itu

No, but sold. Good looking bass.

Meet your local luthier and ask for a smaller body. Rhonda Smith (one of Prince's bassists) talked about this in some Bass Player mag.

My fretless 4 has 36" scale and a compact body. Light weight, chambered body by a local luthier.

I would recommed a mono case but I should also understand your use cases (sorry).

The first ones I saw were in the Guitar Player long ago, before Bass Player. This company had a headless g-word and a bass. There was a system that enabled folding the neck against the body. It was not a success. Company could have been Canadian or Americain.

I would make this happen with a CF neck. Wooden ones tends to move quite some after the bass has been in folded position for a longer time.

I am very interested to see this happen, though. Travelling without a bass is seriously missing something.

I use Neutrik. I do not have to send anything back. Just plug (s and cable) and play.

Yes yes, I had one defective silent plug, but that was maybe ten years ago. Or more.

3 hours ago, nekomatic said:

Given the apparently even split here between HPFfirstians and HPFlastians,  I have to wonder if there’s a case for two HPF stages, one before any other effects or EQ and one after… maybe at 12 dB/octave each?

The bass produces very low frequencies only through handling (B is 31.5 Hz). It is possible that while playing the instrument is hit, and handling fills the channel. This may affect some effects a bit, but I do not think this is very crucial. It is also feasible to understand that the frequency response of many units is limited from both ends (like 30 - 8 000 Hz). To remind you, a magnet-coil system is a BPF.

Some effects like octaver can go very low, and that's why the HPF is doing the most as the last in line. As stated before, if your comp is at the end, the HPF can be before the comp. From the technological point of view, comp is refining the end product (i.e. sound), just like the HPF. But as said before, try and find the most suitable to your sound.

Many, many years ago I tried to blend a Status and a bartolini J together. I got good sounds from G and D but very funny sounding E and A. Out-of-phase? No worries, I will just change the wires and a minute... Now, it's there! I have very sturdy E and A! But what happened to G and D?

Status was a parallel coil humbucker.

This is not common, but possible.

What does that "rare" mean? I own a fretless 5 Affirma, is it common?

No, there was no gig. They arranged it, and said yes, please. Then they had a meeting and no, there was no gig this night.

I was the original owner of this bass. I only parted from this because I received a fretless 5 in trade. This flame maple four is as good as it gets. I used it along with my Passion II. Lightweight, handles very well, has a broad sound palette... If a working wo/man needs a beautiful and serious tool, this is it.

Leduc pretty much copied that 1961 Gretsch idea. OK, Bikini was a g-word + bass double neck.

There are only few pictures in the web, as only around 50 instruments were made.

8 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

If we assume that both amplifier amd speaker are substantially linear, then the correalation between watts and SPL is also linear.

Do agree. But when people change cabinets, watts and decibels behave depending on the efficiency, frequency response et al. just because the cabs are different.

Bass response and cabinet volume and efficiency are related, as we all know. If I want to equalize two different cabinets to match each other for similar sound (response), watts play a role, but then watts are not automatically equal. Similar loudness may need substantially different amount of power. This is why I do not see the relation being very strong.

Watts do matter, but how to compare rigs, if the loudness (dB) is unknown? Yes, we should know some vital specs from the amp and the cab. These are not published often, i.e. we are not given enough data to be able to compare different rigs.

We need decibels, but marketing department says: "Watts!"

Looking at the pot hats? They do not tell anything about the actual power level. They tell that they are set to certain direction. Nothing else.

Once more, if the amp was able to push power without limits, the cabs should be connected parallel until the impedance was something like a fraction of one. But...

When the impedance is getting lower, the current is rising in the amp. This heats the power amp. When the current is rising, at some point the amp reaches its limits and can not push power anymore. It may even melt. This may equal that the sound is affected, too: transients aren't sharp anymore, no more attacks (ADRS, anyone?). By the way, the attack is super important to instrument perception and sound.

Once more: If you think the impedance (from amp's point of view) is like nail, and the current capacity of the amp is your thumb, you get the idea of what lowering the impedance (nail getting sharper) means to your thumb (ouch!). It starts to hurt pretty soon, when the current rises while the impedance gets lower. Of course you can lower the impedance as much as you like, but the amp gets really hot while not producing any decent power anymore.

One thing that people tend to mess up is that W is not directly the same as dB, although they are faintly connected. The difference of power seems to be hard to understand, because the difference of 100 W - 1 000 W is very distinctive 10 dB, while 100 W - 200 W is only 3 dB. These things are not linear, my dear Watson.

8 hours ago, BigRedX said:

IIRC Spalt is actually American. He might be based in Europe at the moment though.

Correction: Austria.

https://www.spaltinstruments.com/contact/

Alembic in the early 70's, Westone Rail bass, a German Viper bass... g-word players are pretty much slower with their "novelties".

Found it: Spalt vViper is that German instrument.

To the transistor amp the bigger impedance is usually easier load. Think it like a nail against your thumb: the smaller the Z, the sharper the head.

As our grand old man Bill F. already told us, please use one amp / cab, and your amp will love you.

No fretboard markers! Looks especially tempting, although...

...but there doesn't have to be more than one, who has the money.

No, I do not have it for this beauty. Neither am I like Stan.

Slightly reminds me of the style of A. Laboriel. Well played.

- fretted 5 (Genesis, 35", 19 mm)

- fretless 4 (custom, 36", 19 mm)

- fretted 4 (Passion II, 33.8", 19 mm)

- fretless 5 (Affirma, 34", 19 mm)

- eub (Clevinger)

Some others are lurking from the closet. These are played the most in this order.

I think I should find my camera, because this thread is...

We used Gotham in the local broadcasting company, so that was already a good reference to me. The oldest cable I did and is still working is probably from early 90's. Or late 80's. Slightly dirty but very functional.

7 hours ago, Ed_S said:

...a well assembled combination of Van Damme cable and Neutrik jacks is very hard to beat... 

 

...I have had one Neutrik silent right-angle jack go bad on me...

 

I'm always game for trying to find even-more-flexible cable - can you recommend any specific brands / products?

My exact experiences: one Silent Neutrik from the first batches was DOA. 

Van Damme, Sommer, and Klotz. Functional, reliable, decent price.

Long ago I used to have two 100 m rolls of yellow and pink Gotham GAC, but have not seen it in years in local shops. The colours are visible in the stage and no one has tried to claim my funny coloured cables their's.

So first you have to freeze the poor copper wires close to the absolute zero. Then you have to use The Cable Cooker to burn the cable in for the ultimate results. Hey, please... snake oil was old before these "technologies" were even invented. I do not welcome some esoteric HiFi jokes to bass playing without reasonable and authorized ABX tests.

And, we already have tone woods under strict inspection and waiting for the ultimate results.

Buy some silicone cable with Neutriks.

Nah, let's put this way:

Instead of BEADG, the original tuning was EADG-DG. Mixing fretted and fretless in one tune does not work. I do understand soloing with fretless, but it does not sound good when mixed both within a song.

I had an Ashula. I restrung it to have a GDEAB tuning instead of GD-GDAE. Well... bandmates told me there are strange sounding passages in the bassline while I wandered through the fretboard and from time to time to the fretless side. No, it did not work.

Now I do have a fretless 4 & 5 and a fretted 4 & 5. These are all separate instruments for sound and comfort.