Beer of the Bass

It looks like a relative of this amp;

[url="http://www.chambonino.com/work/miscguitar/misc18.html"]http://www.chambonino.com/work/miscguitar/misc18.html[/url]

So I guess it might have been labelled Gem.

I bought a set of tuners from Chris. They were in excellent condition, he responded quickly to messages and I'd cheerfully buy from him again.

I had an Ibanez rick copy, from the Cross Salesroom in Glasgow for £80. Unfortunately a previous owner had pretty much trashed it. It had moved at the heel joint which someone had "repaired" by drilling in completely useless dowels, and a big crack near the nut, which had been glued with epoxy which also locked the over tightened truss rod in place! The back of it had been oversprayed to hide all of this. It self-destructed about a year later...

I'm thinking that the first one would look good with a really garish pickguard material like this:

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260786670319&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT[/url]

A bit like the colour scheme on Prince's Hohner guitar.

I do play with a pick some of the time, but my pick style involves more wrist than elbow movement (i.e moving in a relatively small arc), so the position of the controls on my four string has never bothered me. I would probably have the contols slightly further back on the second option - the picture is just a rough mock-up. I'm thinking more of the aesthetic aspects of the two. The second option looks a bit less fender derivative, which could be a good thing. I tend not to like basses with plain wood fronts, as I feel like a pickguard or control plate of some sort can compliment the lines of the body and break up the coffee table look.

I'm about to embark on building a five string bass, using a swamp ash body blank and a maple neck which came from an OLP. I also have a pair of Jazz pickups from a Lakland Joe Osborn, and a set of Schaller tuners on the way. The bridge will be a generic Gotoh 201 lookalike from an eBay seller. In a couple of weeks, I'll drop in on my brother, who has a nice workshop with bandsaw and router etc. and cut out the body. I'm planning to finish it in Tru-oil, to keep the blonde look.
I have built one instrument before, about 12 years ago, which I enjoy playing but it's somewhat crudely built and the weight (12 1/2 lbs) is starting to make my back ache after gigs and rehearsals. So the intention is to build something lighter - anywhere under 10 pounds will be fine. I've decided on my body shape, which will be based on my old four string but with rounded, jaguar style horns. I'm toying with the idea of using a little teardrop shaped control plate like my four string has, or a more fenderish pickguard and back routed controls. I've mocked up both configurations, and included a picture of my old four string for comparison. I'd be curious to see which people like better, the pickguard or control plate.

I modded a cheap precision copy to eight string a while ago, and used the existing bridge with additional grooves cut in the saddles. There are some pictures of it here:

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=98333&hl=eight"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=98333&hl=eight[/url]

Because of the position of the intonation adjusting screws, the strings have to travel at a bit of an angle behind the saddles, and I needed quite deep grooves to stop them from popping out. So the grooves in a threaded saddle may not be deep enough to work well. Admittedly mine was a bit of a zero budget, quick and dirty job just to see if it would work. The intonation is a bit rough higher up, but not totally unusable.

If you're into DIY, an OLC Flipster run in to a decent DI box is an option. It's quite limited, but does a pretty convincing job if you like its basic tone, and there's no mid scoop unless you crank the bass and treble controls all the way up.

PM'd regarding Tuners!

I've not seen a schematic for the sound city, but on my old Carlsbro valve head, I changed the value of the bright cap (a capacitor across the master volume) to give me a bit more clarity, as the cab I use rolls off the highs quite low down. If everything else is healthy, it might be worth a shot, as it's about the single cheapest change you can make. It wouldn't make any difference if you're running the volume control most of the way up though.

I'd agree, for any kind of jazz, other than old swing or trad jazz, try Spirocores first. The Weich (soft) gauge will be easier on the hands, Mittel (medium) are a bit stiffer. Even if you decide further down the line that you want to try something else, you'll have a good reference point to go from, since pretty much every jazz bassist is familiar with them.

He comes across as being a lot more reasonable in that written interview than in the video in the first post. I wonder if he'd had a bad day with his students shortly before that?
I like the comments about jazz and funk artists though. Though I love a lot of Jazz, and a lot of Funk, there are a fair few examples of Jazz-Funk which leave me cold!

Although Euphonic Audio make some good sounding cabs using what they consider to be a transmission line design. Whether they truly are a transmission line or just an alternative type of port, they are effective cabs.

Picato are cheap and generally OK too. Their stainless steel rounds feel and sound a lot like rotosound, only cheaper. I did get one duff string in a pack, but the shop were happy to replace that.

I've done this, so it's definitely acheivable. Mine was fender style silver cloth. Getting it reasonably tight wasn't too hard, mine is not absolutely perfect but is as good as many old fenders I've seen. I used a staple gun, started by securing the grille at the centre of the top and bottom sides, then did the centre of the left and right sides. I then worked outwards to the corners, using plenty of staples and stretching it tight as I went. Another pair of hands can help, as can a girlfriend who dabbles in upholstering! It also helps if you can use a synthetic cloth which will shrink and tighten when heated with a hot hairdryer.

I think what happened with McCoy Tyner was a major cock up on the part of the producers. If they had any familiarity at all with his performances (i.e. done their homework), they'd have known he wouldn't fit in to their 4-minute slot and structured the program accordingly.
And if you dislike Jools Holland at the moment, try reading his autobiography and you'll like him even less!

How smooth are they compared to other flats like Chromes? I used to use Rotosound flats on my fretless when I started playing back in the 90's, I went through a couple of sets and they were always pretty rough looking and feeling. Just wondering if they've improved their manufacturing since then.

Scary stuff! Had I been aware of that, I wouldn't have been buying from Boston, but I was about 14 and all that stuff wasn't even on my radar...

Yeah, Mev's is still going - they're down near the Queen's hall now. I remember Boston's - I bought my first bass amp (a Selmer T&B 50) there in about 1993-4 ish, and seriously considered a bizzare Hayman from them as my first bass well. I think it's a phone shop now...

I passed Mev Taylor's in Edinburgh today, and they had [url="http://www.mevtaylors.co.uk/amplifiers_voxcmi.htm"]this[/url] in the window, which looks cool. I think the head and cab are tagged at £250. Weren't CMI a Marshall relative? I don't need another valve amp, but it could be interesting to somebody here...

[quote name='Soloshchenko' post='1194236' date='Apr 10 2011, 02:17 AM']cheers. What did you attach the red and white to on yours then?[/quote]

First I connected the bare and red wires together and connected them to earth via the pot casing and used the white as the signal lead (i.e. going to the switch on your bass). This was out of phase with my other pickup, so what worked for me was bare & white going to earth (pot casing) and the red as the signal lead. You'll hear it if the pickups are out of phase, as the two pickup sound will be thin and very quiet. So some trial and error may be necessary to get the red and white wires the right way round, but the bare wire will always be earthed to the pot casing.

On my KA toaster, the bare wire was the casing ground, and the red and white were the two ends of the coil. I mention this as mine was out of phase with my other pickup when wired as per the diagram, and I had to switch the red and white around to get the phase right.

Cool, it sounds like they'll do the job. I was a bit concerned from the "warmer, fuller" etc. in the blurb that they might be overly dark sounding, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

On my home built bass I have a single coil Kent Armstrong toaster pickup up by the end of the neck. It's a 24th fret neck though, so the centre of the pickup is about 18cm from the bridge saddles. It has slightly deeper bottom end than a typical Jazz neck pickup, but has plenty of highs and articulation. If you click on the Jen & the Gents link in my sig, you can hear it on "Disappear" and "Can't look back". I reckon as long as you have a sufficiently clear sounding pickup, it won't sound muddy.

Would you say they were brighter or mellower than the stock highway 1 pickups? I had a H1 jazz for a while, so it could be a useful reference point.