PinkMohawk

I considered the wax, but I'm looking for less Brazilian rosewood (which is lovely) and more pitch black ebony. It'll probably make more sense when I finally get all the parts in and get to work on the bass itself, but it's going to be all black with gold hardware, and I want it pitch black. I've got an Epi Grabber/Ripper, can't remember which, that I repainted with that Black 2.0 paint which was great, but wear and tear has worn through the paint in a lot of places, and I want this bass to be jet black as much as possible. That leather dye result looks the business, a few coats of it looks like it'll get as dark as I'm looking for.

Hey all, I'm gearing up for a project bass that I bought years ago and never got around to doing anything with. I'd prefer it to be a maple fretboard, but it's not, and I'm not willing to try removing and replacing it with maple, so instead I'm going to go with making the rosewood as pitch black as possible, so I'm turning to the experts here to see if anyone knows a way to turn rosewood as dark as possible without just painting it.

You could try using the Kindle app as a PDF viewer? I've been using my Scribe for a while as a PDF reader, just downloading charts and tabs and whatever else to my PC, then sending it to my Kindle via the browser. Then in the Kindle app I organise them however I need, bring up the ones I want and then it's just tapping through them like any other document. If all you're doing is looking through charts and you don't need any extra functionality, that'd probably be a good bet for you.

I agree that locking tuners are unnecessary, I mostly just like the design of the buttons instead of the usual clovers or Y-keys haha.

I am, for better or worse, one of those haters of this new 're-issue' of the Grabber. I'm sure that, as its own thing, taken without considering where the Grabber started, it's a very good bass. For me though, there are too many little issues that get in the way for me to truly want this bass. For one, I think the price is a joke. £900+ for something like this is just asking far too much, not when the hardware specs are what they are. The pickguard/body misalignment is an infuriating little visual detail that just really puts me off as well. The lack of sliding pickup, especially at this pricepoint is a joke. If Kurtis Novak can be selling his own crack at the sliding plate for 50 bucks, I don't see any excuse for Epiphone to not have including their own shot at the sliding mechanism. It's not like we're talking about a hugely complex system of gears and pulleys, it's a sliding bit of plastic with a swimming pool route. Not exactly rocket surgery. I'd like to give one of these a go, but I don't think Epiphone will ever be seeing my cash for one, not unless they hire someone who's actually looked at an original Grabber first.

Not sure if you've seen it, but Kurtis Novak is offering his own reproduction of the sliding plate, and he's said that he'd be willing to route for a different pickup as well, if you wanted to get some Grabber-ness on one of these new ones.

Ooohh that's pretty slick. Not a huge fan of their headstock design but that's just personal preference. How do you find the Sperzels? Rare to see them on a bass.

I'd think your best shot at something like that would need to have piezo elements under each saddle. Obviously it'd need each string on it's own separate saddle to minimise crosstalk, but it might be feasible? Of course, then you're left with having to deal with the piezo sound rather than traditional magnetic pickups, and all the challenges in terms of tone that entails, especially if you want to run the signals through effects, but I don't really see a viable way to make it happen otherwise.

Looking forward to the inevitable video of someone much smarter than I taking that Lego kit and turning it into a working Minimoog.

Oh for sure, I didn't mean to make it sound like the engineers were blameless when it comes to venues like that. I was there on a visit for the Biffy shows they did over a few nights last year, Jon Burton (ex The Prodigy engineer) is their engineer, and he had it sounding huge with the in-house system (point of interest, they were all running live amps on stage, at high volumes too. Anyone who's had a look at Simon Neil's rig will understand what a bear it is to deal with on a relatively small stage like that). What I was getting at with the 'get what you get' comment was that, if there's an inherent problem with the system/room combo, then sometimes you really can't do anything about it. Some engineers have the experience and skill to remedy those issues to the point that they don't get in the way of the mix, others don't. Anyway, to minimise my rambling, there's a huge amount of science and tech that goes into modern system design and implementation in modern day touring, all of which becomes totally moot the minute you get a crap engineer working the faders and making the calls about system tuning.

The Ultimate Guitar app lets you do this with their midi tracks, the official ones that they put out themselves. Transpose, slow down, solo instruments, all that good stuff, it's what I use a lot for practicing new songs, and if I connect to the PA in the practice room it'll fill in for missing members or whatever else I need. Of course, it's not the actual tracks, but depending on your use case, it might work for you.

Absolutely, my mentor always preached what he called 'Democracy of sound' as his key principle (Well, that and 'bring more subs'). Effectively, making sure that everyone gets as close to the same sound as everyone else. He'd work closely with his system engineer to make sure that the sound was as even as they could get it across the room. It's easier to do in arenas and other 'empty rooms' where the band is bringing in the full rig, and things can be much more easily customised to achieve the desired results. When it comes to older venues, you're often stuck with whatever they've got installed. Shepards Bush Empire is a good example of this, they've had the same point source system for a long time now, and any band coming in isn't just going to dismantle that system to hang their own, because there just isn't anywhere to hang a line array from. You get what you get out of the system, and you just have to roll with it. That said, I do believe they're updating their system soon, in the next year or so? Not sure on the timescale.

They still do, since they have the HB Thunderbird style bass, they've got a solid looking gigbag to go with it. If you're looking for a hardcase, I think the generic ones they sell would probably work? I've got one that just fits my Grabber, though it's a tight fit, so I might be wrong on that count. Yeah, I like it, but compared to an actual RD it doesn't quite seem right to my eye, though obviously that's where they got the shape from.

Nowt wrong with Ethercon, been used for a long time in pro touring applications. As long as you're buying proper Ethercon cables, not just regular cat5 you'll be fine. If you'd like an example, basically every major tour, festival, show, what-have-you, will be running Ethercon cables from the stage to FOH. Basically no-one is using analogue snakes for those long runs anymore.

As a sound engineer myself, I feel I should defend my colleagues. I won't though, because yeah, most of them are a little too heavy handed with the low end. There is the old 'power alley' problem, where FOH tends to be situated directly central to the stage, which leads to the sound all hitting them first, ignoring reflections and the room and enabling the engineer to mix while not considering what everyone else is experiencing. Another is yes, engineers not walking the room and getting a feel for the mix that everyone else will be hearing. And of course, half of them are most of the way to deaf and can't tell that the mix is arse anyway. My goal when I'm running the board is to make sure that yes, there's plenty of bass, but even more importantly, that that bass is clear and punchy and well defined, not just a wall of mush that blows out everything else. Modern metal mixes tend to fall into that trap a lot I find, since the guitarists love to crank up the low end on their modellers with no consideration for the bassist, assuming they actually have a bassist and aren't just using a backing track for bass as is getting more and more common. That leaves us in the unfortunate situation of either the engineer being a guitarist as well, and cranking that up higher in the mix, or just not being able to cut lows enough to let the bass breathe in the mix without destroying the guitars. It's all a horrible balancing act that often leaves me wanting to chuck a glass at their heads and tell them to shove off and ruin someone else's mix.

I'm not sure where that rep comes from, as for my money, Fat Mike was always one of the more impressive punk players, with more than his fair share of intricate, complex lines. And yeah, he's singing while playing them live too, which makes it all the more impressive. I do still prefer Matt Freeman's playing, but I've never agreed with the thought that Fat Mike was lacking in terms of skill.

I mean, for the money that you were looking to pay, you were only a little ways off of a Shuker, his cheapest builds start at £1700, and you'd be getting it from a builder with a solid rep as well. Well, suppose it'll be interesting to see what happens next.

Yeah there's a lot of weirdness the more I think about it. I'd really want to take a screwdriver to one and take it apart before I agreed to pay the money for it. That second rout is right under the bridge too, right? What the hell goes there? I'm not too broken up about the lack of natural finish, though stains would be nice, and even a veneer wouldn't be much more expense. I don't know, it could be an interesting buy, but I need more details on these first.

I think, especially with a board like the Temple Audio boards and their stick on mounts, or I keep seeing ads for a small company called Boardmods, they make 3D printed replacements for the mounts that swap with the baseplate of most pedals, or for some bigger ones attach with the screws, it'll be pretty viable. Now that I think about it, Rockboard as well have their own quickswap, no velcro mounts as well, though a completely different system to Temple, and perhaps less space efficient as well.

Jumping on the guard hate bandwagon, goddamn that thing is ugly. I'm not sure if it can be removed either, since I can't tell if the rear rout covers all of the pots, or if the pickguard is covering a top rout as well? Definitely a candidate for some arts and crafts though, cut it down to something much more pleasant to look at. Other than that, it's ticking boxes for me.

Oh absolutely, I wouldn't expect any weekender band to be paying out for a pro level desk, even the 'cheap' ones. Oohh that's rough, that'd have me sending an angry email.