Leaderboard

Hi folks Just wanted to show you another fantastic ACG I’ve acquired from the great Alan Cringean. This one is a pure joy both in terms of feel, playability and tone. Alan’s work is second to none. This is the Krell model, 5 string and 35 inch. ART maple on top of a swamp ash body. Ash neck with wenge strips. Fingerboard is flamed sycamore with blue dots from the bass body. Luminlay side dots. Hipshot ultralite tuners and Hipshot bridge then finally a John East Uni Pre 4. Pickups are a FB humbucker in the neck and an RFB humbucker at the bridge. This combo can cut through the mix no problem. If 2024 is the year you’re looking for a custom bass then get into ACGs website. Alan is a pure gent and any communication I’ve had with him has been top notch. All the best Stuart

Bramble On - Led Zeppelin

My 2024 board (for now) picked up the HX stomp other day and I am super impressed with it. It’s replaced everything on my board, including a cali76 compressor!

I can probably answer most of your questions relating to Trace Elliot products made between 1978 and the end of 1986.Fred Friedlein (MD),Alan Morgan(sales) and I (designer) were the founder members of Trace Elliot.designed all models up to then including GP 11 preamp, GP7 preamp and the AH 150 combo amps. The amp heads AH150,AH 350x,the biamp model and the most popular AH250 and AH500 heads. Stuart Watson.

Just my opinion, of course, but I played in originals metal bands for 20 odd years and I never used any distorted sounds, kept it tight and punchy because with two massive fuzzy guitars, I didn't want the bass to get lost in that. Obviously that might not be waht you want, but may be worth recording yourselves and seeing what you think??? Best of luck 🤘🤘🤘

All set up and assembled by Chris! Looks the part with all the hardware & electronics in now. Expecting delivery later next week just letting it all settle then!

In general, I've found that bass is only interesting to bassists.

You're missing my ability to misread things

The gamble paid off....Just to confirm the Epiphone EB-3 Long Scale case is a great fit for my '73 short scale.

I think you'll be surprised by exactly how much drive/dirt there is on what sounds like clean bass in the mix. Have a look and see if any tracks by the above have been posted as isolated bass tracks on YouTube. Then you'll get a much better idea of the sound you are aiming for.

Grape Me — Nirvana

Blackberry Way — The Move

We did a festival with Ash in summer 2019 and I spoke to Mark briefly - seemed like a personable enough guy. I told him Burn Baby Burn was the first song I ever learned on bass, which was perhaps not the compliment I intended it to be. The real gem was Tim Wheeler, who was an absolute darling. He watched our set from sidestage and then afterwards came and chatted guitar nerd stuff with me for ages. I was actually having a bit of a Moment after I got offstage because the stage was directly in baking sun and we'd all overheated, so I was laying on the grass with my head under a wet towel when a very polite voice went "Mind if I have a look at your pedalboards while you're busy down there?" He took us up to where their rig was being set up so I could check out the infamous Vee and his new EGC acryclic/aluminium SG and then we watched the set from there later. Sometimes you can meet your heroes, although preferably not while alarmingly red and sunburned.

Ordered a b-stock bass (MTD Kingston Z4) in December. I’d been watching it for months, just hoping I might get a Christmas bonus big enough. Bonuses were announced on 8 December, so at that point I knew I had enough. But when I checked it was still available, the price had increased by £100! I must have just been no more than a week late. I phoned on the off-chance that there was room for negotiation, but before I’d even finished my first sentence, Mark said I could have it for the earlier lower price. (He also delayed despatch so it would arrive on a day when my good lady was at the office!) In short: super service!

There are two forces here: string height and tension. The higher the strings are, the more pressure (or pull) it takes to get a note. Some people prefer a low action but get it too low and the strings can rattle. String tension is another variable. I use low tension Spiros, but couldn’t cope with ultra low tension guts or gut-a-likes. This article is good discussion about string heights. https://www.bassgearmag.com/jazz-vs-classical-vs-bluegrass-set-up/#:~:text=The traditional bluegrass set-up allows for slapping%2C as well,strings at the same height. Unless you’re confident working on your bass it’s best to take it to a pro. Last set up I had, I was there when the action was set and was able to get it to a level I was happy with, and the luthier was able to advise on the quality of note and overall sound. I’m very much an amateur and I’m sure you’ll get much more in-depth and helpful replies. Where are you based?

As it happens I've just seen this on YT. 4 separate videos going through 48 different bass drive pedals pretty much in order of price. Low, mid and high gain settings for each. Should give you an idea of what you might like to try. I now want an EBS Multidrive!

Sansamp - Punchy, grindy tone without distorting Then add a: TC Electronic Spark Booster - adds as little or as much grit as you want or: Joyo Double Thruster (budget copy of a Darkglass B3K and just as good IMHO) You don't need anything more than the Sansamp plus one of these.

Pedals that just add fuzz do tend to strip the bass out. I used to use a Dave Hall Amps pedal that was good, have also used a Big Muff Deluxe (this model has something it it to keep the bass frequencies in, I can't remember what it's called) to similar results. Depending on the type of metal, it's not a bad idea to just leave the bass clean & let the guitarists do the distortion.

Yeah, songs like: Happy, Get Lucky. Uptown Funk, Can't stop the feeling, shake it off, are all real downers compared to stuff by Joy Division and Nick Drake.

For the Zoom it is just to cycle thru the patches. 1A is for the 1st patch, 1B 2nd… You will have instant access to about 32 patches. It comes with a wireless dongle (encircled one is for the Zoom, the other one is for MIDI port devices), you just need to connect it to a USB powersource and then connect a USB A to USB mini cable

Your average musician (who isn't a bass player) probably couldn't name the bassist in their favourite band. Bassists are invisible to everybody, other than other bassists. Sad but true

The problem is if you as a small business simply publish your email address online you have to deal with masses of unsolicited scammer type emails, but if you set up a contact form it works well initially so you think great, cracked it 😀 and then as the software used to make the website (wordpress for example) gets updated to help prevent scammers and as the isps constantly update their defences to reduce spam the contact form becomes unreliable and is often blocked by the isp, or ends up in spam. So you end up having to do lots of maintenance of the site and testing and updating, which is fine if you are in the IT business but if you just need a presence for the non word of mouth customers to find and contact you then it has become increasingly a pain, thanks to criminals all around the world and AI. I have found it gives best result if you call companies where possible, they will usually give you a better email address to use if they can't deal with the enquiry wholly by phone, like fred @thebiz.com where fred is the actual person who can sort your enquiry out. The biggest companies are often the worse for contact form not working, maybe because they assign that inbox to someone who leaves the company and they don't reassign the function or have a catch all set up to monitor incoming mail where the 'duty' person everyday checks the stuff that is in the spam filter or hasn't been final delivered. But big companies publish the phone number and have a reception/telephonist person who can route your enquiry generally.

Maybe Steve Harris didn't request a headphone option that works well as a specific feature? 😅 Sorry - couldn't resist!

Loved her on OGWT and it’s hard choice between her and whispering Bob for my favourite presenter of that show.

Extraordinary person and life, all too easy to overlook that at a time of serious sexism and elitism she was always seen by audiences and colleagues alike as the real deal and never a token, and that was still the case 50 years later among audiences and colleagues of very different generations and cultures. RIP Annie ❤️

Is it for recording or playing live?

Don't remember that one. Was it something like if you touch the brown and blue wires at the same time, your knickers will be twisted?

David Elleffson, Jason Newstead, Ian Hill. I suppose an 80's metal sound. I just want to add a bit of grit, nothing fancy.

I've got a Boss GX-100 that really works for me in my doom band. I'm mainly using the guitar effects rather than the bass specific ones, but the GX has a separate bass boost, which lets me thicken up the sound. Before I got the GX, I was using a MojoMojo as an always on drive, and then a Bass Big Muff for my fuzz. I run into an Ashdown ABM-600 with the tube drive engaged as well. That also helps with the tone I think.

What sound are you trying to achieve? Any examples?

That's ridiculously blinkered. There's plently of miserable and happy music from the past and present. If anything, I'd say pop music overly happy/party orientated nowadays, it's rare to get more moody/angry/introspective songs doing really well. The UK top 10 right now is almost all upbeat party tunes. https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/uk-top-40-singles-chart/ I mean, I'm not a fan, but these 5 are all in the top 10 and I think 'happy party music' would describe them: ...... That's all bubblegum pop for 13 year olds though. This is just released this week and would be massively happy/euphoric in a good club:

King Volcano — Bauhaus

Got to say though, playing a Ric with a heavy hand does sound thoroughly great. IMO o'course.

Here we go. Im talking about "happy" party music. Youve named a small handful I can think of 100's from the past that were joyous and made you wanna dance.

Good rehearsal last night with my no-singer non-gigging classic rock band. The guitarist is now taking advantage of hiring one of the rehearsal rooms 412s rather than using his own 112 and the difference is quite staggering. Far from being louder and overpowering everyone it’s actually enabled us to turn down and the sound is much better balanced. We’ve also added in Next To You by The Police, not exactly classic rock but a good song and it gives the drummer a chance to shine.

watch out for used Phil Jones Double four, especially the earlier version with the external power supply as they can be run using a power pack, that's what I use for practice, 70w, sounds great, works with double bass: decent tone controls, passive and active in, very small, very portable can be used with a bluetooth dongle as a general music listening machine as it has an aux in; there was one for sale at BassDirect complete with powerpack and carrybag for less than £300 a few months ago, was only there for a couple of days as it was a great deal, the combos on their own often go for around £2-250 used

Would be! I just didn't want to disturb that nice gold logo so ended up leaving the front of the headstock as is.

I didn't spot this earlier but we've been doing some measurements on frequency responses of amps. We specifically started with the micro amps; Gnome, BAM and Elf. It's on a thread here somewhere. None of them are flat with the controls at 12.00 though you can tweak them to be more or less flat. They all have differing scoops at 440Hz but all three have the mid control at 440Hz which makes eq simpler The Gnome and Elf all have decent HPF keepint the subsonic frequencies under control which will help protect your speakers, ideal for small amps which might be used with smaller drive units. The Elf has a classic smiley face/old school eq with everything at 12.00 the BAM is similar but slightly less pronounced and the Gnome is also scooped but with a more lively top end which gives it a distinct 'hi-fi' sound. In listening tests at the last SW Bass Bash the Elf got a lot of love with everything set to 12 but all three are tweakable to give a flat sound if that is what you want. In other tests we found the Bugera Veyron M to have the flattest response we measured rolling off the frequencies that a bass doesn't make only. It is a 700W amp though so you'd have to use the volume control judiciously. The Gnome in our tests is mine, bought as a back up when my MB Tube started having problems. It is now my go to amp much to my surprise, for what you want it is ideal but the Elf or BAM would probably do the same job for you. It's a silly price too. If you genuinely want a flat response amp with lots of tone options the Bugera is a great option and on the basis of the tests and subsequent listening tests I bought one which I use in preference to my Peavey and MB. I'd be careful about people's subjective opinions about how an amp sounds. You should see the range of terms we see in descriptions they give of the same amp or speaker we collect in out shoot outs, mine included Miost amps withan fx loop are flat beyond the fx input though. Oh DC resistance 5.9 ohm is typical for an 8ohm impedence speaker as you surmised

Love Alan's work

I wouldn't accept it whether it was genuine or not. The different logo would drive me nuts.

Some videos I've come across recently to share the power of the Dwarf! As you may have realised, I'm a huge fan ... are there any other audio processors that support effects, audio playback, synth generation, neural modelling and IRs all with multiple (Unlimited!?) pathways/chains? Sam x