Is our sound over-processed?

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1323606643' post='1464874']
Well... Honestly... I do think they are inferior. That's not to say a good bolt-on is a competent instrument but invariably, bolt-on neck guitars are so constructed because they are cheap to make....Not because they offer advantages tonally. You tend not to find bass guitar luthiers (as opposed to companies diversifying into instruments) building a bolt-neck first and then building through necks... It's almost always the other way round...They build their top quality amazing sounding through-neck and later, if the market profile has grown and impecunious potential customers are lusting after their product, they commission cheaper bolt-necks (usually in foreign climes) which in effect sell on reflected glory..

Leo Fender built bolt on-neck guitars because a) He wasn't a Luthier, he was a radio engineer, and it was an easily replicatable process for mass production. His (and THE) original electric bass of course had felt blocks damping the strings to make it sound like a double bass...the way the strings reacted with the body was not even a tiny bit important...The tone of the P bass became an industry standard because it was the original instrument and it's a heck of a lot easier to replicate or copy a bolt-neck than it is to do a set neck or through neck.

I see bolt-neck guitars like I see rear wheel drive cars with one piece rear axles and leaf springs. Frequently entertaining but ultimately flawed and requiring quite a lot of 'help' to get them acceptable.

I also realise that nine times out of ten, in a live environment, by the time your instrument sound has actually reached the audience's ears via the cab, the way the cab interacts with the floor/room, the way it's mic'd, the way the desk process's it, and the way the front of house is set-up, , it hardly matters what the original construction or tone was... So providing the thing PLAYS similar to your favourite luthier-built through-neck baby that lives at home and spends time in the studio, you might as well have something pretty hanging off your neck!

well you DID ask!
[/quote]

Christ mate, you've made a big splash haven't you

I disagree with your appraisal of bolt on basses though. I tend to agree with Patrice Vigier who insists a good bolt-on is in no way inferior (tonally or otherwise) to any other system. I can't see how you can justify your opinion that they are flawed.

I'm also a fan of zero frets.

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324049648' post='1470299']
The output waveform of the instrument, amplified yet unaltered. Just like the sound of an upright acoustic instrument is ideally amplified yet unaltered.

If a violin player dislikes the tone of his instrument, he doesn't stick it through a pile of electronic effects... He gets another violin with a sound he prefers....

If you are not hearing the tone from your instrument you want, you should change the instrument. Every change in the signal path is a degradation.

....Unless of course you are in a covers band whose job is to accurately mimic the tone of the original artist's recordings...Although having been in several cover's bands, you don't need to be THAT close because the likelihood of getting even reasonably close to the recording while playing live is fairly remote. Ultimately it's about the audience and they'll lap it up irrespective of the finer points of instrument tone as long as you are tight, have good timing, and most importantly, having fun up there...
[/quote]

My electric basses all sound sh*t without amplification, I couldn't go on stage with much louder version of the unamplified sound, I'd be a f***ing laughing stock. I plug them into my POD X3 and they sound ace. Sound is nothing but personal preference and whether it fits with the other instruments and voices.

[guildbass]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1324055912' post='1470438']
Well now there is an interesting thing.

Cant think of anything much I've heard on a recording of a bass guitar that could be described as the sound of the instrument unaltered, just amplified.

Simply because that doesnt cut it at all.
[/quote]

What, you can't hear a bass guitar unless it's chucked through a sh*t load of effects....Really?

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324067023' post='1470608']
What, you can't hear a bass guitar unless it's chucked through a sh*t load of effects....Really?
[/quote]
He is saying that he sound of the instrument unaltered, just amplified, does not cut it on recordings. Try it, you'll find out he's right. You have to chuck it through a shitload of stuff to even approach making it sound right in a band mix.

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324066059' post='1470598']
My electric basses all sound sh*t without amplification, I couldn't go on stage with much louder version of the unamplified sound, I'd be a f***ing laughing stock. I plug them into my POD X3 and they sound ace. Sound is nothing but personal preference and whether it fits with the other instruments and voices.
[/quote]

Mine don't... at least the new one's don't. the Guild 302 didn't sound great...A bit like an old set neck Gibson, the old hofner 500 sounded...well frankly awful. The Spector sounds great, bright, looong rolling sustain and very controlled upper register. The Streamer similarly lovely which a deeper rolling bottom end sustain, very distinct mid band tones and again, a very detailed and crisp top end. The only time I use any tone controls is to tweak the bottom end to take in to account the way the room interacts with the amp.. I use everything flat...The bass and my fingers does it all...

Yeah... I'm opinionated...But I really do believe what I say... I'm not chiming in to be contentious...And I really enjoy the discourse!

9 times out of ten when I listen to another guy's bass sound I hear a fairly conventional bass sound... it just isn't the sound his instrument makes raw. I choose to have an instrument that actually makes the sound I like without needing processing...:-)

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324067351' post='1470614']
He is saying that he sound of the instrument unaltered, just amplified, does not cut it on recordings. Try it, you'll find out he's right. You have to chuck it through a shitload of stuff to even approach making it sound right in a band mix.
[/quote]

Well, we'll see cuz I'm in the Studio on the 29th with both the Spector and the Warwick. I intend to D.I. ...I might have to use compression because I may not be accurate enough to conntrol the fine dynamics... But that'll be all.

There also will be some 'room' in the mix...But that's OK i think!

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324069830' post='1470654']
Mine don't... at least the new one's don't. the Guild 302 didn't sound great...A bit like an old set neck Gibson, the old hofner 500 sounded...well frankly awful. The Spector sounds great, bright, looong rolling sustain and very controlled upper register. The Streamer similarly lovely which a deeper rolling bottom end sustain, very distinct mid band tones and again, a very detailed and crisp top end. The only time I use any tone controls is to tweak the bottom end to take in to account the way the room interacts with the amp.. I use everything flat...The bass and my fingers does it all...

Yeah... I'm opinionated...But I really do believe what I say... I'm not chiming in to be contentious...And I really enjoy the discourse!

[b]9 times out of ten when I listen to another guy's bass sound I hear a fairly conventional bass sound... it just isn't the sound his instrument makes raw. I choose to have an instrument that actually makes the sound I like without needing processing...:-)[/b]
[/quote]

A bass don't do sh*t without the player guvnor.

So can we hear your bass sound please?

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324069997' post='1470656']
Well, we'll see cuz I'm in the Studio on the 29th with both the Spector and the Warwick. I intend to D.I. ...I might have to use compression because I may not be accurate enough to conntrol the fine dynamics... But that'll be all.

There also will be some 'room' in the mix...But that's OK i think!
[/quote]

And you think a desk, compressors, limiters, eq, exciters, automation in the DAW, the engineer, and the loudspeakers you hear it all on and the room they're in don't affect your sound and dynamics? Ask the engineer what he did when you hear the finished masters, if you have an hour or two spare

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324065836' post='1470597']
Christ mate, you've made a big splash haven't you

I disagree with your appraisal of bolt on basses though. I tend to agree with Patrice Vigier who insists a good bolt-on is in no way inferior (tonally or otherwise) to any other system. I can't see how you can justify your opinion that they are flawed.

I'm also a fan of zero frets.
[/quote]

My fretless is a bolt on... It's a Fingerbone... i

It's like this. Like a lot of us, I take most opportunities to pop into Music shops to have a quick go. You inevitably grab the decent kit. I loved the Vigier 6 string guitar...especially the fretless 6 string...Although how one could play the damn thing beats me, my barre 'E' sounded...well...Dreadful! Kudos to anyone who can play a fretless treble guitar! As far as the Basses were concerned...Meh... OK... Better than a Music Man, better than a Fender but not a patch on a Streamer unplugged, ...No sustain in comparison...same goes for almost every other bolt neck bass I've tried. That isn't to say there isn't a bolt neck that sounds and feels as good as a Streamer or similar through neck...But I haven't found one yet...

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324070619' post='1470669']
My fretless is a bolt on... It's a Fingerbone... i

It's like this. Like a lot of us, I take most opportunities to pop into Music shops to have a quick go. You inevitably grab the decent kit. I loved the Vigier 6 string guitar...especially the fretless 6 string...Although how one could play the damn thing beats me, my barre 'E' sounded...well...Dreadful! Kudos to anyone who can play a fretless treble guitar! As far as the Basses were concerned...Meh... OK... Better than a Music Man, better than a Fender but not a patch on a Streamer unplugged, ...No sustain in comparison...same goes for almost every other bolt neck bass I've tried. That isn't to say there isn't a bolt neck that sounds and feels as good as a Streamer or similar through neck...But I haven't found one yet...
[/quote]

Ooh, a Fingerbone! A favourite of Robbie Shakespeare, or was.

My Streamer's a BO, and it's f***ing fantastic.

Edited December 16, 2011 by silddx

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324070605' post='1470668']
And you think a desk, compressors, limiters, eq, exciters, automation in the DAW, the engineer, and the loudspeakers you hear it all on and the room they're in don't affect your sound and dynamics? Ask the engineer what he did when you hear the finished masters, if you have an hour or two spare
[/quote]

I'm sure they would, if I let them! The room is fine..( When I say 'room' I mean an electronically applied reverb patch) .That's part of the sonics an acoustic ensemble relies on.... the Albert Hall doesn't add distortion or compression, it's designed so that everyone hears a reasonable reproduction of the music. When I listen to Buddy Holly's 50's recordings, I hear a bass...No special effects, no fancy stuff, just a bass through the vocal ribbon mic. Sounds fine apart from the bits where the bass notes interact with the room and disappear...Which is why I'll be D.I.ing.

I would hope the speakers will be pretty neutral. I've got a bit of history with speakers. basically, I'll be trying to hear my bass sound through the mix as accurately as it went in. If I have to tweak the sound to get it to come out sounding as it went in, then so be it, but MY little Mackie desk and monitoring is HiFi enough not to colour my sound so I'd be very disappointed if the studio's kit does.

The engineer will be my mate Ian, who is Porcupine Tree's engineer...he's a good lad and vey into the instrument's tone rather than creating a tone via the signal path... Anyway, we'll see...?-)

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324070955' post='1470672']
Ooh, a Fingerbone! A favourite of Robbie Shakespeare, or was.

My Streamer's a BO, and it's f***ing fantastic.
[/quote]

Yes, they are OK... Quite similar in many ways to the though-neck... but one layer removed....They worked hard to keep the family sound

[xilddx]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324071658' post='1470682']
I'm sure they would, if I let them! The room is fine..( When I say 'room' I mean an electronically applied reverb patch) .That's part of the sonics an acoustic ensemble relies on.... the Albert Hall doesn't add distortion or compression, it's designed so that everyone hears a reasonable reproduction of the music. When I listen to Buddy Holly's 50's recordings, I hear a bass...No special effects, no fancy stuff, just a bass through the vocal ribbon mic. Sounds fine apart from the bits where the bass notes interact with the room and disappear...Which is why I'll be D.I.ing.

I would hope the speakers will be pretty neutral. I've got a bit of history with speakers. basically, I'll be trying to hear my bass sound through the mix as accurately as it went in. If I have to tweak the sound to get it to come out sounding as it went in, then so be it, but MY little Mackie desk and monitoring is HiFi enough not to colour my sound so I'd be very disappointed if the studio's kit does.

The engineer will be my mate Ian, who is Porcupine Tree's engineer...he's a good lad and vey into the instrument's tone rather than creating a tone via the signal path... Anyway, we'll see...?-)
[/quote]

Why do you take this approach mate? The song is king, the singer brings the song alive, you and me are just there to enhance the experience and support the song and the singer. We are very important, us bassists, but we should not get above ourselves, the best bassists understand their role within the music and support its purpose.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324071907' post='1470688']
Why do you take this approach mate? The song is king, [b]the singer brings the song alive[/b], you and me are just there to enhance the experience and support the song and the singer. We are very important, us bassists, but we should not get above ourselves, the best bassists understand their role within the music [b]and support its purpose.[/b]
[/quote]

Depends on the track and the purpose really though...otherwise instrumentals'd be a bit of a non-starter!

But I can sort of see what Guildbass is saying, there's something very satisfying and uniquely musical about a 'naturalistic' mix where the players work around the sounds of each others' instruments, giving each instrument the space to allow its full spectrum through via the arrangement, rather than squashing each into a narrow frequency and dynamic range. That can be great too, of course.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324067351' post='1470614']
He is saying that he sound of the instrument unaltered, just amplified, does not cut it on recordings. Try it, you'll find out he's right. You have to chuck it through a shitload of stuff to even approach making it sound right in a band mix.
[/quote]

This, and your earlier comment that without the processing our instruments sound crap, is the point. It was the realisation that through a relatively uncoloured amplification system the sound of my bass was more difficult to live with than the more flattering sound from the previous rig implying that I actually don't like the sound of my favourite musical instrument. The sound has to be processed a long way away from its original sound to be palatable.

It made me want to start again with my view on the sound of a bass.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324070619' post='1470669']
... Better than a Music Man, better than a Fender but not a patch on a Streamer unplugged, ...No sustain in comparison...same goes for almost every other bolt neck bass I've tried. That isn't to say there isn't a bolt neck that sounds and feels as good as a Streamer or similar through neck...But I haven't found one yet...
[/quote]

I wonder that more significant in the sound is the make of the neck itself. Most (all?) neck-throughs are a sandwich construction to avoid resonation and the dreaded dead spots. Most bolt-ons, especially Fenders, are from one piece of wood. They nearly all resonate and have a dead, or at least less lively, spot on the 4th fret of the G. This gives the impression of a lack of sustain and has nothing to do with the neck fixing.

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324071907' post='1470688']
Why do you take this approach mate? The song is king, the singer brings the song alive, you and me are just there to enhance the experience and support the song and the singer. We are very important, us bassists, but we should not get above ourselves, the best bassists understand their role within the music and support its purpose.
[/quote]

I couldn't agree more... The song IS the key, and as bass players, we support and enhance.

As regards the instrument itself, all I'm saying is that in my opinion, unlike a 6 string electric, a good though-neck bass guitar has enough mass from it's strings to generate a unique tone from the interaction between it's strings and it's one piece construction that doesn't need further signal path distortion.

If you think about the nature of oscillation, which is what a stringed instrument relies on, having a string stretched between two points which are anchored on a one piece tone wood length, with two different q factor 'wings' attached is going to 'ring' and allow the oscillations to propagate through the wood and back up through the nut and bridge better than having a piece of wood that stops half way, then is bolted to another piece of wood (or perhaps a piece of medite) .
In engineering terms If you want to stop a thing from ringing, putting a break in the length and sticking a dissimilar material half way down is a bloody good way to do it....In fact it is exactly how you 'kill' vibration in a system...which is the opposite of how an instrument needs to work....Which of course is why you have to use loads of fancy electronics to enhance your sound if you start off with a vibration generator with a break halfway down!

I think we have to agree that there are two routes to tone. One is the route taken by electric guitarists where the guitar is one half of the system, with the signal path electronics forming the other half... And that is the same route that CAN be taken by a bass guitar player.
The other route is the one taken by players of instruments where the sound generated is entirely from the instrument, either as sound waves or as electromagnetic energy and is then converted to a louder acoustic output with as little interference as possible.

I have always admired the recordings done by Buddy Holly...The earlier ones.... Just a single ribbon mic, a guitar going through an amp, a stand-up bass and a vocalist. everyone moved around until the relative volumes were correct...and then played. There's NOTHING in the signal path at all. Just tape. Take a listen...They are stunning

[guildbass]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1324084448' post='1470808']
I wonder that more significant in the sound is the make of the neck itself. Most (all?) neck-throughs are a sandwich construction to avoid resonation and the dreaded dead spots. Most bolt-ons, especially Fenders, are from one piece of wood. They nearly all resonate and have a dead, or at least less lively, spot on the 4th fret of the G. This gives the impression of a lack of sustain and has nothing to do with the neck fixing.
[/quote]

Are they sandwiched to prevent resonance.?.. I've always believed they were sandwiched to prevent bending under string load. The laminations go longitudinally and are perpendicular to the fingerboard so they won't stop resonance but they will resist long term stress bending. With a neck-through your 'system' is a closed loop from nut, along the string to the bridge then down through the bridge and back along the one piece wood 'neck' and back to the nut. It's a closed loop tuned system.The wings are then attached to either side with a different density wood strip to allow them to move in sympathy with certain frequencies to further enhance the sustain.

With a Fender type instrument, the neck itself has a 'tone' when rapped but the vibes are killed or at least attenuated as the wood gets to the neck/body join so the string vibration is damped and can't get to the bridge with as much energy. It's closer to an open loop system.

It's similar with a set neck, unless it's an extra-ordinarily good join...Which is why my Guild 302 and the set neck Gibson basses I've played have a huge punch which decays relatively fast...The join isn't mechanically as good at transferring vibration as a single piece of wood.

The dead spot on a Fender neck may well be because the resonant frequency of the neck (which is derived from it's length) is creating a vibration wave which is travelling up the neck to the body join, then returning and the waveform happens to be the same frequency (or a harmonic) of the 4th fret on the 'G' but with the waveform inverted...thus killing the note....Like noise cancelling headphones There are going to be other frets which seem too lively for a similar reason, although those frets are having their waveforms reinforced by the waves bouncing up and down.

[JTUK]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1323606643' post='1464874']
[b]Well... Honestly... I do think they are inferior. That's not to say a good bolt-on is a competent instrument but invariably, bolt-on neck guitars are so constructed because they are cheap to make....Not because they offer advantages tonally. You tend not to find bass guitar luthiers (as opposed to companies diversifying into instruments) building a bolt-neck first and then building through necks... It's almost always the other way round...They build their top quality amazing sounding through-neck and later, if the market profile has grown and impecunious potential customers are lusting after their product, they commission cheaper bolt-necks (usually in foreign climes) which in effect sell on reflected glory[/b]..

Leo Fender built bolt on-neck guitars because a) He wasn't a Luthier, he was a radio engineer, and it was an easily replicatable process for mass production. His (and THE) original electric bass of course had felt blocks damping the strings to make it sound like a double bass...the way the strings reacted with the body was not even a tiny bit important...The tone of the P bass became an industry standard because it was the original instrument and it's a heck of a lot easier to replicate or copy a bolt-neck than it is to do a set neck or through neck.

I see bolt-neck guitars like I see rear wheel drive cars with one piece rear axles and leaf springs. Frequently entertaining but ultimately flawed and requiring quite a lot of 'help' to get them acceptable.


well you DID ask!
[/quote]

I think this is absolute bollocks myself.
You'd get Sadowsky say the same thing ..as it happens..but why stop there.

I have two Sei J5's that sing like a banshee on heat..and I have not come across 2 basses that sustain as well....neck-thru or bolt-on. I've played a few.

I agree that some basses can be as duff as a smothered blanket but that is the way they are put together and material used rather than the idea employed. IMO and IME, of course.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324088767' post='1470822']
Are they sandwiched to prevent resonance.?.. I've always believed they were sandwiched to prevent bending under string load. The laminations go longitudinally and are perpendicular to the fingerboard so they won't stop resonance but they will resist long term stress bending. With a neck-through your 'system' is a closed loop from nut, along the string to the bridge then down through the bridge and back along the one piece wood 'neck' and back to the nut. It's a closed loop tuned system.The wings are then attached to either side with a different density wood strip to allow them to move in sympathy with certain frequencies to further enhance the sustain.

With a Fender type instrument, the neck itself has a 'tone' when rapped but the vibes are killed or at least attenuated as the wood gets to the neck/body join so the string vibration is damped and can't get to the bridge with as much energy. It's closer to an open loop system.

It's similar with a set neck, unless it's an extra-ordinarily good join...Which is why my Guild 302 and the set neck Gibson basses I've played have a huge punch which decays relatively fast...The join isn't mechanically as good at transferring vibration as a single piece of wood.

The dead spot on a Fender neck may well be because the resonant frequency of the neck (which is derived from it's length) is creating a vibration wave which is travelling up the neck to the body join, then returning and the waveform happens to be the same frequency (or a harmonic) of the 4th fret on the 'G' but with the waveform inverted...thus killing the note....Like noise cancelling headphones There are going to be other frets which seem too lively for a similar reason, although those frets are having their waveforms reinforced by the waves bouncing up and down.
[/quote]

No. the longitudinal sandwich isn't going to resist bending any more than a single piece of wood with similar anti-bending properties. Its the tension in the truss rod which resists the bending. The sandwich is to prevent resonances.

Also the bolted construction can be considered to be superior to a set construction in that the bolts draw the neck to the body tight as opposed to being held with glue. In actuality both these will transfer vibrations as there is a large surface area of contact and the joint in both is rigid tight. Gibsons are reknown for their sustain.

This is way off the original subject but a perfect bass won't vibrate at all. All vibrations by the body and neck will reduce the vibration of the string which is why its a fallacy that, unplugged, a 'loud' bass is better than a quiet one. The loud one is vibrating in sympathy with the strings and converting these vibrations to sound rather than holding fast and letting the strings vibrate with no sympathetic resonance. Anything moving in sympathy with the string will reduce sustain, not enhance it.

Build a bass into the side of a granite cliff and you are approaching perfection!

(I would also challenge anyone who says they can hear the difference of different woods used as the wings of a through-neck bass. In fact, those who can hear the difference in woods used anywhere on a bass and, yes, even their construction. My Musicman has sustain which goes on forever. My Jaydee does too. Do I need sustain in a bass? Not really.

Edited December 17, 2011 by 4 Strings

[guildbass]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1324117240' post='1470912']
No. the longitudinal sandwich isn't going to resist bending any more than a single piece of wood with similar anti-bending properties. Its the tension in the truss rod which resists the bending. The sandwich is to prevent resonances.

Also the bolted construction can be considered to be superior to a set construction in that the bolts draw the neck to the body tight as opposed to being held with glue. In actuality both these will transfer vibrations as there is a large surface area of contact and the joint in both is rigid tight. Gibsons are reknown for their sustain.

This is way off the original subject but a perfect bass won't vibrate at all. All vibrations by the body and neck will reduce the vibration of the string which is why its a fallacy that, unplugged, a 'loud' bass is better than a quiet one. The loud one is vibrating in sympathy with the strings and converting these vibrations to sound rather than holding fast and letting the strings vibrate with no sympathetic resonance. Anything moving in sympathy with the string will reduce sustain, not enhance it.

Build a bass into the side of a granite cliff and you are approaching perfection!

(I would also challenge anyone who says they can hear the difference of different woods used as the wings of a through-neck bass. In fact, those who can hear the difference in woods used anywhere on a bass and, yes, even their construction. My Musicman has sustain which goes on forever. My Jaydee does too. Do I need sustain in a bass? Not really.
[/quote]

I think resonance works both ways. While it is of course true that a reflected wave can oppose a note by being 180 degrees out of phase, it can also do the opposite... I get what you are saying though... So in effect, sympathetic vibration in the instrument is a bad thing because ultimately it'll stop the initiating string from moving.

As regards sustain...The thing with the Warwick and the Spector is that they SOUND like the sustained note barely attenuates. When I've played other instruments you can hear it still going for a while if you listen, and I've seen people use compressors to pull the tail end of the note up but the drop-off in volume from the start of the note is quite extreme.. However, with the Warwick in particular it seems to just run and run....Easily long enough for me to have to gently 'kill' the 'drone' of an open string 4 seconds after it's been plucked when in one of our songs I move to another chord/note

As regards woods... I can definitely hear the Warwick's tone compared to the Spector. The Spector NS 2000-4 weighs 12 lbs and is dense maple throughout. The Warwick weighs about 9 lbs and is less dense Maple throughout. The Spector is 'toppier' with less depth to the lows.

With speaker design, engineers can use tuned ports to resonate with the lowest notes to artificially 'pull' the frequency response down below the box's natural limit. It is not beyond the wit of man to do something similar with a bass...Especially as very few electric basses will actually manage the fundamental 42 Hz....Which after all, despite the fact that many PA guys wouldn't know what to do with such a low note would be rather true to the nature of the instrument. I've never heard a bolt-on get much from down there ( looking on a scope) but I have owned a set neck ( my 302) that gave around 50% of it's bottom 'e's level as fundamental and I reckon the Warwick has probably got a fair chunk of 42 hz in there.

The way the 'wings' interact with the body could be to move with the very low notes to deepen the instrument...Considering a four string with standard tuning can only go to 42hz you COULD build the body with it's wings to have a resonance point near there...Just a thought...

Do I need sustain...YES...It's a fundamental part of our sound. I use the sustain on whole chords (plucked away from the fretboard) to give a single sustained note to a four or eight bar section, or on one open string to mimic a keyboard 'drone' while I arpeggio the chord associated with that string. It helps that our vocalist is happiest around 'E'..... Different horses and all that!

[guildbass]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324066059' post='1470598']
My electric basses all sound sh*t without amplification, I couldn't go on stage with much louder version of the unamplified sound, I'd be a f***ing laughing stock. I plug them into my POD X3 and they sound ace. Sound is nothing but personal preference and whether it fits with the other instruments and voices.
[/quote]

The tone of my Warwick is pretty much spot on through a headphone amp into big headphones. When I plug in I generally tweak the amp to get back to the natural tone of the guitar...Often I find the bass on the amp has to be rolled back quite a lot either because the amp is rather exaggerated there or it's interacting with the room.

With the Guild, I used no end of magic boxes including a Line 6, a Berhinger modelling Bass pre-amp and an Alesis combo which was jammed full of effects. Now I use the Alesis set flat with no effects or an old Boxer amp with a 1 by 12". The big rig hasn't come down stairs for ages as the other instrumentalist in the band plays classical guitar...We're not loud.... I am thinking of knocking up a neat little tuned port 4 by 8" cab to sit under my Peavey Max Pre-amp and push it with my 90 watt into 4 ohm per ch Mosfet HiFi amp...

[51m0n]

Funny you should mention a ribbon mic.

Interesting bit of kit that against a more modern mic.

The ribbon is heavy as far as mic membranes go, and very inflexible (its actually corrugated). Back then they couldnt deal with too much SPL either.

The result is a mic that by its very nature severely colours the tone, it loses a lot of top end, more importatnly though te mic cant reproduce very fast transients at all, in effect its a limiter in and of itself.

Now you may think this is a mad or bad or dangerous thing to use on a asource if there is some other device available that can do a better job of reproducinbg the real sound for you. Well sometimes, but not always, Bruce Swedien delivberately used ribbons when recording fast percussion deliberately because of this limiting effect, it meant he could get a much louder mix with louder percussion without having to resort to further processing.

Now that is what I mean by every thing you use has an effect, everything colours the sound, so your Buddy Holy single ribbon mic recordings, apart from the huge amount of eq that is inherent in a recording to tape at any time (boost highs going in cut them coming out to help with the hissss, also the biasing as well) would have been helped with nice Pultech style eqs and almost certainly some form of compression (yes even then).

You dont seem to grasp what goes in to a mix to make it sound natural, at the very very least you will be eq'ed (probably some fairly drastic cutting so you and the kick fit together), almost certainly you will be further compressed. There may well be other tricks too (ducking the bass of the kick to get more clarity and perception of tightness, not to mention a couple of dB of extra level attainable in the entir emix as a result). Then there qwill be the rest of the band too. It isnt done to justify the equiptment its done to make it sound better, and if you dont do it you end up with a vastly inferior mix every time. I'd happily prove it to you.

You ask what the Royal Albert Hall adds to a sound, well in fact it has always suffered from a massive echo, which initially was extremely detrimental, until the work on the vellarium and mushroom design and placement in the late 1990's started to get things under control [url="http://peutz.fr/lacoustique/articles/salles/PaperIOA02.pdf"]reference[/url]. There is nothing helpful about that, but its natural I guess.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324124142' post='1471007']

As regards woods... I can definitely hear the Warwick's tone compared to the Spector. The Spector NS 2000-4 weighs 12 lbs and is dense maple throughout. The Warwick weighs about 9 lbs and is less dense Maple throughout. The Spector is 'toppier' with less depth to the lows.

[/quote]

Spector also uses different pickups and preamp and has different strings. This is going to mask any subtlety in sound the wood may make, if any.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324124142' post='1471007']
I've never heard a bolt-on get much from down there ( looking on a scope) but I have owned a set neck ( my 302) that gave around 50% of it's bottom 'e's level as fundamental and I reckon the Warwick has probably got a fair chunk of 42 hz in there.

>>>>Clearly the pickups are able to put that frequency out well.

The way the 'wings' interact with the body could be to move with the very low notes to deepen the instrument...Considering a four string with standard tuning can only go to 42hz you COULD build the body with it's wings to have a resonance point near there...Just a thought...
[/quote]

So a Steinberg, or a Status can have little or no low frequencies.

Did you ever see the experiment in Talkbass where someone gave tracks of a guitar with a solid alder body and a bolt on neck and the same pups and strings on a plank of wood found on the floor. No-one could tell which was which. I would love to be convinced that the wings make any sonic difference, I honestly would.