NickA

Probably as useful and the amp will appreciate it 🙂

Portable Appliance Test. Hence PAT test is, like PIN number, a misnomer. but everyone says it. Checks electrical equipment that's connected to mains to ensure no-one will get a belt off it ...in theory. The test...Checks the plug earth pin is connected to any exposed metalwork and checks there is no leakage from live or neutral to ground. Venues and health and safety oiks think it makes electrical kit safe to use and that it's lethal otherwise. I have a PAT machine and a roll of stickers and a log book of stuff tested. Easily done, I'm m not convinced it's worth the fuss but easier to do it than convince a health a safety oik that it's a waste of time.

A Shout out for bassbags simply as they are local and have always been helpful for me ..and also my local emergency luthiers.. and they do get a discount and do pass some of it on. For a set of Eva's, I didn't find anywhere cheaper. But Amazon and eBay do indeed throw up all kinds of occasional bargains. Big question is...do you really need guts, and all their expense and inconveniences, when synthetics are so very good these days. Personally I like steel wound steel rope core strings best for pizz ..but the rest of my orchestra would rather I didn't 😂.

Not sure I've ever seen such abysmal repair work. Having recently had far less serious renovation done on an old cello and a new neck on my bass ..you're probably talking £5000 or more to bring it up to scratch, more still to fix the cosmetics. Taking the front off is major and expensive work..... and is that a crack in the heel of the neck? Might be possible to pin it, might need a new neck.. and that's £4k or so straight away. But, nice wood and a pretty shape. I'm guessing German factory bass late 1800s, fully done up it "could" be worth £10k in a sales room ( IE you won't sell it for that, but a dealer might), but maybe only half that.

Yes, they are made of unicorn intestines, hand wound by Bavarian nuns, high in the alps. I think they were originally aimed at pro level classical soloists playing basses that cost £50k+ . A louder and more projecting sound than eudoxas. Not sure about pro double bass players these days, but cellists seem to have given up on them and switched to steel and tungsten ( Larsen and thomastik) which are cheaper, stay in tune and last forever... and sound very good. Even pirastro recommend using Eva Ps for the A and E rather than olives across the board.

😂😂😂. Personally I dislike playing through a pa only as I want the sound of my bass to be near me and come from close to where the bass is. When PA is a must I still use my little pjb combo and di out of that. Realist pickup, rarely have feedback issues....then again pub &club not stadium volumes.

Groundbreaking that was. Up to then Synth players had been using guitar amps ... now all my keyboardy friends use ...guitar amps.

True, a local player who subs for my orchestra has a 5 string one. Huge fat round bottom end 🙂 phwoar. A sound I really like. A lot of fine "classical" oriented basses sound to me like big cellos, which doesn't float my boat. However the T&G may not work so well for jazz. I'd ask for a try, but pretty sure it has those "bowing only" strings on.

Mahler and Elgar (amongst others) didn't seem to know the normal range of a double bass 😂. I doubt extensions existed back then either. I've had to retune to DADG or CGDG on occasion ..a friend has a BEADG 5 string which is the best way to go. Extensions are awkward and ugly imo. No fan of Mahler anyway. But T&G Martin make some lovely basses ..if yr loaded enough.

Made by political prisoners in China perhaps?

Deliberately "punchy" according to David Gage. Whereas I'm using a realist sound clip, which you move around the bridge, pad with cycle inner tube and mess with counterweights till it sounds right.

Rarely touch the eq on my pjb rig. Maybe tweak the bass for room acoustics. My old trace certainly needed a big smile on it tho. Guess the trace was designed to sound impressive and the pjb to be flat response.

Really? Interesting. My cobra was black and white. Had to upgrade to a gp12smx to get the green glow.

Avoid cheap fibre glass or "composite" bows, basic wood bows ok, carbon bows around £1k probably beat wooden bows at the same price point. The very very best bows are probably wood, but you're talking £3k+. There's a Hobgoblin in Edinburgh that have a few bass bows, but it does seem a bit of a bass desert. Caswells or Bowspeed will send you a box of bows to try out. Tell them your budget and they'll work out a selection for you. Go 4/4 bow length unless you have very short arms. Bow length unrelated to bass length and you can always use more length.. " I always think playing with a bow is like making love to a beautiful woman; first you get out your stick, admire the wood and give it a gentle polish .........etc etc" 😂 Can't speak for teachers, I only ever had two bass lessons, but was taught the cello at an early age ... which helped

Carlsbro in trace clothing. Always sounds better with a green front panel 🙂

I guess this is one reason the bass room is comparatively cheap; with most dealers you agree a price including all the things you want done; that ticket price should include making everything "perfect". I got lucky in that the people I bought my bass from recognised I knew nothing, took pity, told me what I needed, and included it in the asking price. However, if as Philparker says, the bass rooms proprietor is a top bass restorer and builder ..then surely you just have to talk to them when buying a bass. Bass Bags, whilst always friendly and helpful are not really "top luthiers" ( I've never found out who actually does the work), so when I broke my bass I took it elsewhere.

Do let us know if it works. Did my last gig with my right index finger super glued together 😂

Fantastic. Love a bass project. My 1890s German bass had the same neck damage (it fell over). Also had ( mysteriously) some big brass screws holding the neck to the dovetale bit at the bottom. New neck, inc grafting the original scroll onto it, cost ( the insurance) £4000! Great to see someone doing a DIY .

Piezo for sure. Usually a connection between the piezo element and the cabling has gone open circuit. Very hard or impossible to fix sadly. I had a shadow one ( similar) go down that way, separated the two halves and found one side was ok and still useable.

What manner of bass is it? Mine is a quite old carved jobbie and has several repairs inside ( glued across cracks) some of those came loose and rattled... also the fingerboard wasn't well fixed to a wedge between it and the neck, that buzzed a bit till it fell over and the whole fingerboard came off. On my cello it's usually seams coming apart ..you can find those by going around the edges and giving the front / back a sharp tap every few inches with fingers or a small rubber mallet. Current most common rattle is the piezo pickup or several times the screw up bit of the jackplug in said pickup not being screwed up tightly ( IE not the bass at all). Tuners are a common issue but wouldn't be fixed by what you did with the cushion.

I'm not surprised at £2k as a new scroll and the front off to fix the big crack is a lot of work ..and skilled "work" don't come cheap. Lots of basses get skipped as the repair cost is more than the value ..which is a shame. Hope the new owner can save it.

Rumbles are not great with double bass. You can spend out on preamps and tweak eqs till the world ends and still not get a great sound. Or count your pennies and go Markbass, pjb, aer, acoustic image..... Chances are the audience won't notice, but you get a nice warm feeling from sounding good.

Silver wound gut = expensive, short lived, poor tuning stability, turn your fingers black, the outer windings wear through, come unwound and cut your fingers. Sounded wonderful on my dad's 18th c cello.... but even that has gone to it's new owner wearing tungsten wound steel. If you have a really fine bass, unlimited funds and are hunting for that last 1% ..then go for it. But for ordinary mortals with sub £50k instruments, there are probably more cost effective ways to improve the sound. My own bass (1880s German) has wound synthetics on it and my cello (1900 french) has gone tungsten. Just fine. Miss the attack and woody tone of the eudoxas I used to use... But not at today's prices.