bnt

The only guitar I've had for years is one of these, a Thinline nylon-string semi-acoustic by Harley Benton (Thomann). I wanted something semi-acoustic, not too loud in person (though it's not exactly quiet), along the lines of the Gibson Chet Atkins CE for much less money. I don't think it spent one day in standard tuning, since I went all fourths straight away (EADGCF, a la Alex Hutchings), and it's now in my experimental major/minor chord tuning (G B D F# A C#). Anything to not be a busker, basically. But I do have an eye open for a Cheap Telecaster ... maybe in Purple.

It’s not crazy at all: car culture was huge in the USA in 1950s, and articles such as this describe how Fender got on board. Also: back when TV was black and white and studio lights were harsh, people had to wear yellowish makeup so that they would look white on TV, and Gibson produced guitars in what they called TV Yellow. It was a weird greenish yellow, but people grew to like it and they still use it sometimes on new guitars.

Guy Pratt has just posted a video about his work with Kirsty McColl, and he's playing a bass discussed in this thread:

If we’re talking carbon fibre composite necks, then we can’t leave out the company that started it: Modulus Graphite. The founder (Geoff Gould) had an aerospace background, and did some experiments and concluded that sustain was a function of stiffness (Young’s modulus) than weight. One of their neck-through instruments has been on my “ship came in” list for decades now.

It was a feature I looked for and got when I bought the Harley Benton Enhanced MP-4 a few months ago. This was not from any expectation that it would make a major difference to the sound, but simply because I have seen bridges pulled up or bent because of how the forces are applied. With string-through-body, the forces push the bridge down, rather than pull it up at the back.

Quick update: I've been trying a couple of unsuccessful tone control experiments, but nothing really necessary. I'm happy with the split processing tones I can get: I get the feeling that I need to hear how these tones sit in a mix with other instruments, but right now it's a solution in search of a problem. In the short term I'm going to leave it, in the long term, if I need to make it gig-worthy, I would consider replacing the lot with EMG electronics. I'm happy enough with the construction and flexibility of this bass that I'm trying heavier strings than I've ever used before: I found a D'Addario EXL160BT set locally. This is the balanced tension set, 50-120 (201.7 lbs) instead of the typical 50-105 (189 lbs) or EXL170 45-100 (165 lbs). I gave the truss rod about 1/3 of a turn before installation, and it's pretty close but will need a check later. The increased tension on the low strings means a stronger tone that handles drop tuning well. The other day I had it down to CGCF so I could tackle Anesthetise by Porcupine Tree, and they didn't go floppy on me. (A .120 string is a light low B string as it is.)

If you don't mind a Sandberg feel, Thomann has the Harley Benton Enhanced range which includes 5-strings in P and J styles. (The natural finish is on back order, but they have the blue in stock.)

I was surprised to find a D’Addario balanced tension set in a shop here today, so I snapped them up for my HB. The neck is fatter than my other bass and would seem to lend itself to drop tunings, so I have the EXL160BT set, gauges 50 - 67 - 90 - 120. Guitarists (ptui) would call this a light top / heavy bottom set, I suppose.

I've been trying to spec a custom set for either CGDA or GDAE (fifths), and found this string gauge calculator helpful. If I try to balance all strings for about 40lbs each, I get something like this: My "takeaway" from this is that the relationship is not linear: for a given tension, the gauge roughly halves for every octave up.

Well, that and his EBMM signature model, :

I bought one of these last year, not sure at the time exactly how I was going to use it. Since then I've hooked it up to an 2018 iPad (with the USB3 camera connection kit), and hung various thing off it, including a Mackie Performer audio interface, and old-ish synth (Novation Xio), a modern USB MIDI keyboard (Nektar Impact), my t.c. Spectradrive, even my wireless phone charging pad. It's been trouble-free, using Aum to route audio and MIDI in, out and around the iPad to soft synths. Push-button port switches are handy too.

Here’s a play along video with the EHB1506MS quite high in the mix:

40k, you say? It sold for $93,438.75 (includes buyer's premium). What's that in $ per cc of sweat? 🥴

When I was looking for a bass a couple of months ago, I considered various factors, and the main reason to go for a brand name would have been resale value. That would also have restricted my options when it came to modification, and I ended up deciding against it, going for a Harley Benton which had I no compunction about totally rewiring to suit myself. But there might still be a brand name bass in my future, with resale value in mind.

That looks like the one I was going to buy: there's a story behind the Purple, it's not a standard Fender colour. Anderton's got them made after customers showed interest, and have sold out two batches of these that I know of. If they ever appear again, I might get one, even though I know it's just a colour.

Around the beginning of the year I almost bought a Squier Bullet Tele, one of the FSR Purple models that Anderton’s got made exclusively. I couldn’t justify it at the time, though. I think I was influenced by Steven Wilson, who used one heavily on his last album, initially because it was the only guitar he had around while he was writing songs. It worked so well for him that he got a reliced Tele for live use. At one point in his concerts, he had just that and a little practice amp, but it sounded huge. Plus, never forget that Jimmy Page played the solo on Stairway To Heaven on a Tele. 😎

My experience with fretless came about almost by accident. I bought a Hohner B2A (Steinberger licensed copy) for cheap, from a lady whose son didn't get on with it. When I got it home and had a closer look, I could tell that it had a bad fret job, with some notes audibly out of tune, and then I noticed that the label said "Hohner B2Afl". It started life as a fretless, complete with phenolic fretboard, and some numpty had fretted it. Within a few months I had re-de-fretted it, filled the slots with epoxy, removed the black paint and gave it a beeswax finish, and added a cutaway for better upper fret access. I don't have it any more, though, and I miss fretless, to the point where I'm looking to defret an old bass and give it a super glue fretboard coating. I didn't find playing it difficult at all, but then I wasn't trying to be Jaco. My main fretless influence by far was Paul Webb of Talk Talk: I really liked how his playing didn't scream "look at me, I'm fretless!", but it was there if you listened closely to tracks like Tomorrow Started.

Today I re-wired the bass as planned: passive with stereo out. It's close to a Rickenbacker wiring, VT & VT, except that the pots are 500k, not 330k, and there is a single TRS jack and no pickup selector switch. The P-pickup is wired to the tip and the MM-pickup to the ring of the TRS jack. I may install a switch some day, but until then if I use a mono guitar cable, I only get the P-pickup i.e. it turns in to a P-bass. I did some measurements, which confirmed that the two pickups are not well matched as supplied. Some typical pickup DC resistance values are listed on the Seymour Duncan website here, where higher resistance generally means more windings and therefore more powerful output. (I know it's not exactly that simple, with varying impedance by frequency, but it's something.) Fender Jazz: 8.7 kΩ P-Bass: 10.8 kΩ SD Quarter Pounder: 11.5 kΩ Roswell MFR4-N/B (this bass): 4.8 kΩ Roswell PM-4 (this bass): 15.2 kΩ That is just nuts, and it's no wonder it caused clipping in the onboard preamp running on a 9V battery. I have the preamp out, and it's all connectors and SMD components, nothing adjustable. The pickups were wired to the balance pot, before going in to the preamp, and that 250k pot is one of those where both pickups are on full in the centre position, and when you deviate from centre, one side stays on full resistance while the other side is shunted to earth. I don't like it - the response was too coarse, as I described above. The 2V / 2T setup gives me much better control over each pickup's volume now. For a recording test I run a stereo / 2 x mono cable in to the two channels of a Mackie Onyx Producer 2•2 preamp, setting pickup gain separately, in to an Apple iPad 2018,through a powered USB hub and the Apple CCK. In Aum I could set up a mixer channel for each pickup and treat each separately. (The first thing I discovered was that the pickups were out of phase, which was simple to fix, thankfully). This is the first time I've been able to do separate pickup processing, so I'm just starting to learn how to make it work. I'll probably do a separate post on this later. For example, I tried a compressor plugin on the P and an amp sim plugin on the MM, which sounded OK, but may benefit from some EQ tweaks. With the P signal relatively plain and e.g. a phaser on the MM, the MM volume control on the bass effectively becomes an effect intensity control, so I can fine-tune the effect on the fly. If I use this kind of setup live, monitoring is going to be crucial. It doesn't have to be an iPad, of course: you could run two channels of pedal effects, just beware of potential phase problems. The Line 6 Helix range also supports dual inputs e.g. that's what this guy is doing in his quest for Chris Squire tones.

I didn't say that - same model, yes, but I don't think it's the same instrument. He said nothing about any significant damage.

It looks like a B-stock return of the model @Machines got, maybe damaged in shipping? Bargain!

The Boss SY-1000 is the latest iteration of the VG/VB concept, with guitar and bass support in one box now. I would go for that rather than dig up a VB-99, if it was up to me. I’m considering one in conjunction with a 6-string bass, but not this year at least. It’s a synthesiser too:

There is OMD's Andy McCluskey, who plays RH on a RH bass, but with the strings inverted:

Lee was also out with Yes ARW (Anderson / Rabin / Wakeman) a couple of years ago, tackling some Chris Squire basslines. It's not a trivial job keeping us CS fans happy, but I heard only good things and wish I'd gotten to see them live. Maybe I will - It Can Happen ...