Huge Hands

Good evening fellow basschatters. About 4 years ago I bought a B stock Harley Benton black 5 string acoustic from Thomann. I strung it with Roto 88's and it just sits in my lounge for when the occasion takes me. Tonight, I picked it up and the G-string wouldn't tighten, only slacken. All of a sudden there was a twang and the string went slack. I thought I'd snapped the string or core, but I now realise the tuning peg is broken. I can turn the wound peg over a quarter turn with my fingers with no resistance and it won't turn in the tighten direction using the cloverleaf equivalent (handle?) My question is - has anyone upgraded theirs? What did you buy? Did they fit without any fettling? Apart from this, I only own Fender style basses so am used to huge cloverleaf things - I don't have a box of spares that will fit this. Any help would be appreciated! I'm happy to spend a few quid on some new tuners to keep it going.

Ok, I always say this, but I say it again - I think the stock tuners are great on mine. They may look a bit more "halfords silver spray" than metal, but I find I often get mine out of the gig bag and it is still in tune - much better than any Fender or other more expensive bass I've had. I'd advise people try them before they start spending cash on other tuners. My bridge is fine, but I don't string my flats through the body, so not best to comment on that.

Must be on later models - I have two early ones (were known as the Retro 2x10 back then) and there is no switch. You had to get a loom fitted to change them from 4ohm to 12ohm apparently?

You obviously haven't met the last drummer I played with then.....

Regardless of authenticity (I can't afford that kind of cash to be ripped off anyway) there's something about a Precision in LPB with all its covers on that just makes something happen in my trousers (in a good way).....

Thanks for that, really enjoyed it. As much as I think he shows his silly show off side/arrogance for sitting cross legged like that and posing with a lute, I can't deny he is a fantastic bass player and singer, especially as he can do them both together so well.. I have to admit I have also often pulled those facial expressions when a drummer who loves the sound of his own voice keeps piping up with unnecessary and irrelevant opinions in every break in rehearsal....I feel his pain....

A tale of two polar opposite drummers for me. The first, I met and then played with for about 11 years through various bands and lineups. I classed him as a brother, and my best mate, but he was massively unreliable. He was a hopeless driver/navigator and always underestimated how long it would take him to get to a gig, so would turn up after soundcheck (and sometimes after the start time of the gig) and we'd have to move everything around to get him in. He was left handed, so could never just sit on/borrow other drummer's kits without causing a load of hassle that takes time, especially if he's late. Initially, we started telling him to get there half an hour before everyone else, then we gave that up and I would pick him up/drop him off with his drums just to ensure he got there, even though it was well out of my way. When our latest lineup started to gain traction and was getting offered lots of gigs, he would be too scared to ask his wife for the night away from looking after the kids, so would mess us around for weeks until it was too late. The music had a lot of start/stops, and he would forget them from rehearsal to rehearsal. The guitarist, who wanted rid, talked the band into realising he was letting the side down and that if we wanted to move on we should let him go. After the guitarist let him go with a two line text, I was left to deal with his emotional wrath. After a drunken text in the middle of the night telling me the band with the new drummer was rubbish, I sleepily let him know what I thought of him around why he only had himself to blame. I should have held my thoughts til the next day as he has refused to speak to me ever since. I do regret this as he was a really good friend (and could groove like a bad man when he wanted to). His replacement was much more in tune with the type of music and ultra reliable (was always first there by hours, not minutes) but I just couldn't get on with him. He had a weird jabbering kind of way of speaking, as though silence was something to be feared but then often joined in conversations and killed them stone dead with his odd replies. He also had a way of totally switching off and ignoring you if you tried to suggest something he didn't like, and then siding with the guitarist on any band discussion to keep the balance of power or whatever.. I always felt he didn't think bass was relevant to the music, and they could have done really well without it. In the end, I had to leave due to ill health, The guitarist is the only one left from the original 11-year group and I miss playing with him, even though he can be ruthless with long term colleagues when he want to be!. P.S. The second drummer once recommended a keyboard player who was equally as odd. He seemed incapable of playing chords, and then if given a solo just seemed to wiggle his fingers as fast as he could regardless of what keys he pressed, which meant all solos were at the same speed, regardless of the song.. He also got massively nasty when fired after only 2 rehearsals and one gig. He had a decent keyboard though, and apparently played with loads of bands in the area....

I sometimes think the best things are found by ignoring rules or what should be, so I would never stop someone trying it. However, in a band setting, I think adding reverb would not help the clarity of the bass from cutting through the mix, and if your playing is fast or busy, you could just end up with a boomy mush.

"....they did it their waaaaaayyyyyyy...."

Some bands don't use it solely for timekeeping - they have extra instrumentation or vocals tracked to give a bigger or different sound. I used to do sound for cabaret shows where the normal drums, bass, keys, gtr house band would gain a trumpet/sax and trombone for solos/the look, but there would be much more brass tracked to give that Glenn Miller/Frank SInatra big band feel. There might also be sound effects such as police sirens or stings for the show's story too, which would then lead into a song.....

I found those ages ago. I want royalties......

Indeed. I love Pharrell/The Neptunes, but as soon as I heard that rhythmn I assumed he'd sampled the Marvin Gaye track.

I hope you don't mind, but I've just copy-pasted this from a post I wrote in a similar thread recently: As a former drummer, I tried it for the first time in a studio setting back in my uni days. I thought I would need to hear the click really well and got them to turn it up and up - til it was almost bashing my ear drums across my head into each other! Suffice to say, it wasn't great playing or a great track. A few years later, when working as a live sound engineer, I spoke to one of the pro drummers about it and listened to his click during a rehearsal, it was much quieter. He had it at a level where you barely heard it, then if you started falling behind/speeding up, your brain would suddenly notice it and concentrate on it. When I then tried it a year later at these sort of levels with my own band, it worked really well for me. When on time, the click almost disappears and you are able to enjoy the music. As others have said, depending on what is on the track, you may not need to hear it [the recorded backing track parts] at all, especially if it is washy strings or effects. I'm saying this because in my opinion, some drummers will never get their heads round playing with a click. Some may just need some adjustment on their levels and then get it fine.

Another huge Dee Murray fan here!

In my experience, unless you're driving a van - whatever size car you drive, the DB will cause some sort of hindrance, whether it is touching the windscreen, stopping you pulling on the handbrake or comfortably putting your arm down with your supersize fizzy pop...or all of them. The size of car dictates which of these hindrances you will suffer....

I play bass guitar with a concert (woodwind and brass) band, so on average: 40:12:0:0 I've surprised myself by not being able to think of anyone I really, actively dislike, in all of those people. However, in my relatively much smaller last gigging blues band, the ratio was: 5:2:0:1 I really struggled to deal with the drummer's odd ways. His drumming was fine though....

Well, thanks @alexclaber, you're on. Shame I had to go as far as ranting on here to get a response to this saga. I'll try and get a day sorted next week and bring them down to you.

I can't really help you, but just wanted to chime in to say hope the gig is good, I love Susan Tedeschi's (singing) voice and love her hubby's slide playing. It should be something that gets boring to me very quickly, but not with him. Massively jealous!

Sorry, I wasn't trying to hijack or start a war. I have bitten my lip so many times when I see BF bashing threads on here out of respect for his fan base but I am sick to death of "can we wait til after..." replies from the official BF email address, so I assume this workshop guy is aware too. I have been really poorly and housebound over the last couple of years so have not managed to prioritise chasing it myself but I've never had even an inkling of a date from BF so it's not like I caused the problem by postponing dates to bring them in myself. Anyway, today I just felt the need to rant as I've recently got back into playing and rehearsed with one on Monday night. It looked a lot more poor than I last remember, so must have flicked my switches a bit...... I'll shut up now - as you were....

Maybe it's because his customer service is non-existent. I bought Retro 210 cabs serial number 9 and 10 and experienced the peeling Tolex issue to the point where they now both look like cheap, worn, poorly made Chinese toys. On BC, last time I mentioned it, he openly suggested giving them back to him so he could strip and recover them, but ever since he has just fobbed me off saying they are too busy and can we wait til after the next rush. This has been going on for over 3 years. I only live 30 miles up the road, so I can take them there whenever he wants. I have never said anything on here before as I remember him on here as a budding university graduate full of ideas, and that was one of the reasons I went with him to try and support BC talent. However, I handed over a lot of my hard-earned for these, and now they look crap and worthless, not the premium product I thought I was getting. I got the impression he had tried recovering someone else's cabs and realised it was too difficult so was avoiding it, but if he'd been upfront and offered to look at them, I would have been happy to discuss options to get them looking slightly better such as trimming back the edges and painting, finishing strips or...., er....., whatever else there might be. In summary, he's amazing when talking theory and selling you a cab, but not so great with keeping you onside if you have a genuine concern with his product. It's such a shame, because I love the tone of the cabs, they just look toytown. ...and before you say anything, the Tolex peeled off both of them way before I ever stood on one.... P.S @Happy Jack - yes, I did mean comb filtering. I remember Bill Fitzmaurice talking about it at length which is why I mentioned it. I think it was along the lines of where with a PA speaker, you're putting bandwidth filtered audio through various sized drivers to use each driver for a frequency range. With a bass cab setup, you're running the same full range through each, so you don't get the same optimisation. I seem to remember him saying that just because you have one small driver cab, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get more punch or top end or whatever. Anyway, I'm probably trampling all over his theory, so I won't keep digging a hole!

You may prefer it. There are plenty of experts on here (and much more qualified than me) that will warn you off mixing driver sizes (such as your current 15" and 10" setup) due to cone filtering effects etc. I know I used to have a 2x10+1x15 setup and loved the cabs on their own but always struggled when using them together. Each to their own and all that, you won't know what is right for you until you try it.....

If it helps, and I shouldn't really admit this - I am a little over 20st and I stood on one of my Retro 210s at Christmas to take down our outdoor Christmas lights as I didn't have a ladder and it was next to the front door. It didn't even groan. As a smaller box, I would imagine the 110 will be even stronger?

I've never understood the full story on this - I know the movie shows Nate trying to play it on his back as per the legend, and I have seen the amazing footage of Jamerson playing it live, but I thought the original recording was Bob Babbitt? I haven't tried listening to it originally, but last time I listened I thought the original sounded more Babbit-esque? I thought I remembered Bob trying to claim it on another clip, but maybe he was referring to the album as a whole.....I've always been confused on this point.

Might be worth mentioning that if you store lots of it in a poorly ventilated room, it starts to stink badly of rubber petrochemicals We had some in our store at work and I spent 10 mins in there - had a massive headache afterwards for hours....

Weirdly, I'm a meat and potatoes J and P man and don't like boutique basses, but there is something about that wood finish that made my trousers wobble....