Beer of the Bass

My adjusters go quite low, so I've experimented with height a bit. For me there's an optimum height which works out at about 6.5-9mm from G to E (with Spiro Mittels). Any lower and the notes lose their body, much higher and I can't get the growl that I like. It's surprising how much difference a small change will make.

DR Black Beauty strings are pretty much standard roundwounds with a black coating, if that's what you're after. Black nylon tapewounds sound and feel very different, soft and flexible with a sound closer to flatwounds though still with a little brightness about the attack.

The other thing that seems to affect players perception of whether a given amp is "loud" or not is the taper of the volume control. I think makers do it deliberately, in the hope that less experienced players will turn it up to 9 o'clock in the shop and think "Man, that's loud, I've still got three quarters of the knob left" and buy the amp. Never mind that it probably starts clipping just past that...

I spotted the Tesco jobbie as glaringly harsh sounding, but got the other two the wrong way round. They certainly sounded different to me, but I couldn't have declared one or the other as obviously superior. I'm not sure if the test holds up as more than a quick bit of fun though.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1371115689' post='2109911'] As for looking like them, I'd imagine that getting the 70's petty criminal look might be a bit difficult these days. Finding a powder-blue 'Bastard Suit' to fit could be a problem. [/quote] To fit? Surely fitting properly would detract from the look, if anything?

I think the high frequency for the HPF might not be a problem as it's a relatively shallow 6dB/octave roll-off. IIRC most other comparable devices use a steeper 12 or even 24db/octave filter so would need to be set lower.

It's weird, although I like a fair bit of fusion stuff, this performance doesn't click with me at all. I have some of the RTF stuff with DiMeola on (like Romantic Warrior), and I think the strong compositions and sheer imagination of it make the whole thing work, and I've rarely felt that way about DiMeola solo. I don't mean to diss the performance, but I find it interesting to try and figure out what the thing I like is that's missing here. Maybe you had to be there.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1371065923' post='2109466'] Thing is, yanks idea of quality tends to be entirely based on the name badge and the made in band, with total disregard to any actual qualities of the item. [/quote] Says the man judging a huge swathe of people by their nationality rather than any actual qualities of individuals.

I had an Aphex Twin EP back in the 90s which had no indication of the speed on the label. As it contained only electronic sounds and heavily processed voices, it really wasn't obvious whether 33 or 45 was right. 33rpm sounded best to me, but I was disappointed when I heard the same tracks on a CD and found I'd got it wrong...

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1371053454' post='2109217'] I would contend that you are actually far more likely to have your amp fail on you than most basses , but very few non - pros have a back -up amp . [/quote] I carry a DI box for this reason. OK, it's not exactly the same, but it would get me through a gig.

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1371040301' post='2108963'] Scottish Gaelic punk [/quote] AFAIK this particular subgenre consists of one band! I've known a couple of their members...

[quote name='cloudburst' timestamp='1370983792' post='2108376'] Best tone I ever heard - Shalamar - There It Is. Do any of you know anything about how it was achieved? CB [/quote] Ferret Ears! Once someone had pointed that out to me, I couldn't unhear it...

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1370973169' post='2108166'] Graham Maby (with Joe Jackson) has a cracking sound here: [/quote] He's playing nylon tapewounds with a pick, isn't he? Nice and grunty but without that metallic zing of roundwounds. I recorded a couple of tunes with my band last week where I was going for a similar sort of sound, so I'm enjoying this one.

My band Jen and the Gents are heavily capo reliant, as while our singer has the singing and songwriting thing down pretty well, her guitar playing is kind of simplistic. Personally I wouldn't dream of criticising a player for using a capo, especially if the guitar isn't the main focus of what they're doing - there's a lot to be said for just getting out there and playing. I would hate it if all those singer/songwriter types who play just enough guitar to flesh out the songs stayed at home because someone deemed that their guitar playing didn't meet some arbitrary standard.

I've seen it mentioned that some of the existing cabs labelled as transmission lines (like Euphonic Audio) are too short to be true transmission lines and behave more like ported cabs. What does the port stuffing do in these cabs? Subjectively, the cabs "work" but it would be interesting to know what's going on with this design.

[quote name='steve' timestamp='1370893231' post='2107127'] you could always pick up some hide glue and a couple of clamps and have a go yourself? [/quote] This is what I've done - a couple of these clamps [url="http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/product/705708/Boxwood-Gluing-Clamp-Bass.htm"]http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/product/705708/Boxwood-Gluing-Clamp-Bass.htm[/url] and some hide glue I cadged off my brother (who is a guitar builder) and I'm set up to reglue my seams any time I need to. I play an older bass, and the occasional popped seam seems to be part of the package. It wouldn't be hard to devise your own clamps with some threaded rod either.

Not sure about "best ever", but this was a bit of a revelation for me when I first heard it. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hypFSAKxC8[/media]

At this stage, you don't have much to lose by replacing the capacitor with one of the same rating and seeing what happens. I'd try that first.

[quote name='burno70' timestamp='1370732274' post='2105052'] Got the Little Bastard today - brilliant, brilliant amp, genuinely blown away by it. Got band praccy tomorrow and dying to try it with the super 12T but I remember speaking with Alex about amp recommendations and I thought he said a full valve amp wouldn't work well with the cab - unless I'm completely mistaken as this was over a year ago. Any thoughts as to why this might be? Would there be any danger of harming either amp or cab? (Sorry to the OP for the derail) [/quote] I'm sure Alex will chime in and clear this up, but I wonder if it's about the impedance curve? Ported cabs have spikes in the impedance either side of the porting frequency, and if one of these falls in a region where the signal has a lot of energy, it can be hard on the amp as it is seeing too high an impedance at that frequency. In practice, lots of people drive valve amps hard into ported cabs without problems, but this is why sealed cabinets are often considered ideal for valve amps.

[quote name='squire5' timestamp='1370261399' post='2098175'] This comes after he was seen riding a dog round a pub,claiming "its what rock stars do!" [/quote] I hope the dog was OK. Liam's lucky he didn't get a chunk taken out of him!

[quote name='mickster' timestamp='1370532520' post='2102324'] I expected this world to be much more full of creative slacker types who get really really passionate about which is the best Fall album or whether Soft Machine actually got better after Hugh Hopper was replaced by Ken Bebbington etc. [/quote] The Hugh Hopper/Robert Wyatt era of Soft Machine is clearly the best IMO, though the first album with Kevin Ayers is not without its charms. Have I missed the point of this thread or what?

You too? Jen and the Gents have popped up a couple of times in the background of scenes. I think Jen punted a CD at somebody. We were paid the princely sum of five pounds for the privilege! I haven't watched it since 1997, so I'm taking the rest of the bands word for it.

I'm just back from a nice outdoor gig with Jen and the Gents at the Meadow Festival in Edinburgh. Despite showers, it went really well, a few folk danced and lots bought CDs to take home. Supplied backline was a surprisingly good sounding TC BC500 2x10" combo, and my only real gripe was an excessively loud and trebly guitar in the monitors. I'm not used to stages with some room to move around - I kept striding up and down just so I felt like I was using the space a bit...

As an aside, does anyone have an idea how much the output of a typical valve amp is reduced when running into an impedance mismatch? I've been looking into the subject in relation to my guitar amp, and found plenty of sources saying that the amp may not achieve it's rated power, but no actual measurements of how large an effect this is. Although I appreciate it will vary between amps, and with different speaker impedance curves...

[quote name='iiipopes' timestamp='1369939603' post='2094789'] Finally, use 12-gauge strings. 10's and 11's are too flimsy to hold a good balance of tension to keep it in tune. As for me, too high maintenance, too little use. I don't have whammys on my guitars. No, I don't own a Strat, either. [/quote] I wouldn't say that 12 gauge strings are essential with a Bigsby, although they may help. Mine is stable enough with 11-49 or 10-52 sets that I don't consider it a problem. I have friends with non-trem guitars who have to tune between songs more often than I do.