K man ill work on moving them n tomarro im high n tired now lol

Manring should be #1, followed by Wooten and Sheehan. Some of the stuff I've seen Manring do is insane. Like slapping, tapping, and retuning his bass at the same time, and playing three basses at once.

Manring takes Wooten and Sheehan, seriously? Could he play Classical Thump or Addicted to that Rush?

I applaud your efforts and research lobones :-) You've got some good names on there...though I do question the order. Bromberg all the way down at #25? McBride's really an upright guy mostly right, are we just judging him based on his electric playing here? (Does he even play electric?) Flea has to take Burton...Myung is WAY too low...I suspect Trujillo and Patterson are too low as well. And Fimmers and Alderete. Claypool needs to jump way up. Burton MUST stay ahead of Squire and possibly Lee I reckon.

Watching youtube vids of these guys probably would beat listening to tracks of them IMO in evaluating tech skill

Still nice job :-) you've certainly set the gauntlet down and made this a serious thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkkzzAjSxDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgsRFX5CPk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4Ra2KOyas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ilXR-leBs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ3XksTJeA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx1RccwlF5g

That last one features him playing microtones with two Ebows on his bass. I've literally never seen anyone who can do what he does with one...

The top video (Helios) essentially proves he can play material similar to Classical Thump. I can't find too much demonstrating his pure finger speed though, but he obliterates Sheehan in virtually everything else.

Wow...took a while to get thru (most of) those videos.

My impression is that Manring has an unbelievable right hand. Like, Wooten good. Like, possibly the best in the world good. He's ridiculously rhythmically skilled. But his left hand ain't up to Sheehan or Wooten at all. I didn't see any sophisticated tapping really or shredding either.

Some crazy mf'in videos though. Helios absolutely made my jaw drop.

I see Manring top 5. #1? Not sure. He definitely jumps, like, John Myung, Claypool and DiGiorgio I'd reckon. Does he jump Pattituci, Sheehan and Wooten and Hamm? The jury is out IMO. He might be #2. He's definitely a #1 contender.

I'm not an expert on super technical stuff though. Anyone else have an opinion?

Don't forget he's also changing tunings while playing. Every time he hits the headstock, he's changing the pitch of a string.

I'm not sure about shredding though. Then again, I haven't listened to everything he's put out. The closest out of the stuff I've heard to shredding is his work with Attention Deficit though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EaNLt9knfY


Tapping-wise, one of the videos I posted had him tapping on three basses at once. But he tends to do Tony Levin Chapman stick-style tapping if anything.

Rev Jones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9BaVAE7r7M&feature=related

Very technically skilled bassist. Unfortunately rather obscure too and his main gigs (MSG, Steelheart) haven't brought him a lot of fame.

The headstock adjustment while playing stuff really didn't impress me much. IIRC he wasn't playing very difficult parts, comparatively speaking, while he was doing that.

This Attention Deficit track is cool but I'm not sure I'd call it shredding. It's not Sheehan that's for sure.

The three bass tapping thing was pretty neat but I'm not sure we should count something like that as more impressive than the truly wicked tapping of Levin and Sheehan, etc.

I'm really not sold on Manring jumping Sheehan or Wooten. But no way he should drop out of the top 6 based on what I know. My impression is in the top 6 or so, everyone's pretty close in skill.

Did I scare you away lobones?

:-(

Yeah they're all really close. But then again, for Manring, it's really hard to find recordings of him. It's probably going to end up being he, Wooten, and Sheehan in the Top 3 though.

Sounds about right to me.

Beaver, do you have any comments on the rest of the list?

got a vinyl pressing of Manring's Unusual Weather for 50c a few weeks back... thats like 25c to you US people.

Crazy.

What are Buckethead and Yngwie doing on this list?