kurosawa

Just got a MIK Peavey Milestone II and I put an old set of JF344 and an original EMG P on it. Even though it's alder-maple-rosewood, it sounds woodier than other Ps have that I've set up similarly, drier, not the liquid syrup that's so familiar. Very different, and I like it a lot. That's the maddening and magical thing about wood. Every piece sounds different. But as 4 Strings says, some arrangements of pickups and build specs have persistent identities. That's the stronger characteristic. The rest is gravy, and likely few but we notice, but it does inspire our playing, so it has definite value.

Nah. I don't mean deadness, I mean loudness. I sat in the car when I got home from work today mesmerized by what Jamerson did in "Reach Out," "Standing in the Shadows of Love," and "Bernadette." I was searching for the bass drum's pitch, then when I found it, I was able to appreciate that Jamerson ALONE was exceeding it in whack. He was LOUD, He was a string bass player. You will hear him and wonder how a bass drum could keep up because it sounds like they're hitting at the same time, then it dawns on you that it's the bass alone spitting out those hard-hitting sixteenths.

Had to sell everything to feed the kids during this divorce. Just picked up a used $80 Peavey Milestone II, 8 lb, 2.8 oz (alder body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard) . It's better than most, but still not as loud as I'd like. Loudness seems to indicate wide dynamic range, so I think loudness tops my list of desiderata.

No one's trying to convince you, except to convince you that no one's trying to convince you. However it does seem you're trying to squelch the line of inquiry, Can't fathom why. Been playing since 1967. Got my first Fender 2 years later, a '63 P in LPB.

There is a tutti in Rob McConnell's "Louisiana" that challenged me. It took a month for me to precisely match the horns' phrasing, dynamics, and articulation. The experience completely changed my ideas of what a fretted electric bass can and should do. It also changed what I listen for in an instrument. Different experiences mean we listen for different things. If you don't play your bass like a horn, then it's not going to bother you if a certain bass has problems doing that particular trick, even if it drives me nuts (I don't care if a bass is totally unslappable, which might have you tearing out your hair). There is nothing to prove here. There are profitable interactions with players who are going in the same direction as we, and if we don't connect with players who are going in other directions, that's just the way it is.

Interesting. Is it important for the laminations to be made of different woods?

Probably dead spots aren't caused by wood. John K. figured out how to make dead spots go away by increasing the mass of the headstock. Ned Steinberger did it by decreasing same. Hipshot has had some kind of fix on the back burner for a while. However, I discovered poplar makes dead spots worse for me (at least the poplar plank that plagued me), and some guitarists have found poplar makes "chirping" easier (which sounds to me a whole lot like the harmonic that rings on after a dead spot goes dead, seems it's an octave plus a fifth above the dead note). I am in the group that likes wood louder. Seems to give me a wider dynamic range to work with and seems to allow more wallop in the attack. Not saying others' experiences aren't valid. Just relating mine.

I used to joke with a friend about what I called his belief in "wood elves" inhabiting some trees but not others. Then some time around the turn of the millennium, having read the occasional listing by the Swami at thebasspalace.com that said "this bass is The One" or "this bass reeks of Oneness" and so on, took a chance on a SQ-series P (listed as "the One") for $350, and became an overnight convert to the idea that wood matters. However, it's very frustrating. I've slowly come to agree with those who say the character of a bass lives in the neck, and these must simply be auditioned individually. There are some species of body wood I steer clear of, like poplar, which in my experience can dramatically worsen the dead spots in even a very good neck, but there is no decent predictor of great sound, although I find that by limiting myself to alder and going for the lightest plank, I can avoid much unpleasantness. Still, it's effort that I'm sure would be better spent practicing. If it weren't such an annoying and interesting problem, I'd probably have stopped experimenting with it years ago.

Seems I don't have anywhere near as much money to spend as you guys. Instead, I just pick up an interesting bass or neck or body here or there over the years, try with other parts, and keep the good ones. Happily, SQ-series P basses are the same $400 they were a decade ago (when they came of age). They now 30 years old and due to the ratty quality of post-Japan Squiers, won't foreseeably be collectable.

I spoke with my son's high school band director last night. The band owns a Jazz Bass. Last year, there were significant intonation problems, and the bass's pitch was indistinct due to the inherent phase cancellation. I offered to build him a Precision Bass for tighter focus and he accepted. Actually, a PJ is probably best for a gigging musician, both pickups to be used in thin mixes like cocktail combo, and just the P for denser mixes like big band or horn rock band. But because the school only uses electric bass in big band and marching band sidelines roles, I'll just make it a P.

I forgot to mention that the muddy-sounding body is 1/2 lb. heavier than the clear, loud body. So maybe if attempting to build two identical basses, it might be worth trying to obtain bodies from the same manufacturer within a couple ounces of each other. I bought an Allparts body last year from an eBay vendor (name unfortunately forgotten). Allparts bodies are available in first and second quality, with a $100 surcharge for lightweight bodies. The first quality ash PJ body I bought is 4 lb. even, but the vendor didn't add the surcharge for the light weight (it cost $200, IIRC). I saw both this vendor and another sell another such body without charging extra. When I need another body, I'll set up an eBay search to be notified by e-mail of Allparts bass body listings.

I have 2 maple/rose SQ-series (Japan Squier 1983-1984) Ps. One neck is bright and the other is dark. One body is clear and loud and the other is muddy. There might potentially be more difference between individual pieces of wood than between this or that species of tree. It just seems that I get a better chance of finding what I want in a bolt-on with a maple neck (either rosewood or maple fretboard) and an alder body than any other combination. And what I want is mostly in terms of envelope quality (percussive attack and wide dynamic range) and not a certain tonal flavoring. I have an all-wenge Warmoth neck with a 6dB, 1kHz spike. No biggie. I have a stomp box EQ that can dial that out.

Another thing, if you can't find a neck for your body that doesn't have dead spots, it might be the body. Poplar taught me this.

Good article to start thinking about DIY fret leveling. http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-technical/201556-fret-leveling-yer-tele-101-a.html

The spots may be found using clamps, and "cured" by inlaying tungsten weights into the back of the headstock Article: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/dead-spot-removal-743976/

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1357639390' post='1925629'] Quality of sound has never really been very important. I used to have an AM radio with tiny 5" speakers in my car, at one point I upgraded to an FM with cassette. It wasn't digital and would still go in and out of tune. But it did the job. Now the minimum is a PLL FM tuner with CD player and decent quality speakers. I'm sure music is made louder to sound better in the car or headphones on the tube. How many people who aren't audiophiles sit and listen to huge speaker systems in their home? Not many. As this thread shows the wives have control of what the sitting room looks like and big speakers don't look good. [/quote] Yah, for old farts, AM car radio and juke boxes are THE sound. Any bass that sounds like that will be credible. And old farts have the money to pay for bands, PLUS they come from a time before the market fragged into hundreds of little ones. I want to capture that sound in a study rig made of junkyard auto parts, then have someone figure out what's going on with good measuring equipment, then replicate that in an amp and cab. For critical listening, I have a ratty old pair of Sony MDR-V6 (ready for yet another pair of cushions) and a jogger-sized Philips CD player (tried Sony and something else, but the Philips algorithm is the best, most mercilessly accurate I've found). I wouldn't be able to replicate the level of performance they give for at least $30,000, and I wouldn't be able to afford even a fraction of that. The other thing I use for critical listening is Cafe Walter HA-1 #49. Man is it ever merciless. Best way to critique my playing and evaluate any changes I make to my bass.

They sound good. But many pickups sound good to their players. They're dead quiet. Not unique, but it can spoil you (and your sound man). When it rains, you won't get shocked if you kiss a mic while holding the strings. That last can be all-important, especially in a 220v country.

Staying away from a 5 has gradually improved my vertical playing. It wasn't done intentionally, I just got hold of a 4 that sounded so much better than any 5 I had laying around.

Nice, never seen a "Squier Series" bass!

I have 2 SQ-series necks. One's stable as a rock and the other changes constantly. Can't tell by looks, either. The unstable one is almost perfectly flat-sawn and the poly finish is perfect. The stable one is sawn off-center and is worn down to the bare wood down-neck. You live with the neck daily, so you're the expert.

Just curious, how did you localize your sound problem to the pickups, and what about the pickups sounds bad? The distance from the pickup to the string greatly affects the tone. Not saying you haven't, but you can experiment with that a good bit and see what range of tones you already have at your disposal.

Yes. If your car has a small trunk like mine, you might have to break it up. If I could squeeze a 215 in my trunk, that would be the ultimate for me. So I compromise downward grudgingly. I have 2 ways to pack. Either I can put something in the trunk, which limits me to a Greenboy Bassic or something else 13" deep or slimmer, say an Ashdown VS212, or I have to fold the front seatbacks down, drop the rear seatbacks (which won't level with the trunk bed), slide a cab into the rear footwell, then tilt it back and squeeze it into the trunk. Doing things that way, I could get a mutant 215 in there--far from optimum in size and so tight if oriented vertically, the driver rims would have to touch each other and stand at the top and bottom edges of the cab (the Faital 15PR400 frame is 15.5" largest diameter), or with the top driver skewed 30° off vertical, hardly optimum for sound. A Barefaced Super 12 would barely make it through that opening inside the car. So it may have to be a single Bassic 15. I believe I could get a pair of Greenboy 12uuu through the trunk opening. But I am stalling because I really want a 215.

I bought my son a Hofner Icon and finally got around to putting TI flats on it. What a blast! The G string definitely sounds meatier than it does on a 34, but the E sounds tubbier (definite difference; I'd been playing my P strung with TI flats all day). It would be nice if TI would sell sets of flats balanced the way Circle K does it.

Ya know, Kiwi, I once cut down an osage orange tree that the forester out on the East Reservation on Barksdale AFB let me have. If only any part of it had been straight or big enough to make into some part of a bass! They use it for fence posts because it seasons up like metal. If you're going to drive a nail into it, it has to be done when the post is planted. If that thinking about resin flow in the vid is right, bodark (its other name) would be worth listening to because it's so full of resins. On the fire, it constantly crackles. How thick is that beautiful plank you found in the salvage yard?

Thought if the wenge J neck sounded authoritative on the black korina, it ought to do a similar improvement on the alder. No such. However when I swapped in the neck I just got, same maple/rosewood combination as the one that was on the body when I got it, it was pure magic. The original neck sounded loud, dry and percussive. The new one sounds even louder, but it's huge and fat and maybe a little down on highs from the other one. Waiting for all the pieces to get the swamp ash body together, then we'll try it with these same 3 necks. There doesn't seem to be anything predictable about this. The first neck is flat sawn, as dead straight as if it had been planned. It's unstable. Relief had to be tweaked every day on tour. The other one is way off-axis, but when I got it in the mail, it was in tune and the setup was perfect. I loved the wenge on the black korina except for a high-mid peak. It was ultra clear and powerful, but those characteristics didn't carry over to the alder. It made the TIs sound deader. I guess the thing to do is try everything possible, because, at least for me, there's no rhyme or reason in it. I now regret parting with every neck that isn't with me any more. Someone on TB said he'd heard that the Dimarzio DP123 combo didn't make bad wood sound any better, but they made great wood sound amazing. The new neck sure did sound amazing with the Fralin 5% overwound P. I have a Model J "patent applied for" bridge pickup to go with the MIJ P on the swamp ash body. Ought to be fairly balanced volume-wise, and I'm hoping it'll make some magic noises soloed.