Beer of the Bass

The moulded jack socket on my KNA DB-1 pickup has started playing up, I think one of the contacts has lost it's springiness, the plug sits loosely in it and crackles intermittently. I like the pickup otherwise, so I'm happy enough to fit a new socket on there and stick with it. But I'm wondering what the best available line jack socket is. Some of the US made pickups come with Switchcraft jacks which I can't find over here, the locking Neutrik jacks are huge and won't fit in my jack clamp, otherwise there's the Rean model or acoustic guitar type endpin jacks with the strap pin washer removed. Which to choose?

I had my first Guinness Zero last night. The first few sips are pretty convincing, but by the end of the glass I'm noticing some odd flavour notes that don't quite sit right.

Update; dropped my bow off with the local repairer, it should be ready next week. We're going with some chestnut hair he has, since I know quite a few bassists like a somewhat coarser/grippier hair for Spirocores.

Yeah, I did some looking around, I gather that the wedges are routinely replaced during a rehair and the tip facing is often installed using CA glue anyway, so it doesn’t look like I've butchered it in a way that would affect rehairing particularly. Bowspeed have some likely looking options if I was able to step up to £300 or so, and will send them out on approval. So what I may do is have the current bow rehaired for now and see about clearing out some bits and pieces for a bow fund. Then if I was to try couple on approval later in the year, I'd at least have the one I'm already familiar with in decent playing condition for comparison.

I'm a fairly casual player these days, absolutely no classical aspirations, I either dip into the local free improv scene or play in folky acoustic or singer/songwriter type situations. I do bow a certain amount though, either for more melodic parts, textural stuff in improv or to work on my intonation when practicing. I play German bow and have had the same no-name wooden student bow for about 20 years now, a fairly generic Chinese one. I've had it rehaired in that time, but it's quite a bit overdue for another. Though I did some DIY repairs to it during lockdown in 2020 (when everything was shut) just to keep practicing- the tip facing has been reattached with CA glue and the wedge at the tip is a homemade replacement I whittled from a piece of maple scrap. I don't if those plus the low value of the bow might make it marginal for another rehair. I could look at a new bow, but in my budget it would be a <£200 student bow. There are probably more options today than when I got this one, but that's still not getting me into nice bow territory by a long way. I'd probably be looking at things like the Vingobow from China, importer brands like Gewa, possibly the P&H carbon bow, or I think Bassbags have Romanian made student bows. I know there's a rehairer just a couple of miles away from me, I could possibly drop in with my bow and see if they think it's viable for a rehair. But I'd be curious to hear the opinions of the Basschat massiv.

Hmm, yeah, I suppose we don't want to derail too much from the OP and his bass. I quite liked those Stentors when I've tried them, though the stock endpin isn't long enough for my height and where I like the bass to sit. The ones I'd played seemed quite articulate for pizz playing, possibly the petite shoulders and proportions help with that. And setup-wise there are points in between high tension steels and the lowest tension rockabilly slap strings, you don't have to go all the way to one end or the other if you want to explore a range of styles and still be slap-friendly. Someone else will have more specific recommendations, I'm firmly in the Spirocore camp and don't have much experience outside of it!

A bandmate a few years ago owned one of the early 90s ones that hung around the rehearsal space, and I'd play it sometimes. This one was definitely solid wood as it had suffered a half-arséd attempt to strip it. My impression was that the body and neck were not bad, perfectly functional P copy, but the tuners, pickup and pots were naff.

If you get a chance to try a double bass with a lower action, higher tension steel string setup you might find that easier to adjust to. I'm used to playing double bass with Spirocores at a medium/low height, and it takes me a while to get much out it if someone hands me their low-tension slap setup bass.

There's a website that presents stories from multiple former members and catalogues existing court cases in Argentina against the bandleader. But since it's sensitive material relating to a current UK police investigation, it's presumably not one to share on basschat.

I hadn't encountered them before, but having looked at some videos, I'd probably leave if they were on somewhere. It's like theme park entertainment, and I'm fairly sure it's not played as fully live as they make out. I feel bad for the rank-and-file members who don'thave much choice once they're here - the ringleaders not so much.

Totally off topic, but I hadn't expected "Activier" to be pronounced that way. When I saw the model name, in my head it rhymed with Lawrence Olivier!

I reckon nobody would look askance at a neatly done access hatch on a removable neck bass. Some very well-respected luthiers do them, for example; https://www.talkbass.com/threads/nz-non-standard-cleveland-removeable-neck-and-sound-post-hatch.562329/

Wonder if they'll get an angry letter from John Hall's legal team for the shape of the bass?

I watched a couple of the videos. The part that makes me feel old is the way all the plagiarism was from other primarily online content creators, and not some of the gigging, record creating players who originated those jazz/funk/fusion styles. Even ignoring the ethical aspect, something about that just sort of leaves me cold. Like it's a gamer mentality applied to music.