Beer of the Bass

I'd mention An Electric Storm by White Noise. When someone played the opening track to me a few years ago I presumed it was from the 90s or later, but it turns out to be from 1968. Plus it features Delia Derbyshire of Dr Who theme fame. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZG8CE2KnBQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZG8CE2KnBQ[/url]

What sort of bass are you playing? The noises you describe sound like your pickups might be microphonic, where they pick up every little vibration right down to your fingers brushing the pickup cover or the strap creaking on the buttons. Most basses have potted pickups to prevent this, but some cheaper or older instruments don't.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1440691162' post='2853040'] Though there might be some post-Beatlemania artistes whose Beatlefluences are less immediately detectable; Captain Beefheart springs to mind. [/quote] Here's a bit of Beatle influence, what with the title and the "Strawberry Fields Forever" quote. Apparently John Lennon was quite enthusiastic about the Captain's first album, so this song may have been an attempt to annoy him. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuv1HBTbHO4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuv1HBTbHO4[/url]

The old Ideal brand soundhole pickups have a bit of a cult following among Greek bouzouki players apparently, even though they're guitar pickups. I've no idea if that's the same Ideal brand as this one or entirely coincidental, but I suppose it could have been imported by the same distributor.

[quote name='jeweytheroux' timestamp='1440611871' post='2852434'] My deko acoustic bass is here and seems totally fine apart from fret buzz up around the 12th to 14th frets on the D and G strings. I've tried adjusting the truss rod in both directions but it isn't helping - any advice here? Not sure how to adjust the bridge? [/quote] It's probably a high fret, as that appears to be the most common issue on the acoustics. On mine the 17th fret was sitting a little too high on the treble side, which made the notes below that on the top strings buzz. I tapped the fret with a hammer to check it was seated, then carefully used a file to spot-level it in that area until that fret was the same height as the others.

I wonder if the description of it being a one-off custom job for a particular player may be an invention. I've seen Ideal as another brand applied to similar instruments and accessories to the ones which come labelled as Guyatone, Kent, etc., so I'd guess it's just another importers badge on a fairly standard Japanese instrument of that period.

[quote name='Shockwave' timestamp='1440537437' post='2851797'] Ultimately the question is, when is an instrument sold for decoration, not an instrument for decoration? There will be people either side of an argument. I see your argument. Say I received a bass, that was sold as a Deko, the body has a D on it, but the Neck has no D and nothing wrong with it after going over it with a fine tooth comb, do I sell the neck for decoration only? [/quote] You should give full disclosure IMO, anything else is misleading. I have a feeling you may know this already, as I notice you had not advertised these on basschat where the Dekos are widely known about and discussed.

Hmm, even if that's not straight-out lying its not exactly a high standard of honesty. You're intentionally withholding information in order to receive a higher price than you would otherwise.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1440534745' post='2851751'] I've seen Markbass cabs with HPLs in them, but I've never seen a B&C with a pressed steel chassis. I suppose anything is possible if you're buying in large enough quantities. The eBay one is from a relatively old Markbass cab. [/quote] The newer CL speakers do, though oddly they're not much cheaper than the HPLs were.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1440534134' post='2851736'] Someone is auctioning one on eBay, although it doesn't look anything like the HPLs. <http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MARK-BASS-NEODYMIUM-12-NEO-SPEAKER-DRIVER-B-C-MADE-IN-ITALY-/221855157676?hash=item33a7990dac> [/quote] Hmm, you're right, it doesn't! They used to have the cast frame complete with "HPL" sticker. I guess they must have changed them when the HPLs were discontinued.

If you want to make things a little easier, you could start with a pre-slotted fingerboard. I got the one for my last build from David Dyke, and despite the website straight out of 1998 they're pleasant to deal with and their woods seem consistently good. [url="http://www.luthierssupplies.co.uk/"]http://www.luthierssupplies.co.uk/[/url] I've just picked up a slotted fingerboard from Touchstone Tonewoods for a new build which I'm a bit less happy with as it has a couple of issues. Perhaps it's a one-off, but I'll be sending that one back. Pre-slotted boards usually still need to have the radius sanded into the face, but radius blocks aren't expensive. For truss rods, if you pick up a modern double action rod rather than a vintage Fender style it will be easier to install, as the double action rods fit in a simple straight 6mm channel whereas the Fender style need all sorts of jigs to route a curved channel. If it's still available, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Melvin Hiscock's book "Make your own electric guitar". While you might find all the information you need online, I still find it useful to have a book to hand.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1440526755' post='2851628'] I'm bit on the fence about it. More a feeling it isn't right. But if the item has had any problems sorted and it's perfectly fine then it's less of an issue if they have put the time and knowledge in to fix it. Ive seen much worse things been done in sales. But ethically it should be mentioned. If I was selling a Deko I would state it was a Deko but has had what ever it needed fixed. A lot of dekos have little wrong with them in some cases they just needed a good setup, fret work etc. [/quote] I've no issue where there is full disclosure about the instrument having been sold as a second and where the work done is clearly described. For example, Mr Foxen from here has been doing that on his own page, completely honestly described and his markup isn't massive either. I'm OK with that, and I'm sure they're decent value for someone who doesn't do their own setup work. It's where they're flipped without mentioning their Deko status that I feel it gets misleading.

[quote name='kedo' timestamp='1440529965' post='2851679'] Thanks for that. Is the Markbass driver neodymium? [/quote] I haven't seen inside the recent ones but they used to be a neodymium driver which (going by the frame and magnet) was based on the B&C HPL series, though it may well have had some alterations to the design to suit Markbass's specifications.

I don't know if this changed when they moved production overseas, but the older Markbass drivers were made by B&C. If they still are, that makes the price seem pretty good as B&C's 12" drivers start at something close to the £165 you were quoted when bought individually. There aren't many quality neodymium 12"s for much less than £100 retail and you'd have to determine whether a third party replacement was suitable for your cabinet.

Several times now I've seen people reselling Deko instruments and necks (not on basschat), describing the stamp marks as small dents but failing to mention that they were sold as unplayable seconds for less than the price the resellers are asking. Is anyone else a bit uncomfortable with that?

Schecter something-or-other? I don't know the model name, but a friend has one the same shape as this.

If the volume of the box does decrease, that would potentially make the design more attractive to me, not so much for portability (as we've finally sorted out a decent sized car) but for easy stowing in my pokey little house! Right now I'm not doing many gigs outside of very small acoustic things, but if any louder projects get off the ground I'll probably look into one of these. Regarding the midrange response, I recently put together a little cab for practice, low volume jazz and acoustic gigs using a Faital 10FE200/4. It's a medium-duty driver at best but the midrange response is quite similar to the SM212 with a gentle rise from just below 1k without pronounced peaks and top end extending to somewhere around 4-5k. As it turns out, I really enjoy that voicing for bass guitar, it seems clear and open but not harsh even when adding some upper mid with EQ.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1440086596' post='2848197'] At the othe end of the spectrum, 50kHz response is useless. Not only can you not hear above 18khz or so, there's nothing to be gained from an electric bass cab that goes above 8kHz except hiss. [/quote] Yes, I've wondered about that with regard to the signal most magnetic pickups produce. I was reading Erno Zwaan's book (the Q-tuners guy), and it would appear that most high impedance pickups start to roll off above their resonant peak, which is much lower than 18KHz. So presumably anything going on up there is likely to be either distortion artifacts or noise. Do we really want to hear that?

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1439994258' post='2847365'] [i]Some[/i] people will tell you that having a second pickup will affect the tone, even if that pickup is totally disconnected electronically, because the magnetic field from it will affect the vibration of the strings. Whether or not you think that that would make any meaningful difference is probably best decided by an angry four hundred page thread. [/quote] I think the main difference would come from having a second volume control in circuit. If you use 250K pots wired up like a Jazz and solo the P-pickup, it will see a load of 125K ohms from the pots, rather than the 250K it would see on a single pickup bass. The difference would be fairly subtle (it may lose some brightness) and could be got around by using higher value pots or a toggle switch.

Rotosound flats are quite textured feeling for flatwounds, maybe not quite in round territory but I'd say they don't really have that polished, slippery feel that most flats do. I found this picture on a czech bass forum which illustrates this quite well:

[quote name='JellyKnees' timestamp='1439982256' post='2847198'] Do they owe us a living? [/quote] 'Course they do!

How much is the fish? How much is the fish? How much is the chips? Does the fish have chips?

It's odd that this is happening repeatedly. Are you using any sort of preamp with the double bass? I don't know whether this could be the cause of your problem, but some piezo pickups have a lot of sub-sonic output which can be hard on amps and speakers and using a preamp with a highpass filter built in can clean this up.

Glad I didn't buy one then! I wonder if I could make my bit of foam a bit more user-friendly by attaching it to a stiff backing with felt underneath, so it's a bit quicker to slide into place.

I would pay the extra for one of the European models. While I've not played the Thomann basses, I gather that those are made by Strunal, whose basses have been quite decent whenever I've encountered one.