Beer of the Bass

Even if you don't stick with a valve amp in the long term, the experience might inform your use of modelling in a useful way. And if you find a decent deal used, you shouldn't be out by much if you do later move it on.

I've played a couple of small club venues in the last several years that routinely mic bass amps, which surprised me as I never used to see it in those venues. I wonder if the change is because many bassists on that scene are using distorted or fuzzed up bass sounds these days, which often sound horrible without a speaker rolling off highs, so that's just the quickest way to make it work. For myself, using a valve amp and occasional fuzz, I'm reassured if the sound guy offers to take a mic and DI, but if they don't offer, then pushing for it has never been productive and in practice it's usually workable with just the DI.

The double bass side has it's moments and can be useful, but even there you encounter a couple of extremely opinionated folk who wish to be treated as authority figures and assert themselves in a slightly tiresome manner.

Nobody *needs* one these days, but it can be a fun and satisfying thing to spend some time with one and get some firsthand experience of what they do rather than just hearing others talk about it. The Helix is probably going to emulate it well enough to satisfy from a listeners point of view - there are just some subtle player experience aspects that are worth trying out for yourself. I'm using an Ampeg PF50T for pretty much everything I do with electric bass. It's loud enough for my band, not too bad to move around and while I could probably get a similar sound with a modelling setup, using the Ampeg is a fairly simple and direct way to get there. I think we've got to allow ourselves to view instrument and gear choice as a creative decision in an artistic field, rather than an entirely utilitarian choice of functional tools, so sometimes the less tangible properties do count for something.

A friend had an Encore that was a solid colour which someone had attempted a half-hearted stripping job on. It was solid hardwood of some kind, but not one I could easily recognise. It was light coloured and fairly soft.

The weight seems a fair bit friendlier than the Portaflex cabs. Depending on how they've achieved that, that could make them more attractive to a lot of bassists.

It looks like it might be the same width as one of the Trace Elliot 1x15 cabs of the same era (1153?), and I know those came with port plugs so that you could lower the tuning or use them sealed if desired.

I've a hole in my head, Dentist Please stop it up with teeth Put one set on top, Dentist And another set underneath...

I haven't played the Ashdown, but I own the PF50T. I feel like the Ampeg active midrange EQ circuit does quite a specific thing that you'll either like or not, though if you've used an SVT or V4B you'll have an idea of what that is. I still haven't used the silent recording function on mine, though the DI outputs have been useful. I've found it to be fine for the gigs I do, too. It's a very midrangey amp (unless you use the ultra low switch, which I never do), and that really seems to help it make effective use of the 50 watts and to sit in the mix nicely. I guess it's mostly down to personal preference, if you've already found that the LB30 works for you then that might be a safe choice, but the Ampeg is no slouch either.

I agree that the actual unamped sound probably wasn't a major design consideration. But with the use of piezo pickups, having an acoustic-style pin bridge sitting on a thin spruce top probably helps those parts of the instrument to vibrate in a similar enough way to an acoustic guitar to produce a recognisably 'acoustic' tone through the piezo.

Gawd, what on earth would happen if you then played slap on it?

Thick conductive metal around a pickup can have a measurable effect on the pickup's response, it causes eddy currents which act much like adding extra windings which are shorted out. Though that would usually have the effect of reducing high frequencies, making things darker sounding.

I find double bass is different enough that whatever spacing or number of strings I'm used to on electric bass doesn't really affect it. I'd find changing between two different feeling bass guitars more challenging, I suspect.

Though as you say, that's not at all standardised. A lot of people playing modern jazz styles with higher tension strings go somewhat lower, and I'd say perhaps 6mm G to 9mm E would be considered a medium for that. You might go higher if using lower tension strings or if maximum acoustic projection is the goal, but personally I wouldn't take that approach on an EUB.

I've been starting to try and get some tunes recorded at home, and getting a double bass sound that I'm happy with has been a bit of a stumbling block. I thought I'd put the thread in this section as not everyone with recording experience is browsing the double bass section. I've been using a Red5 Audio RV12 mic, which is an inexpensive cardioid condenser. I don't have a great sounding room, so I've been placing the mic relatively close to avoid too much room ambience. I'm happy with the Red5 for acoustic guitar and other instruments in that range, but I've been struggling with the low end being 'lumpy' and hard to tame with EQ when recording my double bass, even when trying a few different positions and avoiding the f-holes. It's been viable for demos or when mixed with a pickup for the low end, but I feel like it could be better. I'm wondering if this might be due to the proximity effect with a cardioid mic, and whether I might have better results with a different mic, perhaps an omni. So, are there any particular recommendations for an affordable mic that might work well for pizz double bass in this setting? I can't go for anything particularly fancy, maybe £100 or £200 at the absolute upper limit. I'm using my Zoom R24 as an interface, into a laptop running Cubase.

I'm surprised that there are still modern production valve amps that don't offer good DI options. The ones on my Ampeg PF50T are really useful, and the "soundguy acceptance factor" is way more favourable than with a DI box connected to the back of the rig somewhere.

There are very few instruments using softwood necks, even if it works for solid bodies and most acoustic stringed instruments use it for the top. So it might not be the ideal choice in that role.

Full plywood bodies were common on lower priced instruments, especially those made in Korea, until some time in the 90s. They started becoming less common after that.

Years ago, the leader of the school big band didn't notice for months that I was playing fretless, but he did once or twice tell off the trombones when it was actually my intonation that was off, while I tried not to smirk...

The double coursed strings on a mandolin sound horrible with more than a tiny amount of distortion. I had a solid body electric mandolin for a little while, and it was fun with modulation effects, but anything gainy didn't really work. I think this is why electric mandolins have also been made with four or five single strings.

How things feel and respond at a given height varies with the amount of relief in the board, but 4mm G to 6mm E is already at the low end of what you might see on acoustic double bass. So if the goal is to achieve a tone and response that resembles double bass, or to develop technique that could be used on double bass later, I perhaps wouldn't go down from there. Of course, if you want to do something that's more unique to the electric upright, then anything goes.

Could that be the graph from the 12" Basslite? I remember looking at those for my cabs and wondering if that spike would be offputting. Most of the Eminence line have peaks around there and many of them can sound quite pleasing, but some models have it narrower and more pronounced than others.

I did used to bring a spare amp head when we hosted a monthly gig with guest bands using my amp, and I was using a vintage valve amp at the time. The backup (my GK MB200) was needed once, though afterwards I worked out that the failure was the speaker cable on my valve amp. As the valve amp was on a jack-to-jack cable and the GK is on Speakons, swapping them sorted it and I wasn't going to faff about figuring out the root cause during the gig.

I wonder if Ellefson was talking about the tone when running both the P and J pickups on full? The spacing between two pickups affects which frequencies are scooped and which are reinforced when both are run together, hence the fuss over 60s vs 70s spacing on Jazz basses. So I guess reversing the P pickup might make a more pronounced difference in a PJ bass with everything on full than on a solo P pickup.

I don't know if they're all the same, but the foto flame strat I've seen with the trem backplate off was a light coloured, plain grained hardwood under the printed outer veneer. Likely alder or basswood, so very much in the range of materials usually used for a Fender with a painted finish.