Beer of the Bass

I don't have a steady pedalboard at the moment, and since I use no more than two pedals in any current project, I don't feel I want to go that route. A simple wall wart type power supply with a small daisy chain would be more convenient, but I keep running into noise issues with the ones I've had. For double bass gigs, I'm running a Schalltechnik Vong HPF/LPF and a Harley Benton tuner that's pretty much a TU-2 copy. For electric bass gigs, it's a fuzz (either a Superfuzz or Big Muff clone, I haven't settled on which yet) and the HPF/LPF. Both a Dunlop/MXR 9v and a generic 9v plug top supply from eBay have high frequency noise in various situations, and it doesn't appear to be a daisy chaining issue since it still happens with only one pedal powered. Both are SMPS types. I have a Harley Benton Powerplant Junior (linear supply with isolated outputs) which is quiet in all situations, but the form factor is less handy for my purposes. Everything is quiet running from batteries too. As far as plug-top supplies go, is something like a 1-spot going to be more reliably quiet than the other ones I've had? And are there other specific ones known to be decent?

Which venue was that, out of curiosity? It's always handy to keep track of which ones have useable backline!

The Ampeg PF-50T is 8.8kg, and might be a better comparison as it's also a 50 watt amp. It saves quite a bit of weight by just having a cage on top of the chassis rather than a full wooden cabinet. Mesa had a couple of surprisingly light valve bass heads too.

I did once email them and ask, trying to determine if it would make a good piezo preamp. At the time, they didn't have that information available.

If you do stick with the double bass, don't be afraid to drop your bridge adjusters right down, go for some low-tension strings and use lots of amp. Also I feel like much of the physical challenge is in carting the instrument and gear around, so some help with that might go a long way.

Yes, that bit puzzles me. I can understand getting heated over the political stuff that can make a big difference to people's lives and wellbeing, and I've definitely done it myself. But to do so over the minutiae of bass amplification, flats vs. rounds, whether 4 strings are enough (etc etc) seems plain daft!

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.