Beer of the Bass

As a good example of how manufacturers specs can be confusing, perusing the manufacturer's websites you could be led to believe that a 1x10" EA Wizzy 10 cab is of equal sensitivity to a 2x12" TKS S212, as both claim sensitivity of 102dB. I think any of us could guess which one of those will be louder with a low powered amp, and not by a small margin either.

I reckon that the music press insistence that all bands should either be working class or pretend to be has more or less been dropped in the past five years or so. There have certainly been a proliferation of artists in the charts who come from backgrounds rather better off than I would even regard as middle class, and no-one really attempts to pretend otherwise now. I'm thinking of Florence Welch, James Blunt, Coldplay, Lily Allen, the wretched Mumfords and quite a few more. There have been hand-wringing Guardian articles on the phenomenon, of course. I do worry a little that it has probably got harder for anyone without some resources behind them to really get started in the music industry now.

[quote name='krispn' timestamp='1450799106' post='2935982'] Next gig tell the sound guy you wanna mic the cab and you have everything you need to do so. You'll know exactly where you want the mic to go and have the gear ready to do it etc. The sound guy doesn't have to worry about picking or placing a mic (even though he should as its his job) and you come across as competent and professional and most importantly prepared. [/quote] Yes, if I get into gigging with a valve amp again I might try this approach and see if it meets with less resistance. I've tried the post-amp DI approach before with a BSS AR116 with the 4KHz roll-off switched in and it required a lot of EQ to sound much like the speaker did.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1450785879' post='2935814'] f*** the sound guy, he's there to do a job. If you want your cab mic'd then tell him to do it. [/quote] I haven't found that attitude to work in practice, unless you're calling the shots and hiring the sound guy yourselves. Any time you set up that adversarial relationship with the house sound guy, it's never a good gig!

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1450741772' post='2935498'] You'd be hard pressed to find a bunch with more impeccable working class credentials as The Sex Pistols. John Lydon started life in a one room tenement in North London, moving later to a council flat in Finsbury Park. His Dad was a journeyman crane driver with John sometimes joining him as he moved about the country. Steve Jones was an illiterate petty thief who slept in the same room as his Mum and step Dad in Shepherds Bush. His parents greatest contribution was teaching him how to steal from a young age. Paul Cook was council estate working class, the poshest of the lot was Glen Matlock who seemed to have a very ordinary upbringing in Crystal Palace. Sham 69 on the other hand hail from leafy Hersham in Surrey. There name comes from graffiti that read Walton and Hersham '69 when the footy team won the Athenian league. The Cockney Rejects who are undoubtedly hard-core thugs from the East End parodied Sham '69's tomfoolery with the Greatest Cockney Rip-Off. [/quote] I'm not talking so much about whether the artists were working class but more who their following was. The particular old punk I heard rambling on about these things was suggesting that it was really the next wave of bands after the Pistols who caught on in a big way with the kids on the estates across England- the guys who had almost more of a football style fandom, and some of those bands could indeed be viewed as a bit naff and populist. He may have been full of it, it just seemed like a perspective I hadn't seen so much of.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1450653810' post='2934688'] Working class heroes - well maybe in the eyes of the NME and music journos. Where did this luducrous idea there wasn't a gobbing fest come from? They all did it!! Bad chest my arse!! In reality many of the working class of the time were down night clubs dancing their hot pants and flares off to disco and soul - Johnny Bristol, T Connection, Chic and the like - or seeing the ELO who were absolutely huge at the time. It's not as if this was Merseybeat or something - you'd have more chance of seeing the 2 tone post skinheads than punks on the street (unless you were around the Westwood/McClaren manor). They were even banned from playing in places by most councils! [/quote] I was born in 1981 so obviously wasn't around at the time, but I've picked up the impression from a few old punks that the Pistols and their ilk were part of a fairly cliquey, arty, high fashion scene that only small circles were close to. The same people reckoned that when bands with a larger working class following (like Sham '69) emerged, they were almost regarded as a bit déclassé, even embarrassing, by the "scene" punks. Does that sound somewhere close to what was going on?

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1450732861' post='2935399'] I don't get it either. I have no idea how TKS managed to turn what is a very average-to-mediocre driver into a much-recommended bass cab. It's in a half-inch poplar cabinet too, which doesn't help. They appear to have done something right though. [/quote] I'm going to guess that the particular frequency response of that driver (the typical Eminence rising mids thing) produces something that just sounds like people expect a bass cab to sound, and it's a convenient, smart looking and tidily built package to boot. It's not going to have the output of more state-of-the-art driver designs, but it's probably loud and bassy enough for most, with a familiar character to it.

I love this one too. The intro is surprisingly simplistic for a bunch of jazzers, but those nice growly fifths are a wonderfully purposeful way to open an album. Dave Holland's tone and feel on this are a bit of a benchmark for me. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGiT6-Oahc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGiT6-Oahc[/url]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1450731298' post='2935383'] Hi Martin, I'll have a pair of S112's coming to me soon, so we can compare them if you like. [/quote] Yeah, that could be entertaining. I'm not sure when I'll get started on them; probably not until the new year, but I have a new wee musical project they would be useful for.

Wasn't mrtcat on here doing speaker builds for people? I don't know if he's still doing that, but since the plans are public domain for these, any builder of custom cabs should be able to put one together.

How deep is the gap between the fingerboard and straight-edge at the deepest point? It might turn out to be within the normal range. Is there any buzzing around the middle of the fingerboard when the bridge is adjusted to your preferred height?

A cab with a tiny footprint that I enjoyed the sound of is the Ampeg 210AV, and the cosmetics are quite living-room friendly. I haven't heard one in a gig setting, but it was fun to play through at rehearsal room volumes.

It's a regular thing for me to put on the radio and try to play along with whatever comes on. I figure that to be a useful skill and good ear training even if I never hear those songs again.

This thread is a couple of months old, but I've just picked up a carbon fibre rod from a luthiery supplier that I'm going to use in a mandolin neck, and it seems noticeably different from the material I used in my five-string bass neck. The rods I used in the bass neck were 6mm square from a model aircraft supplier in the UK, and the rod I've just picked up is 1/4" by 3/8" from Luthiers Mercantile International. While the different size makes the stiffness difficult to compare, the LMI material feels a lot stiffer and I can barely flex it at all, even across the 1/4" dimension and it rings with a high pitched chime like a piece of ceramic when knocked. The stuff from the model aircraft supplier has some spring to it, though it is still stiffer than a 6mm square rod of most hardwoods. I presume that different grades are available for different purposes. So it would appear that not all carbon fibre rods are the same stuff, and it may be that if maximum stiffness is the goal it could be worth paying the extra from luthiery suppliers. Although the bass neck is doing fine after 18 months of medium gauge flatwounds, so using the more flexible material doesn't seem to have been catastrophic.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1450448562' post='2932948'] Well, I'd agree that the S112 is a great little cab, a real tone monster and as light as they come @ 10Kgs which is about as light as it gets.... ?? AND it is ceramic which I currently prefer. I'm sure they could be a downside, but that doesn't register at the moment. Very well built so not about to take one apart anytime soon. I think to be able to engineer cabs of this kind you need a consistantly good ear. I'd suggest Bergantino as another cab maker who knows what he wants to hear in a cab.. or at least, recognises something when it works. Not wanting to harp on about this but the S112's do have a magic little x factor in the mid range..either by accident or design..but that is why I bought them Would I cal them both boutique...?? probably, does that matter...not really, IMO. [/quote] It's interesting what high regard these are held in on basschat, as on paper they look decent but unremarkable; a quality but not premium spec Eminence driver in a 40-something litre box, and (going by the sensitivity) figures, tuned for a small mid-bass bump. It's clear that in the flesh they have a sound which people like though. In the new year I'm going to put together a pair of cabs with what I'm fairly sure is the same driver as the S112, but mine will be built in true shed-fangled DIY fashion. When I've got those done, it would be a fun exercise to compare them to the S112s if anyone up here has some.

How's your soldering? It's not hard to get a little extra low end out of a tubescreamer with a simple capacitor change and that might be sufficient, but it does change the character of the distortion somewhat. Although to some extent the bumped mids and lean bass are part of the tubescreamer vibe.

[quote name='Musashimonkey' timestamp='1450306527' post='2931631'] If you've already got a pre amp shaping the electric bass, then just a cheap and simple a-b foot switch with dual inputs and single line out should be ideal for your needs. (If I understand the question that is!). I'm sure I've seen these go for £10 before... [/quote] The only issue there would be that I couldn't tweak the EQ of the double bass without affecting the electric bass, and it sometimes needs that. Though perhaps I could make up a little pedalboard where the electric bass goes through the Flipster, double bass goes through a Boss EQ or similar, followed by an A/B box. That would be a bit more flexible if I needed to use it with a borrowed amp sometime too.

[quote name='sk8' timestamp='1450344988' post='2931781'] Overall very pleased with. I would say initial results to my ears it doesn't seem as smooth as my OBC115 although that doesn't Infer that the Chili is harsh. [/quote] Looking at the Faital website, the 15PR400 goes higher than most 15" speakers, but in an even and non peaky way. So you probably will hear some more treble than with the OBC115, but it should respond nicely to EQ if you need to tone it down. I bet that's a good sounding rig with the AD200!

I have a potential new project on the go which is going to involve alternating between double bass and electric bass. For double bass, I'm happy with the sound of my pickup straight into my GK MB200, so that side of things is straightforward. I'm trying to figure out the most elegant way to bring in the electric bass without either having to adjust the amp EQ each time I swap or spending large amounts on gear. Has anyone tried using a preamp pedal with an adapter cable into the 1/8" Aux in socket on the GK? The manual does not give any info on what signal level is required by the Aux input, so it's hard to tell whether that would be effective and would achieve sufficient output. I was thinking that the double bass could go straight into the GK and go into the PA using the GK's balanced output set to pre-eq. The electric bass could go through a preamp pedal (I have a ROG Flipster pedal at the moment, and I'm considering trying the Ginger, their improved version) followed by my BSS DI box going to the PA and a 1/4" to 1/8" cable into the Aux input. I would probably have to make up a suitable cable, but that wouldn't be hard. The Aux input comes after the EQ and volume controls on the GK, so the double bass would be controlled by the GK's controls and the electric bass solely by the preamp pedal. The downside of this would be the lack of independent control of amp volume and line output on the electric bass. Is there a more sensible way of doing this that I haven't thought of, or is this scheme worth a shot?

I think this has got to be up there, either the studio version or this live take. How cool is Jerry Jemmott? [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCVffNZFc1U"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCVffNZFc1U[/url]

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1450181840' post='2930293'] I think that this is a pretty common pattern: 1) Someone figures out a new way of doing something, 2) Everyone admires the person, 3) People start copying, 4) Other people refine, 5) Years pass.... 6) Original person's innovation seems a bit crude / obvious / naive compared to later refinements. I think that 6) can be true for some people without detracting from the original achievement. Personally, Jaco's first album is one of my favourites, but I can take or leave a lot of his later stuff. [/quote] I like this. It also encapsulates how I felt checking out Jerry Jemmot after hearing Jaco talk about him in interviews. You can hear how Jaco has taken on board Jemmot's fingerstyle funk approach and moved it on to the next level. It's interesting to think about what Jaco's legacy is and exactly where the greatness lies. His 16th note groove playing is fantastic, and it's surprisingly hard to get the feel of that right even if you can get the notes down (I have spent quite a bit of time trying to!). He also came up with that unique lyrical, singing fretless voice that was all his own. For either of those he can be regarded as a true innovator. I do wonder whether history might not judge him as one of the great improvisers and soloists though, as IMO there can be a touch of unfocussed showboating there, stringing together stock licks with no intent other than to say "hey, get this!". This is even more noticeable later in his career. I think this may be where the "aimless noodling" accusations come from. While I wouldn't go that far as to use that term myself I can see how it could appear that way, and I say this as a fan.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1450129798' post='2929951'] And let me assure my position remains. I also think there is an age and generation distance element to this debate. Blue [/quote] What age do we have to be to appreciate the music of a bassist who did his finest work in his mid-20s?

If bassists noodling in guitar shops sound like an imitation of him (usually a poor imitation), is that not just indicative of the level of influence he has had?

Oops, I've just re-read your first post, and I hadn't noticed that you're inside the 14 days. If you contact the seller directly you might be OK.

If you're outside of the 14-day period when you have the right to return any new item bought from a dealer online, it's entirely down to the good will of the seller. At this point I think it's probably yours.