Let's see your BASS!

[dubkitty]

oh, sorry...i forgot this was SHOW ME your bass.

Mustang w B2R.jpg (65.29 KiB) Viewed 1126 times

[coldbrightsunlight]

went to the local Guitar Center, played a bunch of 4 stringers. iiiiiii do NOT like active basses. too many knob options with an onboard preamp/eq. i have never had a P or J bass, but ended up grabbing the one i kinda adored playing -



i dig it a lot. i keep expecting two more strings, but the it's much quicker and easier to follow the teacher in the online bass course i'm going through. WOOT.

it's odd. i don't like red that much, i do NOT like gold. at ALL. but... i really like how this little blooper looks?

Seriously dig that! Glad you're enjoying it, gotta go with your gut with this stuff

[behndy]

right? i mean, it's mostly for practicing. i have so many dead spots in my "education", and (kinda rightly so?) not much out there that covers playing a 6er as a basic ass bitch. but it's been awhile since i picked up a new instrument and just had so much fun with it. been having a blast nubbling with it.

it does have a touch of sharpness on the bottom of the frets in the higher register. having a setup done on my Dinger next week. been like 10 years? pots are crackly, pickups are DUSTY, needs a looking at. after i get that back want to have this setup. that's something a luthier would address? does one grind down/shave down/smooth out sharp fret bits?

thanks! i LIKE it.

[dubkitty]

yes, that's something any decent luthier should be able to do. i have a Eastman OM acoustic that had fret-end sprout and a local guy fixed it right up.

[dubkitty]

i hadn't spent much time at all playing the CVMB since i got it last summer because it sounded horrible through the guitar amps. now that i have a proper bass head i'm in love. i spent some time setting it up and dialing in the amp and i can get the sound i want with roundwounds. i've already rolled off the high end enough that it doesn't ping any more, and if i pushed the EQ and the tone control on the bass enough i think i could make it sound like it had nylon tapewound strings on. right now i'm playing through a 12" JBL D120 clone that i use for guitar...when the D140F i got on eBay for $165 arrives i'll be able to thud to my heart's content. and it's actually comfortable for 5'8"-and-tiny-hands me to play. i feel at home because back in the 80s i spent some time playing a Musicmaster bass a friend loaned me which i figured out how to optimize and play for best results. it was in such terrible shape that i had to intonate it between takes, but i have a cassette of instrumental demos from those days (c.1986) where the bass sounds pretty damn good for being plugged straight into one of those wee Realistic 4-channel mixers in the black steel box and overdubbed onto a cassette by bouncing tracks with 2 civilian stereo cassette decks.

i may be turning into a short-scale guy as i age. not only am i more comfortable on a 30" bass, the most user-friendly guitar i have is a 22.5" Duo Sonic i got off Reverb made from a Classic Vibe body and a Mini Strat neck, and i mostly play my 24.75" guitars. the 25.5" guitars languish...when i had the Strat out recently it felt too big.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I've been thinking very hard about a short scale bass for years but not found a way to justify taking the plunge... I'm very comfy on a full scale but I do really like my jaguar. Though I think I'm pretty tolerant to most things as also like my 25.5" scale guitar - got a 26.5" and that's playable but getting towards being less enjoyable. It's a constant source of amazement to me that such tiny differences are noticeable.

Glad you're enjoying it Nothing like a good sounding bass + amp combo, can just play for hours by accident

[dubkitty]

since i got the B2R i've been late leaving the house and almost let the bathtub overflow because i got lost in playing bass. today i'm going to dig out the albums i used to enjoy playing my ex-wife's teensy Vox bass to in the early 90s and see how well i remember Lifes Rich Pageant.

my favorite thing about 30" basses other than the comfort factor is that the note is a bit less defined, especially on the lowest notes. i love hitting a low E and listening to it bloom. i'm happy that roundwounds work...i may go in the total other direction with the fretless Jazz Bass when i get it fixed and put tapewound strings on for the upright effect. i've been known to fake upright bass by setting the lower bout on a milk crate or ottoman and holding it at about 80 degrees to the floor. when you have to support the neck while playing it makes you cut off the notes sooner and smooths out the attack. one of my big things in music is figuring out how to make stuff sound like other very different stuff.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I have tapewounds on my fretless P/J and they're great strings, love the tone and feel, but wouldn't say it (or any bass really) sounds like an upright - but they're on the closer side of things compared to anything else. But then again, close enough for rock and roll if you can't be bothered buying and taking up a lot of space with an upright Interesting idea about the technique haha, that is definitely something that makes the fakery (of any instrument sound better even if the tone isn't 1:1, accurate-ish mannerisms and phrasing.

[dubkitty]

other examples: when i play saxophone solos on my Casio keyboard i randomly detune things slightly flat or sharp with the pitchwheel to simulate the fact that saxes don't play in tune (that's why classical music by and large shuns the sax), and when i programmed my HR-16 i used two pads each for snare and kick tuned one noodge apart so they didn't sound so flat and lifeless. from playing real drums i knew that it's rare to do a snare roll and have everything at the same relative pitch because you hit harder with your dominant hand. i also used a pad for the ride cymbal bell that i would drop in on top of the actual cymbal note turned down low enough that you didn't hear it distinctly; the tone of a cymbal doesn't change no matter how hard you strike it so i couldn't vary the pitch, but i could augment the attack. when i lived in a 12-foot travel trailer in the 80s i once faked a Dobro part by opening the oven, laying the acoustic guitar flat on the oven door, and sticking a microphone in the back of the oven. i might have also put it in a coffee can. that didn't work as well, but it got partway there. in retrospect it needed compression and EQ, but that wasn't available to me. i got all these ideas from an interview with Depeche Mode in Trouser Press when Construction Time Again was new where they talked about going around London banging on dumpsters and recording the sounds to use for attack and decay on constructed samples used for the drums. years later i remembered that when i got the HR-16. it's a simple process intellectually: what are the defining characteristics of the sound and phrasing of this instrument? which of those are not present in the samples? and how do i simulate them?

[Blackened Soul]

If you get tired of the sprongy E a 110 fixes that on a 30” scale pretty well, but you need tuners like your mustang with the bigger peg diameter unless you can find one made for a sort scale… the small modern tuners will snap the string… luckily Ernie ball just came out with heavy flats for short scale https://www.ernieball.com/guitar-string ... ngs#P02817 I’ve tried the normal tension so far and they are like a less dry sounding chromes

Oh, I have tape wounds on my epi rivoli (has a 60s epo pickup in it) the wall of thud you can get with that is unstoppable

Last edited by Blackened Soul on Thu Jan 25, 2024 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[dubkitty]

i wouldn't mind a slightly heavier E string. i have things set up so it works, but that string does get a little bit flubby on the bottom 4 or 5 frets so i have to be extra careful to play cleanly. i'll have to look up what gauges come standard on the MB which still has the strings on it arrived with and probably will for the forseeable future.

it just struck me that both of my basses are Olympic White. i don't even like the color that much...i got the JB used so it was what it was, and the other CVMB option was Seafoam Green which is kind of yucky. i sure do wish they'd made them in Sonic Blue. or Dakota Red. or that weird purple they used on the Sonic Esquire.

Last edited by dubkitty on Thu Jan 25, 2024 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Blackened Soul]

it just struck me that both of my basses are Olympic White. i don't even like the color that much...i got the JB used so it was what it was, and the other CVMB option was Seafoam Green which is kind of yucky. i sure do wish they'd made them in Sonic Blue.

That sounds like me with sunburst, I almost always end up with burst due to availability and price… I don’t even really love bursts

[dubkitty]

the Jazz Bass i learned on at CCSF was sunburst. god, did that rig ever sound fantastic. the JB and a Bassman with one of those humongous cabs with, i think, six 10's in.

[Blackened Soul]

That’s not super dissimilar to where is started… sunburst pbass (still have) with a musicman HD130 into a huge 2x15 cab made for a rhodes to sit on.. also still have that cab.. and it is still the heaviest cab I’ve even used…

Oh and here is my "new" one.
My MusicMutt SubRAY

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I bought the EBMM SUB5 USA neck+tuners+plate dirt cheap in like 2016... and have had that nordstrand Big Blademan pickup and OLP Tony Levin Sig model bridge for a few years sitting around... on new years eve this body popped up on eBay cheap that turned out to be made in the UK and then sent to the US for the relic finish [I am still not a fan of relics] to look like the EBMM Cliff Williams model
then sent to Switzerland then the project seems to have fell though and they ebayed it.. I put a pick guard on it [and godzilla sticker] to make it look swankier.. thing is tuned DGCFA# and sounds beasty!

[Blackened Soul]

went to the local Guitar Center, played a bunch of 4 stringers. iiiiiii do NOT like active basses. too many knob options with an onboard preamp/eq. i have never had a P or J bass, but ended up grabbing the one i kinda adored playing -



i dig it a lot. i keep expecting two more strings, but the it's much quicker and easier to follow the teacher in the online bass course i'm going through. WOOT.

it's odd. i don't like red that much, i do NOT like gold. at ALL. but... i really like how this little blooper looks?

nice! I agree with everyone else's thoughts also mega Duck Dunn vibes!

NSFW: show