Beer of the Bass

The Beta can still make a good sounding cab if you're on a budget and don't need huge power handling, especially as they sometimes show up used for about half of the new price. I've been quite pleased with them myself, though I've only used them in conventional ported cabs rather than BFM's horn enclosures. However, it would seem a bit counter-intuitive to go for the extra complexity of the Lite design to save weight and then put a ceramic driver in it.

There have been similar devices for ukulele going back as far as the 20s, but I'm not sure if there was ever a guitar version of those. [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_Master"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_Master[/url] Still, the chap has such enthusiasm about his invention that it would feel mean-spirited to take the pee. Although part of me does wonder whether the autoharp solved this issue a century ago...

I've only used the D'Addario and not the LaBella, but I'd say tapewounds can be brighter than most flats. They don't have the metallic zing of rounds, but there can still be quite a lot of high-end detail. They do respond well to the tone control though. Mine didn't change much over the first year.

1/4" plywood? That's certainly going to be light, though I'm quite curious to see how the bracing is done when using such thin ply.

Three pages and no mention of white power cables yet?

Very nice. I approve of sparkly grille cloth!

[quote name='Passinwind' timestamp='1467559980' post='3084540'] Very nice build! Looking forward t seeing how you do the front panel, as that often tends to make or break the overall perceived build quality. I have tried really hard to get away from using IEC inlets these days. The Neutrik Powercon is my current favorite, for a variety of reasons. [/quote] The Powercon does look convenient for mounting in round holes, and locking too. I might have a look at those some time. I'm going to do the faceplate in thin perspex, using laser printed decal film for the lettering and painted from the back. It seems a bit fiddly to do, but I've seen it work well. It turns out I have a little more troubleshooting to do on the amp after trying it at volume last night. It really sounds good, but it just doesn't get as loud as a 50-watt Marshall-style amp should. Plugged into a 4x12" it gets up to earplugs-loud, but from past experience I'd expect leave-the-room levels of loudness. So I'm going to go through methodically to check component values and connections against the layout, recheck the voltages and bias, and if I still haven't figured out what's going on I'll have a look at it with an oscilloscope and signal generator. I'd imagine it will be something simple, once I find it...

I've now got the reverb working. My reverb issue turned out to be that I had connected the reverb circuit to a point on the power supply where the voltage was slightly over the 300v maximum that an ECC83 can handle and it killed the ECC83 and blew the HT fuse as soon as I switched it on with the valve in place. Thank goodness for fuses! Moving the B+ connection for the reverb one step further down the chain sorted that, and it's working nicely now. I was worried that this stripped-down reverb circuit might sound anemic compared to a blackface Fender style reverb, but it sounds good. It has less depth available than a Fender reverb, but that just means the knob lives in the upper half of its range rather than in the bottom quarter. It doesn't go full-on surf, but it's not that style of amp anyway. I'm taking it along to a jam tonight with the friend I'm building it for, so we can find out what he thinks of it before I start on building the combo cab for it. [quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1466886243' post='3079597'] Have you tried a bass through it? Instant Jack Bruce? [/quote] I've just given it a try, and it does exactly that. It doesn't have much headroom in the preamp and breaks up pretty early. The bright channel can bring out more top end than the old Jack Bruce sound, even with flatwounds, but it really leans towards dirty rock bass. I can imagine it would be spectacular as the treble side of a Ric-o-sound style setup...

Looks like fun - I like weird old valve amps. Do these have a transistor input stage like the Gem guitar amps do? If so, the lack of treble Truckstop mentions might be down to a low input impedance which causes passive instruments to lose high-end. It seems to be a common issue with transistor preamps of this era - I've had a couple of old ss pre/valve powered Dynacord amps with the same thing going on. Running a buffer in front (like a Boss pedal in bypass mode) livens up the response of the Dynacords, so it might be worth trying with this amp.

Nearly there now - I've got the amp up and running in it's basic state without the reverb circuit connected. The reverb itself needs a bit of tweaking, but everything else is good. The voltages check out as expected and I've set the bias. I had one obvious error in my wiring; I had connected the output transformer primary with the wrong polarity. This design uses negative feedback around the power stage, so if the phase is accidentally reversed you get positive feedback, making it into a terrifyingly loud oscillator. That was soon sorted though. As it turns out, my lead dress still isn't up there with some of the fancier stuff out there, but it isn't causing any problems either so I can live with that. There are a few tweaks from the original design - rather than having four input jacks and having to use a patch cable to jumper the two channels, I've used three jacks for bright/normal/both. I have a couple of added toggle switches - one switches between different value bypass caps on the second preamp stage. Adding a bypass capacitor gives a little extra gain and the value determines what frequency that starts at, so my switch selects between a full-range boost, a boost with the bass rolled off or no boost in the centre position. The other selects a resistor and capacitor in the tone stack, switching between the value used in earlier Marshalls or the values they changed to a little later, which lets more upper mids through and sounds more aggressive and crunchy. As to the sound, it's a lot of fun to play through. It's a very different style of amp to my own little Fender Princeton Reverb copy, and really crunches up nicely. The Master volume works well to bring it down to reasonable levels, but I could do with checking it out somewhere I can play loud. It seems to have a bit more dominant low end than I was expecting, but then I am testing it through a ported bass cab rather than a proper guitar cab, so it could just be down to that. Next up will be fiddling about with the reverb some more and doing a faceplate and combo cabinet for it...

Pics aren't showing at the moment, congratulations on the new bass though. I feel like low tension synthetic strings plus low action might be a recipe for a quiet bass, but you could always have Bill install bridge adjusters so that you can find your own sweet spot.

[quote name='hubrad' timestamp='1466324618' post='3074865'] If you're doing a more folk-rock thing, just use what you're comfortable with. Last time I took notice, Dave Pegg, who must be pretty much the icon of such behaviour, was using an Ibanez SR 5 string. [/quote] I'd agree with this; from what I see of bands playing this sort of thing at the moment, there isn't the same prediliction for retro instruments that's fashionable elsewhere - you tend not to see the more flashy boutique coffee table jobs, but it's not all four string passive Fenders either.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1466017404' post='3072868'] Haven't detected a problem in 50 years? Blue [/quote] You would only notice a problem with silicone polishes if you ever need to have an instrument repaired using glue, refinished or touched up. Silicone is hard to get rid of and nothing much sticks to it. I've known a couple of luthiers who won't let it anywhere near their workshops.

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1465833784' post='3071404'] You can pick up old pianos on eBay for as little as 99p - saw one made of Yew and another of Walnut recently. Not sure if they're laminated but if it's solid wood that's a mega buy. [/quote] They're usually veneered over softwood or low grade hardwood for the casing, and what bits of hardwood there are don't have many clear sections. Then you have to get rid of the rest, not to mention the risk of moth and woodworm infestation There's a reason older pianos are hard to give away!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1465769608' post='3070903'] Orange cab speakers have an Outspan. [/quote] But are the small ones more juicy?

Very tidy example, that Superbass. I've been looking at a lot of pictures of Marshall wiring lately, to try and pick up hints for my own build in a Marshall style, and they're not all as neat as yours.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1465727240' post='3070475'] A real shame, as he [i]did [/i]have some qualities. [/quote] A good point. If I want to feel inspired by Rich, the music and not the rants should be the thing to do it.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1465702047' post='3070290'] I wonder if many of the responses are from millenials and there's a generational thing. I understand millenials don't like criticism. Blue [/quote] I don't think that's what's going on in this thread, but if that helps you feel validated then have at it. I get the impression most basschatters are a little older than the usual definition of millennial, and certainly several of the posters making pertinent points in this thread are older. Myself, I was born at the start of the 80s so probably just about fit in the millennial bracket, but I'm willing to avoid the cliches about boomers if you'll do the same about us... I don't hear a lot of coherent musical criticism in Buddy's rants, more non-specific impotent rage. More targeted criticism would make it clear exactly what parts of the set needed work, but I don't think that's what he was going for. To me the tape sounded like an insecure individual attempting to establish a pecking order, and nothing to do with the quality of the performances. He's not whipping them into shape, but beating them down for his own satisfaction. If more people are more inclined to question that kind of behaviour now, I'm happy about that.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1465551510' post='3069131'] Nice work. The iec power connector doesn't look too bad considering I bet it's a right pain in the arse to do. Is there not a way these can be cut out with a dremel and small cutting wheel? [/quote] [quote name='Bottle' timestamp='1465559272' post='3069249'] Hole punch would be neater. Laser cut the neatest. For a one-off though a bit of elbow grease is the quickest [/quote] A dremel would probably do it, but I tend to go with hand tools first. If I ever do more than one-offs, I'd fork out for a proper rectangular chassis punch. The round ones I picked up for the valve sockets were a joy to use, compared to trying to drill the same size hole cleanly and then get rid of the burr.

Here's an in-progress shot of the chassis wiring - I've still got quite a bit more to do though. The overly long and coiled wires are the ones I haven't connected yet. As the reverb circuit is an add-on to this amp design and might need some tweaking once built, I've kept it off the main board and built it using a little strip of eyelets next to the valve socket.

I do wonder if Alex was responding to the market with this range of cabs - if you spend years trying to persuade bassists they don't need a 4x10" and they still want a 4x10", it seems like good business sense to recognise that and come up with a better 4x10 instead! In general, designs which try to change players perceptions of what they really need find a few enthusiastic adherents and influence other designers but never find a huge market share; the original Steinberger basses would be an example. Quite a few successful manufacturers of bass gear have looked at the industry standard gear that working musicians are using and then tried to make an improved but recognisable version of that. If done well, it seems to be a winning formula; something like what Sadowsky did with Fender designs.

[quote name='ColinB' timestamp='1465463001' post='3068372'] That's a really pro job you're doing. I built a 5E3 many years ago and it's still going strong even though I've kept on 'tweaking' it. Bassman output tranny so I could run an extension cab, mods to run 6L6s, the two pre-amp channels in series rather than parallel. My next tweak will be the Ampmaker VCB/VVR variable power control ([url="http://www.ampmaker.com/store/VCB-VVR-kit-for-cathode-biased-amplifiers-ZK02.html"]here[/url]). I'll be following this build with interest. [/quote] Cheers! I'd looked at the VVR kits, and if I ever do a cathode biased amp I'll probably give one a go. This one is going to have a post-phase inverter master volume to tame the volume a little, as it seemed like the simplest way to do that. [quote name='Bottle' timestamp='1465472909' post='3068528'] Firstly, wow, nice lead dress! Secondly, I did a valve amp build last year [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/257258-diy-valve-amp-kits"]here[/url] so I wouldn't worry about a guitar amp build in a bass forum my kit was bought from [url="http://www.ampmaker.com/store/home.php"]Amp Maker[/url] and is a 4W Fender Tweed Champ clone. Sounds amazing Good luck with the rest of the build. Shall be keeping an eye on this thread with interest! [/quote] Again, cheers! I'm trying to put some effort into the lead dress - so far I'm not managing the full Hiwatt/Burman style neatness, but I'm sure it's coming out a bit tidier than my last effort. I'm also discovering that cable ties are my friends. I'll take another pic tomorrow - I've got most of the wiring around the transformers, power/standby switches and can caps done, but not quite ready to put the board in yet.

[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1465465084' post='3068416'] I consider 'heft' to be related to the uncompressed and unsagging reproduction of low frequencies. Basically the sort of thing good subwoofers do really well and that poor PA systems and weedy bass amps and cabs struggle with. It's also something that serious solidstate power and high excursion neo drivers are better at than valve amps and old school drivers (unless you use a BIG rig). However, there are definitely bassists who consider 'heft' to be related to the compression and distortion added by valve amps and certain cabs, which thickens a bass sound. This mid-bass to lower-midrange thickness is also sometimes described as punch, though I'd tend to call the transient character thump, with punch being higher up in the midrange. [/quote] That sums it up well, there seem to be these two quite disparate properties being referred to as "heft". I'm a big fan of the second of those qualities (whatever you want to call it), as it really seems to create a sound that's clearly audible, satisfying to play, and finds a space in the mix easily.

I played at a private party last year where I brought my 100-year old double bass and wished I'd just brought electric bass instead. It was a party at your classic communal hippy dwelling, with a dancing audience who were in a whole range of altered states. The gig was great fun (as was the rest of the night), but mashed people kept stumbling into the "stage" area and I just spent too much time fielding people away from the double bass, which escaped major damage but did end up with a bent tuner and a couple of new scuffs.

[quote name='Passinwind' timestamp='1465397162' post='3067864'] The bass seat in his band was notoriously short-lived, sometimes even lasting less than an entire set. It'd be interesting to hear someone like Tony Levin's candid take. [/quote] The only interview I've found with Levin on the subject was fairly diplomatic. This could be a professionalism thing on Levin's part, as it's probably not a great idea for a working bassist to be too critical of former employers.