itu

And as Patrice is about to retire, be quick with this beauty.

2 hours ago, thodrik said:

I recall Vigiers getting a number of 2/5 'design' or 'bench' ratings on things like Bass Gear Magazine, where US reviewers decided that because Modulus graphite instruments included a truss rod then it was scientific fact that all graphite necked basses 'needed' a truss rod.

Which year was this? MG hadn't truss rods until late 1990's.

- fretted 5, sometimes a fretless or an EUB

- amp

- cab and its cover

- FX board & page flipper in a mono bag

- tab (notes, scores)

- tab stand

The bass mono bag has neatly coiled cables, tuner, tab, spare set of strings, spare battery, tools, foldable scissors, DMM, ear plugs... If I am taking two electrics, I use the mono dual bag.

Amp rack case has power and cab cables.

Noll Mixpot.

The first situation might work with an HPF before the Mixpot. The Mixpot has adjustable inputs on both channels.

What's your x-over frequency at the moment? I've stuck to 400 Hz.

There are other electronic devices, too, that run on Phantom power: preamps, DI-boxes...

It is a power supply that is usually around 9 - 52 VDC (tolerances included), and few milliamperes. P48 is very common.

Electret condensers are usually fed with less voltage, like from 1.5 to 12 VDC.

1 minute ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I read something online from a guitarist who said he will respect bassists when he meets one who can play barre chords...

...but doesn't.

Historically the bass (tuba etc.) has been the lowest sounding instrument. But nowadays we have multi string instruments, we have piccolo strings, short scales, synthesizers and so on. I think that if you use your instrument like bass, it is a bass. The form or the design does not hinder us, bassists.

(By the way, check g-word players, most of whom are doomed to play only Stratos, Teles, and LesPauls. Maybe there is some Youngster trying to play an SG, or even a PRSantana, but those instruments may be too radical in the long run.)

As an owner of two Passion series II basses, and that I have had the  chance to play few others, I have to thank him for producing quelques instruments extraordinaires.

Vigier wasn't my first lesson in French. But very important.

Merci beaucoup, M. Vigier.

No problem, the coating is so thin, that it bends easily. It will not break.

Silver will oxidize after time. I have seen silver getting tarnished under a thick clear plastic. It just took longer, but as plastics are not hermetic in the long run - years - the oxide got through. I suppose that whitish metal can get spotted over the years. To clarify things: It does not affect performance.

This even has its original case. I remember seeing one, when this was in production. The case looked like very easy to carry to gigs.

What is your sound preference?

A very compact idea of strings and sounds:

Stainless steel roundwound (SS RW) - lots of zing, brightest sounding

Nickel RW - flatter response than SS

Flatwound - the other end, the dull end of the sound spectrum

Thickness varies a lot. Lighter touch, and you could try a 40 - 100 set, or even lighter.

Probably the most common set is a 45 - 105.

If your sound is dull, buy a good flat set and play it for the next few years, or a decade. You want zing, buy a set few times a year. They really aren't that expensive.

I am always amazed to see people talking about sound quality enhancement after buying a hi end cable. It might be feasible to look inside the bass, and get amazed of how tiny wires are delivering the signal to those £100 cables.

A good quality (silicone) cable is thick and robust because it can withstand the abuse in rehearsals and gigs. Learn to coil it well, and you have a friend for decades.

A Zon and a Wal? Your third fretless must be from a brand that is written with three letters, like MTD, ACG, TLC, BBC...

I had the previous version of the Tyler. Now I use the IE Divaricator as the smaller size suits me better. But the main point is that it is a wonderful tool for us, bassists. Clean low end and screaming highs. You can put chorus/flanger to the high side, too, but an envelope does not work too well there. Put that before or after the KMA. If you have two compressors, you can put them to separate bands.

If you have not nailed the placement and the cabling, yet, please do some experiments, like put the distortion to the low band. Crazy trials may open up new horizons.

Tightening the sound may be possible with the HPF. Try something like 30 - 60 Hz. That reduces both handling noise and the lowest end, which consume lots of power.

9 hours ago, Boodang said:

Effectively the only difference between an onboard preamp and external pedal is that the onboard is going to have space and power restrictions. Of course, if you find an onboard that really suits the bass then you have a tailored preamp on hand and it does seem like a lot of preamps these days, like the East, are tailored to suit specific bass types.

This may become one long post... After reading this some may think I am into Hi-Fi. No, I am after expected functionality.

The power restriction is true, but I would say "partially". A preamp consumes energy depending on its components. There are many very good opamps (operational amplifiers), that consume only a little energy. Therefore I do not see the battery powered preamp to be so much less powerful than a power supply powered pedal. But it is true that a pedal may have extra features, because of the extra power capacity.

John East is making excellent preamps with very convincing specs. I have no reason to believe that his creations are already flashy without any extra power. On the other hand Alembic has been using the power hungry NE5534 (which is a neat opamp), and because of that they have used their external supply.

Modern components and layouts allow lots of parts in a small footprint PCBA. I do not see space is a restriction. OK, you want tubes, then the space and power are an issue.

About high impedance circuitry (passive, pots, caps...), it is very cheap, usually made with the cheapest quality parts, and mostly degrading the audio quality. But it is also the basic choice, and common in every price point. (Note: AJ Fodera has only the pickup and the output jack, but AJ surely connects his instruments to very high end boards, and does not want any degrading stuff between his fingers and the end result.) You want better performance, omit all pots and do the adjustments in the amp. This takes you to the amp, and on the fly adjustments sure are slower.

Lo-Z circuitry ("active") has few interesting features. One is, that the pots (most of which are of mediocre quality at best) do not have to be in the signal path. But, and here it comes again, most "active basses" are only partially "active". Pickups are followed by the blend pot (hi-Z; lo quality). Blend is followed by the vol pot (hi-Z, lo q). Then there is the simple preamp that can tweak tone somewhat. Artec's T&B pre costs about £20 and Sadowsky is around £200, but they are not mixers.

Yes, there are few true mixers like John East, but they are rare. Others that I know of, is one EMG, and the other is a US company that I have forgotten (VAT, shipping etc., you know).

Why would I need a mixer? Because the high impedance circuitry affects the performance of the pickups. When any hi-Z pot in the signal path is tweaked, the response of the pickup(s) is affected. For example the frequency response is reduced. That may be fine with you, but I am not happy with that. Not any more. I have heard the light. No... no... it was... how was it?

Now we have two... out of four.

Actually I have never even thought about it. I've been playing in bands where the male singer may have been very "girlie" (I hate this word, but the connotation was given here), and there has been ladies that represent very aggressive style and genre. I would call them musicians rather than male or female singers.

Sorry, I want look the music from the music side. Music is not about gender.

If the cassette has been played back and forth a lot, it may be wise to put it to deck and use the FFWD once (or twice). The tape will run smooth after spooling.

Loading affects the pickup response. Active mixing does not load pickups. This is especially feasible with hi-Z pickups.

Buffered output is very stiff, therefore the blend can be a simple pot. If the 250k is too big, you can solder metal film resistors in parallel with the individual tracks. Then the pot tracks look smaller in resistance.

Few alternatives:

100k resistors in parallel - 71k tracks

68k - 53k

56k - 45k7

47k - 39k5

33k - 29k

27k - 24k

And so on.

EMG has 10k output impedance, 27k resistors would be a nice match.

True, we can go much further, as the two piece bridge is very common in violin family.

Warwick has one very interesting invention, which is the adjustable nut. But we were into jeffs and bridges, so that needs to be saved to another thread.

Yes.

If you want the size to be bigger, it is usually OK.

efficiency - low end - cubic volume

You make the enclosure smaller, either the efficiency becomes smaller, or the lowest reproducible frequency rises - or both. This is similar to the

ISO - aperture - time

trio in photography.

What is slightly different with your pickups is that they are lo-Z, compared to most others (which are high impedance, "passive"). The blend pot is the first in signal path after the pickups.

You can use a hi-Z pot (250k MN or 500k MN), but the feasible area of the pot tracks will be short. From this point of view two volumes would work. You can also opt for the "active" mixing via the battery operated Noll Mixpot.

Thiele / Small.

The parameters will tell you whether a certain element is meant to be put to a reflex or a closed enclosure.

Read this short text:

https://audiojudgement.com/thiele-small-parameters-explained/

Warwick bridge seems to be copied from Alembic. I think the first Thumb I saw in the 1990's had a one piece Schaller bridge.

What was that bridge-through-body years ago? Lots of metal, Hamer Cruise bass had it, 2tek?