Good day everyone:

i am looking to buy a new stick. I am a bass player and piano player. I am a huge Tony Levin fan. I play a Music man 5 string fretted and a NS Upright Bass. Maybe knowing this will help answer some of the questions I have for you. I am leaning toward a 12 string grand stick right now. I am also leaning toward a bamboo body. I don't know what I should do about the pickups though. Does anyone have any ideas as to what I would do with this option and maybe even the other options mentioned? I would be happy with any advice so I can make this a good purchase.

Thanks in advance,

Rick Krenmayer

Rick,
greetings and welcome to the Stick family... I too am a big fan of Mr. Levin... I have a dark bamboo Stick w/ a hybrid p/up.. On the bass side I have the traditional Stick-Up, and on the melody side I have an EMG. To my understanding, Emmett is not making the hybrid anymore. Tony uses the traditional Stick-up.,. If you like that sound, I think that it is an excellent choice. I have had all of the p/up choices that Stick has to offer at one time or another, and personally I liked the Stick-UP on the bass side... Tony also Squashes the hell out of his signal as well. He uses an Analog man compressor and has used an old MXR Phaser as well. Again, best of luck to you...You will find this forum, informative, friendly and a whole lot of fun!!!
Randy Clere

Hey Rick,

I really think your background is going to make you a perfect candidate to become a Stick player. In spite of the huge number of bassists and guitarists that have taken up the Stick, I am still convinced that playing the Stick is much closer to playing piano than anything else. The fact that you do both is even better.

In regards to your questions ... hmmmmm. Those will likely open up a whole discussion and at the end of the day you'll have a hundred differing opinions. Personally I love woods so graphite would likely not be an option. When I bought my last Stick, the bamboo wasn't around. If it had been, I would have likely gone that route.

Regarding the pickups ... even harder question. Everybody has their favorites. I really love the sound of the original Stickup on the bass and that's really the only pickup that will get you close to that classic Tony Levin sound. When I recorded my "121normal" record that was released last year, I had done quite a few of the Stick parts with my PASV-4. Later on I actually pulled out an older instrument with a Stickup and replaced some of the Stick bass parts.

Good luck. And once you get going, keep your eyes peeled for any seminars that come up within reasonable travel distance.

Regards,
Glenn
http://www.detroitstick.com
http://www.121normal.com

Rick,

I've only ever had a StickUp and I can tell you that the tone is very rich. It gives a signature "Stick" sound. Some recordings I can suggest for this pickup would be Greg Howard's (http://www.greghoward.com) "Stick Figures". No effects...just pure Stick tone. Another recording is actually on the Stick website. In the online video section, please correct me if I'm wrong guys, Tom Griesgraber is using a StickUp on the video with him and Morrata called "In a Step".

The ACTV EMG pickup has an almost electric hum to it. Bob Culbertson's "Romantica" albums, most notably the "Ave Maria", or the videos of Greg Howard on the Stickist.com homepage are great examples of that.

For the PASV 4 pickup my all-time favorite example is a video of Glen Poorman, hi Glen , demonstrating some live looping techniques. The song is called "Frantic in Nature" and can be found on the Stick website or YouTube. He actually adjusts the tone mid-song. Very cool song by the way.

I hope that gives you some things to chew on.

Michael

I used to do that quite a lot just to provide some separation of the lines that were playing in the loops. I really miss that ability with the PASV-4 to just reach down and flip a switch. Now for the same effect, I switch on and off an additional EQ in one of my VF-1 units but it doesn't sound nearly as nice. Too noisy. I guess I need to find an FX unit with some nice filtering in it.

As you are a TL fan and a pianist you might also be a candidate for an NS Stick in mirrored fourths....

If you are interested in playing piano pieces on a Grand, you might check out my posts at Tappistry.org > Forums> Playing > Report:The Pseudo-Keyboard Approach.


Mad Monk.
harpsitar@gmail.com

I´ve gone thru pretty much all options when it comes to Stick instruments since -87 when I started out on the Stick. Started out on a carbon Stick and then moved on to two Grand Stick´s with Stickup PU´s. Sold them since the neck was too wide for my hands and got back to two 10-string Sticks. This time with PASV-4 PU´S and midi melody and I´ve played these instruments since -04 about. I got a hold of a late 80´s Stick with Stickup PU really cheap about a year ago. Bought it just for fun really. But I started to use that old thing ALOT and I found out that I´ve REALLY missed the Stickup PU. I also bought a rather new bamboo Stick with EMG PU second hand at a really fair price here in Sweden also about a year ago.

So I´ve this last year had the great fortune to twiggle about on everything from old hardwood instruments with Stickup to modern hardwood/bamboo ones with EMG´s or PASV-4 PU´s. I´ve sold the old 80´s Stick and my StickBass and have two 10-string bamboo Stick´s with Stickup incoming in january about. I missed the classic Stick sound so much that I´ve decided to go back to what I started out with some 20 years ago. A basic 10-string Stick with Stickup PU. I will keep my bamboo EMG Stick and the PASV--4/midi instruments too as long as I can afford it but I have a feeling that the Stickup Stick´s will get the most playing time.

So my advice would be that if you like the classic Stick sound, then I would go for a bamboo Stick with Stickup PU´s. Bamboo has it´s advantages. My new ones are a turquoise and a golden yellow light bamboo Stick with flaps, rails and baritone melody. Good fun. Feels like I´m returning "home" again after quite some detour.....

Sincerely//Jan

You'll probably get a hundred different opinions here because we all love the Sticks we play! If you love Tony's sound you want a Stick-up pickup but much of the sound also comes from the technique. I've owned 3 sticks with Stick-ups and now one with a PASV4. I think the PASV4 has a little less sound cross over then the Stickup but it still sounds like a STICK. In regard to sound cross over ... remember Tony uses his Stick almost exclusively as a BASS instrunemt. He hardly ever plays the melody strings so cross over is not an issue for him. But if you intend to play it as melody and bass and use effects crossover is something to consider. I believe the Stick-up gets more sound cross over then the other two pickups.

In regard to the NS Stick, if you want to be able to TAP traditional bass guitar patterns easily the NS Stick or SB8 are good options because you can simply transfer what you do on bass guitar to the instrument. I'd suggest an NS or SB8 if this is your goal but there's a lot to be said for the flexability a traditional Stick gives it's user. For ME the answer was simple .... I bought BOTH!

Hi Rick,

Maybe the best place to look for more insight is in Tony's words themselves.

There are two places I can point you to that go into some explanation of why the inverted 5ths bass tuning works for him as a musical pathway:

http://www.stick.com/articles/progression/
http://www.stick.com/artists/artistfeatures/0710levin/

Mirrored 4ths is fine as a "two-handed" tuning, but each subgroup of strings is not as easy to use as a two-handed grouping as inverted 5ths. Tony pretty much invented the two-handed bass approach that has become such a Stick staple, and it would not have happened without that tuning.

Because the placement of notes is spread out more on the string (it doesn't overlap as much from string to string), there's just much more room for the two hands to work together with inverted 5ths.

That's not to say that the inverted 5ths bass is only usable as a two-handed group, far from it. The close proximity of notes for a huge variety of chords in that tuning makes it ideal for bass and chords accompaniment with only one hand, especially where the frets get pretty far apart near the nut.

Responding to Mad Monk's post, as a "bass/melody" tuning mirrored 4ths offers some nice possibilities, but the lack of range in the bass group pretty much takes the left hand out of the traditional keyboard role if you start at a low B or C (even with 6 strings), and regarding the NS, I think 4 melody strings is just not enough to be really satisfying to a keyboardist.

If you are going to get a Grand, and playing piano music is your goal, then mirrored 4ths definitely has a lot to offer, but the Tony Levin two-handed bass approach is not in the mix.

Just my 2 cents.

I should have been more precise. I was suggesting a bass/bass approach, like I use on the NS, starting at low B and with the hands well apart. TL (usually) uses only half of his strings, and plays frequently with both hands on the same group of 2 or 3 strings, rapid-fire. With my setup you can do that, with the additional possibility of having the left- and right-hand parts overlap...hence the possible interest to a keyboardist.

My approach to playing bass is to learn keyboard material on the Grand (mirrored fourths is best for this), and then to transfer what I've learned to a dual bass tuned the same way.


Mad Monk.
harpsitar@gmail.com