Bridgehouse

So, popped down to B&Q and picked up some more danish oil - this time it’s dark mahogany. First coat on - looks alright. Going to be quite a few coats to build it up tho!

To be honest the wattage doesn’t matter - I can always turn it down or use an attenuator!

I bet! There must be other options out there tho, surely?

Nice one..! I had a go with a PF50t at the guitar show this year (was on a stand right near Ampeg). Now, it was going through a rather tasty portaflex 115, but it was the creamiest, most luxuriously sounding dollop of bassy tubeness I've ever heard..

(BTW if you let the CTM15 go for cheap I'll probably be interested anyway) 😜

See, you've given the game away by saying you have a PF-50T incoming, which is prob first choice at the moment..... there must be a reason you've spent the dosh on it as it isn't cheap...!

Having decided to keep the Barefaced Compact, and set up a recording rig with it, I've skirted around the edges of some sort of nice valve-y classic head to stick on it for too long. The procrastination needs to stop. Budget is about £700ish. Contenders already include the Ampeg PF-20t/50t and the Ashdown CTM 15/30 I'd also consider the Orange Terror 500 or one of the markbass hybrids as well. If thou were I, what would you be splashing your cash on? and remember - recording, not gigging. I'm more than covered for gigging. This is my attempt to stop being seen as the mass murderer of all things Rock and Roll following my FRFR thread.

Thought I'd try a panoramic of the Bass Room. This shows the 7 I'd say are my "current crop" L-R -> 64 Precision, Partscaster PJ, ACG Finn 4, 51P Partscaster with OCP Ric-o-like, Ibanez Semi, 51 Semi Hollow Partscaster, 74 Precision. I have a 62 AVRI P for sale in it's case, and the bits for the current partscaster P project..

Does this mean we can safely go back to plastic straws now Hofner have redressed the plastic balance?

This. Body and neck combo of the right dimensions would be easy, and a custom Pickup winder would do a set that did the job.

We should have some sort of a Preamp-in session somewhere - would be brilliant to put some of the ones I have up against these too

Dunno whether to do natural or a light colouring. Hmm. Might use some of the amber on it like the other one

It’s arrived... And sorry chaps, but the grain is so nice that I won’t hide it. Nice simple danish oil finish it is. It’s too good to hide away. So there.

When I tried to sell mine nobody wanted it! Still, decided to keep it now

I change my bass/cab and basses far too often...

What are the knobs actually for? I don’t touch mine. 😮

*cough*

Yeah, but.. stuck in their ways and all that...

Lol - not famous but it might as well have been

Don’t worry, I witnessed so much “check out my all valve tweed hand wired iron chassis head made from air dryed 100 year old special tone wood into my 24x12 mega uber face-melt-o-cab with my epic totally exact replica of a Les Paul custom double cut special with authentic neck break, weak heel joint and dangerous wiring” along with hair metal shred-widdling-till-your-eyes-fall-out this weekend to ensure rock and roll will remain firmly alive in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s for at least another 20 years. We are deceiving ourselves. We think we are killing rock and roll. There are guitarists out there yet to discover the 1970s.

It was great. More versatile than I thought. The EQ stage is nice and flexible - it’s really authentic genuine drive, and the output feels very “amp and cab”. I do think the P-Retro Preamp helped - but I also chucked the new semi hollow and a standard P though it and it did a really admirable job of sounding like a P bass going through a good quality valve amp and head that was then mic’d up. I know a mic’d up sound is always different from live, but I really couldn’t criticise it at all. There was a rumble 500 with a fender 4x10 in the studio which I compared and contrasted with - there was more volume out of the 4x10 (well, dur..) but it didn’t have as much fruity character to it.

As an aside - bass was mostly my ACG Finn 4 with the recent P-Retro upgrade. Very nice. Highlights were nailing a version of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, managing a good thud tone for Come Together, doing a fun version of Power of Love, managing enough dirt to do Zombie and being in awe of someone with the talent to pull off a very good version of the EVH solo from Beat It...

The guy at the studio had a Dave hall preamp - and as I’m thinking of getting one I decided to try it. The valve tone was pretty damn good.