Beer of the Bass

I put together a Madbean Naughty Fish PCB, which is more or less a Mutron III envelope filter in a smaller box. I'd wanted something to do that reverse sweep “Bowwwp!" sound for a while, and this has it in spades.

There are definitely elements of Jemmott's playing that Jaco drew from, particularly on those funkier lines.

The DI outputs on mine don't have this noise, so I don't think it's normal for this model. One thing that did occur to me though - one of the preamp valves in mine became microphonic, which can cause a high pitched ringing. Does your noise vary if you gently tap each preamp valve? (you can do this through the cage with a wooden cocktail stick). If you hear loud ringing when doing this, that valve may need to be changed. If you're using both DI outputs simultaneously into the interface it could also be a ground loop issue, in which case the ground lift switch on the amp should help. It would also make the issue a little clearer if you let us know if the noise is heard through the speaker or just on the DI outputs and whether any of the amp controls affect it.

The AI speakers and combos that I've encountered seem to be designed around sounding natural in relatively low volume jazz or acoustic gig settings, where sensitivity and overall loudness aren't the main considerations. I'd say that the downfiring 1x10" combos they were making a few years ago run out of steam noticeably earlier than more conventional ported 1x10 cabs I've used. It's probably a nice cab for jazz double bassists, but I'd be surprised if it could replace a typical 2x10 for electric bass use.

Yep, the labelling on Standby switches can be counter-intuitive - usually 0 is "standby" and 1 is "run". On my DIY amps, whenever I've used a standby switch I've labelled the two positions as Standby/Play rather than 0/1.

It's almost like a Hohner Clavinet without the key mechanism, which would explain why Stevie Wonder is into it.

Certainly, where that's a component of a guitarists style, there's a good argument for some volume on stage. But it rarely needs multiple high powered amps running all-out.

Yep, I feel like he's taking a purist stance on something that his heroes actually did for pragmatic reasons at the time.

It occurs to me this conversation has been very all-or-nothing. It's not a straight choice between a silent stage and IEMs, or cranking multiple large guitar amps regardless of the stage and venue size. There are some excellent smaller valve amps available now (and good attenuators for the old favourite amps), and a lot of musicians can find a sweet spot in between those two poles.

I don't mean to knock Mr Bonamassa, he's a talented musician who's found his niche and worked hard at it, and he's very well in tune with his fan base. But I'd say he's a very different phenomenon to Knopfler or Queen. With them, the songs are the primary reason people love them - with Bonamassa it's his guitar antics. I can't name a single Bonamassa song without resorting to Google, and I say this as someone who has played bass in bands that covered at least a couple of them!

I can sort of understand where Bonamassa is coming from. I'm sure a majority of his audiences are guitarists themselves, and there's very much an element of vicariously living out their blooze rock fantasies through him. So even if he could get sounds so close no-one could tell the difference using a couple of quality modern guitars, in-ears and a Kemper, the audience want an array of noteworthy vintage guitars through a load of unobtainable boutique or vintage amps, cranked up in a way they could never get away with at the local blues jam night. It's part of the draw, I think.

Though one could make that same argument about the EQ in active basses, particularly as those are usually limited to battery power...

Oh dear, have we drifted into the old "miking bass cabs" discussion? I played at Nice n' Sleazy in Glasgow a few weeks ago, and was surprised that the house sound guy put a mic on the my bass amp, with no DI, without even discussing it. Perhaps he spotted my Ampeg PF50T and figured I might want some amp colouration, or perhaps so many bassists in an indie venue like that are using overdriven sounds that it's easier to mic them, I don't know. But otherwise, I don't bother asking about a mic any more. It's nice if they do, but I can also give them a post power-amp DI from the Ampeg, or just a straight DI with LPF to tame my fuzz pedal if it's a gig with shared backline and limited setup time. For the kind of situations we play I'd rather the sound guys spent their time getting the vocals right than arguing the toss with me over my bass sound!

Mine has been really useful so far, and it does fit a lot in for such a small box. It's a shame there's no ready built option on these, I can imagine a lot of bassists would find them useful.

If it's not at a level that's noticeable in use, is there really a problem there? I get that from an engineering POV it's desirable to minimise it, but if you're juggling port velocity against the size of ports you can fit, surely some turbulence below the point it where causes audible artifacts could be an acceptable compromise.

I have a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin's electric playing in the few years before the MO - the spots with Miles Davis, Lifetime, Carla Bley etc. For me, there's something compelling about that era when he was beginning to bring in rock elements but just cranking up through whatever combo he had around, rather than the pre-meditated wall of Marshalls.

I find it weird that most of the lookalikes and signature model go as far as copying the missing red from the three-colour sunburst where the pickguard would be. I presume Fender only left this off originally because that area was never meant to be on display, so it's a curious detail to reproduce, really.

I had a similar experience with them at Milngavie Folk Club. The resident sound guy was having some trouble with the PA setup, Carthy made some surprisingly withering remarks to him, and they opted to go without! Really glad I got to see those two play together, they were great.

I'm not sure it'd be a fair contest! Even one of Mingus' famed open letters to Downbeat would probably be devastating enough...

I'm going to go the other way and say that flats have an interesting attack/decay envelope that I can't entirely reproduce with rounds, and miss when it's not there. It's true enough that this happens over a narrower range of frequencies, but that high end just isn't a big part of the voice I'm looking for from my bass guitar. So I enjoy flats on my jazz-ish 5 string. (Though if I had a P-bass around, I'd probably put rounds on that!)

It's odd, just after seeing Mr Bonamassa explain that electric guitarists must use all of the amps, turned all of the way up, all of the time, I pottered over to another forum where double bassists were bragging about using no amp and supposedly never needing one even with drums. And both were equally absolute about it!

The Beta 12 is working out nicely for me after a couple of years use, but my cabs are around 45 litres. They do have a flattering voicing for the kind of bass sound I like, but I wonder if the bump they have in the midbass might tip over into sounding boomy if you went much smaller.

Glad it went OK. I find with gigs like that you can often get a reasonable balance with less amp than you'd expect, provided the drums aren't heavily amplified and the audience come in close. Maybe not with massive low-end, but audible and danceable at least.

TI Jazz flatwounds might get you there - they have a lot of mids and decent clarity, but are not bright in the zingy sense. The tension can be a bit of an acquired taste, but I'm enjoying them.