Beer of the Bass

A friend had the nylon string guitar pickup in this range, I recall the preamp box seeming pretty flimsy on that too. I suppose different bridge foot pickup might work, with a suitable external preamp. There's the Realist, or depending on the size of the bridge foot the K&K Definity could be an option.

From memory of replacing a dead rotary switch on my brother's Lovetone flange (back before they went for crazy money), they're not bad to repair - the layout isn't overly cramped, everything is through-hole rather than surface mount and the components usually aren't anything too esoteric. So if you can get a nice discount on the one with the broken pot it would be a quick job to get it sorted.

I would certainly second the Spirocore recommendation, and Weichs (light) will be easier on your hands than Mittels (medium) if you're playing less frequently and would like lower tension. There are a lot of options available, but for a string you can put on and then not have to think about for years the Spiros are still hard to beat.

I'm surprised at how many well regarded envelope filters lack a "down" mode where the filter frequency decreases with signal amplitude. For me, that's THE sound I want from one, and I almost never use the "up" mode on my Madbean Naughty Fish (a Mutron workalike).

Touchstone Tonewoods have some bow supplies including hair. I don't know how the prices or quality compare to anyone else, but I noticed it in their catalogue. (edit; though not black, I should have read more carefully!) https://www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk/bow-hair/c-199.html

We've done it a couple of times when preparing material before recording. I wouldn't like to rehearse like that all the time, but it's useful to ensure that you can.

Hmm, that's a useful looking thing. If I ever get around to making up a pedalboard rather than whacking two or three pedals on the floor, I'd be tempted to do one of those and keep the Vong for double bass use.

The Vong is really useful, I've used it both with my double bass to clean things up and tame feedback, and with electric bass to make my Superfuzz clone tolerable into a DI. But I think Schalltechnik has stopped doing them, so it may not be easy to get hold of one.

Is there any suggestion that Fender was aware of Tutmarc's instruments when he developed the early Precision bass? They weren't widely adopted by musicians and it seems possible that Fender may have come up with his quite independently. They're certainly an interesting historical footnote, but Fender's instruments were the ones that had the cultural impact.

Most Open Mic nights I've been to, people turn up to do a song or two, the host opens, closes and fills in if the numbers are lacking. But generally nobody expects someone else to play with them unplanned - it's individual turns (or duos etc who showed up together). If they do, it's usually billed as a jam night, open session or similar.

If they've been on an EUB, I'd want to be sure they hadn't been cut to length, and don't have any kinks in unusual places before reusing them on double bass.

I have stainless steel groundwounds on my fretless, a set of Status ones that are quite a few years old. But it depends what you use a fretless bass for - these bring out the stereotypical fretless nature a little more than flats, and if you're using it as a main all-rounder bass I could see wanting to tone that down a little.

Putting a microphone through backline is always tricky for feedback, and I only see people having success with it on very low volume gigs. A lot of double bassists using a mic for larger shows are running only pickup signal into their backline amp, and the mic goes to the FOH.

Herve's strung matrix site had the opposite effect on me, it backed up the idea that for the properties I like from a string, nothing is really better than Spiros! There are a couple of other sets on there that could probably work for me, but none that sound night-and-day better for my tastes.

Two here, the Ampeg PF50T that's my usual for electric bass, and a GK MB200 that comes out mostly for double bass. With those I have a pair of homebuilt 1x12 cabs (one stashed at the rehearsal space most of the time) and a tiny 1x10 that comes out for double bass or very small spaces. I know it's a popular idea that 300 watts is the minimum for gigging, but I've still never had a rig that does more than 200, and the PF50T does me fine for most things if I use both 12"s.

I found the few years when I owned an EUB and no double bass quite frustrating, and I think my playing came on in leaps and bounds when I was able to own a double bass. EUB is useful as a tool for travel, loud gigs or more overtly "electric" uses, but I feel like a background in acoustic double bass makes it a lot easier to use one well.

Has anyone tried one out on double bass yet? Though the double bass guys often favour even smaller boxes, it looks like it might be promising.

Was that an anodised aluminium pickguard in the thumbnail? Surrounding pickups in conductive metal is known to affect their response by causing eddy currents - similar to adding extra coils around the pickup which are shorted to ground. It's a measurable effect, well known to designers of anything using coils. I don't know how noticeable it would be in this instance, but the premise isn't so wild if they're comparing aluminium to plastic.

Yep, quite likely a nice bass, but being a Germanic factory bass puts it more in the solid working old bass category rather than a fine historically significant instrument that would warrant high-level restoration work.

Willie Dixon!

Or I've seen people bring in some flippant or absurd stage chat in a deadpan way just to see if anyone's paying attention, which can have a lot more charm than getting bitter at the audience.

I've had two or three people on acoustic instruments (no drums, no amps) in stone built tenement flats, no later than early evening without any complaints, but I feel like that wouldn't work in my current flat.

I presume they were told it's likely from Saxony, the bit of Germany bordering the Czech Republic, and it does look like that style of instrument.

We have upstairs neighbours with noisy kids and next door have a woofy dog, so I feel that as long as I'm not ridiculous with playing music nobody is likely to complain. I still keep it to daytime hours and rarely use an amp. If I'm practicing something repetitive on double bass I'll use f-hole plugs and a rubber practice mute on the bridge, which hopefully makes it a bit more tolerable. Soundproofing is definitely lacking in our building, an ex-council "cottage flat", so coping with that is mostly a matter of attitude and being on reasonable terms with the neighbours.

I have the PF-50T, and I feel like it's strong point is delivering just a touch of grit and squash - it's not that gainy a preamp for more heavily driven sounds.