Beer of the Bass

I'm presuming that the cartridge is the original; I can't see any markings on it, but the styli that fit are labelled as a replacement for the Pioneer PN10/11/14/15/20 cartridges.

I'm not a massive hi-fi enthusiast, but have and listen to quite a bit of vinyl. I have an old 70s Pioneer Pl-11 turntable that I've had for a long time, with the original cartridge. I had a few NOS styli that I picked up a few years ago, but I've just put my last spare on, and it doesn't seem to be a very easy replacement to find now. So, would it be worth thinking about a new cartridge rather than looking around for more replacement styli for the old Pioneer cartridge? And if I did, what's OK and not too expensive?

The Orange Terror Bass definitely gets a big chunk of the flavour of certain valve amp sounds, too. When I've used one I'm not always sure if the voicing is to my taste, but the character is certainly there.

I used to use my 506 quite sparingly, chorus on one tune, octave and distortion on sections of others, so I had the effects off most of the time and it was the difference between the Zoom with effects off or bass straight into amp that was noticeable. But I'd expect like any other piece of affordable digital kit, things will have come a long way in the past 20 years! I don't have any complaints about the sound quality of my Zoom recorders, for example.

I'd hope that they've improved since then! I had the original 90s 506 which I used to use all the time. One rehearsal I forgot to bring it, and the drummer said something like "Man, your bass sounds really good today. Did you change something?". I don't think it came out again after that...

The guitarist in my band borrowed a Koch amp the other week...

I must admit, I often get lazy and leave a cab in my car boot between gigs, tucked out of sight under the shelf. It hasn't caused me any problems yet, though my cabs are home built with drivers it wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to replace if I did kill one.

Hasn't every double bass player tried to clamber inside their gig bag and zip it up at least once, just to see it they can? It can't be just me!?

I feel like power soaks are most useful for knocking just a few dB off a cranked valve amp for a more sensible gigging level. At bedroom volume they're rarely more satisfying than getting your dirt from a pedal IMO. Since the LB30 is a non master volume amp but has an FX loop, you might have useful results running a simple box with a volume pot in the loop, depending on the signal path of the amp. (Edit; ignore that last suggestion - I just found the schematic, and the loop is too early in the circuit for that to be useful)

I've been really enjoying Bob Drake's solo stuff lately. He plays a Ric and will happily talk about his Squire influence, but I'd say it doesn't really come out as derivative. https://bdstudio.bandcamp.com/album/arx-pilosa

I feel like D versus E flat necks make a difference if I pick up someone elses bass without having time to get used to it. So I could imagine having a preference if you were playing international gigs with rented instruments. On my own bass, surely you just find an instrument you like and get familiar with it?

Or the Kumquat!

I'd almost buy one for the name, and then pronounce it with a hard G like Gong's Radio Gnome Invisiblé!

It's quite an old fashioned website, but Dennis Havlena had an article about converting low-end cellos using electric bass flatwound strings. http://dennishavlena.com/cellobas.htm

I played an unlined fretless through most of my teenage years in the 90s, a Hohner Jazz copy. I prefer them, though currently my only fretless electric is lined as it's been defretted. Between that early experience and playing double bass, the lack of lines doesn't bother me, plus it looks nicer and usually wears more evenly.

It's one of the things I like about my Ampeg PF50T - it may be limited in power, but with a decent bag it's convenient enough that I actually take it out and use it for everything rather than leaving it sitting at home or in a rehearsal space like I would with a 300-watt valve beastie. I guess that may have been one of the reasons this amp wasn't made for long; the form factor is only really going to appeal to folk doing quite serious touring gigs, who generally don't mind shelling out a little more for a recognised brand like Ampeg.

I that's a regulatory thing, where they'll state a "typical use" power consumption when the amp is outputting at a set proportion of its maximum output. The back of the Gallien Krueger MB series are labelled like that too.

I've never got the impression that double basses attach as much importance to the originality of things like fingerboards and bridges as people do in the guitar world. Looking at the listings of instruments at a high end dealer like the Contrabass Shoppe, it seems they're almost all set up to modern (orchestral) playing requirements with whatever work is necessary to achieve that. Since bridges are easily swapped and fingerboards are attached reversibly with hide glue, I think I'd just have the work done and retain whatever parts are changed to pass on to any future owners. Bill knows his stuff and won't do a hack job on it!

Maybe this is the year I'll turn the chunks of walnut and maple tucked in my cupboard into a 5-string 4003 shaped thing! Admittedly I've said that for several years now, but such a bass would slot nicely into the music I'm playing at the moment...

I don't know if this model suffered from the same thing, but I've heard of an issue on some of the Bugera valve guitar amps where the auto biasing circuit fails and essentially bricks the amp, and is a more complex and involved fix than may be economical to pay a tech to sort. As a result of stories like this I'm wary of automatic biasing, though I do quite like the approach on some Ampegs where they have bias monitoring circuitry but the bias adjustment itself is a simple manual trimmer.

Ah, like my idea of putting an SMPS and Class D power amp in a 3U rack case with a couple of house bricks to see if anyone could hear the heft!

They're in the guitar pickups section of the website, but Guitarfetish have hotter-output lipstick pickups with the Danelectro style mounting brackets.

Most preamp valves do glow visibly, but the filament and plate structure varies even within the same valve type, so you can see more of the heater filament on some than others. It's not usually a strong enough glow to light up the whole inside of the amp and shine out through the vents, as seems to be the fashion with a lot of recent gear!

I'd say that non-rolled fingerboard edges might be a conscious design choice on narrow spaced 5 strings. It can be easy to pull the G string off the edge with low tension strings, so they may have wanted to preserve all the playing area they could.

This thread is an annual Basschat tradition, every December!