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JoeEvans

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Everything posted by JoeEvans

  1. JoeEvans
    A clip-on mic going into a whacking great Trace Elliot sounds like a bit of a recipe for feedback hell to me. I tried using an attached mic for live DB for a while (Sennheiser e608) but it wasn't really workable from point of view of feedback. The double bass is carefully designed to vibrate freely at the frequencies of its own notes... I've had very satisfactory results with a K&K Bass Max pickup going into an Art Tube preamp, for what it's worth, but my impression is that every double bass player will recommend a different combination.
  2. JoeEvans
    Also great that you could source replacements for the original plutonium knobs.
  3. JoeEvans
    Very nice - I do like an old Ibanez!
  4. JoeEvans
    Now sold! This is a Tacoma Thunderchief CB10C in the standard spec for the model, which is spruce top, mahogany back, sides and neck, and rosewood fingerboard. It has no built-in pick-up or electronics - acoustic only, but there are obviously various options for mics and pickups if you wanted to go down that route. These basses have become a modern classic, often described as 'the best acoustic bass guitar ever made'. Whether that's true or not, it's certainly in a different league to any other acoustic bass guitar I've ever played - a big, rich, resonant sound that can hold its own when playing with acoustic guitars, fiddles etc. This particular instrument is in almost new condition, as you can see from the pics - there are a few tiny marks here and there but it's exceptionally good for its age. The only really visible blemish is a patch of scuffing about where the right thumb would sit on the body. The build quality is extremely high - beautiful timber and really fine detailing everywhere. It's lightly built but very stable - taking it out of the case after six months without playing it, the bass was still more or less perfectly in tune. I'm only selling this because it doesn't get played enough (I play double bass as well, which has slightly taken over...) and I don't believe in good instruments being left lonely and unplayed! It comes in the original hard case, which is also very good quality.
  5. JoeEvans
    PM me for details and to view, it's still available and first come first served!
  6. JoeEvans
    The bass has now been given away! I've got an Eastern European blond plywood double bass with the head broken off. I acquired it with a view to doing the repair myself but I'm just not finding the time. It's a messy break and I was planning to put it all back together with WEST epoxy in a manner that would horrify a proper luthier, but you could also do a proper job and replace the whole head and neck as one. The body is solid and sound, the soundpost is still in place, but the spike and fitting are missing and one tuner needs replacing. If fixed it would be a useful gigging bass as it has a compact body and feels very solidly built indeed - you could take it to a rowdy pub gig and not suffer too much anxiety. I bought it with that in mind, also thinking that a good solid plywood bass could go in a car to a festival and withstand the heat and damp. If well repaired it might be worth £500. Some rather low-quality photos attached but you can see the basics... Any inspections welcome. FREE to anyone who wants a project!
  7. JoeEvans
    You can be a great bass player with fairly average technical skills - you just have to not play too many notes, but to know which ones to play. Sometimes bass players who are highly skilled are actually not as good to listen to because they play too many notes and don't deliver the purpose of the bass within a band framework. That's not to say that there aren't some amazing bass players with huge technical ability, but the two don't always go hand in hand. My tip would be to listen to a lot of dub reggae and aim for that super-minimal bass haiku vibe. This is one of my favourite ever bass lines, and you could play it with one finger on each hand. Almost anyone could play it, but only one person actually did play it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFa6xn6Ml0
  8. JoeEvans
    The roughness might be in the finish, then, rather than the wood. You could very, very lightly sand down just that patch and see how it goes - you might be able to smooth it off without going right down to bare wood. I suppose ideally you'd then apply a few coats of a suitable matching varnish, well-thinned, and sand again between each coat...
  9. JoeEvans
    You wouldn't go far wrong with that approach. Maybe not even the oil - what's the finish on the rest of the neck?
  10. JoeEvans
    I was thinking about this today - as far as I know, the practice of using a bass played pizzicato came along more or less when recorded music also started to boom. Before that, I think people in bands (as opposed to orchestras) either used brass for bass (e.g. sousaphone in New Orleans, tuba in the Balkans) or bowed their basses (e.g. gypsy music in Hungary and elsewhere). When the band was big and loud, people sometimes used two bowed basses. Even early jazz double bassists sometimes used a bow (e.g. 'Slam' Stewart). I suspect that isn't coincidence... Anyway, here's Slam sounding great playing arco in one of the best jazz/dance sequences ever - I love this so much! [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s"]https://www.youtube....h?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s[/url]
  11. JoeEvans
    If you can set a soundpost yourself and get it in the right place, it might be time to consider a career change!
  12. JoeEvans
    Not everyone can write very well (by which I mean get their intended message across clearly and unambiguously) and - as with music - people who don't write very well, often don't know that they don't write very well. They just assume that everyone knows what they mean. In fact, now that I've written that, it seems to me that we all just assume that people know what we mean, and perhaps no-one can say precisely what they mean in a short paragraph, or even a long book... So I wouldn't personally bother to try and read to much into the exact wording of an advert. If it sounds like vaguely the kind of thing you like, then go and meet them and have a play. You'll know whether it's right in the first minute or two of playing.
  13. JoeEvans
    Apparently she is also a very down to earth person. A friend had a child at the same school at hers and they had a 'parents' work day' for people to volunteer to do various jobs on the school site. She was spotted on her hands and knees in the pupil toilets, scrubbing away cheerfully.
  14. JoeEvans
    On the same theme, there's an early 80s Tokai Hardpuncher on eBay now for £1300. Currently only one picture, which isn't actually of the bass that's for sale.
  15. JoeEvans
    Take it to the tanning salon and bung it under a UV lamp for a couple of days.
  16. JoeEvans
    [quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1493971897' post='3292191'] Does such a thing as "perfect pitch" exist? If so, what percentage of the population has it? [/quote] No idea about percentage of the population but I've witnessed it in action; I used to play with a violinist who would just tune up to thin air, as it were, but would always then be perfectly in tune with my accordion. If someone played a note he could not only say what note it was but whether it was in tune with concert pitch (A=440hz). Presumably his inner 440 reference point came from having played in lots of bands with fixed-pitch instruments. On another note, the whole idea of Hz is based on the length of a second, which is a completely arbitrary and human measure. I would find it a great coincidence if the resonant frequency of the universe (or whatever) happened to be an exact round number when compared to the duration of one rotation of our planet divided by 24, then by 60, then by 60 again. And in fact, if you look at it like that, why 432Hz precisely? Why not 432.5739390284732Hz or some other frequency that isn't a nice round number when you measure it using our local and historic time unit?
  17. JoeEvans
    [quote][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Do you mean you couldn't hear any difference between either the a and b guitars on post #1 of this thread?[/font][/color][/quote] I don't hear them as qualitatively different, only pitched slightly differently. Sounds like the same guy playing the same guitar to me. But it's not a proper test because it isn't double blind. He obviously knows which one he's playing and which one he's recording, and given that he believes passionately in 432, it's pretty much a certainty that some of that is coming through in his playing; I would also want independent verification that the eq etc was exactly the same on both. The way to do this would be to get a guitarist who doesn't have perfect pitch; sit them in a room with a mic, and bring them a whole series of identical guitars, all tuned slightly differently but including one at A=440 and one at A=432. Leave the recording rolling the whole time. Then have someone edit the audio who didn't know which order the guitars were recorded in, and put up the video without captions so the listener doesn't know either. It's extraordinary how much meaning we bring to what we see and hear. We think of our senses as neutral input, but they aren't - we very much see and hear what we want or expect to see and hear.
  18. JoeEvans
    [quote name='Crawford13' timestamp='1493915751' post='3291840'] I think YouTube videos definitely aren't the media that will show the difference. I think a lot of the difference will be lost in the compression, then also with videos mainly being mixed to be listened to on phones and tablets. [/quote] Yes - my point was more that lots of people commenting thought that there was a big difference, but it seemed to me that it hadn't even been pitch-shifted at all and was identical to the version posted as 440. Given that, maybe all perception of any difference is equally unfounded?
  19. JoeEvans
    I was watching (or rather listening to) a John Martyn video on Youtube; afterwards I noticed that it had been put up pitch-shifted to 432 Hz. Lots of people had left comments about how much better it was. I was skeptical but intrigued by how it could make any difference, so I found another video of the same tune and listened to that; I couldn't really tell any difference. Anyway, I wanted to see how big the pitch difference was, so I played both videos at once and it turned out that there was no difference - as far as I could tell the '432' version that everyone loved was exactly the same as the 440 one. So either I'm wrong in some way (e.g. maybe the 440 version had been ripped from the 432 version and put up again by someone else?) or it's easy for people to delude themselves that one version of a tune sounds better, worse or indeed different in any way from another one. Maybe someone might do a blind listening session with a friend. Put on really good headphones and get a friend to play 440 and 432 versions of various tunes and see which you prefer. But mix them up, working through maybe ten tunes, and not listening to 440 and 432 versions of the same tune back to back. i witnessed a similar blind listening session years ago, testing very expensive speaker cable against chunky mains cable. None of the assembled audiophiles could tell the difference.
  20. JoeEvans
    A quick google suggests that Christian Maas is maybe not the most groundbreakingly original artist - looks to me like he saw a picture of one of the 30s US aluminium double basses (which do look great) and knocked out half a dozen of them as sculpture.
  21. JoeEvans
    Wow - I've got one of these, factory lined fretless and all, and I've never seen another one! I like it more than any other bass I've ever played. Mine now has Bartolini pickups which made it even better, but the main thing is the feel of the neck and the overall tone.
  22. JoeEvans
    Would you post it?
  23. JoeEvans
    Love the violin playing.
  24. JoeEvans
    I'm in no way an expert but I'm not sure that it's possible to pin down the history of an older, solid-wood instrument. I would have thought that it was at least 80 years old, maybe older, just from the patina of the wood; something about the shoulders makes me think of some other German basses I've seen but this is all basically guesswork...
  25. JoeEvans
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/YAMAHA-BB3000S-FRETLESS-BASS-GUITAR-VINTAGE-1980S-/272632016999?hash=item3f7a227067:g:sA4AAOSw4CFYxylQ
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