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What changed your life(bass related only please:))

#21
For me, a couple things. Going from a fairly hard hitting style to a very light touch, kinda just evolved over time.
Once I discovered Gary Willis & lots of other jazz players, I realized the dynamic control & fat tone you have, when playing with a light touch.
Plus, at the time I was getting into jazz players, I acquired an Ea iAmp 350 & a Status Graphite bass.. every little nuance in my playing was revealed, & that made me much more aware of my technique.
Also, switching to a 5'er has really been a great thing for me.
 
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#23
life-changers?:

1) choosing to learn bass at 40 (after lifelong keyboard player)
2) discovering how great it feels to play in a band setting
3) discovering other-than-mass-market basses (now fond of Spector and Sadowsky) and amps (Genzler for me)
4) joining Talkbass, natch
 
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#26
[I've posted this story before, but it seems like it fits here.]

Way way back when I was 13, our (small town) public school had an assembly where a touring jazz/rock band played for all of us in the gym. I do not remember who they were, but they covered some current stuff I knew from the radio-- tunes by Chicago, Herbie Hancock, Spyrogyra, Chuck Mangione, and that kind of thing. I was seated near the floor on the side of the stage where the bass player was. He was playing a fretless Kramer with the aluminum neck. THAT was the coolest thing I had ever seen and heard. I knew then that I had to play bass, and though I started with a fretted P-bass (that I could barely afford, used) in my teens, I knew that I was heading for fretless and upright bass one day.

Fast forward 4 decades and that's where I am now. Once, I tried a fretless Kramer and didn't like the feel of it, but I play fretless almost exclusively now. It's expressive and fun and I love the sound.

I really wish I could find that guy and thank him. I don't know his name, or even the name of his band. I'm inspired and amazed by the multitude of famous bass players we all know and follow, but that unknown guy with a fretless Kramer in my school gym pointed the way forward for me.

Remember: at some random gig somewhere, your playing might have that effect on some kid (or adult) in the audience, and you may never know it. So rock on!
 
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#28
I hate(d) flats; dull, dead, boring. When I started out, that's all there was. The sound on "Live At Leeds" was a revelation, but growing up in the Midwest, Rotosounds were hard to come by. On a family vacation to the UK in 1972, I finally got my first set, with Entwistle's picture on the package of course. So, that, and after a few years of figuring things out on my own, I took some proper lessons where the instructor got me using my little finger on my left hand, that was a huge step.
 
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#30
Flatwounds
-Played bass for years before getting hip to them, now I can't go back. Rounds feel awkward to me
EV-15B speakers
-I know its heavy old technology but I love the way these speakers sound, nothing beats it IMO
Boss OC-2
-For years I chased that "808" bass sound, also this pedal's inherent limitations forced me to re-examine how I play bass in general
 
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#32
What changed my Life, really???? Was seeing Larry "The Mole" Taylor with Canned Heat, playing bass in my home town city in 1968 or 1969 at our college auditorium.

Made me understand I needed to throw the picks away, and become a real bass player. Everything since then has been a blessing.

Plus playing a concert in that same college auditorium in '69, they made us use the rolling dolly to load in for a gig. And then, they put that dolly back into our van as a bonus. Guess they thought it belonged to the band. Gotta love it.
 
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#34
Having a custom bass made for me.. everything I always wanted in a bass from Dave Pushic
Pushic[1].JPG
 
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#35
The game changer for me was the first time I played a P bass with a rock band. When I first started playing I would never even try a P bass. I assumed the thick neck and the bland tone were not for me. About a year and a half after I started playing I played one with a band that I had borrowed from a friend and it was instant infatuation. It was the sound I had been looking for and it was so easy to dial in. This was also the time I realized that what sounds good playing by yourself in the basement is not what sounds good in the mix with a rock band. I pretty much only play P basses now. They are perfect for what I like to do and the music I like to play. Flats were also a revelation that came a short time later.
 
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#36
1. Traded my minibike to my father for a Kingston guitar

2. Parents agreed to pay half of a JC Penny's bass from the JC Penny overstock store

3. When I saw a friend cleaning the internals on his SVT and he blew a hole in a circuit board bigger than a quarter

4. When my father came to see me at a C&W dive. At the first break he said I was not so bad, and I should try to keep the band together.
 
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#38
  • 1980: the first time I heard Rush and really listened to Yes
  • 1982: The first time I played a bass (Mid 70's Rickenbacker 4001, which soon became my first bass)
  • 1984: Joined a cover band that gigged regularly
  • 1985: I stopped playing with a pick
  • 1989 - 1990: Attending Musicians Institute
  • 1992: first played a 5 string
  • 1992: got my first real bass amp (Trace Elliot AH350SMX)
  • 2001: when I started playing again after a 4 year break
  • 2007: when I got a group of my friends who had been a failed cover band a few years earlier to reform as an originals band
  • 2008: when I first played a Warwick Katana which led to my first custom bass order
  • 2008: when I first played in a real recording studio for this band's album, including two songs I wrote (words & music)
  • 2009: when I got my Bass Pod XT Live
  • 2017: when I got my first Dingwall
 
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#39
Attending the Seattle Pop Festival in July 1969 and hearing Chris Ethridge playing this walking bass line on the opening song of the Flying Burrito Brothers set on July 27.



I had no idea at all until recently that it had been recorded. Before the song was over I was already thinking "I want to do that."
 
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#40
Well, I guess when I was maybe 11 or 12 and watching some band somewhere with my parents, every one of the notes the bass player played hit me right in the chest, I knew there was nothing more cool.

A few years ago, listening to a studio recording that I had done probably 25 years earlier. I just listened and it struck me that I didn't play like that anymore. So, I tried to say, well my playing has just evolved over that time, but that wasn't really it. I just didn't play like that anymore and the more I listened the more I understood that my playing had changed in many ways for the better, but not better in every way. It helped that the drummer on the recording was absolutely the best I ever played with, we grew up playing together. There was space in his playing like I never noticed with anyone else and I didn't notice it with him until I listened to these recordings 25 years later. Next day, I decided that the old cliche was right, life IS too short to play with bad drummers! But, I think it was definitely a game changer for me in locking with a drummer and the importance of doing so, even though the drummer may not know it is going on :D:D
 
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