NickA

My word. Quite a freebie. Have to hope the guy who abandoned it doesn't read basschat. Lots in common between Travis beans and Kramer's: "Kramer and Bean parted ways in 1975, with the former starting Kramer Guitars. The first series of Kramer guitars were redesigned aluminum-necked instruments but utilizing wooden inserts along the back of the neck to cut down on weight and provide a more traditional feel; these modifications also avoided patent infringement of Travis Bean's original neck design" If it was a Travis bean it would be worth £5k. As it's the Kramer "not a copy honest guv" must still be worth £1k or more.

The East electronics will work with any pickups, the sound you get is exactly what the pickups make - no deliberate shaping, distortion or other colouration. My delanos are pretty high output and I only get clipping if the 9V battery is going flat. John East says you can use 18v power if you need more headroom. About pickups ... There are so many out there it's impossible to choose. I've only long term experience of: Kent Armstrong = rich and dark. Delano's = bright and punchy, bit brash. MEC = rather thin, need a bass and treble boost. Wal = unobtainable! Tried a few at bassbashes notably, Sims = ok, nothing special, but highly configurable. EMG = clear and clean. And these (I think) which were amazing https://www.riograndepickups.com/thunderbass-bridge Good reports of nordstrand blades and bassculture WalBuckers https://hotwire-bass.de/hotwire-pickups-en from people trying to build Wal clones. If you wanted that Fat, rich, punchy humbucker sound. There are lots of sound clips on the Thoman website, from which I chose the Delano's for my jazz bass ( but hadn't tried the Rio Grande thunders back then).

Lots of people love Bart's; I find them rich but a bit dull and free of sparkle. Plus one for East electronics. Sound aside, they'e beautifully made and easy to install and adjust.

I know. I could have afforded one at £250 in 1984, but was itching for a "custom" like Mick Karn's, and those were beyond reach at £750 ( and even at £500 2nd hand I'd have needed a bank loan). It was 1998 before I landed a custom .. could have been playing a pro1 for 14 years.

Must admit, I very rarely use the pull out eq or "pick attack" knobs on mine - just for messing about really. But presumably the buffering of the pickups and the active pickup mixing help the tone a bit. less with modern high impedance amps and less of an issue when you only have the one pickup. Plus the active low pass filtering has more roll off I think. Be good to have a head to head comparison.

Yes. It will be fine. The issue with cabs / combos is that the bass notes push the speaker cone further than its designed to go. Amps themselves, especially pre-amps, no problems.

Highest price ive seen for a pro1 was £3900 but that was a slab body reissue one, this is an original pro1, so worth more, but fretless so worth less. Also neck pickup where most of the reissues have a bridge pickup and hence sound "more Wal". Fretless tend to sell slower and cost less, but it's not a huge job to add frets ( vandalism though it is imho ), shouldn't knock more than £500 off the price. £2600 +25% = £3250. Probably a fair enough price. Someone will now try to flip it at £5000 plus on the basis of the Wal sticker. That neck btw:. Having consulted my Wal pals ... It's from an early wal pro bass, so from a different and older bass. Apparently people used to buy them with two necks ( fretted and fretless ) so there are a few knocking about.

and you can slip one in your back pocket to boot.

Played with a bloke playing a hollow fretted Kala u bass with the rubber strings on the other week. It sounded "nearly" like a double bass ..much more than a fretless electric bass does. It genuinely did sound like a real one except when compared to my real real one, upon which the difference was immediately apparent. But given the difference in price, size, effort to play, it was quite upsettingly decent. Had a go playing it ... flummoxed by the teeny weeny scale length and miniscule distance between frets. But I'm used to full scale electrics and a 4/4 dB. Visual impact is a bit odd in a jazz band.

Congrats. The core Wal tone is there in that one pickup. Check out Geert Maesschalk's posts on the "Wal lovers of the world" Facebook page. Plus many iconic Wal bass lines (early Percy Jones for instance) were laid down with an ash bodied pro bass. Nice maple facings too. Shame about the thumb rest. So, pray tell .. how much does a passive pro 1 reissue Wal cost these days? ( They were £250 on Denmark St in 1984, but one sold in the states via reverb for £3900 recently ).

Bargain of sorts. Bloke in the states just coughed up $11900, plus import duty, for a MK2 off ebay Madness. One pickup is likely all you need for the classic Wal sound, but I use the neck pickup more and more on mine. The subject of this thread is also weird in that it's solid walnut, not the usual mahogany plus fancy face wood.

Mine only suffers feedback if I do up my " sound clamp" pickup too tightly (too much pickup gain, I think). The pjb combos are pretty directional and "non-boomy" too which helps. I guess the other option is a phase reverser ( built into lots of dB specific amps .. but not mine); not needed one so far. But yes there are sometimes non bass sounds coming through the bass amp ... that huge front picks up quite a bit of the other instruments.

Too right. One hand one semitone?

60" ??? How on earth would you play it?

I'm always trying to make the amp output sound like my double bass "only louder", so don't like to boost the mids too much. Although, the tutor at one of my Jazz sessions keeps leaning over my amp and turning up the low mids in the hope the horns can hear what I'm playing ..... could be putting out too much bass. I guess the lesson is that what we want to hear is maybe not what the audience and the rest of the band want to hear!

Getting it in the right place is still an issue. Then knowing how much to crank it up. The only "de-skilling" is the fact that the feet self adjust to the curve of the instrument; then maybe some time saved as you can adjust the length in situ rather than taking it out and filing the end a bit. As you have to get someone who really knows what they're doing to fit it, there seems little advantage over a (much cheaper) chunk of pine. I'm sure there will be some instrument adjusting expert who will tell you that the sound post material has to be carefully matched to the instrument to get the best sound (as per wooden bridges, where basic engineering suggests carbon fibre should work better but people in the know are still using a lump of maple). Though I have a couple of carbon bows which I'm very pleased with.

I've got the bg150 (2 Up firing, 2 front firing). Great for rehearsals and jam sessions Too quiet for performing without a PA. Sits on top of a pb300 ( 6 front facing) for gigs. Only need a PA when playing outdoors. Still needs the eq tweaking for room acoustics. Ps: that bg150 isn't great value, especially when you factor in shipping from athens and post Brexit vat; I paid much less. Then again, they're out of production ( because the neo speakers got so pricey I think ).

I was at a professional jazz gig last night, superb bass player beset by a boomy acoustic. I think it was because the room was a bit echoey and they'd put him and his coda combo in a corner, those codas sound great but are deliberately omnidirectional. Room placement seems critical. I'm surprised you get affected by PA speakers, aren't they usually out front firing forwards? I don't like them either from an audience pov because the sounds no longer come from the individual instruments, but it's never bothered me when standing at the back. I only really hear the sound from my amp (it's a pjb flight case which has a couple of upfiring speakers) and feel the vibrations from the bass itself.

Ok I was wrong. I've met Owen a couple of times ... I didn't know he was of the German persuasion. 😁 My "really expensive", as I thought, bass bow was about £900 .. bottom of the range arcus S3 carbon one. But it's true they really do get better with price. I had some cello bows on trial from caswells, chose the arcus T4 (£950). went back to the shop to return the others and thought "I'll just try the T5" ( £1350), world's apart. Bought it. Didn't dare try the S6 (£1950). Now itching for a bass bow upgrade. Dangerous game!

... You are correct. I use French, (I started as a cellist, so it's what I'm used to) and have never met any German bow users; I conclude that it's not so common in the UK. However many of the world's best players use German ... seems both work equally well. There's a French Vs German thread here somewhere, but we only concluded that it's a matter of personal choice.

https://www.bassbags.co.uk/product-category/double-bass-shop/double-bass-bows/ https://caswells-strings.co.uk/product/student-double-bass-bow/

What he says. Get a cheap one to start with; though probably avoid the fibreglass ones. Go "Brazil wood" or carbon.