Beer of the Bass

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1426676751' post='2720546'] The Jaco/Alphonso debate has raged for decades now and it is no more than a groove versus flash discussion. Some prefer basic groove playing, some the intense technical playing. In truth, most of us are somewhere on a continuum between them and, indeed, move back and fore. The simple fact is that you don't have to choose. A preference is a pointless position. You can love it all. [/quote] Absolutely, this is why I was careful to express it in terms of which one I find myself listening to more often rather than suggesting that one was "better". Johnson's work with Weather Report seems to align better with where my own enthusiasms are at this time, that's all. At other times I have been captivated by the albums with Pastorius. I enjoy the way the band worked with Miroslav Vitous too, and that they were able to explore different approaches through their career while keeping some sort of recognisable sound is one of the good things about them. Of course, a lot of that comes down to Zawinul and Shorter rather than any one bassist.

Then again, the thread is titled "Kanye West" and not "That guy who made an arse of himself at the Grammys". He was already a household name at this point.

I'm not sure that I see the problem with Kanye headlining Glastonbury. It's a popular music festival, he's a popular music performer, and surely any festivalgoer looking for something less mainstream won't be at the main stage for much of the festival anyway. Yet I keep seeing petitions urging the Glasto organisers to cancel his slot, as though it was some sort of betrayal of Glastonbury principles. Am I missing something?

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1426590482' post='2719527'] To be fair he did play a lot of lovely solo stuff higher up the neck later on in the session - just no 'money' up there [/quote] This made me smile, as my favourite line of his is this one, which goes up the dusty end with those double stops. This is a personal opinion, but I find myself listening to this looser, groovier incarnation of Weather Report more often than the Jaco stuff. [media]http://youtu.be/O3sBSHEivzs[/media]

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1426530183' post='2718981'] That sounds really unfair. You'd think that a company the size of Thomann would be able to release left handed versions of their mass produced guitars. BTW: The TE-70 Rosewood looks fabulous. But, the review it received on the Harley Benton forum was quite mixed. In particular the poor fretwork would worry me. It could be that all their cheap guitars vary concerning QC, but that review did worry me a bit. @BotB - wouldn't it be possible to retrofit the TE-80 with tele pickups? I've heard very good things about the playability of the TE-80. If I'm buying a cheap instrument, then for me playability is most important. Pickups can be changed relatively painlessly, depending on routing, no? [/quote] A tele bridge pickup has a bigger baseplate than a strat pickup, so it could be quite an involved swap. There's nothing wrong with a decent strat pickup in the bridge position, but a good tele bridge pickup has it's own character about it that nothing else quite has.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1426525840' post='2718876'] Yes to the first question. Perfectly applicable (to the second). You'll get cancellation between the drivers but you'll get that whether the 2x10 or the 15 is on top. In terms of hearing yourself with a traditional 1x15, 2x10 setup, vertical dispersion is more important than horizontal because your ears are normally above the cabs - unless you're a goodly distance away, when the angle diminishes. [/quote] But isn't the vertical dispersion for a stack of full-range cabs determined by the total height of the array, rather than the individual cabs within it? I am not quite seeing how there could be a predictable difference either way round.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1426521302' post='2718782'] This. You'll normally hear much more top end from a 2 x 10 than from a 15 because of the dispersion characteristics of the larger driver. A 10 starts to "beam" about half an octave higher than a 15. This is especially true when you're standing close to the cab, which many of us have to do for various reasons. So, for greater definition, put the 2 x 10 on top. A 4 x 10 is a slightly different kettle of fish, by the way. If you can't hear what I'm talking about, you may not have know what to listen for. Try it and all will be revealed. [/quote] Doesn't a side-by-side 2x10 start beaming at a lower frequency than a single 15 in the horizontal plane, due to the wider radiating area? A 2x10 cab will have better dispersion in the vertical plane than a single 15, but how applicable is that when it is stacked on top of another full-range cab?

That 400 watter must sound quite impressive! I notice you've only got bass and treble controls - is it a Baxandall/James tone stack or something else? I'd be curious to know who you're using for your custom transformers too.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1426514353' post='2718661'] The question is does a 1x15 on top of a 2x10 sound different from a 2x10 on top of a 1x15, not whether a 1x15 sounds different from a 2x10... [/quote] With a 2x10 and 1x15 it's hard to predict what that difference would be with either cab on top, so suck-it-and-see is as valid an approach as any. If neither cab has a tweeter and they're both receiving a full-range signal, I would listen to it both ways, and if there's no major difference then it comes down to stability and aesthetics. The idea that the 2x10" [i]must[/i] go on top comes from the old "10s for the highs, 15s for the lows" dictum, which has been done to death on here.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1426510445' post='2718590'] Says it all, IMO. [/quote] Is that kind of snarkiness really necessary? It doesn't make the forum look great...

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1426366443' post='2717454'] I saw FB statuses yesterday but not sure why it went unnoticed here [/quote] Gong and Daevid's other works are a big deal for me and I thought about starting a thread, but wasn't sure I could put things in a coherent enough way to do him justice. I'm too young to have heard the early Gong material when it came out, but I happened across it in around 2000. I loved the way it was wilfully absurd yet had serious musicality and feeling behind it. Usually we divide the serious from the absurd, considering that anything as silly as that must be a passing novelty, but Gong sort of blew away that division in my head and that had a big influence on the music I was making at the time, not so much in sound but in attitude. I saw him play with Gong in Glasgow around the time I was first getting into them, a couple of other times with the University of Errors and solo projects, then again with Gong in 2009, and I'm glad that I did. The couple of times I bumped into him offstage he seemed like a lovely man too. I was impressed that rather than constantly re-visiting what might be perceived to be his heyday, Daevid always seemed to keep things interesting for himself. Even the very last album from 2014 has some real vitality about it and stands up by itself rather than being an exercise in nostalgia.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1425759355' post='2710517'] From reading reviews, I think the TE-80 may be the Harley Benton telecaster to go for. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_te80_nt_deluxe_series.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...luxe_series.htm[/url] It's a copy of an original MIJ then MIK Hohner, as used by Prince. There's a fair amount of discussion online, and the general opinion is that they are very good. Some people have claimed that the playability and sound wouldn't be out of place on a £1000 guitar. It is true that this guitar is £112 versus £63 for the basic model. But, it's not that much extra money to get what appears to be a much better guitar. [/quote] They do look good, but it's worth noting that they use two strat pickups so will be a step away from the classic tele sound if that's what you're looking for, particularly on the bridge pickup.

I've seen a few threads on Talkbass about the BP100 recommending supergluing it to the flat side of the bridge rather than using the clips. Some say the sound is improved this way. You'd want to be fairly sure of the positioning and use a very small drop of thick superglue on each element. I've mounted piezo elements inside other instruments this way, and though it's semi-permanent you can usually prise it off with a single-edged razor blade without damage if you wanted to try something else later. If superglue seems like a little too much commitment, a thin double-sided adhesive tape is the best thing to use, like the stuff that K&K supply with these. But with a Markbass amp you may want to try a preamp too. IIRC they have around 500K ohms input impedance, while ideally you want an input impedance of 1M ohm or higher for most piezos. Too low an input impedance will tend towards sounding harsh and scratchy.

I'm trying to view my gigging on bass as paused rather than stopped. I left my most active band last year, and have had all sorts of family things going on since then. My acoustic project with the double bass is also on hold for the moment as people are variously building houses, having babies and working long hours. I'm moving house at the moment and I have a couple of guitar gigs in the calendar in April and May but nothing on bass at the moment. Once I've finished moving, I'll start looking around for people to play bass with again. By now I'm building up a fairly clear idea of how I want that to work, though I'm not set on one particular style.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1426232835' post='2715826'] If you are getting paid to be in a band then IMO it's perfectly reasonable to have to follow your employers dress code. And wearing a tea-cosy on your head has never been acceptable. Not back in the 70s and certainly not now. [/quote] Tea cosies as headwear were acceptable if you were in Gong, and I can think of few bands more psychedelic!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1426166798' post='2715136'] It was me that administered the ban, for different reasons than this thread though [/quote] Ah, OK. Thanks for clearing that up.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1426164459' post='2715086'] I've just re-read the entire thread and I am struggling to find any examples of misogyny. Misplaced and mis-judged attempts at humour, yes - and apologies for some of that... Would you care to elaborate on your rather brief but condemnatory comment? [/quote] jfinkle would appear to have been banned since posting that comment, so you may not get that elaboration. I'm hoping that the ban is due to some behaviour that's not obvious via their posts, otherwise it would seem a rather heavy-handed reaction from the mods!

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1426162233' post='2715049'] Home build is Ok up to 18W, gets expensive and scary high voltages beyond that. [/quote] I would never suggest starting out with a higher powered amp, but personally I'm no less cautious working with 200v than with 500v, as I do not want to be shocked by either! I guess it's a question of assessing what you feel competent to work with. For me, something of SVT size and complexity would seem overly ambitious, but I'm confident I could safely and successfully build a simpler, classic 30-100 watt fixed bias design, not deviating too far from established layouts.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1426156262' post='2714951'] John Hall seems to threaten legal action at the drop of a hat here but you can find dozens of Ric copies for sale on Talkbass. Why can he act the bully boy over here but not in the US? [/quote] I'm going to guess that he has to go after [i]somebody[/i] in order to demonstrate that he is protecting his trademarks, but turns a blind eye towards the ones that might have a bigger lawyer than he does!

It's a European (likely Czech or German) plywood bass, mid 20th century. They tend to be sturdily built, decent working instruments, assuming this one doesn't have any issues that they haven't mentioned. I'd say that the price of this one is on the high side, especially as this one doesn't have an ebony fingerboard. I'd expect that you would pay a fair bit less than £1000 for a similar instrument on the basschat classifieds.

It's hard to keep costs from rocketing on DIY builds, admittedly! I built a guitar combo a couple of years ago which was based on a Fender Princeton Reverb. The total cost was less than buying the Fender reissue, but there are a few similar powered valve combos which I could have picked up for the same amount or less. I've been thinking about building a smallish valve bass amp along loosely B15-esque lines once I've got my current house move sorted out (funds allowing), so I've been looking around at transformer options. These guys have a range of transformers made by Danbury in England which are well priced, though the range isn't huge. [url="http://livinginthepast-audioweb.co.uk/index.php?p=messages&sw=none"]http://livinginthepast-audioweb.co.uk/index.php?p=messages&sw=none[/url] The toroidal mains transformers from TubeTown in Germany look like good value and would help keep the weight down too. [url="http://www.tube-town.net/ttstore/index.php?cat=545&sort=3&MODsid=3h1dg232ltdautadajuah9e8k5&sort=7"]http://www.tube-town.net/ttstore/index.php?cat=545&sort=3&MODsid=3h1dg232ltdautadajuah9e8k5&sort=7[/url]

[quote name='funkgod' timestamp='1426076766' post='2714054'] it seems drum beats as well, i remember all the hass over the drum break in the Winstons song "Amen Brother" when it was sampled then became an iconic break " The Aman Break" used by just about everyone, then zero G, stating it was theirs and you have to pay to use it, a very intresting insight into the corp big wigs stealing your stuff and you not having enough money to fight it, found it... watch this, its worth it and really opens your eyes.... [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac"]https://www.youtube....h?v=5SaFTm2bcac[/url] [/quote] Yeah, the Amen Break thing is fascinating. What interests me is that I've know a few drummers who've used high-tuned piccolo snares to emulate that drum n' bass sound, purely because the break was sped up from the record it was sampled from. When the sampling culture starts feeding back into what instrumentalists do, it all gets a little circular!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1426083414' post='2714156'] You'll be fine so long as your parcel isn't over the maximum shipping size. If it's a bass it might well be. [/quote] It's quite a bit smaller than a bass, and usefully already described as "for parts or not working", so there should be few grounds for a return provided I pack it competently.

Oh dear, I didn't really pay attention to having been enrolled. I'm selling an item ending on Saturday and the current high bidder turns out to be in Italy. I didn't specify international postage when I listed the item, but I guess eBay does that automatically now. I hope this goes OK, as there's not much I can do once bids have been placed.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1426078565' post='2714092'] Hmmm... The Trinity Trip Top chassis-only kit is $1600. Add shipping from Canada and import duty, plus a cab, and you might be better spending your money on an actual B15. And that's if they do UK-voltage mains transformers (must admit I haven't checked). [/quote] Yes the kit doesn't look like great value once imported to the UK, I was more appreciating the design.