Beer of the Bass

From painful experience, if the guitarist is playing a D chord and I accidentally hit a low C sharp, I can definitely hear the discord!

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1428158588' post='2738626'] Again, I'd advise any young bass player: [b]stick to 4 strings[/b]. Set up a nice full sound and go [b]up[/b] the octaves and play melodies and contrast that with lower notes from the E upwards. Leave the 5 stringers somewhere in the murk of their own B strings. [/quote] All of that is still available on a five string! Myself, I try to be sparing with the lower notes, but I enjoy the alternative timbre of the B string for certain things (with flatwounds it sounds a little like the E on a short-scale) and it does make some fingerings a little easier. I don't enjoy hearing players who overuse the lowest notes, but to blame that on them playing 5-string is akin to having a go at your keyboard player because they showed up with a 76 note keyboard instead of a 61. Regarding memorable lines below low-E, how about Roy Estrada on Captain Beefheart's [i]I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby? [/i]It's dark and murky, but it works for that reason. Or Michael Henderson on some of the 70s electric Miles Davis material? Of course, both of those were on detuned four-string, but I'd suggest someone like Les Claypool for having some distinctive and memorable lines with low notes in them. He's not my cup of tea, but Primus undoubtedly had some prominent and melodic basslines.

You definitely shouldn't be able to see daylight between the neck and fingerboard, that joint needs to be solid! The neck loses a lot of stiffness without the fingerboard firmly attached, which may account for some of your setup issues.

I'm not an expert on this, but I suspect you might be looking at the port velocity at a higher power than you're likely to use. I've just opened up WinISD and modelled the 3015 in 75 litres, tuned to 50Hz. Below about 42Hz, the maximum power is limited by the Xmax of the driver rather than the thermal handling. At 35Hz it can handle around 107 watts before exceeding Xmax, so you'd be farting out the driver long before you heard any port chuffing.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1428071856' post='2737781'] I think I read somewhere that someone was filling in holes using matchsticks and wood glue! (I'm not sure if this is the best method). [/quote] I like those bamboo chopsticks from takeaways for plugging holes, with wood glue. They're big enough to fill most holes and easy to whittle down to fit. But on this one I'd want to check that the bridge still covered the old holes when correctly positioned, as it will be ugly looking otherwise.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1428051851' post='2737410'] I must admit that I can't see what's wrong with the bridge. I assume that others know how to make a photobucket image display in full resolution and can see some flaw on the bridge. (If I right click on the image or paste its address into the browser I go back to photo bucket. If I zoom in on the page showing the picture of the bass's body, I get blur city and can't clearly see what is wrong with the bridge. What is wrong with it? It looks as if you have a very nice action dialled in there. [/quote] The bridge is fine, it's the angle it's mounted at that's not right! I'd have filled and re-drilled the holes if it were mine.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1427608089' post='2732203'] I hope this isn't a situation where the OP is the only band member that sees [i]"red flags" [/i]all over this and the other member are all wearing rose tinted glasses. [/quote] That's a situation that's all too familiar to me, and was a major factor in why I left one of my bands last year!

[quote name='Bobthedog' timestamp='1427958918' post='2736208'] Found the offending article: [url="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.recordingmag.com%2Fresources%2FresourceDetail%2F134.html&ei=SOwcVb-mOs7aasyVgeAJ&usg=AFQjCNH8QCeluoHS81jBrbtS3RPE0LLajg&bvm=bv.89744112,d.d2s"]Taming the 5-String Bass : Recording Magazine[/url] [/quote] Hmm, that's a rather idiosyncratic view. I suspect he's trying to confirm his own prejudices as much as anything else. I'm not convinced of the need for the fundamental to be reproduced on the lower notes unless you're working in some of the more extreme genres of electronic music (in which case you won't be using bass guitar anyway). I do wonder, if only the most esoteric of studio monitors do anything useful in the 31Hz range, surely it makes more sense to highpass above that than to focus obsessively on dynamics processing down there. How many listeners will have equipment that will even let them hear what he's done? And while the B-string has it's own timbre and envelope as distinct from playing the same notes on the E string, why not trust the performer to use that sensitively rather than treating it as a fault to be corrected?

The Standback is excellent with most guitar combos, but not great with most bass gear due to the deeper cabinets. The proportions just aren't right for it. It supports your cab at a set angle, and it will only work if your cab wants to fall backwards at this angle, not if it wants to fall forwards.

Well, I like it! It's not priced outrageously either. I would cheerfully play that, but then I did use an oil can guitar for a while...

There are some in that recent exodus who I'm going to miss hearing from, and their leaving wasn't something I could have seen coming. I know that some of the more strongly opinionated or abrasive members were never going to stay on one forum for long, but some of the recent disappearances weren't really that sort of poster.

Since these aren't stock TKS cabs, would you be able to reveal what the drivers in each cab were? For no particular reason other than curiosity...

This is a baffling one. I genuinely have no idea what's going on here! [url="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mystery-Vintage-Fender-Jazz-Bass-Guitar-Perhaps-some-Modifications-/161641217286?pt=Guitar&hash=item25a2913d06&clk_rvr_id=799435532097&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true"]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mystery-Vintage-Fender-Jazz-Bass-Guitar-Perhaps-some-Modifications-/161641217286?pt=Guitar&hash=item25a2913d06&clk_rvr_id=799435532097&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true[/url]

[quote name='6v6' timestamp='1426713191' post='2721271'] DIY cabs are a lot of fun, but as others have already said, it's not a route to a cheap cab by any means. I documented my 1x12 build here [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/200152-1x12-diy-cab-build"]http://basschat.co.u...2-diy-cab-build[/url] - I didn't add the costs up accurately but it was definitely more than £100, probably over £150 when you add up all the little items and postage etc which soon adds up. Also good quality ply is surprisingly expensive. It's also an extremely slow way to get a cab unless you've got a lot of spare time and/or are a pro-woodworker (mine took months of scarce spare time, but I did get delayed by family stuff for a while). All that said, I will probably build another one over the summer [/quote] That's still a little cheaper than the cheapest new 1x12" bass cabs I can find, and almost certainly uses a better driver. So I guess that's good value!

If you're using it with a 30 watt valve amp for home use, you could perhaps look for a driver which suits a sealed box, making the design and construction that bit simpler (as the only variable you need to concern yourself with is the volume of the box). The Fane 10-125 and Faital 10fe200 (specifically the 8 ohm version) are drivers which seem to crop up regularly in discussion of sealed 10" cabs on that other bass forum; either would cope with that application and they're a lot cheaper than the Basslite.

Most of us are assuming that the darkest sounding cab must be the 15", and the 10" must be one of the brighter sounding cabs. There are examples of popular 10" drivers which drop off steeply before they get to 2KHz (like the Eminence BP102) and 15" drivers which will go as high as 4KHz on-axis (like the Faital 15pr400 or some of the old JBLs), so it would be easy to be caught out by this! Regarding all three cabs being the same size, I presume that drivers will have been chosen which suit this cab volume and there would still be scope for adjusting the port tuning for each version.

I have taken a guess, but I sort of expect to be wrong! What I can say with some certainty is that I liked cab A best, didn't mind cab C but found cab B a little too dark sounding for my tastes.

One thought on that; you may want to use a higher value pot than 47K for the output level, as the output of these preamps apparently works better when run into a high impedance input.

[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?