Beer of the Bass

Wander on to the stage, stand around awkwardly, peer out into the audience trying to figure out if the singer has even arrived at the venue yet. Begin first tune as they come in the door, so they can clamber on stage just in time for the chorus. Possibly not our finest moment! An old band of mine used to do some quite silly things. I recall a halloween gig where we were dressed as gnomes, witches etc, and we started with our ridiculous chromatic prog intro while our singer/guitarist ran around the hall in a fur coat and a huge home-made badger head before pulling off the head to come and join us.

What kind of blue? Both Ernie Ball flats and D'Adarrio Chromes have blue silks (royal blue, not light blue or navy), and the Chromes have multi-coloured balls.

Hmm, stock due 29/02/2015. A day which doesn't exist!

The old full-body pearloid finishes used celluloid material, softened with acetone so that it could be stretched over the body, in the same way older accordions tend to be finished. The material for this is nigh-on impossible to get hold of in decent sized sheets. If you're just doing the top of an instrument, I'd look at using drum wrap which you can get in a range of sparkle, pearloid and glitter finishes. It won't stretch over complex curves, but it will work very well on a flat top. I've just finished the top of an old lap-steel guitar with red sparkle drum wrap, and it looks great! Brandoni guitars do pearloid covered bodies in the old accordion style, and they used to advertise that they would cover bodies to order, so it might be worth contacting them. [url="http://www.brandoniguitars.co.uk/pearloid.asp"]http://www.brandoniguitars.co.uk/pearloid.asp[/url]

I've always fancied trying it, as my guitar combo is the same width as my 2x12" bass cab and sits very neatly on top. Playing bass through the guitar combo at living room volume has an interesting quality to the high end that I can imagine being pleasing with some more solid lows under it. It would be totally overkill for the band and venues I play in though!

Despite the higher noise in the first clip, I think I prefer the sound with the 4558. The highs are a little more prominent and it comes across as a bit clearer sounding. It's a subtle difference and might be entirely in my head, but I'm fairly sure I can hear a difference in the highs as well as the noise level.

Could it be that you like the scooped-mid voicing of the LH500 less than the sound of other amps? You could try running the LH500 with the midrange turned to full and the bass and treble around 1, which should bring the EQ somewhere close to flat.

I have played to the promoter plus barman once, no audience at all. We went ahead with it anyway - what else do you do after you've turned up and set up your gear?

A shop in Edinburgh has a left-handed Baldwin advertised at £1099. Mind you, it's been there a little while so I'm not certain if that's a value the market will bear or if they're being somewhat optimistic. [url="http://www.livemusicshop.co.uk/cms/index.php/bass-guitars/baldwin-semi-acoustic-bass-lh-detail"]http://www.livemusicshop.co.uk/cms/index.php/bass-guitars/baldwin-semi-acoustic-bass-lh-detail[/url]

If you want some different flavours of gain and crunch than the amp does on its own it might be worth trying out some boost pedals too, either straight clean boosts or Rangemaster type treble boosters. A lot of sounds which come under "classic Brit crunch" were made with a Rangemaster into assorted British flavoured amps. It might or might not be what you're looking for, but it could be an enjoyable avenue to explore.

[quote name='itsmedunc' timestamp='1402605748' post='2475346'] Apart from its obvious crapness, it would cost about £150 to re-string it! [/quote] Unless you were to convert it into a wide-necked four string to suit sausage-fingered builders!

If you can find the correct size in zinc plated steel rather than the stainless, those should use a grade of steel with decent magnetic properties. I'm not sure how easily you'll find those in imperial size though...

[quote name='IBWT' timestamp='1402223497' post='2471057'] A hollowbody bass must be well built to sound decent and last long. I don't think this HB can achieve neither goal. I would expect: crappy tunners, high action, bad intonation, weak pickups, poor sustain. It's much more expensive to build one of these than to build a Fender knock-off, so something must be sacrificed and in the case I bet many things must have been. [/quote] I wouldn't like to make those specific judgements without playing one. Some of the cheap instruments coming from China are surprisingly workable now.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' timestamp='1402092880' post='2470116'] Needs a new pick guard but yep, stunning. [/quote] Does it need more black and white chequers, by any chance?

What on earth is going on with that? 15 strings crammed in to 10 single string bridges, with a wooden bridge in front of that and a bottom string that doesn't appear to be over the fingerboard. Does it even play, I wonder?

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1401879434' post='2467716'] not heard that one before, what does dime the mids mean [/quote] Turn them to 10. Which is odd terminology come to think of it, as a dime is 1/10 of a dollar, not 100% of one!

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1394271800' post='2389698'] There are now integrated circuits that use tiny amounts of power. Passive circuits like these use a portion of the current from the input signal as the power source. [/quote] Is that really what he's doing, or are they just various combinations of more established passive circuitry (audio transformers, clipping diodes, inductors, RC circuits etc)? From the description of the pedals I'd have assumed the latter, but I haven't heard what the maker says about them.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1401616240' post='2465185'] exactly! :thumbsup: I am sure that some sound guys also think I carry more stuff than necessary at times, when we play gigs with a couple of other bands and I show up, move aside the 1X15" combo provided and stack my two cabs, when I'm going to be DI'd anyway. But when I can carry both cabs, amp head and bass at once, I don't mind doing that and being able to hear myself on stage well and play happily. [/quote] Some of those 1x15" combos that show up in the kind of venue we play in are truly wretched things, so I reckon you're wise to do that. I'll often share bass rigs for the sake of quick changeovers and convenience, and they can be a mixed bag, but when I'm playing guitar I'll almost always bring my own. On the subject of backup, I've never had problems with my bass at gigs, but carrying my little GK MB200 head in my gig bag has saved at least two gigs so far when amps have been playing up.

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?