godathunder

Have android sorted their latency problem these days? The older devices were absolutely unusable for real time audio (which was a shame, as they were my goto device for pretty much everything else mobile related)

Im going to try to arrange another lesson, largely because playing his was such a different experience and demands a playing style completely at odds with my setup My natural style is pretty busy and harmony via melody/counterpoint driven, which my bass seems suited to, so Id be interested to investigate a completely different style and setup. Living in a fairly rural area, Ive not found anything in the way of jazz sessions near me (although the annual bray jazz festival isnt that far away) but there are a few irish folk and trad sessions nearby. It would make sense to learn a style thats more in keeping with whats available locally. Then, of course, theres the matter of owning an appropriate tool for the job. Best have a look down the back of the sofa and establish my budget...........

Completely agree, I didnt intend my post to sound critical of him in the slightest. I found the lesson very useful and offered to pay for his time regardless but he wouldnt take my money

I had an interesting day yesterday. I had a lesson with the db tutor which was a combination of frustrating, affirming and eye opening. When I arrived, he asked me to play something so he could get an idea of my level. I played an adaption of Nature Boy Ive been using as a practice piece. He stopped me and told me I played at a higher level than him and he didnt know anyone who would be able to teach me. Fair play to him, he also refused payment for the lesson so we had a little bit of a jam and general chat instead. Very good for the ego but mildly frustrating because Im fairly aware of some of my shortcomings and dont really have a route to address them. The eye opening bit of it was that Ive come to the conclusion that, contrary to what I thought, I do not own a double bass but rather a hybrid instrument with the same scale length and tuning. Obviously he brought his bass along and I found it nigh on impossible to play for a combination of reasons. The body shape is vastly different from mine and my technique didnt really translate to being encumbered by the deeper body, position of the heel and presence of the instrument shoulders. The setup was also hugely different from mine - he aimed for the nut being slightly above his head rather than the eyebrow level Ive settled on. Also, whereas mine is setup with fairly high tension steels but a relatively low action, his was setup with lower tension nylons and a higher action. His playing tends more towards rockabilly slap at the bottom end of the instrument whereas mine is geared more towards walking lines and melodic excursions higher up the neck. He couldnt play his style on mine and vise versa. The real eye (ear?) opener was the difference in the sound of the instruments. Mine plays more like a second harmonic instrument - his had a very deep and resonant low end and considerably more volume whereas mine was much quieter and far more mid focused. In volume terms, mine struggled to keep up with his acoustic guitar. Obviously mine is primarily intended as an amplified instrument but I was really surprised at just how little volume it produced acoustically in that scenario. Id be interested to do an a/b test with mine amplified to the same level, especially as ive found my experiments so far result in a much boomier sound than the instrument's acoustic voice. Whereas his had more depth and power, I did find mine to be far more articulate and probably more suited to the style of playing I'm developing. So, in conclusion, hmmmmmmmmmm

Further progress and experimantation has occurred I cut a finalised bridge at last so the couple of pieces of 2x1 that had formed the temp have now been retired. I settled on a slightly higher action than Id used for the temp - I found it was sounding a little underwhelming and wasnt fighting back as much as I like. Originally I cut it a little high, intending to cut some channels for the strings but they seem rock solid without them and it turns out that I prefer the extra mm or two so Ill leave it as is The pickups that were with the bass turned out to be broken. I've managed to get them mostly functional again, although further repair to the cabling is required. More can be found here if youre interested (https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/511670-pickup-id/) In the meantime, I found a fishman acoustic guitar pickup/mic/preamp for 20 quid and thought I may as well have a play with it temporarily to see what I could do with it. Not wanting to make any adaptions to the bass itself, I cut down the preamp to a more ergonomic shape and built a small box to house it. I fitted a couple of furniture protection pads which snugly hold it in place under the neck by friction alone. I extended the wiring, fitted the mic inside the body and made a temporary mount for the pickup (an undersaddle type) on the bridge. It sounded absolutely bloody awful - the mic is underwhelmingly ok but the piezo just honked and needed a ridiculous amount of upper mid eqd out of it (around -10db from 2-6k). It also sounded as if I was playing through an expander - the dynamics were horrifically exagerated and it picked up way too much of the body noise to be usable . I wrapped the piezo element in cloth and refitted it which improved matters somewhat in terms of eq and body noise but at best I can make it sound like a mediocre fretless bass guitar. Will experiment further before I completely discard the idea though. Once Id (semi)repaired the original pickup I retrofitted a selector switch to the preamp to allow me to connect the original pickup, which sounds far better but is still quite boomy and undefined. It also has a far higher output than the undersaddle pickup. I may need to pad it down a little as unless the battery is at full voltage it seems to overload the preamp slightly on the lower notes. The preamp itself is obviously not optimised for a bass and the eq isnt terribly useful but as a buffer/selector/gain stage/polarity switch/tuner its useful enough to earn its keep. I seem to recall I have a sennheiser dynamic clamp mic somewhere in the depths of one of my attic boxes that will probably sound better than the mic that came as part of the preamp so that will be the next experiment. I also built a stand for the bass out of some scraps from the woodpile. It seems much more dignified than just leaning it up against a cabinet in the corner In terms of actually playing, Ive been playing along to loads of jazz standard backing tracks on youtube and am starting to develop some (occasional) accuracy in my intonation at last. Ive also found someone willing to give me lessons on an adhoc basis although Ive not been able to start just yet. Its all terribly exciting though......

The soldering iron and magnifying glass payed dividends. Both of the solder joints to the piezo wafer had failed on the 1st pickup in line. It took a few tries to get a decent connection but I got it working. Predictably, after reassembling it,the joints pretty much immediately failed again so this time a cut down a piece of microbore pipe with a dremel type tool and reshaped it to form some strain relief.Lashings of epoxy completed its quest for solidity. Despite this, the connection to the 2nd pickup is intermittent. At some future point I'll make a joint in the cable instead. The jury is out on the sound at the moment, it seems a bit boomy and undefined but the preamp Im using isnt really suited. I'll continue this exciting story in the original thread https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/483271-shergold-electric-upright/

yeah, that was my feeling but I was just holding out a faint glimmer of hope that someone would identify them as some esoteric non piezo that needed some dc applied. Ah well, time to break out the soldering iron and magnifying glass

Ive finally got round to cutting a proper bridge for my Shergold project ( https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/483271-shergold-electric-upright/ ) and excitedly mounted the pickups only to find that silence ensues I assumed that theyre piezos so was expecting a pretty low output but this is zero output. Perhaps Im mistaken about them being piezos and they require a polarising voltage. The jack socket has a 4700pF capacitor wired in parallel across the terminals (Im assuming its for hf rolloff). Ive removed it but theres still no output. Theyre approx 27mm long and are made of a blue plastic inner with brass/copper folded around. Theyre from the 20th century Does anyone have any idea what the mystery pickups may be?

Id have thought a sansamp or its behringer clone would get you in the ballpark

Thats pretty much the height Ive settled at - I still have a tendancy to drift sharp but I think its just that Im expecting the fluency of 35 years of electric playing to instantly transfer to an instrument Ive only been playing for a few weeks rather than accepting that I need to put time into actually getting the basics right first Ive put some bits of tape on the side of the fingerboard, which helps with general positioning but, again, Im frustratingly imprecise. Mine has a heel at that position, which does help as a target but which also frustrates me because I've yet to adapt to the different hand position needed to play there. The current action is comfortable in the lower positions (up to about the 10th) but becomes increasingly uncomfortable for me past there. Again, Im used to a bass guitar so I think this is primarily a hand strength issue that I expect will lessen with practice. The unamplified volume seems decent as is but I dont have a full sized acoustic bass to compare to. Perhaps Ill increase the action as I become more proficient, I generally like my instruments to fight back a bit Unfortunately, mine has a much smaller bridge size (around 80mm) so an off the shelf adjustable bridge doesnt seem to exist - possibly in time Ill add making one to my extensive list of unrealised projects........ Anyway, realistically I need to take a few lessons and get the basics under my belt before concerning myself with most of this stuff

Ive found that Im starting to gravitate towards that hand position on the higher strings but still closer to 90deg on the lower strings. My wrist injury is making it difficult to put in any serious practice at the moment though Ive paid for all the notes. Im going to use all the notes - whether the tune needs it or not. I quite like to be able to play the melodies of songs so Id like to be able to extend my range but really, Im trying to run before I can walk here Again, Im trying to run before etc.... I quite like the higher harmonics (5,4,3ish,2.5ish etc); in a couple of keys you can play occasional harmonic chords that absolutely jump out. I guess that'll stay the preserve of the bass guitar with some drive/compression. Curiously, Im finding it easier to play pinch harmonics on it than naturals. Anyway, I should probably concentrate my efforts on playing cleanly and in tune at the lower end rather than trying to be a fancy pants (note to self, must stop watching those orsted pederson vids)

Ive got nothing particularly exciting to update on this. Ive recut my temporary bridge a couple of times. The action at the end of the fingerboard is currently 6,9,9,7mm (G-E). The next iteration will be aiming for 5,7,8,9 and unless that feels substantially different to my expectations I expect that will be the height I cut the final bridge at. Ive really enjoyed playing it for the last few weeks, it's been very inspiring to have to approach my playing from a different angle (well, my hands are at a 90 degree angle from their usual position at any rate). Unsurprisingly, since Im untutored, Im struggling with some aspects of playing it. My intonation is pretty suspect and Ive a tendancy to play sharp - I wonder if lowering the endpin by a couple of centimetres will help put the notes where I feel they should be. I find that I lose my orientation a little too and (despite some helpful little bits of tape Ive stuck to the side of the neck), I sometimes have to stop and remind myself exactly where I am. Coming from a background of playing with guitar based bands, this is more of a problem in the non guitar friendly keys although I dont seem to have quite such a problem with this when playing bass guitar As for the dusty end of the instrument.......... Past around the 9th "fret" where I need to change hand position (is it called thumb position up there?) is an absolute shitshow, in terms of tone, intonation (it's more like random tone generation at the mo - past the octave I considering it quite succesful if Im within a semitone of my target note) and hand strength (Im currently recovering from injuries to my left wrist and shoulder so this will have to be taken slowly) Anyway, it's overall positive and Im thorougly enjoying myself. I've spotted a db tutor around an hours drive away so, when time allows, will try to engage for a few pointers. Probably best to do it asap before I settle into bad habits. If any forum members are based in south east ireland I'd love to meet up for a cuppa and show off my new toy edit: is playing harmonics on an upright a common thing? I often use them when playing bass guitar but am struggling to play even the stronger harmonics cleanly on this

Thanks so much for the photos, they made me much more confident about this btw, was yours set up as a 1/2 scale rather than 3/4?

Getting there. I picked up a cheap cello tailpiece and steel strings. The bridge Ive picked up is laughably outsized but I should be able to cut it down to suit. In the meantime Ive knocked up a temporary one from some offcuts from the scrap pile. This is currently 8-10mm or so too tall but I wont feel bad about hacking at it until I settle on a height that suits. As it hasnt been under tension for at least 25 years Ive tuned it a tone flat to let it settle in. Ill give it a few weeks to acclimatise before I bring it up to pitch then after another few weeks Ill start experimenting with the bridge. Initial results are quite promising - it's surprisingly loud and full given its diminutive nature - the E string sounds rather underwhelming compared to the other three though and feels a little under tensioned. Perhaps due to the low tuning, probably because theyre cheap strings - more than likely, a combination of the two and no doubt compounded by my lack of technique. Pickup hasnt been fitted yet, Ill take a look at it when Ive fitted the permanent bridge.

most amplifiers will be unhappy to see a speaker load below 4 ohms (there are exceptions obviously) consequently theyll offer half of their rated power into an 8 ohm cabinet with the option to add another 8 ohm cabinet (wired in parallel) meaning the amp will deliver it's full power into the resulting 4 ohm load, with each cabinet receiving half of that power. very few people run more than 2 cabinets so this is usually the most effective setup

The bass has been rehomed and is now with me in Ireland awaiting my attentions after 25 years sat in a dusty corner. It's in need of a tailpiece, bridge and strings. A quick glance at amazon/ebay suggests that an aluminium alloy cello tailpiece looks to start around 20 euros, adjustable bridge 45 euros and a set of light steel strings 40 euro. While Im not expecting sonic wonders at this price point should I consider spending a little more? The tone Im looking for is jazz/rockabilly influenced and Im unlikely to pick up a bow at the moment All advice welcomed

Multichannel mixes only appearing in overpriced box sets has been a constant gripe. Unfortunately, its a relatively small customer base so the record companies seem to be aiming for low volume high pricing rather than trying to encourage more buyers into that market.

There are just too many classic, hooky driving lines to choose from. Today Im going to go for the 2 note line that kicks in at around 4:20 on Heaven & Hell - simple and perfect

Therapy? in Dublin Olympia on Halloween. Outstanding energy from both them and the support band, Enola Gay. Good sized venue (1600) for some jumpy up and down rock so I jumped up and down a lot - intense enough atmosphere for me to foolheartedly venture into the moshpit for a while. Evidently a bad idea because lots of my 52 year old carcass hurts now. My kids loved it though Bass player was solid and affable. Would recommend

Ive got a 7.1.2 system and it sounds really good on that. Detroit Rock City is the showpiece and it sounds as good as you'd hope it would. I reckon its the best Ive ever heard the album sound. Wilson has a golden eared reputation over on the quadraphonicquad.com forum. All of the multichannel remixes of his Ive heard have beeen outstanding, particularly his work with king crimson's back catalogue

Does this count as 1992? The awesome bassline is actually sampled from a 1977 track, Bamba In Dub by The Revolutionaries

Still one of my favourite basslines. He was excellent at glastonbury that year too

My daughter was a big fan a couple of years ago - always seemed somewhat manufactured teenage angsty outrage to me but she convinced me to watch his glastonbury set - hell of a performer. Was impressive and he seemed much more sincere (if rather gushing) live

Hopefully he's jamming with JB somewhere.

Rammstein in Dublin There was a bass player there somewhere but for some reason he wasnt the focus of my attention