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That is enormously cool. I'd love to meet this guy. Thanks for posting.

We're driving to Montreal in a couple of days, so I'll listen for Les Cowboys Fringant on SiriusXM, including channel 166. I used to listen to that channel frequently when it was called "Franco-Country," and I found it enormously enjoyable even though I understand just a fraction of the French. Then I realized why: it was almost all my ancestry wrapped up in one musical genre, blending my mother's southern/midwestern Scots-Irish background with my paternal grandmother's French-Canadian roots. (She would have understood all the French.)

I would love to play bass in a Franco-country band.

What's even more disappointing is the ISPs historically took the money and built nothing to actually improve infrastructure

I saw this amp in a nice YouTube video and was curious about it. Now my interest is severely diminished based on the loud fan issue. What a shame. Very annoying. Great job to all the tinkerers in the thread who made their amp work for their requirements and provided valuable insight to others. Don't worry, the UL Enforcement Bureau is not likely to make a house call. LOL.

Major Seven said:

relic the player.
A line of makeup designed to make you look like Keith Richards.

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Spirit stores will be opening soon.

BassmanNate said:

Yeah, there's a 3 way switch on the bottom. Always on, sync with status and completely off.

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Thank you I'm going to try one out. There's one listed on my local FB Marketplace for cheap.

I also use an SKB Bass Safe these days.

It’s not perfect, but it works. I don’t fly with a bass guitar that is vintage or sentimental to me.

It’s a good reason to have at least one playable but easily replaceable instrument if you have fly dates.

I have a Hohner Steinberger copy. It’s decent, and I have a Synapse hook on it to improve the ergonomics, but I’d rather have a regular bass in general.

I should probably sell the Hohner.

Let's see: a '74 Bassman 50 in a Mojotone combo cab vs. a flea-powered, ancient, off-brand beginner's combo... ? Seems kinda like a no-brainer to me.

I love a power trio, it's probably the format I have played in the most (and arguably best) in. BBA is a landmark power trio reference point but not my favorite.

I have an odd memory of seeing BBA and Trapeze, maybe not the same show but same venue.

The bridge is from the 72. A 62 would have spiral-thread saddles.

I wanna say that bass looks like it was red.
Sunburst finishes didnt have red under the pickguard, they skimped on red paint since it wouldn't be seen, therefore the control cavity wouldn't have that red there.

Resurrecting this thread

2021 Sire V7 Ash

RicheyLather said:

Sorry to stomp in, just saying I had a 370 and a CV folded 18” that I rocked back in the day. Loved that amp! I was Bass King with a Ricky or P-bass no pedals, straight in a DI to FOH (we never called it front of house back then (‘78 - ‘82-3). We played LOUD and proud baby!

OP, I hope you make a choice that you may have fun, be happy, and just play on! I’d personally go with scenario 1, MHO.

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I remember those Cerwin Vega 18" folded horn cabs. They would rupture spleens!

Sheesh...
My upright bass strings from Thomastik cost about $400 a set. As someone who "touches strings" every day, I have no problem paying Thomastik for their fine strings. I change strings every 2-3 years.
Just FYI.
Allllllrighty, then.

I've told this story before, but it always struck me funny. On one of my many guitar-store crawls around Berklee, must have been around 1979, I walked out of EU Wurlitzer and saw two "bums" sitting on an old truck bench seat that had been left out for trash. The Mass Ave. end of Newbury Street was a lot grungier in those days, so this was not an unusual sight. These days they'd probably be arrested for vagrancy, the Louis Vuitton crowd mustn't be exposed to such awful people. Both were dressed pretty ratty and looked strung out. I walked past them and realized it was Joe Perry and Brad Whitford from Aerosmith, this was actually the first time I'd seen him around. I yelled out "Joe Perry!". He didn't even look at me, just raised three fingers in my direction, like the Pope giving a benediction (or ordering 3 beers). My Low Rent Brush with Greatness.

Another place we used to haunt (mainly to score some weed) was Washington Street, the so-called "Combat Zone", home to most of the local prostitutes, junkies, and street people, but they also had a few evil-looking pawn shops, that sold (pretty clearly stolen) guitars and basses. There were a bunch of faded-glory old movie theaters gone to seed and showing x-rated films. You'd hardly recognize it now, completely cleaned up and gentrified, as is most of downtown Boston.

Linnin said:

Considerably louder (+3-5dB), but not twice as loud (+10dB).

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Jshoemaker2023 said:

This is incorrect. You only gain 3.5db for every 100% increase in wattage. Google it. Not 10db

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Whut?

My clock says it's just about time to make another post in this thread. This time I would like to share a vocalist with a good history of singing rocksteady/reggae (lovers rock), a memorable singing voice, and good instrumentals in tracks. Of course, I'll share some John Holt.

First song is one of my favorites in reggae (more lovers rock) for personal reasons, but it has great synths and a very catchy melody I liked from the first sight. "I wanna wake up with you":
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The second song I would like to share is another classic most certainly backed by Flabba Holt and even studied as a good introduction point to Flabba's general groove style in the Donstrumental video mentioned earlier in this thread. This is a roots classic called "Police in Helicopter".
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The third song has a relatively simple and generously groovy bassline, and is based on a Jamaican classic covered by many artists - "High School Dance". Another lovely melody and good instrumentals. This version is a special favorite of mine among takes on High School Dance.
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Hope you enjoy!

I saw that the germanium pedals are being discontinued, and are on sale for $79 each. Tsar Face and Tsar Boost are still in stock.

Recently got a 1st gen 2003 blond HW1 jazz. A bit worn but in good shape. Played and sounded very nice to start but I always push my instruments as far as they would go. So, I did fret leveling/crowning/polishing. Replaced the bridge with a vintage style Hipshot and put on a set of Nordstrand J-blades w&w. That really transformed the bass. Serious 60's vibe. Dark rosewood, pure clean/deep jazz tone with very low action on almost straight, buzz-free neck. It's also sub 9lbs and honestly much better than the 2008 AmStd / 2010 MIJ jazz I used to own. I'll probably upgrade the tuners as well with a Hipshot HB7 set.

I'm building a test neck out of common grade Home Depot 2×4 right now, just to practice the techniques before I waste the good wood! I already messed up once before so I had to get another 2×4 for the second round. Nice part about that first mess-up, though, is that I got to use a portion of it in a new jig so minimal waste there.

Whether I feel comfortable actually using that test piece on a real instrument...I doubt it. But I'll likely pair it up with one of my many scrap bodies to use as a test platform for hardware & electronics.

mr80htz said:

Just another comment...I just bought a $200CAN order from a pedal parts business in the states and I had to pay a $69CAN import fee to get it into Canada. A $50CAN UPS brokerage fee? This is making it unlikely that I will buy these parts again from a US business.

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Brokerage fees have went through the roof since other people are getting blamed. The shippers found a way to get extra money and take none of the blame from the average person.

Back in June I posted Bass Better-er here, my free plugin that turns a raw bass signal into a full warm multi-layer studio sound, and asked for feedback, which I received a lot of (thanks!); I got two months of exactly the feedback a beta needs. The beta is now finished, and what it grew into shipped this week: Box of Bass v1, still completely free.

Click here to view and/or download Box Of Bass

What's new in Box of Bass now it's left BETA

• Enhanced distortion and fuzz with SATURATE, DRIVE, RELEASE and SUSTAIN dials. Plus the Fuzz and Distortion can now run in sequence (Fuzz -> Distortion or vice versa)
• Six-band master EQ with movable band frequencies (and hover over frequency identification in the analyser)
• Room feed selection - choose which layers feed each room mic.
• A stereo spreader that leaves the mono fold-down mathematically intact (lows stay centred).
• GUITAR MODE pitches the whole chain down an octave. Plug in a guitar, get a bass.
• Artist presets: my three hand-dialled tones from my upcoming Box Of Rules single "Tax Wealth, Not Work" transcribed personally by me
• Pro Tools use: the macOS installer now includes a PACE-signed AAX. This was the most-asked question of the beta and it finally has a good answer. (Signed Windows AAX is coming soon)
• Side-chain input: route any signal to the plugin's sidechain and it can replace the track audio (TRACK/EXT/AUTO), so one instance can live on a bus fed by a DI send.
  • LINK mode: instances on multiple channels share one sound; one is MASTER, the rest follow, with per-instance filters for what follows (mutes/solos, drive, faders, controls).

Still free, for any use, commercial productions included: no account, no dongle. AU, VST3, AAX* and Standalone, with installers for macOS, Windows, and Linux. There is a pro version coming later this year, but there's no obligation to upgrade or sign up.

Thanks again to everyone who tested and gave feedback, and if you have comments here, I'll happily roll up into a v1.2 when I can!

*Windows later this week

In other corporate harrassment news, Buc-ee's is suing a local convenience store here in Ohioland for trademark infringement. The store in is the city of Beavercreek, where the beaver theme is pretty common including the high school mascot and many businesses. It has been in operation since way before Buc-ee's was somebody's pipe dream and is fourteen miles from the behemoth travel stop.

I understand that mega corporations need to defend their trademark, but this is just stomping on a little guy who is in no way competition. It isn't sitting well among the locals.

cataract said:

Thanks! As a recent convert to mostly 70s instruments I have to agree. This one does sound surprisingly sweet. That’s the perfect word to describe it.

I was a little taken aback at how pale the fretboard on this one is but have grown to like it! Guessing it sat in its case when not in use, and it’s been doing the same here.
Might perhaps muster up the courage to keep it on a stand.

Definitely tempted to pick up another P from this era, so I guess I’m a lil nuts too lol.

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The maple neck and fretboard of my '75 also are pale. It's the headstock and natural body that have bronzed. My earlier post was misleading.
I think your bass is very classic-looking and cool! I like it that there are things about old basses that set them apart from each other and from modern instruments. Enjoy that bad boy!

I think he bailed on the Temperas fairly quickly

I believe he was involved in the Perpetual Stark development, and for a while was using Stark G+D with Evah A+E, so I bet these are stark

The green ring that denotes Stark is so small though, no way to ever see it on a video

What signal chain are you using with the tonex?

What playback system? Headphones? Monitors? PA speaker? Through a bass cab?

Does the capture include a mic'd cabinet or just an amp or preamp direct? Is there an IR block added?

What are you comparing against?

ghostdog93 said:

Assuming that it's polyurethane. Having handled these basses, I don't think it is, at least not in the way we're used to seeing it.

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Yup. It's most likely IR cured polyurethane.