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NancyJohnson

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Everything posted by NancyJohnson

  1. NancyJohnson
    Here's the Scarab I bought at The Bass Centre, Wapping some time in the 1990s. It sounded great, piano like tone, beautiful neck, it balanced quite nicely. The only thing I'd criticise was the finish...for such a new bass, there was a ton of crackage. At one point, I considered having the body worked to make it a little more contemporary, but finally just moved it on. What a stack that Laney was as well.
  2. NancyJohnson
    The series one Cruise was as different as a mk1 Precision to the Precision bass we know now. They had different body/headstock shapes, the series one had pointier horns, a P/J pickup configuration and a Hamer badged Schaller high-mass bridge. There was also two headstock variants. US made. Designwise, the series two was just softer all round...the 2Tek bridge involved a major body rout to accomodate it. Generally J/J pickup config. Produced in the US and Korea (the Korean one had a BBOT bridge). I'd take a solid colour series one any day of the week. It's uber-cool and they don't go for much either...sub 500 English pounds. I post up in the Wanted section for on every so often. No joy yet.
  3. NancyJohnson
    I'm curious. For a company that was synonymous with production of high quality instruments out of their Chicago shop (and some decent far-east made guitars), there's barely a whisper on here or Talkbass. I still have one and am still trying to track down a series one Cruisebass. I've owned three...they all played great.
  4. NancyJohnson
    @Tech21NYC You have a lot of love over this side of the pond. We'd love to know what's going in in your R&D rather than the odd comment!
  5. NancyJohnson
    Sorry, just so to avoid a little confusion (I've had a load of PMs). 1) The Tech 21 VTBASS DI is not for sale...it went a while back. The photos are representative as to what the board looks like; the VTBASS isn't listed in the advert. 2) One member here has first dibs on the board & bag, end mix panel and speakon powercon socketry. I have made it clear (and we have agreement) that in the unlikely event that none of the stomps sell, I will hold onto the board until most of them do as I don't want a load of pedals and no board (because that would just be stupid!). Paul
  6. NancyJohnson
    I've just decided to have a bit of a clearout. Here goes.. Sansamp BDDI. £150.00 Has just become a bit redundant since the arrival of my GED2112. You know what this does. Clean, no tin. Sansamp GT2 £80.00 Nicely roadworn. I've run this in a dual channel setup with the BDDI and it sounds epic. Combined it gives an acceptable dUg style tone. Lovely. Boss ODB-3 £40.00 You all know what this is. Clean. No idea of the going rate. £40? Boss TU-3 Tuner £40.00 It's white. It's a tuner. Morley ABY box £40.00 Signal splitter. Temple Audio Duo17 board, soft case, modular end panels. Moving along to the board, I really wasn't a fan of Velcro, so went with a Temple Audio Duo 17 board. (https://templeboards.co.uk/collections/duo/products/duo-17) It's a robust professional 17x12 board with modular end panels; I've added a 4-way Jack patch panel (£40) and Neutrik Speakon PowerCon (£20) to handle input power. Carry case was £40. There's a Harley Benton Power Plant (£40) powering the whole board, which has run faultlessly. The little silver box on the board is a little lamp that illuminates the board via a gooseneck lamp fitting and I'll throw that in. Effects are attached to the board via adhesive quick release plates - see here: QuickRelease I have a few small plates that I haven't used, so I'll throw these in too. £150 for the board and power brick. If anyone is interested in the whole thing, let me know. I used this set up for some live studio and TV stuff I did last year with the old old. Videos below.
  7. NancyJohnson
    I haven't read all the comments, but I have my desired tone, my drummer wants something else. By and large, the audience don't give a rats-donkey what my bass sound's like.
  8. NancyJohnson
    You do have the option with a Sansamp of switching between line and instrument for the XLR output which will alter the XLR output strength and ideally the Sansamp should be at the end of your signal chain. You can always tweak the level down as well (it's not always about getting the hottest signal possible into the desk). I've never been a fan of sticking any pre-stage into the front of an amp either. Your Trace gear will have it's own tonal characteristics (and from memory the whole SMX fascia it pretty much there to shape and filter what hits the poweramp side of the head). All you're doing is loading the Sansamp pre-stage output on top of the Trace pre-stage, so things will get muddy. Neither the Trace or Sansamp operate on a true bypass format, so both units will work together and generally not for the best. There's an argument that for best results, the Sansamp should just go into the effects return on any amp (just use the 1/4" output jack), thus bypassing the pre-stage. (You may need to put a jack plug, or one of this mini-jack to 1/4" headphone connectors, into one of the amplifier's front inputs to facilitate this.) This way the Sansamp will control your entire tone. I know there's a lot of controls that will become obsolete, but try it, you might be surprised.
  9. NancyJohnson
    And he's wearing a beanie. Indoors.
  10. NancyJohnson
    I just watched from a few minutes in (and only a bit of it) and honestly it made my chest hurt. You know, there's this whole thing that we refer to as showboating; you know the type of guy, you're in a music shop, someone comes in, picks up a bass, turns up, goes rackity-rackity-slap-pop-pop-pop* and frankly it's just an unmusical mess that contextually you ask yourself how the feck does it fit into a band scenario. (*In fact, this will be the soundtrack to next month's bass show.) It's almost like these guys have found something they can do with a bass that has little or no relevance whatsoever; I used to have a Saturday job in a butchers, the guy who ran the shop had a party piece in that he could juggle with meat cleavers. Man alive, it was the highlight of my Saturdays, but that alone doesn't make him a good purveyor of raw meat. OK, that guy can do something we can't, but meh. Irrespective of the talent elsewhere, to repeat a quote from an earlier post, yes, it does sound crap and while initially I was going to say I'm sorry if this upsets anyone, my apologist period was last week. Those little double thumb nuances will just get lost once you start adding other instruments and a voice. It's a nonsense.
  11. NancyJohnson
    I did some work at a trade show a while back (London, Docklands) and was demonstrating for Conklin and RBS. When I arrived they gave me one of these and pretty much said, 'Here you are, off you go.' I'd only ever played a four string up to that point, so was horribly out of my depth. That said, after about an hour of noodling, the Conklin felt oddly comfortable and playable. It was just a fantastic thing. I begged them to let me have it in payment when the show finished (sadly, only money changed hands), but it was going off on your to other shows. £750 is a steal. These are amazing extended instruments.
  12. NancyJohnson
    Ooh, I just found a chrome pickup cover. That's going on.
  13. NancyJohnson
    For a while now, I've had a load of bass bits sitting around in my garage...essentially enough to make a Precision bass. Everything was a bit knocked about, so it seemed only right to knock it about a bit more and screw it together. The basic neck/body are from an old Sunn Mustang; an Indian built Fender-licensed Precision bass copy. The neck was covered in a really think varnish, so I sanded that back and oiled it. It was originally black, I'd sprayed it red years ago and done a matching headstock (which I also rubbed back). The bridge? Dunno, It's roughly a BadAss II in size, heavy...it's been in a box for years. I bought some Wilkinson tuners (£25) and a Warman pickup (£13) - I've used Josi Warman's stuff on other guitars, it's cheap and top notch. Old set of Dunlop Straploks. Bought a pre-wired loom (£10, incl. knobs) and a minty-green scratchplate (£17)...broke out the soldering iron and it lives. I was considering putting in an MM pickup, but to be honest, it was more hassle than it's worth, so Josi helped me out. It doesn't sound too bad really. Neck is nice and straight, action is good an rattly. I might put a decal on the headstock (not a Fender one). Dunno if it's a keeper, but it plays nicely, so maybe.
  14. NancyJohnson
    Bump.
  15. NancyJohnson
    Fiebing Oil Dye maybe? See my thread elsewhere...they do different colours, so you could try and blend colours.
  16. NancyJohnson
    Lasers. You need lasers.
  17. NancyJohnson
    It was/is oil dye, so it's not going to dry out the mahogany. I'm unsure whether I'll (lemon) oil the board again either; it's the only board I've ever oiled and to be honest I only did it to darken it.
  18. NancyJohnson
    Just to revisit this, there has to be some direct correlation between manufacturers and headstock shapes. I figure that there's a ton of old Jazz and Precision copies that are reasonably faithful to the originals they're based on. Whenever the headstock design changes to something a little less Fender, we probably feel that as it's less faithful, it must be awful. Thing is, while there's a slew of terrible instruments on the market now, hiding behind Aria headstock logos, these are probably still a country mile better than the stuff I had when I was starting out with 30 years ago.
  19. NancyJohnson
    I'd be up for one with a 10,000 year old mammoth nut.
  20. NancyJohnson
    Just to get back on track, I'm thinking of ordering another Mike Lull with a bradypus pygmaeus body, a brachylophus top and a honey badger fingerboard.
  21. NancyJohnson
    I do have the ability to play clean as well, Rich! It's amazing. There's this control on my pre-amp that has the word 'GAIN' on it, just roll that knob back and the dirt disappears. Who knew?
  22. NancyJohnson
    Mate, you're on a hiding to nothing here. I'd watched that film some time back and yes, it's interesting to see into the mind of a luthier, BUT irrespective of being meticulous, he's dealing with a natural product, the matter that he's drawing his wood from the same stock is meaningless, even if it all came from the same tree, while the DNA would be the same, it's still a natural product; it contains flaws and nuances that do not carry from plank to plank. It's no more identical than two bananas in the same hand.
  23. NancyJohnson
    I'm assuming this was at a Bass Bash, but what were the control conditions? I remember one of the cabinet shoot outs a couple of years ago, every cabinet was on display and Nick was wiring the speakers in front of everyone, so everyone knew what was being used. When you were demonstrating basses, were you behind a curtain or anything so people couldn't see what you were playing? As a species, our objectivity is swayed by visual as well as aural input; one persons desired tone is not someone else's and if, for instance, someone loves 1960s Jazz basses, they will always love what it sounds like irrespective of what it sounds like. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of maple boards but that's just because I don't like the look of them, but that said, the sole bass I own with a maple board sounds pretty much the same as the ones I have with rosewood or ebony boards. Strings, pickups, tone cap, outboard, pre/power stage, cabinets all have way more input on what the instrument sounds like than a 24x2" plank of rosewood.
  24. NancyJohnson
    Mine just arrived...it works fine, looks a little flimsy, but it was £2.00. As it's going to be clipped to a headstock, it does surprise me that the display isn't 90° rotated it's more easily read, but I'm a selfish right hander.
  25. NancyJohnson
    I was awake at 4.00am this morning and like you do, I fired up the my tablet and did some reading up on CITES (or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna), or more specifically what it's impact will be on the manufacture, sale, import and export or musical instruments. Remember too that CITES covers a whole gamut of species from Honey Badgers to Bubinga. I read a few articles and it really is getting to be that there's a load of guff circulating about rosewood, it's use, it's historical use etc. Getting my crystal ball out, I see a distant future where sellers will replace 70s lawsuit with pre-convention rosewood. One of the shorter and more concise pieces was on the Music Radar site. It's short enough to hold your interest and there's enough in there to make the enquiring mind do more research. I suppose the thing that I find laughable to this day is the insistence that, away from the decorate stance, rosewood sounds better on fingerboards. Yes, there's an obviously an argument that there will be an infinitesimally small difference in resonance from rosewood over other woods, but I'd wager that in a blind-test shoot-out* of fingerboards (on several basses) made of ebony, maple, rosewood, pao ferro, ironwood, aluminium, carbon fibre etc. no one would be able to score 100%.
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