NickA

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!

Yes INDEED, thank you folks for a great day out. Such a lovely day we could have held it outside! But the Baronial Barn and roaring log tree fire were fun and the barn had a great acoustic too. Enjoyed playing other people's basses, finding out what these much praised Silver Slaps and Spirocore Weichs actually play like .. and a go on Owen's Steinburg EUB too (lovely thing, well made and nice to play, even if not a real DB). And yes, a very nice sounding laminate bass .. my prejudices challenged yet again. Good to hear other people playing my old bass too - as someone said, "doesn't really need an amplifier". .. and no, the old SAAB did not make it home; alternator failure at M1 Jct 16, recovery to Derby on a truck. Sadly now waiting for the scrap man to come; but at least I was with her when she died. :¬( :¬(

That is one HUGE armchair you have.

In fact it's spelt: 上原 ひろみ and you can transliterate as you please :¬) :¬) :-) But yes indeed, that one; small Japanese women with big hair and ridiculously nimble hands. But anyway WHAT AN INSTRUMENT. Not sure I'd want one myself as 35k would buy a VERY nice double bass indeed and you do get more wood for your money. I'm guessing 5k for the bass, 15k for the AJ endorsement and 15k for the Fodera badge. Does seem a little pricey. However, it does sound like nothing else and does things neither an electric or a double bass would do; and I love the way Jackson sits there with his gob open, eyes half shut and his head lolling about like he's about to pass out .. whilst sublime liquid bass-lines flow out of his fingers. She could dump Simon Phillips for Chad Wackerman or Vinnie Colaiuta tho IMHO - he does drown out the bass playing somewhat!

I was listening to Anthony Jackson with Haroumi Uehara on the "Alive" album .. playingthe 6 string version of this; sounds like no kind of electric bass I've every heard. Strange beast indeed. Seriously tho!!!! Specs for the Anthony Jackson Presentation: Alder Body Alder Tone Block Quilted Mahogany Topwood 3pc Hard Rock Maple Neck Brazilian Rosewood Fingerboard Fodera / Duncan Dual Coil Pickup 36″ inch scale, 28 large frets, 6-strings 19.0mm String Spacing Passive Electronics Price – USD $20,250 Possibly there is a big discount for having one less string!?

Still planning to come along. I'll bring my 1884 German DB, a Realist sound clamp and a PJB flightcase (for comparison with that AI Combo... which I so nearly bought instead). Got a nice carbon bow to show off too. ... just have to hope the wife's ancient and disreputable 18yr old SAAB can make the journey from Derby without something else falling off it :-)

There is no FRETLESS like a Wal FRETLESS :¬) Oddly, the price of 2nd hand fretlesses has always been better than that of the fretted siblings and prices are coming down again at the moment. Come on in and join the club! Still, £3500 would buy a very nice (new) ACG or Overwater.

I may rename it triggers broom! New East electronics on order, then maybe some hipshot tuners with a D drop. All that will remain of the original jazz bass will be the neck plate saying "made in Japan" which NONE of it is .. except the neck plate😂

Laminate basses won't hold value too well as a new one will sound as good. Solid / Carved ones will do better as they generally improve with age .. or at least, people think they do.

This bass is mostly a noodling at home bass so lots of knobs to twiddle is a bonus! Once it has the full JE monty inside it tho, it may get out more. I find that with both the other basses, I have just a couple of favourite settings; an interesting one for playing at home and a more ordinary one for playing out. We shall see. Gone too far down the line now and have serious Electronics Acquisition Syndrome; I'll report back in a few weeks. And thanks folks for the info and encouragement.

Almost instant response from John (don't you love these small can-do craftsman based companies!) ... 9V rail to rail, no voltage step up, standard op-amps; should handle peak voltages + - 3.5V; if that's not enough I'll have to get someone to rout out space for an extra battery or one of these (9V in <=35V out). Now then, where's my oscilloscope! I have some memory that I did this before and the delanos peaked at + - 3V (big thumb slap on the E string ... though why I'd be slapping a fretless, not sure - bad habits).

I don't know much about ACG except that people rate them (him) ..and having just browsed their site, they look fantastic value compared to .. erm, say ... a modern Wal! I was suprised to see the ACG-EQ-01-4 for sale on John East's site as someone told me you could only get them with ACG basses. however, I see AC has moved on to a "DFM" pre-amp and that the EQ-01 is old hat in ACG terms. Still, to me it looks like the bee's knee's ... kind of Wal electronics with a Turbo. I've mailed Mr East to check that my Delano pickups won't over-load his 9V electronics tho. Pickups intended for electronics usually have a low output - and this was a limitation of my own designs; when fed by my previous single coil Kent Armstrong pickups, the pickup output voltage was higher than the little +4.5V op amps could manage. You can get around it (as Percy Jones did) by sticking a step-up circuit in line with the battery to make a local 12V or 18V off the 9V supply voltage - wouldn't put it past John East's designs to include that ... as they include everything else. Finger trembling over the "buy now" button whilst I wait for John's reply! (the seller of that 2nd hand one seems to have gone silent on us .. but thanks for the link)

For many years I've been fiddling about with some home made active electronics to create separate filters for each of two pickups, plus blend and volume. It's been fun, but the results were never reliable (crackle, pop, dead, buzz etc); whilst deciding what to build next, I ran across John East 's electronics and read several recommendations. This one http://www.east-uk.com/index.php/acg-eq01-4k.html is pretty much what I have been aiming at all these years. It seems to be a modernised version of what my Wal has inside it - ie filter per pickup, with a "Q-factor" control (the Wal has just a switch) and a variable high frequency pass through (again, the Wal has a "pick attack" switch which does the same thing). Has anyone got or tried this circuitry? Does anyone know of anyone else making similar? I'm on the verge of pushing the "buy" button, but all told with a set of nice knobs, VAT and delivery it's £241.. which is sort of the price of a whole bass! So need a bit of a push ;¬)

Here are my two. The brown one is my first bass, bought in 1981.....although everything except the tuners has now been replaced in a 35 year attempt to create a Wal/Warwick/Fender hybrid!! Currently passive (JB standard wiring, with an additional series / parallel switch) as when the latest pickups arrived I was too impatient to solder up the electronics. It's had a new lease of life since I fitted a set of EB cobalt flats and will probably be going active again soon. The Wal is ... well, a Wal, just like all the other Wal Customs in the world.

I have that bass's twin! W2716 July 86 singed by the man Wal himself. Facings could be from the same tree. Yours is in better nick tho, so I don't need to post mine. I have two small string trees tho and you have one big one. Maybe mine's a girl.

https://www.gear4music.com/Woodwind-Brass-Strings/Stentor-Conservatoire-Double-Bass-3-4/V0K?origin=product-ads&campaign=PLA+Shop+-+GENERIC&adgroup=GENERIC&medium=vertical_search&network=google&merchant_id=1279443&product_id=40196d1&product_country=GB&product_partition_id=127164593839&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIn6-_r7T-2QIVyLftCh0tvA3tEAQYAiABEgKaZvD_BwE £2000. Decent bass, fully carved, ebony board, nice size ... bit short on character maybe, but you pay a lot extra for that! (https://www.doublebasses.co.uk/instruments-sale) If properly repaired - not too visible, no distortion to the top and no rattles or buzzes ... then the previous damage shouldn't count against it. But as you CAN buy them new, it won't have appreciated any. So around what you paid for it. Selling to a dealer, they will tell you it's a factory bass of little value and offer you a few 100 quid, before giving it a polish and a setup, then back on sale for £2500 ;¬)

Bach 6 on a double bass is a MAJOR feat ... it's near impossible on a 4 string cello for mere mortals; the allemande is about the hardest piece I've ever played on a cello in public (I can only hack my way though the rest, and never start to end without grinding to a halt) .. it was written for a short scale 5-string cello with a high C !! Thanks for the Joel quarrington link; I have a long train ride today and now have lots of reading ;¬)

Red Mitchell played the 'cello too I see. Must have had a small bass, huge hands or only played in 4th position or above! There's a big difference between the 34" of an electric and the 40+" of a double bass.

I was listening to Michael Manring's "The Enormous Room" the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4Ra2KOyas )... which has the most amazing harmonics and chords every played on a bass ... and started messing with different tunings; eg tuning down the G string to F# yields some lovely major 7th type chords using harmonics. Then wondered if I could play the bass tuned like a 'cello ( C G D A) - after all, tuning in 4ths is really only because double basses are tuned in 4ths, and that is because a) they are descended from viols and b) they are too HUGE to finger when played in 5ths. An electric bass is a lot shorter scale, so why not tune in 5ths (bigger range, access to a low C). 'Cello tuning is only a partial success because the E has to go down to a C (floppy) and the G up to an A (tight) which is also probably not too good for the neck; maybe replacing the E with a B from a 5-string set and tuning it up would work. Also, standard 'cello technique involves a lot of extensions (eg playing a whole tone between first and second fingers so as to reach G# witha 4th finger on the D string etc) which is a bit too much of a stretch on a normal scale electric bass. Interesting (although, strangely, despite that I can play the 'cello in 'cello tuning, playing the e bass in 'cello tuning is confusing; as soon as I pick up an electric bass, my brain goes into 4ths!). Anwyay, what other tunings have people tried? Any good ones out there?

What on EARTH do all those knobs do XTof?

" We wanted a fully electric bass having nothing metal except for the tuners & frets" ... doesn't bode well for what's inside the pickups!