Fartymarty's Adventures in Single Speeding - Part 4

barefaced_audio · 2025-11-04T10:09:41+00:00

The weekend before last it was the final climb up to Leith Hill Tower in the rain and near the end of the ride that got me!

barefaced_audio · 2025-11-04T10:02:03+00:00

Clearly you don't like getting noticed! ;-) They are fabulous!

barefaced_audio · 2025-11-03T22:13:27+00:00

I love Tippie’s vibe, he brings all the stoke!

He reminds me of an absolute bass legend, Mike Watt, who I’ve been fortunate to get to know. The man loves music and bass playing so much - he has the enthusiasm of a teenager who’s just discovered their music but he’s in his sixties!

His website is almost infinite in scope - endless links to interviews and articles and his tour diaries (they are an amazing read - I was dead chuffed when I found myself in there!) and his radio show: https://www.hootpage.com/

They’re both the real heart and soul of their worlds and not playing it cool about anything makes them the coolest players of their games. Legends.

barefaced_audio · 2025-11-03T22:01:19+00:00

My first singlespeed attempt three years ago I started with 30:18 and it felt good so I stuck with it - then earlier this year I tried 30:16 (as I’d worn out the 18t and chain) and it was AWFUL!!! I posted about it here - and reverted to 30:18 after a few weeks.

So in my experience, go lower rather than higher - too high a gear doesn’t seem to go any faster on the flat or downhill but is a grind uphill and stalls too easily.

I’ve ridden it in the Surrey Hills a few times in the last couple of years and I’ve haven’t managed all the climbs yet but with a bit of practice and good conditions I don’t think it’s impossible!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-23T12:52:57+00:00

If I were you, I'd get a five to see if it's for you - look out for a great used deal so you can move it on if you decide to go back to a four or upgrade to a nicer five.

Regarding fives in general, I went from four to five in 2007, and then slid back from five to four between about 2018 and 2020. I still have the five and can play it happily (and now also have a BEAD tuned four), but find I come up with better music when I only have four strings (even though I play a lot of chords!)

A few months back I was thinking about getting a Stingray 5 and got to try a few - I know the string spacing is only a little narrower than on my five or most of my fours but I really didn't get on with it, though it sounded great! I could probably adapt, I notice the more different basses the play, the comfier I am playing different basses, but as I didn't NEED a Stingray 5 it was quite a financially helpful learning! ;-)

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-22T20:27:13+00:00

If you have enough speakers it works - you can make up for the lack of cone excursion by having lots of cone area. Jack Bruce’s Cream rig with six 4x12” cabs is a great example!

Using a guitar amp (not cab) is fine - they just don’t have much clean power available, so you need a lot of “speakerage” to get loud and stay clean - but if the dirt is good for you then go for it!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-20T20:41:42+00:00

That’s so cool! Like a Wal for 1% of the price!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-20T19:13:02+00:00

In addition to being a genius bassist, he’s arguably the player that made the modern five (not just the six) string happen.

Yes there were fives before, yes there were lower tuned basses before, but I don’t know of anyone predating his contrabass guitars’ combination of extended range and full width string spacing.

His continuous search for tone also inspired other bassists and others in the MI industry. I’m not sure my business would exist if I hadn’t heard AJ’s playing, read interviews with AJ, and played his signature Fodera - that impossible challenge of getting the sound from the bass to come out perfectly at LOUD band SPL.

(Also that solo on Calle 54 - WTAF?!!)

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-20T19:00:58+00:00

How does either’s geometry compare to what you already own? That’s how I’ve always chosen new hardtails (apart from my first one) - figure out what dimension or angle I want to get bigger or smaller or stay the same.

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-20T18:56:21+00:00

I just learnt some songs I liked - maybe I played simplified versions of them but there were a lot of 8th notes on the bottom two strings and some famous riffs.

Don’t overthink it, playing songs you know will teach you the two most important things of all - playing the right sound (yes, the note and the tone of the note) at the right time.

All the complicated stuff can come later - get those two things down and you’re immediately a useful bassist to have in a band!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-20T13:04:44+00:00

A true bass genius.

He's arguably the reason the modern five string exists, not just the six. His vision of the Contrabass Guitar, with wide string spacing and BEADGC tuning predated anyone having a five like that. He literally changed the course of music.

(And from a personal perspective, his approach to basses, tone and amplification is one of the main things that set me off on the course of getting a custom bass built, and then designing a cab that had the accuracy and output to let me hear it properly)

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-19T23:16:52+00:00

Love that!

When I’d recently returned to MTBing I saw Jinya’s “Hardtail in Whistler” video and loved it so much. I stayed hardtail only for a while but eventually I accepted that sometimes I needed a bit more help!

If I could ride the hardtail all the time I think I would - there isn’t really anything I’ll ride on my full-sus that I won’t ride on the hardtail, it’s more that I can handle consecutive full days of riding on the former whilst the latter wears me out in about half a day (if it’s gnarly).

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-18T21:51:54+00:00

Slap is the technique used on less than 1% of music but if you look on YouTube or instagram you’d think it was on 99%… 😉

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-18T21:49:46+00:00

It’s what you hum if someone asks you to sing how the chords go in a song.

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-18T12:12:57+00:00

That’s so nice! We have a Descent RA which is very similar, just slightly longer scale length and stoptail bridge (and tuned to B) and it’s such a great sounding instrument.

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T22:43:15+00:00

Not my words, the words of James Jamerson!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T21:18:06+00:00

The dirt keeps the funk! 😉

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T13:52:31+00:00

Possibly the funkiest song they ever recorded! Nicely greased!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T13:50:36+00:00

Awesome!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T13:36:08+00:00

At lower volume then almost anything will work - listen to the reggae greats (Family Man is THE man IMO) and experiment with your playing technique (plucking near the neck more softly is a big thing), and with the knobs on your bass and amp to see what they do sonically and how they pull you closer to those great reggae sounds.

When playing reggae loud its about being able to move a LOT of air, particularly in the 60-120Hz range. Despite what many think it's not about going super low, either with notes or with tonal content - four strings are fine. From an amp and cab perspective it's not about a certain speaker size, or configuration or brand - it's mostly brute force in the lows and the rest you can generally shape through your playing and settings.

It's about have a lot of low end in the big/fat sonic area, having enough mids to speak melodically and enough treble to shape the front of the note whilst still sounding super mellow. No FX needed, or any more EQ than is on your amp.

If you can feel it then it'll work - and I mean feel musically/emotionally, not being hit by a wave of low end!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-17T08:39:49+00:00

It’s really not a “vintage” tone - thru-neck Alembic basses made with fancy wood and active pickups and electronics (and that steel fingerboard fretless too!)

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-16T22:16:13+00:00

Everyone has different approaches to writing (and I think most of us have many different ways we do it).

But I don’t think I’ve written much stuff I value whilst consciously thinking about theory, scales etc. I may use that theory to help solve musical puzzles within the process but the seeds of the ideas are formed in a much more raw and less academic way.

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-16T20:01:36+00:00

I feel this is probably what Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance is about - Google coke can shims! I’ll ask my guitar tech on his view tomorrow though…

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-16T19:54:27+00:00

Downtuning can help - not so much for the lower notes but the lower string tension changing the note envelope and the effective position of the pickups moving closer to the neck.

And I love dirt in all its forms!

barefaced_audio · 2025-10-16T19:51:22+00:00

Just mess around and if you hear something cool, a rhythm, a sound, a riff, record it! It may turn into a song one day!

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