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.
The bass for now!
- Thread starter BazzaBass
- Start date
-
- Tags
- bass guitar future modern
Um, no. There will always be new players who want new instruments and have enough money to buy them, and enough veteran players who want new instruments and have enough money to buy them, that the "factories" will never be "shut down." Some companies may fold, but others will be created, and new basses will continue to be made. Thankfully.
You sound like the guy who recommended the US Patent Office be shut down because everything worth inventing had already been invented.
As far as an electric bass goes that plugs into an amplifier or sound board, Leo and his crew got it right pretty much from the beginning. 200 years ago, if someone wanted to listen to music they either had to play it themselves or go somewhere where it was being performed live. Technology has made us so lazy that fewer and fewer people are actually playing the music and sources for listening to music of all genres have gotten so cheap that there is little if any need for someone to learn how to play any instrument. Pop music today is pretty much created in the studio and much of it is constructed from manipulated pre-recorded sound clips. Most of it cannot be performed live with any proficiency. That is why most of the best players are gravitating toward country, gospel, and any other types of music that can be performed live. So, as far as a bass guitar used for live music goes, your basic 4 or 5 string Fender p or j, or variation there of, should do everything anybody needs.
Generation should be local. Centralized grids are the past, they just don’t know it yet. Among other things is, in big fashion, the security issue. Ignoring all the politics, imagine Texas, the past year, had been mostly local-renewable. Most of those who lost power, both in the summer incident and the ice incident, lost it when power lines far away from them went down. A state so full of sun and wind, losing power across the board because of that???
Disag
imagine how quickly the interior of engines will rust when water becomes a constant in them, becomes the main output of them.
The bass for now is a P bass, maybe a 5 string if you need some extra range or just enjoy the fingering possibilities. The P bass sounds great still and defined the sound of what an electric bass should sound like. Add an active J and you can cover everything. I'm sure someone will call me a curmudgeon, but whatevs. What's the clarinet for today? Basically the same clarinet from 1700.
Said by someone who doesn't understand generation. How is your household solar going to charge your EC when you get home at night? Gonna put a windmill in your yard? Typical wishful thinking not based upon engineering practicalities.
But it is, and it can't be avoided.
Agreed!
I have a guitar-scale fretless acoustic/electric, with in built tuner and DI. You can plug it straight into a powered monitor or desk and it sounds huge and clean. Physically it weighs nothing and is a doddle play. You can carry it in a classical guitar bag.
It’s kind of a fantasy come true. It’s not for every gig, but I use it for half of mine.
It’s not necessarily about leading innovation with the user interface. Look at it this way: the modern car, even with all the new bells and whistles, would be very recognizable to Henry Ford.
the “future now” of electric bass IMO is Jackson. Inexpensive to purchase given what they have, and what they have is everything - modern electronics, consistently excellent fretwork, easy playability, great sound, and a wide variety of sounds on tap. Their $800 5-string bass easily gives a similarly configured MTD a run for its money.
One word: batteries. These are the trailing technology, but are making significant gains. Solar collection is valid right now; what’s needed is storage.
One of the problems with this discussion is that those intent on derailing it always reach immediately for the false dichotomy, the one that implies an either-or situation. It is not either-or. It is local AND grid. Most of the day to day power can be local, and certainly the emergency generation can also be local. Unless you have some significant medical issues that demand air conditioning or something, in the event of widespread power issues you keep your fridge going and maintain climate in one or two rooms. You don’t need whole-house AC all the time.
And the grid will still be there, but will eventually fade in importance as the newer technologies get better and better.
I'm thoroughly impressed with the new crop of musicians I'm seeing. YouTube is helping to create 12yo virtuosos. Guitar and bass sales are up and music lesson videos get millions of views, so I don't think the bass's demise is imminent. I also see a lot more females playing guitar and bass than I used to. There was a discussion about St. Vincent here just a few days ago. (Old people weren't that into her.) Rick Beato has remarked several times that females are the ones pushing guitar and bass forward these days.
Essentially, I believe the electric bass guitar is going to stick around for the foreseeable future, and I believe that some folks will continue to prefer old-style ones, and some others new-style. As I get older, something like a Dingwall or an Ibanez EHB is becoming more and more inviting.
In any case, history shows that predicting the future is a fool's errand. Anything could happen.
Essentially, I believe the electric bass guitar is going to stick around for the foreseeable future, and I believe that some folks will continue to prefer old-style ones, and some others new-style. As I get older, something like a Dingwall or an Ibanez EHB is becoming more and more inviting.
In any case, history shows that predicting the future is a fool's errand. Anything could happen.
Last edited:
No, it comes from people who don't have any understanding of the actual practicalities of what they are suggesting.
And this proves the point. You have zero idea of the practicalities of the use or cost of use of large scale generators. I was an engineer in the industry for a long time. I have no problem with alternatives, but I am not interested in massively increasing my power bill because of impractical unicorn generation schemes whether grid or local.
I said before, not the forum.
Well, Gibson tried it on their guitars a few years ago. I'm sure you remember how well-loved that concept turned out to be...
So Anyway, I inherited a Gibson Dark Fire guitar (Les Paul) like that. I'm not sure I could even give it away. Everybody loves to hate on them.
It has a lot of technology built into it, but it's a bit overwhelming unless you want to devote the time (and motor skills) necessary to learn how to access everything. I think most folks would rather step on a pedal and reach for the tuning pegs.
Hartley Peavey said in an interview once that we should expect things to get better. Cars have gotten better, musicians have gotten better... why not music equipment?
Well... to be perfectly honest? This is just one of an increasingly long list of questions that:
1. I really have no answer to;
2. I really don't want to know the answer to;
3. I really try hard not to think about; and
4. I really hope that, at my age, I'll won't be around to find out the answer to this question. 'Cause, I'm pretty sure I won't like the answer...
And, whatever it is? Probably won't be available as a lefty, anyway...
Ehh I'm not sure I'd go that far. Added keywork on woodwinds is a big deal, much more so than fancier electronics and extra controls on EB's. Your average clarinetist of today (myself included) can't just pick up a chalumeau with the added register vent and expect to play it just like a modern clarinet.
That said, the Boehm system patent from the 1840's is already very recognizable, and later additions are relatively small refinements upon the original design. The only major innovations since then would the Houvenaghel design for the Leblanc paperclip contras, in my opinion.
EDIT: I would very much like to try a period instrument and horribly fail at playing it!
The Ford Model T was produced from 1908 to 1927 total of 19 years run.
The first production Fender "P" was introduced in 1951 and is still being made today, 70 years later.
Apples to Gnomes, indeed.
You are presuming that water gets in the engine. You do realize I hope that internal combustion engines in use since 1885 until now are water-cooled and water channels run throughout the block of all of them except the VW Beetle, which was air-cooled.
The current batch of Hydrogen fuel cell cars use the hydrogen in the fuel cell to generate electricity by the interaction of oxygen from the air and hydrogen in the fuel cell. It uses this hydrogen/oxygen interaction to generate electricity, which powers the vehicle by combining them in the fuel cell and emits water vapor as the exhaust.
Most hydrogen is produced from natural gas and that process produces carbon emissions. The most emission free method is to separate out the H from the H2o using another permeable membrane. Then energy becomes easily processed from H2o by splitting the H from the 2o, using the H to power the fuel cell and the o to supply the fuel cell with the needed oxygen for the interaction to produce electricity...but we're not there yet.
Current Hydrogen cars have a hydrogen fuel tank that needs to be filled up as it is used. Not a lot of filling stations around. Good news is that an amount of hydrogen comparable to a gallon of gas gets over 2½ times as many miles per gallon compared to gasoline and currently emits water vapor as an exhaust. And, the water vapor exhaust is no more that what a gas engine produces.
D
Deleted member 165050
Guest
Because sitting in air fails every time?
