I have a 504 and will be very surprised if you do not like it.
Let us know,
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I love that he went to the trouble of setting up an amp by a cow pasture and then continues playing after they leave! This cracks me up every time.
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I guess they weren’t fans of slapping, then? . . . 
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Hahahahah! That’s awesome!
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@Celticstar Well since my only musical experience was playing trombone (poorly) in eighth grade, take my evaluation of the Yammie 504 with a grain of salt. 2 weeks into the course I find the bass is making all kinds of odd noises which are NOTHING like the ones Josh is playing! On top of that, the frets and even the strings sometimes are in the wrong locations and the rough strings make my fingers hurt sometimes.
Honestly I’m happy so far but know too little to judge anything! A bit more than half way through the course and I let myself advance to the next lesson if I can play the medium speed with a skill level not causing the cat to run from the room. (Although that lesson after Michael Jackson was a slow pass for me)
The 504 seems playable to me out of the box. I have messed with the truss a touch after giving it a few days to acclimate to my house and probably have the action a touch low but that is easy to tweak. I haven’t even put a battery in it yet for two reasons- 1) Easy to flick on amp (via Alexa cuz I’m a nerd) and grab without thinking about even jabbing plug in since it’s not gonna drain it leaving it in full ready to play position 2) Keeping it stupidly simple this early on and not wanting to mess with active settings till I can at least talk the game a bit better!
Looking forward to being able to give an actual review of the bass with some miles under my belt in 6 months
I blame Josh for the Yamaha and @howard for the 304 upgrade…
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Oh, you got one of those defective basses. Ya mine was like that in the beginning of the course too. 
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Funny how they can move around right under your fingers!
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So… I’m currently on Module 9, Lesson 5: “Understanding Music Better with Diatonic Chord Progressions”.
I long ago memorized the standard tuning open strings (EADG), and I have memorized the notes on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th frets on the E and A strings (GABCDE). I have the C major and minor scales memorized, I know that the C major scale has no sharps or flats, and I know that a minor scale will have flatted 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths. I have NOT memorized the “money notes”.
I’m feeling a bit lost, now, with the theory in Lesson 5. It makes sense when @JoshFossgreen explains it in the lesson, but as soon as I click pause or stop and try to work through it in my head and on my fretboard, all that tasty theory leaks out of one of the holes in my Swiss cheese brain.
I’m wondering if I should barrel on forward, or pause for a bit to insure that everything I think I know is actually cemented in there, and to learn the “money notes” before re-trying Lesson 5 and moving on.
Any thoughts on what I should do here?
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This is normal.
It will take you a long long long time to internalzie this without thinking about it.
You can take the scales and chord tones courses on talkingbass, over and over until it fully sinks in.
Do not let this discourage you @JustTim
Part of the reason is that this type of learning is very easy for our brains … pre-puberty.
During puberty, our brains start to develop to enable handling of more complicated concepts (like things in math you will never use on a daily basis). The problem is we lose some of that ‘easy lock in’ that we had as children. There are a lot of fascinating studies on this.
Add in the ‘older person memory issues’, or what I like to call “the brain cells left from years of abuse with (fill in your favorite spirit, drug, stressor) are full up with things we need to know for work, things our partners require us to know, kid stuff, dog stuff, bills, you name it syndrome”, and you essentially have a situation where you need to constantly cram things into your brain to get them to stick and be recalled without thinking.
Try an experiment…pick a new place to keep your keys, wallet, etc in your house. How long does it take before you stop walking to the original location? Multipy by ABCDEFG and some sharps and flats, see the issue?
This is something you will practice for years and continually come back to. If you get away from tabs and read instead, it will slow learning songs but help learning all this.
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Thanks for the reply, @John_E. My GF would argue with you that my brain is filled with “things our partners require us to know”. 
In all seriousness…
Definitely not discouraged. More… wondering how to move forward from here. Should I pause in the lessons and spend some more time internalizing the basic theory from the earlier lessons (like the “money notes”, etc.), or should I barrel on forward with the idea that the more I do it, sooner or later it’ll stick?
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I include things like this in my daily practice.
Private lesson stuff, talkingbass stuff, reinforces via difference exercises.
My private instructor has me doing 3 different things that enforce this while also doing other things.
Going through any course, I jot down things to do actual ‘practice work’ (vs. playing songs) on, and dedicate time to each. When I get tired of that exercise I move on. The concepts are rarely baked in to the level I would like, the next exercise will continue the journey.
I think when you are doing the BB course, focus on the course, note the things you think you need work on, and this is the best place to start when you hit the end and go ‘crap, what next’ - spoiler - they aren’t as fun nor do you have Josh taking you along, that’s where some fun songs come in to balance it all out. For me anyway.
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I take it you are referring to the minor scale starting on the same Root note ie C and Cm in your example 
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Right, exactly.
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@John_E I think this is where the 50 Songs Challenge - BassBuzz Forum comes in.
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Looks like we are at the exact same spot in the course! Personally I plan to keep moving along. I’ve spent way too many years in school not to learn what works best for me and I learn by what I call the spiral rule. Think of a spring like you might find in a ball point pen and placed on its end. Starting learning is the lowest part of the spring. As I spiral up with a knowledge base, even though I am advancing, each full turn on the spring touches on something I have seen before. For myself I find about 3 turns on that spiral brings an “aha” moment as I am able to draw on my growing knowledge . Drilling myself silly on a concept or skill before moving on usually bores me and slows me down in the long run and I want to make sure this hobby stays on the fun side! I will likely revisit the course from the beginning and hit my low points again and see how much easier it is after going through the course once.
Steve
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Ok, so I have a new struggle that hasn’t happened yet! I’ll be having surgery on my wrist in the near future to remove a cyst that has made my wrist joint its home. I don’t want it there anymore, as it’s being a pest, so it’s being evicted. The unfortunate part of that is I won’t be able to play bass for a while. I’ll be in a cast for a week, and be a bit stiff for a few weeks after until I work it all out. Surgery is on my left (fret) hand, so I guess I can practice my plucking in the meantime?? 
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Speedy recovery!
Perhaps time to learn to tap? 
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Maybe practice slapping a bit 
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chugging, palm muting, alternate picking, slap. plenty of options
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time to put in to bass vs other aspects of music production
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