uncle psychosis

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1413363468' post='2577424'] I'd go further than this. If you can establish that disassembling and rebuilding the bass has minimal affect on the sound then I would want to see what effect different bodies made out of the same wood have. I'd suggest that a sample of 20 bodies would be an absolute minimum and would be happier with something in the 100 bodies range would be more representative. Also each of the bodies would have to be made out of a single piece of wood. IMO once you start gluing bits of wood together you simply add too many variable even if you could guarantee that all the joins were in exactly the same place on all the bodies and the same amount of glue had been used each time. And finally each body would need to have been made on the same CNC machine from the same template and any finishing was exactly the same on all the bodies. Only after all that would I start to consider a different type of wood and see if there were any constant differences between the two types. [/quote] I agree, thats what I was getting at when I said you'd need to do "lots more experiments". Doing this kind of thing properly is actually really hard, its why nobody has really bothered doing it. Acousticians have more interesting problems to work on (purely acoustic instruments, for starters) and amateur musicians / bass makers have neither the time, the expertise, or the means to do it properly. I genuinely tend to think "forget about what you think it might sound like, choose based on aesthetic and weight and let the bass maker worry about everything else" is the way forward.

[quote name='TheSiberian' timestamp='1413306804' post='2576986'] I think of one interesting experiment (at least intelectually wise); let's make two bodies of let's say first a christmass tree wood and second a 20 years selected walnut tone wood, put some Bartolinis with a Pope preamp, some DR hi beams strings and a maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, badass bridge, etc. [b]The two basses will be absolutely the same except the body wood.[/b] [/quote] That's debateable, actually Strings vary from set to set, and the two necks won't be identical either---they're also made from two separate pieces of wood. What you need to do is to make one instrument, play it and record it, take the neck and all of the hardware off and put it back on again (repeatedly) to prove that you can put it back on without changing the sound of this first instrument at all (if just putting a bass together differently changes the tone significantly then all bets are off), then take the neck and hardware and put it on the second body, and then prove that the sound of this second bass is sufficiently different that the change in body wood can be said to be meaningful. Even then, all you'd have done is prove that two different pieces of wood sound different. If you wanted to make sweeping statements about the sounds of different kinds of woods you'd need to do [i]a lot [/i]more experiments. What I will say is this. Most brass musicians swear blind that the metal you make their instruments from makes a clear difference to the sound they make. White gold is "mellower" than brass, etc etc etc. However, proper double blind tests, where a high end trumpet maker made a series of valveless trumpets (they have no moving parts so they're fairly straightforward to duplicate) out of different materials showed that the effect of the material was inconclusive at best. Turns out musicians are better at "listening" with their eyes then their ears Same with violinists. "Everyone knows" old violins like Strads are "the best" but in double blind tests professional violinists prefer modern top end violins to old classics. The moral of the tale is that its very, very dangerous to assume anything when it comes to the brains effect on the ears.

Short version: Possibly, but not enough to actually bother worrying about. Choose based on aesthetics and weight. Longer version: I have a PhD in musical acoustics (admittedly not in string instruments) but I know enough about psychoacoustics and instrument variability to be dubious about some of the outlandish claims made by musicians when it comes to the noises that instruments make. The sound of a bass guitar is probably affected a bit by the wood from which its made but frankly everything else in the signal chain probably has as big if not a bigger effect. Any effect that the wood has is probably not even repeated across two bits of wood of the same species, so I don't think its really possible to make meaningful blanket statements about what different types of wood "sound like". Personally, I'd never even consider what a bass is made of when buying it other than 1) what does it look like and 2) how much does it weigh. If I want to tweak the sound a bit I'll adjust the EQ on my amp. Much more controllable and much more repeatable than worrying about whether alder "has more mids" than ash. Disclaimer: this is for electric instruments. Acoustic ones are up for grabs

Well, given that the FSR ones are (somewhat) limited edition and they're £150 cheaper they'd be my first choice if I was choosing between them. With distance selling regs you can always return it if you don't like it anyway and then get a normal aerodyne which are fairly easy to find.

I think tipping in general is much more common in the US than it is here. I've never seen a tip jar at a gig here.

I've been in quite a few of those storage places and I'd never leave an instrument I cared about in any of them for any length of time. The warehouses are never temperature controlled and I'd be really worried about the temperature and humidity.

Nice bass. Shame that he'll only go and play Rush songs on it

Might be of interest to some of you, Strings Direct currently selling twin packs of D'addario EXL strings for £30 delivered. They come with a free string winder/cutter that looks a bit crappy but £15 a set for these strings is pretty competitive pricing from what I can gather so anything else is a bonus.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1412889229' post='2573139'] It's not common sense man, it's specialised knowledge. Your employer is in breach of their statutory duties and you have a legal duty to report any work-related ill health. There's a good reason for that. Get it sorted. [/quote] This, this, this. Your employer is [b]legally obliged[/b] to help you out. Don't cripple yourself for your work. No job is worth that. Good luck.

Its just overdrive isn't it?

I'm about 99% certain that my desire to play guitar stems from [i]that [/i]scene in Back To The Future. [i]Uhh...all right guys, listen, this is a blues riff in B. Watch me for the changes and, uhh, try and keep up, okay?[/i] [i]Chuck! Chuck, it's Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you're looking for? Well, listen to this![/i]

The Colourful Band is gigging in Edinburgh on Friday 10/10/14 TCB have been used in the soundtrack to a "controversial BBC TV drama" called Lip Service and another has been played on Radio 2 by the lovely Steve Lamacq. Here's my favourite TCB song to give you an idea of what to expect: [url="https://soundcloud.com/the-colourful-band/into-the-bright-sun-from"]https://soundcloud.com/the-colourful-band/into-the-bright-sun-from[/url] Also playing with us is Iona Marshall: “[i]Lovely voice; a wee bit like Karine Polwart. I’m a big fan of this pastoral, picky acoustic music. It’s nice to hear something like that but with a modern edge.” ---[/i]Rod Jones, Idlewild, The Skinny [url="http://ionamarshall.bandcamp.com/"]http://ionamarshall.bandcamp.com[/url] Anyway, I hope you can make it along. Here are the details: Friday October 10th, doors from 7.30pm, finish 10pm £5, £3 with student card Henrys Cellar Bar 16a Morrison Street Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Round the corner from the Odeon in Tollcross, underneath Lebowskis)

That's awesome, like that a lot.

I like to introduce instrumentals with "this is a true story". #topbanter

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1412285159' post='2567590'] For those people that are interested there's an interview with him here www.bassplayer.com/artists/1171/dirty-loops-henrik-linder-to-appear-at-bpl/48947 [/quote] Not surprised that he's into the Brecker Bros. Dirty Loops really remind me of them.

[quote name='lefrash' timestamp='1412095115' post='2565600'] I personally think that putting effects on just for the sake if it sounds pretty bad, needs to be a reason behind the choices. [/quote] This! Personally speaking, in my bands I only use a little bit of distortion on bass and nothing else. I find that too much tapdancing distracts me from what I'm doing, and too many changes in bass tone take away the cohesiveness of the band. There are exceptions, some genres require loads of effects and thats cool, but they just don't really fit in with the fairly straightforward rock and indie that I do. I leave the weird noises to the guitarist At home, I like to muck around a bit more and I've got a Zoom B3 for doing just that.

Fantastic players but the music doesn't do it for me.

Doesn't the M80 already do distortion/OD?

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1411928082' post='2564019'] ...as is this limited edition Japan-only blue Thunderbird owned by my mate Crem (from Milan based punksters The Full Treble). And no, he is not Jim Carrey. P [/quote] Blimey, how tall is he? That looks like a toy!

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1411326868' post='2558488'] Also, there's a good chance the cover used overtly "girly" colours like pink and light blue, so I'd guess the band behind it liked some irony. [/quote] That to me sounds like the famous Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn. Wouldn't be surprised if someone had coopted that for an LP.

I bought 10 (ten!) effects pedals from Carlos. Friendly emails, very quick postage and no hassles at all. Thanks Carlos!

Those USB cables are odd. Lots of printers don't come with them either, despite needing one. I've no idea why not.

[quote name='Sean' timestamp='1410890039' post='2554411'] That's what I thought but it smells a bit like sofa sales on TV. There was something for sale on here earlier this year that had the price lowered for the weekend only. If I'd have offered that price at 8am on the Monday morning would I have been too late? [/quote] I think a lot of those are driven by "there's something I want to buy on eBay and that auction ends on Sunday night". I can only speak for myself , but I tend to ignore all the extra "waffle" surrounding sales posts. What is it? what kind of condition is it? how much money are you asking for here and now? Everything else is just window dressing as far as I'm concerned.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1410539941' post='2550597'] Just checked my iPhone, and lo and behold... no U2! On balance I feel pretty good about that - it means that Apple doesn't have access to *everyone* with an iPhone. Or maybe they just don't like me... Either way it's a big [/quote] What happened was that rather than offer the album for free, Apple added it to every iTunes users library. Most people have their device set to automatically download things that get added to their library. That's how it ended up in their phones. It's a stupid move, but people are getting far too excited about apple and u2 "hacking" their phones which is just nonsense.