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common old school myths and legends

#21
John Wentzien said:
It was pretty much Fender bass and Fender flats (or LaBella) or Rotosound rounds.
The "Flats" guys would hate it when they broke a string...they would have to take the new string outside and roll it around in the dirt so it would match the old ones!
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I was a Fender P and Rotosound rounds guy myself.

If they were getting a bit dull (The Rotosounds) take them off and boil them for 10 minutes. It was amazing how much crud came out of them and how much better they sounded.

If you broke a string (over the bridge) then there was always the possibility that you could unwind back to the core, reform it round the ball end and wind the outer back round, especially if you had not trimmed them back when you fitted them. It never looked quite as neat as when they were straight out of the packet but got me by a few times. If you did carry spare strings they were usually the old set that you had taken off and they sounded like mud.

That was in the late 60s and 70s when I had one bass and no spare cash. I now have 8 and lots of spare sets of strings.
 
#22
delta7fred said:
I was a Fender P and Rotosound rounds guy myself.

If they were getting a bit dull (The Rotosounds) take them off and boil them for 10 minutes. It was amazing how much crud came out of them and how much better they sounded.

If you broke a string (over the bridge) then there was always the possibility that you could unwind back to the core, reform it round the ball end and wind the outer back round, especially if you had not trimmed them back when you fitted them. It never looked quite as neat as when they were straight out of the packet but got me by a few times. If you did carry spare strings they were usually the old set that you had taken off and they sounded like mud.

That was in the late 60s and 70s when I had one bass and no spare cash. I now have 8 and lots of spare sets of strings.
Click to expand...

Been there Brother!!!!:bassist:
 
#24
THORRR said:
Fender Jazz and Precision Basses were the norm, along with Gibson's EBO. Ampeg B-15 had the most sound and boom.
Most other bass amps were a little weak. Years later Acoustic came out with the folded horn design that took us all by storm - Finally bass players could have a big voice.

There was no internet, no blogs, no knock-offs yet because design copyrights were still in effect for Fender. You're instrument was more a tool than a collectable. Nobody took their guitars apart (except guys like me) and nobody was building their own from parts.

You could buy a new bass for a couple hundred bucks and flatwound strings were the norm. Roundwound LaBellas and Rotosounds came out but most balked because of the noise when sliding on the strings. We soon got over that.

Nobody ever thought of our "axes" in terms of collectability and increasing value. these were our Hammer and saw - just tools - painted lumber, pretty much.

We left the chrome on the Jazz & Precision and used the thumb rest. Bass was a background instrument with very little opportunity for soloing. Slap was non-existent unless you made a mistake and caught one of the strings and it banged on the fingerboard. And that was an "oops, excuse me".

Playing with a pick was for losers back them (you weren't a bass player unless you used your fingers to pluck.) Two and three note bass parts were most common with an occasional walk between chord changes.

It was the same planet, but totally different worlds.
Hope this gives you a taste of the good-old-days-when-times-were-bad! hahaha! I wouldn't trade it for the world!:D:bassist::hyper:
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Well I bought my new Fender P for $275.00. La Bella flats and for awhile the tapes. As far as breaking strings I haven't broken one ever in 45 years of playing.Because my dad sold the stuff I had a home made cab, from Sunn specs, with 2 JBL D140's and the haed was an all tube Bogen Challenger. I had a big sound for a 15 year old.
 
#27
and just to fast-forward to the logical conclusion:

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, play bass twenty-nine hours a day down at the club, and pay club owner for permission to come to play, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
 
#28
:eek: Your drummer had pants?


Damn guitard smoked all our rope................




nostatic said:
and just to fast-forward to the logical conclusion:

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, play bass twenty-nine hours a day down at the club, and pay club owner for permission to come to play, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
Click to expand...

Damn! Too long to sig.................
 
#34
In the 70's I had smaller hands so I played Gibson, had a Kustom 200 tuck and roll 50 watt piece of crap.
We never use monitors, couldn't afford them.
I used flats, then rounds later on, now I am back to flats.:D
We used to watch Don Kerchners Rock concert on TV Saturday nights.:)
I had a Hagstrom bass with the gold mother of toilet seat plate in the middle.
Great thin neck, but the bow was so bad I could have shot arrows off of that thing.
Do any of you guys remember Earth amps, they were HUGE!:eek:
 
#38
nostatic said:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, play bass twenty-nine hours a day down at the club, and pay club owner for permission to come to play, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
Click to expand...

You just try to tell the kids today that and they wont believe you. :D
 
#39
I also had an Ibanez acoustic six string. People would look at it and say "Never heard of those". There were no Ibanez dealers in the area at that time, I got it shipped from my Uncle who owned a music store in Great Falls, MT to Grand Island, Nebraska.
 
#40
jnevi9nr said:
what are some of the old school myths about basses, strings, etc from back in the day? what was in in the 70s? what was the go to bass and strings and what did people think about them?
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Old school? Back in the day? The 70's? Excuse me for smiling but my first encounter with a Fender bass was in 1953 and it was brand new. I was not aware of any myths.:)
Rocky
 

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