pkennethk's forum posts 2051

Dean from the pilots tied with Trent Reznor and Charlie Clouser if NIN

I kinda figured Dean would be on the list. Another musician buddy said the same thing.

.. Jeff Skunk Baxter is possibly the nicest, wittiest guy currently living. The memes about how cool he is are not off base.

Skunk was showing up in a bunch of Google searches yesterday, randomly. I wasn't super familiar with who he was, but I certainly know a ton of the songs he's played on. Great to hear.

We can at least try to decode the iconography.

IF we can accept that this field-spotted Duster pedal is a Klon Centaur clone...

THEN we can conclude that:

• squiggle = input gain

• treble clef = treble

• wedge/upward ramp = output volume

Before the internet was a thing I would always sneak backstage or vulture the backstage exit at shows to strike up gear conversations with guitarists.

Of all the acts you tried this with, who was coolest/most-generous with their time?

Oh yeah. I know some people over there because I use mixbus32c for in the box mixing. Harrison is very service oriented. They still support the vintage desks you know.

I'm glad to hear that.

I like weather report, four play with Larry carlton and lee ritenour, and even some jamiroquai too...

My outmoded Gen X cultural gatekeeper side sees this as a brave confession.

The rest of me just kinda nods in understanding and general agreement. I haven't heard of Four Play, though, I'll have to check it out.

Speaking of the roots and conventions of that idiom, Roger Nichols told me (and anyone who asked) the secret of THAT 70s fusion/disco kick which was all over dan...

Did you know Roger? I never got to meet him before he passed, but everyone who has seems to have nice things to say.

this is insane but it works; you stick an EV664 stage vocal mic (with the hinged stand mount, on/off switch and art deco look) way into the hole in the front head and point it at the batter. The thing has low spl handling but the voice coil is indestructible so the batter causes the capsule to 'bottom out' for a microsecond which produces mechanical click and thump and then returns to a natural sound for the decay... shit totally works, funkiest kick sound on earth. Not great with busy kickers but perfect for waiting room jazz fusion. Ot also gates really cleanly with the right decay setting.

I gotta remember this one. I've been meaning to get some Roger books.

Another relatively-new channel to throw on the pile: Captain Pikant

The Captain analyzes synth nerd classics using new, obscure and/or boutique gear and spoonfuls of cool-kid-with-an-art-degree visual flair.

Very soothing.

https://youtu.be/Ix4U9eVDJk0?t=351

EDIT: that said, I've still been on a 1man campaign to get harrison to make an automated 32classic. I've prodded their reps every time they post about this new mixer on a social media platform and had some private email discussions... on the off chance I could justify buying something like that I want a version that meets all my needs.

How have they handled your prodding? Are they at least cool about it?

It's not like he busted out some Air on a G String. Going Bach's going to require some nice, singing tone, strong dynamic response from the body and a comfortable neck with proper fret dress etc as opposed to layin down some funky waiting room jazz...

For the sake of context and clarity, Jim is responsible for me finally giving Steely Dan's Aja an honest chance a few years back.

So I assure you he has nothing against funky waiting room jazz.

I've reported this to the Admins, let's see what they can do.

Thank you!

According to a concert attendee on Reddit, the top board belongs to Clay Parton:

https://www.reddit.com/r/duster/comments/ygo3wy/for_all_u_guitar_players_heres_their_pedalboards/

Those all look like DIY, re-housed and/or re-painted commercial pedals -- likely that they did themselves.

Which member of Duster does the top board belong to?

As a genuine answer to your question, I think your best bet is to ask in the youtube comments, I can't see any identifiable marks on either as whats whats :(

I agree with your advice, as this approach usually works best for me, but the creator of the video is ignoring all questions re: make and model of this particular guitar. I took a look through an earlier post using the same guitar, and people asked continuously with not a single answer from anyone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81z_BIaNYnQ

Here's a happy thought: perhaps the Creator of this video doesn't want people to know the make and model of this guitar, as they would then be responsible for helping boost the profits of a potentially $@!##^ company that is guilty of more financial exploitation and labor abuses than the industry norm. I don't know how one makes a new classical guitar, anywhere on this planet, for that kind of price, while still paying their workers a living wage. I realize $75 goes a very long way in many parts of the world, and I don't know what country the creator bought the instrument in, but I stand by my suspicions until proven otherwise.

Perhaps the Creator's point is that a very low-end instrument can sound wonderful in the hands of a talented person who practices, rather than "you should go buy this exact guitar"?

I have a thing for 50s blues and sparkle finishes... maybe I need ice blue metallic

I like how IBM can drift towards a silvery olive-green kinda color as the lacquer ages.

nuchal. You decide to get rid of that MJT strat body I could go with vintage white again... hmmm.

If LPB is your dream, you should follow that dream.

I'm the weirdo who values the ice cream suit look above all.

But if I can ever bring myself to sell, I'll ping you before I put it on Reverb.

Hey! It's good to have another voice in this thread. Thanks for chiming in. :)

From my experience, at least for an electric guitar/bass, the build (body shape, solid/hollow, etc.), pickups, and the choice of strings will have a bigger impact on your sound than the tonewood.

For the most part, that tracks to my own, admittedly-limited, experience.

Regarding amps, true that there is an interaction between guitar and amp (as well as whatever pedals you have in between), but I think the tonewood's effect on that is practically negligible.

Interesting. Have you had opportunities to play theater-sized venues @ concert volume, per Jim's earlier question?

Per your profile, are you primarily playing Psychedelic & Shoegaze these days?

Of course, for acoustic guitars as we know, the tonewood does make a huge difference, I'm definitely more into mahogany myself!

That's a good-looking mahogany Cort you've got there!

What about a merkin fir my strat?

You'd have to ask Steve Vai , I'm sure he has some ideas.

I love spacehog! The singer/bassist wss married to Liv fucking Tyler. . . If that's not an endorsement if sparkly instruments then I dunno what is!

Dick Dale was the guy who made me want a guitar painted like a carny bumper car at the county fair. That Dick Dale finish still slays, I don't care what anyone else says.

Your friend is a badass and a man after my own heart.

Yeah, you two would get on pretty well, I suspect.

I swear by Jimmy Vaughn and Robert Cray MIM strats. Best bang for buck for me stock.

Those 2 have always gotten second looks from me. I love the vintage white-on-white thing they do on the newer JVs, and I remember lusting after a gray Robert Cray hardtail waaaayyyy back in the day.

LPB, eh? I had MJT do an alder strat body for me in a creamy vintage white like 10 years ago (like I said, I like the white-on-white thing). By the time it arrived, the urge to get back into guitar had faded, and life was especially nuts at the time, so it sits in a drawer to this day, unused... but I love to get it out now and then and smell it, and feel that wonderfully thin finish, and feel the whole thing resonate with the slightest tap. I can't speak to their quality of work today, but 10 years ago, they were killing it.

I have a hard time imagining most died-in-wool metal guitarists caring about tone wood -- I'd image your pickups, amp & FX are gonna be so overpowering in that context that most would be embarrassed to get caught giving a @#$%.

There's also the wang bar factor. All floyd rose style locking vibratos powerfully decouple the strings from the body. In fact all vibrato systems decouple to some extent.

I know you can still buy new guitars with a full Floyd Rose system as standard, but seeing a Floyd Rose nut always brings me back to the 80s and 90s, for some reason. It's like a mullet for your Strat.

Basswood was fine for Jeff Beck who got free strats all year. But I don't.

Interesting, and surprising, I had no idea.

He was, IMHO, a musician in complete and delicate control of every dimension of his performance.

... so his choice to play basswood is perhaps the ultimate counter to anyone who, like us, is no longer willing to accept basswood into their hearts.

I'm sure he could get comped instruments from anyone he wanted, but he apparently clung to his basswood #1 & #2 Strats for a good long stretch:

http://www.woodytone.com/2011/05/10/becks-strat-is-not-like-his-sig-model/

Regardless, I don't care how it sounds or how light it is, one baby-soft basswood guitar was enough for me. I'm scarred.

Years back, a buddy of mine sent his late-90s CIJ J Mascis Jazzmaster to MJT for 2 reasons:

1. That model was (as I'm sure you recall) finished in a metal-flake purple sparkle. "Way too Spacehog...", he lamented.

2. "The neck is perfect, but the body is a s$%@-hunk of basswood."

He sold off the body and sent the neck and some new Fender decals to MJT. MJT fired up their banned-in-California lacquer sprayers and painted him a new body (presumably made of something more substantial) in Firemist Gold, and they re-painted and re-decal-ed the headstock to match.

Instead of going through all that trouble, he could have sold that long-discontinued guitar and easily bought an AVRI Jazzmaster for what that thing was worth at the time, but he didn't want to part with the apparently perfect (for him) neck.

I forget whether he had them use Ash or Alder, but he was very happy with the change in tone the new body introduced.

I know this story has absolutely nothing to do with empirical evidence, it's one secondhand anecdote about a subjective opinion -- I just think it was a baller move on my buddy's part, lol. It's a story that still makes me happy.

Now I'm going to speak. [...] Obviously I'm not speaking to YOU specifically, its authorial. Aimed at the basements experts who've never even played a packed theater.

I know you're not speaking to me personally, as I agree with you -- despite never having never played a guitar at concert volume in a theater.

I hate basswood too, but mostly for the softness. I bought a brand new MIJ/CIJ Strat in the early 90s and some of the pick guard screws could barely keep hold of the body after the first pick guard removal. Never again.

... I can't picture dimebag caring to argue the point if the meetup had an open bar. Even though I started this thread, I think I'll be at the bar as well.

I have a hard time imagining most died-in-wool metal guitarists caring about tone wood -- I'd image your pickups, amp & FX are gonna be so overpowering in that context that most would be embarrassed to get caught giving a @#$%.

I wouldn't mind tonewood kitchen appliances. You could make some really high class industrial record with them.

Ha!

After one of my many rants about the injustices of arts funding and the art market, a professor I respected turned to me and said "yes, but you think this way because you're not 'of privilege' ". Which was a humane way to say "your white trash is showing". It's hard to ever really get out from under the perspective you're raised with. I'm certainly not free of it, though I try.

You obviously went to a better school than me, though I will we question the professor's acknowledgement of privilege since it seems like approval too, as if our background makes us inherently unworthy of recognition... I would bar fight this a$$hole

1. Ha! Bar fight? Even though she's in her 70s now, I'm sure she's still formidable... and she probably has tenure now, too... so she's got a pension-supported retirement to look forward to. In other words, she's got too much to live for Jim, I don't like your chances.

2. I grew up lower-middle class, but surrounded by what I now understand was rural poverty, some of it pretty abject. Because this was pre-internet, I was mostly unaware of the excesses of the wealthy. I got to keep the money I earned in my #$%& summer jobs and farm work, whereas some of my friends and classmates worked in the fields to help support their parents financially... so I grew up feeling guilty about what privileges I did have, rather than bitter about what I didn't have. Then I turned 18 and moved to the urbanized world and find out the TV show "Rosanne" wasn't the celebration of middle class success that I thought it was.

The late 90s was probably the last era in which a college professor would call a white male born in the US "non-privileged", but my prof. calling me out on that was something I needed to hear and to acknowledge and to deal with. I was pursuing a career in gallery fine art, and (at least at the time) one needed to have a functional relationship with the ultra-wealthy patrons that keep that world afloat. I needed to recognize the many class-driven philosophical divides that existed, and decide how I was going to navigate those differences. Burying my head in the sand or pretending my perspective was shared by all wasn't going to lead to career success.

I can't speak to your equipboard record but I like you... and this s9ght has run off a lot of good folks i met here and still keep touch with

Back atcha. If this site stopped existing, I'd just find you on some other music/gear site so we could continue or verbose exchanges.

Cool video, right? Few of us will enjoy such a situation.

Indeed.

Speaking of Spitfire, just came across these guys, who are either current or former Spitfire... I'm intrigued, but don't know what to make of it all yet:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheCrowHillCo

Is this the video he's referencing that he says he disagrees with?

I too assumed he meant this video... a favorite of the "tone woods don't matter for electric guitars" crowd.

The various Telecasters he makes in this video sound as different from each other as I would expect. People who listen to this video and think all 4 creations sound exactly the same... well, they are (not) hearing the thing they (don't) want to hear.

Pretty much any amazing on-record guitar or bass performance could have been performed on a way cheaper and supposedly-crappier instrument made of some supposedly undesirable material, and so long as the setup was good and the player, strings and all other factors were the same, that part is likely still gonna work, and the recording would still be great, maybe even identical in every sonic detail, after everything is mixed.

BUT if I pick up 2 identical guitars in a shop, and one feels like it resonates a bit more against my body as I play it, that matters, even if most people couldn't tell which guitar was which when recorded.

If one instrument sounds just a tiny bit less shrill when the tone is wide open, or just a bit more articulate with the tone all the way off, that matters.

If one instrument has slightly darker or brighter mids than another, that matters.

If one instrument has a slightly sharper/more pronounced attack transient, that matters.

These things might not be that noticeable in the recording itself, but added up over the hours, days, weeks and years you'll spend practicing and performing on that instrument, those little 5% differences will conspire to lead you in different directions... you'll practice a bit more, or you'll write a part that really shows off where that instrument shines, or you'll avoid playing things that you don't feel that instrument really lends itself to.

Maybe the guitar that sounds best to you acoustically, before it's plugged in, is made of poplar and only costs $300. Totally possible, and great when that happens. But seeking out an instrument made from an especially-resonant piece of light alder, ash, or similar is not a pointless pursuit.

We're talking about musical instruments, not kitchen appliances. How the instrument feels in your hands and in your lap, and all those final %s of a % differences and variations matter. Different details matter to different musicians, but none of them can be universally dismissed, nor conclusively "myth-busted" in the way that video seems to imply to some people.

IRL, if you went to some meetup and Ted Greene was arguing with Dimebag Darrell (RIP, dudes) about the importance of tone wood, you'd be like "ha, that makes sense, these two people have VERY different tastes, goals, and outlooks. I can see why tone wood is more important to one person, and less to the other person."... but for some reason, on the internet, that kind of context never seems to get considered, and instead we just read disembodied comments and think that some universal truth is at stake that we must fight for...

..lol...

Scandinavia seems to have its act together these days but sure, ageeed.

We should both marry Norwegians. The road to a residence permit and eventual citizenship is long, but the pay off is pretty great.

What if he was just a mediocre producer? What if being likable and watchable in front of a camera is what he is actually best at?

I hope not

Ha!

This is a far from perfect analogy... ridiculous, even --

You said it, not me

I walked right into that one.

but history tends to rewards those who figure out which way the wind is blowing and make the most of it and/or people who have a better idea for how things should be, and the talent, energy and resources to force that better reality into existence.

Resources. Period. I think my working class bitterness shows more than I realize. But okay... plus, I AM a mediocre jazz musician who was playing and working on rock as well, just after Quincy and Herbie made it acceptable... and I really would have wanted to be a classical or even just a film composer but I didn't have the resources and connections... okay, okay... or the ability... or the first class training or even settlement school and curtis training... because as a kid I lacked the work ethic.

After one of my many rants about the injustices of arts funding and the art market, a professor I respected turned to me and said "yes, but you think this way because you're not 'of privilege' ". Which was a humane way to say "your white trash is showing". It's hard to ever really get out from under the perspective you're raised with. I'm certainly not free of it, though I try.

For some reason that's not my reputation even in real life here on the east coast... but I think a lot of my bullishness is contextual... if someone makes me think twice I'm going to, and if I'm being irrational I'll eat my hat and say thanks.

These are honorable qualities, Jim. Above and beyond what is expected.

I like to think of myself as someone who is willing to pleasantly recant, when warranted... but I'm not sure if the evidence here would support claim.

https://youtu.be/HaWGWQJVVBI?si=Te9ILcwElpgNjxfk

I've never tracked a classical ensemble this size so this was a grabber. Enjoy.

That's an intimidating # of musicians... they sound wonderful, though.

[...] maybe its not Rick bothering me at all this whole time. I'm really bothered by the new business model for the arts and I just focused my ire on Rick becausemy introduction to him about 5 years ago was when someone linked me to a rant that was followed by him asking for likes, donations and for people to buy the Beato Book.

I admire that you took the time to re-evaluate your Beato-thoughts, Jim.

I hear you re: the seeming indignity of people having to ask the general public for likes, subscribes, and patreon dollars. Those same voices welled up in me for a good while, and still do on a lot of fronts.

That said, I can't think of a time period the history of the world where having a career in the arts was easy, fair and required no compromises. Each era favors some unique blend of skills, and punishes others.

[...] But neither of us should have to do what he's doing and that's probably what I'm pissy about...

Are you suggesting that Rick should be helping bands make records 1-on-1 for 50 hours a week, and by doing that, he deserves to make enough to pay his mortgage and feed his family? What if he was just a mediocre producer? What if being likable and watchable in front of a camera is what he is actually best at?

[...] and Rick just became an easy target for my misplaced indignation. I withdraw my negative remarks about Rick. Since the internet doesn't reward you fairly for quality content even if its massively popular you need to play the game and use that exposure to maximize those other revenue streams. It just chaps my ass and people who play along chap my ass too because I guess part of je always feels like participating in the great internet swindle prettymuch means you're perpetuating it.

I suspect that some of the first jazz musicians to jump ship and lend their talents to the emerging rock acts of the 50s and 60s were looked down upon by some of their peers. They were helping to perpetuate a hokey, simplistic new form of music that only kids liked... and that hokey, simplistic form of music was seen as degrading force within society.

Now it's 2023 and more people across the globe want to be a Youtube star than want to be a rock star.

This is a far from perfect analogy... ridiculous, even -- but history tends to rewards those who figure out which way the wind is blowing and make the most of it and/or people who have a better idea for how things should be, and the talent, energy and resources to force that better reality into existence.

But it really doesn't matter what we do or don't do. Our country doesn't value the arts and the internet pyramid schemes like YouTube are just a symptom.

Amen. Too bad we missed out on all those New Deal dollars back the the 30s, eh? That was probably the last time there was serious political will and momentum behind supporting the arts in this country.

Its not like major labels were much more fair and they were also undemocratic gate keepers.

Exactly.

So again. I'm going to stop worrying and learn to live Beato. I'm just not making any patreon payments to him.

Ha!

New hotness from Tantacrul, who is also heads up Product for Musescore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3bUFgEcb4

THAT was pretty thought provoking AND entertaining.

Glad you enjoyed.

The dude spends the first 10 minutes of the essay just talking about chess notation, with zero mention of music... and yet, I was hooked.

He gives zero f%#*s, makes videos at an irregular clip, as the daily demands of Musescore allow, and yet, they're all produced with enviable quality.

Not having owned a guitar amp since the 90s, I'm ignorant as to what he means by new amps with "no volume".

Is he talking about an amp in which the gain control is the only means to control output volume? huh?

That 3-5 lbs of alder, ash, mahogany, etc is a part of your tone. As is the wood of your fretboard, the size and thickness of your neck, etc, etc.

You can marginalize their contributions with a cranked MT-2, but that doesn't mean they stop contributing altogether.

Agreed... (Rick Beato's) rants make me laugh but I also don't always agree or even care.

I suspect the YT algorithm rewards hot takes that skew negative. I suspect those videos slamming the new hot songs are the videos that pull in new/younger viewers for Rick, vs. his 3 hour sit-downs with Temple of the Dog. AOK to judge anyone for playing the algorithm's game, but he's got kids to feed. Nobody with a mortgage spends the majority of their week making YT videos just for fun.

I also don't like the way that on top of his YouTube revenue he sells digital books.

What's wrong with selling instructional books? I think he started the e-book stuff before the YT stuff. The man's gotta eat. E.g. I've got Chuck Rainey's bass books from the early 80s; I don't see those books as in any way cheapening or invalidating his earlier accomplishments.

It seems pretty clear he's not really that successful anymore as a producer (who us yhoygh?) and probably overextended himself on that gorgeous studio and that his internet fanbase is actually keeping the studio lights on.

I was surprised to learn that he'd ever worked as a full time Producer. People that are great at teaching/communicating are rarely the ones who have preternatural abilities in the subjects they teach... especially if we're talking about pro YouTubers. He knows what he's talking about. He can bust out a guitar or piano and demo each concept on the fly, convincingly. Any stories peppered in about recording a demo with Collective Soul or whatever, are fine by me, but not necessary for him to get his points across.

Most of the nice home studios I come across are never going to come close to paying for themselves. Some ppl want a Porsche when they hit middle age, some want their dream studio. How he paid for it is not my concern, but it certainly lends and air of credibility and distinction to his videos. As an elaborate backdrop for his videos alone, I wouldn't be surprised if that studio has now, in a round about way, paid itself off.

That said, he understands music and sound better than anyone else shilling YouTube advice. Like I said, love/hate. I would probably have a drink with him if I ran into him somewhere.

When some famous engineer or musician from yesteryear shows up in a long form interview on Rick's channel, it might seem like that person was plucked right out of their quiet retirement... but in reality, I think many of these folks are on a continual circuit of Red Bull Music Academy, Summer/Winter NAMM, and other outlets desperate for interview content of any kind. They are being interviewed by people who often only have a passing familiarity with their work, or are just not-quite-able to bestow the right level of dignity to the proceedings. I am confident that the time any star of yesteryear spends interviewing with Rick is probably the most sane, thoughtful, and humane on-camera interview they're going to have all year.

This was the world BEFORE Rick Beato:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMVPFhbhgpU

...Compare that to NOW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uusF1iie88

I first came across Rick like 5 years ago, and he seemed, at first, like a middle-aged crank who wanted the music industry to roll back to either 1977 or 1992 -- but so much of that was just my own anxiety about entering my 40s and worrying that I would soon be yelling at kids to get off my lawn. I was projecting a lot onto Rick -- he was the mascot of my self-loathing for a time. I wasn't yet ready to admit to myself that a 1 hour interview with present-day Robert De Leo could be good TV.

Now, I'm more at peace with realities, obviously. I can still put in the work to listen to new and (hopefully) challenging stuff from people born in this millennium, but absolutely nobody cares if I also spend time listening to Rick interview Kim Thayil. All the Gen X street-cred police have retired and bought houses in the suburbs. Nobody born after the Clinton Administration worries about whether or not they're a sell out.

How much life is really in those caps though, realistically?

New hotness from Tantacrul, who is also heads up Product for Musescore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3bUFgEcb4

And for the graying '80s kids out there, here are two specifics from Charles Cornell that I love and push on friends.

Charles has a brighter, more "on" personality than a lot of musicians -- he's always on 11 and having an impossibly good time every second -- but he knows what he's talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtGImlEmu0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lk1d1PbHYY

I forgot about Espen. Whether you're a synthwave guy or not (and I'm not), espen is a really informative guy and a good player. Having gotten to know him on social media I can tell you he's way wittier than he comes off in his videos:

https://youtube.com/@EspenKraft?si=7SmUmA82hHEDAqx8

Very few of us are better on-camera than off. He seems like good ppl.

This is the best paean to the glory of OG Mackie mixers that I've seen so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydB5tlTSJXM&t=73s

You've said in the past that, for you personally, you feel like a lot of the value that you offer the artists you work with is access to higher-end/legit studio gear and your thorough working knowledge of that gear -- and that you feel the gear drives as much or more of your value prop as your ears and talents do. So I'm keeping that in mind as I ponder all this.

I totally get the dream of having a forever-console to cherish, lovingly maintain, and subtly wow people with, but if we're talking about investing in yourself and your business, is this really the best way to spend $50k? I'm not asking rhetorically, as I don't know what the better alternative investment would be, I'm just throwing it out there.

Maybe your proximity to Japan will be helpful... japanese fender is thin on the ground here though

I'm not gonna argue with that. I'm like 3 metro stops from Little Tokyo.

Thanks! Still going through these.

By the way, I started taking lessons recently, so mandatory share of my teacher's channel (you'll only like if you're into blues) https://www.youtube.com/@JakeAndrewsMusic

Congrats on the lessons, Michael. I think that's great. I'm tempted to seek out a bass teacher myself.

Your teacher is putting out big-time Gigachad vibes in those photos. Damn, everything in Texas really IS bigger...

Yeah, but it's an exceedingly high-quality overview, IMHO. A lovely salmon and spinach salad in a sea of iceberg & ranch offerings.

Do you suppose they grind up midwestern houses as the basis for ranch seasoning blend? It would explain a lot.

Only up until about 2021, now urban white collar WFH types want to pay crazy money for those homes.

Is this why Hidden Valley is getting so expensive?

The lakland might be easier to find for a hands on audition than the right cij fender P. I think you may have your answer.

Laklands are harder to come by here in LA than you would think, (I'm gonna have to drive half way to San Diego, I suspect) and old MIJ/CIJ stuff is a bit easier than you would expect, though by no means super-common. My only penalty for taking it slow is not having a bass to practice when I'm over at my GFs... so I'm gonna let the game to come to me.

None of that wss news to me being an old school rivethead but I gave it the 5jumvsup because it was pretty good. Great info for kids raised post-Reznor... man do I love his soundtrack output lately.

Yeah, but it's an exceedingly high-quality overview, IMHO. A lovely salmon and spinach salad in a sea of iceberg & ranch offerings.

if youre into the technical thing of ammount of tension i think theres a calcultor on the string joy website where you can put in what note youre tuning too and whatever gauge and itll tell you the tension of that gauge tuned to that note and you can compare to what you normally like in standard and get something similar tension, all thats a bit too technical for me tho

THAT is awesome. Yeah, getting string tension balanced and right is a make-or-break thing for me on bass, so I will def. use that calculator. Thank you!

Re: gauge. If 110 works for that professional Sludge player you mentioned, I think I can run with that. At the very least, it's a great starting point. I realize I'll burn through a good $150 worth of strings before finding the right ones.

Per my sidebar with Jim. I had a play date at GC in Hollywood, and the new, used & vintage inventory was pretty good that day.

Takeaways: I love really meticulously-crafted necks with tiny frets, and everything else is secondary.

So given I'm not yet experienced enough to shell out $$$$ for a totally-custom special order bass, I'm down to 2 choices:

1. A Fender Japan Precision bass tuned down to C. Pretty much any P Bass neck they've made with a 1.625" nut width and tiny frets would be great for this left hand of mine. Regardless of which production era or which factory in Japan, I've never held a Fender Japan instrument that was anything less than excellent (but I do hate how soft basswood is, no basswood models for me). The difference between the Japan factory and everything else was still very clear at the GC test. Whether I tuned down the new bass or my current MIM P Bass is TBD -- whichever one sounds better in C, after the right truss & intonation adjustments, would be the winner... or maybe I say #$%&-it and just keep both basses in both locations tuned to E and worry about those lower-tuned songs some other year.

2. A Lakland 5 string. They're the only folks making trad-style 5 string basses with tiny frets that I'm aware of. I'm still curious about Dingwall, very curious, but I don't think the distraction of the fanned frets and the extra bells and whistles is what I need right this moment -- but I hope they don't fade away like Parker Guitars did in the 2000s. Somebody needs to be making great basses that aren't for the historically-obsessed Civil War re-creationist types. I'm Spector/Warwick-curious as well, but let's say that anything that doesn't have tiny frets off-the-shelf right now is out of the running.

i spoke to gary mader who plays bass in eyehategod and asked what gauge he used because they tune to c and it was 55 to 110 so ive just rolled with it

I love sludge rock, but I'd never heard of these guys. Listening now... wow, Louisiana? Can definitely hear why EADG isn't gonna cut it for 'em... and I'm also not hearing a need for a lot of ringing highs and bass solos with Jaco-style upper harmonics... so yeah, a 4 tuned down seems the perfect solution.

Thanks for the real-world-professional datapoint re: 55-110 working for C tuning :)