Beer of the Bass

The prices are at a level where you could easily spend the same just on body, neck and fingerboard woods for a scratch build. This does make me wonder how good they could be.

I can think of one guy locally who buys and sells a lot of gear, is known to be trustworthy and has always been very helpful when I've dealt with him, but he only uses forums for the marketplace. A post count rule would exclude guys like him and that would be a shame.

Well, that's my mother-in-law's Christmas present sorted. She apparently ran some sort of Cliff fanzine in her college days and still has a bit of a soft spot for him.

What did the packaging on the old set look like? Fender flats did change, but it was several years ago. Could the old set have been old stock?

There is an ex-Genz designer active over on Talkbass, and I'm sure he has mentioned at some point that they used a DC filament supply on these. If I've remembered that correctly, it would make hum less likely as a valve failure mode, since there should be no AC on them to leak into the signal. If you're a member over there it might be worth asking his advice - his name on TB is Agedhorse.

It wasn't a Squier, but I had a five-string OLP neck which just didn't have enough range on the truss rod to get a good setup with 0.045" to 0.130" Ernie Ball flatwounds (which are at the stiff end of things). It wasn't entirely unplayable, it just always had too much relief for a low-action setup even when adding washers to the truss rod. So it does seem to be a thing that can happen with some necks. But if you're not going for the heavy Jamerson set and others have been OK with the same bass it'll probably be fine.

It does still have a "beach body" though. That's handy, as it'll save me from buying all those diet magazines that tell you how to get one!

The advert isn't so interesting, but "Squirt by gender" might be one of the finest pieces of autocorrect nonsense I've seen. I'm not sure if gender should really be defined by how one squirts in this more enlightened age, but still... [url="https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/squirt-by-gender-guitar/1196710756"]https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/squirt-by-gender-guitar/1196710756[/url]

If I remember correctly, the Sound Control shops overstocked on these a few years ago and then cleared them out at a much reduced price. I thought about picking one up at the time.

[quote name='rushbo' timestamp='1477651479' post='3163558'] Does the headstock decal look like an aftermarket waterslide to anyone? Or is it just me being cynical? [/quote] I've certainly seen other Japanese photo-flame Fenders from about the same time where the decal backing isn't visible like that. But then the serial number and "made in Japan" decal at the heel look right, so I'm not sure.

Are you building them with Alnico poles in the Fender/Musicman style? All poles within each coil need to be oriented the same, but if you are building a humbucker or a pair of single coils then one coil should be North upwards and the other should be South upwards. This allows you to set them up as a reverse wired/reverse polarity pair for hum cancelling.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1477307170' post='3161201'] Settle down - 'car radio amps' is my tongue-in-cheek name for the micro crowd that use the ICE module. That the same modules are also used by charvas in their cars is just coincidence :-) [/quote] It would be a coincidence if it were true. But the ICEpower modules used in bass amps are power amps with an integrated power supply made to run on 120V/230V AC mains supplies, and car audio gear is made to run on a 12V or 24V DC battery supply. So I'd hazard a guess that the same modules are not being used in car audio. There are ICEpower modules used for that purpose, but they're not the same series.

I don't have any basses that do the same job as each other, so it's not a question I can meaningfully answer. The fretted 5-string and the double bass come out on the gigs that need them, and the fretless 4-string stays at home.

When gigging on guitar, there are a couple of tunes where I use the tremolo a lot and I'll always check tuning after those. It's rare that it'll need tweaking though, which I've been quite surprised about as I have a Jazzmaster tremolo.

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1477132509' post='3160022'] That's interesting because one of my guitarists uses the HB 2x12 guitar cabs because of the good drivers they come with (making the cabs great value for money)! [/quote] They do 1x12" and 2x12" guitar cabs with Celestion Vintage 30s for about the same amount you'd pay for the drivers alone. Are those the ones?

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1476884373' post='3158088'] For those of you only using minimal PA - any of you using an SVT Classic with two large cabs as your bass backline? [/quote] No, the biggest I've routinely used was a 100 watt valve head on a decent modern 2x12", with the guitarists using 1x12" combos.

I like gigging with minimal PA where the venue size suits that approach. With smaller systems it seems like you can get a better vocal sound when you're not putting instruments through it too. It needs musicians who are concious of the overall sound, but in small rooms I'd rather hear the drums and backline directly than through an underpowered PA on the edge of clipping. It would be nice to bring a powerful, high quality PA to every pub, hall or tent, but in the circles I move in we rarely have the budget or the storage space.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1476697035' post='3156291'] Big muff style tone control mounted on the back of a pot maybe? Something I've been mulling over building for a while!!! [/quote] Have you seen Albert Kreuzer's design for an onboard preamp? It's a nicely thought out FET preamp with a single knob tone control. It's a shame there doesn't seem to be be any commercial preamps with this topology, as it would also suit the OP's requirements nicely. www.albertkreuzer.com/preamp_onboard.htm

I had no idea quite how "difficult" he was until this evening when my wife pointed me towards the letter Bob Guccione released a couple of years ago. It's one of those things that can't be un-read. None of which changes the impact his music has had, of course, but I'd have been happier in the dark...

[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1476699468' post='3156317'] Consider me envious http://basschat.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/%3C#EMO_DIR%23%3E/smile.png I've always loved John's instruments but never been able to afford one. Steve [/quote] It wasn't crazily expensive when I got it (about 15 years ago). I part-exchanged an amp for it at Southside Music in Glasgow, a tiny wee shop that always had interesting stuff. I'm told that Marc Duff from Capercaille was the original owner. He must have played it a lot, as the top is covered in pick scratches and I had a couple of cracks in the back repaired.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1476654794' post='3156108'] It's not what they're missing, it's what they have: excursion. A Beta 12 has 4.4mm xmax, a typical guitar speaker has 1mm or less. That allows a guitar speaker to go into compression and break-up mode at low power levels, the exact opposite of what you want a bass driver to do. [/quote] My guess would be that the character I'm hearing in the highs with the guitar drivers was the added harmonic content produced by that cone breakup. I like the Beta for bass, but it's cleaner than a guitar driver if that's what the OP was enjoying. Though it certainly goes in that direction more than many speakers used for bass.

The Eminence Beta 12 does have that presence peak which sounds good for bass, but having played guitar through them I feel like they're still missing something that I can hear with Celestions or similar guitar speakers. I can't put my finger on what it is, but the guitar speakers have something nice going on at the top end that the Beta doesn't have as much of, which makes them sound a little duller than the guitar speaker. That's my subjective opinion based on playing a guitar amp through the Beta and then through a couple of different guitar speakers (Celestion V30s and a WGS ET90), so it might be entirely in my head!

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1476559445' post='3155258'] * Any Mesa Boogie - throttled, constipated tone [/quote] I've heard a few people sound good with them, though I must say that John Scofield sounds so much better since he switched from Mesa to Vox and moderated his chorus pedal usage. I feel like their repuation as a "Swiss Army" amp is well deserved. With a Swiss Army knife I could open a bottle of wine, cut up food and trim my toenails, but I'd much rather have a proper corkscrew, kitchen knife or scissors to suit the task at hand.

I'd agree with the suggestion to find some to try out - the scale length and body dimensions vary so much between instruments that it really helps to play the model you're considering. It looks like the £130 Thomann model is a tweaked version of the Romanian made ones that you see in a number of shops, so you could probably find one of those to try. My own OM is a 1987 John LeVoi, which was heavily used by the original owner and is played-in almost to the point of being "reliced". It was referred to as an octave mandola when I bought it, but is large enough that it's sometimes presumed to be a short-scale bouzouki. The distinctions between instruments are quite blurry!

I had a quick look at the Sica website, and they don't appear to make a 700 watt rated 12" that matches the displacement Barefaced quote for their 12". So I'd guess that if both cabs were pushed to their limits the Barefaced would still have more output in the low end. Sica do have some pretty capable looking drivers, but it does look like the Barefaced still brings something extra to the table to justify the cost. Whether you need the extra output and which cab you prefer the tone of is up to you, and the Ashdown does look like a decent cab.