Beer of the Bass

Yep, I'm still quite content with my PF50T. We have a guitarist using a Fender Blues Junior and also two vocal mics, trombone and flute onstage, so we're never pushing stage volume that much that it's a limitation. It's even done a couple of small halls without PA reinforcement, through my two 1x12 cabs. It did take me a little while getting my approach to the EQ figured out again when I changed from flats to rounds a while back, but that's a me problem.

I had one, bought in about '93 but I suspect it had been in the shop a year or two. Decent neck, plywood body but none the worse for that, and the pickups sounded fine but were a little microphonic - I could hear my leather strap ends creaking on the buttons through the amp.

My most egregious example of Mr Holland mangling a song as a guest was when he did "Doorbell" with the White Stripes, on a Wurlitzer electric piano. What it really needs is simple chords, hit insistently right on the beat, but he did some sort of lazy, sloppy behind-the-beat boogie thing that just turned it to mush.

Amplified blues harmonica can really grate when overdone. Part of the problem is that many insist on cranking bigger amps than most guitarists use in those settings (often a 4x10" Fender Bassman derivative), the other thing is overblows. Overblows have some sort of prestige status as the advanced technique that a good player must have, so once players have mastered them they'll shoehorn them in wherever they can. But what overblows do is get you a harsh toned, usually slightly out of tune note that's outside of the key you're playing in, so absolutely excruciating if overused.

It's an interesting area - the Krivo magnetic pickups manage to be a little clearer and more "acoustic" sounding than older designs, presumably using some of the same tricks that modern acoustic guitar soundhole pickups do (controlled microphonics, lower inductance, neo magnets). But no commercial magnetic pickup for bass has cracked the bow response issue yet - because the string vibration is dampened in one plane when bowing (up/down relative to the pickup position), you get unpredictable volume and weird barky attack when bowing with most magnetic pickups. There are a couple of cello systems that place polepieces in between the strings so that they sense the movement in that lateral plane more, but I haven't seen that tried on bass.

Here we go, it's had a number of changes over the years, it started out fretted, with a rickenbacker copy bridge and just the one pickup, then it's had a Dimarzio Model One, a Hammon Darkstar, then my homebuilt single coil under the mudbucker cover, and the toaster added.

I've had one most of the time since I was a teenager in the 90s, it comes out relatively seldom these days but I enjoy it when it does. It's on two tracks of the album my band is working on, but live it's easier to just play one bass, and sometimes it gets brought out for free improv stuff if I fancy electric bass that day - the extra expressiveness and variation over my fretted bass makes it fun to work with for that. My current fretless is an odd beast, it's the bass I built in my parent's utility room when I was 18 and defretted much later. It's shaped like a pointier Jazz with a funny angular paddle headstock, and a walnut body a full 2" thick that weighs an absurd amount. The pickups are a ceramic single coil under a mudbucker cover that I wound myself in something close to Rickenbacker bridge position and a Kent Armstrong toaster added later right up by the neck. The bridge is currently a brass Hipshot ric replacement. But with those pickup positions and the hefty body, it's surprisingly good as a fretless.

I can't see any obvious structural red flags (neck repairs, neck/bridge geometry, cracks, sunken top etc), and even the bridge looks like it's probably OK. It looks like a solid top, I'd agree that the back is probably laminated. It's a non-ebony fingerboard, which you might be happy with for some styles of playing, but having mine replaced was a big improvement. It's interesting, that style of tuners often indicates an older bass, but it's clearly dated and the sprayed lacquer finish is very much a mid-later 20th century factory bass feature too. I guess Hungary must have stuck with the hatpeg tuners for longer than Germany did. I'd absolutely buy it for £275, but you could very easily throw a few hundred more at it to get it well set up with good strings. Of course, if you're feeling handy/brave and keep an eye out for decent used strings you could have it up and running for less.

I had the drummer in the car too, we needed the passenger seat! Thankfully a cut-down cocktail kit rather than any bigger setup. And the gig was up on the moors in Cumbria during a particularly icy spell - that wasn't a fun drive...

When I was living in the city centre and opted not to own a car, I used to use the cheapest rental I could get for any out of town gigs. I think the smallest was a "Chevrolet" (Daewoo) Matiz. I did have to prop up the scroll to clear the gearstick

Those really do seem to be a rarity over here. I've not encountered one I'm the flesh but they look lovely, definitely at the deluxe end of laminates.

Unusually for a UK bassist, I started on a borrowed Kay in my teens. It belonged to the local fiddle organisation in Dunoon, they had two Kay basses and at least one cello. I don't know how they got over here, but I'd wager it was connected to the US submarine base that was on the Holy Loch for decades. I had no idea at the time that they were considered anything special. I struggled to get the sound I wanted out of it, but that could easily have been down to me or the strings that were on it. They were round nylon wound on the G and D and round metal wound on the E and A, and had off-white cores with looped ends that could have been gut or a synthetic material.

The moulded jack socket on my KNA DB-1 pickup has started playing up, I think one of the contacts has lost it's springiness, the plug sits loosely in it and crackles intermittently. I like the pickup otherwise, so I'm happy enough to fit a new socket on there and stick with it. But I'm wondering what the best available line jack socket is. Some of the US made pickups come with Switchcraft jacks which I can't find over here, the locking Neutrik jacks are huge and won't fit in my jack clamp, otherwise there's the Rean model or acoustic guitar type endpin jacks with the strap pin washer removed. Which to choose?

I had my first Guinness Zero last night. The first few sips are pretty convincing, but by the end of the glass I'm noticing some odd flavour notes that don't quite sit right.

Update; dropped my bow off with the local repairer, it should be ready next week. We're going with some chestnut hair he has, since I know quite a few bassists like a somewhat coarser/grippier hair for Spirocores.

Yeah, I did some looking around, I gather that the wedges are routinely replaced during a rehair and the tip facing is often installed using CA glue anyway, so it doesn’t look like I've butchered it in a way that would affect rehairing particularly. Bowspeed have some likely looking options if I was able to step up to £300 or so, and will send them out on approval. So what I may do is have the current bow rehaired for now and see about clearing out some bits and pieces for a bow fund. Then if I was to try couple on approval later in the year, I'd at least have the one I'm already familiar with in decent playing condition for comparison.

I'm a fairly casual player these days, absolutely no classical aspirations, I either dip into the local free improv scene or play in folky acoustic or singer/songwriter type situations. I do bow a certain amount though, either for more melodic parts, textural stuff in improv or to work on my intonation when practicing. I play German bow and have had the same no-name wooden student bow for about 20 years now, a fairly generic Chinese one. I've had it rehaired in that time, but it's quite a bit overdue for another. Though I did some DIY repairs to it during lockdown in 2020 (when everything was shut) just to keep practicing- the tip facing has been reattached with CA glue and the wedge at the tip is a homemade replacement I whittled from a piece of maple scrap. I don't if those plus the low value of the bow might make it marginal for another rehair. I could look at a new bow, but in my budget it would be a <£200 student bow. There are probably more options today than when I got this one, but that's still not getting me into nice bow territory by a long way. I'd probably be looking at things like the Vingobow from China, importer brands like Gewa, possibly the P&H carbon bow, or I think Bassbags have Romanian made student bows. I know there's a rehairer just a couple of miles away from me, I could possibly drop in with my bow and see if they think it's viable for a rehair. But I'd be curious to hear the opinions of the Basschat massiv.

Hmm, yeah, I suppose we don't want to derail too much from the OP and his bass. I quite liked those Stentors when I've tried them, though the stock endpin isn't long enough for my height and where I like the bass to sit. The ones I'd played seemed quite articulate for pizz playing, possibly the petite shoulders and proportions help with that. And setup-wise there are points in between high tension steels and the lowest tension rockabilly slap strings, you don't have to go all the way to one end or the other if you want to explore a range of styles and still be slap-friendly. Someone else will have more specific recommendations, I'm firmly in the Spirocore camp and don't have much experience outside of it!

A bandmate a few years ago owned one of the early 90s ones that hung around the rehearsal space, and I'd play it sometimes. This one was definitely solid wood as it had suffered a half-arséd attempt to strip it. My impression was that the body and neck were not bad, perfectly functional P copy, but the tuners, pickup and pots were naff.

If you get a chance to try a double bass with a lower action, higher tension steel string setup you might find that easier to adjust to. I'm used to playing double bass with Spirocores at a medium/low height, and it takes me a while to get much out it if someone hands me their low-tension slap setup bass.

There's a website that presents stories from multiple former members and catalogues existing court cases in Argentina against the bandleader. But since it's sensitive material relating to a current UK police investigation, it's presumably not one to share on basschat.

I hadn't encountered them before, but having looked at some videos, I'd probably leave if they were on somewhere. It's like theme park entertainment, and I'm fairly sure it's not played as fully live as they make out. I feel bad for the rank-and-file members who don'thave much choice once they're here - the ringleaders not so much.

Totally off topic, but I hadn't expected "Activier" to be pronounced that way. When I saw the model name, in my head it rhymed with Lawrence Olivier!

I reckon nobody would look askance at a neatly done access hatch on a removable neck bass. Some very well-respected luthiers do them, for example; https://www.talkbass.com/threads/nz-non-standard-cleveland-removeable-neck-and-sound-post-hatch.562329/