alexclaber

[quote name='peted' post='307714' date='Oct 16 2008, 10:51 AM']...I also feel that it improves string tension (could entirely be psychological...)[/quote] It doesn't change static string tension but it can slightly change the feel of the string when playing by reducing the compliance of the string (due to the windings round the post compressing and/or the strings round the post stretching). I noticed a significant change in feel when going from a headless Steinberger type bass to a conventional bass, despite matching scale lengths and strings. Alex

With Sperzel tuners you should only have about a quarter to half a turn on the post. Yes, it's quite scary, I keep thinking the string will come off mid-gig. But it never does - change in mindset required... Alex

[quote name='Jim Fleeting' post='307620' date='Oct 16 2008, 09:21 AM']I've been keeping my eye on this post, and the last comment worried me a little. These aren't [i]my[/i] opinions regurgitated. Wood is really important. It's all really important. That's my opinion.[/quote] Sorry Jim, I wasn't suggesting it was your opinion, it was Carl Thompson that I was referring to. Read this interview to see where ARGH's combative yet illogical stance originates: [url="http://www.ctbasses.com/CTinterview.html"]http://www.ctbasses.com/CTinterview.html[/url] Alex

[quote name='ARGH' post='306832' date='Oct 15 2008, 08:18 AM']Alex you once wrote something along the lines of "AN instrument has to sound good acoustic before it sounds good electronically"..which is pish...[/quote] Pickups and EQ cannot change the dynamic and temporal response of an instrument, only the momentary frequency response. You can continue telling yourself (and me and everyone else) that acoustic response is irrelevant but you have never succeeded in explaining why. All you do is regurgitate the opinions of one luthier. Use your own brain! Alex

[quote name='ARGH' post='306762' date='Oct 14 2008, 11:12 PM']But they dont effect tone..not as much as scale..scale always effects tone..longer shorter..whichever..woods cannot for that compensate that. Woods matter in regards to acoustics but once you plug in,you pretty much remove that.[/quote] Before stating that it comes down to physics you should do some thinking about the complex resonant system that is a bass guitar. I agree that scale length has a huge effect but it's almost a moot point because few will play anything other than a 34" or 35" scale. But the effect of the material characteristics (stiffness, self-damping, mass, etc) upon tone is provable through scientific analysis and your almost religious devotion to claiming "woods dont effect tone" (sic) is just as ridiculous a stance as those that won't play a bass that doesn't have a Brazilian Rosewood board because nothing else sounds the same... Alex

Buy gold! Alex

Many of the products of these build diaries are how they are due to a collaboration between the player and the builder. My RIM Custom 5 wouldn't have looked or sounded like this if Robbie had built it for someone else. The design process for my bass took literally years and many hours of effort on my part before I started speaking with Robbie. He then brought his own ideas and skills to the project and thus a great instrument resulted. If you work out the hourly rate for a luthier you will see that these guys do it for the love of it, not the money! Alex

Can I interest you in a nice speaker cab? Or for a significantly lower budget, how about a song or two? (See signature...) Alex

A mere $1 per song (that's about 55p)! [url="http://cdbaby.com/cd/reluctant"]http://cdbaby.com/cd/reluctant[/url] And at an average of five minutes each that's a good wodge of groove for your money! Alex

Going the power amp / cab route is going to be a struggle with your budget. However the esteemed Mr Lager has a combo for sale that could do just what you need! Alex

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='303378' date='Oct 9 2008, 10:27 PM']Fender Jazz w/flats, eg. Forget Me Nots (Patrice Rushen)[/quote] Actually that classic line was played on a Fender Precision with fresh roundwounds - spank that P! Alex

Lots to choose from. Your bass and how you play it matters more though! Alex

Mud is usually a derogatory term for a tone lacking upper midrange and treble but it's all about context - a tone that can work great in one situation could be considered horribly muddy in another. A dead spot is a note that doesn't speak properly because the movement of the neck at that specific fret is significantly out of phase with the movement of the string, which cancels out a large portion of the sound. Often happens around the 5th fret on the G-string on a Fender. If you increase the neck stiffness or reduce the neck mass (particularly the headstock mass) then these deadspots will move higher in frequency and/or up the neck - my headless bass had a deadspot around the 14th fret on the G-string. My '87 Warwick and RIM Custom 5 have no detectable deadspots because the necks are so stiff. One way to solve this problem on a Fender is to add mass to the headstock so the potential deadspot position moves down the neck and past the nut. Alex

[quote name='The Funk' post='302185' date='Oct 8 2008, 02:16 PM']Put away the sheet music - now![/quote] I was going to say 'has anyone said that?' As they have then I'll quote it so you can read it again. You have to trust in yourself to remember what comes next. Don't worry about being able to remember the chorus on its own but simply learn the route to it from the intro. Think of it as like when you're driving a long journey that you know well (or walking/cycling for non-drivers). You'd struggle to remember all the junctions independently but when you come to each one in a fixed sequential order then you know what to do. Thanks to Pino Palladino for first expressing this idea to me via BP mag - 'trust chops' he called them. Clever man! Alex

Great band. Just don't listen to what the music press say about them! (But why would anyone listen to the opinions of a group that is dominated by failed punk musicians?) Alex

The basic role of a preamp is to provide a high impedance buffer for your bass guitar's output, followed by sufficient gain to drive your power amp to full volume. It can also include tone-shaping or EQ, plus distortion or compression or even a crossover to drive a biamped rig. No preamp is a perfect straight wire with gain though some really high-end mic preamps as used for classical recording come close (Anthony Jackson uses a Milennia one). Many add colouration which can often be beneficial - the key is to choose the colouration that best suits your bass. The Avalon U5 is the closest you'll get to flat and uncoloured at a reasonable price. I like to use a preamp that gives me the best possible recorded tone and so I can hear that well live I use a relatively transparent cab. If your cab is more coloured but you still tend to DI for gigs and recording you end up with a mismatch between what you're hearing and what the audience is hearing, which isn't ideal especially if you like to use your hands to control your tone. Most bass heads/preamps have a built-in tone curve so their nearest to flat setting is rarely with all the EQ set at 0. For instance both GK and Genz are both flat through the mids, rolled off on the bottom and boosted on the top, SWR are scooped out in the low mids and boosted in the lows and highs, Markbass are actually quite close to flat, etc. Alex

Best bits: Groove Tone Ideas Singing simultaneously Worst bits: Walking Soloing Playing jazz Playing covers - I get SO bored Alex

To all those that don't like modern RnB, check out D'Angelo - Voodoo! It features one of the most incredible rhythm section performances I have ever heard, truly mind-bending. (This is my only modern RnB CD but it more than makes up for the rather limp efforts that pervade that genre...) Alex

Hartke LH500 is such a great deal. You can guess what cab I'd recommend and having heard the two together I can confirm it is a righteously toneful and loud pairing! Alex

[quote name='johnnylager' post='152168' date='Mar 6 2008, 09:10 AM']How will I hear Hocus Pocus by Focus everyday? Everyone signed up? There's a crate or 3 of lager on me to tuck into at the next South Coast bass bash for all signatories![/quote] Did I miss the lager then?! Or was it inside one of those big fridge cabs... Alex

[quote name='escholl' post='299868' date='Oct 5 2008, 01:23 PM']err...maybe it's just me, but those graphs don't say that much to me on their own. A graph of frequency response and/or sensitivity/vs frequency, would really be a bit more informative. any chance of that?[/quote] These plots are the result of combining a frequency response plot with a max power plot. Where the plot has the typical flat-ish on right curving down to eventually steep descent on the left is where the output of the speaker is being limited by the thermal power handling. There are then two places on each curve (for a ported speaker) where the output can potentially be limited by the mechanical power handling (hitting Xmax), which are the dip in response above the tuning frequency and the steep drop in response below the tuning frequency. So if you want to know the frequency response for any of these speakers just ignore the dip above the tuning frequency but bear in mind that most speakers can't handle full RMS power let alone program power in this region and that's just where you need maximum output for most bass guitar sounds. Does that make sense? Alex

[quote name='5_string_death' post='299552' date='Oct 4 2008, 07:17 PM']Oh yeah, I'm not to good with the whole speaker ratings, ohms etc. kinda thing. Just confuses me. What I meant by overkill is that its just to much power really.[/quote] It doesn't have any power, it's a speaker cab. It can handle a lot of power without thermal power compression and then damage but you can use as much or little power as you want. Most bass players would find a 300W head more than sufficient with a cab this large. Alex

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='296804' date='Oct 1 2008, 04:21 PM']The intriguing thing with this cab is that it sounds fatter/fuller the more watts that get pushed through it. [/quote] The curious thing is that most cabs should sound fatter/fuller the more watts that get pushed through them because when you turn things up the frequency response of the human ear gets better in the lows so it sounds like you're not just turning up the volume but also boosting the lows. The reason many cabs don't act like this is because their low frequency power handling is so poxy that they start compressing/distorting in the bottom before you've got them up to a loud volume so the frequency response tilts more towards the mids and highs as you increase the volume. The reason this cab doesn't act like this is because it is big and has six nice 10" woofers sharing the load so by the time it starts compressing/distorting in the bottom it's so damn loud that your ears are giving up! Alex

It's rated at 2000W because it contains eight 10" woofers each rated at 250W. That doesn't actually mean anything terribly useful. What do you mean by overkill? Alex

[quote name='Protium' post='298802' date='Oct 3 2008, 06:10 PM']To set a constant volume going to the power amp without needing the limiter.[/quote] What? Where does the limiter come into it? The limiter is on the power amp and is independent of the other knob positions, it purely engages when the output signal from the power amp no longer tracks the input signal to the power amp. Same as any other amp with a true output limiter. [quote name='Protium' post='298802' date='Oct 3 2008, 06:10 PM']Look at it this way: Compare a 3 band EQ to a 12 band EQ. Which one is more limited?[/quote] You are continuing to miss the point. If you want more extensive EQ buy a different amp - Hartke even make other amps that fulful your requirements. Note that those amps are more expensive because the extra circuitry costs more. [quote name='Protium' post='298802' date='Oct 3 2008, 06:10 PM']Hartke have made a serious amp and then undersold it IMO. They didn't need to put hundreds of features on it, just a decent EQ section and it's in a league of it's own. It's like Ferrari building a car with a V12 engine and then only giving it 1 gear.[/quote] No, it's nothing like that. They've built an amp which costs very little which has the same features as many popular rack rigs like those with Demeter, Kern, Aguilar, Alembic, Trace Elliott valve preamps. Just because you want lots of EQ doesn't mean everyone else does. Just accept that we are all individuals ("I'm not!" "Shhhh...") [quote name='Protium' post='298802' date='Oct 3 2008, 06:10 PM']P.S. Blah, I have a big sound too, but I also have control over my tone which allows me to alter this sound if I feel the need, ZOMG HERESY![/quote] If you'd like to come down to Brighton for a lesson into how to control tone using your fingers then do let me know. "ZOMG, his bass makes all these different sounds and he isn't twisting any knobs, WTF?!!!!" Alex