Agent 00Soul

Any ideas for a hard case for a lefty Jack Casady? I bought it new this month from a place in Germany and there wasn't any kind of covering but the cardboard box it came from the Epiphone factory in. It's in one of my better gig bags at the moment, but the lower bout is too wide for it to be properly zipped up. And anyway, I don't trust soft cases for semi-hollowbodies.

Another big difference is that the transients of the bass can be massive. They are much less of an issue with guitars. That might lead to a different route to engineering tech.

Thanks everyone! Great stuff here that I didn't know about.

Does anyone have any experience with any battery powered bass amps? I am playing with an acoustic singer/songwriter of late and we've been setting up in places that often aren't near electrical outlets, including outside in the warmer weather.

My university dormitory was in Hove

Maybe it was the drugs that made them brave enough to take a chance with Revolver. I sure couldn't imagine BTS, who are about as sophisticated a boy band as you will find today and who I like personally, suddenly making an experimental musical collage for their next record though. But I couldn't imagine them taking drugs either.

When you think about it, just the act of making Revolver was incredibly brave. It seems the obvious thing to have done in hindsight but they must have been taking a big chance on their careers at the time. The Beatles entered 1966 as essentially a (very sophisticated and talented) boy band and left as Avant Garde aesthetes. I couldn't imagine Col Parker allowing Elvis to make such a radical change in musical direction by way of a simplistic comparison. Luckily for them, the record buying public loved it, but think about what might have happened had it flopped. No Sgt Pepper, no White Album etc. They could just as easily become a Badfinger-style power pop band in an attempt to salvage their careers if Revolver didn't find favour. As for the Rickenbacker thing: I've owned Ricks and Fenders over the years. The thing to realize about Paul's use of the Rick during his Beatles days was I suspect that he and the EMI engineers rolled a lot of the treble off so it is not the typical sound that Ricks are known for. His work with Wings is more of the classic Rick sound from my experience playing one.

When DIs first started becoming common, people liked the way it sounded with a bass but not a guitar. The low-fi sound of a valve amp has continued to be the almost exclusive sound of choice for guitar and with bass it was just one of several that have evolved over the years.

The stereotype of the young 2010s guitarist was of a person playing a 1950s or 60s-design offset guitar plugged into a low wattage valve amp with 17 boutique pedals in the chain. The stereotype for the 2020s is the same person, but plugged into a digital modelling amp with a pedal controller and a couple of vintage 1970s-90s pedal reissues.

I want an Ikea-style instruction manual with the two blobby assembly guys and no words! I'm actually of two minds about this. On one hand, ashtrays are more authentically vintage - which is no doubt why they are included in the case unmounted - but the fact remains that the vast majority of players since the 1950s have removed theirs because they hinder play - which is also no doubt why they are included unmounted. I like the idea of having the option to install them, but I don't trust myself to drill the holes properly. So I could really mess up the aesthetics of a beautifully finished instrument. And if I ever decided to take the ashtrays off, the screw holes that I added will now be visible. But at the same time, pre-drilled holes would also mess up those same aesthetics if they were never used to install the ash trays. If it were a Doctor Who episode, it would be called "The AV II Paradox".

Somewhat OT, but they've been progressive with their amps. Aside from coming up with new ideas themselves, I've seen things that used to be the preserve of boutique amps that they've included much cheaper, probably do to the economy of scale and their deep pockets.

If the lefty Jack Casady bass was around at the time I was using my Viola for the lounge stuff I definitely would have bought one!

I did eventually replace it with an Epiphone Viola bass. By that time, I was playing in an electronic longue sort of band (think Air or Koop) and I was amazed to find that it was the best bass in my collection for recording that style of music. I was surprised.

For the flip side, I was in a band without a guitar player for a couple of years. It was mostly electronica influenced and a plenty big sound (3 singers, live drum programming, Nord keyboard, trumpet, sometimes congas/bongos, me on bass through a pedalboard of fx). It certainly didn't need a guitarist and we never mentioned that we didn't have one unless asked. And we were asked a lot, even by electronica fans who I didn't think cared about stuff like that. The fact was, and we had to admit it to ourselves, that people like electric guitars and at least some people really missed seeing/hearing one on stage.

A heavily modified Hofner Beatle bass. The control plate had been completely replaced with a conventional switch set-up. I only kept it for a short while. About 15 years later I went to see a local band and their bassist was playing it. I'm glad it got a good home, but by that point I so wished that I never got rid of it.

The Rascals/Young Rascals - who were more of a soul band from the same period as The Doors - also left it to the organ to handle the bass stuff live. But they used bass guitars on all their albums except for the first one. I think the Dandy Warhols do the same thing. In the 1990s, some of the riot grrrl bands like Sleater-Kinney and Bratmobile didn't use bassists either. Neither did Germany's Stereo Total.

Very cool suit and trilby!

The story has a happy ending! The Bruce Thomas pickups have been installed. I haven't played out with them yet, but I have practiced. The video review on YouTube posted above is quite accurate at portraying what the sound is like. This is very much what I associate the 70s P-Bass sound with, although I guess that's actually wrong since Thomas based this on his 64 model, but souped up. So maybe Fender's 62 reissue also sounds like this. BTW as other reviewers have said online, these pickups are quite loud: easily the loudest bass pickups I have ever owned in fact. But that is of no importance to me, I was concerned about the tone which is just what I was looking for. Thanks everyone for all your advice!

Jefferson Airplane did indeed use a lot of hollow & semi-hollows between their Guild Starfires, ES-345s, and Rick 360-12s.

I'm thrilled they finally made a production run of the Casady model. Would have been all over it 10 or 15 years ago, but I can't bring myself to buy any more instruments.

Many thanks for this suggestion! They did, in fact, send me the pickups separately. It probably wouldn't have occurred to me to ask if not for you. They were a little confused by the fact that my P-bass pickup is installed "upside down" on my left-handed Frankenbass (treble side in the front), but they went with it in the end. I will post a report when it's installed. BTW for what it's worth, they told me a lefty version of the Bruce Thomas Profile bass is coming out around July.

Wow - that's the exact sound. It doesn't look like the pickups are sold separately unfortunately.

Thank you everyone for all this! It's very useful - I know much more than I did when I asked the question. An embarrassment of riches really.

Hi - the P-bass pickup on my Frankenbass are shot and need replacing. I've always been partial to the punchy P-bass sound of the 1970s. Think Sting, Roger Waters, Bruce Thomas. Does anyone know if any aftermarket replacement brands lean towards that sound? Even including the stuff Fender themselves make. Thanks