advertisement


Guitar talk: acoustic, bass, classical, twelve string? You name it! Pt III


Nice history of Mosrite from 5 Watt World.

PS There will come a time nothing is left for him to cover aside from Burns, Hayman and Shergold. I look forward to that day!
 
matthewr said:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was born this day in 1915. Here she is shredding with her SG. Shredding begins about 1:30.

Click to expand...

_74644169_bluesgospeltrainsisterrosettatharpe.jpg


For an encore, she then went on to play a medley of "Thunderstruck", "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "747 (Strangers in the Night)".

Whalley Range would never be the same again.

https://flashbak.com/didnt-it-rain-...gospel-train-thundered-into-manchester-56327/
 
Just in case anyone thinks audiophiles are in anyway obsessive here’s a bloke talking about Klon Centaur diodes for 52 minutes. Just the diodes. There are whiteboards:


Part 2 with curve traces is here:


The bizarre thing is it is actually interesting.
 
Been listening to a lot of Tinariwen, and this short video really cracks the guitar approach open in a very simple way:

Play a minor pentatonic scale. Then flat the second. Or sharp the fifth. Or both.
 
A few years ago I swapped one of these, a 1900's Clifford Essex Clipper
ce-2048x1023.jpg


For one of these

263380-0-medium.jpg


Now, the woodwork on the Vintage 1004 SP bass is superb - if you paid a builder to make this you'd be talking a grand or two - and it's very playable, comfortable and stiff neck, low action, but the sound, while competent and reasonably balanced is uninspiring, and not basically the sort of sound I like, although with some knob twiddling you can get something useable. I like deep, clear, dynamic and sweet without any haze, hash or grunge.

It's active, and the pickups and electronics compromise a Jazz style neck pickup with a humbucker Music Man style rear pickup, Wilkinson, and the circuitry is also Wilkinson and powered by a 9v PP3.

I've had a few good basses over the years notably a seventies Fender Jazz, and a five string bubinga Warwick. The bass I liked the most was a fretless Fernandez, you plugged it in and it sounded good, just about wherever you had the knobs set - I really preferred it to the Fender. And it was passive. The Warwick was active, and again you had to hunt for useable - most settings I didn't like. See where I'm going with this?

So I'm going to convert the Vintage to passive, and chuck the Wilkinson guts. I've already ordered a Lindy Fralin noiseless Jazz neck position pickup (single coil mimicking but with a humbucking coil) and a Nordstrand MM type split coil humbucker and probably going 3 x 250k pots on the pickups and a 500k on tone. A volume control on each pickup (the Nordstrand has two, being a humbucker) and a master tone.
Be here in three weeks apparently, from the States.
I'm hoping for great things...will write up more anon.

Btw all those who are slapping their foreheads saying I was mad to swap the stone cold classic Clifford Essex for a modern bass guitar were right...but I got it back in another deal so alls well that ends well.
 
ff1d1l said:
I've had a few good basses over the years notably a seventies Fender Jazz, and a five string bubinga Warwick. The bass I liked the most was a fretless Fernandez, you plugged it in and it sounded good, just about wherever you had the knobs set - I really preferred it to the Fender. And it was passive. The Warwick was active, and again you had to hunt for useable - most settings I didn't like. See where I'm going with this?
Click to expand...

The only active bass I’ve owned was an Aria SB1000, which I had for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It was a lovely bass and I regret selling it in a way, though I only ever used the passive setting. The active tone-shaping was decidedly odd with 6 or so presets, each one kind of worse than the last one, though I guess it was one of the very first active basses and they may not have thought it through. I remember playing a couple of Westone Thunder basses which had an active setting with a conventional boost/cut, and again I preferred that switched out. The only caveat is the active basses I think I’d like (MusicMan Stingray, proper ‘80s Steinberger, Alembic, Ibanez Musician etc) I have little or zero experience with.

To be honest I’ve come to the conclusion I like my basses really, really simple. Just one passive pickup in the right place and a volume and tone pot and I’m happy. I really like my Shergold Marathon and I’d be just as happy with a good bog standard Fender Precision. Everything I want to do with a bass can be done here, both ‘the bright thing’ and ‘the dull thing’. If I was gigging I’d pay real attention to the amp as a lot of the sound is there IME. I haven’t got one any more (I just plug into my guitar amp). FWIW I never owned a bass amp I liked, and I suspect the ones I would like are very expensive, very large and heavy, and have the word ‘Ampeg’ written on them somewhere.
 
Tony L said:
The only active bass I’ve owned was an Aria SB1000, which I had for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It was a lovely bass and I regret selling it in a way, though I only ever used the passive setting. The active tone-shaping was decidedly odd with 6 or so presets, each one kind of worse than the last one, though I guess it was one of the very first active basses and they may not have thought it through. I remember playing a couple of Westone Thunder basses which had an active setting with a conventional boost/cut, and again I preferred that switched out. The only caveat is the active basses I think I’d like (MusicMan Stingray, proper ‘80s Steinberger, Alembic, Ibanez Musician etc) I have little or zero experience with.

To be honest I’ve come to the conclusion I like my basses really, really simple. Just one passive pickup in the right place and a volume and tone pot and I’m happy. I really like my Shergold Marathon and I’d be just as happy with a good bog standard Fender Precision. Everything I want to do with a bass can be done here, both ‘the bright thing’ and ‘the dull thing’. If I was gigging I’d pay real attention to the amp as a lot of the sound is there IME. I haven’t got one any more (I just plug into my guitar amp). FWIW I never owned a bass amp I liked, and I suspect the ones I would like are very expensive, very large and heavy, and have the word ‘Ampeg’ written on them somewhere.
Click to expand...
I have a Fender Rumble 200, and its the favourite of any amp I've owned. Basically a nice sound, with the knobs you need to make it nicer still, like Trace Elliot but the other way round. Probably the nicest setup I've played through was an Ampeg Cab with an Orange Terror Bass head. But the Fender weighs a fraction of that (an important gigging consideration) and sounds nearly as good, within its limits. You should seek out the Rumble and give it a try, they don't go for much S/H.

Single pickup I would have gone with, but filling in a pickup hole on the Vintage would have been very visible and looked crap! But I'll probably use the Jazz pickup most of the time, unless I'm surprised...the humbucker is based on the type used on early Music Mans.
 
ff1d1l said:
A few years ago I swapped one of these, a 1900's Clifford Essex Clipper
ce-2048x1023.jpg


For one of these

263380-0-medium.jpg


Now, the woodwork on the Vintage 1004 SP bass is superb - if you paid a builder to make this you'd be talking a grand or two - and it's very playable, comfortable and stiff neck, low action, but the sound, while competent and reasonably balanced is uninspiring, and not basically the sort of sound I like, although with some knob twiddling you can get something useable. I like deep, clear, dynamic and sweet without any haze, hash or grunge.

It's active, and the pickups and electronics compromise a Jazz style neck pickup with a humbucker Music Man style rear pickup, Wilkinson, and the circuitry is also Wilkinson and powered by a 9v PP3.

I've had a few good basses over the years notably a seventies Fender Jazz, and a five string bubinga Warwick. The bass I liked the most was a fretless Fernandez, you plugged it in and it sounded good, just about wherever you had the knobs set - I really preferred it to the Fender. And it was passive. The Warwick was active, and again you had to hunt for useable - most settings I didn't like. See where I'm going with this?

So I'm going to convert the Vintage to passive, and chuck the Wilkinson guts. I've already ordered a Lindy Fralin noiseless Jazz neck position pickup (single coil mimicking but with a humbucking coil) and a Nordstrand MM type split coil humbucker and probably going 3 x 250k pots on the pickups and a 500k on tone. A volume control on each pickup (the Nordstrand has two, being a humbucker) and a master tone.
Be here in three weeks apparently, from the States.
I'm hoping for great things...will write up more anon.

Btw all those who are slapping their foreheads saying I was mad to swap the stone cold classic Clifford Essex for a modern bass guitar were right...but I got it back in another deal so alls well that ends well.
Click to expand...
I gave a try to the Fralins noiseless jazz pickups and didn’t like it, sounded lifeless to me.
I then swapped it for a set of Dimarzio model J and oh my god, my bass came to life. Real full velvet jazz sound when played softly but punchy when hitting harder.
These pickups are height adjustable for each string independently so it eliminates any dead spots and makes the sound evenly loud no matter the string or location on the neck.
Can’t recommend them enough for a jazz bass.
OTHO, I have some Lindy Fralins overwound 5% on a p bass and really can’t complain.
Here is the model J :

 
Gervais Cote said:
I gave a try to the Fralins noiseless jazz pickups and didn’t like it, sounded lifeless to me.
I then swapped it for a set of Dimarzio model J and oh my god, my bass came to life. Real full velvet jazz sound when played softly but punchy when hitting harder.
These pickups are height adjustable for each string independently so it eliminates any dead spots and makes the sound evenly loud no matter the string or location on the neck.
Can’t recommend them enough for a jazz bass.
OTHO, I have some Lindy Fralins overwound 5% on a p bass and really can’t complain.
Here is the model J :

Click to expand...
Hmmm....I'll bear that in mind!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top