Leaderboard

Revelation arrived today; pix herewith as promised. 3 pups with sliding selector, single tone and vol, plus the 5 way chicken head tone switch. Initial Impressions are good build quality for the price, decent finish, no sharp fret ends, intonation seems ok. All in all a good low cost way to see if a bass vi is for you!

Again there’s a big difference between those who do it professionally (it’s their chosen profession and main source of income) and those who do it as a hobby. If it was my chosen profession I would enjoy the good, the bad and the ugly far more as that’s what I’d decided to do to earn my coin. However if it’s a hobby alongside a full time job which is paying the mortgage, clearly the threshold at which the downsides could outweigh the joy of the performance could be very, very different. There are many reasons why people don’t gig, or stop gigging. Work pressures, family commitments, performance anxiety, lack of opportunities, band politics etc, etc. I just don’t think that those people should be looked upon as lesser musicians because of it.

My band has been lucky this summer with high profile big stage 1 hour gigs. They are more lucrative and much easier to manage and overall more fun and exciting. I'm a bar band guy to the core but after 14 years of 4 hour bar band gigs even I see that it's time to be more selective about the gigs we accept and play. Plus I'm 66 , I'm getting old. I don't expect much discussion from this topic but share your thoughts. I'm sure we're not the first band faced with this. Blue

I suspect that if Al were interested in all that geeky, nerdy stuff, he'd have read it already. Allow me to summarise. The original thread, which is probably another 28 pages, was Phil Starr's original idea. He suggested that a few of us should get together to design a bass cab that would perform well, be relatively cheap, and be easy for DIYers to assemble. Phil's background is in hi-fi while mine is more in PA, but neither of us had designed a bass guitar cab before. So it was a bit of a learning process for us, and we shared the lessons we learned with the Basschat community in the Diary thread. We came up with a cabinet equipped with a single, high-performance driver. Phil also made a more compact version, which he assembled in about 20 minutes in front of an admiring audience at the last South West Bass Bash. The video is online and well worth a watch. The next stage in this project (where the Continued thread begins) was an attempt to design a compact DIY bass cab that would compete with high-end commercial products. It wasn't an all-out, cost-no-object design, as we did keep a eye on costs, but there was no skimping on either components or materials. One of the goals was that the cab should be able to handle the output of the many lightweight 500W (into 4 ohms) amps on the market. By this time, I had come to the conclusion that an FRFR design was by far the best design approach for bass guitar (and not just with modellers). So I published a design based on the Beyma 12" driver we had been using very successfully up until then - but with a compression driver and horn. Surprisingly, I thought, didn't attract much attention. The next step was to work on the weight factor. So I chose a couple of very high quality neo drivers and designed a system around them. The first one I built was demoed at the South West Bass Bash and went head-to-head against several expensive branded cabs. The latest version, which will be available as a kit (soon, honest!), took into account some of the comments made at the Bash. It is slightly larger, which extends the bottom end response a tad (it should now be similar to the Fearless in this respect) and I've modified the crossover to reduce a slight excess in the midrange. Basic specs just for Al - power handling: 300W AES, weight with metal grille: 14kg approx., frequency response: +/- 1dB from 80 to 18kHz, 8 ohms. The major design feature as far as I'm concerned is that you can hear your bass very clearly even when you're directly in front of and above the cab. Not only that, but the sound you hear in front of the cab is the same as your audience hears when they're 20 feet away; it doesn't change. It's all about dispersion and power response (but let's not go there now). It plays music like a monitor. So your bass sounds like your bass, or like it would through a console and monitors in the studio. It also has the ability to kick like a mule. During the demo at the SW Bash, Phil turned the volume up and it did that physical chest-hammering thing that you get from big systems with subs. You should be able to build one for about £300, thanks to some canny purchasing input, although experience has shown that the costs of DIY projects can easily escalate if you're not careful. No pics of the final cab until Blue Aran deliver my paint - but it'll look good.

I'started gigging in rock bands at age 12 never really stopped. I'm 66, can't wait till this Saturday's gig. I thinks it's different for those of us with no other life interests. Don't get me wrong, all gigs aren't great. You just put on a happy face and don't take it or yourself that serious. A lot of stuff just goes with the territory I love It . Blue

Morning all... I've recently decided to immerse myself in the synth bass world I've always loved but never tried! Got myself a Sub Phatty and am completely starting from scratch...no piano/keyboard experience whatsoever. I've challenged myself to learn and dial in a track every week, so in a way this is me making myself accountable to basschat. Would love song recommendations and general advice... and if anybody fancies posting their own videos that'd be great too! Here's my starter... one of the tracks that inspired me to try it in the first place:

Just some pictures to show what I'm wittering about The bass side has had just a light sanding with 600 grit, you can just see the gloss bits left With just a tiny bit more sanding the surface is evenly sanded, a position I've been in twice already So after a coat of lacquer (excuse the orange peel) the surface is like this, near perfect Fingers crossed even with shrinkage I hope this is just about there now. I'll give it a couple of days hanging then I'll give it another sand down and a couple more coats just to be sure. I think a lot of the problem has been that the very gentle but even curve of the top along with the gloss just highlights the tiniest imperfections. Whereas the twins with their heavily shaped top just hid them, flat surfaces are dead easy. The moral of the story is that I should have gone satin or kept it flat.

I was running into the VT Bass, because I wasn't certain whether the speaker sim was present in the YYZ, but now you've cleared that up I may do another vid with just the YYZ

Too True 🙂 oh this is sorted now, the valve needed changing, although i did call Ashdown just to check and they sent me some pots out just incase. Top quality service everytime from Ashdown.

I refer you all to......sorry couldn’t resist it.

I stupidly sold my Maya fretless exact same as yours, last year. Here it is last summer at a festival somewhere.

It's not that simple. IP protection requires that the holder takes prompt action when there is a breach. Gibson have decided to take action about 40 years too late. They already lost against PRS when their own lawyer admitted that only an idiot would confuse them at the point of sale. At the moment the decisions of the courts in the US basically says that the headstock is protected but the rest isn't, and Gibson just lost the copyright on the Flying V in the EU as well. In their main action against Dean, Gibson have gone further and claimed that Dean are actually trying to pass themselves off as Gibson products. That might be the most stupid idea I've ever heard. I've also never played a Dean that was as variable in quality as a Gibson. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle. Philips lost the rotating / circular razor copyright, and Lego lost their brick / connection design when they tried to stop "compatible" products being on sale. I can well imagine this being a massive own goal with the Courts confirming explicitly that there is no copyright in a guitar apart from the headstock. Then all the makers who have already shifted to a tweaked design may go back to making the older shapes again. Gibsons are getting more expensive by the minute, and the competition are cheaper and often better built. They need to concentrate on making a good and value for money product again.

Hi all, Just thought I'd drop in with my tuppence worth about cabs etc. Firstly I am no expert in this field, I am in fact just a bass player like us all , but some of the guys here really do know what they are talking about when it come to cabs etc. I built my fearful 15/6/1 a good few years ago now and while cabinet design has moved on ,I'm am still very happy with it, in fact I have come to realise that I am quite spoilt with the performance it gives me. But it also a good benchmark to use against other cabinets although its clarity and brute power are not everyone's taste, also it's a fairly large cabinet. Move on a few years and we have Greenboy's fearless range , much more compact yet still able to produce a stupid amount of bottom end combined with the response and dispersion of the earlier designs. The latest version of the basschat cab was to my mind simply marvellous considering it's a 2 way cabinet and up against some serious kit in the blind test including a fearless F112 and a barefaced cab, yet it was not left wanting for anything. After the test I noodled around with both of the current Basschat cabs, and while they differed slightly they both took EQ very well which is a very important quality that a lot of big name manufacturers cabs do not , all while fitting the current trend for smaller cabinets. In a nutshell given the totally different design to the fearful/ fearless offerings the basschat cab is going to be a bit of a shocker to the community especially as Stevie has tweaked the crossover a little since as it really is as good as cabs costing many times more, and you get to build it yourself, I'm mean what more could you want. Jim.

Last night. Played a lovely venue on the river. Nice owners, great welcome. good crowd. We were told they'd all be gone by 9.30 as it was a Sunday night. Still dancing on the road at 11.00 PM. We were all shattered from the night before and it felt quite subdued on stage but we actually played better than the previous night. Three "this is definitely the last song" encores with the last being an extended Pride, in the name of love. Smashed it. Think it's our new final number. They went crazy.

The other side of it is the countless number of folks who think they can upload and do what they wish with someone else’s music. Those who show no respect for the work of creative artists, not just for big acts, but for us bottom-dwellers too. For example, I released some music recently, recorded with a mate. Ahead of the full release date, we released one song on youtube and, a couple of days later, another song on bandcamp. A few days later, we released the third and final song on youtube (we do very low tempo stuff so our three songs clock in at just under half an hour 😂 ). The next day, my mate sent me a link to a youtube video asking if I had put it up. I checked the video. It was our three songs in one video, compiled by someone in Poland who had ripped the audio from bandcamp and uploaded our music, ahead of our chosen release date, using the original artwork we paid for, without our permission. It’s small potatoes, I know, but to have someone wrestle what little control you have of how your music is released and presented is a pretty crap feeling and takes a lot of the fun out of what should be an enjoyable event. Checking the guy’s channels, he had more than one, all he did was upload other people’s music from all genres randomly and try to monetise it. Around the same time, we received an email from another guy asking permission to upload it. His channel is also just music he uploads, but he promotes the kind of genre we operate in and he asked first, so we gave permission. To get onto Spotify, itunes, etc, we had to go through a broker service - we chose cdbaby - and also published through them. A few days later, I noticed the licensing information added to the second guy’s video, see below. This was done via the clever algorithms called out in the OP’s video, no doubt. While I think the situations outlined in the OP’s video are extreme and pushing things a bit too far, it should be remembered that there are plenty of people using original music without permission for their own gain. It’s not just The Eagles who won’t miss another ivory backscratcher, but us nobodies, too, who are getting screwed. There is merit to both sides of the arguement. As with everything, some balance is required to find the appropriate solution. We’re not there yet, though.

I am increasingly of the opinion that you can support music, or you can support the music industry, but to claim to support both is a contradiction. S.P.

Pretty early on I realised that the gig is the only reason I play bass. It's not why I picked up the instrument. After that first gig I was traumatised, but after the second gig I was hooked. The bigger the audience the bigger the buzz when you get it right. Trying to be a better musician and come together and excel as a band is the challenge and when you get it right there is no better feeling. When an audience is enjoying itself and you know that's because of you, it just brings a smile to your face. The journey, the idiots you meet, the miles you have to travel, unsocial hours, the years of practice, getting ripped off, cheated and treated badly by agents, managers, promoters and other band members etc. . . all fades away if you get those few hours on stage right.

I can't be the only one, can I? Don't get me wrong, I love being in a band, hanging around with my mates making music, that's where the pleasure comes from for me. I know public performance is the pinnacle of being in a band for most people, but I'm just not feeling it. The way I feel at the minute, I honestly wouldn't care if I never played in public again Lugging gear around, trying to fit it all in the car. Spending the best part of an hour at the other end unloading it and setting everything up. Standing round like a spare part waiting to go on, then performing to a load of annoying, well lubricated people, who, in many cases aren't even interested. Only to have to break everything back down while the audience who haven't shown a bit of interest all night, start demanding "more". Then lug everything around back into the car, drive home, lug it around again into the house and finally get to relax about 3 hours after the people you've been "entertaining" have gone to bed. The only part I actually enjoy is if we get time for a couple of cheeky pints after the gig. Why do I do it?

Apparently I had an account here, but I had zero recollection of ever logging in:) hello, and I’d like to make my introduction. I have a band in Florida (Cottondale Swamp), I play bass, write most of the songs, book all the gigs, and do everything. We gig almost every weekend, outlaw country, classic country, southern rock, Americana. A mix of “cover-band” bar gigs, and original gigs (festivals, openers for national touring bands). I collect and play tube amps and old basses. I have a bunch of 1950’s Fender P-Basses and 1968-69 Telecaster basses, and other basses. Too many basses and amps to list. But, my latest passion is my newly acquired 1971 Marshall Major (Model 1978) I’ve paired with a Marshall VBC412. Oh my f**king gawd! What a beast! Crazy loud and a really great deep bass tone, excellent mids (to cut through in a band) a decent highs. The Major seems to be a ridiculously powerful head. I am sure it would over power my Ampeg SVT VR w/810. I’m a sick puppy, but now I am on a hunt for a 2nd VBC412. Why didn’t I know Marshall made such great bass amps? The Major is top notch. Of course a Marshall stack is too much amp for 90% of my gigs, but when I can justify bring omg out the big guns, damn, I am going to play the Major. Next week, I am supplying bass backline for a Led Zeppelin 50th Anniversary Show. 15 bands (I am playing in two of them). The show is sold-out, outdoor stage, 2000 people, full production / stage crew etc. I offered the promoter: Ampeg SVT w/ 810, Acoustic 360/361, or Marshall Major w/VBC412. We decided that the Ampeg rigid best for reliability for 15 bands. But, I am tempted to bring the Major (head only) as backup and use it for my sets. I hope to be active on this forum and I want learn about Marshall amps and cabs, and I want to hear stories from people who gigged them and experienced them. All the best. If anyone travels to Florida for gigs or for pleasure, I’d love to meet up for a pint! Cheers!

Hi guys Popped into Kings Cross Station today to pick up something I’ve been after for a long time. I went straight to a pub and gave it a thorough looking at plus a new set of strings. A guy sitting nearby was on the phone for a while but when he finished and got up to leave he said he was a fellow bass player. I think everyone else thought it was weird me sitting there with my tools, pack of strings, Polish and rags. Full NBD coming soon!

Also relevant for the self build cabs discussed in a UK/EU forum... Faital 12pr320 - £129 (Blue Arran) Eminence Kappalite 3012LF - £199 (lean) plus you will need a mid driver...

Gibson are trying to protect their IP about 40 years too late, as has been said already. Legally if you don't use it, you lose it. They tried to go after PRS and failed. So now they have gone after Dean on similarly spurious grounds with the added bonus of threating Dean dealers with legal action as well. Fender are in exactly the same boat as Gibson, if not to a worse degree. How many world class luthiers are churning out "Super Rippers"? Not many posts on here or Talkbass about the latest 5k "Victory on Steroids". But Fender of late seem to be focusing on giving their customers what they want, which is a quality instrument that has the look they want, the playability they want and also the headstock they want. Gibson have still got another 20-30 years worth of customers to tap into, what with people who were teenagers in the late 80s - late 90s coming to an age where they may be more financially comfortable to buy the instrument they lusted after as a youth and the dyed in the wool Gibbo fans who still want to want a Gibson have still got some mileage left in them. When cheap Chinese counterfeits (the real problem in all this legal kerfuffle, not Sheldon's nod to an old classic that probably stems as much from his passion for classic car design as anything) and the second hand market are taking as huge a bite out of manufacturer's bottom line as it is, questionable lawsuits are probably not the way to go. Morally and ethically it's a bit more of a grey area, guitar designers have been stealing, borrowing, taking inspiration from and downright copying each other since the damn things were invented. Nobody is going to mistake a D-Bird for a Thunderbird because the D-Bird would be available in nice colours.

They give them away at the Reception desk when you pay to go in....

Pah, Henry Rollings. If he started that sh!t with me I'd kick his @ss.

I thought my amp was fixed but it started doing the same thing again. Anyway, I took Ashdown up on their offer to repair the amp and couriered it down to them at a cost of £7(interparcel uninsured). I sent it to them a week gone Friday, it arrived with them the following Monday and was fixed and sent back to me by the Thursday of the same week! And there was no charge for the repair or the courier cost to send it back to me. 😀 I can't fault Ashdown's customer service, and this was on an old amp, not even a brand new one... If you are buying an Ashdown amp then you can rely on these guys to sort you out if anything ever goes wrong. 👍👍👍

Dopey git started with the neck blank upside down so the headstock came out the wrong way round. 😁

This thread has inspired a bit of uncharacteristic nostalgia so I've been listening to a few old Strangs tracks. That closing instrumental section of Dagenham Dave (2;10 onwards) is 100% prog as f*ck!

I'm from the future. I wrote that on the 1st of November 2019 😃

@Dapper Bandit sounds to me like there is a gap in the market for someone with a bit of imagination and enthusiasm to take hold of...

I've pretty much dropped out of gigging now. The scene here is awful from my perspective and I just can't bring myself to go back out there. As someone who doesn't have an interest in performing covers, here are some of my reasons why: There is not a dedicated live music venue that will allow on local acts, the arts centre and opera house is al about bringing over UK folk acts / tribute bands. If you are local you play in a handful of pubs. If you are an originals band there are now two pubs that will let you play in their upstairs room. One pub is a proper skeevy dive, the room is literally the size of an average front room so drumkit/PA/amps is never going to happen if you want punters in. The other pub ropes off the stairs to the room when it's in use so you have to be "in the know" to even be aware there is live music on. The crowd is non-existant. A once thriving originals scene has dwindled down to people who are in bands and their mates that they can drag along to see them play. I used to be at gigs every Friday and Saturday night just to see who was playing, some nights not even knowing a single face. The lineups were varied and everyone would give every band a chance. Now the friends watch their mates play and then leave. The music is staid. No more mixed bills. You going to see a singer-songwriter play? Hope you like 4 other similarly befrowned young men pouring their poetry out over 4 similarly wrought collections of chord progressions. Metal night? How does 5 bands hammering away on precisely the same theme for 4 1/2 tickle your fancy (this was my last gig)? How does a jazz night sound to you? Oh, we don't have those over here. Same for funk/soul. Not a single band. The main drive behind young musicians here is to form a cover band good enough to play the one pub that would not automatically qualify as a festering pit. This one pub will retain the services of a single cover band in 6 month stints so all these kids are clamouring for a 6 month residency that if they're lucky might lead to them getting a wedding gig and then splitting up. There are a lot of contributing factors to this dire state of affairs but for me it's enough. I've had it up to my back teeth with driving miles back on ourselves to fetch our drumkit because the one promised by organisers never appeared and not one of the other 3 bands owned a drumkit. I'm finished with letting people borrow my amp so they can blow the cabinet and skip off scott-free (that was a fun one as that was a touring band that got paid and I am mates with the promoter. Lot's of "are you sure it wasn't fecked before the guy with the bass tuned to F# turned everything up to 10 and played as hard as he physically could on it?") I've grown bored of watching opening bands dragging all their friends off to a post-gig celebration party somewhere else before their drummer has finished removing their cymbals. I play instruments because I love music. Not playing live doesn't make anyone less of a musician just the same as belting out Chelsea Dagger down the Dog and Sausage doesn't make you less of a musician. I would love to be part of a group of people making and recording music we are passionate about. Maybe the occasional gig done right would be a real occasion to look forward to (something a bit more special than matching ties and a cheap banner hung behind the drumkit, maybe playing to a movie being projected or something). But the realities of my situation leave me to think that this isn't going to happen anytime soon and that makes me sad. But not sad enough to trudge on through the gigs that are available!

Thanks for posting your review. I was a little confused. Were you running the YYZ into the VT Bass or the VT Bass into the YYZ. Since they are both SansAmps with speaker emulation you might get a better idea of the tones by running the YYZ on its own. The Low and High do not change the amount of Drive available as they are both post SansAmp. There might be a perceived change as overdrive boosts the harmonic content and increasing highs with distortion will accentuate the effect. The mid control however is before the Drive and that will influence the amount of distortion.

The time for Gibson to go after other companies for copying their designs was 60 or 70 years ago. Gretsch essentially copied the Les Paul shape for their Duo Jet in the 1950s and did the same with the 335 for the 'Country Gentleman ' in the 1960s, both of which are still in production and have a fair bit more in common with the instruments that 'inspired' them than D Bird does with the Thunderbird. Will Gibson finally now go after Gretsch after all these years? Probably not. Gretsch are owned by Fender these days and are quite capable of meeting Gibson's lawyers in a courtroom on equal terms, unlike some of the other companies Gibson are going after.

Close to the Edge or The Yes Album for starters.

But you know how it is, NO pedal is the promised land, ever. :) In case I was misunderstood: I like the Spark Booster, a lot. It does what it does very well, which is keep the existing tone and add some grit/thickness. It reminds me of the sounds I was getting out of a DHA VT-2 tube preamp thingy I used to have, but I think I like this better. Some distortion pedals just seem to make your bass sound the same, more or less, regardless which bass you use. The Spark Booster does not. I would not call it a distortion/overdrive pedal either, but you know what I mean... I hope. If you are interested in that kind of low gain fat a-bit-tubey-like kind of sound, really, do give the Spark Booster a try. It's nicer/smoother than a Xotic BB for that kind of thing, if that comparison helps. On my'rock' board I generally have 3 dirt pedals: a low gain one, a mid one (currently EBS multidrive), and a crazy one (currently Ibanez PD7 Phat-Hed or SA Aftershock). I've used a bunch of different pedals for the low gain one and the Spark Booster is the one that I think will work best of them. My current one is the Caline Orange Burst, which loses a bit of low end but gets closest to what I have in mind. The Spark Booster is more versatile and the bottom end is very adjustable so you can get it just right. Of course, the real test will come at a gig/rehearsals... but there's so much scope either way that I can't imagine it'll be lacking or difficult to set there.

There are definitely elements of Jemmott's playing that Jaco drew from, particularly on those funkier lines.

When I do it I firstly set the neck arrow straight with the truss rod (no relief). I then adjust the bridge saddles down to the required height. If I then find that I need to shim the neck, I’ve used cut-up business cards but ideally a thin piece of laminate. They’ll all work equally well in my experience.

This is probably the reason. A lot of small companies will not fight things in court. The system allows the big companies to be bullies.

And the D-Bird is not the design that Dingwall is famous for. It’s their least established model. Dingwall existed for several years, producing only original shapes before even touching on the idea of doing an homage to the P Bass, J Bass and T Bird. And even that came about mostly as a result of so many people asking them to do it. Sheldon Dingwall actively avoided doing so for a long time. If I’m not mistaken Aria and Yamaha, among other well respected Japanese brands, have in the past been involved in lawsuit cases regarding instrument designs. To hold them up as a squeaky clean example while trying to bash Dingwall is somewhat comical. When selling old Aria and Yamaha copies, sellers often literally include the word “lawsuit” in the sale titles: https://reverb.com/uk/item/78845-vintage-70s-aria-lawsuit-precision-bass-copy https://www.talkbass.com/threads/vintage-mij-p-bass-lawsuit-era-yamaha-pulser-bass.940185/ We all know it’s not that simple though. As has been mentioned, Dingwall is a small company. Even if they know they have a very strong case in court, the legal costs involved in going up against someone like Gibson are far too high to be worth it. Especially not for the sake of a design that isn’t one Dingwall built its success on. If someone were challenging Dingwall about their AB1/ABZ, Prima or Combustion shapes it might be a different story.

Bit gutted to see the first bass featured in this thread was a Maya, although the picture is gone. I wouldn't swap this one, I've had it about 32 years:

Serves you right for not having a 'proper' bass. You know that it's got to be a Precision....tsk.

Mine is the V1 version, I bought it new in 2010. I've ran it with a hell of a lot of amps, Markbass LMIII, GK 1001 and 2001 RB's, Genz Streamliner and Shuttle 9.0, Trace Elliot Hexavalve, TC Blacksmith, Orange Bass Terror and currently an Orange Four Stroke 500. The only amp I feel it didn't work with was the Streamliner, it sounded way too 'flubby', if that's a word, no real definition no matter what I did, to be honest I didn't really get on with that amp at all. I use it in two bands, one is a Ska/Two-Tone band and the other, a Punk band. Always a P bass (with flats on at the moment) in both bands. I have never felt it was too boomy, apart from with the Streamliner, but I do like a bass tone that sits under the band, saying that, with round wounds on I can get pretty close to JJ Burnel's bass tone with the right EQ settings. What that sounds like out front, I do not know but I have had lots of good compliments from other bass players on my tone/tones. Alex told me that there is not much treble on these cabs and the output drops like a stone at about 1.5Hz, but I have never felt wanting for top end.

Dropped a few venues over the years, usually if they're really poorly attended (and I mean really quiet), horrible landlord, a bit rough, rubbish money, and especially if they have a bad load in/out. We now have about a dozen established venues we play regular gigs with, the excitement comes with finding a new venue to play in a new town or village.

Absolutely! First gig when I was 16, still gigging at 73 and not done yet.

I admire your restraint...

As above, could be the valve has worked loose a little which would be the first thing to check, just open up the head by undoing the top 4 screws and sliding the head unit out of the sleeve. Just check the valve is seated nice and tight and give it a wiggle. If that doesn’t solve the issue then the valve may need replacing so pop in a quality 12AX7. If that doesn’t solve it(it should) then just give us a call 01621 857853. Let us know how you get on. Good luck!