Beer of the Bass

I must admit, I've never done more than clean the more overt crust off the actual tuning button part of mine - I left the gears, worms and baseplate alone. I think I just used a little metal polish on a soft cloth for that. Looks like a nice bass, from those tuners.

OK, got them on and had a little play. The bass is an old solid wood 3/4 flatback likely from Saxony, and I'd just taken off an 8 year old set of 4/4 Spirocore Mittels that were getting too dark and thumpy for my tastes. Pre-installation impressions; The packaging is very simple and barebones, just the paper envelopes in an open faced cardboard sleeve, not much info on the package. Uninstalled the strings feel very flexible, which must say something about the core design. The ivory and blue silks are a little more subtle than my familiar Spiro reds, and the ball ends are slightly smaller. They look and feel like a quality string, I really can't fault the construction and polishing. On the bass, the pitch stabilises quickly, and the tension feels a hair lower than the 4/4 Spiro Mittels, but not by much. I'd place the feel between those and 3/4 Spiro Weichs. The pizz tone is also instantly familiar, lots of growl and sustain, good volume. To my ears (and on my bass) they have a touch less midrange push compared to the spiros but a nice crisp, clear quality in the high end - the thumb position pizz tone is great with these. I think I might want the string height just a tiny bit higher than I had it with the Spiro Mitts, so I'll probably try that in the coming days. Definitely not a rootsy, gut-like sound, they're more geared to a modern jazz pizz tone. Which is absolutely my goal, but it should give you an idea of the kind of player they're for. I only had a quick play with the bow since that invariably wakes up the dog! They're quite a bright arco sound, quick to respond, but quite friendly to get a clean tone on. Probably not your first choice for an orchestral section, but fine for a jazzer using the bow for practice, or for some of my free improv uses. I'll see how they go over time, but if they last like Spirocores I could be pretty happy with these.

It does look quite nice for the money, and with the Sung-il parts and alnico pickups it should be good to go without upgrades. "American ash" without specifying swamp ash usually means some weight, though. Still, it'd be high on my list for emergency credit card purchases to keep me gigging if something happened to my main 5 string.

I have a double bass that's as good as I'm likely to be able to afford, and homemade 5 string fretted and 4 string fretless basses. I still have wood and parts stashed away to build a different (5 string Ric flavoured) electric bass, but that's not a pressing need.

They should be arriving tomorrow, according to the DPD email. Though getting them installed depends on hitting the moment that the puppy is napping and not looking for too much attention, so it may be a day or two!

I had a Wizzy 10, it was nice but not magic compared to other 1x10" cabs. I found it a little peaky in the upper mids, which is great for hearing yourself clearly but unflattering with some pickups and some amp voicings. I actually preferred the sound of a very simple, low-tech 1x10" I built with a humble Faital 10FE200 driver. I think the VL cabs with the proper HF drivers were quite a different design approach though.

Well, I suppose I'll find out, I've gone ahead and ordered a set!

Has anyone here used Presto Prestoflex strings? They're a steel string supposedly based on the old Lycon strings, according to a Talkbass thread a few years ago. From the samples on Herve Jeanne's String Matrix site and the few user posts about them I've seen, they're somewhat in the ballpark of Spirocores but with a slightly different midrange and attack, and I have a hunch that might work for me. My current set of Spirocores (4/4 Mittel) have been on since 2015 and are losing some pitch clarity and sustain. The safe option would of course be more of the same, but I'm curious!

A friend had the nylon string guitar pickup in this range, I recall the preamp box seeming pretty flimsy on that too. I suppose different bridge foot pickup might work, with a suitable external preamp. There's the Realist, or depending on the size of the bridge foot the K&K Definity could be an option.

From memory of replacing a dead rotary switch on my brother's Lovetone flange (back before they went for crazy money), they're not bad to repair - the layout isn't overly cramped, everything is through-hole rather than surface mount and the components usually aren't anything too esoteric. So if you can get a nice discount on the one with the broken pot it would be a quick job to get it sorted.

I would certainly second the Spirocore recommendation, and Weichs (light) will be easier on your hands than Mittels (medium) if you're playing less frequently and would like lower tension. There are a lot of options available, but for a string you can put on and then not have to think about for years the Spiros are still hard to beat.

I'm surprised at how many well regarded envelope filters lack a "down" mode where the filter frequency decreases with signal amplitude. For me, that's THE sound I want from one, and I almost never use the "up" mode on my Madbean Naughty Fish (a Mutron workalike).

Touchstone Tonewoods have some bow supplies including hair. I don't know how the prices or quality compare to anyone else, but I noticed it in their catalogue. (edit; though not black, I should have read more carefully!) https://www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk/bow-hair/c-199.html

We've done it a couple of times when preparing material before recording. I wouldn't like to rehearse like that all the time, but it's useful to ensure that you can.

Hmm, that's a useful looking thing. If I ever get around to making up a pedalboard rather than whacking two or three pedals on the floor, I'd be tempted to do one of those and keep the Vong for double bass use.

The Vong is really useful, I've used it both with my double bass to clean things up and tame feedback, and with electric bass to make my Superfuzz clone tolerable into a DI. But I think Schalltechnik has stopped doing them, so it may not be easy to get hold of one.

Is there any suggestion that Fender was aware of Tutmarc's instruments when he developed the early Precision bass? They weren't widely adopted by musicians and it seems possible that Fender may have come up with his quite independently. They're certainly an interesting historical footnote, but Fender's instruments were the ones that had the cultural impact.

Most Open Mic nights I've been to, people turn up to do a song or two, the host opens, closes and fills in if the numbers are lacking. But generally nobody expects someone else to play with them unplanned - it's individual turns (or duos etc who showed up together). If they do, it's usually billed as a jam night, open session or similar.

If they've been on an EUB, I'd want to be sure they hadn't been cut to length, and don't have any kinks in unusual places before reusing them on double bass.

I have stainless steel groundwounds on my fretless, a set of Status ones that are quite a few years old. But it depends what you use a fretless bass for - these bring out the stereotypical fretless nature a little more than flats, and if you're using it as a main all-rounder bass I could see wanting to tone that down a little.

Putting a microphone through backline is always tricky for feedback, and I only see people having success with it on very low volume gigs. A lot of double bassists using a mic for larger shows are running only pickup signal into their backline amp, and the mic goes to the FOH.

Herve's strung matrix site had the opposite effect on me, it backed up the idea that for the properties I like from a string, nothing is really better than Spiros! There are a couple of other sets on there that could probably work for me, but none that sound night-and-day better for my tastes.

Two here, the Ampeg PF50T that's my usual for electric bass, and a GK MB200 that comes out mostly for double bass. With those I have a pair of homebuilt 1x12 cabs (one stashed at the rehearsal space most of the time) and a tiny 1x10 that comes out for double bass or very small spaces. I know it's a popular idea that 300 watts is the minimum for gigging, but I've still never had a rig that does more than 200, and the PF50T does me fine for most things if I use both 12"s.

I found the few years when I owned an EUB and no double bass quite frustrating, and I think my playing came on in leaps and bounds when I was able to own a double bass. EUB is useful as a tool for travel, loud gigs or more overtly "electric" uses, but I feel like a background in acoustic double bass makes it a lot easier to use one well.

Has anyone tried one out on double bass yet? Though the double bass guys often favour even smaller boxes, it looks like it might be promising.