Hello from Italy

[daste]

Hello, I'm Stefano from Italy.
I work in music tech and have been playing bass for over 20 years now - actually quite intensively at first, then with university and work I had much less time for it.
I managed to play I guess around 100-200 gigs in total, but never really got good at it and consider myself an amateur 100%.
Here's a pic of my main bass I play these days. It's a Sterling StingRay 5 which I upgraded with a Nordstrand Big BladeMan 5 pickup.

 

[MonetBass]

Welcome!

 

[rjmsteel]

Welcome! Nice to meet you. Nice bass too. My parents are from coastal .Senigallia, Italy.

 

[bass12]

Welcome to Talkbass! I was able to spend a couple of days in the Aosta Valley in January and loved everything about it: the people, the architecture, the food. Would love to go back and explore more of Italy.

 

[daste]

Welcome! Nice to meet you. Nice bass too. My parents are from coastal .Senigallia, Italy.

I've never been to Senigallia exactly, but I've been to Ancona - the capital of that region and quite close - a few times. Really nice place, far from mass tourism, beautiful nature, great food, welcoming people, and also really relevant for music tech historically - Farfisa, GEM, Crumar, Elka, Eko, and many more companies were from there.

 

[daste]

Welcome to Talkbass! I was able to spend a couple of days in the Aosta Valley in January and loved everything about it: the people, the architecture, the food. Would love to go back and explore more of Italy.

Thank you!
Aosta Valley is rather peculiar. I've only been there once for a single day and liked it, so I know almost nothing firsthand about it. But I've lived in Turin, which is not far, for about 5 years , and it felt already quite "French" compared to the rest of Italy - I guess Aosta Valley is even more like that.
If I'm right expect the rest of Italy to be much more chaotic and "colorful" in many ways.

 

[bass12]

Thank you!
Aosta Valley is rather peculiar. I've only been there once for a single day and liked it, so I know almost nothing firsthand about it. But I've lived in Turin, which is not far, for about 5 years , and it felt already quite "French" compared to the rest of Italy - I guess Aosta Valley is even more like that.
If I'm right expect the rest of Italy to be much more chaotic and "colorful" in many ways.

Very interesting! I don't know how "French" the Aosta Valley is compared to the rest of Italy but I was surprised at how different it felt from the other side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

 

[5StringBlues]

Howdy from Texas.

 

[daste]

Very interesting! I don't know how "French" the Aosta Valley is compared to the rest of Italy but I was surprised at how different it felt from the other side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

Really? I know both sides very little, but the French side (Savoy) a little bit more - I lived in South East France while working for a well know synth company there for a few years and sometimes went to Savoy for fun.
Anyway, Italy changes dramatically with geography. Every 20 km language, customs, and traditions get slightly different. For example, I can easily discern whether a person comes from my area vs the area of Naples, that is 100 km to the North of where I am, just by hearing them speak Italian for a minute. That gets even easier and sillier with local dialects, sometimes I can tell the exact village somebody is from in my area.

 

[retslock]

Hello, I'm Stefano from Italy.
I work in music tech and have been playing bass for over 20 years now - actually quite intensively at first, then with university and work I had much less time for it.
I managed to play I guess around 100-200 gigs in total, but never really got good at it and consider myself an amateur 100%.
Here's a pic of my main bass I play these days. It's a Sterling StingRay 5 which I upgraded with a Nordstrand Big BladeMan 5 pickup.

View attachment 7465512

Welcome to TB from Sydney Australia.
A little off topic here but as a child I lived across the road from Frankie la Rosa whose family who owned the local fruit and vegetable shop in our area in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. I'm going back now to the 1950s and we didn't have TV yet. Frankie's parents invited me and my sister to go to their home to watch Zorro on TV every Thursday night. Frankie and I would play together on the weekends and occasionally I would find myself in their kitchen which always smelled fantastic and as a result my senses are imprinted with the wonderful aromas of fresh coffee, home made tomato sauce and garlic. Consequently Italian food is and always has been my favourite food. If there is one place in Europe I would love to go to it would be Italy.

 

[P Coburn]

Welcome!

 

[daste]

Welcome to TB from Sydney Australia.
A little off topic here but as a child I lived across the road from Frankie la Rosa whose family who owned the local fruit and vegetable shop in our area in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. I'm going back now to the 1950s and we didn't have TV yet. Frankie's parents invited me and my sister to go to their home to watch Zorro on TV every Thursday night. Frankie and I would play together on the weekends and occasionally I would find myself in their kitchen which always smelled fantastic and as a result my senses are imprinted with the wonderful aromas of fresh coffee, home made tomato sauce and garlic. Consequently Italian food is and always has been my favourite food. If there is one place in Europe I would love to go to it would be Italy.

To be fair, the entire North Mediterranean area is amazing food-wise, with Italy perhaps being the best in variety for biological (highest biodiversity), geographical (water rich, mountains to coast, semi-desertic to alpine climates), and cultural/historical reasons (it was the center of world for millennia and has always very relevant for trade).
Anyway, I'm not sure if I should know Frankie la Rosa - I mean, I've heard of a jazz bassist called Frank de la Rosa but he was from Texas if Google isn't lying to me.

 

[2saddleslab]

Ciao, Stephano!

 

[retslock]

To be fair, the entire North Mediterranean area is amazing food-wise, with Italy perhaps being the best in variety for biological (highest biodiversity), geographical (water rich, mountains to coast, semi-desertic to alpine climates), and cultural/historical reasons (it was the center of world for millennia and has always very relevant for trade).
Anyway, I'm not sure if I should know Frankie la Rosa - I mean, I've heard of a jazz bassist called Frank de la Rosa but he was from Texas if Google isn't lying to me.

There’s no reason you’d know him. He’s not even a musician. He was just a part of the childhood experience that introduced me to Italian food. He and his family were nice people.

 

[StyleOverShow]

Ciao, ciao Stefano. Nice bass, my most often bass is a MM Sterling. So are you playing through a Mark Bass amp? Are they popular in Europe?

 

[daste]

Ciao, ciao Stefano. Nice bass, my most often bass is a MM Sterling. So are you playing through a Mark Bass amp? Are they popular in Europe?

Ciao
Mark Bass is rather popular around here (and is Italian as well ). I don't have one but I'd like to.
MM-style basses are a bit less common perhaps, but I'm sure every bass player knows them anyway. Actually I bought that one because it's very comfortable for my small hands and it's relatively cheap. Otherwise I was looking into Yamaha 5 strings at the time.
Amp-wise, as of now I just have a small Hartke Kickback 12 and an old Peavey combo from the '80s that I got as a present and that needs fixing. Now I'm looking forward to just use the Darkglass Anagram and plug that straight into a PA/FRFR cab.