Muzz

Just pointing out the elephant in the room (SWIDT?) that affects getting a bass to sound good; I'm sure we've all played in places where we may as well have had a rubber band and a shoe box for a bass... I have a Canadian Dingwall which is Ash and Maple, and it's leagues ahead in terms of being 'alive' than any other bass I've played made of the same (nominal) wood pairing (and I've had a lot, mostly because I like that wood pairing, because it looks nice). The design is a big factor, I'm sure, but so is the quality of build. It's handbuilt, and I'm positive that that level of detail (which I'm sure RS brings to his more expensive builds - he ought to for the money) in construction is a big factor in the way it sounds. The Fender production line stuff won't have anything like the time (= £, as it's been rightly pointed out) spent on them, but as with all tolerance-based volume production, sometimes you get a very, very good one. I wonder what RS has to say about the cheaper basses he sells? Are they different woods, or do they sound and feel worse because of how they're made?

Not going to address the ad hominem bits of that because I'm better than you, but Roger 'became convinced over time' that for fingerboards rosewood is 'a softer and warmer' tone than maple, which is 'brighter'. Rosewood is significantly denser than maple. Roger even says maple, the less dense material, is better for slapping on. Graphite resin is around twice the density of Rosewood, so it should be very warm and much softer, and much less suitable for slapping on.

Don't forget the room... Look at it from the luthier's POV: you're trying to sell a premium product, for possibly 50 times as much as a functional entry level instrument. The quality of build can be shown, the components can be top of the line, you might well have some endorsees, what else have you got to distinguish yourself and promote your sales? The looks, but then looks can be very subjective. But if you can spin the actual woods used into something exotic and very important, you're onto something. Ritter and their Mammoth Ivory nuts (ooer Madam) are an example, albeit an extreme one, of such exotic marketing...

Moi? 😁

I've got another new one, too; a cheapo P made from very light Poplar (maple neck...just for the looks, really). I put a good bridge and tuners on it (mostly for weight and I don't get on with the BBOT), and a hot Dimarzio pickup and Kigon loom on it. Guess what it sounds just like?

It's weird, isn't it? It's almost like people are trying to sell us something...

OK, I'll say it one more time, here's the headline: Man Whose Living Is Selling Very Expensive Pieces Of Wood Makes Claims That Expensive Wood Is Very Important For Tone.

I have a QSC 12.2, I've only used it once (more to do with the size of stages and rooms we play, besides which I'm inears most of the time these days) for backline (no FOH support for once, I just wanted to give it a run out) and it was easily loud enough for the stooopidly loud pub band I play in. I wouldn't hesitate to use it with a pair of Marshall/412 geetards if I'm ever in that position again, it'd definitely cope with headroom to spare. I just ran 'my sound(s)' from the Stomp into it, and hey presto, there they were, only louder. Much louder.... Plus the wedge shape means you can properly hear it onstage - I've had some traditional cabs before and the sound was whizzing past my knees and melting the audience's faces, where I was struggling to hear it...

My lad directed me (iPlayer, we weren't there) to Aurora on the Park Stage, I thought she was very, very good indeed. Enjoyed Paul Heaton, too, even though he looked like the only man in the sun expecting a thunderstorm...

Yeah, I get that a lot of them don't want to commit to (and get returns from) a specific weight, but some manufacturers (like Sandberg) will give ballparks - after all, it's part of the design. I think that in advertising lightweight basses extensively there may well still be a reluctance to go against the hangover of the old 'Tone comes from weight' myth - you've only got to look on that site over the water to see that vociferously still expounded...

That G&L bridge is a monster, tho...I'm always surprised that manufacturers don't state even a range of weights for basses which are as light as this: just looked online, and there's no mention in anything official...

Well, that would come up now I'm sorted, after months of looking...3kg? With a hi-mass bridge and standard tuners? Blimey, that's one really, really, really light piece of Alder...

Mine's something I've had for an age on another bass - can't remember exactly where I got it, but it's got a WD Music sticker on the back...it's plastic, kinda 2-ply, black with gold on top...

Oh, and for the tonewood types out there, she's a maple neck and a poplar body...add a DP122, a Kigon loom and stainless Elixirs and she sounds exactly like an angry P-bass...

Soooo, you may or may not have been aware of lots of my posts hand-wringing, cajoling and generally mithering around the fact that with the gig schedule I have for the rest of the year (35+ to go so far), I've been looking for lighter and lighter basses. I've tried headlesses, I've swapped stuff about, but nothing's really hit the spot. The requirements are pretty straightforward (under 8lbs, J-width nut, sounds like a P, inexpensive enough to play the Dog & Duck without fretting (SWIDT) about it) but nothing's quite matched it. I found I had a light P-body in the dusty old basses pile, and tried a neck I had, but that was a P-width nut (hence its presence in the parts pile), so I was looking for a J-width neck for it, and aside from the £300 Fender ones, the best I could do new was £129 for a no-name Chinese one from t'th'Internet. So I put a wanted ad here, and after a chat with Raslee of this parish (thanks again, someone please go and buy the necks he's selling) who was selling one, I went to look at the Squier Sonic Ps, which, although said to be very light, I hadn't really looked at because I'd assumed, as you do, that they were a P-width nut. Not so, a 1.5" nut, and I could get a whole bass for £150 delivered. In a rare moment of giddiness (and without thought of SWMBO, but then again I've found it's easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission sometimes) I pushed the button. It turned up the very next day, and despite glowing reviews, my hopes weren't exactly stratospheric; I mean, a whole new bass for £150 delivered? I just hoped the neck would be OK, perhaps with some work by my luthier. Turns out it's a very, very nice bass, very playable, good fretwork, super-tight neck pocket and a surprisingly good pickup. And light - juuust over 8lbs. Obviously, there's better basses out there, but it's astounding for the money. I could have gigged it as it came out of the box (action down to around or just below 2mm without buzzing on all strings (D'Addarios, no less)), but I already had some bits I'd used on other basses, so a happy hour was spent putting Hipshot Ultralights/Xtender, a Dimarzio DP122, a better (Fender) bridge and a scratchplate with a Kigon loom on it, and now it's properly giggable, and best of all...7lbs 13oz. Granted, all from new the additions would double the cost, but even for £300, it's still a great bass. As Marty DiBergi said, enough of my yakkin, here she is:

Had a bit of a breakthrough with the inears/ambient thing a few weeks ago; I was looking at the miked(sp?) kit, and realised there's two mics(sp?) just sitting there in the breeze - the drum overheads. We generally play small stages/corners/cubbyholes*, and the drummer has the overheads quite high up, so I upped them in the mix and got a deal of ambient from them... *Even last week's Beer Festival gig with full stage and 'big PA', by the time I got there the stage was full with the percussionist's setup and the singist/BL/Geetard's humongous pedal/monitor - I'd brought my backline (QSC 12.2), but there was no room even for that - so I was still wedged in...

That's the importance of a BL to call it, usually the singist, and even if the two don't coincide, the person who's singing gets precedence, because we can play all the set anytime (mostly), but the singist will know if their voice is fraying, and will drop something they think is too taxing...it's a truism that the punters listen to the singist the most... No debates on stage, just a call...sometimes, if the song had a guitar intro, the BL would just start playing it...

In the now-sadly-defunct covers trio I was in for years, we never had a setlist per se, just a pool of maybe 75 songs we could play on the night, so the singist/geetard/BL could call it as he felt the audience wanted it. He was very, very good at it, too; it's an overlooked skill, and an important one for being all things to all gigs...

Oh, that's just a normal Friday night down the Dog & Duck round our way...if they like you, they let you live...

Donkeys years ago, we played a big health club Xmas Do in the city centre. This being a very chic health club (our BL was a very wealthy dilettante; he used to come to rehearsals in a Ferrari), the posh buffet was mostly unmolested, and after the punters had picked and faffed I went up to the ice stand where two lobsters were displayed above the prawns. 'Are those things just for show?' 'No, they're real' 'Right, I'll have them, then'... That was the same gig where the bloke who'd booked us came up to me as I was getting changed after the gig (black tie and suit had been the request) and gave me a wad of cash. I went up to the bar where the others were 'Lads, I've got the money' They looked at me... 'Yeah, so have we'... I looked at the wedge in my hand. It was more money than any band I'd been in till then had ever been paid. 'But....oh.' It was a shame that band fell apart, we never went anywhere near the Dog & Duck, the nearest we got to the hoi polloi was a golf club...

Nope, Beyer DT 770s. I use them as part of my home office setup, they're all-day comfortable. I'm playing sitting down at home, wired is easier.

Oh my word - that Treeline...I'm gonna guess it'll be plennnnty of money, but stick an EMG P4 in the right position and I'd play that every gig...

Yep, it's something I'm grateful for every gig: bass case, rucksack, Stomp/inears, my own mix and volume control. 3 minute setup, breakdown less. Given I've got 34 more gigs this year, that's a lot of happy sighing. Oh, and rehearsal/home playing? iPad/Jamup, Sonic Port, bass, headphones. Bingpot.

This ^^^...if they can do a four. The Dog & Duck won't know what's hit it...