LawrenceH

I like the concept of fanned frets, but would be more interested in a less extreme version of it - say a scale length that varied by an inch or so.

The TV sound thing is particularly challenging as you have very strict requirements for dynamic range and frequency balance. Plenty of bands sound pretty ropey on TV even nowadays (just listen to Glasto highlights!), I wouldn't judge a band's sound based on it.

[quote name='Paul S' post='1063614' date='Dec 19 2010, 03:29 PM']Lawrence - thank you. Just measured the new bridge and the centre-to-centre distance between outermost screw holes looks to be around 75mm, whereas the two MIJs here are the same as yours, around 71mm. The plot thickens![/quote] I just remembered that my old SGC Nanyo has a Gotoh bridge that looks the same as the one you've got, like yours it doesn't have the name stamped on it anywhere. Anyway, I measured that as well and it also comes in at 71mm. Looks like yours is a bit of an oddity.

[quote name='Paul S' post='1063524' date='Dec 19 2010, 02:08 PM']I also lined it up against my MIJ Jaguar and it wouldn't fit on that, either. Anyone have any ideas? Do MIJ Fenders have different screw hole spacing to other Fenders?[/quote] Can't offer any useful suggestions, but I've just put the bridge from a 97 CIJ 75RI up against an MIM jazz bridge and the spacing's identical. The centre-to-centre distance between outermost screws on the MIM bridge looks to be somewhere between 70 and 71 mm, so that should let you work out which one of yours is 'standard'. Hope that helps

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='1063016' date='Dec 18 2010, 10:07 PM']There's two lines of thought there. One is the way the producer wants it to sound, the other is true to the band's live sound. Ent made it no secret about how he felt about the butchering of his tone, which was accomplished by low passing so severe that his RotoSounds ended up sounding like tape-wound LaBellas. It had nothing to do with modes of playback, everything to do with conformity, and most odd that Ent put up with it.[/quote] I can see where you're coming from but a 45-year-old recording from the dawn of the roundwound, multitracking and close-mic-ing era is hardly representative of 'most' record producers I think they got with the program pretty quickly, and they were pretty good at getting acoustic jazz recordings down by the late 50s. This true live sound, would be the same one that was on the typical low-xmax, undersized box pre TS speakers used by most artists of the day? With the need to be loud enough that's gotta be at least as limiting as the recording aspects.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='1062924' date='Dec 18 2010, 08:44 PM']When it comes to getting the bass right in the PA I'd say 90% of soundmen are clueless. Record producers aren't much better; I only heard the Ox's true tone on one track, 'My Generation'.[/quote] Getting a meaty bassline to jump out of a tranny radio without absolutely shagging the speakers places quite tight constraints on how you commit it to record! But most record producers are clueless? I wonder how most pop records were 'meant' to sound?!

In discussions like this I think it's worth bearing in mind that while many people wouldn't be able to tell specifically what was wrong with a mix on a recording, they can often tell that a mix is bad. Same applies live, I've done sounds for bands where people have said the band played a lot better than at a previous gig whereas I know the main difference is that they had a better mix and the audience could hear the track as a whole better. Good bass tone allows the musicality of the band to shine through - there's so many different ways this can be achieved with different styles, basses and players, but that doesn't mean everything's entirely relative.

I wonder about the 'valve sound' people refer to, and whether we all mean the same thing. I tried an Orange Terror in a shop and it was an incredibly coloured sound to my ears, seemed to swamp the actual tone of the bass. OK if you like that kind of thing but not to my taste. I think probably my idea of the 'classic' valve tone is the one you get plugging into a decent vintage mixing desk valve preamp, perhaps driving it pretty hard but still a much subtler (and IMO very musical) warming effect. I liked the preamp on the old SWR Redhead combos a LOT for getting this kind of tone. Is the LM tube like this?

Some tasty playing there! Funk envy...

[quote name='thinman' post='1062433' date='Dec 18 2010, 01:17 PM']Yes - but some of that power can be in the PA. I'm not saying people shouldn't have a powerful amp because they can always turn it down - my point is that once your bass backline starts to drown out the drum kit and the venue dictates that the band needs to be louder, you're into drum micing territory and probably feeding a bit of bass into the PA too. Having plenty of headroom in an amp is fine but I still don't get the need to match that with a lot of big cabs (and by that I'm taliking about multiple 4 x10"etc ) and above. I'm NOT saying no-one shoukd have such a rig - each to their own and all that - I just don't really get the point![/quote] To elaborate on what's been said above, there's a real difference in terms of power requirement between bass that's loud enough to be heard with a traditional sound, and bass that's got serious LF content at a similar volume. For a more modern, deep sound there's still no substitute for power and size. And many compact subs at the lower end of the PA market are IMO rather compromised in their musicality for the sake of LF extension and sound sluggish as a result. Add to that the advantage of keeping vocals in a modest PA separate from power-demanding instruments like bass and there is definitely an argument to be made for running an old-school, separates-style system. It's very reliant on stage acoustics and the musicality of the players though. By the way I'm not disagreeing with you per se, since I've gigged quite happily with a 130w 1x12" combo for years! But I'm after a funky, up-front sound that's quite mid-heavy and just doesn't need that kind of LF.

We tried the PL, it's good for gap filling if the cutting's off, but it's inherently far messier than standard glue and a bit of a PITA to neaten up afterwards. So we decided that for future builds we'd stick with normal wood glue unless we'd been particularly hamfisted on the cutting.

[quote name='obbm' post='1061911' date='Dec 17 2010, 07:01 PM']Neck side dots are illuminated blue through fibre-optics from a single LED in the control cavity.[/quote] Does that mean you can swap the LED and change the dot colour? Sweet! (Is that how they normally do it?). Not normally a big fan of strange custom shapes but this looks very sleek and functional. Looks like a proper player.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1061141' date='Dec 16 2010, 11:23 PM']Bet the difference between plugging between the cabs and both straight from the amp is that one of the jacks is wired out of phase/polarity.[/quote] Yup - or a very weedy speaker cable that can't handle the full current (or worse, instrument cables that are totally inadequate!)

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='1061168' date='Dec 16 2010, 11:54 PM']If you play without compression you might have a dynamic range of 40dB and this means your average level could be 20dB less than your peak. This is a ratio of 100:1 so the thousand watt amp could be only producing an average of 10W! So long as you [b]keep out of distortion and don't use a limiter/compressor[/b] you'll be way away from the limits of your speakers. If you look at the Eminence website you'll see that as well as the RMS (EIA) rating of their speakers they also give a program rating of double this and a 6dB 'crest' rating for short term peaks.[/quote] This, along with the low-frequency excursion, is the make or break aspect. It's actually pretty easy to clip some amps momentarily without really noticing through tweeterless bass speakers, and you can therefore be driving them much closer to the maximum than you'd think for the rest of the time in a manner that you'd never get away with for full-range drivers reproducing, say, vocals. Given that you want extra volume, I can't see adding the 2x10 being all that useful, unless you find that having the smaller cab (which will be louder per-driver assuming equal driver sensitivity thanks to the impedence) on top gets them firing more into your ears for monitoring purposes.

[quote name='Prosebass' post='1056289' date='Dec 12 2010, 06:21 PM']Rounds every time for me .....however For the sound you want try these [url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/622-rotosound_tru_bass_black_nylon_strings_65_115_long_scale_rs88ld"]Tru Bass[/url] I have used them on short scales and they have a lovely warm rounded tone .[/quote] Gotta agree there - from your description I'd say tapewounds will give you exactly what you're after. Give them a go!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1056201' date='Dec 12 2010, 04:57 PM']I know a the effect of a port is in a band about the tuning frequency of the port (not sure how wide, an octave or two?), and doens't do much outside of that to the sound, but the excursion below that band is increased beause the speaker acts like it is not in an enclosure.[/quote] Actually pipe resonance well above the porting frequency can be a bit of a b****r to eliminate, one reason why designers might choose to put ports on the back of speakers. I'd also say 200 is a bit optimistic for what can be eliminated with lagging! Reduced maybe. As for more esoteric cab designs, they can do all sorts of weird and wonderful things well above this frequency. Look at Bill's Jack 10s compared to the same Eminence driver in a ported cab, the mid-range response is massively different - one of the reasons he favours the Eminence drivers as their rising mid-range compensates to an extent for a drop in output from the horn.

[quote name='Lozz196' post='1056103' date='Dec 12 2010, 03:33 PM']If looking at Fender Jazz - try the Classic range, they do both a 60s & 70s, which are very good instruments, great sound/quality/playability.[/quote] I concur - them or a Highway One, same great pickups but with a graphite-reinforced neck, badass bridge and nitrocellulose finish. If you don't like the badass you can flog it for a ton and put a BBOT on

[quote name='icastle' post='1056037' date='Dec 12 2010, 02:15 PM']If you're looking new then perhaps consider trying out the Ibanez SR 500 - Bartolini pups and tone control come fitted as standard. I've had a 5 string one of these for about 5 years now and haven't been tempted away from it yet [/quote] It's a good bass, I had one for a long time - but mine was tonally very different from a 'ray or the Fenders. I found it just too dark for my tastes even after I swapped out the pickups, and I ended up getting jazz basses instead which made me a very happy Larry. Most important to me would be whether I wanted a jazz, precision or stingray tone, or something a bit different.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='1055608' date='Dec 12 2010, 01:30 AM']The vertical spacing doesn't enter into it, as the distance between the LF and mid elements of adjacent cabs in stacked arrays is less than the CTC distance between those within each cab. For example, the JBL Vertec VT4888. The woofer CTC is about 24 inches, which is 1wl at 565 Hz. The CTC distance from woofer to woofer in adjacent cabs is about 15 inches, 1wl at 900Hz. The actual crossover used is 350Hz, well below the maximum allowable of 565Hz. That's all about system efficiency, as the direct radiating woofer sensitivity is only 98dB, whereas the horn loaded mid sensitivity is 102dB.[/quote] Ahh I think we're talking at cross purposes slightly, never mind I didn't get from your description the cab layout you were talking about. Still, slightly different to the situation where you allow low end signal to every driver but full range to the centres. The JBL crossover point still makes sense wrt CTC distances if you aim for half-wavelength rather than 1, but point re horn efficiency taken.

[quote name='funky_numba' post='1043231' date='Dec 1 2010, 01:40 AM']I normally play thru my pc soundcard however, I have a second hand TEC20B Starfire bass practice amp which I bought with the bass. It has a few pots .. 1 low, 2 mids and 1 high (i think) but they seem to make little if any difference to the sound. I wonder if the bass amp is gubbed!!! My bass still sounds 'muddy' through that amp.[/quote] Oh yeah. Does your bass have a battery in? If so then running through the soundcard is probably ok. But if not, then it will always sound 'dead' through a soundcard because of impedance mismatch unless the soundcard has an input specifically for guitar. But really, it's very hard to diagnose if this is worth sorting out over the internet. If you're ever in Edinburgh send me a PM and I can help you out.

[quote name='funky_numba' post='1055596' date='Dec 12 2010, 12:46 AM']I had the same problem. I lowered the action on the e-string and get fret buzz. I think I have passive pups on my bass. I still don't get the intonation thing.. the 12th fret harmonic???? Thanks for your help.[/quote] The frets on a bass guitar neck are spaced apart according to a mathematical formula. It's designed so that once an open string is in tune, when you fret the string those notes will also be in tune. For example, if I play an open E on a perfectly set up bass, then when I play the first fret on the same string it will play an F, second fret F# etc. However, the formula relies on there being a set 'scale length' (not the same as a musical scale). That is, the fret spacing only works if the string is a certain length from the nut to the bridge end (typically 34 inches). If it's the wrong length, then if I tune it to E open, when I play the first fret instead of being an F it will be a slightly flat or sharp F depending on if the string is too long or too short. This problem will get worse with each successive fret, so by the time I hit the twelfth fret which should be an E again one octave higher, it will sound very out of tune indeed. The way to solve this problem is to change the length of the string by adjusting the bridge saddles back and forth. We don't do this to tune the instrument routinely (although confusingly you do on a cello or similar), we just use it to set the intonation. Day to day tuning on a bass guitar is done with the pegs. One way of checking the intonation when setting it is to use the 12th fret harmonic and to compare it to the note when fretting at the 12th fret to make sure they're exactly the same. To play a harmonic, very lightly touch your finger on the string exactly over the 12th fret line, and whilst your finger is touching the string at that point only,play the string. You will hear an octave harmonic, a note that resonates one octave higher than the open string despite the fact that you haven't pressed down behind the fret. Now when you fret the note at the 12th and play it normally, you should hear the same note. If the note you hear when fretting is flat compared to the harmonic, then you need to move the bridge saddle towards the neck (shorten the string). If the fretted note is sharp compared to the harmonic, you need to move the bridge saddle away from the neck (lengthen the string). Note that for various reasons the correct exact length of each string from nut to bridge will be slightly different for each string, so you need to do this individually for all four strings. If you don't yet trust your ear enough to do this with harmonics, you can instead use an electronic tuner to check the intonation just by tuning the open E string, for example, then playing the 12th fret and seeing if it's also an E. If it's sharp, lengthen the string, if it's flat, shorten it, as before. However if you do this method you need to re-tune the open string between each adjustment. Hope that is helpful. The best way by far to understand this is to have a teacher show you! It's a LOT easier to understand by demonstration!

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='1055348' date='Dec 11 2010, 08:05 PM']This is a commonly seen scheme with horizontal TV center channel speakers, and for that matter it's how the crossover points are determined with multiway PA line array cabs with with woofers outermost, the tweeters in the center and the mids between the two. The short CTC distance of the PJBs is no panacea. The result of using a number of drivers horizontally placed without appropriate filtering can be seen in applets such as those found here: [url="http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html"]http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html[/url][/quote] Ah I knew it must be used somewhere, cheers. Not sure I get the sense of what you mean with the arrays though, crossover points there are more determined by the constraints of the vertical spacing with respect to the lows and mids. I wondered if someone had done an applet and nearly asked if anyone had one, very useful thanks!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1055070' date='Dec 11 2010, 03:56 PM']"Tonal consistency" is very apparent in some scenarios, mostly guitarists pointing their cab at you some distance away and sitting on their cab so it shreds you with treble they can't hear. Also the old not being able to hear your folded horn cab from right in front whilst people at the back of venue are melted. I've also had mad comb filtering from running an 8x10 either side of the drummer.[/quote] Most guitar cabs are VERY directional, yeah - but that applies even to single driver cabs and is then to do with beaming and open backed cabs, I've not had serious problems with multiple drivers comb filtering per se (not saying it's not audible, clearly it is, but it's not normally the weakest link in the sound). One of the most useful bits of kit I used to take out with PA gear was a small tilt-back guitar stand, point it right at their ears and it's amazing how much (most) guitarists will turn down and roll the treble back. Then go away and immediately forget the lesson they've just learned (sigh). Separating out the bass cabs by a couple of metres or so must have sounded pretty crazy though! Pretty much everything 100Hz up would have been interfering, I'm not surprised it was audible. A lot less of an issue with the PJB stuff presumably, those small driver spacings shouldn't start combing until well into the midrange.

I've been thinking recently about the issue of vertical versus horizontal driver stacking, after my interest was piqued by the very unusual approach taken by Phil Jones Bass kit using multiple small drivers (with comparatively large voicecoils/magnets) in tandem, typically arranged in a grid. First, it made me question the assumption than in terms of controlling directionality we should always be focused on reducing vertical dispersion whilst maintaining wide horizontal dispersion. This probably only applies at half of the small pubs/clubs/etc that I've played/engineered/spectated at, where the typical set up can be long and narrow or in some cases short and shallow but with an upstairs gallery! Stage sound again, from a sound engineer's perspective limited dispersion is your friend as much as your enemy if you take it into account when setting up. Second, regarding the more complex comb filtering that one gets at greater-than-1/2-wavelength spacing, I wonder about allowing full-range signal to (or exit from) only a subset of the drivers in the stack, it's an obvious idea so it must have been implemented in some systems in the past. Even considering the typical 4x10 though, I wonder how much difference it really makes in practice to perceived (rather than measured) tonal consistency. Ears tend to be a lot more forgiving of changes to electric instrument sounds than, say, vocals. I must say I've not heard the PJB stuff, I would be interested to. (edited for typo)