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Interesting timing:

Put mouse cursor at start of address bar, hold down left mouse button, move along to the .html (stop just before the question mark), Ctrl-C and you have it all ready to be pasted. That's in Chrome, other browsers are the same.

Had my BB734a since my 21st birthday and it's served me so, so well. Every time I catch myself lusting after another bass I just think about how perfect it feels in my hands, how good it sounds, and how much I love it, and that wards off the GAS for a while longer! Literally everything about it feels perfect to me - the way it balances, the shape and feel of the neck, the way it looks, the headstock shape, the finish. And the sound is perfect too, I love the way it growls and has real depth to it but also a nice bite. I always play mine in active mode with both pickups on, and sometimes a smidge of onboard EQ. I like a bit of bass and mid boost and a touch of treble cut. Perfect, snarling growling roaring goodness. I actually quite like how the transparent matte black finish looks - the marks and wear show how much you play it! Hah. Only reason I bought another bass is that I need something pointy to play on stage. Otherwise I'd never need anything else! Maybe one day I'll own a vintage BB too, now that would be grand wouldn't it...

@tauzero You're a star. No idea how you managed it but you did 🙂 Thanks for putting in the effort, it's much appreciated 👏

@stevie and @Phil Starr might have some suggestions - after all, measuring speaker frequency responses with a specific microphone and measuring microphone frequency responses with a specific speaker are two sides of the same coin.

There is a very elderly website that has at least some relevant information - https://www.ymec.com/hp/signal2/index.htm

Admittedly rather (width of a) hair splitting, but according to Vigier they're 42.5mm.

My Vigier Passion iii 5 string provided the original inspiration.

Well, after weeks of deliberation I finally caved and have absolutely no regrets. MusicMan Pino fretted signature (I have enough fretless basses). This sounds immense with the flats, probably pop some rounds at some point. It is an expensive piece of kit but I can justify it. Cracking bass 👍.

Good call. I asked Chatgpt for advice and that was one recommendation. Another was to use software that allows me to calibrate using a reference mic... I know someone who may lend me one.

Everybody hurts - REM Mad World - Gary Jules Will you - Hazel O'Connor Hero - Enrique Iglesias Take on me - A-Ha (acoustic version) Times like these - Foo Fighters (acoustic version) Fields of gold - Sting Many rivers to cross - Jimmy Cliff Stand by me - Ben E. King

You might want to have a look at sweep frequency generators - these generate a single variable frequency sweeping typically from 20Hz to 20kHz, and so you can get a frequency response by mapping amplitude against frequency.

Got me googling as well! 😁

Running late again on updates. Lovely communion service on Sunday night with a nice mix of carols and choruses. The set list for the service was: Great Things Holy Forever Make Room Seasons (piano and vocals) Communion - by Brooke Ligertwood, lovely song with some nice alternating 4:4 / 3:4 bars in the chorus for a wee bit of prog worship!! Mary Did You Know - modelled a bit after the Mary J Blige version Trust In God I do enjoy playing the Phil Wickham songs - they seem to encourage me to break out the plectrum as that just kinda sounds right for the rhythms in the bass. Not a very regular pick player but it just seems to work in the context of his tunes. Seasons is a lovely song with interesting words. We decided during the rehearsal before the service that it would be nice really stripped back so was just piano and vocals in the end. Mary Did You Know was fun too. Such a gentle mellow song, and again lyrics that capture the mystery of the Christmas story. We later funked it up as an outro instrumental after the end of the service. It was doubly good as we had a sax player for this week. Cool. And of course, the church was looking nice and Christmassy, which complemented the vibe very nicely!!! My Sandberg VM4 was my trusty companion for the service. Love that bass!!!!!

Didn't I sell it to you back in 2005? It's a stunningly good bass, and I should never have let it go, really. I think I was the third or fourth owner of it at that point, at least it's found somewhere stable to live!

Where Eagles Dare - Misfits

Yep, that's an Original. A proper old one too, since it has the brass nameplate in front of the bridge. Thinking probably 1994-1995 or so? Seis age spectacularly well - mine is 22 years old and plays better than it ever has. What electronics are in it? I'm guessing the Schack circuit he used to put into almost everything? As for getting the top fixed - get it over to Martin. He'll sort it right out. I had him "rejuvenate" mine about a year and a half ago - got him to do a full setup, clean and polish, replace a few screws that had gone rusty, stick some Hipshot Ultralites on it, fix an annoying issue with the battery compartment where the wood cover had become detached from the metal plate underneath, and so on.

Fly like an eagle - Steve Miller band

Just about to start a side venture of a laid back covers trio and would welcome song suggestions So far we are trying: Tracy Chapman - Baby Can I Hold You Chris Stapleton - Tenessee Whisky Chris Isaak - Wicked Game Johnny Cash - Hurt Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes Amy McDonald - This is the Life Foster the People - Pumped up Kicks Singer might add a bit of percussion but there'll be no drums. We're looking for a Sunday afternoon vibe rather than a smash it up Saturday night. Thanks in advance.

I've been experimenting with testing microphones. I used a Scarlett interface into my laptop and Friture to produce Mel & A-weighted spectrograms. I used a HH Vector 8" producing pink noise over bluetooth as a sound source. Speaker and mic 1.25m apart and 1.25m above the floor in large room with lots of soft furnishings, curtains. Most obvious thing was the speaker had limitations, as you could see the same notches across all the mics. The flatest response was... a £30 generic BM800 mid-sized condenser microphone. Often used with 5V from a PC, these run well on 48V phantom power and are very sensitive. Lots of hacks for their circuit or putting larger inserts in them. I haven't modded this yet, but it gave the biggest signal and flattest curve with widest frequency response of all the mics I tested... I think this gives the best idea of the HH Vector's output. Note the dips at 450 and 550Hz which I guess may be the crossover frequency. My other condenser mic - Behringer C2, used flat and with low cut, which drops around 3dB from around 100Hz ish. Interestingly the 550 dip is not very pronounced. I think I need a better white noise source before repeating the experiment... things are going on for different types of mic, but I don't have confidence the sound source is flat enough to draw meaningful conclusions on anything but the sensitivity and the extent of the high/low frequency response. If anyone can recommend the ideal spectrogram settings, better software (Friture has no manual and appears to lack a simple save screenshot function) or any advice at all, all welcome!