bassace

Go to Thwaites? You're following a fine tradition, eg my brother sold his EBO in '66 to buy an engagement ring. Enjoy your marriage and then later think about another DB.

I know that most of you guys play rock so I defer to your opinions. From a jazz point of view, to me it's always the hi-hat or the ride cymbal. The kick drum hasn't been the driver in jazz for the last 50 years or so. As a DB player, the less of kick drum the better IMO.

Oh, go on then. PM'd

Makes any double bass pickup sound great. It's in the Effects For Sale section. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=86345"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=86345[/url]

[quote name='gcordez' post='821046' date='Apr 27 2010, 07:47 PM']im hoping to go, i definately will be going to see Larry Grenadier earlier on that day...[/quote] So, where's he?

Anyone going care to meet up in the bar before/interval?

[quote name='owen' post='820041' date='Apr 26 2010, 10:13 PM']Different colours for different outfits. Nice.[/quote] No, I don't do brown or beige - or orange. They just came that way! The blond is a bit different, specially as I don't do rockabilly. Actually, may I go on? One of the first basses I saw was a blond and was played live on TV, Buddy Holly and the Crickets on the Sunday Palladium show. That was something.

[quote name='grumble' post='816884' date='Apr 24 2010, 01:39 AM']True, I appreciate Zappa but he doesnt dig deep into my soul even though I can enjoy the 'musical' sides of his talent. If I want to be moved then Vaughan Williams or Sibelius press the button for me,whether they are geniuses are for this crowd to decide[/quote] Interesting your choices of RVW and Sibelius. The compositions of both of them had a particularly nationalistic feel and I'm sure that's what we pick up on. I'm a great Vaughn Williams fan. His Variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis moved me to tears when I first heard it but there's a great deal of (to me) undiscovered stuff on Spot. Just to throw my hat in the ring, so to speak, I heard Nigel Kennedy play Elgar's Violin Concerto at the Barbican some time ago. Total concentration and it was mesmerising. Then for an encore he did a solo St Louis Blues - what style!

Is it smaller than a Clarus and 10" Wizzy, or am I missing something? Full marks for the DIY tho'.

Yes, with that kind of bass I go along with the adjust rather than rebuild guys. With pickups and amps, however, I've never considered lack of volume to be a great problem. In fact some otherwise good/great basses have a sound that completely overwhelms the amp. If your volume is unbalanced across the strings then some adjustment would be essential. I had a Czech bass once and as soon as I started playing up the g string the volume fell right off. Not much fun.

[quote name='Doddy' post='816389' date='Apr 23 2010, 04:09 PM']Although I really can't stand Trad Jazz..... [/quote] So, Doddy, what is your definition of Trad Jazz? Pl keep it to the music and not bring in the 'old guys with beards in pubs' argument.

Great Posts! I don't think the OP was being in anyway snobby. What most of us are cool about and regard as a fact of musical life hadn't quite got to him yet? All the stuff I now play is jazz but I have great respect for anyone who goes out on a gig and does it well, whether it's pop, rock, covers, folk, jazz or whatever. If someone phoned and offered me a tour with a good pop show I'd jump at it. Only two kinds of music; good and bad.

The AI after-sales service is legendary in the States but I wondered how it would cross over to the UK. When I bought my Clarus two years ago I had a 'fizz' when I switched the amp off. The switch contacts were not disengaging cleanly and over time this would probably lead to contact burn out. I usually got over this by pulling the mains lead out after a gig but it was a bit of a pain. Belatedly I emailed Bassadder at Overwater where I bought it, asking what options are there for repair bearing in mind I was busy gigging. He said he'd send me down a new part,easy to replace. I expected a switch but what I didn't expect was a whole new chassis. Full marks to BA and Overwater for great service. Hope this is on the right forum.

I sometimes use a DPA 4099 mic via a headway preamp. The combination is significantly better in overcoming feedback from the backline compared to a lot of other systems. I say 'sometimes' because most other times I just want to go to the gig a plug in and play without the hassle of the extra wiring. When I know that there will good front of house I certainly take the mic.

[quote name='grahambrown1986' post='813591' date='Apr 21 2010, 11:27 AM']Bassace: that looks amazing. Is it stable?[/quote] Stable-ish. I copied the idea from a DB dealer who had lots of basses all over his house. There are no 'tiny feet' round the house so it's OK. Wouldn't use that design on a gig tho' even for one bass.

I started with a Boosey & Hawkes Czech double bass, laminated, new for £45. The only pickups available then (1961) were DiArmond contact mics and they made a crap sound. So I used a Reslo ribbon mic on a stand. I made my own enclosure to Goodmans designs to house an 18" speaker. Enclosure was massive! I had a Leak HiFi main amp and my brother built me a custom one valve preamp. Later my first bass guitar was a Burns (pre-Bison). When I wanted to upgrade, in 64 if I remember correctly, I went up to London and had the choice of a Fender Jazz and an EBO, both under £100 - so I chose the EBO......doh! I thought the sound of the rig was great but an old friend recently told me that it was a bit ropey.

[quote name='Bloodaxe' post='731775' date='Feb 1 2010, 03:49 PM']I can imagine that jazz has its "Mustang Sally" & "Sweet Home Alabama" equivalents... where do you stand on "Work Song" & Nat King Cole's take on "Route 66"?[/quote] Luv 'em both! It's the Herbie Hancock stuff that's dated so quickly.

With my double bass I take most of the above, or however much will get into my wire bag. My Clarus is quite small and I always take a 10" Wizzy and 12" Wizzy. I stack the 10 on 12 and as soon as I do my own sound check I can quickly tell whether the room acoustics will need one, the other, or both. Spare set of DB strings a set of pliers and a string winder to help restringing. I bet you BG guys don't need the pliers! I also have a ring binder with charts condensed from something like 8 Real/Fake books in case I'm on a freelance gig and a strange number gets called. I can still just about read it from the floor although a music stand does it better. Reminds me, must get onto Dave at OBBM and get a couple of new leads.

I knocked this up from a few lengths of wood at home. It seems to work very well. [attachment=47071:2010_041...rman0032.JPG]

Yes this is mainly for jazzers, I suppose. In all the freelance work I do most of the time I am 'busking'. But as a backup I carry a fat ring binder stuffed with charts extracted from eight Real/Fake books. Most of the time I can rely on my ear or memory to get through a tune without having recourse to the dots but sometimes someone will call a tune that isn't in the book at all, or wants to play in a different key from the 'written' one - often the singer to suit his/her range. In such a circumstance an iPod would be very useful. Mostly I work without a set list and the numbers are called on the fly so the iPod would need to be a nifty thing to get the numbers up between tunes especially if a transposition is called for.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='798486' date='Apr 7 2010, 10:47 AM']With my eyesight? Better off putting the £5 towards a new pair of specs![/quote] My eyesight is not too good but with my 'computer specs' I had no difficulty. I was pleasantly surprised. The app is also good for settling band room arguments -as I found out last Saturday. Guitarists really are a bunch of trainspotters when it comes to chords.

I was playing a pick up gig last night. Bass and Piano behind a girl singer, plus her hubby a pro trumpet player, in an Oxford pub. Most of ther stuff was 'the usual' but trumpet wanted to feature on a couple of tunes that I don't usually play. So he handed me his iphone loaded with the chords. It was so easy to use and easy to read on my music stand.

Just a thought. Have you tried backing off your gain and/or bass and turning up the volume to compensate? I haven't played BG for ages but this worked for me with a DB when I seemed to overload a 10".

Well done Bilbo. Did you go home smiling - I bet you did!