jazzyvee

This is an interesting thread. That said, I am long time alembic playing bassist and have a had a few over my time. I've read the alembic pages, basschat and talkbass threads for many years and this idea of "does wood make a noticeable difference to the sound/tone of an electric bass or guitar?" comes up quite often. I was never in a position to buy a new custom alembic bass so the idea of choosing woods for a particular claimed benefit to tone or sustain, attack etc etc has never been a consideration for regardless of the scientific facts or the opinions that surrounds it. I have chosen mine based on the fact that: a) I have confidence in them as bass builders to be assured of getting a bass that will have the ability to give me the sounds I want regardless of what the wood it is made of, and it will be a easy to play and be ergonomically sound too. b) Because of "a" I can choose a bass for the aesthetic appearance of the wood it's made from without compromising anything else and I've never owned one I have disliked the sound of. There are so many variables that work either for or against a note developing once you pluck a string that it's hard to isolate those that may have marginal effects on what you hear because they may be swamped by the things that make the biggest impact making them negligible. We read similar discussions regarding the tonal difference of rosewood compared to maple fretboards. I don't know what the difference is practically but the only reason I don't buy instruments with rosewood fingerboards is purely aesthetic. I prefer the look of maple or ebony.

Most of my gigs are big stages with PA support, but the dep gigs I do are much smaller venues and at soundcheck i often get more bottom end out of my barefaced cabs than through their own pa sub so in those cases they choose to leave me out of the PA. I would for once like to plug into a big ampeg that sounds clean. i cant ever recall plugging into one provided at a venue and getting anything other than a distorted bass sound.

Rather than hijack the reggae bass thread, i decided to pose my question here. I'm just curious about what cabs you use specifically for playing reggae. Up until about 18 months ago i was using a selection of mesa boogie powerhouse cabs. i had a 4x10, 2x10 and 1x15 that i used in various combinations depending on the gig and if I was going through the Pa or not. Mostly I used the 4x10. I found them to be great all round cabs but for reggae i found that i couldn't feel the bass well off axis and jt didn't do clean and deep at higher volumes effectively and with the band wanting that depth of sound on stage i felt it was struggling to do that without distorting and farting out especially on the low B string and if the volume was up. These days I'm using a selection of three Barefaced cabs which deliver lots of good clean and powerful bottom end that i can get whether the volume is low or high on stage and regardless of me bass being in the PA or not. i have a bb2, bt2 and dubster2 and the only one i would hesitate to use on it's own on a non PA reggae gig is the BB2. what are you guys using?

I bought a Dubster 2 from a member on here last year and I think I've used it on about 4 gigs. Two were when it was twinned with a Big Baby II and powered in bridge mode from my Crown XLS1502. The sound density was ridiculously thick but the addition of the BB2 enabled more upper frequencies to come through. However but I think next time I take it out I will have the two cabs on different sides of my power amp so I can balance the sound between the two cabs better as in bridge mode the dubster does tend to over power the low end and I think it would work better if I was able to use the BB2 for most of my sound and let the dubster add heft without taking over the volume loud. The other two times, I have used it as a stand alone bass cab which was rather good. Just to add, all gigs were reggae which it is deal for. The only other time I think it would be suitable is if I was gigging outdoors. If you can find one, it's a great addition.

We are at the Reading Readipop festival this weekend on stage about 14:00 https://www.readipop.co.uk/festival-line-up/

Please remove my posting I deleted content after misreading.

This is the same experience I have. At the moment I am completely happy with my gear and to be honest the only times I go in there is to get strings really, to look at what kind of gear is around these days or to assist a mate with a purchase decision. A second pair of ears.

Papa was a rolling stone. Cantaloupe island haitian divorce stuck in the middle with you.

Just got back from playing a really good set with Musical Youth at an Absolute 80's weekender at Butlins Bognor Regis.

This gig has been rescheduled to 9th November 2019 and will be a joint gig with the Bob Marley Experience band. Not sure what the protol is as we have three Bob Marley songs in our setlist.

I have met Alan a number of times over the years and he is a really good bloke. I wanted to get a bass made by him the first time i met him at a Bass Day in Manchester UK and tried his basses. I loved the sound of his basses and the workmanship is top notch but i wasn't keen on the body styles. I ended up buying some of his filter based tone controls.

Had a really good gig headlining a festival last night with Musical Youth.

I have never tried one but maybe one of these straps may help? https://slingerstraps.com/products/hip-strap-guitar-strap

Thinking about it i'm sure I recall on fb that Marcus is now working for Simms in marketing so maybe it was his bass and interesting for Bass direct when he was working for them but less so now. https://www.facebook.com/SimsGuitars/

Has this arrived yet?, I haven't seen anything on the site.

Cancelled, no idea why.

I'm doing a gig with Musical Youth in at the Kings Hall Herne Bay. There are two bands on the night, us and a Bob Marley & The Wailers Tribute band. https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/herne-bay/the-kings-hall/reggae-night-musical-youth/e-javbva

Better be careful post brexit then. :-)

From a safety point of view i have never understood why an airline is allowed to sell you a seat to put your instrument on. The seats are not designed to hold securely them nor the seatbelt and in the event of severe turbulance on a plane you have potentially a heavy object bouncing round the inside the passenger compartment that could cause injury to a passenger or damage parts of the cabin. I have once been in a plane with really scary air turbulence where loads of stuff was bouncing all over the place off the trays etc. Ironically it was the first time i’d been upgraded free to first class.

Ahaaa, nah im not a fan of that classic body style so my bank account is safe. Ive come to the end of my bass buying days anyway. I have all i want now.

Maybe for the the buyer it's a keeper and they are not concerned about selling it on in the future. 🧐

Surely, whether it is worth it or not depends on who is buying it. I'm confident BD have a buyer as can't imagine they would buy in a bass worth £22k bass in the hope of selling it.

Had a good gig with Musical Youth at Pizza Express live in Maidstone last night.