Paddy Morris

Well that would be brilliant, yes.

Well yes, but if it sounds shite to the players on stage, then it makes them play worse.

I was pressured into playing through yet another utterly rubbish venue bass amp last night. It was one of those gigs where loads of bands had been on, and all the other bass players had (probably reluctantly) all used the same knackered, low end Ashdown rig. No offense to Ashdown users, they make some great kit, but this thing was an old, underpowered, thin thing. It seemed to have a compressor button that didn't actually switch the compressor off, and seemed to pull off the trick of being simultaneously too loud but also inaudible. The FoH guy had pre-rigged it with his DI box, and it was a small stage. I felt like it would have made me look like a real dick to insist on using my own amp, which I could have got on and off the stage in less thsn 30 seconds. But can you imagine a situation where a guitarist would allow himself to be coerced into using some knackered old amp that happend to be on stage? There's no way on earth. Also, if for logistical reasons of getting bands on and off quickly, you want everyone to use the same bass amp, well why not buy something so lovely and so flexible that no one could possibly mind using it. But house bass amps universally seem to be sourced from skips outside the local Cash Converters.

I have 2 basses I use regularly. One is a laminate Chinese slapper. The other is a carved Westbury (also Chinese) which I use for jazz and swing. But they have different neck scales. So swapping between them plays havoc with the intonation, particularly in the upper registers and thumb position. One solution suggested by a luthier is to carve a new nut to shorten the scale of the laminate bass and make both basses the same. This sounds expensive, and I would be spending money on the inferior instrument. I have read that when players hire a bass with a scale they aren't used to, they will slip the bridge slightly off the f-hole notches to tweak the scale. Do you think that might work for me? I would doing it on the laminate, which presumably has a more robust top the carved one. Tone wise it's not really an issue, because the laminate is kept really heavily damped down to control feedback.

This happened to my all-laminate bass last year. It's a rough-ass gigging bass and has had a pretty hard life to be fair. A friend who is more of a guitar tech, injected some hyde glue in the gap and clamped it for a couple of days and it has been good as gold ever since.

Well blimey. I've learned a thing or two here.

This ⬆️ If you look at all the clever, expensive tech that Yamaha have had to employ to get even a vaguely acoustic sound from the SLB300 then it points to it being a very tricky task. I would just embrace the sound you are achieving from it with your current setup.

Jesus. Not for the faint hearted, but really interesting.

You could try a contact mic like an Ischell C3 or a Schertler. They are both pretty costly to buy just as an experiment though.

Blimey. How did you manage that? I did something simlar to my chinese plywood special. A friend who repairs guitars managed to apply a maple cleat underneath the smashed bit, then push the wood back up enough to patch it from the outside. The bass had a black lacquer finish, so it was easier to disguise once the finish waa smooth. I don't know if that would work on this though.

If you were happy to wait for a bit and wanted to avoid a dealer, you could advertise it in the instrument sales section of musicalchairs.info. Quite a lot of more valuable instruments seem to sell on there.

Have you reached any conclusions yet? I have a DPA but am always slightly disappointed with the results I get. I also find it unusable as a gigging mic. Have you considered trying a Nadine? I never have, but the demos sound very good.

I think it's a lovely, growly vibe. Personal taste, as everyone is saying, but I love it. You could reduce the high frequency element of it quite easily with a bit of EQ, but in a band context I bet it would cut through beautifully.

I've been working my way by trial and error through bass amp heads and these are the sweeping generalisations I've arrived at: TC - good, solid amps but the EQ generally positioned at the wrong frequencies for upright. Boomy and prone to feedback Warwick Gnome - excellent value, but EQ bands in the wrong spots also. Genzler Magellans 350 and 800- excellent for double bass. Even without an HPF, there's enough tone shaping to get you a decent sound in most situations. Genz-Benz streamliner - tube front end actually slightly more flattering to an upright bass than the more modern Genzlers. Great. PJB - Two Four. Couldn't get on with it really. It's very highly tuned to a single low frequency, so a real feedback hazard if you hit that particular note. Traynor YBA300 - delicious, but heavy. Far too much low end unless you use an outboard HPF. But I do use one, and I'm currently in love with the sound of it. Just about sits neatly on top of an LFSys Monaco if you lay it on it's side.

Yep. HPF is a must. God alone knows shy they are so rarely found incorporated into amp heads in the first place.