Owen

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1417452737' post='2620473'] Lightweight? Ahem! [/quote] Approx 11lbs iirc.

Chevin A500 or A700 on Ebay. Usually less than £240. Proper power amp. Not that anything else that has been suggested is not proper!

The electronics are pretty beefy. There is a really healthy signal out of it with Vol/Balance/Treble/Mid/Bass controls. It is not light but not in the house at the moment so I cannot weigh it. I will try and do so tomorrow.

It is a cracking piece of wood. I know you are a man who recognises a cracking piece of wood when you see one! I will also have a big, fat pickup cover which will be made out of the same piece of wood as the neck/fingerboard which will house the 2 x Fralin J5 things as well as acting as a ramp thang. The MM5 idea is not as lush as more lovely rosewood.

I guess the ACME/DB thing is horses for courses. I have a 12" ACME cab and I could not be happier with the noise it makes. I love the real LF heft it gives me. The extension all the way down to the bottom B is lush beyond. It is like sitting on a cushion of molten chocolate. And I mean that in a good way.

Fit!

I had one. It was noisy. I'm sure someone makes a quiter fan you could retrofit because it is a great amp.

Does the Behringer do the sustain pedal thing?

I like it. Combined with an OC2 it can get down and dirty. The "sustain pedal" setting on it's own is worth it.

I like it. I really liked it when the exchange rate was close to $2=£1.

And then I saw a Rosewood (I think) neck in the Alpher Instruments build thread in the Affiliates Forum and being a wood grain junkie have decided that I have to have a rosewood/rosewood neck/fingerboard. The thread is here http://basschat.co.uk/topic/248992-alpher-builds-in-progress-15-off-until-2015/. I will not link to the individual picture cos I think everyone should look at the whole thread. There is some truly scrumptious woodwork going on there and it is well worth a few minutes of your time.

I have a Chinese Fender guitar. Easily as nice as instruments costing 3 times as much. Would I swap the pickups in it? Perhaps, but I might do that with any number of instruments. As long as the commissioning company get the spec right, someone operating a CNC machine in one country is much the same as someone operating it in another. I would love a crack at the yellow neck through in the first link of the 3 from the OP.

I did a gig last week with a pair of QSC KW112 and KW118 (or whatever the 18" subs are called). They were bonkersly loud and held it together all the way. I was hugely impressed. The SRM450 are not in the same class (but not in the the same price bracket). They can get harsh when pushed but a bit of taming at 8Khz always made them a bit easier on the ear. They run out of headroom before you think they should, especially if you get tempted to chuck any LF into them. The reality is that they are old tech by now and I feel absolutely sure that anything more recent with some DSP in there would be significantly better.

MOST excellent help! Thanks y'all.

I fancy a killswitch (mute) in a keyboard sustain pedal wired so that the signal goes through when the pedal is depressed. I would obviously need a loop box to bring it in and out of line as and when needed. I'm sure I am missing a trick and someone is making such a thing, but I have not seen one. Any ideas? The keyboard pedal idea is so that it is a nice low profile. Obviously silent switching is imperative.

My teacher was taught by Gary Karr so I got the whole "slow bow, 'cello rosin, focused sound" thing. And the 1234 finger pattern. I copped a lot of flak when going to youth orchestras outside my own county when other tutors saw technique which was not Simandl.

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1415792681' post='2603770'] A fascinating article. I've always been suspicious of the mid-board pizz, knowing full well that most jazzers get a huge sound from the end of the board. [/quote] The loudest punchiest bass pizz I have come across is way up the fingerboard by the left hand - perhaps 8 inches away. It sounds like a cannon. Not that it could be used for anything fluid or walking.

Better still download a huge PDF from here on Making a Double Bass http://www.roger-hargrave.de/Seiten/english/Bibliothek/Bibliothek.htm just lovely stuff. So many lovely photos. So lush.

Very interesting, thanks. It led me onto this http://www.maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/328014-making-a-double-bass/ which I think might take me a bit longer!

Sadly, there is no substitute for massive power supplies which deliver grunt with ease.

I already carry a DB to gigs and I could not fit all those ladies into my car as well.