hey gang....
Treated myself to a couple of christmas presents in the gear category, thought I'd see what you guys know about these, and if any of you gave yourselves a treat too......
1) An Ebow.
Yeah, I know, it's designed for regular guitar, but M Manring uses it a lot on bass, and I thought I'd give it a shot- my mom-in-law always gives us some money to buy what we want, then we wrap it up and open it in front of her (yeah, it's odd, but she can't get out to shop anymore, so we go along with it...) Anyway, I picked the Ebow because it's a different twist on the way you can play a bass.
I obviously haven't "mastered" it yet, but it is pretty cool, you can get almost infinite sustain, and when it's in the harmonics setting, you get a sound very much like amp feedback, but it's very controllable. You can also get some very bow-like tones, it can sound like a cello or upright bass being played with a bow, and you can even do the arrpeggios and spicatto techniques like violin players do. All in all, it looks like it will be a bit of a challenge to use on a bass (due mostly to string spacing, it has two "saddles" that rest on the adjacent strings) but if nothing else, it will open up a new creative outlet for me to try.
I've already tried it to the lead guitar part on the Allman Bros In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, a simple but beautiful lick...sounds awesome on my six string bass at an octave lower than recorded.
Here's the website with samples and such, pretty impressive list of users. Go to the soundclips and listen to Elanor Rigby, or just click on the demoline, it's a couple of minutes worth of samples....
ebow homepage 2) Another cool fortunate circumstance....we had rented a little house in the country while we were building this one about 5 years ago, and in all the chaos of moving, we never noticed that didn't get our security deposit back. Well, the guy we were renting from is a very honest character, discovered we hadn't been refunded, and sent me a check; since it was money we didn't know that we had coming, my better half was gracious enough to let me spend most of it on a new guitar. But, since it wasn't all THAT much, I still had to keep the costs low, so here's what I bought after playing a few at the local superstore.....
A Warwick Corvette Rockbass 5-stringer. Rockbass is Warwick's "entry" level bass, made in China, but it has the same electronics as the regular Warwicks, and looks pretty good too...not as fancy of woods (although this one is alder, which is the same as my Yamaha, a great wood for basses) and different hardware....but lower labor costs mostly. The finish on the one I ordered is black, so it wouldn't much matter about having a flame maple top or whatever....it's like a honda version of a bmw I guess.
Now to be honest, I haven't actually received it yet...after playing the one at the local guitar superstore, I hunted around online and found a deal at music123 on it. It should arrive this week. Fortunately, they have a 45 day money back guarantee, so if I get it and it just doesn't suit me then I can return it. I doubt that's going to happen though, it played really sweet in the store, a great slapper, plucker or picker, very comfortable to use with great action. Plus the price I ordered it for (with a hardshell case, and shipping) was still 50 bucks less than what they wanted for the demo unit.
Bass player mag gave it an Editor's Choice Award in 2002, so I felt relatively safe in getting it.
Anybody have any long term experience with these?
warwick rockbass oh well, back to work while I dream of being a bass playing star somewhere and dropping the day job....
TonyY
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