Beer of the Bass

I've got an EA Wizzy 10 with a sprung handle on the bottom, so I can confirm that they do work OK as a tilt-back mechanism. It does spring back with a loud clack when you lift the cab though.

Hey, not only did someone bid on the truncated brown bass monstrosity he was selling, but they've posted feedback saying they were satisfied with it! The mind boggles...

I'm sure I recall Peavey running a magazine advert in the 90's touting the low tuning as a selling point for 5-string players. I can't remember which product it was for though...

I thought I'd update the thread with what I've ended up with. Alex Claber offered me a "tired looking" empty cab, without fittings which was built as a Super 12 prototype and just hanging around the workshop, as it was not quite up to his cosmetic standards to send out to a customer. I picked up a pair of B&C 12HPL64 drivers from the BC classifieds which I thought would do a good job for my needs, and combined the two. I then tarted it up with black and silver grillecloth (from a vintage radio guy on eBay), gold piping and some corners and handles. Adapting the cab for a cloth grille took some fiddling, as it was built for a metal grille. I'm well pleased with the results - the B&C drivers have very good sensitivity and have nice even response through the mids and upper mids. F3 is at 80Hz, so it's not a sub-bass monster, but I'm fine with that. They have lower excursion-limited power handling than the Kappalites Alex would have used, but I only have 100 watts to play with, so that's a reasonable compromise in this case. It is a lot clearer sounding than my old 1x15", so I have removed the "bright" cap from my amp. The cab is also ridiculously light - I think it may weigh less than the head! I'm looking forward to gigging this rig. So thanks, Alex. If my band ever gets to playing bigger venues, I may have to call you up for a Super 15! [attachment=93367:bass cab new 2 003.JPG]

There's also this from Stewart Macdonald - cunning tooling for rescuing broken truss rods: [url="http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html"]http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html[/url] Not cheap, but you could maybe sell it on after you've used it.

Bought a pair of B&C speaker drivers from Deek. I'm pleased with the speakers, he was pleasant to deal with and I'd not hesitate to buy from him again.

Tru-oil can be obtained from hunting/shooting/fishing type places as it is intended for gunstocks. I've only used it as a very thin wipe-on finish on a body, so I can't comment on hardness, but you'd need a large number of coats as it goes on very thinly.

[quote name='bear-foot-bass' timestamp='1321221414' post='1436748'] Was watching Goodfellas last night when the perfect bass sound popped out. Tracked it through to Nilsson's 'Jump Into the Fire'. Fantastic intro but the vocals are baad. Is this just a tube amp distorting? [/quote] Indeed, I'd say it's flatwound strings into a fairly bright sounding grindy valve amp. Good sound!

I had reasonable results with Tru-oil on Ash for a satin finish, ending by buffing with the finest grade of steel wool I could find. I didn't use any grain filler, but I did start with several coats of the Tru-oil sealer before moving on to the finish itself. There is still quite a lot of grain texture, which is what I wanted, but it has a nice sheen. Pictures here: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/137533-swamp-ash-5-string/page__view__findpost__p__1336777

I reckon Artisan sounds better than Technician. I'm not really a writer, and I'm better at reacting to and complementing other musicians than starting things off myself, but I think I'm not totally without creativity.

[quote name='daflewis' timestamp='1320924933' post='1433155'] It's worth trying the honeys, though a work of caution, they are designed to sound like gut, so they aren't the most growly and sustaining string in my experience - though Beer seems happy with that side of things. I've currently got some prototypes of a new hybrid on my main working bass and have to admit that they're very promising - a bit higher tension, but really responsive under the bow with a lovely thud at the beginning of a pizz note and a brighter sustain (they'll even work with a magnetic pickup) - i actually don't want to take them off, which is a good sign! [/quote] Yeah, I like the Honeys for pizz, but they're more Charlie Haden-ish then Dave Holland-ish, if that makes sense. The new hybrids sound intriguing - do keep us posted!

Not being a metalhead, I was quite surprised by them when I stumbled across a festival performance on the TV. Proper proggy stuff, complete with keyboards - I liked it. I hadn't realised there was a scene for that sort of thing at the moment.

Honeys do a decent job on this front. The Pizz sound is softer in the attack than Spirocores but has a fair amount of sustain and growl available, and the bowed response is good. They don't feel too low tension either - a little lighter than Spiro mittels but not floppy.

If you want cheap pickups with a Ric flavour, the Kent Armstrong Toaster pickups work well with bass, despite being guitar pickups. WD music have them. I actually prefer the one in my 4-string to the massively expensive Darkstar pickup which was also installed.

This is pure conjecture, but I wonder if the shape (rather than the amount) of the neck relief is a factor in this. I mention this as when I shaved down a chunky neck to a slimmer profile then set it up with a similar action and relief as previously, there was more of the touch-sensitive growly clank after I'd shaved the neck. I think with the chunky neck/less tense trussrod the relief curve would have been different to with a more flexible neck/tighter truss rod.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1320653703' post='1429288'] This is dependent on the sound engineer being a sound engineer though. Unfortunately, on the amateur music scene atleast a large proportion of "engineers" don't have a sodding clue. A good engineer will: -listen to the bands music and comments, if possible listen to a track or two of their cd beforehand too -be polite/patient with a band and explain why certain changes to their sound won't work that night -(in my experience at least) will not sit fiddling with controls all night, past the first song they should be pretty much done -be quick/efficient/organised and generally in control [/quote] It's a shame that nobody is in the habit of posting to say "I played at X venue last night, the engineer was great to work with and we were really pleased with the sound". It does happen, and ought to be acknowledged. Maybe there should be a thread somewhere for this. I suspect all of the sound guys on this thread are among the good ones, as they're showing every sign of caring about what they do.

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1320577018' post='1428402'] on a double bass never, but once the tail wire let go on a gig so does that count as four? [/quote] I had several double bass strings break when using Thomastik Dominants, though when tuning or in transit rather than while playing. I think it's the stranded nylon core they have. Eventually I stopped using them. Otherwise, I don't recall ever breaking a bass guitar or double bass string. Even guitar string breakages are rare for me.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1320495983' post='1427536'] I honestly don`t think it worth your time and expense to keep worrying about this. Just insist on a mic. If you can`t get one you can`t get one. At the very best the eq and level are decided by the "engineer" and whatever signal you give them will be subject to their tin ears and apathetic ways,so my advice is relax, enjoy your cab and let the gig take care of itself. [/quote] Fair enough. The audience were enjoying the gig well enough, and that engineer would probably have screwed up any sound source equally badly! In a previous band, I had to stop using my double bass for a regular gig in that venue as the same sound guy couldn't figure out how to control the feedback when he turned the subs up. I don't think a straight DI is inherently bad sounding, it's just a shame that everyone ends up sounding the same, regardless of the sound they've found to work in their particular band.

This particular gig had only two bands, and we were the only one with a bass player. I think it's just laziness on the part of this particular sound guy, combined with a weird passive/aggressive thing of pretending to agree whilst doing the opposite! We had emailed the venue in advance about our lineup and requirements. I actually run my amp pretty clean, but it's providing some compression, rolling off the high frequencies which are otherwise obnoxious with my effects and giving some extra presence around 2k compared to a straight DI. I could probably come up with some complicated signal chain to deliver something similar to the sound guy, but why bother? I have wondered whether a speaker level DI is worth experimenting with - i.e running a DI box off the amp output (in parallel with the speaker) with a 40dB pad on. It would miss the speaker colouration, but my DI box has a 4kHz lowpass which can be switched in which might do some of that job. Any thoughts on this?

People who mic cabs live, how do you get the soundman to co-operate and actually run a mic on your cab? Are you carrying your own mics? I had a gig last night, I had a chat with the soundman early in the evening and asked him if he would mic my cab. I play through a valve amp and use overdrive and fuzz quite a bit, so it's not really an outrageous request. Plus we're a guitar/bass/drums three piece, so not exactly a difficult gig for soundmen. He gave the impression of agreeing, saying he would run a mic and DI, but then did the opposite, with just a Behringer DI and proceeded to kill the bass sound by boosting the sub bass and having very little mid or highs. I didn't want to push the point, as he was in control of the "suck" knob that night! He was also using a trigger for the bass drum, with a completely inappropriate sound, so getting any sort of decent sound that night was a damage limitation exercise. It doesn't seem unreasonable to use a mic along with a DI in certain cases, so why do many sound guys make you feel like a prima donna for asking?

A small amount of out-of tuneness is part of that sound, a bit like a tremolo tuned accordion (where a second set of reeds is tuned slightly sharp) or detuning one oscillator on a synth. I have quite a high tolerance for this before it becomes unmusical, others can't stand it! I don't think it's my sense of pitch being bad either, just variations in where people draw the line between sounding interesting and being a racket.

My band pester me to bring my 8-string, so at least they notice...

They have most of their range on eBay if you're concerned about the security of their website. I've just got some blue pearloid stars to match the pickguard on my 8-string.

How about the Eminence Basslite s2012 for a pair of smallish 1x12s? I've seen them at decent prices, they have lower Fs and Eminence have designs on their website for sealed or ported 1x12s.