Beer of the Bass

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.

[quote name='throwoff' timestamp='1403522314' post='2483454'] As we discussed in the Fender vs Squier thread the woods do nothing to the tone and hence it could be made of cardboard provided the pickups and electronics where good quality [/quote] I wouldn't say that a Fender vs. Squier comparison demonstrates that different materials can never affect the tone. What it demonstrates is that the variation in materials between those two is too small make a significant difference. But as an example, you'd have a hard time convincing me that changing a wooden Fender neck for a carbon fibre Status neck does not change the tone so I think it's a valid question to ask when introducing radically different materials like synthetics, particularly in the neck.

Will it be possible to re-fret them a few years down the line? This seems important in a quality instrument and I would like to see makers using alternative materials address this point.

The tone stack could be worth looking at, and because it comes after the clipping diodes it shouldn't affect the character of the distortion too much. It looks like a standard Marshall/Fender amp type tone stack but with the values scaled down from what you would see in an amp. With that in mind, the 6.8k resistor in between the two 22nF caps is often referred to as the "slope" resistor. Changing the value tilts the response of the tone stack towards the bass or treble. If I've remembered this correctly, reducing the value of the resistor will tilt things towards the bass end. You could try replacing that 6.8k resistor with a 10K preset pot so that you can try different values. Although as ahpook points out, there may not be enough low end getting through for this to give the desired result and a clean blend might get you what you want more effectively. If you've got space inside the box for another pot and you don't mind drilling a hole, you could add a clean blend circuit inside the Shredmaster box with one of these kits: [url="http://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/Blender_-_signal_mixer/p847124_8681943.aspx"]http://shop.pedalpar...24_8681943.aspx[/url] I've used one of these before in another pedal, it works nicely and would save you from having to carry an extra pedal. Of course, if you're feeling frugal you could build a similar circuit on perfboard rather than buying the kit, but the little pot-mounted PCB is tidy and convenient.

With a wider aperture, I gather that some of the higher harmonics are reduced. Since the harmonics of a vibrating string occur as divisions of its length, if a harmonic divides the string into fractions shorter than the width of the pickup there will be some phase cancellation. It's hard to directly compare though, as there are relatively few instances of pickups with the same magnets, wire and number of turns with only the coil shape different, and plenty of other things that can affect frequency response.

The generic mod for increasing bass response on many pedals is to increase the value of the input capacitor. That would be the 10nF capacitor next to the input. You could perhaps start by trying something in the 100s of nF, maybe 220nF like the output capacitor. Be warned this may also change the character of the distortion though.

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1403372119' post='2482228'] Home-made badger head!!! You win the thread [/quote] Sadly I wasn't wearing the badger head though! I was just stood there dressed as a gnome playing double bass...

It's worth pointing out that Spirocores can be more economical than they appear, firstly because you can often pick up lightly used sets at less than new price (I put up a wanted advert on here recently and was offered a set the same day), and secondly because if you keep them clean they can last for a number of years. A double bassist using Spirocores can sometimes spend less on strings over the long term than a roundwound-using bass guitarist. Although some of the Innovation sets could indeed be useful if you're looking for lower tension and less of that bright, sustainy steel string sound...