Beer of the Bass

I've noticed that, but never been sure how much of it is down to me and not the bass. I do think mine is a bit duller sounding in very high humidity, particularly with the bow.

How's the B-string on yours? I tried some Status half-wounds on my five string and found the B string overly thumpy, but some of that could be down to my bass. I moved them over to my four string fretless, where I think I like them better.

I know we're not supposed to discuss him, but didn't a certain eBay seller do this with a mismatched set of tuners and tout it as a feature? Perhaps the idea wasn't so out-there after all!

It would be interesting to see how some of the honestly marketed copies (Superlux, Behringer etc.) measure up against the real ones. I wonder if they're better than the fakes, or the same thing with a different label?

From the couple of basses I've had with more than the optimum amount of relief, I have the impression that basses with too much relief tend towards thumpiness on the lower strings and any dead spots tend to be worse. Perhaps that's something to do with the stiffness of the neck, I don't know.

I think the implication was that what the names have in common is being entirely unremarkable in Germany. I noticed that C*ntz guitars have now altered their branding a little for the export market. They're now "A guitars", with the luthier's name in subscript.

Is she creating listings with generic copy and pasted info to take advantage of a free listings deal, then editing them to fill in the details later when she has time?

How does it sound with the tone control up full? The capacitor has very, very little effect when the tone control is at maximum, so if it still sounds bad, the problem is elsewhere.

The code 503 would be a 0.05uF capacitor, so only a couple of percent different from the recommended 0.047uF.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1400872575' post='2457836'] Maven Peal offer a 'variable sag circuit' with their amps so it would seem it can be done. Dunno if it's continuously variable or a fixed rotary click-set of different resistor ratings. And would it work with a single-ended amp? Best ask yer tech! [/quote] Yes, I've seen a few seasoned amp techs argue that rectifier sag does not occur to any significant extent on a single-ended amp, as the current demand does not vary with output in the same way it does on a class AB push-pull.

[quote name='Bloodaxe' timestamp='1400171122' post='2451443'] I like that... sort of Brand X meets National Health. [/quote] Yes, it's odd that the reviews so far haven't mentioned things like National Health when guessing at the influences. I feel like I can hear much more of that sort of thing (National Health, perhaps the riffier Hugh-Hopper era Soft Machine or touches of Henry Cow) in the music than I can the more conventional US jazz/fusion influences that the reviewers like to mention. I'm enjoying the album - it has a really pleasing purposeful/minimalist quality about it, no superfluous noodling at all. Which I suppose is almost a post-punk aesthetic...

I do get the impression that nylon tapewounds have had a bit of a resurgence in the last couple of years with the D'Addario and LaBella sets, so I presume this is Rotosound responding to those. It'd be interesting to hear a little more about what they've changed.

If you do try replacement speakers, I bet the Eminence 1028k alnico would be great in one of these amps. I had one in my Princeton Reverb clone and it had a lot of that Fendery chime and sparkle but in a 15 watt amp it broke up a little too much for me at volume.

I think most of the K&K preamps are 1Mohm input impedance (my old K&K Power Pack is). This works fine with K&K's own pickups, but some pickups like to see a higher impedance than that, so work better with something like the Plat Pro which has 10Mohm input impedance.

I think this might be a good application for the SFX Thumpinator. It's a steep high-pass filter set at a low frequency, intended to stop those percussive low frequency transients from stressing your speakers without changing the sound too much.

Those aren't plain gut, but I think there were some strings around fairly early on with gut cores and a nylon/tynex winding on the D and G. I don't know what the brands of these were (as I wasn't around at the time) but Golden Spirals are the ones I've heard of.

Are the more expensive moulded ones a big step up in sound from the cheaper ER20s and their equivalents? I've tried several different cheaper earplugs (ER20s, Alpine Music Safe, 3M ClearEars) and on all of them I lose too much high end, making that it hard to judge what sort of sound I'm making. This is a particular problem on guitar, as I like a bright, glassy sound and with the plugs in it's hard to tell if I'm actually causing pain to the audience. I also get a weird distorted sounding boominess in the mid-bass frequencies above a certain volume. If the moulded plugs solve some of these issues I might have to think about them.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1400162035' post='2451336'] Well if it works, fair enough. I suspect that judicious use of the bass control could have the same result, but DB and hollow wooden stages complicate matters. [/quote] I've often wondered if a tiny version of the Gramma pad for the spike to sit on would help with that.

Putting the cab on a chair really seems to help with avoiding low end feedback on double bass, especially with hollow wooden stages. I guess that's a special case though.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1400143443' post='2451075'] How am I ever going to see any boobs? Apart from searching for 'boobs' on Google, I mean? How?? [/quote] Ask the current Mrs Discreet very nicely?

The output jack wiring is obviously wrong, but two 500k pots would measure 250k in a wired-up harness with no pickups attached, as they are in parallel with each other.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1400085896' post='2450626'] [size=3][size=4]However, I've just discovered Solovair offer an 8-hole boot for £120. Still expensive, but also made in England, hand crafted, reputed to use the original DM lasts and the company's been around since it was formed as a co-operative in 1881. Soon as I get round to it, I'm trying a pair.[/size][/size] [/quote] They were one of the factories licensed to make DMs before production was moved overseas, and they are a lot like DMs used to be. I like the dealer boots rather than the 8-holers though.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1400063273' post='2450289'] They tend to comment on the home made aspect because, IMO, they look home-made... I've long thought they needed a proper cabinet maker ( Skilled, and they cost ) and not someone who thinks he can handle tools... Design is also down to how good the eye is in that regard... and you can't fake that... you either have it or you don't. Also, you can only read so much out of a book,... sooner or later talent needs to kick in. Otherwise, you are just another guy building a box..and the best thing about that box is the things that you don't make yourself and buy in. [/quote] Again, these would all be reasonable points based on where they were several years ago and perfectly valid criticisms of the earlier cabs, but I'm not sure they still apply. All of those points have been made multiple times on Basschat and I'm sure anyone looking for opinions can use the search function without them having to be repeated on every thread. I have a cab which was Alex's pre-production prototype for the S12, and while it's light and very functional, there is a certain roughness about it. Comparing my cab to McNach's new ones, I'd say they have addressed that. The woodworking is done by CNC now (so should be spot-on) and the finishing has improved. They're no longer simply buying in drivers and putting them in a box either, as the new drivers are developed specifically for them and are a bit of a USP. Of course, you may still prefer something else on aesthetic or tonal grounds, and that's fine.

[quote name='Bolo' timestamp='1400010246' post='2449930'] Why not? Just rounding off the edge won't even take off a 1mm slant. The fact that MM does it to their own polepieces now says enough. It's not going to remove so much material as to reduce the strength of the magnetic field. [/quote] I think that MM probably bevel their polepieces before the pickup is wound and assembled. As well as leaving fine magnetic and conductive filings everywhere, alnico is quite a brittle alloy and I'd worry that going at it with hand tools could chip or crack it. I'd avoid tapping polepieces up or down too. It's safe enough on pickups wound on plastic bobbins, but I think most MM pickups use fibre flatwork with the coil wound straight on to the poles (I'm not a MM player, so correct me if I'm wrong here). While you might be lucky and get away with it, you could easily break a turn on the inside of the coil and kill the pickup.