hi all, first time poster, first time Stick owner! to start off with, I’ve been a lurker here for quite a while taking advantage of the camaraderie and knowledge you all so freely share, it’s been of great help to me as my made my journey towards fulfilling a decades-long dream of owning a Stick so thank you all for that.

now, on to the good stuff. I’ve recently acquired Stick #775 from BassBros in the UK which arrived late last week. I let it sit unopened for a couple of days to allow it to acclimate because it sat in the UPS warehouse for a week and a half while it was held up in customs. first time that’s ever happened to me but well worth the wait. the funny thing is once I unboxed it I was kind of terrified of it! it took me a couple of days to summon up the courage to even try and tune it! (classic tuning for those who are interested) it also came with one of Brian Baggett’s lap bars as well as a copy of Free Hands, Vol. 1 of Greg Howard’s The Stick Book and an unopened set of Newtone strings! a beginning Stickist could not ask for anything more than that! woo-hoo!

well since then I’ve spent a few hours playing around with it. hoo boy… I’m gonna have my work cut out for me. I’ve been playing bass for over fifty years and I play guitar and mandolin as well as recently acquiring an NS Design WAV cello so I’m familiar with fifths and fourths tunings however I was never one to tap on my bass or anything else for that matter. that is one of the many skills this instrument requires that I’ll have to develop and I’ll be having lots of questions for you all and I’m grateful that such a resource exists. I don’t think I would’ve been able to take on such a task back in the pre-internet, pre-youtube era. to those of you here that have done so I offer my respect and my admiration.

and now on to the pics, the first one is taken in my living room and the rest are from the for sale listing.

cheers!

Jim

more pics.

well I just noticed one thing that I’m sure the more eagle-eyed among you have probably spotted, the low melody string was wrapped around the post the wrong way. it only took me almost a week to figure that out!

another user error on my part, I was tuning it as though it was a 36” scale instrument instead of the 34” scale Stick that it is. I couldn’t figure out why the dots seemed to be in the wrong place until I got out my tape measure. d’oh!

which leads me to my first “dumb guy” question; how do I play the open string pitches? like if want to do a drone over the low C?

please be patient with me folks, remember I’m just starting out!

Jim

Welcome to the group. Where in Canada do you live?

Grimsby Ontario, thanks for asking! it seems I forgot to fill out a few things in my profile. whoops!

Glad you're here. Thanks for joining.

Your Stick looks to be one of the few Zebrawood Sticks from the mid 1990s. Emmett experimented with a few exotic hardwoods in those years, including Purple Heart. Those are not too common!

Looking forward to hearing of your adventures.

thanks Brian! and I’m looking forward to receiving the TAGG Interface I ordered!

cheers!

Jim

Welcome to the adventure.

As you will have spotted, the velcro like dampener is there specifically to dampen open strings. That's because the design aim is to reduce ringing of open strings.

That said some people do like to have an open string possibility. If you look Bob Culbertson videos (as I'm sure you have) you'll sometimes see a capo on the bass side for that purpose.

I believe open strings are also why Steve Adelson (Lee Vatip) has a preference for the pre-X-Fret Sticks (which of course alters the 'open' note by a semitone)?

PS. Are you tuning to open strings? Most tune to a fretted note. You are of course free to do as you wish - we are very much a community of individuals here.

Welcome to this community. Beautiful stick you got. Hours and hours of pleasure to discover your new toy...lol. There is no stupid question here...you can ask whatever question you want. If I can answer, I'll do it, if I can't, someone else will do.

Have fun.

Welcome Fretless!
What you described, upon opening, was pretty much how i felt a cpl wks ago, with my new baby.
My musical experience is minimal. My practice sessions are all from FreeHands, and Lee Varips wonderful book. Currently learning how to tap in squares, triangles, diamonds .
My Bagget Woodworks lapbar is Excellent!.
Wishing you much fortune learning this beautiful instrument!!