NickA

Luckily no jobs coming up in North London ... Otherwise I'd be unstoppably "drawn" to Camden ... and we know what happens then.

Damnation. Getting gas now. The gallery have three of them, all around £3k, but all maple board with frets .... guess they'd fit an ebony one for another few £100 ...... ..No... don't even think about it.

Ahh basschat. Who needs East Enders. Thoroughly enjoyable thread😁.

1976 = vintage?. Holy shite, what does that make me?! Nice bass though; natural ash and ebony stingrays just look "right" somehow. Just curious .... How does it sound compared to a modern EB one?

My bass was set up specifically for jazz pizz (Malcolm Healey did it many many years back), but I manage bowed classical stuff too ( amateur orchestra, NOT solo!). The max scoop is about where you'd play an E on the G string and it's a little more than 1mm maybe 2mm on the E. Bass tech at Tim Toft violins thought they could improve the sound and playability by fitting a higher bridge and re- angling the fingerboard with a bigger wedge, but didn't mention changing the scoop. However us "modern" jazz people are trying for lots of mwah sound, hence the low action ... Is that what you really want if the eub sounds too " fretless bass"?

Decided to loop some bass lines to attempt soloing over ... There's a small loop function on my tc electronics flashback delay effect. Trouble is, the volume knob not only makes the looped recording quieter, it makes the "through" / dry signal quieter too. Not the case with any of the delay functions where the volume only affects the wet / "effect" signal. Am I doing something wrong? Are all loopers like this? If I drop £50 on the TC Ditto dedicated looper, will it be the same?

Just to be clear .. the acg-eq-01 I have is not in an ACG bass. I bought the amp direct from John East and put it in a bitsa project bass. The electronics in new ACG basses are obviously more developed & refined. Also have a Wal with their version of the same thing ( pull switches instead of adjustable knobs) Personally I'm totally sold on having an " EQ" for each pickup. Otherwise I'd have no on board EQ at all and just use the amp to adjust the sound. Great thing about ACG basses, you get the choice!

..but the eq-01 is what I could buy from John 😁. And I really like that hp pass through feature; like the Wal's " pick attack" but adjustable.

No problem with mine. The second set I bought had a few spots on, easily removed with a scotch brite pad and didn't come back. Nice strings, but a bit "coloured" ( ie have a sound of their own ) . Took them off my fretless as it altered the sound too much.

Generally rub walnut oil into the damage and call it "character".

Stereo wire your bass and get two of these .... Acg-eq, sorted. Must admit, as do John East and Alan C, the eq-01 is adjustable beyond the realms of usefullness ( extreme reggae dub bass is fun tho ...max roll off & max Q ). The Wal version is more useful.

good point ... Dab of gold humbrol would fool most people mind.

If they were on offer ... someone would buy them. It's reached a point where the sound is irrelevant ☹️

If you have the acg-eq-01 it's worth making a note or taking a photo of a setting you like. I sometimes meddle with mine to get a "new" sound, then spend hours trying to get back to where I started. When you get the hang of it, much better than bass mid .treble EQ ... You can do that on your amp

Tried lots of low Bs in my hunt for a 5-string bass. Mostly sounded muddy on low B ... even the stingrays weren't great ( and they sound fine when Tony Levin plays them!). The only two that worked for me were a 35" Sandberg and a MK2 Wal. Maybe if you play through a huge amp with a 15" speaker ( as Tony Levin does, I think) more basses will sound ok. Could be a duff string of course.

That of course is actual GOLD not mere paint or laquer. And an expensive optional extra. But hugely better though it is than the scuffed goldish lacquer on my Warwick.... It's still, imho, rather naff, like gold taps in dubai hotel bathroom. I was in electric wood's workshop last year and they had a whole tray of gold plated pole pieces just back from the plating people. Gold all the way down, not just the visible tips. Silly.

There's a separate thread about this. Lost in the depths of chat. I take lots of kit around the world for work and need a Carnet; can get away without one usually, but sometimes have to pay a BIG retainer fee that's refunded when I leave. If you buy from the EU there will be VAT to pay additional to the cost - but that cost may get discounted if the seller is VAT registered. Boring stinky poo all due to a big brexity balls up

Still are if you buy the right pickups 😉 https://walbasses.co.uk/components/ Though why hand wound would be better I don't know

Apparently so. In blind tests, modern violins often come out best. Though "best" is relative as all violins sound rather nasty to me.... though some of the music is pretty good ( for those of us that DO like a bit of classical )

On the subject of ancient violins. ALL those being played have been modified eg with steeper neck angles, bigger bass bars etc to get more power out of them. An unmodified Stradivarius would be considered unplayable by modern standards. The only exceptions are a few mint examples in museums that are never played, those are literally priceless, but not exactly "gigged". On which basis .. if you think your 1955 precision sounds good, just think how much better it would be with modern pickups and an active EQ 🙂 NB: there are only 244 Strad violins known about with maybe another 356 still around but "lost". pre CBS Fender basses are common as muck by comparison.

He's been trying to flog this for ages. Whenever the going rate gets close to the asking price, the price goes up. Doesn't want to sell apparently. Still it may in fact BE quite close to a "Geddy Lee Model" as that one was also nice maple needlessly over-sprayed in black. Some people (Mr Lee & Mr Flea) think the coffee table look doesn't quite go with their hard rock image. ... amusing thing (to me) is the number of people who have paid vast sums for a "Geddy Lee Copy" Wal and only later discovered that they should have had the maple layer afixed before the black was sprayed on. One US based collector even changed his order mid-build to get the maple added!! Does it affect the sound? Unlikely. PS: Bloke in the states did actually buy a Wal from Joey Morewood /Jay / EVG. A beat up Pro2e with a missing knob that the man was trying to flip at huge profit ... proclaims the transaction all went very well and was very pleased with the bass (which is now for sale again in Florida).

That Dave Gilmore was on the radio a bit back when his Black Strat was sold at auction for $3,975,000 (yes, commas not decimal places), They asked how he could bare to part with it, to which he replied; ....well, they're just tools; Fender make a Gilmore Signature Strat for £2,000 which sounds identical, so I just use one of those when I need to. Since when, they sold out and can't be got for blood nor reasonable amounts of money (one on Reverb for £14,000!) - hope Dave laid a few in whilst the price was still reasonable.

Oooooo! Sounds great in the YouTube. Must be like playing the top half of my dolphin without the rest of it sticking out. She's rather good mind ... Don't suppose I could sound like that on it.

I find Frets difficult enough, picks impossible. Persevering with frets but sticking with fingers. Old dogs new tricks etc