Tuning a bass

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
  • Start date Start date
Thanks for all the help - lp sent me a resized one!

I can be so childish ;D
 
lpdeluxe said:
LOL




And to Timmerman I can only say,

"You want fries with that?"
Click to expand...

Yes Sir I would like that and now we are on this one, could you also add a little salt and some vinegar as well please. Ok, thanks for the offer :D

Right then, nice to see we are all here and still talking about basses being all well in tune. I have not been able to post much over the last few days as I had no access to pc and also unexpected things did pop up, so ....................but really good that we still keep this going :)

Hope all of you had a great Easter, and some inspiring moments. The weather in England at the moment is a little bit on the dull side, a lot of clouds around, and you can image how it would feel with that :) being there as the temp. has risen a bit.

Anyway this all brings me to LOVE and yes since it is spring, it certainly is in the air. Now there is a great love chord around and it is the Maj 7 one, so we could tune our bases to a Maj. 7 chord. Oh I know, the bass isn't much for chords eh ;) Well we could still try and see what kind of tuning it would give us, we could even downtune the chord half a step down, but let us not run ahead of ourselves here, as that is not really good for love :D Shoudn't rush it eh?

This "love-tuning" sounds quite appropriate at the moment, since Garry is on Honeymoon, so why not get into this.......................

So here is our first option:

E G# B D# .................this one is called: Emaj. 7

Now shall we add colouring notes to this chord, or shall we go into our different "love-options" ? :)

Eddie
 
I think Mr # will be on honeymoon in -- what, less than a fortnight? Anyhow, here is my contribution:

5 string bass tuned to B-D-F-A-F for that romantic "minor 7" feel.
 
Yeah, not yet, wedding Friday week, off to Barbados the following Monday :D

Except I'll have to tell her I have another love in my life now - my new Avatar ;)

OK - sorry - digression over - I'll let you all get back to this intensely topic driven thread....
 
Garry Sharp said:
Yeah, not yet, wedding Friday week, off to Barbados the following Monday :D

Except I'll have to tell her I have another love in my life now - my new Avatar ;)

OK - sorry - digression over - I'll let you all get back to this intensely topic driven thread....
Click to expand...
Just be careful how you break it to her! Woman can be funny about those things! :D :cool:

Back to the topic at hand, a friend of mine just showed me some videos of Man of War. The bass player is amazing. I'd heard him playing the William Tell Overture and was wondering how in the hell he was playing so fast. The video revealed it: he plays a picolo bass...
 
Garry: Sorry man I thought you were already off! must be me rushing things here, not reading properly and...............looks like we even have time to give you a special "wedding tuning" as well, ah well all good eh ;)

LPdeluxe: Ooops I meant being in love eh, not the kind of feelings you may have when she has left you, so your minor tuning..............uummm, well don't know but seems a bit of a sad affair.

Rokket: the Picolo Bass, any suggestions for how to tune that to evoke these fresh lover-feelings?

I had another tuning idea, but it slipped my mind at the moment, sure it will come back at some stage........................

Eddie :)
 
seems a bit of a sad affair.

=sniff= yes it was, but I still have my bass.


And my wife....
 
timmerman said:
Garry: Sorry man I thought you were already off! must be me rushing things here, not reading properly and...............looks like we even have time to give you a special "wedding tuning" as well, ah well all good eh ;)

LPdeluxe: Ooops I meant being in love eh, not the kind of feelings you may have when she has left you, so your minor tuning..............uummm, well don't know but seems a bit of a sad affair.

Rokket: the Picolo Bass, any suggestions for how to tune that to evoke these fresh lover-feelings?

I had another tuning idea, but it slipped my mind at the moment, sure it will come back at some stage........................

Eddie :)
Click to expand...
I can't be certain about the tuning. I was told by a friend that the bass was custom built for him by his tech. It has a neck that looks (from what I could see in the video) to be about 1 1/2" wide, and the strings were really close together. From what I understand, the guy locked himself in his room for 4 months to get used to it. He is actually the lead guitar in the band (he just doesn't do the lead breaks in the songs. They are simple drums, bass, one guitar band. I watched him actually play chord shapes. It would be interesting to get a better look at his technique. I listened to his bass solos, and he did a version of "Flight of the Bumblebee" too. Wicked fast, and I am nowhere near that kind of speed. I don't really need to be either, for what I do...
 
Okay Okay I see..................

Sometimes it is nice to see that we carry on with things, does not really matter whether we say much, but we just carry on, well at least it shows our passion, love and commitment. ;)

Eddie :)
 
Keep the thread alive for Mr #'s honeymoon

I am practically a black-belt in not saying much.
 
Rokket said:
Wicked fast, and I am nowhere near that kind of speed. I don't really need to be either, for what I do...
Click to expand...

Yet you call yourself Rokket? Eentedesting. Kinda like if your fast playin' buddy called himself Turtle. Alas, all kidding aside...the only time I can play somewhat fast is if I'm playing a straight-8. Otherwise, I usually play the bass lines at (or close to) original speed. ;)

Matt
 
Keep the thread alive for Mr #'s honeymoon

Thanks :o A week to go.

I was meant to be going to Poland this week to speak at a conference, but it's just been cancelled for obvious reasons (sounds like Poland has closed down completely) so I'm back in the office :(

Aaah - sorry - first OT post in this thread.
 
I've been trying to learn dobro lately, and thought a bass dobro might be interesting, or a dobro with a couple of strings in the low register. How would you string it and tune it? I'd definitely want to keep several high whiney treble strings on the top.

In G tuning, maybe GBDG, top four strings low to high (G and B like guitar, then a D one step down from high E, and a high G on top of that (probably need a 9 or 10 gauge). The bottom two strings DG, same as the top two on a bass.

_______________G (or F)
l_______________D
l_______________B
l_______________G (one octave above the G below)
l_______________G
l_______________D

Or maybe the high G down to F, to have a flatted 7th.

Probably too screwy to work - just a thought. :)
 
With the understanding that we talking about tuning a bass Dobro...

I'd tune it D-G-C-d-f#-a, with the large letters denoting "bass tuning" and the small, "Dobro tuning." This would give you 4ths on the bass strings and a triad on top.

I tune my Dobro to open E (E-B-E-G#-B-E), which is uncommon. My only excuse is that I was self-taught on electric bottleneck guitar and transferred my so-called skills to Dobro...but I think you're better off learning it in G (G-B-D-G-B-D) which is bluegrass tuning.

Note to Unsprung: you are forgetting the example of "Slowhand."
 
Unsprung said:
Yet you call yourself Rokket? Eentedesting. Kinda like if your fast playin' buddy called himself Turtle. Alas, all kidding aside...the only time I can play somewhat fast is if I'm playing a straight-8. Otherwise, I usually play the bass lines at (or close to) original speed. ;)

Matt
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's been explained before, but the nickname was from highschool and playing drums in jazz band. I had a tendancy to speed up the tempo if I got bored. The teacher would yell out "Slow down, rocket!" The name stuck. The spelling as it is now came from a female friend of mine who was a Poisen and Motly Crue fan. She spelled it that way when everyone started to call me that.
I can play fast if I just do it in short bursts. I never saw the need to become another Steve Harris from Iron Maiden or anything like that. Most of the gigs I played there was never a call for Maiden's songs...
 
lpdeluxe said:
Note to Unsprung: you are forgetting the example of "Slowhand."
Click to expand...

Thanks! Didn't think about that. And that reminds me of David Gilmour, and why he never really did anything "blindingly fast," which he said was because of having fat fingers, and never really felt the need, otherwise.

I'd actually be interested to know just how much bass work Gilmour actually did, in Waters-era Pink Floyd recordings. I'd read that (at one time) Gilmour tuned his guitars, then tuned Waters' basses for shows, because Waters is tone-deaf.

As for my speed, and wanting to record original surf guitar music, I'm fast enough. I just wish I could get back my a la "Miserlou" tremelo (flutter) picking, so I could one day record a decent cover of it.

Matt
 
I've met David Gilmour. And flown two of his aeroplanes. Also met Tom Cruise indirectly through him. He never tuned my bass tho...(lest I be accused of dragging the thread OT :))
 
I had heard that too, about Waters. I also heard that he would go on stage so stoned on acid that he would only play one note for every song...

But at least that one note was in tune...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top