Beer of the Bass

I don't know if it's a recent phenomenon - I have a relatively light presence here these days, but I can recall things getting just as heated 4-5 years back.

It may be a little harder on the valves, depending on the amp and how hard you run it, but it's unlikely to be very severe with a smaller mismatch like that.

I'm at the worrying point of being happy enough with what I'm getting from my bass and other gear that I can rarely be bothered plugging pedals in, let alone looking around for anything else! I wonder if it'll last?

I've been thinking the same - with the right strings and amp, and favouring the neck pickup, my 5-string with J pickups gets pretty close to what I'd want from a P bass.

I'm kind of fond of that; I started on an Ibanez ric copy, then an Aria TSB, then a homebuilt 4-string with the bridge off the ric copy (later a Hipshot), then my 5-string with the same spacing as the MM fivers, with only a couple of briefer spells with Jazz basses. So I've spent most of my playing time since my teens on string spacing that's narrower than Fender.

I wouldn't mind a Rick, if it was one of the newer five strings without the daft bridge and pickup cover!

I don't have a P or a Rick, or an iPhone. Lucky me...

I'm confused now - do we ask you, or not?

Does their dad Sydney have a video where he explains about the tiny bubbles in his wine?

Aspiring session players care, so it's probably sound advice for people looking to work in that specific environment. As a window on working practices in one part of the music scene what they're saying makes perfect sense, but it shouldn't be taken as a commandment for all bassists.

If you're set on having no pots but prefer the sound with the pickups loaded by the pots, you could always put a resistor across the output - the pickups won't know the difference.

It might just be a case of someone with multiple basses swapping his favourite neck onto his favourite body.

My bass related purchases haven't been many this year, but I've been happy with them all. First my old double bass pickup broke, and I replaced it with a KNA DB-1, which has got to be one of the better bridge piezos I've heard. I changed over to TI Jazz Flatwounds on my electric bass, and those are still doing it for me. They have the mid-forward character I used to like about Sadowsky Black Label flats but a nice slinky, supple feel like a light set of rounds, and a clear sounding low B. I picked up a Schalltechnik HPF/LPF pedal in kit form that hasn't had a whole lot of use yet, but it's neat, quiet and does what it's meant to. But I'd say the most fun thing was my Ampeg pf-50t, on the special deal from Kenny's. I had some teething troubles with the valves, but it's a good sounding amp and not too much bother to move around. I've had a few different vintage valve amps from 40 to 100 watts, but the flexible EQ and DI outputs make this a fair bit more useful for me.

I'm not familiar with the 90s reissue of the 50 Top, but if it's the same circuit as the 70s version it looks like it should be fine for bass. They had fairly low gain preamps, and the EQ was based on a passive James tone stack which usually works out well for bass use.

Oh dear, I'm pretty sure I've done some free improv gigs that sounded like that!

If the amp in question is a simple valve amp with a passive tone control (as most of the examples I can think of are), it can be quite a complex task. Most passive single tone controls have relatively low insertion loss compared to a Fender/Marshall three band or James (B15 style) two band circuit, so the amp may require an additional gain stage or other mods to work correctly.

D'Addario Chromes and TI Jazz Flatwounds both have an untapered B.

A while ago I had a try at modelling the driver used in the Crazy 8 in a similar sized cab, thinking it might be useful with double bass. Getting a port big enough not to be noisy into a box that size is quite a design challenge. I presume this is why they've used the flared port, but it'd be fair to say that getting a similar cab optimised wouldn't be the easiest place to start in cab design.

Aww, I bet we could get another 14 pages out of why they call it 150W when it appears to be quite closely based on a 100W Marshall circuit! More seriously, it has a bit of a following over on Talkbass, and does seem to make a viable bass amp, if that particular character is what you like.

Only once that I can recall, though I've also had a couple of run-ins with knackered, barely working supplied backline where I wished I'd brought my own.

Usually, yes. But regardless of how the quoted power outputs are derived, if the Bugera really is putting out a similar amount of power to competing products that quote an output of less than half of what Bugera does, then it'd be fair to say that the 2000W figure is intended to mislead.

I got the Vong up and running this morning. It's a straightforward build, not noisy and everything functions as expected. Hard to say more than that before I have the chance to use it in a gig situation really. My main use for it will be with double bass to control the low end and maybe use the switchable LPF to take the harsh edge off my amplified bow sound. Though it could also be useful to tame my DI fuzz sound with electric bass with the LPF, and maximise headroom on my little Ampeg pf-50t with the HPF. I've also got to try splitting a heavily highpassed signal into a dirty guitar combo some time, for a pseudo Ric-O-Sound setup - might be interesting to record with...

I did one freehand with a craft knife, and it's pretty scruffy looking up close. So the jig looks like a good idea!

Not sure if this has come up already in the 12 pages, but the quoted power consumption of 880 watts is the same as the GK MB800 Fusion. Since both amps have similar topology (Class D power amp, SMPS, preamp using 3 x 12AX7) and the power consumption has to be rated consistently for regulatory reasons, it would seem a reasonable guees that the output might be roughly in line with other manufacturers compact 800W bass heads.

I'd agree, the Ruby valves on mine had a higher mortality rate than I'd hope for, with the power tubes first refusing to bias properly and being replaced under warranty, and the phase inverter valve going microphonic (which I sorted myself). However, the amp sounds good and now that the valves in there have survived a good few hours use at band volume I'm happy enough to stick with the ones that are in there now. And I presumed the Kenny's deal might be related to the change of ownership - perhaps Polar were sitting on a bigger stock of them than they intended to, given that Yamaha likely have their own distribution arrangements.