Beer of the Bass

Aww, why do only the 4—strings get the fun colours?

It certainly makes me think of that 90s revival of 60s aesthetics, like Pop flares, lava lamps in Woolworths etc...

I can certainly see a couple of scenarios someone could use it in, though it just seems like an odd combination of functions to put together in one unit. And I hope the outputs are fully isolated from the speaker inputs, or the issues discussed further up the thread could kick in.

I wouldn't recommend gut strings as the first call for someone new to the instrument; while some players swear by them, they're a bit of a niche interest today and quite finicky and high maintenance compared to steel or synthetic strings. They're something to explore later if you're drawn towards that sound, IMO. And the Alice strings are unlikely to be an upgrade from the stock strings on a cheap bass. Quality steel strings have a braided steel core (sometimes called rope or spiral core), while the cheap ones have a solid steel core which makes them stiff feeling and often with poor intonation and pitch stability. So I'd second the suggestion of finding a lightly used set of quality strings. Spirocores in particular can go for years and withstand being swapped between basses better than many.

I've been struggling to figure out what the point of this box is. I can't think of many amps modern enough to use Speakons that don't also have a DI output already. And when would it be useful to take a headphone output from the speaker signal without muting the speaker?

They were apparently a popular thing in the UK in the 50s and 60s. It was long gone by the time the bass got to me, but the three round scars on the top are still clearly visible. Not my pic, but you get the idea...

I think the GHS Brite Flats are the same basic string type as Status call half rounds.

I used a hole cutter similar to that. The blades as supplied are not very sharp at all, so I gave them a quick sharpen much like you would with a chisel. There's a bit of a knack to adjusting them, if the "kerf" between inner and outer edges of the two blades is even slightly too wide, it's much harder work for the drill than if you get it just right. The results were fine once I'd got those two things figured though.

Most of my gigs are in Glasgow or Edinburgh, so the combination of city centre driving (with pedestrians and cyclists to look out for) and often awkward parking mean that I really want that mirror! Perhaps on a different journey it would be less of a bother. My bass has a set of deep indented scratches on the back that I can only attribute to being in a thin cloth bag strapped to a roof rack. It had one of those three footed metal bridges too. Different times!

I don't have experience of the differences between the different power stages or the original amps, but I put a preamp section loosely based on the later B15n versions into an amp I modified. Personally I like a bright switch but don't find the Ampeg Ultra Lo filter useful. I think if I were to build one for myself I'd go for the 68 B15n circuit but add the bright switch too.

Hmm, can you use passenger side wing mirror like that? I wouldn't want to be without it.

I actually quite like using a pick in some places, for a bit of click on the attack with flatwounds, vaguely in the manner of Carole Kay or Joe Osborne and others of that era. It's when it gets more into driving rock lines with a lot of repeated 8th note downstrokes that I find that the feel I get isn't quite there. I can play the lines, but somehow when live with the band I get slightly better energy with fingers. I've worked on it to some extent, but I also think there's nothing wrong with leaning more towards being a particular type of player.

It's a Cathodyne phase inverter. You see them in the smaller class AB Fender amps too, like the Princeton Reverb.

Outside of salvaging parts from old equipment, you'd be hard pressed to find a non-GC 6L6 today.

Are there any times people would really want to use a speaker level DI from the output of a class-D amp (or other bridged topology)? I was aware of using a DI on the speaker output as an occasionally useful trick with vintage style valve amps where you might want the colouration, there's usually no built-in DI output and the amp output is via a transformer anyway. But I wouldn't think to try it outside of that. So it's a useful caution, but also, I'm not sure what the motivation would be to do that with a bridged power amp. Though I'm sure people will have attempted it...

The Talkbass thread got a little silly, but I've been enjoying the band.

I didn't necessarily aim to, but thinking back, I have bought no bass gear at all in 2020, not even strings. Thomastiks go for a long time, and an almost complete lack of gigs and rehearsals meant I didn't feel a pressing need for anything else new.

I had heard this, and I've encountered one or two that would fit the theory, though I wonder if there was a change in driver spec at the same time. I'm not sure a change from plywood to particle board alone would give that large a change in the voicing of the cab.

You need a DI with a suitable pad switch. A 40dB pad gives you an output of 1/100 of the input voltage, which gives you a manageable line level from most speaker outputs.

Quite a few DI boxes can pad down from a speaker level signal - obviously you still need a speaker connected as the DI box presents very little load to the amp. I've done it with my old BSS, and the results can be quite good. The "thru" socket on a DI is usually just paralleled with the input jack, so the signal to the speaker is not attenuated. If he really has fitted flying leads ending in a jack plug to both the amp and speaker, that does seem like a daft way to achieve this though...

It's useful to at least know roughly where "flat" is on an amp or preamp, if only so you don't accidentally apply two lots of mid scoop and then wonder why your sound doesn't cut through. (Or too much low end boost, etc).

In the band I'm with at present, the first two bass players before me were both pick players, and while I have used one at times, fingers are "home" to me. When playing the bands older songs, I've tried it with a pick and never been quite happy with the feel I get. I feel like I can own those lines better with a percussive finger style even if it doesn't entirely replicate the sound when they recorded them.

I like the clipless version of the NS micro tuner, it mounts on one of the tuner screws on the back of the headstock. It's attached all the time, no separate items to misplace on dark stages, and I like the convenience of that. It wouldn't be good for someone with a few different basses in rotation, but I have one electric bass that comes out to gigs so it's perfect for me.

Hmm, if it wasn't for everything going on I'd have considered making an order from them some time shortly after Christmas, as I've been getting quite into harmonica lately and fancy a little selection of keyed diatonic harps. Maybe I'll look at the UK shops instead, like Eagle Music...

I'm not too familiar with this model, but a third, smaller transformer is likely to be a power supply choke. They're not strictly transformers as they have only a single winding, and they act as part of the power supply filtering. Some amps use a resistor in the same spot, but a resistor drops a little voltage and the series resistance can cause the voltage to sag under load, so a choke is generally considered an upgrade.