Thanks Jimmy, I'm pretty much in the same boat, I played guitar about 2 weeks till a banjo player (can't remember his name) but the band was The Grass Holes said to me ya know, guitarists a a dime a dozen. a good bass players hard to find. the next week I bought a squire P bass and for the next few years worked off what came on the radio or what I could find tab wise. sadly I had no musical training till a now good friend sat me down and showed me the Ionian scale, after that I bugged him for every bit of info I could get. was considering going to school but came to the conclusion all the knowledge I could ever want is out there, just need to ether figure it out or find some one willing to share it, so thanks a bunch!
so far most of what I've practiced has been lots of variations of scales, modes, triads, arpeggios, ect, I try to combine alot of it like walking though scales doing triad triplets on each note. but I'm always thinking what else could I be doing.
And as a visual learner now trying to move from picking apart rock lines to skilled players like yourself Stanley Clarke, and other greats its really opened my eyes to a new relm of playing, needless to say its slightly overwhelming at first but so far I've been slowly picking apart Hot Fun by Stanley with some success. mainly because that line is stuck in my head at the moment. I'm much more of a simple groove kinda guy but would love to add a lil of that to my own style, always been a James Taylor fan. for some reason at first it didn't click right away that you've worked with him, I discovered you through a Terry Bozzio guitar center video a drummer friend was showing me. I was amazed at the tone of your 5 string and the overall note structure you and the guitar player where working off of. again very tastie.
And thanks for the info on the electronics, I've had a 78 series 1 4 string for a couple months now (one of Edwin's old basses) and love tones, I've yet to adjust the trim pots, but it seems like its set up to the neck pickup has more boost than the bridge, might change that around and see what happens but over all I can go from a classic Allman Brothers type tone to a mid 70's Phil Lesh tone with very little adjustment and find my own sounds with ease.
are you running your basses clean or direct to your power amp or are you using pre amps and or filters?
