Beer of the Bass

I didn't have any trouble in the couple of years I was gigging a 100 watt valve amp - I never even turned it up far enough to sound dirty.

Taking them on and off a couple of times with a standard bridge makes a mess of the silks too. I spent a while trying to decide between rounds and flats for the band I played in and swapped the same sets over a few times, and I would have appreciated a quick-release bridge for that (I settled on the flats, FWIW).

I hope Wilko's doctor doesn't read the bit about sharing his morphine tablets with Norman! That could make for an awkward chat at the next appointment...

[quote name='fleabag' timestamp='1452354889' post='2949212'] Butler also used Orange amps / cabs and did so all the way through this live performance in 1970 Its more obvious from 7.00 minutes onwards [/quote] AFAIK pretty much everyone who did a Beat Club session played through Orange amps as they were the house gear and not many bands would transport their full backline to Germany for a TV show. There are some excellent Beat Club performances from quite a few bands up on youtube - it would be great if somebody put a DVD box set together.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1452281250' post='2948543'] I think you could do a lot worse..... a LOT worse, IMO. I would rip the box myself but I doubt you'll get it as light ...but anyway the design rip is a tone monster, IMO, and I think I've heard most of its competition. [/quote] I would feel a little cheeky trying to build a straight rip-off of a currently available product from a small company, and even more so documenting it publicly, but on the other hand looking at what they do and taking some hints from it seems OK to me. It's quite possible that some of my guesses would be wrong anyway! So, more work-alike than clone is what I'm going for. Mine will almost certainly be a little heavier as I'm using birch and not poplar, but it's a small 1x12" so they won't be outrageously heavy.

I've heard that sort of "angry" tone out of Gibson Rippers too.

[quote name='dincz' timestamp='1452243509' post='2947888'] I'm guessing the 5-pin DIN connector is not a midi output. [/quote] DIN connectors were quite common on older European gear - I had a Dynacord Amp with a DIN input around the back and I think my old Hohner Pianet had them originally too.

[quote name='paulnb57' timestamp='1452268745' post='2948338'] Following this........care to enlighten me on the Tuff Cab paint, I've never heard of it..... [/quote] It's a textured paint which can be applied with a roller, it looks a bit different from tolex close up, but still smart looking if done well, plus it can be touched up if it gets scuffed. If you search for "tuff cab" on basschat, there are some build threads which use it. It's a similar finish to a lot of the Barefaced cabs, though I don't know if the most recent ones are still the same. It comes in black or a few different colours - I liked the idea of the blue used in this build, perhaps with a silver Fender-ish cloth grille. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/243742-fearful-156/page__hl__%22tuff+cab%22__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/243742-fearful-156/page__hl__%22tuff+cab%22__fromsearch__1[/url]

I'm just about to start putting together a pair of 1x12" cabs, as I ended up selling my last decent sized cab during a house move and only have a little 1x10" at the moment. With a new musical project on the go this year, it would be nice to have something a touch bigger around. This won't be a high-end, cost-no-object sort of build; while I don't want to skimp too much I'm trying to keep it reasonable. With that in mind, I've picked up two Eminence Beta 12A-2 drivers which are lightly used but both in good condition. The cost of both including postage was £66, which is about the cost of one new driver. These are not state-of-the-art, high excursion drivers, but I'm confident they will do the job for my needs. My bands are never crazy-loud, I'm currently using a GK MB200 and I intend to mess around with low-wattage valve amps at some point, so it's more important to me that the cabs have decent efficiency and a pleasing voice than massive power handling. There is a certain small company's 1x12" that appears to use the same driver (as the published specs are identical to what would be expected for that driver and box size) and is currently very popular among basschatters, so I'm hoping to come up with something which does a comparable job even though I'm not going to directly rip off their design. The 1x12" design diary thread has been very useful and I'm going to take quite a few pointers on design and construction from that. My cab is going to be just a touch smaller than the design diary cab, closer to the commercial cab mentioned above. It will be about 46 litres once the ports, driver and bracing are accounted for. I intend to use plastic downpipe for the ports so that I can try a couple of tunings and pick the one I prefer. I was initially going to use some 18mm exterior ply which a friend was clearing out, but on closer inspection that turned out to be a little too full of voids and has thin outer veneers which would be no good for glued butt joints, so I'll have to find another use for that. I've spoken to a local timber supplier who seem very helpful so far, they've ordered in some birch plywood for me and are happy to cut it to my sizes. Although the design diary thread discussed the merits of 18mm plywood I've decided to go with 12mm to keep the weight down a touch, which will be appropriately braced. I may make the back removable like Phil's prototype, as it would make bracing, lining and installing the ports a lot easier. It would also save me from having as many seams if I end up using tolex. I'm still considering the cosmetic side of things. The one thing I'm definite on is that I want a sparkly cloth grille - I just think they look good. I'd like the cabs to be something other than black - I'm waiting for Blue Aran to get back to me on the availability of Tuff Cab paint in either Signal Red or Turbo Blue as they're out of stock currently. Alternatively a tolex type material could look good, but looks tricky to apply neatly. My plywood should arrive by Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have more to post then.

[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1451990243' post='2945207'] I spend a lot of my time listening to BBC6music, going 'ooh, so-and-so has a new song!' and then it turns out to be a new band of 20 year olds who've grown up listening to their parents' Simple Minds and New Order. In the way that britpop was 20somethings referencing the 60s, da yoof now seem to be doing a lot of electro-pop, and its often more fun to play synth sounds on bass than a computer! [/quote] Yes, I find the same thing with 6Music. If they play archive sessions and I'm not paying attention to the presenter, I often have genuine difficulty in telling whether I'm listening to a new young band or something relatively little-known from the early 80s!

That organ is very cool, I love that sort of thing.

It's not impossible, but if you're using hand tools it's a pain in the bum to get a neat bevel on the edge and hard not to get any tool marks on the face of the plastic. This is one of those things that I've done once or twice but would cheerfully pay somebody to do next time!

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1452186957' post='2947442'] If I'd spent a grand on a cab and couldn't hear it, which is what the OP's problem seems to be, 'chosen unwisely' would be putting it mildly. [/quote] I'd guess that any cab which only comes up to thigh-height is going to have similar issues with hearing the mids and highs when you're standing right next to it (though perhaps less so with a dedicated mid driver), so it's hardly some unique flaw to this specific cab. There are very few cabs on the market which wouldn't have exactly the same issue.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1452174748' post='2947264'] If it is too hard for you to understand... [/quote] I would politely suggest that your writing style does not make your posts easy to follow, regardless of whether anyone agrees with the content or not. I am picking up that you think the OP has chosen unwisely and that you do not rate their sound (despite having never heard them, I presume), but it's hard to make out exactly what you are trying to say. [quote]It's not a one cab solution if you need a another cab to put on top. I don't subscribe to single 12's anyway (read single chassis cabs)... but if you do, and you can't hear it then you haven't really thought it thru. So you need to raise it off the floor and carry something to facilitate that That can be another cab .....defeating the object for a one cab solution..or bring a box to put it on... which is going to nullify any desired weight saves.[/quote] The cab the OP is talking about is a 2x12", not one with a single driver. Anything short of a fridge sized cab (or perhaps a slim vertical stack) is going to be at less than ear height, but many gigs require something smaller. Could you be a little clearer as to where you consider the OP has gone wrong?

I was doing about 70/30 fingers/pick with my last band, and TBH it never occurred to me to make any specific EQ or level changes between the two. I would tend to have different pickup combinations for particular songs (backing one or the other pickup off on a bass with Jazz wiring), but not specifically for fingers versus pick. I think I got away with that, or at least nobody ever had an issue with it and I was always quite happy. I'd agree with Discreet and try to work with your right hand dynamics.

I have a drumming friend who I've played with in various bands since about 1999 and who was best man at my wedding. I think we've played together that much that it just clicks without either of us really having to think about it. He drifted away from playing kit for a couple of years, but has been successfully coaxed back and we're getting a little quartet together doing not-quite-jazz stuff, which should be fun.

I bought a radius sanding block from them and it was fine, though I've no experience of any of their other products. I'm not sure if a notched straight edge is an absolute essential if you're just doing a fret level and dress on your kit bass, as I've managed it several times with simpler tools. As long as you can get the top surface of the frets straight and level you should be able to achieve a decent setup. I could see it being useful to diagnose issues in a repair situation though.

As a non-obvious influence on my own playing, I'd mention Rose Simpson from the Incredible String Band. Apparently she had not been a musician before meeting Mike Heron but ended up playing bass simply because she was around, though she would seem to have picked it up quickly and I like a lot of the lines she played. She played quite simple lines with a nice feel to them, with a very odd one-finger plucking technique. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg4VdknBjv4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg4VdknBjv4[/url]

If the bass suits it and you don't mind a bit of routing, the two-piece Warwick bridges aren't expensive and have a quick-release tailpiece: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_bridge_30118_4c.htm?ref=search_rslt_warwick+bridge_162645_2"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_bridge_30118_4c.htm?ref=search_rslt_warwick+bridge_162645_2[/url]

The cab itself might dry out OK, though you would probably want to take out the wadding inside and hose everything down with clean water before drying it out. I think the Super 15 used Eminence 3015 drivers, which are about £170 each at the moment. I don't know if flood damaged drivers could be re-coned, that might be an avenue to explore.

I must admit, I don't really use any products on mine. It gets wiped down with a microfibre cloth after a sweaty gig or if it gets dusty. Occasionally I'll wipe the strings down with a little isopropyl alcohol to brighten them up a bit and remove old rosin. Other than that I'm not sure it really needs anything to be regularly applied.

I had an issue for a while with my guitar playing where I would set the treble so that it sounded right with plugs in but ended up painfully bright for anyone not wearing them. I like a fairly bright, glassy, single-coil guitar into Fender style amp sound and getting that right while avoiding the icepick is a tricky balance. The solution seems to be to listen to my sound without the plugs when I first set it up, then avoid turning it up any further once I've got them in.

You might struggle to find anything compact with 500 watts for £250, unless you get lucky with a second hand amp. You'll probably find that using an ordinary bass head through the effects return or power amp in will work OK and be easier to find than a dedicated power amp. Although there's something appealing about using weird old bits of gear (and I've certainly been attached to some myself at times), for a gigging setup that gets that sound you could also look at the Tronographic Rusty Box pedal which is apparently based on the TS50 preamp, and run that into whatever bass head suits your budget.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1451669379' post='2942288'] That's just what I thought. I think it needs a 'k' in it (relicking) but this makes it seem medieval. Maybe that's about right. [/quote] "Relicking" sounds like the act of having another lick of something that you licked earlier. It's a nice looking bass, but surely tongues would be taking things a bit far!