Beer of the Bass

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1412147216' post='2566018'] Looking at the seller's completed items, it seems that everyone has been put off. [/quote] Aw, bless. They've been listing the same two items for weeks and will be sitting there wondering why they're not selling! Should somebody tell them?

It's been a few years since I looked at them (since I've been settled on my old German bass for a while now), but I think the 1950 and Student are the same model. There's also the Student II which is the next step up in the range, these are carved and sound a little nicer to my ears. One thing worth noting is that the Stentor Student basses are at the small end of 3/4 sized. I'm 6'2" and the stock endpins on them aren't long enough for me!

Check the seller name! Icing on the cake...

I've got fairly awful homemade covers consisting of Post Office sacks cut to shape with gaffa tape seams. These have the advantage of making my gear look grotty enough that no-one will wander off with it in the less salubrious venues. I've been plotting to make some better ones out of leatherette vinyl with yoga-mat type thin foam glued to the insides, but this is on hold until I can persuade my wife to show me how to use her sewing machine!

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1412076329' post='2565335'] ....I'm considering fitting some decent inset handles myself .......Rant over & relax . [/quote] Have you looked inside? I suspect the type of bracing used may make it difficult to fit recessed handles.

The Stentor branded basses are made in China at the cheaper end of the range (I don't know about the more expensive models) while the Zeller basses are made in Romania and imported by Stentor. The Stentor student is one of the cheaper models, if I'm thinking of the right one it's a hybrid bass with a stained rosewood fingerboard. The Zeller basses come in carved, hybrid and laminated models. From the one I tried I have the impression that they can be quite heavily built but otherwise decent, and they have a proper ebony fingerboard. If offered the two at the same price, I'd consider the Zeller first, especially if it's the carved model, but you'd be wise to play both.

Gibson [i]have[/i] made some pretty basses IMO. The Thunderbirds pictured earlier are a prime example, as is the Les Paul Signature bass which was the basis of the Epi Jack Casady;

After spending several years trying to find the right in-between sounding strings, I've gone the other way and put on some fairly old-school sounding Sadowsky flats. I've read that they're a touch brighter than the standard LaBellas (who make these strings for Sadowsky), but they seem darker and with more thump than Chromes or similar. So they really don't cover roundwound territory at all, but it's a nice classic flatwound sound and they have something going on in the mids which I really like. Mind you, I've found myself between bands at the minute on bass guitar, so this may all change again depending on what else I end up doing and what sound that calls for...

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1411900503' post='2563605'] Get some Status Half-Wounds - then you'd only need one bass!! [/quote] I dunno, I had some on my five-string for a while and they weren't quite what I was after. They seem a bit "neither fish nor fowl" and on my set the lower strings are darker than the high ones. They turned out to be just the job on my fretless though, so they were a worthwhile purchase in the end.

I agree they should have discussed it with you before advertising, but I can see how saying "don't book any more gigs" might be interpreted as leaving the band. I wonder how quickly they'll find someone? I mean, playing bass while singing in Sting range seems rather a specialised skillset. It might be that you have a break for a few weeks and find that your spot is still vacant at the end of that.

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1411043906' post='2555850'] I have already said that the supposed valve sound comes mainly from the power amp and power supply, so a hybrid where the preamp is valve based is not very useful. [/quote] It's true that a valve preamped hybrid won't capture the full character of a valve amp, but some of those valve preamps are very musical and can sound excellent when combined with a good SS power stage. The practical shortcomings of a valve preamp are quite small compared to those of a power amp (less iron required, less heat generated, longer lasting valves, no need for bias adjustment), so I'd argue that valve preamp hybrids can be a perfectly valid concept provided we're realistic about what they can and can't achieve. The popularity of line-level valve studio gear supports the idea that preamp valve colouration can be a pleasing thing in its own right.

On the cheap guitar/expensive amp vs expensive guitar/cheap amp advice in the opening post, I'd agree as long as we're talking about guitar. I'd much rather gig with a well set up Squier strat through a good valve amp than a Custom Shop Fender strat through a budget solid state amp. The guitar would need to meet a certain minimum standard though, which most Squiers easily do. I played in a band with McNach for a while, so heard many of the basses mentioned in his post above. I can confirm that the J&D and Squier J basses and the Sue Ryder P absolutely hold their own from a listeners perspective and while I never heard the OLP, the SUBs and Stingray didn't sound discernibly different in a live context.

This is very much a personal taste perspective, but I've never liked the HA series very much when I've plugged into them, whereas the LH500 sounds great with very little fiddling. I'd go for the LH500 given the choice, although your pair of 4-ohm cabs may not be the best match.

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1411724573' post='2562237'] Having been in this position before, I would agree with the sentiment at the end there - take your time and be picky. Don't rush into stuff and don't join the first band that comes along if it isn't right for you, just for the sake of being in a band again. [/quote] In between my other two projects (one very quiet acoustic quartet with double bass, one livelier band where I play guitar) I'll still get my being-in-a-band jollies, but what I don't do in either is play bass in a full band with drummer. That's probably something I'll miss at some point, but I think I'm happy enough right now. As well as the stuff I've already talked about, one of the things that got me thinking about leaving this band was that a few weeks ago I had some very enjoyable gigs both with the Forgotten Works ( the other link in my sig) and a one-off reunion of a free-improv collective which I used to play with 10 years ago. When I played those gigs I felt really good both while playing and afterwards, and that reminded me what it feels like when something is working musically. A couple of pub sessions with a guitarist friend who visits for the Edinburgh Festival each year did the same thing too. It's been some time since I felt like that playing with the band I've just left and I don't think I would have got that back, whatever it is.

I don't think a bridge wing pickup can ever sound like a microphone, as a lot of the character of the sound is down to the position the pickup is in. It can be an interesting experiment to take a stick-on contact pickup and listen to it in different positions, as certain spots invariably have certain qualities that you can recognise from other pickups fitted in that position. A decent bridge wing pickup can still sound good and be useful though...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1411722910' post='2562218'] Pity that things got that way... but if it's not fun anymore, what's the point? Where are you playing this weekend? I'm reasonably free and would love to see you guys play one more time [/quote] It's next weekend, Saturday 4th at the Blind Poet. It's a low-key gig and usually fairly early in the evening.

OK, I've had the conversation and I've left the band. Singer seemed sad, one of the other two was surprised but understanding, the other one I'm fairly certain had seen it coming. I've not burned my boats with anyone though, as I was quite determined not to do that. As I result I held back a little about some of the aspects that were annoying me, but I think I got the message across well enough. I'm kind of sad about it as it has been a fun band in a lot of ways and I've put a lot into it, but I think I needed to do it. I'm doing one more gig next weekend which I'd agreed to weeks ago, but after that it's done. Things are a bit weird as now I don't have an electric bass gig at all, just an acoustic project with the double bass and a band where I play guitar. I'll probably seek out another project to play bass guitar with, but possibly not right away.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1411656283' post='2561621'] I'd be first in the queue to maon about unpaid gigs, but have I got all this right..? They want to 'make' it but will consider doing a festival date ( which I presume is to impress and advance the band etc etc ) without a bass player and not advise the promoter/booker.. ? I can't see the promoter/booker being impressed by that and that is not giving said gig much respect. And if the gig doesn't warrant it...why are you doing it anyway? I'd be asking for more deatils on the London gig.... I'd be doing that on everything else the guy put up as well, as it happens, but if I wasn't convinced the London gig had a LOT going for it.. I'd be saying I was unavailable for that...on the basis that time off work, loss of leave, monies etc etc ...all on the back on the fact that you weren't asked. I might even be washing my hair that evening, as that seems to be as much respect that is forthcoming from one or two in the band coming your way. The way things seems to be presented and organised is just one big disaster gig waiting to happen, IMO [/quote] Yes, it's one long stream of "what the hell are we playing at" sentiments at the moment. The gig for the festival organiser ended up being cancelled at the last minute BTW, as without their only driver available (me), the band realised they couldn't get themselves there. I'm sure they made a great impression! I'm meeting up with the band in half an hour, I'm fairly definite at this point that I'm done, but I'll post back later just to report how it went...

Well, I'll be charitable and accept that it [i]could[/i] be a communications mix-up between the singer and venue. But even so, I feel like I've taken things as far as I wish to with this band, I've just been waiting for a face-to-face meeting to discuss that.

An update; I'm meeting up with the band to discuss things later today. In the meantime the singer appears to have signed us up for an unpaid gig at a tiny venue in London next month (we're in Edinburgh, so massive effort and expense involved) and only asked the rest of us after the venue had already listed the gig. That's not going to help matters!

Just as a bit of a game, there are three tracks on this EP. One was tracked to a 1/4" 8 track Fostex R8, the other two were straight to digital. Same signal path, same live room, same day. Guess which one was the tape! [url="https://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep"]https://jenthegents....um/right-now-ep[/url]

Is he going to join basschat? The banter between the two of you might be quite entertaining!

I though I'd pop these up here for people to check out; here are three tracks which Jen and the Gents put up on their bandcamp page this month. [url="http://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep"]http://jenthegents.bandcamp.com/album/right-now-ep[/url] If anyone is curious about the bass sound, I'm playing home-built gear on this one, my five-string bass into my valve preamp box for a tiny bit of grit, plus my Superfuzz clone on Right Now. I had D'Addario tapewounds on at the time, and the bass is DI'd via a BSS AR116 DI box. We had to do a bit of creative EQ-ing to make the DI fuzz sound work, but as we recorded the drums, bass and guitars live in one room we were trying to avoid mic-ing a cab.

There are a few older valve amps which are the right width to sit on top a Super 12. I've had both a 40 watt Dynacord Bass King T and a 100 watt Carlsbro CS100/4 PA which were 50cm wide or less. Both were very simplistic old fashioned amps, but for the price of a new amp you could probably pick up something along these lines and find a good tech to build your choice of preamp into it. Or a Peavey Classic rack-mounting power amp with a separate preamp in a 19" rack case?

I'm not sure how useful my feedback is as at is was around four years ago that I installed a set of the 766 steels on a bass, but out of the packet the E string was somewhat darker than the other three and didn't have the zing expected from a new set of steel strings. It wasn't extreme enough to make me think that they were faulty and it seemed to even up after a few weeks of playing, but players who are looking for that brightness might not be massive fans of them.