Beer of the Bass

I experimented with insulating the poles with some tape, and while it reduces the noise, there's still a little hum when my fingers are on top of the poles, so I think grounding them will be my best option. Copper foil is in the post, but the gaffa tape on top of the poles should get me through tonights gig.

It's an unusual one. I've never seen a plywood double bass in mahogany veneer - they're usually maple, sometimes with spruce veneer on the front. That should at least make it easier to identify if anyone else has seen another like it.

Grounding the polepieces shouldn't be too hard, as the poles stick out of the bottom of the pickup. I'll have to stick masking tape over the top of the poles for tomorrow's gig though, as I haven't got any conductive backed copper in the house at the minute and I play right over the bridge pickup on a couple of songs. I notice Herbie Flowers has tape over his pickups in some photos, which makes me think it must be a common problem with tapes. The strings sound good though, so I think it'll be worth the extra faff.

I've just stuck some nylon tapewounds on my bass, and they've brought to light a grounding issue which was probably already there, but I never noticed it with ordinary strings. The bass has single coil alnico J pickups, the bridge is grounded and the cavities thoroughly screened with copper foil, all of which is grounded too. The problem is, if I touch the polepieces on either pickup when playing (easily done with my playing style), it hums. It's not as loud a hum as if I was touching the live side of a jack, but it's still enough to be irritating. If I don't touch the polepieces, there is no issue with hum, whether I'm touching the bridge or not. As these are typical fender-ish pickups, the polepieces aren't connected to anything, and I've verified this with a multimeter. I've also checked that the strings are grounding OK at the ball ends. I'm presuming that due to the non-conductive surface of the strings I'm not grounded when I play, and I'm acting as an antenna when I touch the polepieces. Rather than coming up with some Heath-Robinson contraption to ground my body, I suspect I'd be better off either grounding the polepieces by running copper tape across the backs of the pickups or covering the poles with something to insulate them (nail varnish?). Any thoughts on which to go for?

Woohoo, I've got 'em! First impressions are quite favourable. The sound seems like a nice hybrid between flats and worn-in rounds. The attack is crisper than flats, but the sustain is shorter than rounds. I can get plenty of clank and growl but not zing, if that makes any sense, and they'll still do the thumpy thing if played fingerstyle with the right touch. It'll be interesting to see how much they change with playing. They feel softer than my 45 gauge Ernie Ball flats did, but not outrageously floppy - perhaps similar to 40 gauge rounds in terms of perceived tension. They also look very cool against a maple board. They have brought to light an odd grounding problem with my bass, but I'll bring that up in the Repairs and Tech section.

I had one for a couple of years. It was a fun little grab-and-go bass for jamming with and great for getting around by bike or public transport. I didn't struggle too much with the intonation (in the lower range at least), but the limited dynamics did bother me a bit. The silicone strings require a light right-hand touch and just go "ping" if you play too hard. I felt like there wasn't much dynamic range between barely tickling it and overplaying it. It's fair to say that bandmate acceptance was an issue, too.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1347974160' post='1807429'] Depends on what danish oil, some is wipe on varnish, some is tung oil based, the latter smells of stale nuts once the solvent smell goes. [/quote] Mine must have been the former variety. Came out fine on the body and neck, looked just plain wrong on the rosewood fingerboard...

+1 to the small scraper suggestion. When I built my first bass, I went over the fingerboard with Danish Oil (which is actually a drying finish rather than a true oil), and it came out looking much like your pictures. It was easy to remove with a single edged razor blade used as a scraper, then buffing with steel wool.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1347731959' post='1804459'] The tech21 stuff avoids directly saying what they are modelling for the most part. [/quote] For some reason Zoom seems happy to name makes and models directly, or at least they do on my H4N. I wonder if they're a bit further out of the reach of US trademark laws, being a Japanese company? I find the Line-6 cryptic naming thing irritating when I'm trying to figure out which model does what in a rehearsal room, though I'm sure anyone who owns one will take the time to figure it out a bit more thoroughly.

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1347802441' post='1805143'] Just don't use them under any circumstances. They are unspeakably appalling things. [/quote] Hey, don't say that! I've got a set in the post. No doubt I'll find out for myself whether I agree...

I've had at least one bass where the dead spot was much more audible with flats than with rounds, unfortunately.

Has he used a photo of the moon to illustrate the concept of one month? I want some of what this guy is on!

I enjoy Pegg's sound and playing in the current lineup. It's not the sound I would go for myself, but I like the way he's really not trying to sound like he did "back in the day". I reckon there has always been an element of instrumental flash to Fairport, and Pegg was always in on it, like when he doubles the melody on the fiddle sets. I went to see Dave Swarbrick last night (playing with Martin Carthy), and he's still a right old showoff too, but in the nicest possible way!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1347790968' post='1804912'] Because hardly anyone uses them. Lets face it the only bassists in the UK who use flats are either Basschat regulars or those who bought their bass in the 50s or 60s and are still using the strings that came with it! [/quote] I disagree, they were moderately popular as fretless strings when I started playing in the early/mid 90s (pre-internet for most people), but I wouldn't have thought of putting them on a fretted bass at the time. I sought them out as I was playing fretless bass guitar as a skint teenagers double bass substitute and I thought they might get me a bit closer to that sound. In retrospect, I'm not sure they did, but a flatwound strung bass guitar is a fun sound in its own right. I'm sure they must be more expensive to make, as they have a whole extra polishing step in the process. The smaller demand can't help with the price, either. Still, they're cheap compared with even the cheapest double bass strings!

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1347616376' post='1803020'] You suggested that musicians choosing to play for free or being asked to pay for free is an alarming trend. I'm merely suggesting that this is the sort of thing that can happen in a free world and that we'd actually be worse off if it couldn't happen. I'm sorry my clumsy builders analogy didn't make sense. [/quote] Fair enough. My own thoughts on the matter are not so much "This must be stopped, we must Legislate!" but rather more "Hmm, I don't like where this seems to be leading". I think a bit of a criticism is to be expected with a move like Ms Palmers, and I'm interested to see how it plays out.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1347614610' post='1803002'] I wonder if, in the whole vastness of cyberspace, there's a little corner somewhere with a 'BuilderChat' forum where professional builders bleat on about DIYers? Do we really want to live in a world where absolutely everything we do is regulated, licenced and prescribed or do we want to libe in a world where people are pretty much free to do whatever they want and try new things? [/quote] I'm not sure I can make any sense of what you're trying to say here. Who's calling for anything to be "regulated, licensed and prescribed"? Who is trying to restrict freedoms? Ms Palmer is free to do what she's doing, musicians are free to apply for the gig or not, and anyone is free to discuss their reservations about the idea. Come to think of it, in the absence of any contract agreement, the musicians doing the gig are also free to ignore the score and play atonal nonsense until the soundman turns them down and security bundle them off the stage! I wonder if this will happen at any of the gigs?

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1347607100' post='1802909'] Hmmmm. I've been to a lot of jams that fit that description. Some of them have been highly entertaining, if only for the "wrong reasons". [/quote] Where it differs from a jam night is that the musicians are being selected for ability from video demos and it's a reading gig, so very different from just turning up and joining in. These are ticketed gigs in medium capacity venues which are expected to sell out, so somebody somewhere is making money. If she was going round playing free gigs, Hawkwind style, I'd think it was a cool idea. We're all free not to apply, so as a one-off it doesn't bother me too much, but if the practice was to catch on, it would be bad news for a lot of working musicians.

Here's what she's asking; [url="http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120821/"]http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120821/[/url]

The phenomenon of musicians being asked to play for free has been much discussed on here. Check out this alarming new variation on the theme: [url="http://www.prefixmag.com/news/amanda-palmer-cant-afford-to-pay-her-backup-band/69017/"]http://www.prefixmag.com/news/amanda-palmer-cant-afford-to-pay-her-backup-band/69017/[/url] I feel like it would be acceptable if the gigs were for a non-profit project and didn't charge for admission, but that's not the case here. I find the sense of entitlement a bit grating - she's a fairly successful touring artist, and I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to budget for hiring musicians. If anything, it smacks of a publicity stunt, but I feel like it sets a dangerous precedent.

[quote name='wishface' timestamp='1347544299' post='1802214'] First things first; how do I measure a gap that narow? [/quote] I use thin Dunlop picks as a rough guide to the size of the gap. They go down to 0.5mm, have the thickness written on them, and only cost a few pence. Either that or eyeball it against a ruler marked in mm as above.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1347467086' post='1801272'] Cubase 7 has been released ? Garry [/quote] Oops, that was a typo. It's Cubase LE6 I have a copy of!

I've ordered some D'Addarios. I'll report back when they arrive...