Muzz

The Tooting Popular Front needs a comeback...

So you're saying you have had non-musicians tell you they can tell the difference between body woods of a bass on a gig? I've had an entire band not notice* I switched to a 12-string bass at a rehearsal before now... 😁 * OK, technically they did notice me put one bass down and pick another one up between songs, but when I asked them what they thought about the difference in sound, they all went 'What?'** ** OK, the really depressing bit: the geetar/singist said 'Look, it's just a bass'... 😕

I've got Dingwall pickups in another bass (I upgraded the ones on the Dingwall (for different Dingwall ones) so they were spare) and they sound good in that. I did change the EQ for a John East U-Retro, though, which (again, IMHO) brings it to another level when plugged in. It's not just the pickups; there's the fan frets, the compound radius board, the banjo frets, the recessed tuners, the lightness, and importantly the overall quality of the build - it really is flawlessly designed and made. My point with the 'Ash and Maple' is that in terms of 'tonewood' it's a very very common combination for basses, yet no basses I've owned made from Ash and Maple sound much like my Dingwall.

I have a Dingwall, and it's a fantastic bass, there are several design features which taken together IMHO make it a step up from much of the normal designs around. It's made from Ash and Maple, but it's the way it's made that makes it extraordinary.

Yep; as I've just mentioned, it's all very very very subjective, and therefore a lovely grey area...which, if it were being sold as a Premium Grey Area, would probably be described as 'Light yet dark; clear yet misty'... 😁 Edit: Although I'd love to see some nice scientific evidence that Rosewoods are 'bright and dark'...got anything? I'll wait... 😁

I think a more pertinent question is Who is making the money? See SteveXFR's thoughts above... It's simply very good business practice to make a Premium product from more attractive materials and to then help justify the price of said Premium product with some claims which are, at the end of the day, completely subjective.

Naaah, you'll never charge more for it if you call it Tone Plywood...how about 'The body wood is a mellow yet sharp, dark yet bright Tonoply'? Double the price and Bob's yer Uncle, craddock's yer Aunt and yer dog's from Tarporley... 😁 Edit: the Naughty Filter's completely ruined that saying, then...pfffft 😕

More florid obfuscation from the Alembic 'Premium Woods' page: 'Indian Rosewood has a rich look to match its rich tone. As with other Rosewoods, the complex tone is both bright and dark.' So it's, erm, bright and dark? I think the only certain thing we can say is it's Premium, which means it's gonna cost you to find out...ditto Koa: 'Koa has a mellow tone, with big, plump low end response. Better for fingerstyle playing as a slapper will have to fight its mellow nature (but we certainly have heard players who can overcome the default tone of Koa).' Ahhhh, right...better for fingerstyle...unless you slap it, of course...then it's OK, too... These Premium Woods are a right old tonal conundrum...they do look nice, tho...

I think it's safe to say that 95% of the talk about tonewoods is still nonsense... 😁

The bands I've gigged with in the last 10 years have all had decent PAs, so while I've taken a rig with me on some larger gigs, I've got the option of going straight from the Stomp to the PA. A lot of the inears gigs are exactly this. I've also got a Behringer BDDi21 in my gig bag that I've never used, but for £20 it's worth leaving there, if only for hoodoo's sake... I take 2 basses to every gig (mostly because I can, in a double gig bag) and I have spares of all the gigbag stuff like strings, leads, batteries, etc...

There's a wedding DJ in the North West (can't remember his name, but I'd know him if I saw him...and I'd groan) who we've been paired with a few times on agency gigs, and he brings 4x15 full range speakers with him (big old 3ft x 2ft x 2ft cabs...he stacks them) and seems to take it as a personal mission to be louder than the band every time. When we play as a trio, we're in-ears, triggered kit and using 2 x RCF 12s with a 12 sub, so we can go from very quiet to loud enough (we can bring more for bigger rooms, but generally people like this)...then this twonk kicks in with 120db of distorted bass and fizzy mush...and that's for Lionel Ritchie... He's a complete weapon. Oh, and he brings his missus to sit there with him, a la Yoko Ono. He's in his 50s... TL:DR Wedding DJs can be Too Loud, too...

I came to the conclusion years ago that tonewoods look lovely, and are something for people who sell them to talk about while they're selling*...there may well be differences, but in a solid-body electric bass they are so far down the scale of what affects tone that their influence is vanishingly small. Especially when the drummer starts hitting things... * The Alembic website used to be awash with this sort of stuff, and tho they've toned it down (SWIDT?) recently, it's still dotted with gems like this: 'Tonally, Burl Redwood packs deep, dare we say "burly" bass reponse.' OK, we get it, you've got to upsell your premium tonewoods...pffft... 😕🙂

We had a record library in our school, a venture run single-handedly by Mr Murphy, and I never got to thank him enough. For the princely sum of 5p, you could have a week with the album of your choice, and it didn't half open my eyes...the Kiss albums I gravitated to first (the cover of Alive II was the biggie), but I played it and went 'This doesn't sound like it looks', and then I saw this: And that DID sound like it looked... 🙂

You know as well as the rest of us that time faffing around looking for something in particular is 75% of the fun anyway..so no, you can't 😁

I seem to recall (tho it was a loooong time ago, so I could well be wrong) that the 5000As were basically the 3000A with a modded P pup, head (+tuner), nut and bridge...if that was the case, and the nut width wasn't daft, I could live with this as a 4...for a bit less money, obv...

Watching jet-powered vehicles? A large marshmallow rammed down each lughole is a simple and cheap way to slightly reduce the noise levels...

Just on that Santa Pod thing (and for the OP, Motorhead and Manowar have both been pointlessly, painfully loud), I was at the TT a few years ago and some lunatic had brought a jet-powered dragster thing to loon up and down the prom for a show one evening. I was standing just the other side of the barrier (nearer than you can get at the Pod, unfortunately) when he let it rip, and it was as if you could hear the air tearing; it went beyond a noise into a slap in both ears...horrible...

I'm toying with replacing the tuners on my 414 with Ultralites - when I've done it in the past it's always been a good thing; the actual weight reduction isn't much on paper, but because the weight's out at the end of the neck, I've always noticed how much lighter the bass feels. There'll be an extra hole to drill, and there'll be a couple of empty holes, but I've never minded that...an easy job. I should add my 414 is my only bass without Ultralites...

There's an entirely disconnected middle section to Sting's Englishman In New York, like he's just remembered he's aspiring to jazz sensibilities (and he's got Branford Marsalis tapping him on the shoulder) halfway through a perfectly good pop song...the drum break to bring it back in is one of the most jarring transitions I've ever heard... I should add it's one of our 'Quiet set' staples, and we originally played it with the middle section in...once: everyone just looked at us like we'd gone mental, I guess people don't remember the middle...and for good reason... 😕

Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out starts out as a completely different song that just runs out of steam...

In my covers/function band, it's just the BL/singer/geetard and me, plus a drummer, so the BL likes the flexibility to call not only the song but the tuning, hence the Stomp presets; if he says 'We're playing blah-de-blah...in Eb', I just, ahem, Stomp a switch, and I'm in Eb. He has a full Helix, so he can bugger about with tunings all night, and I'll eventually hunt him down... 🙂 Yes, I know I should be able to transpose on the fly (and I can up to a point), but if the technology's there, why not use it?

I have drop tuners on my gigging basses for a 'natural' D when that's all I need, but the Helix Stomp tracks superbly for further drop tuning. I have all my tone/effects patches (6, IIRC - it's been a while since I switched it on 😕) copied into Eb, D and C, just in case. Having said that we used to cover both Uptown Funk and Get Lucky, and the keyboards can cover that lower end just fine - was never an issue...

Why thank you...it took me a while to get just where I wanted it (it had a Lakland neck originally, and getting the U-Retro in and the pickups under the covers was a bit of a squeeze)...the pic doesn't do the birdseye justice (tho it's not as 'marmalade' (Jon's word) as the other one)...both basses have the same neck profile, based on the other Shuker on the left, out of shot...