PaulKing

Score

What's one of them?

Ha! The sofa used to be long enough. Not any more! Ah Tweedledum, either that's a clever comment, or you need info...? Which Kay...? In order: 59 Kay 5965, 59 Dallas Tuxedo, '63 Jolana Basora, '65 Kay 5920 'Speed Demon', '65 Hofner President, '65 Kay 5961 'Value Leader', '65 Harmony H-22

The sideline electric bass hobby has now exceeded the upright bass hobby. Easier to hang on the wall at least. Recently added an old Dallas Tuxedo to the gang. Sweet eh?

Thankyou so much

I've still got my B&H Artia Excelsior. Lovely bass. I did a bit of research a few years ago to find out more about these, as there are quite a few around still. On this thread https://www.talkbass.com/threads/boosey-hawkes-excelsior-or-golden-strad.440374/ That said, I'm not sure yours is one anyway. But there were quality student instruments coming out of Czechoslovakia in the 60s and 70s. Yours looks nice,..

GT47 was the final model. Whatever happened to Ivan's dream, after all that effort?

Which type were you after? I've got a box full of prototypes ... and two sets of the final wrapped E and A type that I'ma gonna keep.

PS Alyctes ... whats with the Cassini / Saturn images? My day job ... I make Stargazing Live for BBC2 with Prof Cox. You interested in that stuff?

Ah yes, the very same! [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/131112-sold-rare-vintage-eub-collectors-curio/page__hl__ormston+burns__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/131112-sold-rare-vintage-eub-collectors-curio/page__hl__ormston+burns__fromsearch__1[/url]

Alyctes - maybe I'd recognise that ruin!? I owned one for many years without any idea what it was. Stumbled into that one pictured by the OP years back, and was surprised by the heritage and collectability. The remnant / ruin was a curiosity, nothing more ... but legend has it that mint one pictured sold for 4 figures. You'd have to be a Burns nut to want one that much, and there are far more playable and nice sounding electric uprights out there. But it is without doubt very collectable and very rare - possibly single figures or a few more made, plus I think there was a later re-issue but equally few made. There' a text about them knocking around on the net somewhere. On this forum too...

Maintenance? I've got 2 ply basses that are over 70 years old, I don't do anything to them except abuse them at gigs. They might be vintage collectors pieces, but they work hard for their money! You don't really need to worry about maintenance on a decent ply bass.Not enough to decide composite is the only answer.

For something approaching gut sound and easy playability for blues and jazz, try Innovation (140B braided - solo guage if you want low tension like gut, or Silverslaps), Rotosound RS4000, Presto Light/Ultralight. All good strings, all over £100. You cant get decent strings cheaper. Velvet garbo good but pricey. Thomastick Weich are great for sure (millions of jazzers cant be wrong ...) but its a very defined, modern sounding attack for blues IMHO, not gut like at all. I've played them all. And get your bass set up! Or just get gut. Lenzner aren't too pricey. well... its relative. And get wound E and A, not plain gut - that's a very specialist sound and technique required. And set up. Gut are easy to look after, ignore everyone.

Bad form to post same post to multi threads I know (see others...) but: I have the Blackstar Fly3 with extension. I was a bit down on it at first but, now raising my score to 8.5/10 thanks to compressor and EQ. First, I figured out the value of the compressor on this baby. I never normally use any compression so I had it dialed right down. Then I read somewhere in a review about this amp (was it here?) [i]"... compressor ... almost essential on an amp of this size..." [/i]so i dialled it in. Wowser, what a difference. Suddenly got a heap more output and presence without distortion. Then I thought I should beef up the EQ a bit, lose that nasal honk. Running the bass through a boss EQ7 was all it needed. A big fat scoop, boost hi and low, cut low mid, boost output a bit - bingo. Its a shame to add another piece of kit to something that's all about portability, but as it basically sits under the sideboard in my kitchen, I can leave the EQ pedal plugged in. Now I can hear my bass tone! Pretty bloody good actually, a pleasure to play, rather than just a compromise solution. happy days. Running amp at 40-50% gain, EQ fully clockwise (scoop), compressor 30-40%, volume 75-100%. Cracking tone, plenty loud enough for home playing/jamming.

Update to this. Raising my score to 8.5/10 (via compressor and EQ). First, I figured out the value of the compressor on this baby. I never normally use any compression so I had it dialed right down. Then I read somewhere in a review about this amp (was it here?) "... compressor ... almost essential on an amp of this size..." so i dialled it in. Wowser, what a difference. Suddenly got a heap more output and presence without distortion. Then I thought I should beef up the EQ a bit, lose that nasal honk. Running the bass through a boss EQ7 was all it needed. A big fat scoop, boost hi and low, cut low mid, boost output a bit - bingo. Its a shame to add another piece of kit to something that's all about portability, but as it basically sits under the sideboard in my kitchen, I can leave the EQ pedal plugged in. Now I can hear my bass tone! Pretty bloody good actually, a pleasure to play, rather than just a compromise solution. happy days.

Update to this. Raising my score to 8.5/10 (via compressor and EQ). First, I figured out the value of the compressor on this baby. I never normally use any compression so I had it dialed right down. Then I read somewhere in a review about this amp (was it here?) "... compressor ... almost essential on an amp of this size..." so i dialled it in. Wowser, what a difference. Suddenly got a heap more output and presence without distortion. Then I thought I should beef up the EQ a bit, lose that nasal honk. Running the bass through a boss EQ7 was all it needed. A big fat scoop, boost hi and low, cut low mid, boost output a bit - bingo. Its a shame to add another piece of kit to something that's all about portability, but as it basically sits under the sideboard in my kitchen, I can leave the EQ pedal plugged in. Now I can hear my bass tone! Pretty bloody good actually, a pleasure to play, rather than just a compromise solution. happy days.

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/283797-blackstar-fly-3-bass-model/page__p__3048704__hl__blackstar%20fly__fromsearch__1#entry3048704 I give it 6/10. Fun and great for convenience, but puny bass tone really, and overdrive at very low gain/vol. Not surprising really. A nice toy to have where alternative is silence...

I got one for chrimbo. For the money, and convenience (permanently set up in kitchen for spontaneous plugging in without shaking the house with 500W) ... it's a groovy little thing, fits underneath the sideboard. I can stick on a CD at reasonable listening level, and play along without struggling to be heard. It goes pretty loud (at least with the extension cab), although the sound [i]quality [/i]is not great - unless you want to play dirty crunch bass. Then it kicks out an astonishing amount of noise. But no, it doesn't really handle bottom end - at low gain/volume it is a bit thin and puny (no surprise). Doesnt sound like my bass, doesn't have richness of tone. And then gain can only go up to 50% before overdrive kicks in (that's on clean channel), and even at that gain level it starts to distort with volume anywhere over 50%. I finger pick, hard and bassy old-school flats sound. And I guess all my basses are pretty hot-output vintage instruments.. But then the aux input really reveals the audio character - it's not a pleasant reproduction, like a really cheap portable speaker. I guess I'm used to the quality of £100+ mini-bluetooth speakers, which increasingly blow me away ... so i shouldn't have hoped for anything like that quality in this low cost baby. Still, I'd actually rather play along to audio from a separate system than listen to the nasty nasal reproduction of the Blackstar. All the bass from MP3 is lost ... which makes it tricky to pick out what you're supposed to be following, if that's what you're using it for (alternatively you could say it provides a convenient hi-pass filter to rid your MP3 of bass so you can play along unhindered!) All that said, I'll happily take this away on holiday for idle play along practice. I'll just always miss that 'mmm' factor of hearing the warm tone of my basses. Perhaps I'll have to start playing crunchy rock fuzz bass. 6/10

If you're reasonably practical, its no sweat to lower the string height your self. Lie the bass flat, slacken strings, take off bridge. Post shouldnt fall. If it does, time to learn how to reset it. Measure the thickness of your bridge along its top edge. (see later) Draw a pencil line parallel to the curve of the bridge top, spaced however much you want to lower the height. Keep the curve (profile) the same Draw vertical lines down from existing notches. Easier to remove the excess wood before recutting notches, but make sure those vertical lines dont get rubbed off ... they show where to cut your new notches. Place sandpaper on firm flat surface, and then draw top edge of bridge along sandpaper, rolling it along the curve as you go, until the top edge is taken down to your new pencil curve. You might want to thin out the lower side of the bridge to restore the curve, and make sure your new top edge is the same thickness as it started (see above) Then re-cut the notches using appropriate chainsaw file, and round off the edges of the notches so strings don't catch. An rub pencil lead into notches to lubricate them. Dont be scared.

I've raised a bridge using milliput epoxy paste ... it's like a superhard wood filler, get it on amazon. Mix the two parts, and roll paste into 2 small flat squares a few mm thick, slightly wet the feet of the bridge and stick the squares on, then lay some cling film across the belly of the bass before pressing the bridge gently but firmly down into place. Hold the bridge in place with string tension ... not too much to squeeze the milliput shims out. Once set, lift the whole thing off, peel away clingfilm, then sand down the edges of the milluput so flush with the bridge feet edges. If you're lucky, thats it ... if you need to reduce the height a little, stick some fine sandpaper onto belly and rub bridge back and forth to sand down the new shims. Keep it vertical .... dont want to round those feet off. . DIY ... a lot cheaper than luthier, and you get to know your bass.

10mm isn't that high for slap, you probably just need to practice technique. Sure you can get whackers or Rotosound - you'll lose a bit of tome but on the G it isnt that bad. But a better solution is to keep practicing and get good slap and tone from that Innovation string. Although those strings are a bit clacky when slapped, compared to gut. You could try lowering the height if you're brave enough - I presume you don't have adjusters? Sometimes shifting the bridge closer to tailpiece will lower the height a mil or so just for an experiment. But it'll also lengthen the string ... so you have to tighten it more to get up to pitch... bah.

I've buggered about with all this sort of kit for years, preamps mounted on the bass, pickups wired together, separate leads etc etc. Round the block more times than I should ever admit to. In the end, settled for unbeatable simplicity and neatness: [b]Underwood [/b]- with jack socket mounted vertically between string ball-ends, behind tailpiece (velcro strip through string holes to hold in place). invisible. [b]Line 6 G30 [/b]relay wireless, mounted behind tailpiece - invisible. Super low-profile lightweight patch lead between the two. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pack-of-3-Hand-Made-Low-Profile-Patch-Cable-for-Guitar-Pedals-and-Pedal-Boards-/190690060988?hash=item2c66036abc:m:m2rc9oM82T47qrPpL2Y5m-g) [b]Pre-amp/Eq[/b] on amp top. (Honestly. Line6 G30 is the best solution ... far more to go wrong with eq's and pedals and leads. It has never gone wrong anyway. And it has warning light for low battery. And it sorts impedance issues for you. What's not to like?) No leads or cables anywhere, no need to turn things off and on, or plug and unplug cables to save battery life. At a gig, my whole rig is on and primed all night... I take my bass out of the bag, flick the switch on the Line6 ... and I'm playing. I do all adjustments on the amp. I tried K+K opn-board preamps mixer, LR Baggs preamp/mixer ... But onboard mixing is always a compromise, fiddly limited controls, batteries to die. Do it on your amp .. how far away from the thing are you ever going to be?! I briefly had a slap pickup with this system too, and I went for a second wireless bug. Airline mini thing tucked behind fingerboard ... Can't be bothered with it now, plenty of slap from the Underwood. But if I ever did it again for that real 'billy click I'd use another Line 6. Worth every penny.

I used to worry about waking the babies up. But actually, on the occasions my wife was oot and I thought bugger it ... they slept right through all sorts of noise. And I slap loudly. I think a lot of continuing noise just washes over them. Its sudden noise that can wake them. Mine are 7 and 9 now, and actually a much bigger problem after bed time. Even so, + 1 for mute and f-hole covers for silent practice. Keeps very quiet for practice downstairs, if you have a downstairs. I made f-hole covers myself, exactly like Doug's Plugs (had to buy big foam sheets, wasnt cheap ... and took a few hrs fiddling). Work a treat. http://www.dougsplugs.com/beforeafter.html Mute - https://www.thomann.de/gb/ultra_kontrabassdaempfer.htm?glp=1&gclid=CjwKEAiAjvrBBRDxm_nRusW3q1QSJAAzRI1t8O1CQvf-IjGWKRSTgkUXJ_qkdEnQx0xCyFERqZKq2hoC-WLw_wcB I added a bit of soft foam inside the mute to dampen the strings further. Silent bass!