I tend to play about half of Red Barchetta, possibly a bit of Metropolis Pt. 1 to try the harmonics, Orion, and Fade to Black, among others. Depends on what I'm into that day/week/month.
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The Predictable Bassist
- Thread starter jblmusic1994
- Start date
I have go-to songs for different playing styles when trying out basses. Freewill (all the way through) for fingers, Lounge Act by Nirvana for pick playing, and Tragedy's a-Comin' by Primus for slap. Tom Sawyer, No Future by Anti-Flag, and Time is Running Out by Muse also get played a fair bit. I go to desperate measures to avoid playing anything that seems "cliche" or just brainlessly boring to listen to on its own.
Post snide sht about other players behind their backs on Internet message-boards.
Paranoid much? LMAO!!!!
Post snide sht about other players behind their backs on Internet message-boards.
Not as if I'm singling any one person out. As you can see from this post, everyone is aware of how cliche their playing might be when they go to test out an instrument.
I play my version of "Flight Of The Bumblebee". My version is all whole notes. It takes me 84 hours to check out one bass.
Any bass you'll find at a Guitar Center isn't setup well enough to know what it plays like anyway and most aren't even in tune, so I just look down the neck, see if it's straight, check out the fret work, hang it back on the wall, then go shopping on craigslist.
Apparently basses don't have to be setup or even in tune to play all that slappy stuff people do them there. If it were my store I'd have a "you slap it, you just bought it" policy to keep people from beating up my instruments. If they refuse to pay, I have them arrested for vandalism (slapping).
Apparently basses don't have to be setup or even in tune to play all that slappy stuff people do them there. If it were my store I'd have a "you slap it, you just bought it" policy to keep people from beating up my instruments. If they refuse to pay, I have them arrested for vandalism (slapping).
Apparently basses don't have to be setup or even in tune to play all that slappy stuff people do them there. If it were my store I'd have a "you slap it, you just bought it" policy to keep people from beating up my instruments. If they refuse to pay, I have them arrested for vandalism (slapping).
Odd, when I bought my first bass, the guy working that day happened to be a bassist, and I asked him to demo them because I could only make it sound (badly) like a guitar. He very specifically showed me what slap would sound like on them all...
Edit - Local shop, not Guitar Center.
Is a GC joke, though that is the usual condition of their instruments and all I've ever heard anyone play there are annoying slap lines on bass. On guitar, it's usually finding a cheap SS amp, setting it up for full blown, heavily scooped distortion and chugging downtuned metal stuff.
I can play the first 16 measures of the Bach suite #1 for unaccompanied cello in G. Then I play Funk #49.
It's been quite some time since I tried a bass in any music store.
Higher Ground is one that I leave alone. I know the Chili Peppers version pretty much note for note, but the song has been the bane of my existence for a long time, because every time a band finds out that I know it, it ends up in the set list.
When I'm trying a bass for the first time, I usually start by playing every fret up and down the neck, to check for any problem spots on the frets. Then I check each pickup soloed (unless it is a P), to see how many DIFFERENT tones I can get with it.
From there I try to bond with the instrument by improvising, and letting my mind wander. I've found that if I can connect with a bass like that, it's a good sign to buy it.
I also always check the bass over completely, looking for flaws or damage from being on the wall at the store. If I like the bass, I can always get another ordered so I can get a new, fresh out of the box one. Of course, I do all of the same stuff with the new one.
I don't pay too much attention to setup, because I'm gonna change all that anyway. But I do ask for Allen wrenches to test everything, like making sure the truss rod works as it should.
It takes quite a bit to get me to commit to a new bass, so I always make sure I have plenty of time. Nothing worse than trying to make an informed decision on a new bass while the wife is standing over me tapping her foot because she wants to go to the shoe store in the same shopping center. When possible, I go alone and with an open afternoon.
Higher Ground is one that I leave alone. I know the Chili Peppers version pretty much note for note, but the song has been the bane of my existence for a long time, because every time a band finds out that I know it, it ends up in the set list.
When I'm trying a bass for the first time, I usually start by playing every fret up and down the neck, to check for any problem spots on the frets. Then I check each pickup soloed (unless it is a P), to see how many DIFFERENT tones I can get with it.
From there I try to bond with the instrument by improvising, and letting my mind wander. I've found that if I can connect with a bass like that, it's a good sign to buy it.
I also always check the bass over completely, looking for flaws or damage from being on the wall at the store. If I like the bass, I can always get another ordered so I can get a new, fresh out of the box one. Of course, I do all of the same stuff with the new one.
I don't pay too much attention to setup, because I'm gonna change all that anyway. But I do ask for Allen wrenches to test everything, like making sure the truss rod works as it should.
It takes quite a bit to get me to commit to a new bass, so I always make sure I have plenty of time. Nothing worse than trying to make an informed decision on a new bass while the wife is standing over me tapping her foot because she wants to go to the shoe store in the same shopping center. When possible, I go alone and with an open afternoon.
