mixingwithtom Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Sorry I've been so busy...but looking forward to first gig with it this eve!! I shall report back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rk7 Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Great work! Haven't spent enough time on BC recently, so I've just read this thread in one sitting. Brilliant design and manufacturing skills on show here. thank you please RK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 [quote name='rk7' timestamp='1435649466' post='2810878'] Great work! Haven't spent enough time on BC recently, so I've just read this thread in one sitting. Brilliant design and manufacturing skills on show here. thank you please RK [/quote] Thanks, RK - and your avatar is still the winner We're waiting for Tom's feedback of the first professional gig with it...I think it went well but only had the headlines so far Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Just a post-script...got some great feedback from Tom on this bass. When he's finished a season with it, Tom will do a full review but to keep the thread live, he's happy for me to post a couple of shots he's forwarded to me and some first impressions. I've clearly missed out the bits that ask me never to darken his door again and so on, but the following are the selected bits I particularly like from his emails :- [i]"I have used the Afro bass on a couple of things recently and had to write and tell you. I love it! I used the bass last week for some recording at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London for part of an exhibition. I should be able to send you audio recording of this at some point, it was myself with the percussionist from Gambia who helped organise the body being carved and the Tanzanian musician we play in a trio with. Also, last night I had a rehearsal with the same Tanzanian musician for a show coming up - this Saturday we are playing 12-1pm at Trafalgar Square! It's his full band (2 guitars, me on bass, drums, a vocalist and the main artist who plays guitar/thumb piano + other traditional instruments and vocals..) It sounded FABULOUS at the rehearsal. Really inspiring me and, in a moment of clarity I really felt like my playing and sound for that whole genre (which I feel very at home in anyway) really progressed several leaps. Bass in most African music is so much about the FEEL - the sound, the timing, the interaction against the other parts. I've played all kinds of basses with this group, 4/5/6str and fretted/fretless, normal/shortscale. Often I have combined a fretless with a fretted for different songs on the same gig (fretless is great and to some extent essential for the 'traditional instrument' songs where the tuning is "funky" vs concert pitch, whereas fretted sometimes works better on the more guitar led tracks where in amongst 3 other guitars I don't want the bass to sound too 'wide' and I want to blend more with those other parts). The bass you created was taking all these elements in its stride - beaming smiles from my bandmates, and I should also say every time I have played it in public it gets new comments."[/i] OK...selected highlights or not, that is VERY satisfying feedback Here is Tom at (I think) Oxford with it, just before a gig: ...and at Brixton (also, I think...) in action: When it has a lull period between major gigs, I will even finish the neck for him ! To elaborate, we were originally planning to final-shape the neck as part of the 'final fitting' on the day he picked it up, but Tom opted to play it for a while first in its unfinished (playable but not fettled to his optimum) state. As we both thought, he has confirmed that a couple of mm needs to come off the thickness and I am also suggesting we take some meat off the haunches...I had left it almost D shape at the first fitting on the basis that you can always take material off the neck but can't put back on. However, even with a relatively wide neck, a shape closer to a C will, I think, feel much more comfortable to play. For slimmer necks, I usually go one stage further and head towards 'V' profiles, but with wider necks, they can feel a bit odd. Can't wait to hear the full review...including more about the sonic characteristics of the straight-through pickup in that body configuration. It would be also interesting to try it with alternative strings...it still has on it the acoustic strings off a deko Thomann Harley Benton acoustic! Thanks, Tom. for the feedback so far and can't wait to actually properly finish that neck!!!! Andy Edited October 9, 2015 by Andyjr1515 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allighatt0r Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Fantastic :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubis Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Lovely job, and a right riveting read, what kind of wood is the body made from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 [quote name='rubis' timestamp='1444408431' post='2883090'] Lovely job, and a right riveting read, what kind of wood is the body made from? [/quote] I'm not sure. Tom may know. I think it's the same wood that they make some of the traditional African drums from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyctes Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 I've just found this and read the whole thread. I'm absolutely gobsmacked. In a good way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 10, 2015 Author Share Posted October 10, 2015 Thanks, Alyctes . That must have taken sometime....I'm afraid it turned out to be one of my seemingly endless epics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyctes Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 [quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1444459393' post='2883358'] Thanks, Alyctes . That must have taken sometime....I'm afraid it turned out to be one of my seemingly endless epics! [/quote] Once I started, I had to finish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scojack Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 I get it now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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