Beer of the Bass

You've got to admire his attention to detail with the relic'ed strings though!

I've had a bit of a search around here and on Talkbass, and the Blues sound like they may be worth a try. I think I'll look for a used set, as it's hard to be sure whether I'll get on with them. It's a shame I missed the last couple of sets in the classifieds. I may have to put a wanted ad up...

If it is a wolf tone, you'll really notice it acoustically when playing with the bow, and it is likely to happen equally badly (possibly worse) on the same note on the D string. Trying to bow the note, it will be difficult to start and tends towards an ugly sounding warbly beat frequency. If that's the case then a wolf eliminator weight on the afterlengths could help. My bass has a wolf tone around the B natural, and I found that a weight on the A-string afterlength helped a great deal. I found it worked best when the weight was adjusted so that the bowing the afterlength produced the same note the wolf was centred around.

That string matrix is a useful thing. Interesting that the arco sample for Spirocores is missing! What's the surface texture like on the Blues? Are they a fine roundwound like the other Velvets?

I'm playing Spirocore Mittels at the moment, which I love the pizz sound of, and I can just about live with the arco sound, though it's always a little on the bright side. The acoustic volume and projection of the Mittels is something I like too. I'm suffering some left hand/wrist issues which I'm going to see my GP about tomorrow, and I'm considering going to some lower tension strings for a while. I suspect that my problems are triggered by my guitar playing rather than double bass (as the pain starting has coincided with an increase in the time I spend playing guitar), but while my wrist is a little tender I'd like to make things easier on myself. So, I'm looking for recommendations of strings which are lower in tension and somewhat bow-able which still have reasonable projection and can get me to that growly pizz place I enjoy with Spiro Mittels. I don't mind strings which bow like Spirocores, but my arco requirement probably rules out some of the non-metal wrapped strings. Spiro Weichs might be an obvious contender, but I'm sure there are others out there. The new Innovation Jazz/Arco hybrids sound promising, but aren't on the market yet. I've had Innovation Honeys before, but those are perhaps a little on the dark side and don't feel a lot softer than the Mittels.

Certainly, when I was gigging with a 100 watt valve amp (using a 2x12" with decent efficiency), I never got it to the point where the power stage was audibly breaking up. My band is fairly moderate in volume though, with a laid back drummer and guitarists using 1x12" valve combos of 15 watts and 40 watts. I sometimes wonder whether I could get away with a smaller head of 30 or 50 watts with this band (partly because I fancy building one when funds allow). With that in mind, a good 200 watt valve amp should totally drive a loud rock band with the right cabs, and 400 watts is major stadium and festival stage stuff.

Cutting out the nut slot with a small Japanese hobby saw and a little 1/8" chisel I rummaged out of a car boot sale for the job: Then on to gluing the fingerboard. I used three small tacks to stop it from slipping while clamping, two through the 21st fret slot and one through the nut slot, so that the holes will not be visible when they are removed. The clamping itself could have gone better - I skimped a bit and didn't make a proper caul, thinking I had enough clamps to spread the load well enough. Of course, I should have used some heftier clamps and a caul, but I didn't fully realise that until I had the glue on! I ended up clamping one side in my little work bench and the other side with my cheap plastic clamps. I think I've got it done well enough, but this is definitely on my list of things to plan better and do differently next time...

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1394626277' post='2393403'] While I was looking for a suitable Fat Goth track to post I noticed some others where the bassist is playing a Fender, but he still sounds exactly the same. Maybe the Ric isn't quite so distinctive after all? [/quote] Likewise, I was thinking of posting some of the old Sensational Alex Harvey Band stuff, as Chris Glen used a Ric a lot and often sounded great on record, but watching some live footage I realised I wouldn't be able to tell which was the Ric and which was his single-coil Precision. I'm sure that if I sat and listened to a player swapping from one to the other I would notice the difference in sound, but there is a definite overlap in the way a given bass player can sound on both instruments.

If it's a commission sale it might not be theirs to change the strings on. They do get some interesting stuff in - I recall really fancying the MM Sabre they had in but not being able to afford it!

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1394369646' post='2390701'] You want Rick "clank"? [/quote] Wow, that one takes the clank pretty far! Did he always sound like that, or is he using the Ric-o-Sound outputs and they forgot to mic the bass side of the rig?

I think that a lot of cheaper amps are capable of sounding very good now (thinking of things like the GK MB series or the Hartke LH500 for instance), so there are diminishing returns as you go upmarket from there. Speakers are a very different story, of course.

It's an unusual design, in that most buyers of massive valve amps probably aren't looking for that style of preamp. I suspect they'd sell more of them if they had just a handful of knobs.

My camera seems to be behaving right now and I've made a bit of progress with the neck. The CF rods are epoxied in, one was a just a hair proud of the surface so I had to scrape it level. I've cut out the rough outline and planed the sides of the neck, while the headstock outline still needs a little tidying. I did this with an ordinary rip saw for the straight lines and a coping saw for the headstock. This was a bit of a workout, and I remembered why they call it rock maple!

If it was an SGV rather than an SBV, I'd be on it!

I play about a third of the tunes in our set with a plectrum, I had a set of D'Addario tapewounds on for a year and I'd say it's a non-issue. They'll get flat spots over the frets before they get any pick wear.

I think I might have a hunch who this is...

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1393935644' post='2385947'] It just goes to show you how tastes can differer, because I think that AJ Presentation model is absolutely beautiful, and have done right from the first moment I saw it. I like the way that essentially it is styled like an acoustic guitar, albeit a very big one. The new hollow body Fodera is even more exquisite. [/quote] Yes, this is what I thought about it. If you consider it from an acoustic instrument aesthetic and forget what electric basses are "supposed" to look like, it's an attractive instrument. I would expect it to be a joy to play with that level of attention to detail as well.

I'm most impressed with the Alembic that he chopped half the headstock off, hacked some ill-fitting pickups into and painted rattlecan green! That would get the folk on some bass forums properly frothing.

No pictures today (as my cheapie digital camera is playing up), but I've picked up a basic router from Screwfix and routed out the channels in the neck. The router is very much a case of "you get what you pay for" as out of the box, the plastic pads on the parallel fence were wonkily moulded and caused the router to rock, which would have led to a couple of millimetres play - too big a tolerance for a truss rod route. I had to take a file to the plastic and true it up before I could use it. Once I'd done that it did the job OK though. Next up will be gluing in the CF rods, cutting the neck to a rough outline and gluing on the fingerboard.

Playing on an OLP neck with the same width and spacing as the Stingray 5, the only time I've had an issue with pulling the g-string off the edge was with tapewound strings which are both flexible and slippery. Though between an Ibanez Ric copy and an Aria TSB, I learned on narrow necks and string spacing so it may depend on what instrument you're coming from.

Indeed, useful stuff here. I built a bass in my parents shed when I was 18 and had no idea about sharpening tools. A few years later, I got hold of a Japanese water stone and a honing guide and learned how to do it properly. The first time I did anything using properly sharp tools, I was startled at just how much easier woodworking became. I've never tried finishing them with a strop, but I have a scrap of thick saddlery strap somewhere, so I might give it a go.

I think Circle K strings in the States specialise in strings for low tunings, though I don't know what they're like for international orders.

The body looks like some kind of mahogany relative. The grain looks wrong for alder in these pictures. So that leaves the neckplate and perhaps the pickup...

Could I be added to the list for these please? I've been fairly settled on Spiro Mittels for a while now, but arco is always a bit of a challenge and I'm now playing arco about half of the time in one of my projects. It's possible that I may find the tension too low, but it might be interesting to find out.