bassace

Anyone going care to meet up in the bar before/interval?

[quote name='owen' post='820041' date='Apr 26 2010, 10:13 PM']Different colours for different outfits. Nice.[/quote] No, I don't do brown or beige - or orange. They just came that way! The blond is a bit different, specially as I don't do rockabilly. Actually, may I go on? One of the first basses I saw was a blond and was played live on TV, Buddy Holly and the Crickets on the Sunday Palladium show. That was something.

[quote name='grumble' post='816884' date='Apr 24 2010, 01:39 AM']True, I appreciate Zappa but he doesnt dig deep into my soul even though I can enjoy the 'musical' sides of his talent. If I want to be moved then Vaughan Williams or Sibelius press the button for me,whether they are geniuses are for this crowd to decide[/quote] Interesting your choices of RVW and Sibelius. The compositions of both of them had a particularly nationalistic feel and I'm sure that's what we pick up on. I'm a great Vaughn Williams fan. His Variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis moved me to tears when I first heard it but there's a great deal of (to me) undiscovered stuff on Spot. Just to throw my hat in the ring, so to speak, I heard Nigel Kennedy play Elgar's Violin Concerto at the Barbican some time ago. Total concentration and it was mesmerising. Then for an encore he did a solo St Louis Blues - what style!

Is it smaller than a Clarus and 10" Wizzy, or am I missing something? Full marks for the DIY tho'.

Yes, with that kind of bass I go along with the adjust rather than rebuild guys. With pickups and amps, however, I've never considered lack of volume to be a great problem. In fact some otherwise good/great basses have a sound that completely overwhelms the amp. If your volume is unbalanced across the strings then some adjustment would be essential. I had a Czech bass once and as soon as I started playing up the g string the volume fell right off. Not much fun.

[quote name='Doddy' post='816389' date='Apr 23 2010, 04:09 PM']Although I really can't stand Trad Jazz..... [/quote] So, Doddy, what is your definition of Trad Jazz? Pl keep it to the music and not bring in the 'old guys with beards in pubs' argument.

Great Posts! I don't think the OP was being in anyway snobby. What most of us are cool about and regard as a fact of musical life hadn't quite got to him yet? All the stuff I now play is jazz but I have great respect for anyone who goes out on a gig and does it well, whether it's pop, rock, covers, folk, jazz or whatever. If someone phoned and offered me a tour with a good pop show I'd jump at it. Only two kinds of music; good and bad.

The AI after-sales service is legendary in the States but I wondered how it would cross over to the UK. When I bought my Clarus two years ago I had a 'fizz' when I switched the amp off. The switch contacts were not disengaging cleanly and over time this would probably lead to contact burn out. I usually got over this by pulling the mains lead out after a gig but it was a bit of a pain. Belatedly I emailed Bassadder at Overwater where I bought it, asking what options are there for repair bearing in mind I was busy gigging. He said he'd send me down a new part,easy to replace. I expected a switch but what I didn't expect was a whole new chassis. Full marks to BA and Overwater for great service. Hope this is on the right forum.

I sometimes use a DPA 4099 mic via a headway preamp. The combination is significantly better in overcoming feedback from the backline compared to a lot of other systems. I say 'sometimes' because most other times I just want to go to the gig a plug in and play without the hassle of the extra wiring. When I know that there will good front of house I certainly take the mic.

[quote name='grahambrown1986' post='813591' date='Apr 21 2010, 11:27 AM']Bassace: that looks amazing. Is it stable?[/quote] Stable-ish. I copied the idea from a DB dealer who had lots of basses all over his house. There are no 'tiny feet' round the house so it's OK. Wouldn't use that design on a gig tho' even for one bass.

I started with a Boosey & Hawkes Czech double bass, laminated, new for £45. The only pickups available then (1961) were DiArmond contact mics and they made a crap sound. So I used a Reslo ribbon mic on a stand. I made my own enclosure to Goodmans designs to house an 18" speaker. Enclosure was massive! I had a Leak HiFi main amp and my brother built me a custom one valve preamp. Later my first bass guitar was a Burns (pre-Bison). When I wanted to upgrade, in 64 if I remember correctly, I went up to London and had the choice of a Fender Jazz and an EBO, both under £100 - so I chose the EBO......doh! I thought the sound of the rig was great but an old friend recently told me that it was a bit ropey.

[quote name='Bloodaxe' post='731775' date='Feb 1 2010, 03:49 PM']I can imagine that jazz has its "Mustang Sally" & "Sweet Home Alabama" equivalents... where do you stand on "Work Song" & Nat King Cole's take on "Route 66"?[/quote] Luv 'em both! It's the Herbie Hancock stuff that's dated so quickly.

With my double bass I take most of the above, or however much will get into my wire bag. My Clarus is quite small and I always take a 10" Wizzy and 12" Wizzy. I stack the 10 on 12 and as soon as I do my own sound check I can quickly tell whether the room acoustics will need one, the other, or both. Spare set of DB strings a set of pliers and a string winder to help restringing. I bet you BG guys don't need the pliers! I also have a ring binder with charts condensed from something like 8 Real/Fake books in case I'm on a freelance gig and a strange number gets called. I can still just about read it from the floor although a music stand does it better. Reminds me, must get onto Dave at OBBM and get a couple of new leads.

I knocked this up from a few lengths of wood at home. It seems to work very well. [attachment=47071:2010_041...rman0032.JPG]

Yes this is mainly for jazzers, I suppose. In all the freelance work I do most of the time I am 'busking'. But as a backup I carry a fat ring binder stuffed with charts extracted from eight Real/Fake books. Most of the time I can rely on my ear or memory to get through a tune without having recourse to the dots but sometimes someone will call a tune that isn't in the book at all, or wants to play in a different key from the 'written' one - often the singer to suit his/her range. In such a circumstance an iPod would be very useful. Mostly I work without a set list and the numbers are called on the fly so the iPod would need to be a nifty thing to get the numbers up between tunes especially if a transposition is called for.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='798486' date='Apr 7 2010, 10:47 AM']With my eyesight? Better off putting the £5 towards a new pair of specs![/quote] My eyesight is not too good but with my 'computer specs' I had no difficulty. I was pleasantly surprised. The app is also good for settling band room arguments -as I found out last Saturday. Guitarists really are a bunch of trainspotters when it comes to chords.

I was playing a pick up gig last night. Bass and Piano behind a girl singer, plus her hubby a pro trumpet player, in an Oxford pub. Most of ther stuff was 'the usual' but trumpet wanted to feature on a couple of tunes that I don't usually play. So he handed me his iphone loaded with the chords. It was so easy to use and easy to read on my music stand.

Just a thought. Have you tried backing off your gain and/or bass and turning up the volume to compensate? I haven't played BG for ages but this worked for me with a DB when I seemed to overload a 10".

Well done Bilbo. Did you go home smiling - I bet you did!

[quote name='bassadder' post='783251' date='Mar 23 2010, 11:57 AM']Hi Guys I have an Electrovoice EV RE20 mic for sale with a custom windshield to protect your bass. It's a great mic and one of the industry standards for double bass http:/www.electrovoice.com/product.php?id=91 I've used it several times live and it's great when I can stand still long enough hence the reason for sale, it comes with a custom windshield which I had to get custom made from USA it wasn't cheap but worth it. As far price I'm open to all sensible offers. I haven't given up on mic's and I'm currently trying the new [u][b]Ehrlund[/b][/u] contact mic from Sweden if it works out there'll also be a new Realist for sale too. Thanks for reading All the best Laurence[/quote] bassadder I'd be interested to know how you get on with the Ehrlund. TB posters seem to be polarised on this one. Some don't like it but most think it's great.

Strange echo in here.

You'd never get [i]that[/i] one under your chin.

[quote name='jdstrings' post='772355' date='Mar 12 2010, 03:21 AM']Jonathan Githero in Witney -doublebass specialist. Get back to me if you can't find him and I'll dig out his contact details...[/quote] Interesting

Well, first of all, playing bass you are not quite as exposed as lead trumpet for instance. So a few gaffes can go unnoticed perhaps. After 40 years I still occasionally fluff codas. eg the band stops on 3 and I stop on 4. Trouble is, right from school, I had and still have the concentration of a gnat.

Sorry Jake I can't answer your post properly - I'm too distracted by the pics of your aunties.