NickA

I finally got £175 for my (much nicer IMHO) trace 15" 300W GP12SMX combo. A sad day, but it was unusably heavy and loud for me. A dealer from Hungary sent a man in a van, bearing an envelope of used tenners, to collect it. No-one will pay for a broken back when you can put 300W in your back pocket these days.

Deepest congratulations on the arrival of your new baby. I think we should convene an extraordinary double bass bash purely so we can all have a closer look. What a THING! Still not sure the conductor of my local (amateur) symphony orchestra would be impressed if I turned up with one tho. 🙂

I really think you should take it along to a builder or dealer and ask for a valuation. They will often do it for free. Be aware though that there is a HUGE difference between a "sales" valuation (which is what they would pay you for it) and an "insurance" valuation (which is what they would charge you to replace it). It looks in good nick to me and if it sounds good too ... could be a bargain for someone (£1200 is what you'd pay for a decent laminated one), though you'd need to see it and play it first.

There are many kinds of "active". Some are just passive basses with an electronic EQ added to the end (boost and cut treble and bass usually) eg Fedora. These allow the pickups to interact as on a parallel wired passive bass (the output is the average of the connected coils) but then buffer the output. Some have actual active pickups (there is a little buffer amp inside the pickup) which allows a low winding count and hence more treble coming out of the pickups (eg some Warwicks) ; some have separate tone processing for each pickup (Wal and my "East ACG-01" equipped home build) which gives you lots of tone control but robs you of that "pickups in parallel" sound (the mixing of the two pickups is equivalent to series wiring). The common thing these active circuits will do is buffer the pickups so no matter what length of cable you use and no matter what amp input impedance you have (your D800 will work with anything I think) no current is drawn out of the pickups so the impedance of the pickups themselves doesn't alter the sound. Basically you get a more consistent output. You can get a higher output too, tho my active Warwick has the lowest output of any of my basses - go figure. There should be no characteristic "active" sound - you can just expect to get more of what the pickups are making into the amp and usually that does mean more treble and more "twang" ... if you want to use it; and if you don't, then use the bass or the amp EQ to remove it. But at least you have the choice.

Best thing for that double thumb would be a fretsaw down the middle => TWO thumb basses for the price of ... ermm two.

Interesting bass though. Not sure I've ever seen a (non re-issue) pro 1. There's folk in the states who would pay big bucks for something so unusual. What did it sell for? Anyone know?

... but famous for using Acoustic amps for that slightly fuzzy growly mwah (he had two of them when I saw him in 1985 - linked with some kind of chorus or delay). Have to be bleedin good for $5000!

I can certainly vouch for Bass Bags, they are just up the road from me in Duffield. Mostly new instruments, but my most recent bass teacher had bought his bass from them and they won't sell anything that is not a good bass. .. or for a range of older basses as well as new ones, try Tim Toft in Stone (http://www.timtoftviolins.com/category/instruments/double-bass) and Turners (http://www.turnerviolins.co.uk/Instruments/DoubleBasses.aspx) in Beeston (Derby side of Nottingham). Toft's don't list much stock at the moment, but call them and ask; when I last went they had quite a lot in their bass room; also their Bass repairer is top notch and all their basses are nicely set up and have a price label on them. Turners maybe a little far East for you and I've found them a little shy of actually stating genuine prices, so assume everything is negotiable; but they usually have lots of stock right across the price range. For a big purchase like a new Double Bass, be prepared to travel and see as many as poss. Thwaites in Watford have a room FULL of basses (some of them the price of a decent sized house - but many affordable too). I have only just found out about this restorer and dealer in Leicester, but worth watching his stock or giving him a ring, Tim Bachelor (http://www.batchelar.com/double basses.html). Good luck with the bass hunt.

The replica is also an amazing bass and a splendid work of art. IMHO it's a real shame they "antiqued" it as personally I'd rather own a bass like one that had just come from Amati's workshop rather than a replica of a damaged one (as if, even were I a millionaire who could afford such, I would not do 1% justice to anything that good!!!!). My own bass doesn't need antiquing, it has lots of its very own - and took a mere 150 years to acquire it. The Czech / German, carved/plywood monstrosity has been antiqued rather too much methinks, even if it is quite old.

Not the Karr-Koussevitsky (once "attributed to" Antonio and Girolamo Amati according to Wikipedia). but THIS one (by Girolamo Amati aka Hieronymus II Amati, about 100 years later). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_II_double_bass Roger Hargrave and Rene Zaal made a copy of it a few years ago https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/328014-making-a-double-bass/ (fantastic blog for anyone with an interest in bass making) and they don't seem to doubt it's genuine. Whether or not the decrepit bass I saw at Gallery Strings in 1988 really was this one prior to renovation, I honestly don't know; but it sold for a "significant sum" they wouldn't reveal. So what is apparently matchwood CAN be very valuable ... but usually is NOT!! Dealers do love the phrase "Attributed to"! ========================================================================================================== Back on topic. VERY hard to tell much from the photos; the vertical cracks running down from one of the f-holes are indicative of a carved front; I don't think plywood cracks that way unless someone's taken a hammer to it; but it doesn't look right somehow. Some things need to be touched to tell what they're made of! This one to be left well alone. More and fresher fish in the sea. :¬)

I thought Plywood too. Why is that? It's evidently real wood from the directional cracks up the front. Probably quite old from the hat-peg tuners. Also probably a REALLY bad idea. A dealer with a workshop might make something of it via a thorough restoration or could at least re-use the ebony finger-board on something else. Not one for a private buyer. Saw a hieronymus amati bass at a dealer once; looked like lots of glued together matchwood; now considered priceless beyond valuation.. SO, you never know ... but this surely aint no amati.

If he does live in the 18th century it will make the bass very valuable by now!!

Mine started buzzing in response to a high D last night; by the time rehearsal break came around and we had a chance to investigate - it had gone. Possibly one of the tuners rattling or maybe because I was out of tune and re-tuned so that the resonace lay between actual notes. I may never know. Beware of "luthiers" they'll probably have it in pieces all over the workshop and a £1000 bill for reassembly before you can say "err, gig on Friday?" Try getting someone else to (preferably bow) the note that makes the buzz, then listen all over the bass to see if you can locate the source. All Rabbie's suggestions are good, I'd add pickups & bridge adjusters if you have them. Also anywhere there are any cracks (eg mine has several mends around the f-holes).

Glad to be of service :¬) :-) and a very tidy P to PJ conversion.

I can't quite see what is wired to what, but it looks like your J pickup may be connected back to front. Ie the black and white wires are going to the wrong holes in the little terminal block. That would cause noise to add and signals to cancel. Try swapping the wires around (no guarantees). If you really want to do it properly, then a) get a stacked coil J pickup, b) twist the pcikup wires together and keep them as short as possible (better still, use co-ax cable from the pickups to the control cavity) c) use screening foil or conducting paint inside the pickup cavities and the control cavity and make sure the surface of the cavities is connected to the bridge / pickup / jack-socket grounds. A lot of people swear by copper foil for screening, but if you look inside a quality factory made bass (certainly, both my Wal and Warwick) you will find they are use conductive paint. My project J-bass has painted cavities and has been totally silent, even with standard J-Bass wiring (as you have) since I got the stacked pickups. The problem is, you NEED the pickups to pickup magnetic fields otherwise they can't see the strings, but really don't want them to pickup anything BUT the strings .. screening the cavities can only do so much as there is always a dirty great hole in the front of the pickup cavity!! If all else fails, I'm only down the road in Derby and happy to take a look for you. You'll probably find another guitar playing electronics engineer closer, but the offer stands.

That J pickup. Is it a single or a stacked coil one? Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious: The way the P pickups work is that they are actually humbuckers with the magnets in different directions and the coils in different directions. The signal from the strings adds but the pickup from nearby electric fields cancels out. A standard J pickup is not humbucking as it only has one coil. With a full Jazz Bass the two pickups are wound and magnetised in oppposite directions so they individually pickup noise from the surroundings but when added together do not. So, if you add a non cancelling J to a cancelling P the noise no longer cancels and you get some hum. The solution is to use a stacked coil J pickup which incorporates its own cancelling. My J bass now has two stacked J pickups and is totally silent whatever balance I use, but previous incarnations were quite buzzy and did stuff lke pick up police radio and local taxis (pre mobile phones!!) If its REALLY noisy you might have some other electrical fault - eg it's accidently wired up back to front so that the earth (strings etc) are accidently connected to the amps input and vice versa.

mine did it on the open E (I think). Then it fell over, the finger board fell off, the bass bar cracked and lots of bits fell off inside. A mender man took it to bits and glued it all back together again - no more buzz. But the mender said the buzz was actually fixed by removing my old shadow pickup from the bridge. The buzz came back recently; turned out to be the outer drum of the pick-up to amp lead was coming un-screwed and its rattling was being picked up by the pickup. Another time I was making a drummer's snare rattle more causes of double bass buzzes than you can shake a stick at. many of them not connected to the bass itself. If anything will make things buzz, it's a double bass. sorry, that wasn't very helpful .... just wanted you to know that many of us have been there!

I'm not convinced that a big music department-store is the best place to buy a double bass - mostly they are getting stuff made down to a price by big factories rather than looking for quality. Maybe try a specialist (Bassbags) or a sensible 2nd hand dealer (the DoubleBassRoom). Something like this for instance : https://thedoublebassroom.com/product/1970s-czech-luby-hybrid-3-4/#.Wu-JnH8h1EY. would probably be hard to beat. I think it was this one https://thedoublebassroom.com/product/hungarian-1965-3-4/#.Wu-K-n8h1EZ that came to a recent bass bash and was really rather good.

Oh tell me about it; I pointed out to him that my 150 yr old db was held together with fish glue and he said "yeah well, it'll fall apart eventually". I then wrecked the neck trying to plane the shards of ebony and glue off the maple. New neck and board required; from now gone guitar maker Alan Marshall at Northworthy - but at least the truss rod works now .. and it's a very nice neck (super slim but still very stable) and back then was only £170. Alan no longer makes guitars let alone basses, but his acoustic guitars cost £1000s if you can find one.

My dad was at one time (amongst other things) responsible for mending the 'cellos of Huntingdonshire schools. There was often a pot of something smelly on the kitchen stove consisting of little grey pellets simmering in slimy juice; I always thought it was boiled down fish bones or something; certainly smelt that way! It was probably this -> https://www.axminster.co.uk/liberon-pearl-glue-ax22992 . The idea is that it comes un-stuck under the influence of steam. Bloke at Andy's Guitar shop put an ebony board on my first electric bass - when I tried to remove the board to get at the truss rod, the board broke. I asked what he'd used and he said Araldite, cause it won't come unstuck. The good man spoke the truth .. it f*&ing didn't!

Now with added East-ification. Sounds great; better than my Wal in some respects! 8 knobs, no less (the switches only fill some holes) and all of them useful.

£1100 for all that! Good deal. Is that bridge really not at right angles to the strings? Could be the photo, but it might be squiff or it might have been set up "clever". This is something I thought about a while back having realised that on my electric bases the strings are all different lengths as the bridge is adjusted to keep the strings in tune across the frets (or lack of frets, though that's less of an issue) despite different pressures being needed to hold the different thickness strings down. The bridges of classical guitars have a very complicated slant carved into them. So why not do that on violins, 'cellos and basses? Well apparently one reason is that its really hard to seat a bridge on the belly of the bass if it has to be at an angle and the other is that we all learn to compensate for the lack of super accurate tuning (without frets it's less of an issue etc). anyway every double bass I've seen has its bridge at right angles to the strings. But maybe your setup is done like a fretted instrument, in which case it's clever but different. Might play more easily in tune across the strings. .. or it's the photo .. or someone knocked it!

What John East says! Set the top pickup to deep and bassy and the bridge pickup to bright - then blend away. The big thing over the Wal tronics is the adjustability of the treble pass through and the filter resonance. Playing the Wal this evening and wished I could pull the resonance knobs out .. sort of half way. Makes my Warwick's EQ based knobs (treble and bass, cut and boost) seem positively stoneage.

... and you don't want a distorted bottom. :¬)

Bought the acg-eq-01. Spent an evening fiddling around trying to fit it inside the bass; completely changed my mind the next day and in a couple of hours, with a little bass surgery (dremel, sanding disk, lots of Padouk dust) IT'S IN!! Now have a bass with EIGHT KNOBS (and three switches which do nothing but fill holes). The suprising thing is the bass frequencies - I'd expected clearer high frequencies (passive setups load the pickups' inductance and lose high frequency content) but what really stands out is the extra and clearer bass, and the control of it via the filter gain adjustment. Also, even if you go for a lot of bass and high frequency cut, then high frequency pass-through allows harmonics and "pick attack" to come through. I honestly reckon that the acg-eq-01 is better than the much fabled electronics in my Wal .. and would love to hear what a Wal would sound like with East tronics in it ... not that I'm about to vandalise my own one to find out!