synaesthesia

[quote name='deksawyer' post='522385' date='Jun 24 2009, 10:17 AM']It's very nice, but that bridge has completely the wrong string spacing for this bass. It just looks wrong even if it is strung upside down!

D.[/quote]

It looks like someone modified this with a Fender spaced Badass tailpiece. It's not the original bridge/tailpiece, which was more like a trad. fender bent metal design, but had slots for quick string changing. Sorry but the fact of the matter is that the string spacing is too close to the edge of the fingerboard and the modification is a negative aspect.

[quote name='rslaing' post='495908' date='May 23 2009, 11:18 AM']Remember, the topic is all about "The most accurate tuner"[/quote]

So flog me or send the police.

There is no point in having the most accurate note tuner if the whole instrument, as a musical instrument cannot cope. You can Strobe tune all you want, ultimately all you are ever doing is identifying a start point to which the rest of the instrument needs to be referenced to.

Frankly, it is probably more possible to play more in tune with a washtub or tea chest bass with one stick and one string than on a Fodera fretted bass, i.e if you have a good ear. An electronic tuner only contributes a point of reference as far as common well tempered fretted stringed instruments are concerned - a tuning fork or pitch pipe will can also provide the same function of a reference point. Beyond that, it's set up and then touch and ear.

[quote name='rslaing' post='495839' date='May 23 2009, 10:08 AM'][i][/i]

You are spot on with this. But if you read the answer as to why precise tuning is important to the ear, and I don't mean "exact" tuning in the sense of A5 having to be twice the hz of A4, (which is what a bog standard tuner will do) the Peterson explanation in my previous post explains why, and backs up what you are saying in a more detailed way.[/quote]

Preset temperaments are averaged to common set ups.

For an electric guitar or bass, or other stringed instrument, the action, the gauge of the strings and the player's attack are also important components to a musical consequence. SRV's strat was unplayable to most other players because of his set up, and the oft- quoted remark "it's in the fingers' is true as many players touch and ears work together towards musical consequence, as opposed to being mathematically tempered in tune.

edit: I should add the height of the frets affects tuning as well in tandem with string type and fretting pressure.

The obsession with tuning accuracy is overvalued in this context. The answer is always moot if it is a fretted stringed instrument that is tuned to tempered scales. You can tune a single fretted note with average plucking intensity as accurately as you want, but the instrument will be out of perfect tuning to some degree elsewhere on a fretted instrument, and hard attack on the string will result in a momentary sharp note. The accuracy of tuning on a fretted instrument also depends on the action, and the bow of the neck. The ear can accept some 'give' in musical contexts, which is why chorusing is popular and can sound 'rich'...and which is why the most common electric guitar, the stratocaster, where perfect tuning is further compromised by spring loading the tailpiece, is never in perfect tuning anyway.

[quote name='OldGit' post='464211' date='Apr 16 2009, 05:49 PM']OT: OP Got a link?[/quote]

[url="http://control.wf247.com/ASP/ENews/EnewsTools/ToolsPreview.asp?S=474853&C=8C472E8381A21&L=5150"]http://control.wf247.com/ASP/ENews/EnewsTo...1A21&L=5150[/url]

[url="http://www.ld-systems.com/index.php?article_id=34&clang=1"]http://www.ld-systems.com/index.php?articl...=34&clang=1[/url]

There's a sale at Adam Hall on LD stuff. They make PAs, but they also make (or rebadge) various bits & pieces that may be of interest here. e.g. AKG style wireless , sale price @ 75 squid
1U power amp (IIRC 1000W at Ohms or so, work to 2 ohms in stereo) sub 200 squid. check it out.

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='463327' date='Apr 15 2009, 07:22 PM']Perhaps the prototypes were made on different machines to the production parts, or perhaps it's a quality control problem, perhaps tahy made the prototypes and 'outsourced' the production. Who knows? At least they seem to be doing the right thing now.[/quote]

Neutrik moved all their manufacturing to Ningbo years ago. Switchraft used to use negative advertising to make fun of Neutirk Ningbo plant.

Before all this current China investment craze, German industry has always had a foothold, and they have been there historically, though this is not a well known fact in the Anglophone world. In Beijing and you will see a strong German industrial presence. Tsingtao beer, the standard chinese beer, is brewed with German investment & technology and has been for ages.

[url="http://www.audiospares.com/product.php?productid=853&cat=22&page=1"]http://www.audiospares.com/product.php?pro...t=22&page=1[/url]

Audiospares should have insert cable as well, if not they will have converters or adaptors that will work. Their prices are very good.

[quote name='XB26354' post='456487' date='Apr 7 2009, 03:13 PM']Saw him year before last at Ronnie's with Anthony Jackson, Dave Weckl and Eric someone on sax. Great, great playing but I can't stand that horrible chorused guitar sound. He had stereo amps and it still sounded thin and crappy. Each to their own I guess but I can't imagine why anyone would like that sound and continue to use it for 25+ years, especially someone with so much talent - guess he likes it![/quote]

Marienthal.

I guess saxophone players don't matter much in the world of electric bass players for whom Mike Stern is so high up on a pedestal. Good player, but it quite obvious where the slant is on this forum. FWIW, I have been listening to Mike Stern since he was with BS&T, and I've met the man with Dennis Chambers in '93. Again good player, but all this "you don't like or don't know Mike Stern?" bashing is amusing to say the least in the face of 'Eric someone.'

I don't know where the jazz jams are these days, but they are a good place to meet other musos of various capabilities. When I lived in Madchester in the early 90s, I used to go the PJ Bells Blues Bar which was great for networking. met several musos, got some work , did some recordings, brought a mate of mine down, he got work - did a short tour etc....They were never really proper jazz jams as the great equaliser was to play vamps over which you take extended solos.....Depending on what you want, you can find a conversation on how to navigate Cantelopue to Giant Steps, Got a Match to how chick Corea does someday my prince will come.

[u]Budget[/u] EUB for Arco = oxymoron

Some of the better EUB makers will tell you not to rate their instruments for Arco at all.

Have a look at Alter Ego - their cultural environment is less pizzicato jazz/bluegrass and they made these to be credible arco EUBs. Expensive though.

[url="http://www.alterego-instruments.com/index.php"]http://www.alterego-instruments.com/index.php[/url]

There are two ways to be a jazzer. One is to be a jazz snob, and the other is to be an open minded musician. Most jazzers are somewhere in between,.....Nothing really really wrong with either in regards to making music, but there is a proclivity towards closed zeitgeist in the former. There you'd have your Wynton Marsalis, your early George Benson, your Bitches Brew haters, your neighbourhood geriatric dixieland band etc....and on the other corner you'd have your later George Benson, John McL, Chick Corea, Herbie H, Brecker Bros, Steve Swallow, ...

Either way you cannot help but dive in and immerse yourself into jazz history. When I was learning music, I had a mate who conversed with Larry Coryell and he wanted to know if he really needed to learn early jazz forms to play jazz fusion. Coryell had a lot to say about learning from Jazz history. It's a lot of splashing about when you start but learn who's who, who's done what, learn the common forms, the phrases in various modalities of 'jazz', - this is not to suggest that you have to perform historical jazz, but you be a lot wiser as a contemporary musician. Many musos are locked on one side or the other of the blue note, some are still on the b5 side of things and the modern lydian mode fellas don't know that the #4 was never the dominant tonality in early jazz.

If anything irks me is the limited view most so called jazz musos have. Mention latin bass and they can only name Anthony Jackson. It's as if Showaddywaddy were really from the 50's.

[quote name='ARGH' post='454485' date='Apr 5 2009, 07:52 AM']Well,after Jim..who was of a senior generation...Karl was probably abit young (remember his columns on gadgets and gizmos)

But he did freshen up the place.

Another guy I dont see much of in writing now is/was Dale Titus,where did he go?[/quote]

BP and GP have to pander to the American market which is their main market. Too much intelligence was never appreciated either in those rags - Joe Gore tried to raise the level of writing, width of musical coverage in GP - but if anything he only met with general derison for his over use of the word "Catharsis". Still that generation is a long way from when GP started and when the interviews were "what kind of pick do you use" "what strings do you use" etc etc To which the likes of E Clapton would give a one word answer like "Ernie Ball".

I liked the early - mid 80's best when their GP issues were almost as thick as Playboy and had long articles worth reading, long interviews justifying the cover. Since 2000 or thereabouts I have always felt the articles to be too short to be worth shelling out any money for. I don't know why they do it - you could probably read it all at WH Smith in a few minutes without buying it. You can also read the articles full online these days...

If you are looking for a narrow and thin hollowbody EUB there are a few about. Knutson make a good one, and Clevinger make them too. Azola gives great customer service. The Eminence is good but many people don't like the lacquer on them, or the type of shiny lacquer on them.

I use a BSX Allegro myself which is a RN narrow and thin hollowbody spruce top EUB.

[quote name='ARGH' post='454427' date='Apr 4 2009, 11:50 PM']I wished sometimes Karl Coryat still had the reins after the great Jim Roberts left...The mag was a breath of fresh air under Carl....

He is still longest serving member on the Bassplayer roll of honour. Im happy for Bassplayer.tv to exist,it gives a good selection and interactivity to the magazine.[/quote]

Coryat was removed very quickly as he behaved like Jerry Reed in smokey and the bandit III, i.e. scream incessantly " I get to be the bandit! I get to be the bandit! I get to be the bandit!". Too excited about the job and completely unprepared.

[quote name='Prosebass' post='453900' date='Apr 4 2009, 10:01 AM']I'm still buying up old copies of International Musician from the 70's and 80's.[/quote]

I remember that. They had an rather incestuous relationship with the circle around Argent. Drum reviews by Henrit, bass reviews by Jim Rodford etc They got into a mess and reprinted reviews in subsequent issues.

Bass Player's editorship has changed in a boardroom streamlining scuffle. Bill Leigh is gone. He didn't do much for the magazine but dd a lot with bassplayer.tv - if anything the magazine was further dumbed down under his editorship.

J Herrera is the most likely suspect to be the next editor and it leaves the magazine in shaky hands as far as I am concerned. A journalist who writes "capacitors are nifty", and then brags about his knowledge of electronics is a sure sign of editorial decline. Print magazines are no longer the fountainhead of information and have not been for the last 8 - 10 years now. News comes onstream on the net much faster now. Even journo's like Herrara troll the net for interesting stories - Bassplayer claims to be the first to blow open the fake Accuswitch that Acugroove had. But really, there was an article already on that at Andy's Acme site way before BP published it.

[quote name='Al Heeley' post='441077' date='Mar 21 2009, 01:56 PM']I thought craft supplies were going stagnant on their support of guitar building, less and less stock, no-one who is able to answer questions knowledgably, etc.
I get my truss rods from Touchstone Tonewoods (and fingerboards too - their ebony and rosewood is usually really nice quality)[/quote]

That's sad but true, also you would go there for wood... they have some still. Not the first place I would go for hardware or metalwork.

It is not impossible. I play lefty properly, mirror imaged. I can play upside down lefty generally, and I can play righty a bit but not as much. It is just how I started, I tried both for a while in the 70s, then did lefty upside down for a couple of years, and switched to proper lefty when I wanted to learn to thumb slap the bass. Years later, Jimmy Haslip proved that you could slap an upside down lefty bass.

Many a Macca character in a Beatles tribute band - the serious ones anyway - have not only learnt to play lefty, but to play and sing lefty from RH. Nothing's impossible.

The problem is not the EB MM pickup, but the EB MM 3 band preamp which is frankly not a good design. When I first got the EB MM lefty in '96, I remember it left me underwhelmed in terms of output. I replaced the pickup and the preamp and tried various combis - the EB MM preamp is crap for the pickup it has.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='430654' date='Mar 10 2009, 04:16 PM']Really?

If I'd guessed I'd have gone for the other way round. That's why I prefer bridge/middle/neck terminology no ambiguity.[/quote]

It is really quite common to describe the 'neck' pickup at 'front' and the 'bridge' pickup as 'back' pickup. It's common speak in the US amongst the older crowd, even Jaco spoke like that:
[url="http://www.jacopastorius.com/features/interviews/portrait.asp"]http://www.jacopastorius.com/features/inte...ws/portrait.asp[/url]

The proximity of the pickup closest to the fingerboard will annoy the slappers who aren't used to having a pickup there; few top shelf basses survive commercially with a pickup there, - the original PRS did not, but RICs continue to do so. They are great for getting the deep tonalties that reggae players like.

[quote name='umph' post='431113' date='Mar 10 2009, 11:10 PM']hes charging 190 pounds in labour for something that would take 2 hours to build, which a bit of an over the top asking price which is what people where saying.[/quote]

The price of anything is whatever the market will bear, and what expectations/capacity the seller has in holding/moving the items. MI goods are way overpriced in the UK due to the cost of living, VAT, etc. -but for an item like the one the OP is pandering, it has a select market which is more likely to be informed - (i). about the purpose of such an item, & (ii) how to wire up your floor board to use it. It would seem to me, that for (ii) to happen, it is not a large step to make your own if you have the time, tools and rudimentary skill required to make one. It is also not a leap of imagination to see what the cost of the parts are. But still people pay £30 for a simple footswitch, and people are willing to pay £6 and up for cheese on toast masquerading as pizza, or £2.50 for a small bowl of plain boiled rice in a Thai restaurant, in the UK.

see e.g.
[url="http://www.dv247.com/invt/41579/"]http://www.dv247.com/invt/41579/[/url]

You pays your money, and you also take what you get and run when you can. Quite a lot of money to be had in a country where decent EB strings are >£20 and decent UB strings are >£100. You can get them posted to you from overseas for a lot less but the convenience, the ignorance, the fear of net money/banking etc will probably encourage the OP somewhat; though the effort looks incredibly amateurish in terms of wiring and design. That said, Pete Cornish charges top dollar for some very basic stuff, that looked like it was labelled by part time secretarial staff. But then he is Pete Cornish and he doesn't subscribe to "true bypass".

[url="http://www.petecornish.co.uk/"]http://www.petecornish.co.uk/[/url]

[quote name='rasher80' post='430097' date='Mar 10 2009, 08:14 AM']a new neck???????

now i [i]am[/i] pissed off! it is too much to ask to get something that isn't going to fall apart after five minutes these days???[/quote]

If it is a new instrument and you have a warranty, return it.

Slippage between laminates occurs even in neck through instruments, and your insert is not really immune from that.

Do the physical stretch and play it in Bb in standard tuning on a 4 string. IIRC the original recording was in Bb with Leland Sklar on bass.
This tune , however, is forever etched in my memory for a stunning performance by Billy Cobham with Brian Bromberg live at the Jazz Cafe, London in 1991.

[quote name='chris_b' post='413960' date='Feb 19 2009, 10:24 AM']So you are saying that due to the design of many *x10 cabs comb filtering is not an issue?

I'm not sure that comb filtering problems in a 4x5 cab is very relevent to most of us.[/quote]

That is one issue, dispersion is the other. Dispersion in a bass cab is not an issue per se, if everyone on stage has some form of dedicated in ear or directional monitoring and backline is not contributing to public address. Having said that, monitor mixes don't carry everything on stage, so your ideal bass tone which you spent loads of money on often doesn't carry much farther than what you can hear if you were directly in front of it.

There is very little point in talking about quality tone if it ain't going to travel.