JanSpeeltBas

Seen for sale: Overwater neckthrough 4 string '91, mahagony body with quilted maple top, 4 in line tuners, thin narrow neck, 24 frets, 2 HB's, Overwater bridge, original body shape. Can't get a picture up - don't know the model name. What do you guys think - is it worth GBP 450?

I really love these old Yamaha's - great basses!

[quote name='lowdown' post='515821' date='Jun 16 2009, 11:22 PM']+1 Millions of $s? I knew it was gonna be a strange day today when a pig flew past and delivered the post. Garry[/quote] Pigs flying? Interesting. Laboriel told this story: after many months and paying more than a million dollars of studiotime, musicians etc the record company asked Fagan when the record would be ready - when in fact he had only recorded three tracks...

Thanks Golchen & Beedster. I actually find graphite necks quite different than wooden necks. Apart from the differences in sound I really like the stability. These two are probably the only two affordable graphite neck basses that turn up every once in a while and yes they're very different. Since I've never played the G-bass but have touched various Statii I think I'll go with that one...

Abraham Laboriel told me about this record. Bass parts were played by several players and edited and compiled to one bass track. The credits on the CD name one player for each track which isn't quite complete...this record costed millions of dollars to make and it's so smooth and perfected I really don't like to listen to it...I gave away my copy...

Two graphite neck basses are up for sale around 600 euro's: Status Energy (headed, bolt-on graphite neck, 34", 2 Hyperactive J pickups, passive EQ) and Peavey G-Bass (bolt-on graphite neck with pauferro 'board, 35", 1 pickup, 18v 3-band active EQ) Which one do you prefer, and why? Please help me make up my mind!

DI quality is crucial in the studio where you'll find the great sounding REDDI's & Avalon U5's, they may be important for theatre gigs (with controlled acoustics and pro-sound engineers) but less important for common live gigs. Nevertheless you can hear the difference between a good one an a bad one which had me buying my own (BSS AR116) years ago. When using your amps DI out you'll get the best result using it Pre EQ (this is a direct feed from the amps input) so you can use your amps EQ for adjusting your stage (monitor) sound. When using effects in your effects send/return loop you'll have to go Post EQ, leaving you without EQ for your stage sound since all your sonic changes will be heard through the main PA system (you'll probably want full bass in the PA but may want to cut some bass on stage for less rumble & more clarity).

[quote name='The Bass Doc' post='508828' date='Jun 9 2009, 10:52 AM']I think there was planned to be a collaberation between Ernie Ball and the pickup designer Bert Olini - the end result would have been a Bert and Ernie model.[/quote] Now that's funny...

Good points all around. Myself using an Underwood with buffer preamp which is quite essential since all piezo's are high impedance. Only few bassamps are able to take a piezo signal direct (the Acoustic Image being one of the few). So you'll need a 10M input preamp, feeding the typical IM input of most bass amps. When using a PA system use an active DI, you won't believe how good this can sound, providing you use an active DI with a 10M input (eg. Countryman) since most active DI's are also 1M or even less. Good luck with your sound search...

Beautiful, like it better than that one time limited NAMM edition (Stingray with original Status neck)...

Adding to the"ear" part of this thread: a scientific quote from the Internet (full story at [url="http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/music/tech_background/TE-03/teces_03.html):"]http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/music/tech_backgr...teces_03.html):[/url] [i]"The amplitude of sound does not have a strong effect on the perception of pitch. Such effects seem to hold only for sine tones. At low loudness levels pitch recognition of pure tones becomes difficult, and at high levels increasing loudness seems to shift low and middle register pitches down and high register pitches up."[/i] And now let's get back to playing fretless...I remember a masterclass by Abraham Laboriel (Koinonia, Donald Fagen etc.) who revealed that he always worried about his fretless intonation in the studio and tended to keep looking at his electronic tuner, just to say even these guys aren't completely comfortable with their intonation.

Playing fretless in a loud band is quite hard to do - your ears will have difficulty hearing your intonation. I've experienced this myself and heard it from many other bassist too. It's like going to the loo at a concert and then hearing the band sound much softer - often you'll notice things that didn't show up in full volume, most often not so good intonation of the vocalists. They ofcourse suffer from the same intonation troubles: hearing gets less detailed at high volumes. Maybe in-ear monitoring would help? I would really advise to use similar fretless & fretted instruments if you gonna use them both. Having a different style of neck (nr.of frets) and body shape and scale length is going to make things a lot harder! But once you've got there's nothing like it: fretless is so much more expressive. When I pick up a fretted bass nowadays I find the frets really annoying...

Is this the lady as in the adverts for Alba basses? The headstock (of the bass) has the typical curve of SX-basses. Very cheap stuff but the guys selling this actually make fine profits - you can buy them wholesale in boxes of 6 to 10 guitars directly from manufacturers in China for about half the price they're charging you - got hold of some pricelists of one of the more known factories. P-basses are about 30 GBP, set of strings 1 GBP etc.

Great page! Sunburst P-basses are lovely!

I've tried [i]Elixers[/i] on a four string Alembic Essence and on a five string Fender Roscoe Beck and they do last long with consistent sound. But the basic sound of those strings isn't quite as good as other brands. Nowadays I prefer [i]Thomastiks[/i] (Alloys, flats and acousticores and Blues Sliders for guitar). Unfortunately they don't make doubleball strings so my headless goes with [i]Elites[/i]. When I started out playing (early '80s) everything was about [i]Rotosound Swingbass[/i] but these sets often had a bad-dead string in 'm. Others I've used and liked (stated with the favoured bass to go with them) are [i]GHS Bassboomers[/i] (on Alembic), gold plated [i]Maximas[/i] (Fender P), [i]Sadowsky[/i] (Sadowsky), [i]Fodera[/i] (Yamaha fivestring), [i]Elite[/i] (Leader fourstring), [i]LaBella Hard Rockin Steel[/i] (Tokai J-copy), [i]Yamaha[/i] roundwounds (on several basses), [i]Warwick yellow[/i] (Knooren custom sixstring) and [i]GHS Powerbrite[/i] (Steinberger). Strings I didn't like: [i]Vinci, d'Addario, DR, Fender[/i] (except for the original strings on the Roscoe Beck),[i] Gibson groundwound, Dean Markley cryogenic treated Blue Steels[/i]. Only effective on some basses: [i]Elixers, Superwound (exposed core), Alembic (easy to break), Rotosound Jazz flats. [/i]

dead spots come with the design of a bass. Fender has been looking for answers for many years. Their first Precision design had a small headstock - when they redesigned it (to the shape we still know today) they enlarged it. During the seventies they had one of their technicians look into it - he found out that actually diminishing the headstock improved the response of these dead spots - up to the point where he came up with a headless design some years before Steinberger. This Fender prototype (Phil Kubicki put up a picture in one of is Vintage Guitar columns) never made it to production. Headless basses indeed have no (or less discernable) dead spots, though neck material also has effects. Graphite is less likely to give you dead spots. A well made wood-neck instrument may have better response than a cheapo but I haven't heard (yet) a headed bass (Alembic, MM, Status, Vigier, Sadowsky, etc) that didn't suffer from it. One some 24 fret graphite reinforced necks you'll find the dead spots higher up the neck (8 or 9th fret). Groove Tubes once marketed the Fat Head (still used on ZZ Ryder basses) which is a brass plate to be screwed at the back of the headstock. This makes the headstock stiffer, also reducing the dead spots. The wooden laminates on the back of Alembic & Rick Turner headstocks serve the same purpose.