re technique: I was a hack self taught guitar player in my 20s when some bluegrass picking buddies shoved an upright in my hands and said "your in the band". I spent the next 10-15 years playing roots and fives, most of the time with no amplification. Instead of telling myself" this is boring " I spent that time figuring out how to deliver the perfect note of the perfect length and volume at the perfect time. When I picked up a bass guitar I kept the same mindset. Sure its great for the old ego to show some flash once in a while, but bass is all about supporting the band to make the music sound as good as it can be. Whether your playing whole notes or 16ths, roots & 5s or Hungarian Minor's 7th mode. After about 40 years of holding down the bottom Im no Jaco, still working on it. But Ive always managed to keep a steady gig playing in a band. And coolest of all, get that studio call from time to time. In the studio, no engineer or producer has ever complained or fussed over my tone on upright or slab. So even though Im an old self taught hack I must have done something right.
Some specific people are so unhappy and they spread their hate/unhappiness to people that are positive to try to bring them down with them a justify their sadness.
You guys are BOTH amazing, positive, energetic, helpful dudes. Some people are just miserable in their own lives and can’t stand to see others being happy / positive. That’s on THEM…not on you guys. Keep up the great work; you’re making a difference for the better for SO MANY people. Much love to both of you! 👏👏👏
I am so glad that Jonathan Marin called in wanting to reference old school funk. There are a lot of bassists in the genre that never get covered through SBL and the podcast that have either directly or indirectly influenced so many bassists that people follow today. I can't wait to see who he references. Also, great episode!
I was the member that reached out to Laura about the Pink AC for sale. I thought you bought it!!! I messaged the seller and told him you would be reaching out to him. Too bad.
I believe after the life changing experience of the covid pandemic with its associated lockdowns and restrictions the positive aspects of the online Bass community is nothing short of a public asset ,,,,,,what goes around comes around constructive criticism notwithstanding ,,,,sadly there always as Scot said some piss poor excuses for the human race , All the best to the Bass brothers
Ian, love the HX Presets! Bought it just as I was heading out on a band trip and a couple synth presets made the recordings! Scott, can’t wait to hear the album + lessons!
Technique is soooo important. I took the Technique Accelerator 2 years ago and it made the difference of a lifetime. It really did take my playing to the next level....and beyond!!! :) You guys rock!
People have been building and selling presets for years now. I don't get why people build up drama like that. Probably because Ian has a really big platform so basically he just has to sneeze and people are aware that he put out a product 😸That's certainly a position that people might envy. No excuse to trash him though, the tones are solid and even if they were not, that's not a nice way to go about this. Glad that it got sorted out, even though it could have been less ugly for the guy starting this mess. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes 😸 EDIT: Just got to the end. Holy c**p that sax part sounds like a ClownCore song and I mean that in the best way possible! That was absolutely amazing.
Scott, I just want you to know that I’m really looking forward to your new project. I’ve really been looking for something new and inspiring and judging from the tracks you shared, I think this might be it!!
Absolutely love the new website! You've added so many great features and the UX is so modern. I definitely like being able to start a video right where i left off. Writing down time stamps was getting old...
Concerning technique: Lately I've been trying to get a solid 16th note consistency (for punk songs etc.) above the neck pickup without clacks but with a solid fat tone and good loudness/attack. Fingers, no plectrum. The strings are looser above the neck pickup so if you want to attack harder with your fingers you need to be careful if you don't want clacking on the pickups. I wedge them just a bit under the string, almost lifting the strings up a bit to avoid clacking. Gets a bassy sound *and* a solid attack. In my opinion the solid attack is missing sometimes when players let the amp do all the work.
One notion that I'd heard about the practice of skills that have a physical/mechanical side is that you want to avoid ingraining mistakes and bad practices, but you do need to push yourself, (this was in the context of learning languages, but it seems relevant to music). So you want to practice things that you can get right 9 times out of 10. The 1 time you get it wrong is important because it shows you that you're actually pushing yourself. If you're getting it right 100% of the time, you're not pushing yourself in your practice. But it's the 9 times that you get it right that you actual cement in your muscle memory. And the challenge is to keep finding the exercises that keep you on the 9 out 10 threshold.
Those recordings sound amazing, especially considering they're being played through your phone and recaptured through a microphone! Cannot wait to hear the full mix, I thoroughly enjoyed the preview!
As much as I love you guys and agree with you most of the time my struggles with technique have lead me to this conclusion. You can only teach someone 70%-80% technique and the rest they have to figure out for themselves. Here's why I say that - your hands are the most dextrous part of your body and small things make a big difference, for example the very shape of your hand differs between individuals that's why we hold pens differently and write differently although there are fundamental basics to holding a pen that will help or hinder, the same applies to bass. The difference in length between my index and ring finger is about twice that of most people (my anecdotal observation) and I have to work around this. I have learnt important techniques from you Scott, Mark Smith, Janek G, Billy Sheehan and others, all of whom have different playing styles but are all brilliant. I also found that playing flat fingered like you Ian works for me rather than more curled like Scott will makes me tense up (thanks Ian for some reassurance). So my point is that "this worked for me therefore it will work for you" needs to be dissected into what fundamental and what's works for the anatomy of an individuals hands, arms, overall body shape. Anyway great show keep up the good work.
Podcast idea. The tracks you played were wicked. Loved it. Would it be possible to have a discussion on the skill set necessary to play that type of jazz?
I think you hit 🎯 with the things the both of you say here about technique. I started on bass as a youngster in ‘86. I never had lessons, but because I loved going to gigs I started to watch other bassplayers very closely. Although I played ‘by intuition’ mostly, watching these other (great) players became very important to me. Like, watching Mark King play (fingerstyle) live and on VHS (with my nose to screen) over 1000 times, f.i. . From late ‘89/ early ‘90 there was Bassplayer Magazine too... Very big deal! I really had to work on technique when I started playing fretless around ‘90/‘91. I got a Charvel P/J and put an old unlined ‘78 maple fretless P bass neck on it. I wanted to be Jeff Ament, Mick Karn and Pino (Jaco not so much)! Because on a fretless you have to make all the tones yourself, it helped me a lot in the years that followed. Both hands. I don’t play fast licks too often, and my technique is not perfect whatsoever! For instance: I like to play with one finger wherever I can with the right hand, and almost never use my left hand ringfinger to play a note, because I taught myself to use it to mute with mostly. I’m thinking about doing the technique course with you guys. Although your technique differs in some ways, both of your’s look great and seem to work for what you’re both doing. The fact that the both of you don’t play exactly the same, to me, seems like a great thing. Must be the different mother thing..., 🤣. Cheers! 🖖 I still play bass a lot, in various bands, and the instrument and the music still make me happy. It’s an ongoing love affair and struggle (about the same thing, 😄) that’s not about to stop soon, if I can help it...
Oh man glad that I have been sleeping on this podcast. Now I can binge listen to all of them 24/7, my girlfriend is already annoyed. Keep up the great work guys!
Tell me about that. Just the other day I posted a picture of an upgrade I did to the pickups on my Sire bass and while most were that's cool, there were some that were saying this was just upgrade chic and just wanted to put it and me down for no logical reason. Don't mind disagreement at all, in fact I welcome it, but "Haters Gotta Hate" when it comes to online. Good on you Ian. The whole internet thing of people just presume stuff should be free and if not steal stuff is just wrong. You put time, effort and your creativity into it all, you should be rewarded for that. As Bono once sang in the U2 song Acrobat........ "So don't let the bastards grind you down" (Feel free to moderate that 😀)
With these courses, what would be really cool would be an indication of where you need to be at the start - comparative novice? Seasoned pub gigger? Semi pro?
It's called muscle memory but really it's building a neurological pathway to control the muscles. I've heard someone dismiss this because muscles don't have memory. However we do actually build nerve pathways. Some people seem to have really good innate abilities to control their fingers but I would expect at some point everybody hits a wall and needs to address some specific issue. I think there is another side to being able to build technique and that is musical knowledge. If you know the sound you want to produce and you know the fretboard options to make this sound and you have practiced those paths over and over then I think you have a better ability to execute certain phrases. Mindless finger options that don't really have musical value might train your fingers to move but they don't integrate all the pathways you need to play music the way more musical exercises do. There is certainly debate in the guitar and bass community over doing raw technical finger exercises versus more musical exercises that integrate things together and some people like doing various finger flapping exercises was a warmup. For the record I thought the SBL technique accelerator course straddled this topic pretty well. At a minimum it covered a number of technique things that were musical and gave you a way to cover other musical ideas not specifically covered the course so you can address the technique issues associated with them. It also taught you to learn to be mindful of how you execute things rather than just letting things happen. Also through a number of courses (technique accelerator and Gary willis course) Scott has done a good job talking about how Gary Willis would identify a problem, break it down, create exercises to drill it.
Scott's questionable jujitsu moves reminds me of a joke that went the rounds when 'Charles Haughey' was head of irish government ....... 'What do you get if you have a hockey ball in one hand and a hockey ball in your other hand ....... Answer - The undivided attention of the Irish Prime minister
I’m in a Facebook group for an unrelated topic and the guy who runs the group is similar to your experience. If you do something he doesn’t like he bans you and exposes your private messages on full display to the rest of the group. To be fair it is a buy/sell/trade group so being an ass or a scammer needs to be called out but there have been a couple instances where it was what’s considered to be a minor transgression by the group rules but the owner still makes a massive deal out of it no matter how big a deal it was.
Most dysfunctional people who run their mouths online would never say or do those same things in a face to face interaction, because the real world results can often be immediate and very, very negative.
The whole slow is smooth saying isn’t quite accurate. I like to think about people who’ve cooked for years and have gotten to a reasonable level of proficiency. They move much faster while using less energy than people who haven’t been in the kitchen for very long. Their movements are very efficient and that efficiency is what makes them fast. That’s the smoothness the saying is talking about, but the cook didn’t learn how to be efficient by cooking slowly they learned it by repetition. Flaws in your technique that slow you down don’t show up at 20 bpm. They show up when you are at the edge of your skill.
You should much rather have come up with a tutorial on how to approach building presets in the first place. I get that a lot of time went in to building these presets. But (in a way) trying to claim copyright on a hand full of parameter tweaks on stuff that comes with the unit in the first place is kinda like beating a dead horse… sorry, might be an unpopular opinion - and I’m not trying to be disrespectful here.
Interested in the comments about Ian's presets. I saw this happen on the FB group and was the first person to call him out on it and promptly left the group so I have no idea what happened after that - didn't expect to hear about it on here! Glad it's sorted now @iallison2112
re technique: I was a hack self taught guitar player in my 20s when some bluegrass picking buddies shoved an upright in my hands and said "your in the band". I spent the next 10-15 years playing roots and fives, most of the time with no amplification. Instead of telling myself" this is boring " I spent that time figuring out how to deliver the perfect note of the perfect length and volume at the perfect time. When I picked up a bass guitar I kept the same mindset. Sure its great for the old ego to show some flash once in a while, but bass is all about supporting the band to make the music sound as good as it can be. Whether your playing whole notes or 16ths, roots & 5s or Hungarian Minor's 7th mode. After about 40 years of holding down the bottom Im no Jaco, still working on it. But Ive always managed to keep a steady gig playing in a band. And coolest of all, get that studio call from time to time. In the studio, no engineer or producer has ever complained or fussed over my tone on upright or slab. So even though Im an old self taught hack I must have done something right.
I love the way you guys think, chat and interact. This is the ONLY regular show I will devote an hour+ to watching.
I agree, same here. Just those two guys enjoying their friendship.
Some specific people are so unhappy and they spread their hate/unhappiness to people that are positive to try to bring them down with them a justify their sadness.
You guys are BOTH amazing, positive, energetic, helpful dudes. Some people are just miserable in their own lives and can’t stand to see others being happy / positive. That’s on THEM…not on you guys. Keep up the great work; you’re making a difference for the better for SO MANY people. Much love to both of you! 👏👏👏
I am so glad that Jonathan Marin called in wanting to reference old school funk. There are a lot of bassists in the genre that never get covered through SBL and the podcast that have either directly or indirectly influenced so many bassists that people follow today. I can't wait to see who he references. Also, great episode!
I was the member that reached out to Laura about the Pink AC for sale. I thought you bought it!!! I messaged the seller and told him you would be reaching out to him. Too bad.
That’s it - now I’m definitely buying the presets! ❤
Scott, those recordings sound huge!
Can’t wait to listen to them as an album on Spotify!
🖖
I believe after the life changing experience of the covid pandemic with its associated lockdowns and restrictions the positive aspects of the online Bass community is nothing short of a public asset ,,,,,,what goes around comes around constructive criticism notwithstanding ,,,,sadly there always as Scot said some piss poor excuses for the human race , All the best to the Bass brothers
I am so glad you mentioned the previous Pod where the audio got cut out. I thought I was losing my mind. Those clips sound epic this time.
Ian, love the HX Presets! Bought it just as I was heading out on a band trip and a couple synth presets made the recordings! Scott, can’t wait to hear the album + lessons!
Cheers David!
Same! I bought them shortly after the payment system started working and I’ve been so happy with them. Great job Ian!!
Technique is soooo important. I took the Technique Accelerator 2 years ago and it made the difference of a lifetime. It really did take my playing to the next level....and beyond!!! :) You guys rock!
People have been building and selling presets for years now. I don't get why people build up drama like that. Probably because Ian has a really big platform so basically he just has to sneeze and people are aware that he put out a product 😸That's certainly a position that people might envy. No excuse to trash him though, the tones are solid and even if they were not, that's not a nice way to go about this. Glad that it got sorted out, even though it could have been less ugly for the guy starting this mess. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes 😸
EDIT: Just got to the end. Holy c**p that sax part sounds like a ClownCore song and I mean that in the best way possible! That was absolutely amazing.
Scott, I just want you to know that I’m really looking forward to your new project. I’ve really been looking for something new and inspiring and judging from the tracks you shared, I think this might be it!!
Absolutely love the new website! You've added so many great features and the UX is so modern. I definitely like being able to start a video right where i left off. Writing down time stamps was getting old...
Concerning technique: Lately I've been trying to get a solid 16th note consistency (for punk songs etc.) above the neck pickup without clacks but with a solid fat tone and good loudness/attack. Fingers, no plectrum.
The strings are looser above the neck pickup so if you want to attack harder with your fingers you need to be careful if you don't want clacking on the pickups. I wedge them just a bit under the string, almost lifting the strings up a bit to avoid clacking. Gets a bassy sound *and* a solid attack. In my opinion the solid attack is missing sometimes when players let the amp do all the work.
One notion that I'd heard about the practice of skills that have a physical/mechanical side is that you want to avoid ingraining mistakes and bad practices, but you do need to push yourself, (this was in the context of learning languages, but it seems relevant to music). So you want to practice things that you can get right 9 times out of 10. The 1 time you get it wrong is important because it shows you that you're actually pushing yourself. If you're getting it right 100% of the time, you're not pushing yourself in your practice. But it's the 9 times that you get it right that you actual cement in your muscle memory. And the challenge is to keep finding the exercises that keep you on the 9 out 10 threshold.
Those recordings sound amazing, especially considering they're being played through your phone and recaptured through a microphone! Cannot wait to hear the full mix, I thoroughly enjoyed the preview!
As much as I love you guys and agree with you most of the time my struggles with technique have lead me to this conclusion. You can only teach someone 70%-80% technique and the rest they have to figure out for themselves. Here's why I say that - your hands are the most dextrous part of your body and small things make a big difference, for example the very shape of your hand differs between individuals that's why we hold pens differently and write differently although there are fundamental basics to holding a pen that will help or hinder, the same applies to bass. The difference in length between my index and ring finger is about twice that of most people (my anecdotal observation) and I have to work around this. I have learnt important techniques from you Scott, Mark Smith, Janek G, Billy Sheehan and others, all of whom have different playing styles but are all brilliant. I also found that playing flat fingered like you Ian works for me rather than more curled like Scott will makes me tense up (thanks Ian for some reassurance). So my point is that "this worked for me therefore it will work for you" needs to be dissected into what fundamental and what's works for the anatomy of an individuals hands, arms, overall body shape. Anyway great show keep up the good work.
Podcast idea. The tracks you played were wicked. Loved it. Would it be possible to have a discussion on the skill set necessary to play that type of jazz?
Scott, your soothing voice is one of my favorite parts of this podcast
I think you hit 🎯 with the things the both of you say here about technique.
I started on bass as a youngster in ‘86. I never had lessons, but because I loved going to gigs I started to watch other bassplayers very closely. Although I played ‘by intuition’ mostly, watching these other (great) players became very important to me.
Like, watching Mark King play (fingerstyle) live and on VHS (with my nose to screen) over 1000 times, f.i. .
From late ‘89/ early ‘90 there was Bassplayer Magazine too... Very big deal!
I really had to work on technique when I started playing fretless around ‘90/‘91. I got a Charvel P/J and put an old unlined ‘78 maple fretless P bass neck on it. I wanted to be Jeff Ament, Mick Karn and Pino (Jaco not so much)!
Because on a fretless you have to make all the tones yourself, it helped me a lot in the years that followed. Both hands.
I don’t play fast licks too often, and my technique is not perfect whatsoever! For instance: I like to play with one finger wherever I can with the right hand, and almost never use my left hand ringfinger to play a note, because I taught myself to use it to mute with mostly.
I’m thinking about doing the technique course with you guys.
Although your technique differs in some ways, both of your’s look great and seem to work for what you’re both doing.
The fact that the both of you don’t play exactly the same, to me, seems like a great thing. Must be the different mother thing..., 🤣.
Cheers!
🖖
I still play bass a lot, in various bands, and the instrument and the music still make me happy. It’s an ongoing love affair and struggle (about the same thing, 😄) that’s not about to stop soon, if I can help it...
FYI - There’s an odd edit at 4:40 that cuts the intro to the “somebody stole the presets” topic out.
Oh man glad that I have been sleeping on this podcast. Now I can binge listen to all of them 24/7, my girlfriend is already annoyed. Keep up the great work guys!
Tell me about that. Just the other day I posted a picture of an upgrade I did to the pickups on my Sire bass and while most were that's cool, there were some that were saying this was just upgrade chic and just wanted to put it and me down for no logical reason. Don't mind disagreement at all, in fact I welcome it, but "Haters Gotta Hate" when it comes to online.
Good on you Ian. The whole internet thing of people just presume stuff should be free and if not steal stuff is just wrong. You put time, effort and your creativity into it all, you should be rewarded for that. As Bono once sang in the U2 song Acrobat........ "So don't let the bastards grind you down" (Feel free to moderate that 😀)
I bought the pack. Loving it. Great variety of sounds! Thanks
Thank you Jay!
Ian, I really don't think you should worry about the guy, lol. Your social media are like a resumé or credit score of how great your presets sound.
With these courses, what would be really cool would be an indication of where you need to be at the start - comparative novice? Seasoned pub gigger? Semi pro?
You two are the best thing going in the bass community right now. Keep it going!
So where do we find the link to Jonathan Marin's funk bass playlist?🤩Please.
Hey, why you gotta throw us guitar players under the bus?!?!? 😆
The album sounds amazing, Scott! Look forward to hearing it all!
too bad I missed out of the hx stomp preset pack. I'd sure buy it if it was available !
I think they meant that the 'freebie rip-off' was taken down. Pretty sure you can still get them from Ian.
Scott love the sound even through the phone, can't wait to hear the final mix
Wow those tracks sounded great. If they are that good just from the cell phone I can't wait for the album or what ever we call them these days.
It’s crazy I’ve got one of my own presets on the guy in questions website, such a small world
Scott's is making his "Skulli Hard Hat Area " moment for the future generations
I will be buying that album!!
Off topic, but what mics do you two use?
...cameras too please
It's called muscle memory but really it's building a neurological pathway to control the muscles. I've heard someone dismiss this because muscles don't have memory. However we do actually build nerve pathways. Some people seem to have really good innate abilities to control their fingers but I would expect at some point everybody hits a wall and needs to address some specific issue. I think there is another side to being able to build technique and that is musical knowledge. If you know the sound you want to produce and you know the fretboard options to make this sound and you have practiced those paths over and over then I think you have a better ability to execute certain phrases. Mindless finger options that don't really have musical value might train your fingers to move but they don't integrate all the pathways you need to play music the way more musical exercises do. There is certainly debate in the guitar and bass community over doing raw technical finger exercises versus more musical exercises that integrate things together and some people like doing various finger flapping exercises was a warmup. For the record I thought the SBL technique accelerator course straddled this topic pretty well. At a minimum it covered a number of technique things that were musical and gave you a way to cover other musical ideas not specifically covered the course so you can address the technique issues associated with them. It also taught you to learn to be mindful of how you execute things rather than just letting things happen. Also through a number of courses (technique accelerator and Gary willis course) Scott has done a good job talking about how Gary Willis would identify a problem, break it down, create exercises to drill it.
Can we get alternate tunings on the SBL tuner please?
Sign me up for the Jonathan Maron playlist !! Would love to know what floats his (funk) boat.
can't wait for this album !
Good conversation
I give you guys credit for not telling this guys name , i
I lost the bass if a lifetime a couple months ago!😢 A beautiful 5 string jazz bass that sang like no other. I feel the pain Scott!
Sorry for your loss, I hope it wasn’t the bass for them and they sell it on to you.
I’d like to see a breakdown of the Altman Brothers band’s song “Desdemona” off of the album “Hitting the Note”
Nice room!
Never mind... was just the intro.
Scott's questionable jujitsu moves reminds me of a joke that went the rounds when 'Charles Haughey' was head of irish government ....... 'What do you get if you have a hockey ball in one hand and a hockey ball in your other hand ....... Answer - The undivided attention of the Irish Prime minister
I’m in a Facebook group for an unrelated topic and the guy who runs the group is similar to your experience. If you do something he doesn’t like he bans you and exposes your private messages on full display to the rest of the group. To be fair it is a buy/sell/trade group so being an ass or a scammer needs to be called out but there have been a couple instances where it was what’s considered to be a minor transgression by the group rules but the owner still makes a massive deal out of it no matter how big a deal it was.
Ahh it’s crazy I knew exactly who the guy was as soon as you mentioned him.
Another Jiu Jitsu saying: position before submission.
The guy who made the comments is genuinely a nice guy tbh, he’s helped me many times over the years but I guess he really didn’t like these presets
Most dysfunctional people who run their mouths online would never say or do those same things in a face to face interaction, because the real world results can often be immediate and very, very negative.
To quote the immortal Sir Charles Barkley - "Social media is where losers go to feel important"
It's def intellectual property theft. You should pursue legal action.
1:02:36 - what in the fusion Meshuggah is this?! 🤣
Being offended by the comparison to a used car salesman is quite offensive to used car dealers lol
God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble
The whole slow is smooth saying isn’t quite accurate.
I like to think about people who’ve cooked for years and have gotten to a reasonable level of proficiency. They move much faster while using less energy than people who haven’t been in the kitchen for very long. Their movements are very efficient and that efficiency is what makes them fast. That’s the smoothness the saying is talking about, but the cook didn’t learn how to be efficient by cooking slowly they learned it by repetition.
Flaws in your technique that slow you down don’t show up at 20 bpm. They show up when you are at the edge of your skill.
You should much rather have come up with a tutorial on how to approach building presets in the first place.
I get that a lot of time went in to building these presets. But (in a way) trying to claim copyright on a hand full of parameter tweaks on stuff that comes with the unit in the first place is kinda like beating a dead horse… sorry, might be an unpopular opinion - and I’m not trying to be disrespectful here.
What’s wrong with used car salesmen? I buy used cars because I can’t afford Tesla.
Interested in the comments about Ian's presets. I saw this happen on the FB group and was the first person to call him out on it and promptly left the group so I have no idea what happened after that - didn't expect to hear about it on here! Glad it's sorted now @iallison2112
Scott's is making his "Skulli Hard Hat Area " moment for the future generations