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Beer of the Bass

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  1. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='Ancient Mariner' timestamp='1342965762' post='1743205'] The early observation about more electrics than acoustics is understandable, since few acoustics are desirable or impressive, most being a limited tool to accomplish the task of backing a vocal. I've only ever played a couple of acoustics that made me want to own them, but they are an useful item, like a cross head screwdriver, in the toolbag of a master carpenter. [/quote] I'm not trying to be contrary, but my feelings about acoustic guitars are almost opposite to this! I guess it will depend where you're coming from musically. A cheap electric guitar can get most of the way towards sounding like an expensive one, if the setup and pickups are decent and it is played through a good amp, but a good handmade acoustic has something about its sound that a cheap one can almost never replicate. Consequently I have a couple of very nice acoustic guitars but my electric (which I gig with) is a cheapy AXL. I'll try to take some photos of my acoustics in the next couple of days and put them up here - they're a 1936 Kalamazoo (built by Gibson) archtop and a parlour guitar by my brother Pete Beer [url="http://www.petebeerguitars.com/"]http://www.petebeerguitars.com/[/url]
  2. Beer of the Bass
    Good question. There was an eBay seller who used to have it, but they seem to have disappeared. Hot Rox in the UK have it, but a bit pricey. Antique Electronics in the States have it a bit cheaper, and they've been very quick and efficient when I've dealt with them in the past. [url="http://www.tubesandmore.com/products/S-G420"]http://www.tubesandmore.com/products/S-G420[/url]
  3. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1342955736' post='1743070'] Ampeg cabs weren't used in the UK in the 60's. If you want to be authentic you'll have to get some Vox gear. [/quote] Or just choose your favourite modern cab then install some Vox grille cloth! Most genuine 1960s bass cabs (excluding special cases like the SVT 8x10 or some of the JBL loaded american cabs, neither of which is very British Invasion) aren't something many bassists would really want to use now.
  4. Beer of the Bass
    And the mudbucker style pickups on the Ibanez basses were usually a skinny single coil under the huge cover (at least on the one I owned), so the sound is closer to a stock ric than to a Gibson anyway.
  5. Beer of the Bass
    I've been using ER20s for a few years, but have recently changed to Alpine Music Safe from my local drum shop. They're similar to the ER20s but I find them a little more comfortable, easier to clean as the rubber part can be removed from the filter, and they come with three different levels of filter. They're a bit more fiddly to put in though, as the stems are shorter.
  6. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1342803859' post='1741329'] Could be my memory, or the fact I've never been a jazzer, but wasn't the place on Chambers St more a straight up jazz place rather than a funky place? I seem to remember one on Morrison St (Henry's???) that was funky? [/quote] Henry's is still with us, but it dropped the Jazz bit from the name several years ago, so it's more of yer typical basement indie venue now. The Jazz bar is doing quite a bit of funky stuff lately, especially at the weekends. There is also a Sunday night jazz session at Whighams in the west end, often with the excellent Jay Kilbride on bass. That tends to be more of a singer's session. It's got a bit of an upmarket, wine-bar thing about it though - I feel a bit out of place there!
  7. Beer of the Bass
    I'm in Edinburgh, but I've got some gigs over that period so can't really lend my own bass. I believe Gordon Stevenson's violin shop has been known to hire out basses (though the loaner I had from them was not great TBH). I don't think the shop has a website, but the number is 0131 2292051. There's also a backline hire company who do instruments. I've not had any dealings with them, but at £240/week you'd need a gig that paid well! [url="http://www.dmaudio.co.uk/upright-acoustic-double-bass-fiddle-34-size/"]http://www.dmaudio.co.uk/upright-acoustic-double-bass-fiddle-34-size/[/url] I've travelled with a double bass on trains around Scotland, but never tried it on a longer journey. I usually end up standing with it, but that'd be a nightmare on a long trip.
  8. Beer of the Bass
    I once found myself eating muesli, wearing sandals, stroking my beard and reading the Guardian all at the same time. At least the crossword is easier than the one in the Times...
  9. Beer of the Bass
    It's just that they're popular with a particular style of US gospel player, isn't it? Musical genres are affected by a players background, and instruments often develop a genre-specific following, so it's not really that odd that they have that association. I saw an interview with Cordell Mosson (from Funkadelic) where he mentioned getting some stick from his bandmates for playing a Rickenbacker as it was deemed to be a Rock bass and not suitable for Funk, so genre stereotyping of instruments is not a new phenomenon.
  10. Beer of the Bass
    Maybe the wording on the website isn't great (the "military grade" and "point to point" bits ), but I don't see anything resembling sub-par wiring in this gut-shot IMO. [url="http://www.jaguaramplification.com/i_guts.html"]http://www.jaguaramplification.com/i_guts.html[/url] It may not be built in the Military/Hiwatt style of lead-dress, but the chassis pictured on the website looks well built in a Marshall-esque construction style. If an amp is readily servicable and the layout doesn't cause noise or stability problems, then it is fit for purpose. As a DIYer I have built less tidy looking amps than that which have worked flawlessly, so I'd say the Jaguar looks like a nice amp. The issue of carbon comp versus metal film resistors often seems to open up a can of worms on amp forums. I use metal film in my own builds but there are plenty of very experienced builders who will choose carbon comp. Metal film resistors drift less and are less noisy, but there is a measurable distortion from carbon comp resistors which will affect the sound - it's debatable how audible this is, but some say they prefer it. The article below describes this quite well. [url="http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/carbon_comp/carboncomp.htm"]http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/carbon_comp/carboncomp.htm[/url]
  11. Beer of the Bass
    Any more public appearances planned?
  12. Beer of the Bass
    Very cool! It puts me in mind of a Stroh violin built on the scale of a dub system bass bin.
  13. Beer of the Bass
    The leather is probably no thicker than many modern poly finishes, so if it sounds fine, why worry? It does look very cool, and I bet it feels good too.
  14. Beer of the Bass
    Could it be that high-impedance passive type pickups usually have a peak in the response somewhere in the upper mids which makes the attack more noticeable, while pickups which are lower impedance like many "active" designs tend to have a flatter response which sounds more polite?
  15. Beer of the Bass
    I've got a new overdrive pedal in the works, so I'm clearing out some of my older DIY builds to fund the parts. These are pedals I built for my own personal use, so they have been gigged and have proved to be reliable, even if they are not built to boutique standards of neatness. Both pedals are true-bypass, with red LED indicators, in unpainted diecast aluminium cases. On the right is a bass overdrive built from a kit with PCB, the Hjart Muller Bass Drive from Moodysounds. Here is a link to the ready-built version; [url="http://moodysounds.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_36&products_id=12"]http://moodysounds.c...&products_id=12[/url] This is a really nice sounding, moderate gain overdrive which gets into JJ Burnel and John Wetton-esque territories, not a full-on fuzz. It's an opamp based overdrive with diode clipping, similar to an Ibanez Tubescreamer but voiced for bass. Note that this was built to go on a pedalboard, so it does not have a battery clip - it needs a power supply. £30 posted in UK. On the left is a pedal based on the Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz and Way Huge Red Llama designs which is probably more at home with guitar than bass. It is especially good with single coil, Fender-ish guitars This is an overdrive based on a FET inverter chip, which provides a very transparent drive at lower settings with a raw grittiness about it. At higher gain settings it gets quite fuzzy. This one is built on perfboard and can be used with a battery or power supply. £25 posted in UK. [attachment=113100:101_0205.JPG][attachment=113101:101_0207.JPG]
  16. Beer of the Bass
    I've just had a listen, without checking which amp was which until the end. My clear favourite is the Marshall JCM800, closely followed by the Hiwatt. The rest are too dirty in the lows on the "clean" clips, or too thin in the case of the Orange. The treble on the Orange sounds quite good with the passive bass on the dirty clips though. I also enjoyed the sound of the JMP, a very recognisable late 60s/early 70s sound with that sort of throaty roar, but it's not what I would choose for my own band. With the arbitrary control settings used, it's impossible to say which would be my favourite if I could actually try all six though.
  17. Beer of the Bass
    I'm almost certain this is the one I sold a while back. Certainly the Chromes flatwounds, Hipshot and the tort guard thrown in would match with my old one. The buyer was new to bass, so I guess he didn't really take to it. It was a really nice bass, and I regretted selling it quite a bit - If I had the cash lying around I'd give him a call!
  18. Beer of the Bass
    Cheers for the input on the Lakland/GHS flats, redstriper and WOT. From the sound of it, there probably aren't many strings I'd like better then the EBs or Chromes I've got at the moment. Which is actually a good thing, as it means I can stop thinking about strings for a while.
  19. Beer of the Bass
    The finish on mine has a slight Artex vibe about it, but is evenly applied and seems very tough. Mind you, my cab was a prototype rather than a production model so I'm not sure if it's indicative of what you get with a new one. What looked like scuff marks after doing a few gigs turned out to be bits of paint which had scraped off door frames etc, not damage to the cab finish. It does have a different look to tolex, but to my mind stage gear is built to be seen from a few feet away, so it doesn't bother me.
  20. Beer of the Bass
    Does the dull sounding no-name cab have a tweeter in it? I've played through a few tweetered cabs where the crossover frequency is set too low for the tweeter to work properly, leaving a hole in the upper mids that EQ can't fix. If your cab is one of these you might want to try ditching the tweeter and crossover and running the full-range signal to the 12". It might or might not help, but it would cost nothing to try. I'm enjoying the tunes on Soundcloud, by the way!
  21. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1340995439' post='1712728'] [url="http://www.lakland.com/direct/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LD&Product_Code=JOSF4&Category_Code=4STRS"]Here you are.[/url] Don't worry that you're buying from the US - they arrive in about a week, and you don't have to pay any duty. [/quote] How do the Laklands compare to others flats like Chromes, EBs etc? I'm using and enjoying Ernie Balls at the moment, I've also tried Picato which were too dark and thumpy for me, TI Jazz flats which were nice but a little too soft feeling for my playing style, and D'addario Chromes which seem very close to the EBs.
  22. Beer of the Bass
    You're not on any medications, are you? My other half was briefly prescribed Carbamazepine for epilepsy, and there's an occasional side-effect where it messes up pitch perception.
  23. Beer of the Bass
    And Roger Ruskin-Spears' amplified Trouser Press!
  24. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1340971092' post='1712217'] For the synth-rock band I played in the 80s it was the starting point for most of our substitute guitar sounds. [/quote] Oddly, I have a friend who did the same with a DX7 into one of those little Boss half rack multi-FX. To this day he's still proud that he got sacked from one band for sounding too much like a guitarist.
  25. Beer of the Bass
    If you've got a crossover and tweeter, It'll complicate matters as crossovers are designed to work with a specific impedance. If you connect woofers wired at 2 ohms to a crossover designed to see 8 ohms, the results may be all over the place, so you may have to sacrifice your tweeter and run the 10"s full range if you want switchable impedance.
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