Beer of the Bass

I've installed my master volume on the back panel and given it a quick try. It seems to work more or less as expected; with the original volume turned around halfway and the master reduced to taste it does a decent job of adding just a little hair on the peaks of my clean tone. That was what I was aiming for, so it may turn out to be a good solution for me. I'm gigging tonight, so I'll have a chance to check it out in a little more depth. Post-gig update: Yep, it seems to work. Run as described above with the master around halfway, the amp still sounds mostly clean in the mix but it has the tiniest bit of grit on the hardest played notes and feels a little livelier and more fun to play. Set this way, it takes a bit of the rasp off my overdrive pedal too. Our trumpet player tends to grumble if I use too much volume on stage, so keeping the stage volume just where I need it to hear myself and letting the FOH sort out the rest is a good strategy with this band. I can see why people generally don't recommend adding a master volume to a blackface Fender type amp though,as while it's good for adding a tiny bit of grit to your clean sound, cranking it further into overdrive with the master turned down is a little raw and harsh sounding and generally not as satisfying as the right pedal. So you can't really use it the same way as the master volume on a Marshall type preamp, but it's useful for what I'm after.

Just how big are the acoustics? (Say in terms of how wide the lower bout is). Is the unplugged volume reasonable? I don't expect one to be nearly as loud as a double bass, but some ABGs are more useful than others, and big is good in that respect. I had fun jamming with a cheap ABG I borrowed from a friend last year, so I know I could get some use out of one...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1420816075' post='2653824'] Oh, ok, yeah, I agree entirely about that! I'm going to use my red cabs tomorrow. I hope they like the colour [/quote] See, this is why we should use Hamish's kit. Red cabs with black grilles, next to black drums with a red pinstripe. It'll look good!

[quote name='M@23' timestamp='1420810119' post='2653715'] I think the poster above is refering to the vocal doubling the main bass line? [/quote] Not so much the vocal (which is clearly audible), but listening on the TV speakers when my wife has a music channel on, it sounded to me like there was some kind of synth sound thickening up the bassline too, though the fills are unmistakably bass guitar. Listening again on headphones, I'm not so certain now - it may just be the bass and the low pitched vocal...

Hmm, I really shouldn't be buying instruments. But it's occurred to me, I have a birthday this month, and I could totally use an acoustic bass guitar as a party jamming instrument for the times when I don't want to bring my double bass. I'm kind of tempted...

I figured it was bass guitar, but doubled with a synth for the main bassline. The production in general is very Parliament-esque, and that's exactly the sort of thing they did on the old P-Funk records.

I have the kit version of the Hjart Muller from a few years ago, I'm not sure if it's the same as the version you're talking about. It's a decent fairly mild overdrive, which doesn't lose too many lows or scoop the mids. Perhaps not the most exciting thing out there, but useful enough.

[quote name='dudewheresmybass' timestamp='1420536315' post='2650298'] The mooer di speaker emulation works on the 1/4" out too. I've used on both outputs at different times [/quote] It's a shame the 1/4" output isn't switchable between the emulated output and a straight input link. As a tweeterless cab user with a Superfuzz, I'd like to be able to have the cab emulation on the XLR out and leave the jack output untouched. Perhaps I should look at the Palmer.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1420710732' post='2652312'] almost all the multi band bills I've played on there's one kit and the drummers bring their breakables except maybe the headliners, changing a drum kit for every band would be a nightmare. If your drummer insisting on using his own kit I think he's being a bit of an arse, if I've got the wrong end of the stick except my apologies [/quote] There are practical reasons why the other drummer can't bring his kit, so we're supplying the drum kit for the whole night. We're not swapping the kit for one band.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1420672159' post='2652145'] What's all this about the drummer changing his gear just to suit other players? If someone wants to borrow his gear they get [i]his[/i] gear! [/quote] As far as I know the other drummer is fine with it, and the sound guy in this venue has mic'ed this kit before without any major difficulties. It's the promoter who has a bee in his bonnet about it. Promoters are a funny lot...

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1420666873' post='2652050'] kick drums without holes have a very particular sound (think 70's bonham as an example) which is right for some bands but not for other i would imagine this is the motivation for Beer of the Bass's promoter asking for a kick with a hole in if theres gear share involved but if you're playing your own gig with your own gear then its up to you how you use your gear. would you for example take out a pedal you were using because the soundman asked you to? i suspect not. [/quote] I've done a fair few gear-share gigs playing bass and guitar, and I've never really given much thought as to whether the gear I bring will suit other peoples tastes or not, just so long as it all works OK and is adequate for the room. I've always assumed that living with the quirks of other people's gear is part of the game at these gigs. I'm sure my 100 watt valve bass rig with just volume, bass and treble controls used to raise a few eyebrows, as has my little single channel guitar combo with no built-in dirt. But I wouldn't think about changing any of it to please anyone but myself! [quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1420668020' post='2652074'] That promoter... let's just say that a few of us are not exactly in love with him, but Stu deals with him so we're now spared the BS I just do not communicate directly with him anymore, because he annoys me. I already threatened the guy that runs Fortune Promotions for being an utter idiot and wasting our time, and it nearly led to a punch-up (it'd have been short, I'd have dismembered him... no, not angry, why do you say that? ) so when I announce I'd better not deal with someone, the rest of the band lets me stay out Our drummer is away playing a wedding that day, and is expected to arrived at the venue after midnight, so there's no way we can help with drums. Normally Neil would have used his. I'm not sure who the sound guy will be, but the one we had last time there was alright. I thought the sound was good and he was pretty helpful to accommodate our requirements. I'm guessing we must have somebody else this time? If sound guy insists about the drum issue, let the promoter figure it out, honestly. I'll be providing the bass rig (Streamliner with the red TKS cabs), which Pete is more than welcome to use. Just not sure I'll bring the wooly beard It's just Ella+Farhad, NUF and SBK, right? [/quote] My diplomatic solution is to suggest to Hamish that we bring his kit but have a tuning key ready to remove the front skin if they want to mic from the inside. I think Pete is playing with Rhythm Beats Working too, but yeah, he's the only other bassist. It'll be interesting to hear those cabs too.

If I were in your situation looking for two cabs, I'd try both the 1x15" and the 4x10" and buy two of the one you like the sound of better. A pair of the 4x10s will likely be able to get a little louder, but a pair of decent 15s isn't exactly quiet either.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1420659482' post='2651896'] Is this for Saturday? [/quote] It is indeed. I'm sure we can sort something between the bands, but it does seem like an odd thing for the promoter to be so preoccupied with.

Wow, it gets weirder! I messaged the promoter back to say yes, we'd bring a drum kit and guitar amp but the drummer doesn't want to put a hole in his kick (it's a multi-band lineup with some gear sharing going on) and she replied; "I'll see if i can get another kit, i'll let u know if i can. It just compromises the bands sound a bit, and makes sound checks take longer." So this insistence on having a hole in the kick means we're pretty much being told not to use our own kit. How bizarre!

[quote name='Huge Hands' timestamp='1420632474' post='2651491'] I know as a drummer myself, I would have never been happy to take a stanley knife to my drum skin but I did take mine off a few times! [/quote] Taking the skin off for those gigs could maybe be a good middle ground. I might suggest that!

OK, so it's very much a personal preference thing for drummers. It's a small Gretsch kit and seems fairly lively sounding to my ears - not really a rock setup. I think it's the tone of some of the sound guys and this promoter that I'm finding odd, really. If they want to have a quiet grumble about it I can understand that, but expecting the drummer to modify his gear to suit them seems a bit off.

I'd be interested to here from drummers and sound guys on this one. I play with a drummer who prefers not to have a hole in his kick drum skin. This keeps meeting with the disapproval of sound guys, to the point that we've had a message from the promoter of our next gig asking "has your drummer put a hole in his bass drum yet?". I'm just wondering, why the pressure? Are kick drums particularly tough to mic up without the hole? Is hole versus no hole like the drummers version of pick versus fingers or something?

I'd hope it didn't leave the factory that way, but I can just about picture the scenario. 5pm Friday; assembly worker sticks a screwdriver through the cone, is fully aware they should get a new driver from the storeroom and fill in a form, but sod it, they want to get home and the glue gun is already warmed up... I've worked with people with that sort of attitude, so I reckon it's not impossible!

[quote name='Mikey R' timestamp='1420546326' post='2650430'] Thats one sweet looking homebrew! What voltage do you run the plates of the 6V6s at? [/quote] I stayed very close to the original AA1164 schematic and layout, so the plate voltage runs fairly high. It's around 420v at present, though it varies a little with the bias setting. I like it biased conservatively to maximise the tremolo depth. I'm using JJ 6v6s which seem to handle the high voltage well enough.

I'm happy enough with the basic voice of the amp that I don't want to move away from the blackface tone stack, though I've read about increased value mid-pot and that could be interesting to try some time. I imagine it would work well in conjunction with a master volume to get an alternative more rocky voice out of the amp. While that's not what I want most of the time, it could provide some useful versatility when recording parts. I'm going to try putting the new master volume after the third preamp triode (just before the phase inverter) using a 1M pot with a coupling cap on either side of it, much the same way as the MV in the 80s Super Champ is implemented. I'll put it on the back panel initially just to try it out. If I decide to keep it, I'll make a new faceplate for the amp and move the tremolo speed and intensity controls one space to the right. That would work best in terms of layout inside the chassis. The front of the amp looks like this at the moment;

I didn't know they made pure nickel strings for bass. I use John Pearse pure nickel roundwounds on an archtop guitar, and they're a bit mellower and thicker sounding than nickel plated electric strings.

I haven't done this, but I'd want to look at the impedance graphs too. The power distribution between the two cabs at a given frequency could be uneven if they have peaks in different places, working one driver harder than the other.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1420316714' post='2648068'] there may be 101 reasons why this wouldn't work.... what would happen if you fed the signal after the drive pedal into a passive low pass filter (i.e. a tone knob) to roll the top end off? [/quote] It can work to some extent and the older BSS DI boxes had a switch to do this at either 4 or 8 KHz. A passive filter gives you a much shallower slope than the natural roll-off of a speaker though, so it's not going to be quite the same.

There's not much available off the shelf to do this job without also simulating the low cut and mid dip of a guitar cab, but I wonder if some of the more flexible filter pedals could pull it off. A fairly steep lowpass filter set at the right frequency (2-5KHz depending on the speaker you're trying to emulate) with no envelope control and minimum resonance might get you close. I've thought about DIYing something to do this job but never got round to it as I'm currently between bands.

I guess Ernie Ball flatwounds would be the logical choice, though they're also fairly stiff feeling compared to rounds of the same gauge. They keep a bit of brightness for a long time and have a little less old-school thump than some flats, so they may suit it.