MoonBassAlpha

@Baloney Balderdash Out of interest, what headphones are you using? I've come across issues with earbud phones that have a mic connection as not all sockets make the ground connection nicely with the extra ring on the plug, especially when using 1/4" to 1/8" adaptors. HTH

Earlier this year, during lockdown, I was asked if I'd like to contribute bass to an online collaboration with California Power Pop record label Big Stir Records' bosses Rex Broome and Christina Bulbenko, and friends (as their alter ego band The Yes It Is!) Full credits are: Rex Broome - Guitar, Vocals Christina Bulbenko - Keyboards, vocals Larysa Bulbenko - Violin/viola, vocals Dolph Chaney - Lead guitar, vocals Karen Basset - Drums Blake Jones - Backing vocals on chorus Jules Moss - fretless bass Mixed by Peter Watts of Spygenius

You mean the numbers that aren't there? Nice try though, but that's not it!

Just thought I'd share this issue, and the solution. A recently acquired Mexican Mustang bass (was new this year) had a subtle issue I found. The volume and tone worked normally at first glance, but actually, when the tone control was fairly far down, the volume control no longer worked in a linear manner. The volume suddenly drops below about 8 (there are no actual numbers on these!) I've found the solution, but would you guys care to have a guess? (maybe you've come across it yourself?) Enjoy!

Might just be worth checking the 3rd or 4th fret isn't a tiny bit high. You can check this by rocking a credit card on the lower frets, spanning 3 adjacent frets at a time.

Earlier this year (first lockdown) I contributed a bassline to a cover being put together by the owners of Big Stir Records in California (we did a couple of digital singles for them) This has been released, but there are some bits I wanted to change (some of the vocal harmonies were just plain weird) so it's getting some tweaks and should be up by the end of next weekend.

Lovely looking finish! Nice work there.

Are Elites still available even? I used to buy them all the time, but haven't for about 20 years.

Red silks on Rotosound last time I used them (years ago)

Something like this?

For me, that's the perfect single cut upper bout shape. Lovely design work. This would be a nice match for my buckeye headless Sei...

I wouldn't go anywhere near a bass with anything containing acetone. It's vicious stuff on many plastics.

A digital storage oscilloscope would do a good job

Good stuff chaps! Unusually, the top 3 came out in my order of preference too.

If it's PVA, I'd go the gentle heat route, hairdryer. I've tried stripping poly off with heat and a hairdryer wouldn't have touched it.

Yeah! Why not?

I've always found ACG's single cut like this: https://www.acguitars.co.uk/project/028recurveclassic5-2/ to be the most pleasing design as it gets away from the sperm whale look, and is more sleek.

On the other short scale thread I asked what these are like. Anyone reading this thread got one?

"Hi Jules, Further thoughts: Those Laney Supergroup 50’s and 100’s are indeed essentially based upon the old Fender Tweed 5F6A Bassman / Tweed 5F8A High Power Twin (see also Marshall JTM45/ Marshall Super Lead/ Plexi) circuits respectively, but lovingly made in Brum with heavy industrial steel chassis and Radiospares capacitors, resistors and other parts (like most British amps of that era). The key to them sounding distinctive despite this, in my opinion, is the use of a certain strain of Partridge Transfomers (different to those Partridge types used in say, Hiwatts) that have Primary windings with impedances that bias up in such a way that there's always some evident crossover distortion regardless of idle current, though not unmusical. There's also a unbypassed shared common 10 Ohm cathode resistor between the cathodes and the chassis for reading the overall bias current as a voltage (by Ohms law: 1V = 100mA) which might just cause some tangible cross-coupling or back-biasing. In my experience anyway they've never sounded especially clean, perhaps this was somewht deliberate, as the late 60’s timeline fits the advent of then-fashionable heavy rock, who knows? ! I only had one 100 in for a service (I’ve done several 50’s) and noted that it used a big Wirewound resistor rather than a choke in the HT supply (some do, some don’t, but all the 50’s I’ve seen had chokes fitted). One amp guru I know detracts from Laney’s by saying they sound "like a Marshall with a cold” However, I still really like them for guitar (adopts Brummie accent “yeah roight….wouldn’t mind one meself, loike") as they sound very ‘electric’ and scary, in a good way and don't need cranking quite as loud as a Marshall to achieve that ‘smear' from saturation! 'Hear me Calling’ on the 'Slade Alive!’ from 1971 is testament to that Laney sound: there are Supergroups visible in the ‘live’ session photos. More obvious than Sabbath as far as i’m concerned. But I guess Geezer Butler also had quite a fruity tone when he used them. The Paranoid recording session photos from 1970 show a 100W Laney Supergroup head and cab for Geezers bass, but also a Vox AC30 with Rangemaster treble booster(s) behind Tony Iommi, which I suspect he used (as did Ritchie Blackmore similarly when in the studio e.g. on 'Machine Head’). I’ve been listening to late-era Move and early ELO today….guess I’m a ‘Brumbeat enthusiast'! Hope this helps." Reproduced from an email, with permission, from my acquaintance Dan Coggins, designer of Lovetone pedals, and more recently, Dinosaural and Thorpy FX I hope you find this useful, there was another email about amps he considers louder, but that's slightly outside the scope of this thread!

Back in the 60s you would have played one of these through 2 4x12 cabs, so that would have been plenty loud enough! I asked a valve amp expert about this issue, and unsurprisingly, he had quite a lot to say. Long and short of it was these do not stay as clean as some similar power designs. I can post here or pm if you're interested?

The one I did had only 3 controls and the 2 switches. V,v,t.

Nice job!

If the fretless was fretted I would have bought this off you! I love an ebony board. Which one do you still have?

One thing to bear in mind when you get the paint off is the front and back will have a layer of veneer, so don't expect anything attractive, cos it isn't!