Ruarl

Great story. Always nice to hear about people getting out of financial trouble - good on you. I'm not familiar with Moolons (I know the name, and the reputation, but not much more): What's the deal with that pickup? Is it a massive humbucker? Or a casing around a more traditional P-bass split? (Or something else)

I bought Dan's camera. Not only did the sale go as smoothly as could be imagined, but he's been helping me out with getting to grips with it. Dan is more than a reliable guy to buy stuff from. He's a gem of this community. Thanks Dan!

Sold Phil my old GKMB150. A nice easy trade.Good clear comms. Thanks Phil!

I'm reminded of how keen you were for a rosewood board when I bought that black/maple one off you. This new one looks an absolute treat, and something of the holy grail you've been chasing. Congrats, and enjoy!

"E" seems to be used to indicate "Elite" sometimes too. I guess they've just had various systems over the years.

Thanks folks. That Talkbass thread was the sort of thing I was looking for. And, confirmed my suspicion that the system is not entirely organised. At least, not over the whole history of Smith basses.

Is there a description somewhere of all the codes on Ken Smith basses? I've found the odd reference (mostly on this forum.) But I don't find anything on the Ken Smith website. And certainly nothing exhaustive. As for some of the extra words they use, I think I've figured out that Burners are made somewhere else with some kind of Ken-endorsement. But I'm puzzled as to what the "Tiger" series are. Are they just nice flamey tops?

Trombone was my first instrument! I had lessons in primary school. When I got to secondary school they persuaded me onto the Tuba. They told me my embouchure was more suited to tuba - I could never get that bright honky trombone sound. I was never particularly interested in the Tuba, so brass went from being something exciting to something I just "did". A couple of years later this new kid joined the school who played guitar. He needed a bass player, I liked Flea. So I started bass and never looked back. Later, when I was about 17, I went to a Jazz summer school at the Guildhall. That was run by Scott Stroman, a trombone player (and a bloody good one, as you might imagine.) He played with a really soft tone, not at all honky. I still think about that moment to this day. Maybe I should buy @funkgod's Trombone from the For sale section???

Got a ticket for Knower at the end of August. I'm very excited. I've been looking forward to seeing Lousi Cole & crew live for years.

Of the three threads with glowing feedback for Paul, this one has the most balance of recent-ness and activity. So... I just bought a nice Fender P from Paul. Had great comms leading up to the meet. I hung out in his spare room and we chatted bass for a good while. He accommodated some fairly unreasonable demands from me, like a new set of strings (yes, really!) and a screwdriver to adjust the pickup height. But always cheerful and helpful. An absolutely top fella to do a deal with.

In the absence of a NW Bash, I might come along to this one. Depending on dates, willingness to drive from Manc...

I thought we'd be assuming that the player would be doing their best to find the correct spot to make the harmonics sound the best, rather than rely on the positions of the frets (which aren't a very good guide, even on a well-intoned bass, because of equal temperament. So you're saying that if you *do* rely on the fret positions, and don't work to seek the spot to make the harmonic sound the best, then better intonation improves harmonics?

When I first learned about this, I did wonder for a while why everyone didn't play Steinbergers. the carbon fibre construction must be extremely rigid compared to timber. The best answer I've come up with so far is that even though the rigid string is what you start with, it might not necessarily be the best thing. Is Michaelangelo's David better for him having chucked away a load of the marble he started with? That's an extreme example, but I'd love to hear an actual Luthier's take on this. Are any of them working to try and make the body filter the sound in a desirable way? And we haven't even got into the transient effects, which were much harder to measure when I was working on this sort of thing. And they're harder to think about, too!

I wonder what the connection might be there? Harmonics are a function of the string, not of the tuning system. An out-of-tune bass will produce harmonics almost exactly the same way as if you tuned it. Or am I missing something?

I've done a little research on a related topic. I measured the "operating deflection shapes" of a bass of mine, which are like modes, but for structures with varying internal stress and strain. I found a spot where there was a match between the frequency of a high-amplitude ODS and the second harmonic of a fretted note. So, if you were to play that note, you would expect the energy from that harmonic to transfer into the bass body very easily. And it did! Looking at the spectrum of that note as output by the pickups, the second harmonic died away very quickly compared to other notes which didn't share this feature. This experiment suggests that the stiffer the bass is, the longer vibrations will sustain in the strings (and in the output), because energy that is transmitted into the wood doesn't come out as sound. From the perspective of the bass, a harmonic is just the same as any other note. There are various vibrations ocurring in the string, which may or may not be absorbed into the body (causing them to die away.) I didn't do any experiments direclty on higher pitches, as the equiment I was using couldn't inject enough energy at higher frequencies. But if you extrapolate the results I got to higher pitches, you could say that any bass that absorbed less energy from the strings, whether because it was stiff or heavy, would play louder, longer-lasting harmonics.

Now, I'm a bit of a newcomer to Ibanez basses. But a recent attack of GAS has meant I'm looking at pages listing the EHB1506ms a lot. And I noticed that the price on Anderton's has just dropped to £1339. Just thought I'd mention that here in case anyone else is similarly afflicted...

I just bought a '71 Precision from Michael. He was very patient while I noodled around ineptly, had a nice chat, and supplied a top quality cup of tea. Was very respectful of my Covid precautions without even asking. Top notch seller! Cheers for the bass Andy