BigRedX

There was a Bootzilla Traben on ebay in the US a couple of weeks ago with the head broken completely off...

I wonder how that happened? Mine has a pretty chunky volute at the neck/head join.

Over the weekend Fleetfoxes and Bowie Live form 1972.

Today at work my parcel from HMV Japan arrived, so it's been Polysics and various Japanese "lounge-core" bands.

Well they are available because I've played a Veleno guitar that had been strung with multi-coloured strings. I have a photo somewhere if you're interested?

Of course it might have been done by buying 6 sets each a different colour and using one strong from each set.

[url="http://www.deviser.co.jp/modules/bacchus/index.php?content_id=22"]Here you go[/url]

Oh yes....

[url="http://www.tec-amp.com/index.php?id=39"]TecAmp[/url] do one as well.

The smallest stage I've ever played on was at "The Old Malt Cross" in Nottingham. Nowadays the stage area is a sensible size but back in the 80s when the synth band I was in played there regularly it was tiny. The venue itself is a good size on two levels, the main floor and a balcony around three sides. The "stage" was about 6 foot up between the main floor and the balcony. Due to the wood panelling at the front it had the appearance that you playing the gig from on top of a wardrobe! There was just enough room for the 4 of us (2 keyboard players with a mono-synths each on stand and two singers) provided that no-one actually moved once in position. Because of the height and the railings around the sides you had to fit everything onto the stage area as there was nowhere else! The PA was set up on the ground level in front of the stage... The venue was run by two of the most miserable blokes ever. I have no idea why they put bands on because they seemed to hate everything. When we told them we didn't want another gig for less money as we needed to break even at least, they then tried to persuade the PA hire to charge us less so we could still afford to play there...

The biggest stage I played is either Rock City or the three trailers that made up the main stage for the Nottingham Rock and Reggae festival.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='240493' date='Jul 15 2008, 11:41 PM']I quite liked my Hofner violin bass but it was hard work live. Does my 32" with bendwell KingBass count as "short"?[/quote]

IMO shorts scale is UNDER 31" scale so no... (Generally 32" is considered to be medium scale)

I've found that the biggest problem with short scales is finding a set of strings the produced decent notes below open A. My first bass a much modified Burns artist has a 29.5 scale length, and it wasn't until I got some specially made Newtone strings for it that I could confidently play note on the E string without it turning into a muddy thump.

[quote name='Rickster' post='241225' date='Jul 16 2008, 08:29 PM']The MF was built as the signiture model for bassist Miki Furukawa who played with the Japaneese Band Supercar.[/quote]

I know, I'm a big Supercar fan. Highvision one of my favourite albums.

Just surprised that they didn't make a signature Model for Fumi from Polysics as well

On the competition - I hope not the closing date isn't supposed to be until the 1st of September.

On the subject of bass guitar publications...

What I like is equipment reviews. Few musicians have very much interesting to say about themselves (you all know the Zappa quote), and I'm of an age where if I wanted to play a song I hadn't written it meant sitting down with the record and playing it over and over again until I had something that sounded right. So for me the best magazine would simply be full of great reviews of interesting equipment. To this end Bass Player has the edge because the US musical instrument market is bigger and therefore supports more varied products. I would say that this year BGM has slowly been catching up.

What I'm not very interested in is lots of reviews of Fenders, Warwicks, Ibanez and Yamaha instruments. These are all easily accessible, if I want to find about them I can go to any number of music shops, pull one off the wall and find out what they're like for myself, and so can everyone else. While I don't expect to see the offerings of every luthier from my [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5525"]Weird and Wonderful thread[/url] covered (although I'd be an avid reader of that!) how about looking at some of the less well-known but respected by those in the know makes? Bacchus and Tune from Japan, Bassline, Basslab and Manne from Europe and Henman Bevilacqua, Dingwall and Knuckle Guitarworks from the US would be a good starting point.

Or if you wanted to be really controversial what about a home-grown vs Asian-licensed shoot out. How much more do you get for your money when you buy a US Lakland as opposed to a Skyline? Sadowsky NYC vs Metro, how does the Fretking Blue Label Esprit 4 compare with the Green Label Europa IV?

Go on I dare you...

From the days when there was more information on the Phaedrus site, plus what I learned from a brief exchange of emails was that the bass fairly much built around a 'slab' of steel. Not only is there no taper, but the pack of the 'neck' has no shaping either.

I hope you'll post your whole build diary here. Are you planning on using anything more durable for facing on the fingerboard? You might want to have a look at [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=450819"]this thread on TalkBass[/url] as well...

That back looks amazing!

F is Farad which is the unit of capacitance.

uF which should be written µF (mu) is a microfarad or 0.000001 Farad.

I like that, but I think I'd rather have an SBV 800MF...

Normally capacitors on the volume pot are design to stop treble roll-off as you reduce the output volume. The most common value for these is 0.001uF rather than .1uF

You've got to remember that "covers" encompasses a wide spectrum from Tribute bands who look and sound as close as possible to the original band through to acts who re-imagine tracks in such a way that only the lyrics and the vocal melody bear a passing resemblance to the original.

Also I don't think that passing 30 counts you out from being successful with original music. It may close the door to pop and rock superstardom but it can open a whole other range of musics -just take a look at Wire magazine if you don't believe me.

You want to most reliable playback possible.

Personally I wouldn't even think about DAT much too fragile and terribly out of date technology. I'd think about something with no moving parts for the playback so a flash based player. Maybe an iPod nano - remember iPods are capable of playing full 16bit 44.1KHz audio it doesn't have to be MP3 or AAC compressed files. Alternatively one of the multitrack recorders. On the whole if the recorded parts are ear-candy rather than the backbone of the tracks sound quality won't be too important. In the 80s I played in a synth band and all our rhythmic backing was on compact cassette and we never had any sound quality issues live.

If you go for a stereo player with the backing on one track and click/rhythmic guide on the other make sure that there's decent separation between the L and R channels on the player as this may not have been a particularly high priority in the original design where shortcoming may only be a slight narrowing of the stereo image rather than an obtrusive click bleeding through into the FoH...

As to what your drummer plays to - check with him/her. Some want a straight-forward click with an accent on the first beat of the bar, others may want something a bit more complex and rhythmic. You'll need to do some tests to see what works best. Remind the drummer that they'll need to provide rhythmic cues during the intros and other break downs as they're the only one who can hear the master tempo track. One problem they may encounter is that when you're perfectly in sync with the click track it tends to get drowned out by the live drums...

Fans of the Bee Gees disco stuff will probably find [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug05/articles/classictracks.htm"]this SoS article[/url] interesting.

From the article:

[quote]The control room overlooked a live area whose ceiling had less-than-ideal wooden beams, and it was there that Karl Richardson recorded the four-piece setup of Maurice on bass, Dennis Byron on drums, Blue Weaver on keyboards and Barry on acoustic guitar.[/quote]

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='237622' date='Jul 11 2008, 09:16 PM']Gratuitous LED shot

[/quote]

You haven't lit them all up...

[quote name='silddx' post='237620' date='Jul 11 2008, 09:13 PM']Excellent! But check this out, man!

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5525"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5525[/url]

I nearly got a Spalt after looking through this!! Then rationale got the better of me ;-)[/quote]


Go on! You know you want to...

Very nice...

Is this an original or a re-issue?

I use a [url="http://filters.muziq.be/model/peavey/spectrum"]Peavey Spectrum Filter[/url].

Drowning By Numbers

[url="http://www.tec-amp.com/index.php?id=107"]The new ones are rated 4 or 8 Ohms...[/url]

bass_ferret and chris_b have pretty much nailed it.

As soon as you're playing decent sized venues with big stages, your rig is really only for show and to flap your trousers when you stand in front of it. The FoH sound comes completely from the PA and 90% of the on-stage sound is from the monitors (100% if you are using in-ears). The sound will be DI'd from the bassist's rack which will have at the very least a Pod and a studio compressor in it. Who cares how big the Ampeg 8x10 is or how much it weighs when there's lifts and roadies to move it rather than you having to persuade your guitarist to give you a hand getting it up some twisty narrow stairs at your local.

The 'exotic' cabs are aimed at a completely different market. Those of us who want something small and light but with a killer sound because we rely on them for on stage monitoring as well as up to 50% of the FoH sound.