guildbass

[quote name='BigBeatNut' post='1324811' date='Aug 2 2011, 08:24 PM']Is that the one that just finished ? That was exciting Had a a hankering for one of those but I confess I wouldn't have gone to anywhere near that price

Andy[/quote]
yes, It just finished! I know... £955... Who'd have thought! Bought by a Kazakhstani collector no less...

Still, It means i can keep my new Spector AND the Warwick SS1...:-)

thanks all re the woods thing... I think the Warwick may well become my recording bass and the Spector my stage bass. it's strange...Every time I change from one to the other the subtle differences in play-ability and tone enthuse me anew.... Doesn't matter which I play, the other one never disappoints!

I love the maple-ness of the Spector... It's crude tonally compared to the multi-timbred Warwick but projects wonderfully in a live environment. the SS1 however has a Hi Fi ness that is very compelling and sounds fantastic on tape when you can really listen to it.

it took me a while to get the Warwick set up... The intonation was miles out and being 24 fret I felt duty bound to get it correct on both 12th AND 24th fret...And I had to drop the neck p'up and lift the bridge... it was too fat and warm with the mix pot centred but it's coming good now!

Well, as I was passing Maplins I thought I'd pop in and buy a new 9v battery clip thingy so I could convert my NS2000-4 from 9v to 18v.
As I'm sure most know by now, the pre-amp in the Spector NS2000-4, along with almost every other 9v Spector pre-amp, is actually built to run with voltages as high as 27v yet ships with a single 9v supply set-up.

The theory goes that by wiring another 9v battery in series, one can increase the 9v to 18v, thus increasing the head roomn of the amp and generally improving the sound...So...

That's what I did.

I recorded a little riff on Guitar Rig 3, no effects, no amps, everything centralised on the bass, centre mix of bridge and neck p'ups...Just dry with the 9v stock set-up, then did the conversion, put two new batteries in, and recorded the riff again with 18v.

Doesn't sound any different to me...And yes, I DID wire the batteries in series not parallel!

Have a listen...

Thoughts?

Jon

Well, I sold my Guild B302 for a very good price to what appeared to be an American lawyer.

After 24 hours with no contact whatsoever I tracked down the lawyers phone number and called only to discover that she was allowing a Kazakhstani buyer use the account. Naturally, alarm bells started ringing and I told her quite firmly that if i didn't get payment via Paypal (no Western Union etc etc ) within 12 hours, I'd let it go to the next highest bidder.

To my surprise the money arrived, The bass has been posted (very well packed and insured) to Kazakhstan.

A couple of things... If you have a rare or unusual bass, this buy might bid. His ebay name is vl.den and the ebay account is in the name of Elena Paremsky
993 Bray Rd
Williamston, MI 48895-9771 United States.

They are genuine. The guy from Kazakhstan, VL.den, otherwise known as Denis Trussevich is a keen collector of kit including valve Hi Fi and has a bit of a thing for Guilds... Elena was very apologetic that the money hadn't arrived and was very quick to sort things out...

Anyway...Just thought I'd pass the info along in case others have to go through that process of crapping themselves when it looks like a foreign scammer has just trashed a ten day listing!

Next, my Bird Golden Eagle Amplifier and maybe the Fretless!

regards

Jon (no longer Guildbass...Sob!)

[quote name='janmaat' post='1321996' date='Jul 31 2011, 10:44 AM']Hi there

my bass is losing its colour at places it is touched much, ie. around the pickups where I rest my thumb,
but also the body where my arm rests, and most visible on the back of the neck.

It is a Godlyke Deity so wouldn't quite exprect that - I almost believe it was an unfinished proto type.
It is translucent black - but to me it seems the wood has only been stained, and not properly,
and not been sealed with any lacquer.

Does anyone have an explanation or a suggestion how to stop that process?







It's either the acid component of your sweat, or simply a poorly applied colour. Either way unless it IS sweat and you act all OCD and wash yourself compulsively all the time during gigs, it's going to fade. Could the makers not help you out if it's a high value early version of one of their instruments... Has to be worth a call or a letter, surely..

Jon[/quote]

[quote name='walbassist' post='1321983' date='Jul 31 2011, 10:16 AM']If it worked fine before and after, I'd assume it was the quality of the supply from the shed via the extension leads, rather than the amp itself.[/quote]
Almost certainly a voltage drop issue on the supply. You can easily lose 40 volts down several cheap extension leads and the shed will have been fed from a house as well... Could have been more than 100 feet of thin supply cable...

These switching amps use the input voltage level and chop it up to get the output... Like a switch mode power supply... That's why they weigh bugger all...No transformers... If the Input is low or drops significantly under load, they don't run well. They also pull a chunk of current to fire up if I recall... So if THAT demand squashed the supply even more, the amp would never have kicked on...

What you could do next time is put a multimeter on the supply and see what it says... Your amp might have a switchable input level...240, 220.110... 220 would work...

Jon

[quote name='tonyclaret' post='1321961' date='Jul 31 2011, 09:22 AM']Hi,

Recently got the ampkit and downloaded the free version of amplitube and so far I have been really impressed, the ability to import then change tempo, built in tuner and mertronome etc. Awesome!

What I am trying to work out is how to change amps and input from lead to bass?

Help!?

Tony[/quote]
My free version either came with a free bass amp or I was able to download one for free. It basically had a Marshall Something or other and what might be a SVT Pro head as it's too free amps...As it happened I sprung the £2.50 for the official Fender '59 Bassman which is what I use now.

I picked up a very sexy pair of Sennheiser HD570's at the dump for free which are brilliant for Amplitube and Guitar Rig.

I do wish there was a way if diabling the touch screen so you could safely stick the thing in a pocket and mine also seems to shut down and go to sleep whie you are playing...which can be a bit of a pain... But great tone and I love the fact you can import tunes from Itunes and drop the vocal track volume to jam along too...

Jon

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1308915' date='Jul 19 2011, 11:01 AM']Heard of these Fingerbone basses before but never actually seen one. Got any pics?[/quote]
Sorry... I haven't got the hang of these on-line forums yet!

Yes... I have as it happens... I did some for the guy who built it!

Hiyall!

I've been spending the last week setting up my new (1991) Streamer. As I already have a '97 all maple TN Spector NS2000 4 I
would like to find out why they sound so different. Obviously the Spector has the passive EMG Hz's while the Streamer has Active MEC's and of course the Spector has a pair of soap bar p'ups whereas the Streamer has the staggered Jazz bass style neck pick-up and soap bar 'P' bass bridge p'up but is this enough to account for the huge tonal difference?

The Spector, is very 'springy and bright, which is great, but the Streamer has the same crispness and growl but with a fatness of sound, a deep richness underpinning everything.

Were the '91 Streamers all maple or was there a cherry body option...Mine is a high polish red one with the older truss rod cover (the one where you have to take all three screws out rather than having a little door open in it)

It's the colour of a cherry... But I suspect that might not mean much...Otherwise the blue ones would be made of something like plum!

Any help appreciated!

Jon

ps...My Guild 302 is going well on Evilbay... looks like they are starting to appreciate...Which is nice as I have to pay for the Warwick somehow!

It's strange but of all the little 'Plug your guitar in and practice on headphones' widgets around, as far as I know, this is the only one with a library of drum sounds.

Basically, it's a plastic box about 2" by 3". In fact it looks like any one of a dozen tuner/metronome things available for a tenner or so.

It's about as straight forward as you like. There's an off/on switch, a volume wheel for headphone out and the tiny built-in speaker, an instrument in jack, a headphone out mini jack, a 'volume level' wheel for the instrument input and a really nasty 'gain' wheel which clicks 'on and then proceeds to make your guitar sound like it's being played through a £3 MW only transistor radio which has been hidden in a biscuit tin. Fortunately, this 'wheel' clicks off for sensible grown-up bass guitarists....Mmmm....clean tone.

The metronome is OK...it's the beep type so fairly generic. The Function button on the front selects 4 functions; there's 'beat'..Normal metronome time sigs, tempo, for changing the...er...tempo... a tap function so you can get the speed correct for something you're doing and there's a rhythm which adds a few beeps into each pattern...

The drums are nothing special in terms of sonics...it's no Alesis SR18, rather they are the old school synthesised type. They sound like drums however so who cares. There's 20 different patterns some of which are set up as 12 bars with appropriate fills for the key changes.

However... Plug the bass in, select 'Mode' to get to 'Drums', select a drum pattern on the 'Up/Down rocker button, , use 'Function to select either 'Tempo' or 'pattern' and off you go.

It's great! ...get a nice short patch lead and start to groove...You can feel your timing tighten up minute by minute.

Yes, a real drummer is great to groove with, anf yes, you can rig up a drum machine yada yada yada, but this is a tiny AAA powered one box solution to silent practice...

Best of all, although it's meant to be £30 plus, Nevada Music have white ones only (there's also a red one and a black one from other people)...for £20 inc postage.

The secret to regular practice is not to put complicated barriers in your way. This thing can sit in your guitar case with a set of cheap headphones and a short patch lead and you've got it all there ready!

Best toy this week...

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1246148' date='May 26 2011, 07:50 PM']Bump for a "anyone got a nice fretless handy?"[/quote]

My Fingerbone Fretless, a one-off built by Geoff Mason, bought from M&M Music in Southampton in '93......

Geoff Mason's tale of this bass...

'I put together a number of Fingerbone guitars and bass's in the early and mid 90's.
One bass had a fretless neck, it was a Westone neck with the end modified to get rid of the signature Westone shape.
The pickups were originally made by Kent Armstrong (himself) and were cast into a black resin, for this bass I used standard bass pickups in and outer casing of MDF toped off with very thin ply and stained Walnut-ish.
It was a great bass, but being a guitarist not a bassist, I swopped it for a Gordon Smith that I saw in a shop in Southampton around about 1993.

It'll be for sale eventually...stunningly good to play and hear

If the serial number is stamped on the headstock end then it's definitely quite an early Warwick - so 1991 is possible, but 2001 isn't.

There won't be a trim-pot to balance the two pickups (but there probably is a pot to balance the preamp volume against the bypassed volume). But you should be able to balance the two volumes by lowering the neck pickup.
[/quote]


I'm sure it's a '91 now, cheers!...

There is quite a disparity between the pickups. The bridge pick-up was well down and I've been lifting it up. The neck pick-ups are not exactly kissing the strings but they do seem pretty fat sonically but of course there's a lot more string excursion above them. I'll try dropping them a tad...

Is it possible for the bridge pup to be faulty in this way? I would imagine a faulty p'up to go open circuit and this one doesn't sound bad per se, just relatively low...Dunno... I'll carry on playing with heights and so on!

Pre-amp volume and bypassed volume are spot on, exactly the same...I couldn't see a trim pot in there but I didn't look that hard...

Um...Is the blend pot a double stacker? could the blend pot max out when it's towards the bridge because the bridge pot hits the stop, or because the neck pot hits zero...can the two pots (if it is a double stacked arrangement) get out of alignment so ther bridge pickup never gets to full volume...Hmm...

Oh, the Spector NS2000 and Hofner Senator are on Ebay now....

Jon

Jon

Well, I picked up my new (to me) Streamer today and I love it....I've wanted one since 1990 when I first played one and this one, although confusingly numbered (it's stamped on the headstock end and is that glorious shiny red over the wood finish, MEC's and no fret inlays so all in all I'd say it was a '90 although the serial number looks like it says '01 at the end...Actually... The '0' was rather small... I'm now thinking it's a '91 with half a '9'

Anyhoo... The bridge pick-up is a fair bit quieter than the neck jobbies. I've lifted it up but it's still way down volume wise... Is this usual.? It's the same active or passive incidentally...
Is there a trim pot inside perchance...?

Any help much appreciated...

Jon

[You don't need a very big driver to move air at those low fundamentals - you need a driver with very high volume displacement, which is a function of cone area and clean cone excursion. Obviously increasing the driver size increases one of those parameters - but in the process it also increases Vas which makes it harder to get deep response from a cab without it ending up impractically large.

And...

The 'larger speakers go lower' myth may be in part due to smaller diameter speakers having a higher useful frequency range generally, and thereby fooling the brain into hearing less bottom end by comparison. Rather than larger diameters, one or two manufacturers have gone the route of increasing excursion limits and increased power handling for their designs, both in terms of watts outright, and also in terms of thermal capacity to handle those watts. In essence they have increased the stroke of the piston driving the air, negating a larger diameter. It's the volume of air encompassed by the 'piston stroke' that matters. More SPL from the same diameter speaker.

Yes, agreed... It's a while since I thought about that... And it was late!

As regards the bass note and how much was fundamental, which pick -up etc... We just plucked the 'E' and looked at it on a scope. Almost certainly both pick-ups running together at full volume so a 50/50 mix. Tones back and front full up, on my fully passive Guild 302.

we were testing my HiFi amp at the time which was doing service as the power amp in my rig. it was a 60w into 8 ohm per channel Mosfet Ambit which had been hot-rodded by the Engineering half of IAS Loudspeakers (who remembers THEM!). in those pre-CD days they were using Max Townsend's original Elite Rock turntable prototype with it's silicon fluid damped arm and some nice reel to reel kit to get the low notes.Tthe other half of the company, Alan Willis, had perfect pitch and was a trumpet player so the speakers always sounded incredibly musical but they needed the Amp to go down to properly low frequencies! I saw that amp with a set of folded horn Beaulieus push a Linn Sondec into oscillation, Something that Ivor Tiff said was impossible... Sadly, Willis boasted about it and Tiffenbraun rather sternly told his distributors to dump IAS or lose the Linn concession...Exit IAS!

I NEED YOUR COLLABORATION!
If your name is John and you play bass in a band, I’d love to hear your music, and include it in my show, in the shop. Please contact me on [email protected]



Dammit!!!

My name is Jon (short for Jonathan)....I'm an 'H' short

...Ah well...Back to the practice amp.....

Jon

May I add my bit?

I used to hang out at a PA hire company and am bessy mates with a rather talented engineer (currently the sound guy for Porcupine Tree).

Basically, very few electric basses reproduce much in the way of fundamental notes. My Guild 302 has a truly monstrous bottom end, so much so that a lot of smaller PA rigs get into trouble with it. We measured the output and about 50% or the Guild's output on the 'E' was 41 hz fundamental. The rest was 1st harmonic. Now, the Guild is a big heavy set neck instrument, most bolt neck basses have a lot more 1st harmonic than fundamental. In other words, we hear a lot of 82 Hz when we pluck our 'E' string. If you want to hear a genuine fundamental 41Hz note, listen to a double bass or one of those strange Guild/Ashbory things with the rubber strings.

That's one reason why most bass cabs are have a bump at 80-110 hz. The other is....

Just take a look at the frequency response of a 10" driver...It's running out of steam well above that fundamental and putting it in a big box with similar units won't make the slightest difference to its electro/mechanical performance of the driver

You CAN make a cab work at 41Hz or whatever, First you have to use a really big driver that can move enough air at those lowrer frequencies, a 15" or an 18" unit. Then you port the cab with the correct lengths of tube to extend the speaker's range below it's natural 3db point. You have to use at least two and the ports work like an organ pipe..or like blowing over a bottle....they are the right length to resonate at the chosen frequency. You use one as a transition pipe to get from say 70hz to 50 hz, then another to get down to 40 odd Hz..

However...

....the other thing is that a lot of amps, and particularly valve amps, don't have nearly enough current and a high enough damping factor to control a speaker moving that slowly. |You need literally HUNDREDS of watts and some serious current to do that and basically your best bet is a really big bipolar transistor power amp or an even bigger modded Mosfet amp biased on to class AB (Mosfets can be great sounding as they are voltage amps, like valve amps, and can be very sweet when biassed up properly)...But to control really big speakers running at low frequencies, you need good old fashioned transistors cuz transistors are current devices.


Couple that with a valve pre-amp to deal with the tone and you'll get there.

I have a Peavey Maxx preamp with a crossover output going into a Crown MA2400 (1200 watts rms into 4 ohms per channel) with one side running my 15" in it's ported cab, and the other side running a pair of 7" speakers... But then I don't want distortion at the loud end. It's a really smooth fat sound with lovely crisp highs and will make your flares flap about if you stand in the way!

Thanks chaps! re putting the instruments on the other bit...I'll get to it eventually.. i need to have some time with the Warwick and see if I REALLY want to replace the Guild 302 with it.

As regards the other Guild basses.. No idea! The 301's and 302's are extremely high quality set neck instruments, very loud and beautifully tonally balanced...They love going up above the 12th fret and sing like flutes. They also have the most amazing hardware and will stay perfectly in tune over years but as regards other Guild stuff I literally know less than nothing!

Anyway, When I get the new Streamer I might do some pics of all of them. The Guild is pretty smart, the Fingerbone is literally a one-off with custom wound Kent Armstrongs under mahogany (!) covers ...It has more Mwah than any fretless I've ever heard...It nails that Paul Young 'Hat' song without any pedals or effects at all...Just interesting things really!

Jon

I've been reading bits from this board quite a bit recently, mainly to research people's opinions on various instruments and I've had a nasty attack of Gear Addiction Syndrome...

To introduce myself, I've been playing since 1974, albeit with some breaks. I have no particular musical preference (although ironically I do love a bit of Quo!)

I started on a '63 Hofner Senator at school but stopped for around 10 years. In the late '80's I bought my Guild 302 off the guy who played Jazz on the QE2 and it's been my main instrument ever since.

Inevitably I've been in a bunch of cover bands going from Airy Fairy folk, through full on Glam Rock show band and the inevitable 70's/80's rock cover bands and am currently with a guitarist songwriter working on new stuff...

I practice through 'Guitar Rig and phones in extremis, use a little cheap Beheringer guitar starter amp (with simple tone modeling) for strumming in the living room, use an Alesis Bassfire for intimate live stuff and bigger practices and for big stage work run a valve front end Peavey Max bass pre-amp into a Crown MA2400 which in turn sits on a pair of 8" HiFi B and O kevlar coned drivers in a custom cab above an old 1 by 15 Fender cab loaded with a Gauss 15" driver.

I ALWAYS practise with a metronome. Lets face it, if your timing isn't impeccable, you are probably a drummer...

The Peavey Max is brilliant because it has a sweepable crossover on the output so you can feed the bottom frequencies of the signal to one channel of the power amp and the rest to the other. That way the lighter, responsive HiFi speakers don't get overloaded with monster current from the bottom end and you can effectively tune the cabs. I'm of the opinion that the amps shouldn't colour the instrument...Although ironically in recent years I've been trying to 'modernise' the sound of my Guild 302 by doing just that....I've been trying to get the sound to be a little less dark by emulating something like a Fender Bassman with it's signature front-of-the-note valve crunch sound to get a bit more up front in the mix...

Anyhoo...All this has changed because...

My guitarist mate came over t'other day with a new Ebay guitar...A very boutique Hutchins Regal....Like a Gibson 335 but with three humbuckers....VERY pretty indeed!
That reminded me my ultimate bass since about '91 has been a Warwick Streamer Stage 1. The Guild 302 was my first long scale and the way it hangs puts the 12th fret to the left of your body whereas most other basses put the 12th across the torso and inevitably I'm most comfortable with basses that place the frets where the Guild does...And pretty much the only guitar that does (or so I thought) was the Streamer...Sooo... Looking around on Evilbay to show him a pic of a Streamer I found a very pretty Spector NS 2000 4...
I do a bit or research and found the whole Steinburgher/Spector/Warwick saga which was all very interesting but ultimately meant that the Spector NS basses hang and play like the Streamer....

It seemed I could have my modern sound without selling the car after all...

This Spector was a virtually mint '97 through neck all maple instrument with a rosewood 'board' a model called the NS 2000 4... And although it's Korean rather than US built, they only made these solid maple thru-necks for 12 months...

It went from 'this is what Warwicks look like' to 'I WANT IT!!!'

Anyway, I win it....Drive up to Oxford and get it... And it's a really nice instrument which has just the kind of springy modern tone I've been searching for ever since I sat in a Music shop with a Streamer...

All should be fine except.....Tonight, I just threw a ridiculously low starting bid on a gen-you-ine Stage 1 Streamer...And Won that... So now I finally own my 'ultimate' bass....along with;

deep breath...

A '63 Hofner 500/2
A '78 Guild 302
A '92 unique 'one-off Fingerbone Fretless
A '90 Warwick Streamer Stage 1
A '97 Spector NS2000 4
A '09 Acoustic Bass with piezo bridge from China
A Yamaha bolt neck bass (not actually mine)
And some 6 string guitars

I'm going to have to take a couple down to the local music shop on commission sale to fund the Warwick's purchase (assuming the Warwick is OK) but if anyone is interested in anything before I do...let me know.

I know it's terribly bad form to join a forum to sell stuff and I know it might come over like that but I actually posted most of this on my motorbike list first, mostly because the motorbike, a Kawasaki W650 is so damn reliable we tend to discuss a lot of other stuff instead(!) and the music side of things is picking up a lot now. I'm practising for at least an hour a day at the moment and even doing a bit of teaching...

Anyway...Yay...glad to be here!