Beer of the Bass

[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!

It should be possible to take a standard TRS/stereo jack plug and wire up a resistor inside the plug housing to simulate the expression pedal at maximum. You would need to know the value of pot used in the expression pedal and which terminals go to which pins of the pot. Anyone with some soldering ability could make this up in a couple of minutes.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1451253158' post='2939151'] Offtopic: That's Ruaridh. I love his playing. Check out his other band Triptych and Flo [/quote] Yeah, I always like hearing Ruaridh and he's a bit of a stalwart of the Edinburgh scene at the moment. Is he on here, by the way?

[quote name='2x18' timestamp='1451248108' post='2939108'] Strangely enough eBay owns Gumtree! [/quote] Yes, and you'd think there would be more staff at the one which charges a fee for every listing rather than the one which works largely for free, yet Gumtree seem to respond to reports within minutes while eBay rarely do. It's odd!

The band I was in a couple of years ago were getting a few paying bar gigs despite being an originals band, and I know other local bands who've had a similar thing going on. One in particular turned into a residency which ran for quite a while. I guess it helped that our style was quite accessible and we had a great female singer so we didn't give off too much of a "lads with guitars" vibe. Those gigs started drying up a little while before I left the band, though I don't know if that's because the scene was changing or if the band started to lose it's buzz/spark/mojo or whatever you want to call it.

Hooray, it's been removed already! Curious how Gumtree manages this much more easily then eBay...

These keep popping up on Gumtree, a supposedly different seller in a different area of Scotland with a different set of pictures each time, but always in a rural or remote area, always from a new account, always some variation of this amp model using pictures borrowed from old Reverb or eBay listings (usually of US 120V models) and always listed for far less than the usual selling price. It looks like an obvious scam to fool distance buyers into sending payment for an amp that the seller clearly does not own. I've been reporting them whenever I see them, but I thought someone might appreciate the heads-up if you think you've spotted a bargain Deluxe Reverb. [url="https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-bass-amplifiers/fender-deluxe-reverb-blonde-cream-amp-limited-edition/1147753369"]https://www.gumtree....tion/1147753369[/url]

I used boiled linseed oil once, I found it overly thick, slow to dry and I didn't like the smell, though perhaps brands vary. Musicians forums are great at producing interminable multi-page debates on this sort of thing! I'd say that if you already have the Dunlop lemon oil to hand I'd just use that rather than buying anything else, it's made for the job and won't do any harm. AFAIK it's just a light mineral oil with some lemon scent.

I think there's very little info about applying finish to rosewood fretboards because it is very rarely done. Usually rosewood fingerboards just get a wipe with a light oil (not a drying oil finish like Danish oil or True Oil) which darkens it slightly and makes it look a bit nicer. There are a few dedicated products for the job, though I use woodwind bore oil since I had bottle knocking about. Ideally it should be sanded to a smooth and level surface before the frets go in, with perhaps just a quick rub down with extra fine steel wool once the frets are done. If it were my bass, I'd be inclined to fill the little check/crack in your second picture with CA glue, scraped level with the edge of a razor blade and spot-sanded if necessary, before oiling. It might take a couple of applications for a deeper dent. This has turned out to be barely visible on rosewood when I've tried it before. Any divots which appear to be just dents can be raised by putting a small scrap of damp cloth over them and swiftly touching a soldering iron to it to produce steam in the area.

If a company is really on the ball they might be interested to find out that users of their amps often prefer other cabs, so that they can figure out why and come up with something to meet those needs.

I think machinehead's attitude, where technical understanding is complementary to experience gained through listening seems like a good way round for a player to approach things. There have been a few times when I've enjoyed playing through certain pieces of gear and then looked up all the information I can find about them to try and figure out what it is they're doing that I like. They have sometimes been items that I might not have chosen if comparing specs on a "more is better" basis, which there is a temptation to do when you first start checking spec sheets.

Was he trying to say he won't [i]ship[/i] outside the UK? Either that or he loads up on Immodium every time he approaches the border, but I'm not sure how that would be relevant to the eBay listing...

I guess the point is that in the face of specs as flexible as that, there is probably something to be said for the "Sod it, just let me hear the thing and decide if it works for me" approach.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1450867750' post='2936509'] No love for Sue Ryder then? [/quote] The Harley Benton Deko was this year's Sue Ryder.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1450907313' post='2936997'] Given a 1w input to these, and measured at 1 m, and averaging the frequencies, I'd expect these two to be of equal 'loudness', with those figures. Is that not the case..? If not, why not..? [/quote] I'm not sure there is any bass-capable single 10" speaker that can achieve that sort of sensitivity across most of its frequency range (or at least not a compact reflex cab, I don't know if some sort of horn-loaded design could do it). I'm going to guess that EAs figures must be derived from the sensitivity at the tip of the biggest peak on the chart somewhere in the KHz range rather than a broadband sensitivity. But they just call the figure "sensitivity". It's a good small cab and does well for a 1x10", but almost any conventional 2x12" on the market will be substantially more efficient. I bring this up just to urge caution when comparing one manufacturers published specs to another, as not all have the same practices.