Beer of the Bass

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1449321556' post='2922571'] I may be being a bit incredulous here, but I'm not entirely sure that that's Sir Paul himself. Maybe someone trying to fob us off with an imitation..? Hard to tell... [/quote] Hmm, I reckon McCartney would use his left hand for lifting the kettle and stirring the tea. Perhaps this is the fake Paul that the tinfoil-hatters reckon replaced the real one after Abbey Road!

The cosmetics are nice - I like that burgundy tolex. It looks small for a 1x15", so I guess it's more about vintagey mid-bass than really deep lows?

Dave bought some double bass strings from me, and it was a nice simple transaction with no hassles.

I've just bought an Eminence driver from Stevie, he's kept me informed about the courier arrangement and his packaging was very thorough.

There can be a bit of a tendency towards "my gigs are more serious than your gigs" type posts on basschat - I'm not only talking about this thread, it happens all over the forum. I find this interesting, as there are also quite a few excellent working players who don't feel the need to do that. Out of the loose grouping of musical friends I spent my formative years in bands with, some have gone pro and some haven't (I'm one of the latter), and I'm not sure that there is a huge difference in musicianship between the two groups. One of my musical heroes is Clive Palmer who was in the original Incredible String Band lineup. Whenever a band he was in started getting serious, gigging hard and attracting record company interest, he would jump ship and do something else, leaving them to it. He did this three times in all, then spent most of his life working ordinary jobs and gigging for fun in local pubs. That's a model I find quite attractive, and he made some interesting music along the way and seemed to have a happy enough life.

[quote name='bassmachine2112' timestamp='1449171454' post='2921326'] Orange OBC115 is a brilliant 15" cab,check the specs and replicate or look around and get one for about £200 S/H. [/quote] The Orange OBC115 looks very close in design to the old TL606 DIY plans which can easily be found online, although I don't know if the port tuning is the same. It's not a particularly small cab for a 1x15" - the TL606 plans are 3.2 cubic feet or about 86 litres and it sounds like the OP wants to go smaller than that.

I would go for double bass and not bother with the amp. While a fine carved instrument would be my preference, it would probably have to be a laminated bass to have any chance of dealing with the maritime climate and it would be strung with Spirocores, since they last for a long time.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1449052526' post='2920316'] very good! I have done that too, actually: using two cabs when the bottom one is pretty much just a glorified stand for the other. [/quote] I have discovered that the best stand in the world for my little guitar combo is a 4x12" cab, as there's often one around as part of the house backline at venues. I never plug into them, but they're great amp stands!

Speaking of Tuff Cab paint, how much does it take to cover a couple of cabinets this size? Will a litre do it, or would that be skimping?

I must admit, I've been able to discern so little difference between different brands of ECC83 (including Mullard, Brimar and modern Electro Harmonix) when I tried swapping them over that I couldn't be sure I wasn't imagining any differences. This was in both my guitar amp and the Carlsbro PA head I used to use for bass. This could be because both have very clean running preamps that don't have enough gain to get gritty, so other amps might have shown up the differences more strongly. Alternatively, I may have cloth ears!

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1448926234' post='2919360'] You aren't going mad, first of all the pipes internal diameter is 64mm the outside is 68mm. secondly it depends how you enter the parameters into winISD as sometimes the manufacturers don't always use the same techniques for measuring as are assumed by win ISD. Then the box isn't exactly 50l as I built it oversized to allow for the volume of bracing the ports and speaker and any modifications I would make as the design developed, I didn't use all the extra volume I allowed. We also found two sets of data for the SM212 out there and then took our own measurements of the basic parameters which differed slightly from those published. If you go back to post #291 you'll see we actually measured the tuning of the cabs and the port dimensions are measured from the cabs we tested. Well spotted though, and I had to double check all this so you are keeping me on my toes Ultimately that's why you try and build prototypes and test them. [/quote] Ah, that makes sense. If I change the diameter to 64mm and add a few extra litres to the cabinet volume in winISD the predicted lengths are within a reasonable margin of error of the final measurement, and I've heard elsewhere that winISD estimates somewhat on the long side.

Could it be a Baldwin? I'm sure they had one that looked like that, though I'm not sure of the model name.

Hello! I wonder if you might have some mutual friends with my wife, as she has some friends with somewhat related interests and I know it's not a huge scene in Scotland.

I think I haven't expressed that very clearly. When I try and calculate the length required for four 68mm ports to achieve a tuning of 50Hz in a 50 litre cab, my results are very different from those used in the prototype cab. I am trying to work out whether I'm doing something incorrectly.

I have a question about tube ports and their lengths. Am I right in assuming that standard downpipe means the 68mm stuff? I've noticed that winISD and a couple of online calculators come up with quite different lengths than the ones used in the prototype cab, quoted below. The exact figure varies depending on the end correction selected (I used "one end flanged"), but WinISD is suggesting a length of 298mm for a 50Hz tuning in 50l, rather than 190mm. That's with four 68mm diameter ports. I'm trying to figure out if I've missed something in the process. [quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1436343308' post='2817185'] If anyone wants to start a build before I've had time to write this up and get drawings done it shouldn't be too difficult. The external dimensions are 360x424x530mm the baffle front is set back 30mm from the front of the cab so internally the depth is 306mm. The four ports are made of standard guttering downpipe 190mm for a 50Hz tuning, and 260mm for a 40hz tuning. [/quote]

It's surprisingly OK, as stuff in a tin goes. I've taken it camping many times.

It's interesting that they chose EL34s. I realise the sound is as much down to the circuit design as the choice of valves, but I always thought of those as a British thing and they seem to crop up in more guitar amps than bass amps. It looks good though, if I had anything like that sort of budget I would be wanting to check one out.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1448643211' post='2917132'] Given that they're making some new episodes of The League of Gentlemen, perhaps they might buy it as a prop. [/quote] Creme Brulee's new direction?

I must admit, I got my double bass from a shop that had it on commission sale. They invited me to make an offer, and I did so by knocking the "1" off the front of the price it was tagged with. I was quite surprised that this was accepted without further haggling. This may have been an unusual case, as the bass was being sold by the executors of someone recently deceased rather than by a player.

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1448641662' post='2917114'] Many shops will want 15% commission of the sale price - you might want to ask what they are going to do for that 15% other than add a pic/brief review on their website and look after it for you so that Tom, Dick and Harry can have a go without any commitment to buy... [/quote] Given that eBay's final value fee is usually 10% and any risk is skewed heavily towards the seller, that might not look so bad by comparison.

That's something I've often wondered about in the interminable valve vs SS discussions that musicians often enjoy. While I understand that with the right voicing, compression and perhaps a touch of soft clipping, a well designed 100 watt solid state amp [i]could[/i] perform in the way we'd expect a 100 watt valve amp to perform, I'm not certain how often this is actually achieved in practice, especially at the more modest end of the market.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1448582169' post='2916699'] I suspect Messrs Stagg, Encore and Vintage and all the other regular entry level people are actually doing just fine!! [/quote] I gigged with a £99 Axl guitar for a couple of years and it was fine - I only changed because I fancied something different, not due to any need to upgrade. A lot of cheap instruments are surprisingly good now, so I wouldn't look down my nose at something on the basis of price alone. Vintage in particular look like they've actually had a musician somewhere near the design process, which may be what cheap instruments often lacked in the past. I think it's the lack of joined-up thinking in the design of this one that people are despairing about.

I think the only times I've seen people use hard cases are when flying or in major orchestras where the transport is laid on.

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1448569059' post='2916583'] Not sure that bridge pickup is going to be up to much. If it is like a real sidewinder/mudbucker then the inductance of the pickup will cream off a lot of highs. By being so close to the bridge it will have no real low-end either, so it will sound like muffled nothing. They could have stuck a MM pickup in there or something. [/quote] The pole spacing is much narrower than the string spacing too, so there's a strong chance the E and G strings will be lacking output compared with the A and D. An old bandmate had one of the low end Stagg electric guitars, sort of a bolt-on neck Les Paul shaped thing. It wasn't up to much, to be quite honest. Even with a decent setup and new bone nut it had the worst tuning stability I've come across, not much sustain and muddy sounding pickups.