reality, get my gear sorted out, and start practicing/warming up! I am going to try and play it simple effects-wise, but plan to mess around a little bit, at least in the prep phase. OK, gonna try and hit it!
Have been off sick / too busy with kids to do much but my new set of dr black beauty strings came in for the Warwick fretless… mm black on black… black is the ultimate black eclipses everything .
Have to say I thought playing unlined fretboard would kill me. For the most part it’s actually pretty easy (muscle memory / side dots help) and randomly find it harder for the first five frets but I guess bigger tonal variations with those notes compared to going higher up the fretboard
Have to say I thought playing unlined fretboard would kill me. For the most part it’s actually pretty easy (muscle memory / side dots help) and randomly find it harder for the first five frets but I guess bigger tonal variations with those notes compared to going higher up the fretboard
Yeah, unlined can be intimidating at first but after 25 years of playing unlined, it seems pretty natural, and the side dots certainly help. Good luck with it. Fretless is my favorite instrument... I have a new Stingray fretless 5 HH coming in a month or two, can't wait.
