Kiwi

Woooo! Hi Zoe, good to see you back

I spotted these guys last week while I was looking into the prices of Ibanez 670S guitars. They seem unbeatable as far as price alone goes, let alone the price including VAT and shipping.

Gibson/Epi Thunderbirds have necks that are so skinny, the headstocks snap off if knocked carelessly. I remember playing an 80's Aria SB Elite which had a seriously skinny neck also.

How about using a 1x15 cabinet with no tweeter? It worked well for Bob Babbit and he was using a GK head with it right up until he started endorsing Phil Jones.

[quote name='OldGit' post='81654' date='Oct 31 2007, 11:13 AM']Sounds like something Mark at Status should invest in ...[/quote] You mean Rob at Status? I reckon Jon Shuker should get into it if he can get his supplier signed up.

[quote name='skelf' post='81056' date='Oct 29 2007, 11:00 PM']Hi I have just found out that ABM makers of headless hardware have shut there doors. The owner has died and they are trying to find a buyer for the company without much luck from what I can gather.[/quote] Lets have a whipround. There's bound to be a decent market for this stuff. [quote name='skelf' post='81056' date='Oct 29 2007, 11:00 PM']p.s. Really like that bass. Love the whole headless idea I have never known why more people don't like them.[/quote] Me too, it makes sense in so many ways.

I'm catching a plane in 6 hours but if you drop me a PM with what you want it changed to before then, I'll sort it out. Otherwise you'll have to ask Phatmonkey nicely or wait until I get back on Tuesday.

[quote name='poptart' post='79977' date='Oct 26 2007, 10:59 PM']All TBers welcome [/quote] *splutter*

In which case I'll try to make it up there on the Sunday then

I think a lot of the gear 'trends' are based on what retailers are pushing at the time. That depends, in turn, on distribution agreements and a touch of the old boys network I suspect.

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='79698' date='Oct 26 2007, 10:24 AM']That'd be [i]Medite[/i]! (which is similar to MDF) Luthite is a plastic not a million miles removed from the resin from which bowling balls are manufactured.[/quote] Bowling balls are manufactured from polycarbonate, so I understand. Really tough plastic that is also used on vandal resistant exterior light fittings. I've seen tests where someone's fired a shotgun at one of those lights and it took some pellets but never shattered or cracked.

[quote name='mindpop' post='79623' date='Oct 26 2007, 01:35 AM']My spalt is on layaway..It is all stainleless steel and wood made for Ed Roman years ago..I convinced him to sell it.[/quote] Ed Roman or Michael Spalt?

There's a remote possibility that I might be able to make it on the Saturday also. The way my jetlag usually goes, I'll be up and at 'em at about 4am and getting there for an enthusiastic 6:30am before being dead to the world by about 3pm. Is there parking at the NEC?

They seem to have the best range of used basses of all the retail stores in London, at the moment. One collector was dispersing his collection of 70's fenders earlier this year.

Blimey - what a fascinating collection! I'd love to hear some clips of the Modulus Genesis and Spalt if you have any?

We've set Dave Hall (DHA) up with his own forum to provide a focus for any questions or queries you have specifically in relation to electronics. If you have been having problems with installing a preamp circuit, making a PCB, understanding resistances or impedances, valves or whatever then Dave might be able to help you out directly. Occasionally he'll also be using the forum to ask you questions about his products. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showforum=42"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showforum=42[/url] This is going to be a test forum for the three months so we can see what sort of demand there is for Dave's advice. Enjoy!

[quote name='ARGH' post='78566' date='Oct 23 2007, 11:00 PM']read NO really LEARN TO F%*KING READ.....like yesterday.[/quote] I thought the first post said ONE pearl of wisdom each?

[quote name='Sibob' post='78583' date='Oct 23 2007, 11:47 PM']So an early conclusion might be that a single piece body will resonate much better then 3 piece glued body (ignoring laminates & veneers etc), but a 3 piece body may sound better then a laminated body that uses badly matched woods!?[/quote] My experience would tend to support this as well. My Alembic Elan 6 had an 11 piece neck and a 3 piece body and it felt very dead and heavy. Since then I've not been really comfortable with Alembic levels of lamination. Where do the laminations stop and plywood begin? I don't like the sound of plywood bodies at all. But what is also important is to make sure that the resonance peaks/troughs of the neck and body woods [i]at least[/i] don't dampen each other out and there's less chance of this happening if the neck is very rigid, at least with a bolt on design bass. The peaks should be quite pronounced and narrow in Q (frequency range), if they overlap with one another in the midrange its likely the bass will sound growlier. I think this is why the hard maple/light ash or hard maple/soft alder combo has proven so consistently attractive. If the bass is too rigid then the tone of the bass can lack pleasant character in the treble end. I like soft, heavy body woods with very rigid necks for this reason as both my Cutlass basses sounded phenomenal and I think Ped's Vigiers sound good for the same reasons. My Modulus Quantum basses didn't sound as nice because they came with relatively light ash bodies which didn't tame the treble or help preserve bass. The body wood was very much underrated as a tone shaping element in those basses and I think this generally continues to be the case in many graphite necked instruments. With neck throughs I think a little give has to be built into the neck of the bass through the selection of neck woods and the fingerboard plays a greater role in providing stiffness (assuming no graphite reinforcement). Additional stiffness might be why upright basses have such massive chunks of ebony for fingerboards. I think the consistency in a neck through design does create more consistent tonal character, but thats not attractive to everyone. I think Ken Smith has been successful in designing in a little give into his neck-through basses which helps them sound warmer than most. That doesn't mean to say neck throughs are better than bolt ons, but what I've become aware of is just how very different they are as approaches not only in design and construction but also as far as wood selection goes. The other thing is that the neck on an old (or at least well gigged) bass can tend to relax a little. An older neck can sort of bend into a slight permanent relief which means less string tension as the neck isn't pulling the strings as hard as it was when it was new. The lower string tension helps with getting more growl and I think that helps part-explain why older basses sound better and feel more supple. Again this can be designed into the neck and I think Ernie Ball do this when shaping their Stingray necks.. I would like to try a graphite necked bass with a body from softer, heavier wood like bubinga as I suspect the bubinga's tonal characteristics would help dampen a little of the graphite's brittleness while preserving mids and lows. But that also depends on how rigid the graphite neck is as well and the design of those is a dark art in itself from what I've been told and have read. So, going back to body woods to finish off. My Smith 5s are nearly identical in construction APART from their body woods. Yet there are distinct if subtle differences in how they feel and sound. The maple core fretless 5 is less boomy than the mahogany cored fretted 5. The mahogany cored fretted 5 also has fatter lower mids too, but most of these differences aren't apparent at live performance volumes. The other thing is that some luthiers maintain that the species of wood matters less than factors such as its density, grain and moisture content. Its possible, so I've been told, to get a piece of soft ash that sounds similar to a piece of mahogany. But the problem for us as players and customers is finding a luthier who can specify wood according to a predictable tonal response. Until that happens (if ever) specifying a custom bass is always going to involve a leap of faith to some degree.

There's virtually no meaningful relationship between how an amp sounds in the shop/bedroom/lounge, and how it sounds on stage mid set.

[quote name='Jam' post='77999' date='Oct 23 2007, 05:09 AM']I'm sure there's already a thread on this somewhere but i don't know where and i'll be damned if i'm trawling 35 pages of posts to check![/quote] You're very welcome to use the search engine - top right corner?

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='77920' date='Oct 22 2007, 10:41 PM']genuinely, utterly butterly brilliant to have you back BeLow [/quote] Amen to that.