AndyBass

At the risk of incurring the righteous wrath of Basschatters everywhere, if you just want your bridge a bit higher and not to spend £00s one option is to get a piece of cork, a craft knife and cut a couple of square shims to go under the bridge feet. It moulds to the shape of the feet/top due to the pressure, and maybe you lose a little vibration but 1.if you’re amping from the bridge wing it will make very little difference 2.you’re playing bluegrass not orchestral stuff. After a luthier randomly butchered my bridge on what was then my only bass, I put some cork shims under the feet and used it for regular gigging and recording for about 5 years. 

Thanks for the thoughts folks - liking the hose clip idea. Might give that a shot for now to cover a few gigs while I try and find a luthier who can sort me a new bridge. It’s been on shims for extra height since another luthier made a mess of it years ago anyway so happy enough to replace it, but conscious it’ll probably take a while to sort that out and this is my main gigging bass

Hi folks. So the other night I was up to some daft antics with my bass in a fairly tight space and crashed into something causing a bridge collapse.

Whether caused by that, or whether I only noticed it when I came to put it all back together but it’s been there for ages, I’ve got a fairly sizeable crack in my bridge on one side above the adjuster.

Obviously new bridges are a faff and a cost, so my immediate solution is superglue and gorilla tape, but I don’t want it to explode under the pressure when I’m mid gig. Anyone any experience with this kinda thing and did you manage to fix it or chuck it on the fire?

Thanks!

There’s a thread, maybe a couple, going back on here where people have suggested using foam gardeners kneeling pads as f hole blockers.

Thats what I still use - you get a crayon and some paper, do a rubbing of your f hole shape, cut it out, lay it on the foam pad and cut round it with a craft knife. Job done.

I find the two tone to have a nice deep, dark bass tone and is consistent across the strings, maybe biased a bit toward the lower end. I’d happily do a few videos to get the sound for you, but unfortunately one is strung with Superior Bassworks and the other with bumped Prestos, so neither probably gives a fair representation of the bass itself. If you’re anywhere near Sheffield you’re welcome to try them out.

On 05/09/2021 at 11:18, theememphisflash said:

Paul can you see me details and how to do this job any pictures or what I should buy a pictures over it would be really helpful boyfriend

I think this page has a few images of the kind of thing Paul’s talking about if it helps http://www.lutherie.net/scroll_repair.html

11 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Technically speaking, of course, this post constitutes a Wanted ad and should be moved elsewhere ...

Haha, dammit! Foiled again

That was my original plan, but I genuinely didn’t see the wanted section and saw a wanted post regarding strings further down in the for sale section with some replies, so assumed rules had changed. And when it turned out they hadn’t, I just thought “wouldn’t it be nice if they did”

No big deal anyway. I’d delete this post for simplicity’s sake if it were an option.

I recently put a wanted ad in the double bass classifieds for a double bass-specific bit of kit, bearing in mind 1.us uprighters probably represent <5% of Basschat 2.because it’s a bit of a community, there’s a reasonable chance someone with said bit of kit sat unused in a draw might move it on to help out, without having been actively looking to sell.

Unsurprisingly my post was immediately turfed into the weeds of Items Wanted, never to be viewed again, at least not by anyone with the faintest idea about the item I’m looking for.

I know rules are rules and if I don’t like it I can just stop using it, and someone has put the effort into moving that post to keep the forum in good order which I nonetheless appreciate. But wouldn’t it be great if, when we’re looking for a bit of kit, we could just ask the community to whom it’s relevant?

So I’ve been playing my Stagg EUB wrong all this time...

On 11/04/2020 at 09:22, Happy Jack said:

Obvious question - what pickup system(s) are you using?

IME any amp/head that's going to work well with DB and a piezo pickup will offer input impedance of greater than 1M Ω and the specs won't be slow to let you know this. Those Ampegs don't mention input impedance in their specs.

 

Sorry to resurrect an oldie but in case anyone searches and finds this thread in future, Ampeg have said the pf heads are 1megaohm input impedance. 

The limitation is because I use a wireless to allow for chucking it about and such. Should’ve said that at the start! So I either need two wirelesses, no clicky and therefore a single signal, or a means of blending both to a mono signal before it hits the wireless (hence the K&K)

I guess I could get a second wireless, but I’d still need a preamp so the costs would start racking up.

Hi. I need to replace my dying K&K rockabilly preamp. Shadow isn’t an option as I also want the preamp as a blender between my mag and clicky on one bass, as well as the normal piezo/clicky setup on another.

But for a brand that feels like it’s been superseded by Shadow quite significantly, the prospect of paying top dollar for the K&K feels a bit daft.

Does anyone know of other companies make something of a similar spec, ie stereo input, eq/blender, mono output, small enough to clip onto a tailpiece. Big ask I guess but feels like a critical piece of kit with very few options.

Alternatively if anyone has a K&K to move on please shout - if I can’t get better then I can at least try and get cheaper then buying one new!

Thanks folks

hi - yeah sorry the two scenarios (low input to DI, low volume through amp) were exclusive of one another, but I assume caused by the same issue.

I use the 3500 which has its own gain control. I’ll mess about with the gain on the K&K and see what I can do with that. Cheers

Coming back to the fdeck point, one thing I’ve often struggled with in the past is a really low output from the piezo. Based on the above I’d have thought this was due to the massively high output impedance of the pickup, but the K&K should be translating that into 3kOhm or something. Which I would have thought should eradicate that issue, yet soundmen over the years have bemoaned the lack of a strong signal into the DI, or I’ve had to crank the amp massively and wrestle feedback to get close to loud enough.

Given I need the K&K in the chain to blend the signals, is there anything I could add after the wireless that would help boost the signal or something?

Not a pressing question as I got sick of it and got mag pickups anyway, but am tempted back to piezos at the minute.

off topic obviously, but while I’ve got you here...

Thanks for the input and info everyone. I’ve decided to play it safe and stick with exactly what I had before since one just appeared in the classifieds. Maybe I’ll explore Ampeg another day!

Pm’d 👍

Hmm...a bit of reading old threads and they do sound interesting. Anything that gets a hotter signal from a piezo and helps counter feedback is a good thing by me. I guess I’ve always been married to my K&K pre as a means of merging signals before the wireless. Would you then run the signal into the fdeck before the amp, I wonder, or ditch the K&K meaning I’d need to rethink my bridge/clicky setup...

And no, sadly I’m way up in sunny Sheffield

Just now, Happy Jack said:

Yeah, the language on the left is the world I operate in Im afraid!

Not really after growliness on double bass, just the old “my bass but louder” chestnut. 
Weight’s not really a factor, everywhere I’d go would be in a van and once there it’s only a few minutes of heft to the stage. Saves a trip to the gym 😀

I use my own gear mainly, but that’s a good idea to investigate for occasions when it isn’t practical. I think I need to educate myself a bit more with this stuff because all this talk of fdecks and preamp pedals is alien to me. I’m still in the world of instrument - amp - noise. In the meantime I think I’ll just get another Hartke and keep it simple!

I vary, Fonokraft piezos or Schaller or Krivo mags. 
I’ve never understood impedance stuff very well and have only just to to grips with output impedance and matching cabs. I am, to quote Skynyrd, a simple kind of man. I’m assuming using a preamp (I always use a K&K) addresses this issue as I’ve often just plugged into whatever’s available in studios/at gigs and it’s never been an issue? I may just have been lucky though!
Certainly an interesting point on the ampegs though - no mention anywhere. 

My amp having recently breathed its last, I’ve seen a few Ampeg PF500s and an Svt450 knocking about which would pair with my cab and have the output I need. But are they good for db, or are they “growly” and colour the sound too much? Any views welcome!!

Hi folks, thanks for the ideas so far. Unfortunately it sounds like there’s no one commonly known easy fix. Damn. Anyway I couldn’t say if it’s the lacquer or what, definitely not residue. Think it’s likely UV exposure fading/darkening the wood or the finish from what I read, though I never gig this bass and it mostly sits in the dark. Might actually try taping it off and using a UV lamp on it. As if it wasn’t going to be hard enough to sell a lefty bass, now I gotta sort this first!

So for whatever reason I decided to put this big Posada sticker on one of my basses. I kept checking under bits of it that fading was even etc  but then sure enough I removed the whole thing today and there's a clear, brighter shape where the sticker was.

I've seen luthiers work some magic over scratches with varnishes etc - anyone know if anything can be done about problems like this?  It's a ply Strunal, if that makes a difference.

And "go back in time and don't be an idiot" isn't helpful advice 😀 Cheers!

I love my 3500 - in part because I know if it dies I can replace it for about £120. But it has been taking a beating on the road so was hoping to mount it in a gator 2u case I have. The rack ears I have are too wide, so does anyone know of a make of rack ears that would fit a Hartke 3500 into a standard 2u case? There are older threads here asking the same but they reference to the samsontech site and they're discontinued on there. Or anywhere that could cut and drill my existing rack ears to fit? Thanks folks!