Beer of the Bass

I liked the look of the EB basses from a year or two ago, though this year's model is a bit generic looking. They don't have much to do with the classic Jack Bruce/Andy Fraser/Felix Pappalardi sort of Gibson bass sound though.

I like the veneer pinstripe under the fingerboard. I've seen it on fancy banjo necks, but not on a bass.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1473349278' post='3129408'] While Bill is perfectly correct about the need to custom design crossovers, have you had a look at what bass speaker manufacturers are actually fitting? The last commercial speaker I measured was an Eden and it looked like the crossover had been designed by the tea boy. There will eventually be a two-way 12" design with a proper crossover in the Cabinet Diary thread, as I'm starting on one at the weekend. Don't hold your breath though. I'd give it a go, BoB. Try a 3.3uF film capacitor and a .35mH inductor in a second order circuit and stick an L-pad on the end. Switch the polarity of the HF unit to taste. It's not going to be optimal, but it will probably work. The P.Audio HF units are unbeatable for the money. [/quote] That does sound fairly acheivable, if I do get around to it. I realise it's unlikely to be particularly flat around the crossover region, but I'm not out by much if I don't like it.

When I was a teenager I left my carpet-covered Peavey amp at the house of the drummer I played with, who was a bit older than me. Unknown to me, the room he stored the gear in was also where he smoked his naughty cigs to avoid smoking in front of his kids, and the Peavey was at exactly the right height to use as a rolling surface. I recall spending a frantic half-hour picking the bits off on the way home when I took it back to my parents' house, who would not have approved. So I'm not terribly fond of carpet covered cabs...

After reading through the other recent thread about adding tweeters to existing cabs, I have been weighing up the possibility of adding a tweeter to one of my cabs. (I thought I would start a new thread rather than continuing that one, as it would be a bit of a derailment from Kevin's original question about modifying his own cab) I'm using a pair of home-built ported 1x12" cabs using the Eminence Beta 12. Because they're DIY cabs, I have no concerns about re-sale value and no worries about cutting a hole in the baffle of one. For electric bass, I don't want or need a tweeter for the sound I like, but when I use one of the cabs with double bass I feel like I could do with a touch more air in the highs. So I would need something which didn't affect the sound of the 12" when the tweeter is switched off. I guess that would suggest that simply high-passing the tweeter rather than using a full 2-way crossover might be the way to go. I know there's a lot of talk about how complex crossover design can be, but if I was to do a bit of reading, pick out a tweeter that extended down to around 2KHz (like some of the P-Audio offerings), calculate the inductor and capacitor values using an online calculator and wire it up with some form of switchable or variable attenuation, how badly could I go wrong? I would probably try it externally before cutting a hole in my baffle. Worth looking into, or a fool's errand?

I think plugging into a guitar amp is a major part of getting that more electric sound from a magnetic pickup, but you could always try some sort of amp modelling pedal if you're running straight into the PA. I've seen at least a couple of people get a great sound with the Fishman Neo-D run into a guitar amp - there are no adjustable poles but it's balanced for bronze acoustic strings, not too expensive and can be installed temporarily.

[quote name='Zummerbass' timestamp='1473181343' post='3127764'] Also tiny 2x12 for £333. I see there are Handbox amp owners on here,anyone with the cabs? [/quote] The 2x12" does look like good value for money. Given that the drivers are 250 watt ceramic Eminence units, they're likely to be comparable to the TKS S212. They do a pair of 1x12" cabs for the equivalent of £500 too.

They have two speaker sockets, but only an 8-ohm tap on the output transformer. So running a second 8-ohm speaker for a 4-ohm load would present a different load than the amp is designed around, and this is reflected at the primary side of the transformer. It seems that they're usually fairly tolerant of this and rarely break, but the sound will be different in a way that you may or may not like and it's likely that the amp will deliver less power than into an 8-ohm load, so the volume increase might be marginal. Some people find that running an extension cab works for them, but it might be wise to try before buying if possible. You could also try running an 8-ohm 2x12" without using the internal speaker.

It's probably easier for guitarists - just use a Floyd Rose with the locking nut, then you can twiddle the tuners to wherever you like.

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1473001919' post='3125912'] Here's another - Michael Henderson on bass, Ricky 4001 with flats - [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPrIN4QSirs"]https://www.youtube....h?v=JPrIN4QSirs[/url] [/quote] Is that definitely a Ric? I had him down as a Fender Jazz guy, but then I haven't listened to much outside his work with Miles Davis.

[quote name='Subthumper' timestamp='1472844853' post='3124792'] Very nice work, looks great. Getting the front panel done properly is worth every penny. Yeah I too find that I'm planning the next project before ive finished the first one. I'm thinking of some kind of Model T come bassman on steroids, got a nice set of partridge 200watt transformers to use. [/quote] I'd love to see a build diary thread on that one if you're up for doing one.

Like Passinwind says, It could either be that the heater wires to the rectifier socket have been disconnected, or the 5V winding on the power transformer which supplies them has stopped working. If it's the latter, your choices would be to stick with the SS rectifier or have the power transformer replaced or rewound.

[quote name='chrisaxe' timestamp='1472840706' post='3124747'] I have no idea - is this something I can easily check or a job for a tech? [/quote] Does the rectifier valve glow? That would be the simplest way to check.

The 50-watter had the controls at the top largely because the friend I built it for liked the look, though with the vents on the top it's good for avoiding heat build up too. This one is going to have the controls on the front, as I usually have a tape echo box sitting on top of my amp which makes top-mounted controls annoying.

[quote name='6v6' timestamp='1472796494' post='3124263'] Nice, I made an mhuss 6v6 plexi which is similar to your smaller build, sounds very good, be interested to follow this! [/quote] Mark Huss' page is what gave me the idea. It's handy that the 6v6 requires so few changes to the circuit other than choosing the correct transformers and tweaking a few values in the power supply, and I'd really like something that sounds as much like the 50 watter as possible, just with less power.

This one is off with my friend now, but I decided I was unable to resist the temptation to do a smaller version for myself. So far I've picked up the chassis and transformers: It's going to be essentially the same circuit but adapted for 6v6 power valves instead of EL34s, which should give me somewhere around 15-18 watts. The smaller transformers should make it a bit lighter too. It's going to go into a 1x12" combo cabinet, but somewhat smaller than the 50 watt version. It's going to be a slower build than the bigger one because I'm picking up the parts in dribs and drabs as my finances allow. I might not post updates at every step of this one, but I'll put up some pics when it's done...

It may just be that you need a slow blow fuse - do you have a manual for the amp that would confirm this? I spent a while on an amp I built recently trying to figure out why the fuse was blowing at switch-on about 1 time in 10 with no obvious fault, before I realised that slow-blow are usually used in that particular application. It's unlikely that changing the preamp valves would cause the fuse to blow, as most amps use plate resistors of at least 100K in line with them, so even a dead short across a preamp valve wouldn't cause enough current flow to blow the fuse.

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1472710739' post='3123431'] Tony Levin has been using/marketing these for years. He calls them Funk Fingers. [url="https://youtu.be/aUjXvAPjO5g"]https://youtu.be/aUjXvAPjO5g[/url] [/quote] It's closer to the things they use for hammered dulcimer than to the Funk Fingers. But those have been around even longer! Still, they raised $34,000 on Kickstarter, so I guess somebody must be excited about the idea.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1472675621' post='3123249'] Winging it is good for your playing and I think more people should do it as a learning tool... but I don't play with people who are my friends just because they are my friends. It has to work on another level. [/quote] I like to wing it as an occasional thing, but doing it regularly could be stressful. The drummer is someone I like to play with on a musical as well as a personal level - at this point we've done so many gigs together that we tend to get what the other is going for without having to discuss it too much. It's just that this would really not be my favourite vehicle for working with him.

I have a good friend who's a drummer I've known and played with for years, we met when we were barely out of our teens. We've had various bands together since about 1999/2000 and he was the best man at my wedding. Those bands have included a noisy free-improv project, a willfully daft psych-folk band and assorted folky or singer-songwritery things. In the past eighteen months, we did a few gigs (mostly weddings) with a flung-together jazz quartet with two other old friends on keys and sax and myself playing double bass. It's predominately been a mainstream, crowd-pleasing repertoire as that's what goes down well at weddings. We haven't gone out looking for gigs, they've just sort of come along through the grapevine. I'd always viewed it as a series of one-offs rather than a steady band, if that makes sense. The piano player we did those gigs with has decided that they're is not really his cup of tea and doesn't want to do any more of them, which is fair enough. The drummer, however is really keen to find a new pianist or guitarist and to find some more paying gigs. The thing is, I'm not especially keen on playing weddings and I'm not sure jazz standards gigs are really my forte. But we've played together and known each other for so long that I'd feel quite conflicted about turning down something he wants to do. I think part of my hesitation is the idea of putting myself out there as a jazz musician - while I can usually wing it through the tunes to the satisfaction of the audiences we get, the standard on the jazz scene around here seems pretty high and I'm very aware that I haven't really put the hours in and could easily come across as a bit of a hack. So I'm just a bit uncomfortable about trying to do that in a professional context. While I've played for years, I've only had a couple of short spells of seeing a teacher and studying in a focused way. At some point down the line I'll seek out a good double bass teacher and do some more of that, but for various reasons I don't feel like now is the right time. My other concern ties in nicely with the "playing for nowt" thread, as to be quite honest I just don't enjoy the sort of gig where I feel like I'm there to provide a service to customers. I'm a great deal happier playing some indulgent noise to half a dozen people in some arts space or other, or playing something loud and groovy to dancing hippies, and if it covers the diesel and/or provides beer and food then I feel like all is well with the world. I'm also not set up to do the self-employment thing, so regular properly invoiced gigs would create a complication in my life that I'm not looking for right now. My friend is currently self employed and keen to get any extra bits and pieces he can, so we're not really on the same page about this. So I guess I'll have a conversation with my friend about why I don't want to pursue the jazz quartet idea, though it feels weird to do so. Really I'm just rambling here, getting my thoughts down in writing so it's a bit clearer in my head, but this being a bass forum I guess some of you will have thoughts on this too.

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1472154313' post='3119000'] Thomann supply Warwick tuners (made in Germany so I have my suspicions). The quality is super and they are cheaper than Schallers. They even have a W for Westone on then [/quote] I've got a set of these for a bass that's waiting to be built, and they do feel like decent quality - they have less play in the gear than some of the generic cheapies. They look like they'd drop into the Westone without any modifications too. I'm not certain they're really made in Germany though, despite the stamp. Surely they would cost more?

There are still a handful of teenagers out there interested in playing guitar, bass, drums and things, but it's a bit more of a niche interest than previously. My stepson turns 17 next week and mostly likes music that sounds like some awful cross between 8-bit chip tunes and cheesy dance music, but one of his best friends is playing bass in bands, growing his hair out and buying music from internet cassette labels (which I was surprised even exist). We took the pair of them to a small hippyish festival last year, I lent my cheap acoustic bass to the friend and he had a great time wandering around finding people to jam with.

This is looking really nice, with the bevel and the pretty woods. You've got me gazing over at the plank of walnut I have leaning in the corner of the room, wondering whether it should be made into something SG shaped!

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1472464142' post='3121216'] This joker also wants over a £1000 for a really, honestly super rare 1974 Antoria, bolt on neck ply wood Les Paul Custom pile of poo that apparently is the closest copy of the Steve Jones Les Paul that you can get for under £3000, the only similarity being that it has two stickers applied! Nothing but a greedy chancer at work, as some one else has already suggested "take him round the back of the bike shed and give him a slapping" only I would use the Antoria! [/quote] Wow, the Antoria is quite something. You could lose your pick in that neck pocket even if you used one of those 3mm Jazz Stubby things...

I also really like the aesthetics of these. I'd want to put together a kitschy little lounge jazz trio with the drummer on a sparkly cocktail kit and the keyboard player on some sort of 60s German electric piano like a Hohner or Weltmeister. Matching suits, of course...