Beer of the Bass

I had an old Aria TSB-550 which had been defretted and had a full width brass inlay across the neck at the top fret position. It looked like a professional job that had been done early in the life of the bass, so I guess the idea must have had a bit of popularity at the time. I could never see the point of the brass plate myself, as I never liked the sound of fretless slap, but it was a lovely bass.

I'm working on a bass neck at the moment and would like a custom decal for the headstock. I'd prefer to have one printed rather than making one myself as although I have a laser printer, the print quality from it is never great. All I want is my name in a simple font (I'm not looking for a fake Fender style or similar), though silver ink in the centre would be great. Can anyone point me towards a decent supplier of decals to order? There are a few out there, but specific recommendations would be useful.

Yes, that's sad news indeed. He's been a major inspiration on my double bass playing as he was supremely musical, always sympathetic to what was going on around him and never really went in for any showboating. Though this may be somewhat selfish, I'm sad that I never managed to see him play. He was also a proper lefty of the old-fashioned sort, and I'm of the opinion that the world could do with some more of those...

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1405060466' post='2498332'] purely academically, but what kinda of super sensitive cab could make 30 valve watts work? Some kind of BFM cab? [/quote] One of the old-school approaches to getting the maximum useful volume out of low-wattage valve amps has been to use cabs tuned to have a hump in the midbass. Conveniently, this can often be achieved with quite inexpensive drivers in small cabs (hence the popularity of the cheap ceramic magnet Eminences as a replacement driver in the old B15n amps). This can sometimes sound boomy, but gets you an extra few decibels between 100 and 200Hz. I guess another factor is having guitarists who are on-board with the low-wattage concept! I wouldn't want to turn up with a 30 or 50 watt bass amp when the guitarist is using a 50 watter with a 4x12", but if they were using a small combo I might consider trying it.

I've had some parts from them for a guitar project, though it was only hardware not a neck. They were fine to deal with, the parts arrived quite quickly, were well packed and marked "gift" to avoid import duty. If you're wary of dealing with a company in Hong Kong, these guys also do maple board fretless necks and the price is not much higher than EY. [url="http://www.customworldguitarparts.com/default/"]http://www.customwor...ts.com/default/[/url] I've no experience with them but they look good in the photos!

If your endpin is the right diameter, I've had good results putting a 5 pence piece inside the bottom of a new rubber walking stick end to stop the endpin from wearing through it.

I've had an Ibanez power jack fail in the same way, and it turned out to be tiny hairline fractures in the PCB track around it rather than the socket itself. This was hard to see with the naked eye. So it may be worth tinning some fresh solder over the pads to see if that sorts it before replacing the socket.

There was a rather shouty and not terribly informative thread about these a few weeks ago. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/236382-barefaced-cabs-retro-six10-and-retro-two2/page__hl__barefaced"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/236382-barefaced-cabs-retro-six10-and-retro-two2/page__hl__barefaced[/url]

[quote name='Bigjas' timestamp='1404299720' post='2491245'] The strings feel fine to me and if they are quality ones thenI am inclined to leave them on for now. The action feels very high, it measures approx 15 mm at the end of the fingerboard. Looking at previous threads on the subject I think I will lower it a bit to see if it makes it easier to play. [/quote] Ooft! 15mm is crazily high for steel strings. Just by way of comparison, I have my strings at 8mm on the G to 10.5mm on the E at the end of the fingerboard (with similar strings to yours), and some players will go lower than that. You'd be wise to take it to a luthier to have the setup looked at rather than going DIY, especially as you're new to the instrument.

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1404221326' post='2490442'] Use plywood, much stiffer and lighter, what could be better? [/quote] Plywood bodied instruments can sound good if the pickups and setup are up to scratch, I've observed this myself. Even if you consider that body material can make some difference to the sound of an instrument, it doesn't necessarily follow that cheap material = bad sound. I'd say that ordinary plywood is still an inferior body material for other practical reasons though. The lamination lines often show through a solid finish after a few years and they're prone to cracking around bolt-on neck pockets due to the short grain in this area. A higher grade laminated wood might fare a little better, like the Ritter above.

I bet that's McNach's desk at work without a bass in sight and he'll be feeling just as impatient as you lot!

From the colour of the silk at the tailpiece end and the shape of the ball ends, those strings look like Thomastik Spirocores of some sort. Those are quality strings and last for a long time, so there's a good chance you might not need to change them any time soon. A good European laminated bass like that is fairly ideal as a starter bass, so I think you've done well there.

Photos! Corners rounded off and side dots added: Headstock cut down to depth and curved into fingerboard. Still some finish sanding to do here; And on to the frets. After experimenting with a rubber mallet (too light) and a regular hammer with a block of maple (too easy to mark the board), I ended up using a hammer with a piece of leather stuck to the end to avoid denting the frets and board. I'm using quite small frets here, close to vintage Fender size. This is mostly because I had some of this size fretwire in the house from another project! This felt like a job that would get easier with practice, but I got it done to my satisfaction eventually.

I wonder if the escalation in the power of bass amps over the years has something to do with the increasingly popular practice of miking the drums even in small venues, and the resultant need to sit alongside an amplified kick drum?

You could perhaps make a plywood adapter ring and fit a 15" driver, which would give you a lot more choice. This would also be quite reversible if you wanted to return the cab to original condition in future.

Two Compacts should definitely give you a fighting chance! They're quite efficient cabs already and you have two of them. I'd be tempted to give it a try.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1403963329' post='2488124'] Thanks guys looks like I have weichs then already so that option is out (I can probably find the Gedo invoice in my emails somewhere to see what I asked for), I dont know anything about fingerboard scoops, where am I looking? Thanks [/quote] It's much like adjusting the relief on a bass guitar neck, except that the scoop is carved into the fingerboard rather than set with a truss rod. If you hold a long straight edge along the fingerboard (or use the string), you'll see that the fingerboard is slightly concave along its length. The depth and shape of this curve make a big difference to how the bass feels to play. If it was way out, I'm sure Jake would have pointed it out when he played it, but there is some variation in setup for different styles etc and this might account for some of the difference in feel between the two basses.

Purple at the top end is definitely Spirocore Weich/Light, as the Mittel/Mediums are red at both ends. They come in both 3/4 and 4/4 which will have slightly different tensions on the same bass. Also, what's the fingerboard scoop like on the Gedo? A fingerboard with a lot of relief can make things feel stiffer for a given string height measured at the board end, as can a high nut.

I've got these handles on my 2x12", and the hole spacing measures the same as Fionn posted (I've just measured mine). There might be more comfortable handles out there, but these have been sturdy enough and have pressed steel rather than plastic ends. [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=ADH3423&browsemode=category"]http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=ADH3423&browsemode=category[/url]

How much speaker have you got? I used a 50 watt Selmer Treble n' Bass a few years back in my first band and while it would get loud enough for the small venues I played in it would be semi-dirty at that volume. That was with a not particularly great single 15" in a sealed cab though. Later when I used a 100 watt Carlsbro with a more efficient 2x12" cab it never sounded close to breaking up in similar sized venues, which made me wonder if a good 50 watt head could work with that cab.

After getting a bit distracted with other things for a while, I've pulled this back out and done some more work on it, though I keep forgetting to take photographs. I've added the side dots (2mm black plastic rod), drilled the tuner holes, cut the headstock depth and shaped the curve behind the nut. I'm leaving the back of the neck square to make fretting easier, and I'll contour it after fretting. Photos to follow soon. I also need to think about a headstock decal - I want to put my surname (Beer) on it, but I need to experiment a little with fonts and printing with laser decal paper...

I'm surprised Thomastik are discontinuing strings, as over on the double bass side they seem to have kept the same line-up of sets for decades with only very occasional minor changes.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1403635799' post='2484815'] Ive said it before even as an early uk built evo owner, I think the mag range sounds better. [/quote] Yeah, I've always liked the layout and EQ centres of the Mag preamp, and found it easy to find a sound I can use with them. Not all the combinations of rig I've tried using them have been to my taste, but that goes for most things.

I've never had a problem soldering on to the back of pots using a 25 watt iron. I use old fashioned tin/lead solder and clean the back of the pot with a bit of sandpaper first.

You may have to wire it like a Stack-knob Jazz bass with resistors (220k, iirc) between the volume controls and the output to prevent the tone controls interacting. This will lose you a little output, which may have been one of the reasons Fender moved away from the stacked knobs. Alternatively you could install a selector switch and wire it like a Les Paul. The two tone controls would still act like master tone controls when both pickups are on, but you can solo pickups using the switch and not lose any output.