basexperience

Did you decide to keep her? I have a Toby Pro-6 which I've recently given a makeover - everything but pickups, including a GK-3B fitting - the story is over on [url="http://basexperience.blogspot.co.uk/"]http://basexperience.blogspot.co.uk/[/url] - and after the work it's a hell of a bass. The spacing is narrow on the Pro-6, too, I tend to use it for fingerstyle only, but it's great for that.

Apparently the string spacing on the Toby was pretty rare for them - and I was keen to get it in Brass, and in black. As an update - this OBP-3 is by far the most startling part of the upgrade. The clarity compared to the old 10-year old onboard preamp is just stunning - it's now silent, and possessed of enough headroom to set the Warwicks to shame (a core requirement of the work)! The push/pull 400-800Hz mid is an eye opener, interesting! Add an excellent fret dress, and it's now an excellent bass. I can recommend Julian Mullen to anyone in the Reading area - he took plenty of pics (at my request) of the surgery so I'll post some when I have them. Btw, an hour and a half tinkering with sensitivity, bridge dimension and nuance settings on the GR55 have yielded a stunningly expressive, fast-tracking midi capability too. Having the system properly mounted is simply a revelation, and now I don't have that bracket hanging on there the bass is back to the visual treat it was before I crowbarred the GK3B on there.

About 7 months ago I decided I'd get a luthier to take a look at putting some new shine on and old friend... And she's finally ready. It's been a long haul: lots of delays, mainly due to waiting for parts - the hipshot was made to order and got caught for over a month in the US in the huge winter storms they had. The GK kit came from Roland UK, but for some reason they didn't want to supply it, preferring instead to ignore the guys at BassGear in twyford who we're ordering up the parts. Thankfully OBP-3s are easy to get. http://basexperience.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/oh-my-god-tobias-resurrection-is-nearly.html There's lots of pics in there (I'm posting this from an iPhone and the editor is a little awkward!), I think Julian Mullen has done a great job. So, in summary: ladies and gentlemen of the Bass world: my upgraded Tobias Pro-6, a workhorse of 10 years gigging, reborn with a GK midi kit and OBP-3 preamp, and a new hipshot bridge. Beautiful! And today I get to pick her up!

A while back a driver failed in one of my cabs - finally got the chance to tear down the speaker, and the failure was obvious - manufacturing fault, not magnet power loss! I wrote an entry on my resurrection blog here - http://basexperience.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-mystery-of-dead-10-driver-warwick.html?m=1 Hope it's handy to anyone - particularly the "symptoms" of driver failure. The cab sounds great now!

I had a great time on the Saturday, spent a lot of time at the Rikker stand, that olive top 5 string was gorgeous. However, waiting for more than 30 minutes for what can only be describes as the worst slapper in the world to f*** off was tedious. Seriously, this was like watching someone hitting a tree with a brick, their thumb moved with all the grace of an asphyxiating fish... It was all I could do not to say to the guy "it's an expensive bass, and glockenklang gear. Can you please F*** OFF?"

Got my ticket for the Saturday! WIll be by the Basschat stand no doubt. Anyone bringing their own bass for some tryouts? It's been years since I visited a show...

I've got a GR55 and a Bass Podxt with FBV, but I usually run it with the capability to pass-thru straight to the amp when required - good example of when this is useful - I had a GR55 patch with the bass chorus for Journey's Don't Stop Believing, but the bass is in the shop so had to conjure up something on the POD in short order during the intermission. When I kicked off the first bass note, everybody else in the band turned around with the biggest grins on their faces. Admittedly, that's a really specific song, and it's a cover, but the bass sound on that track on the chorus in particular, with the motifs in there, is a signature of the track: effects can, and do, enhance bass when they work with the song. The old story...

It's a few years ago now, but when I got a decent rig stack (Warwick Pro IX 900) I initially got the classic 4x10 an 1x15 to go with it, regular cabs and they weighed a fricking ton. Traded both, plus an old 2x10 8Ohm trace cab (which was useful, but also very heavy) for 1x15 and 4x10 Warwick NEO cabs, which I really rate. I've replaced a 10 inch driver but otherwise they're solid as (I have a 250w 1x15 CCL for small gigs). The tone is good, they're not small cabs (the 15 is a cropped cab, short) but they're one-hand luggable and the horns have great sparkle when required.

I'm getting my beloved 6-string Toby Pro-6 (apparently made while Mr Tobias was still with Gibson) - a much travelled monster, having originally come over from the US after purchase. It's done well:I did an external installation of a GK-3B pickup, on the godawful bracket you can bolt it on with. It's been like that for 5 years or so now - did some great work with the cheesy 80s synths you get out of the GR-20 floor unit. Having tried out a GR-55, I decided I'd buy one - the modelling sounds are worth it alone, the vintage P-Bass is excellent, and the Rickenbacker is pretty Rush-y :-) However, this then revealed to me that it was time to get the bass updated and overhauled.Crackling pots (cleaned once too often with servisol) and a still-weedy preamp persuaded me it was time to Frankenbass the beast. I'm reporting on my blog over at [url="http://www.funkybass.co.uk"]www.funkybass.co.uk[/url] - the work is being done by Julian Mullen via the good guys at BassGear in Twyford. Wish me luck - it's been a real trial getting the Gk-3B-Kit out of Roland, who seemed to go to sleep! I've told the guys to take pics as the bass will get some new routs out the back for 18V electrics and the MIDI kit needs a lot of room in there. Aguilar OBP-3 makes it sparkle (the stock pups have quite a good sound, just too quiet).

Have struck up an email discussion with Roberto Musso over at SimpleBass in Italy. His latest 5 string creation is mouthwateringly good looking. Does anyone on here use one already? I'm hoping to get a real monster built, 6 with built in GK3B and actives with coil taps front and back.

Is it a whole LAN yard, or just a single Ethernet cable? ;-)

I build speed and dexterity by learning maiden with 2 finger gallops originally. When I started trying to learn some Sheehan era DLR, I started using 3 fingers (shy boy, etc) but recently started playing some maiden again and actually found the 2 finger gallop was still the way my brain wanted to play the songs. Somewhere in time is a real workout: loneliness of the long distance runner is excellent if you try to double mcbrain's double bass work. It's a useful skill if you can perfect it, 3 fingers: I've got exercises I've developed which work the 3 plucking fingers in 4 ways - 2 "directions", with leading finger and string skipping approaches. I use them as warmups (about 15 mins covering both hands) before playing a few scale parts. And at 42, my 3 fingers are still improving - triplet time at 132bpm is now almost possible in both directions, with recent breakthroughs on leading with my middle finger on "leading finger" exercises. As a result, I use 3 fingers pretty much all the time: eventually your right hand ring finger starts to join the party without being asked. ;-)

Another +1 for gonzo here. That was quite a well phrased post.

Because it can get you a season in Andorra ;-) actually that was a long time ago, but I'm still kicking around with the same band occasionally. Cover bands are lucrative and the audience is always appreciative if the band can match the sound well enough. As an example, the band was lucking enough to pick up a guitarist named Ryan who had the authentic talk box for "living on a prayer". Normally I wouldn't have been seen dead playing a bon jovi cover and it caught be off guard, but as soon as he started with the talk box guitar I lost every ounce of cynicism as the pub went mental. Truly mental. I even sang backing vox. That's why I do it - because musicians love feedback, and you get feedback faster from a covers band. That's why as a creative musician you always feel slightly dirty afterwards. It's the addiction to validation of your shedding time ;-)