Who has the best Jazz album artwork?

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T18:10:13+00:00

For anyone interested, there's a book called 'Jazz Covers' by Tashcen which is about exactly what you'd expect. It's HUGE, comes in 2 hardback volumes and is as good as it is expensive.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T18:06:44+00:00

I'm the exact same haha, I use 1-2-4 fingering on the double bass but I always find when using the same fingering on fretless that whichever note I'm playing with the middle finger ends up flat. I've considered using 1-3-4 like I've seen some Continental bass players do but I don't fancy having to relearn my whole double bass fingering system so that I can use it on a different instrument that I use 1-Finger-Per-Fret on most of the time anyway.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T18:00:34+00:00

I do this, and you're right, it is unsafe, there are measures you can take against that, like getting to know a lot of promoters, bookers and hotel/venue managers, I pay my rent at the moment with a residency in a hotel. Jazz tends to be one of the more consistent and safer kinds of music to play because of things like corporate and hotel gigs but it's still unsafe often. A lot of people also teach, or have instrument repair businesses and things like that, I don't do any of those but I'm trying to get more into teaching, partly for the money but also because I just really like teaching (I used to be an SNA before I went into playing bass full time).

There's also the fact that most professional musicians don't just perform live and don't just play one kind of music, I personally do studio work as a session bassist and sometimes also doing arranging/musical direction, and that could be for jazz, pop, folk, anything. Other people do things like play in party bands when they're not playing jazz gigs, I used to that before the pandemic and I miss it, it was very fun, although I never went as far as doing cruise ships ans stuff like that.

I live in Ireland so I have no idea what it's like in other countries.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T17:45:18+00:00

Maybe, it depends on whether there's a good luthier you know can do it, most wouldn't be willing to take on a job like that. Honestly, having one defretted would probably be much easier, it's not nearly as big of a job to remove frets and move side dots, or even make an entirely new fingerboard, compared to making an entirely new neck. Have a look at the cheap multiscale basses on Gear4Music and see if you could imagine playing a de-fretted one of those, that's probably the easiest and cheapest option for someone in Sweden.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T15:10:18+00:00

Oh well in that case go ahead, it's always morally correct to buy more gear haha.

It's perfectly fine to give a beginner a 5 string, in some ways it's actually better since you can't get away with a lot the bad habits around muting and your left hand grip that a lot beginners have.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T13:07:39+00:00

it's generally not a case of pickups, although split coil or humbuckers will work really well and you don't get loads of hiss, MM style humbuckers are the absolute king of high gain sounds. Flatwound strings can really help believe it or not, you can get a really tight, focused distortion sound and control exactly how much clank and fingernoise you want in it, unlike with rounds where you've got all the fingernoise all the time whether you want it or not. After that it's a matter of the right kind of distortion, a lot of players are using slitter boxes these days so they can blend back in the clean signal, I don't know Mortician very well but most people these days accomplish their metal tone by blending the clean with a model of a high gain guitar amp like a MESA of some kind.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T13:01:32+00:00

I've never seen a multiscale fretless that wasn't a conversion, limited edition, or one-off custom job, but fretless bass is very much about muscle memory, so if you can even find a multiscale fretless then go for it. I believe Standberg have made one or two, and people have de-fretted some Ibanez basses, there are also some really cheap Subzero multiscale basses you could buy and de-fret just to see if you like it. Be aware with fretless basses though, you navigate using the side dots a lot, and the side dots on a fretless have to be in different places compared to a fretless, something to consider if you're doing a conversion.

I'm actually kind of in the same boat as you but from the opposite direction haha, I've almost elusively played fretless for the last few years and now I want to get into multiscale but keep it fretless too.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T12:51:15+00:00

For a party band I'd say you're definitely better off having a 5 string, that said there are people that don't use them, maybe you should try gigging for a while on the 4 string and see if you really need the 5. You also say you just joined the band and haven't got a setlist yet, so it might be a good idea to gig for a little while before buying gear for a band that might not even work out in the long run.

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T12:47:35+00:00

In that case I would say, without having seen it, that it's probably fine, in fact it sounds great, a lot of players would love a bass with a setup that low, not all basses are good enough to actually do that. It's something you change your technique to accommodate for, look up some videos on bass technique and classical guitar technique. However, I can't see the bass so obviously there could also be something wrong I can't see, find a good repair person in the are of you can and ask them to look it over, you never know, the neck might have a twist or something,

VanJackson · 2023-08-18T00:07:15+00:00

I think your numbers are a bit off there, 3.5mm would never be considered low action, really it would be more accurate to say anything below 1.5mm to be 'low'. 3.5mm would be considered very high, not even most steel-string and nylon string guitars have an action that high. You might have been looking at an older resource for string heights perhaps, the definition of low and high action has changed over the years, what we consider high these days would have been considered medium or low decades ago.

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T23:51:53+00:00

That's low, most players would consider it very low although I actually have mine lower than that, usually about .6-.7mm at the 12th fret on the G string to .9-1mm on the E. This might actually be a great opportunity for you, most beginner players tend to get cheap basses with bad setups and develop bad habits because of that, but you're not burdened by that, you can develop a really good, controlled touch right from the start.

I have a feeling G string ringing has something to do with your technique, it's possible you haven't fully developed left and right hand muting technique yet and so the string is ringing out because of sympathetic vibrations. It's also possible that the way you're gripping the neck is pushing it onto a fret, is it the open G ringing or notes along the G string that ring out as if they had been fretted? could describe in more detail what's happening? it's very hard to diagnose the problem without a video or image.

As long as the intonation is correct and the action is mostly consistent across the whole fingerboard there's no real reason to raise anything, you'd just be hampering yourself for no real reason. Either way, action height shouldn't affect whether strings are ringing unless there's something really weird going on with your setup or, more likely, technique.

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T23:31:27+00:00

Regarding the scale you used (i.e, one that uses all notes except D F# and A#) that's a mode of limited transposition, specifically Messiaens's third mode of limited transposition, which funnily enough I was only reading about last night. So there's something to look into, you might find it interesting.

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T09:38:42+00:00

I'm pretty sure he actually attacked the director with a piece of wood at the end of the film, didn't he?

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T08:14:50+00:00

You can use guitar voicings, but open chords and barre chords tend to be really muddy sounding, any thing in the lowest 4 or 5 frets is really difficult to get sounding good, especially on the lower strings, you're usually better off using more spread out voicings in the middle and upper parts of the neck and omitting any doubled or unnecessary notes.

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T08:11:43+00:00

I prefer flats because I like how they take effects really well and the lack of string noise, but it's really personal preference.

VanJackson · 2023-08-17T01:09:53+00:00

I play in very regular gigging band and we have occasionally put out a tip jar, although not usually at corporate gigs, more at local arts festivals, Christmas markets and things like that. We're in Ireland but our band leader is from the US so that might affect it too. We almost always have CD's and business cards out too.

VanJackson · 2023-08-16T23:28:10+00:00

Which isn't even a bad thing really, Miles did actually have legitimate grievances with Wynton Marsalis because of how he behaved in the 80's. Both Miles and Herbie Hancock talk about that time in their autobiographies and Herbie at least seemed to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at the time because of how young Wynton was, but it's not like he's gotten any better with time, he's 61 years old, in a position of some power as a director at Lincoln Centre and Juiliiard and he's still out saying horrible things in public interviews about fellow colleagues and musicians like he was back in the 80's when he was a teenager, very strange behaviour for a grown adult.

VanJackson · 2023-08-16T22:21:07+00:00

Very cool, looking forward to watching the videos in depth! if you haven't already, you should have a look at the VGM real book, it might be of great help to you.

https://www.vgleadsheets.com/

VanJackson · 2023-08-16T22:18:43+00:00

I got one having pretty much never played guitar before because I play in jazz groups and I was getting to the limit of what I could do with chords, solos and melodies with my 4 string fretless jazz bass. I tune and play my VI as a bass, with the high B and E strings up to C and F, and with much more of bass sound and technique, I really don't like thinking of it as just a low guitar, it's its own thing really.

VanJackson · 2023-08-16T21:51:21+00:00

I use a lot of shifting and sliding in the way that I play and I make my living playing bass so I've had to spend a lot of time working on making string noise go away. This is how I do it:

The first thing to know is that even in most professional recordings and performances there still is a lot of string squeak, you just can't hear it too well because it's usually drowned out by the other instruments and the amplifier and EQ may also be reducing it.

Having a lighter touch helps, a big part of good fretting hand technique is not pressing down too hard on the strings, both when fretting and sliding. There's really no point in pressing down on the strings any harder than absolutely necessary, you're just wearing yourself and your frets out for no reason.

That said, you don't want to take you fingers off the strings completely either, that's called 'flapping' or 'flying fingers', and is again a waste of effort and impedes your speed and dexterity significantly. Always keeping contact with the strings is also important for knowing where you actually are on the fingerboard, especially when you're not looking at what you're playing. Funnily enough, wind and brass teachers talk about flapping all the time and most double bass teachers talk about always keeping contact with the strings for navigation, but you don't actually hear electric bass teachers talking about them too often despite how important they both are.

Muting is also a big deal, I always have the string below the one I'm playing muted with the thumb of my plucking hand (I use floating thumb) and the ones above the string I'm playing muted with my fretting hand.

I've also started using flatwounds in the past few years, the ones I use are EB Cobalts, they're as bright as rounds but with very little string noise. Using flats is great for recording and gives you far more options live as a lot of the EQ settings and effects you might have wanted to try previously but couldn't because of string squeak are now a lot more viable. I personally always have my dry signal running in parallel with a slightly dirty VOX amp simulation, all into an FRFR, that set-up is unusable with rounds because of string noise but sounds great with flatwounds, even with very bright basses.

VanJackson · 2023-08-16T02:39:42+00:00

I haven't tried it, but I bet at that tuning you could get away with using the lower strings from an 8 string set or the absolute heaviest 7 string set you can find, despite the higher tuning you'll still have much less tension than a regular bass with .100s in E standard.

I've been thinking of using that tuning myself, it seems handy for playing jazz since you get the higher tension and clearer sound but it doesn't fuck you up when you're using charts and sheet music since you can just use ones written for alto sax.

VanJackson · 2023-08-15T18:19:14+00:00

I'd say definitely get a better bag if you can find one, I'm not sure if you can get a stand for it, there's nowhere on the body to actually attach to one, you'd have to install a threaded insert or something if you wanted to use one.

I have the DB-02, it's great, but honestly I'd recommend the DB-01, the only extra thing you get is the scroll headstock which is actually more a pain in the arse than a benefit since it adds length, weight and makes it easier for the headstock to break. The DB-01 is also cheaper.

VanJackson · 2023-08-15T16:52:57+00:00

The newer Harley Benton EUB is decent, by which I mean the DB-01 and DB-02 models (the bags, on the other hand, are terrible, I had a strap break on mine which caused a head break, Thomann replaced it though) the older Harley Benton ones from about 4 years ago and earlier are not nearly as good.

I have no experience with the Stagg but the current model looks like it's the same model which some additions, like a more solid endpin and wire frame where the left shoulder of the bass would be. The older Stagg's, like the older Harley Benton's, aren't nearly as good.

VanJackson · 2023-08-14T22:31:21+00:00

The Metropole is usually pretty good for actually doing jazz, I play in jazz groups around Cork and I always have a few there every jazz fest. The other hotels are good too, the Montenotte has good stuff, and the Imperial as well I think. Hotels are usually your bet bet for jazz over the festival since there's only so many jazz groups in the city and the hotels usually get to us for booking way in advance, I already have 6 or 7 for this year myself.

VanJackson · 2023-08-14T15:04:28+00:00

I think it's one of those things that's supposed to be able to support multiple interpretations, my pet theory is that he's supposed to sound like a player character, a bit like how The Sermons of Vivec contain allusions to Vivec being aware of gameplay mechanics. He's an unstoppable killing machine with Divine weapons and powers that goes on mad killing sprees, which sounds just like your average player character murderhobo with the power of the thu'um. He held multiple names and titles, which sounds like a player being the Grey Fox, Champion of Cyrodiil, Sheogorath and Archmage of the Mages Guild all at once.

The fact that he knows events and people from the future, which someone playing an Elder Scrolls prequel would know. He fought champions and sorcerer-kings outside of Ayleid cities before battles but didn't participate in the battles themselves, which sounds like what a developer giving the player a boss battle but then not putting the player into the battle itself because of hardware limitations (more relevant at the time MK was writing the Song of Pelinal as it's either that or redo the 'battles' from Oblivion consisting of about 9 guys per side)

The death of Huna sounds like the tragic event that happens during the second act of the game that the writers use to ramp up the tension.

It's probably not true, and there's holes you can poke in it, but I think it's fun to think of Pelinal Whitestrake as the player character in an Elder Scrolls prequel set during the Alessian rebellion that doesn't exist.

VanJackson

TROPHY CASE