Passinwind

Up to 4 now, the most ever in 47+ years of playing. 2 fretless fours, one fretted five, and an EUB.  I really only have the time to keep up on two regularly, but two BGs and one upright would be my ideal if I could make room for an acoustic upright. I despise selling stuff so I'll probably just stick with things as they are in any case.

20 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Let me tell you a little story that happened to a friend of mine. He ordered last year an F-Bass Alain Caron Replica 6 strings through the official retailer in Paris. His bass along with 4 others were blocked by the French customs because one of them had a rosewood fingerboard, but they didn't know which one it was. UPS France did a terrific job by loosing the official CITES certificate that MUST be original. After 4 months of waiting I wrote to Marcel Furlanetto as my friend doesn't speak English at all and Marcel sorted it all within 2 weeks. My friend got his F-Bass Alain Caron Replica 6 by the end of January 2019 instead of early September 2018... And this just because of the total incompetence in that matter by the French customs which preferred to block 5 basses when only one needed a CITES certificate.

I don't think they can really tell the difference between plastic and wood.

In the USA, you've got specialised offices; in Europe, we have dumber than dumb customs officers.

It's about time that the guys at the CITES realise that the musical instruments are absolutely not endangering the woods of Appendix I, II and III, and focus on the real culprits.

It's a real mess, even if you deal with a sympathetic and competent agent as I did. In my case the bass was old enough to be exempt from the Appendix II regulations, but I still needed two different permits from completely different entities to document that exempt status, which took a couple of months to come through in one case. And the bass still got impounded in Europe, since the guy on the other end hadn't realized he needed his own importer's permit. Fortunately he was able to procure that permit very quickly, but that seems to vary wildly country by country.

19 hours ago, Dood said:

Which raises the question, given that customs and excise probably don't know their Brazilian from their Indian, will instruments with what looks like Rosewood on be halted in passage anyway, no matter where it came from. Thus, it's probably not going to be that helpful lifting restrictions. Border control are still going to be busy and bits of paper will still need to be signed - and paid for? 

At least in the case of the US Fish and Wildlife senior inspector I met and dealt with when exporting an old bass, he was extremely well versed in identifying wood, and fully capable of taking a core sample and using an electron microscope and other relevant tools. But at the same time, he was very friendly and respectful and the last thing he wanted to do was molest my 40 year old bass. I brought along extensive documentation and he went online to verify it on the spot, FWIW. The process was very onerous and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I was lucky enough for it to only take a 13 hour day to drive to the nearest of the dozen or so specialist inspection stations in the US, get it shipped out from the same city (which was highly recommended), and drive back home. 

1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

At last, some people opened the eyes and ears of the bureaucratic people at the CITES. And it was about time. Being a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard lover for my fretless basses, it became a real hassle to buy basses fitted with this wood... And I'm not even talking of selling some of them.

Hope this will really take place at the soonest.

Brazilian rosewood apparently will still not be exempt, as it is  explicitly listed in Appendix I and the new legislation applies to Appendix II species.

On 11/08/2019 at 09:19, funkgod said:

I am interested to see how many musicians think music is getting worse, cant just be me. i will be honest i don't know what is in the charts right now, i think as we get older we choose a direction and tend to explore that to the point of it getting so involved everything goes by the way side, i am very guilty of this, on saying this i do believe music is getting worse. here is a vid, i wonder how many people agree with this, and the big question for those that agree  is there a way back ?

i realise this topic is going to open a few cans, so i am going to try add a poll to see if you agree with the vid or not. Be interesting to see the outcome.

The TRUTH Why Modern Music Is Awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

I got a minute into the 2 1/2 minute commercial at the front end. Nope, that's a fail.  And I do believe that consuming music via videos rather than in audio format is the Debbil's Work.   But beyond that, what's on the charts stopped mattering when I hit puberty and gained the ability to buy whatever music I wanted to listen to. From my perspective, I still have acccess to all the old stuff (if it was recorded it's modern in my book) plus whatever new things I happen to find today or tomorrow or next week. I just don't see how that can be construed as being worse.

On 14/07/2019 at 00:27, Newfoundfreedom said:

I can't be the only one, can I?

Hate is a bit too strong a word in my case, but I haven't played a single gig yet this year and that doesn't bother me in the least. I did two last year, both sub gigs I got calls for on the day of the show. I've always preferred working on the technical/production side as far as live music, but I stopped doing that several years ago and don't really miss that either. Any and all of that could change tomorrow, or not. But the important thing is that I'm enjoying playing bass more these days than ever before, either by myself or in a few different regular jams I'm involved in.

9 hours ago, PunkPonyPrincess said:

I’m planning a new bass at the moment and I was going to get some stickers made but I thought it might be more fun to actually have a scratch plate laser cut and with stencil text and a logo so that the colour underneath the instrument comes out through the pickguard

Before I begin this process has anybody tried this?

My buddy Marco Cortes at Marco Bass Guitars has done lots of laser cut scratch plates, control plates, and truss rod covers, including some clear ones. You do need to pay extra attention to the materials you use, but your idea should be totally do-able.

12 minutes ago, Merton said:

Remind me, @Passinwind, did you do a build thread or similar for your amp? V intrigued by it

Here's some back story: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/a-diy-1-2-rack-bass-preamp.1135423/#post-16982343

And the earlier 500 watt one, which uses the same preamp boards: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/a-diy-500-watt-bass-head.1061473/#post-15624273

There are quite a few sound clips floating around on Facebook from NAMM in 2017 and 2018, when two different versions were in a luthier friend's booth. But I'm no longer on FB, so I suppose I should post them on my website or somewhere. But since I'm not selling them, it seems easier to just be a slacker!

Home practice rig: DIY 15/6/1 cab, DIY 600 watt head.

7 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Fortune and Fame has passed by many of us. That's not a big deal, occasionally we're out and about and someone recognizes you. YAY!

Share your brief brush with fame where someone local recognizes you when your not performing.

 

Local? Dozens, at least. Many know me from my years mixing club sound, others usually from seeing me in fairly high profile local winery or festival gigs on bass, and then a whole lot more from when I was running open mics.

I had a German guy I'd never seen before come up to me one time on the sidewalk in my home town and start singing one of my old original tunes.

I've also had quite a few strangers at NAMM recognize my face and/or my name, mostly folks who hang on Talkbass, but the last time around also from Facebook users.

2 hours ago, stevie said:

Composing pm now......

Back at you. Pretty sure we could make this work, but how quickly is an open question.

24 minutes ago, stevie said:

It's fine, guys. I didn't want to post anything until I had something worth posting about. There has been a bit of a deadly silence over the past weeks, I admit.

Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff that remains to be done depends on having a finished box, and the delays and pink torpedo-ups made by my CNC supplier has made that impossible until now.

Still, I'm hoping to pull all the threads together next week. Watch this space. I do appreciate everyone's patience.

Hey Stevie,

 I have a luthier friend here in The Colonies with a big CNC cutter sitting idle. I think it'd be an easy sell to get him to do a few test runs for fab file verification, if that's of interest. My friend just needs to start making sawdust at this point, and I would be happy to play middleman as much as needed. I usually get over there at least once a month, it's a couple of hours away from my place. Closer for me than you though!

In  any case, good on you, and it'll be done when it's done.

16 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

I have a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin's electric playing in the few years before the MO - the spots with Miles Davis, Lifetime, Carla Bley etc.  For me, there's something compelling about that era when he was beginning to bring in rock elements but just cranking up through whatever combo he had around, rather than the pre-meditated wall of Marshalls. 

Me too. My Goal's Beyond (sic) and Spaces were huge favorites amongst my crew back in the day as well.

9 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

When did the electric guitar become such a pariah?

It didn't. Once the damaging SPLs required to fill a big room with rock distortion from the stage in the late 60's were no longer needed, guitarists who insisted on cranking 100watt Marshalls where informed that such behaviour was not necessary any more... and to this day some of them can't accept it.

All the eye witness reports I've heard of Hendrix live onstage are that the sound was abysmal- a squall of unintelligible guitar and everything else inaudible. I wasn't there so can't confirm it, but the notion that all bands sounded glorious when all they had were coily cables and volume knobs is very likely myth. Iconic, but myth.

I'd say plenty of people still love the electric guitar- it's a shame to lose those glorious tones (and the rest of the band) to sheer, damaging, and unpleasant volume.

Yep. I saw the original Mahavishnu Orchestra lineup a few times. Great band, but only really tolerable volume-wise in a hockey arena, far far away from the squalor onstage. Bands like Grand Funk, Mountain, and even Jefferson Airplane were even worse though.

9 hours ago, Beer of the Bass said:

It's odd, just after seeing Mr Bonamassa explain that electric guitarists must use all of the amps, turned all of the way up, all of the time, I pottered over to another forum where double bassists were bragging about using no amp and supposedly never needing one even with drums.  And both were equally absolute about it!  

When I saw Charlie Mingus play he used no amp. He also told everyone to sit down and shut up, or else he was gonna clock 'em. Too bad Mingus is gone, we could've had a proper cage match between those two.

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

And I guess the important thing with all of this discussion around Q is not to get overly concerned / bogged down (as I am rapidly in danger of doing myself - haha!).

A key point is that a "surgical Q" in the context of bass tone doesn't necessarily imply a better tone. In fact a broader and smoother Q could well be the better sounding option. 

Yep. And boosting and cutting often benefit from different bandwidths. Then there's the factor of how many bands we are using, because interactivity comes into play. I've measured and/or designed and built quite a few bass preamps, and to me this yet another "just depends" kind of a thing.

13 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

No it’s an ICEPOWER 700AS1 I BELIEVE pure class d

According to Pat Quilter it's a modified Class D module from the QSC K Series powered cabinet line, built on the QSC production line in California. QSC originally = Quilter Sound Company.

5 hours ago, la bam said:

Looks like the Quilter might be class B.

Source, please?

On 19/04/2019 at 02:37, Chienmortbb said:

I have had a response fro Hypex and they will only supply if I am a Limited Company. So it looks like ICEpower for now. I have ordered some for the pre-amp but I think maybe we should start a new thread. What do others think?

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with John. I'm not a fan of powered cabs or combo amps as a DIY thing at all, so it'll be fun to watch someone else suffer through the engineering challenges this time!

On 20/03/2019 at 09:50, four/five said:

Has anyone put together a pre amp with any of the Class D modules now available?

Yep, I've built around half a dozen. For starters, I assume you are OK with the fact that to do it right this will cost you more than a commercial solution?

You can see an brief overview of most of my builds here:  http://passinwind.com/DIY.html

I've also posted build threads on Talkbass, including:

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/a-diy-500-watt-bass-head.1061473/#post-15624273

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/a-diy-1-2-rack-bass-preamp.1135423/#post-16982343

The latter thread morphs from preamp to  matching power amp to a couple of all in one bass amp builds.

I've done a couple of separate tube preamps as well.

7 hours ago, itu said:

Have to say, that I love your work. The idea of having a fully parametric EQ in the preamp section is top! Many times I have had issues with different places: some frequency is dead or even worse, the other way around. On the other hand P-EQ gives many possibilities to tweak the sound of the bass. My Glockenklang Soul has very functional EQ - but it lacks parametric. I have a cheap para by Artec and it can save the place related issues. Quality it is not but can be a temporary help in need.

Thank you. I used to gig a lot on electric upright bass and, as it is for acoustic upright, killing wolf tones is often a dire need. I've been using PEQs for decades as a sound provider, so that is a very intuitive format for me, especially for dealing with room issues.

32 minutes ago, itu said:

Is your signal route active from the blend to tone or just tone? I am interested in the buffered mixing to prevent load issues with the pickups. Passive carbon pots are something I downright hate. I built few step attenuators with metal film resistors. I tried few different alternatives of how many dBs one step is and the total resistance. Simple maths.

Now I have a Noll Mixpot before a bartolini NTMB in my Modulus Graphite. Sound got an upgrade.

Cool. My friend uses a fair amount of Noll stuff and I'll ask him to get a Mixpot for us to play with.

So far I've just been using a standard passive front end control set into the preamp inputs. Personally, I generally prefer two volume controls to vol-blend, and these days I tend to embrace pickup loading as a natural and often good sounding deal. But as usual, that just depends. In some builds I use conductive plastic or cermet pots, and I have used stepped attenuators in some tube preamps where signal/noise was well better than 110dB. Yep, pots continue to be a major thorn in the paw, no doubt. I've also looked at using digital encoders, which may not please purists but do offer some tangible advantages.

My friend has asked me about active blends and I'll probably get around to that soon. On my new fretless I'm looking at trying discrete signal paths all the way from the pickups to two amps, and also at a clean/dirty split with a blend function for that instead. I'm always interested to hear what does or doesn't work for others though, as my wants and needs are far from typical.

57 minutes ago, itu said:

This is very good point. If that bass preamp can give as good a performance as that amplifier's preamp, fine. Think about Anthony Jackson's choice in his Foderas: a pickup, a wire and a Neutrik output jack. No preamp, no lousy pots. Maybe those mixing desks have somewhat better performance...

@Passinwind: Please tell me about your setup in greater detail.

All of my preamps have signal/noise ratio and distortion specs comparable to most good commercial bass amps. Headroom is sometimes not as good, mostly due to 9V powering, but still more than good enough IMHO. Job one is a vanishingly low noise floor and anything that fails that is not going into my builds in the long term.

Each bass has a different onboard preamp format and my main two players came from a luthier who explicitly wants me to experiment a lot. So right now I have my DIY'er oriented open source "filter" one in my fretted 5 string bass, and my modular 2 + 1 band boards in my new fretless. The fretless features outboard power and can easily be configured to a Ric-O-Sound sort of format since I used a 4 pin XLR output.

Most of my amps have variable high pass filters and a single band full parametric EQ. I see those as mostly tools for room correction, but the HPF interacts greatly with my onboard bass control and allows bass peaking at a wide variety of frequencies, which can have other useful applications than just avoiding room nodes, aka unwanted boom or dead zones. Bass, mid, and treble controls are all crafted to interact in musically beneficial ways. Neither the onboard set or the ones in the amp are "better", and the idea is that the sum of the parts is greater than the individual bits might suggest.

At this point I'm just s retired tech/hobbiest, but I have done a couple of commercial designs for my luthier friend. Right now they only are available in his basses, but he expects that to change sooner than later. I have nothing to do with the marketing, and am wrapping up pre-production building after having done several runs of around ten boards at a time. The most popular format at NAMM over the last couple of years has proven to be active bass and mids coupled with a standard passive treble control - this is my friend's standard offering for his Jazz Bass oriented active bass builds these days. When you switch into passive mode the tone control is just like a stock Fender format, more or less. We're currently working on at least three different active treble control modules, some of which may keep the passive one in play as well.

Most of the amp builds are detailed over on Talkbass, and there is also a brief overview here: http://passinwind.com/DIY.html

On 30/03/2019 at 02:31, Al Krow said:

Aguilar OBP-3?

John East?

Sadowsky?

Something else?

If you've replaced your 'standard' onboard bass EQ - what did you go for and what 'more' are you finding from having shelled out another £150 to £300?

I'm guessing most of you who have swapped out are playing your basses actively rather than passively, or is this not the case?

All three of my basses are always active, with no bypass switch even installed. As usual, I roll my own preamps. What they do better for me is interact well with my amps (which I also built, naturally). I design the whole ball of wax as an integrated system, as much as possible.