Barker Bass Club

[Ed Goode]

Okay, B1six it is!!!! I like it

 

[fretster]

If you want my particulars, I have a Brio fretted four custom and a B1 fretted four custom.

If Fretster wants to get specific about the goodies in his, I'll do a Potlatch with him and we'll see who wins.

Specifics on my goodies? The big thing of course is that Barker B1 #86 now sports a Graphtech Ghost Piezo Pickup system. The original SD Bassline pickups are still there, but now there's a whole nuther level of tone! The Ghost preamp has two voicings, a "high" and a "low". The "high" brings out incredible detail, sometimes too much. The "low" brings out a huge bloom to the sound, still with articulate detail.

I have only played out with it a few times, and I'm still experimenting to find the right combination of sounds. Playing solo, the "low" with a smidge of neck pickup, and the Epifani UL2-210 is just wonderful. (Oddly, the Berg AE410 loses points here compared to the Epi, IMO). Playing with a piano, the "high" position with a good dose of both mag pickups feels right, with the piezo giving so much more definition to the rhythm than before.

Looking forward to playing this in the bigband, and with the small jazz combo.

 

[Tom7]

Okay, B1six it is!!!! I like it

Edit made!

 

[Tom7]

Specifics on my goodies? The big thing of course is that Barker B1 #86 now sports a Graphtech Ghost Piezo Pickup system. The original SD Bassline pickups are still there, but now there's a whole nuther level of tone! The Ghost preamp has two voicings, a "high" and a "low". The "high" brings out incredible detail, sometimes too much. The "low" brings out a huge bloom to the sound, still with articulate detail.

I have only played out with it a few times, and I'm still experimenting to find the right combination of sounds. Playing solo, the "low" with a smidge of neck pickup, and the Epifani UL2-210 is just wonderful. (Oddly, the Berg AE410 loses points here compared to the Epi, IMO). Playing with a piano, the "high" position with a good dose of both mag pickups feels right, with the piezo giving so much more definition to the rhythm than before.

Looking forward to playing this in the bigband, and with the small jazz combo.

You blew my mind there, so I've been doing some research to get more info.

So, are you using a Invalid Link Removed then?

I haven't found much yet to educate me on their bass offerings, but this Invalid Link Removed was really impressive.

 

[fretster]

You blew my mind there, so I've been doing some research to get more info.

So, are you using a Invalid Link Removed then?

I haven't found much yet to educate me on their bass offerings, but this Invalid Link Removed was really impressive.

Yes, the bridge is the Hipshot with built in piezo pickups in each saddle. Looks the same as the original bridge on the B1.

I stopped short of getting the full Midi Synth output. It would be cool to make the B1 sound like a marimba or a flute or a drumset, but I'm really just looking for more bass tone. And I got it!

I have the Stellartone knob ready to install, but I'm holding off just to get more track time with the bass in its current setup. Maybe in March or April I'll plug that in. When I do, I'll rig it so that the tone control affects both the magnetic and piezo pickups. Meanwhile, it's pretty darn fine as is!

 

[Tom7]

Yes, the bridge is the Hipshot with built in piezo pickups in each saddle. Looks the same as the original bridge on the B1.

I stopped short of getting the full Midi Synth output. It would be cool to make the B1 sound like a marimba or a flute or a drumset, but I'm really just looking for more bass tone. And I got it!

I have the Stellartone knob ready to install, but I'm holding off just to get more track time with the bass in its current setup. Maybe in March or April I'll plug that in. When I do, I'll rig it so that the tone control affects both the magnetic and piezo pickups. Meanwhile, it's pretty darn fine as is!

IF I used midi, and that's a big if, I'd only use it for upright bass tones.

In the youtube, they have a modular chip they installed in the guitar version that made the strat really sound like an acoustic guitar.

I would think that a similar chip in a Barker would be the secret sauce that would change the world of vertical electric basses.

Imagine a fretless bass with Jaco and Mingus built into it. YEOW!

 

[fretster]

IF I used midi, and that's a big if, I'd only use it for upright bass tones.

In the youtube, they have a modular chip they installed in the guitar version that made the strat really sound like an acoustic guitar.

I would think that a similar chip in a Barker would be the secret sauce that would change the world of vertical electric basses.

Imagine a fretless bass with Jaco and Mingus built into it. YEOW!

Part of my motivation with the Graphtech was to be able to get a convincing Upright Bass tone. Well, it's not, but man it is a good tone by it's own right.

I've plugged a Fender bass into a synth box that a guitar playing friend of mine has, and there was serious lag time between hitting a note on the bass and hearing the output from the amp. Enough lag to be totally unusable. I suspect that has to do with the particular synth (DigiTech maybe), and the way it determines the note value. Count up 50 wave cycles and determine the frequency from that. 50 wave cycles at 50hz is a full second! I wonder what the Graphtech Midi and Synth would do with bass tones?

 

[Tom7]

I have a friend who had a whole midi system built into his Fbass. He likes it, but he says the tracking is not perfect. Does this midi keep up with everything?

Also, I would think midi would struggle more with a fretless bass than fretted. Any experience with that?

 

[fretster]

I have a friend who had a whole midi system built into his Fbass. He likes it, but he says the tracking is not perfect. Does this midi keep up with everything?

Also, I would think midi would struggle more with a fretless bass than fretted. Any experience with that?

The Graphtech website says they have instantaneous tracking. Hmmmm. Their words: "fast and accurate". My experience is limited to the Fretted Bass and the Digitech Synth, and the tracking was poor. But not to trash Digitech, because this was designed for a guitar, not a bass!

Roland makes a Bass Synth thing, the V-bass, so I gotta believe it's possible to track. They must be dealing with tracking somehow, otherwise those products would not survive. The Roland V-bass looks like it would work with the Barker B1, using the Roland pickup OR the Graphtech Hexpander board.

Note that with the Graphtech solution, you need a Midi processor to plug the instrument into. It's not just the chip in the bass, it's the Midi processor that will make the bass sound like Jaco, or Ron Carter, or <insert signature tone here>.

I would think that Fretless would make it harder for the electronics to figure out what note you are playing just because it's more likely to hear your fingers sliding into that note. A little vibrato could confuse it. But, I think this all really just depends on how fast the electronics can determine the pitch. If it's within a couple wave cycles, being fretless shouldn't matter.

 

[Ed Goode]

I'm not sure how the Graphtech works, but I have used the Roland midi system (GK-3b + GR-20) on a fretless 6 EB and the tracking is fairly good. The GR-20 has a bass upgrade (GI-20) available through their downloads that is specifically designed for bass and makes some sort of tracking adjustments.

It is a little less responsive below the E, so dropping down to D, C, B gets a bit sloppy on quicker passages. Higher registers are quite good, though.

I may install it onto my B1six at some point not too far down the road, especially since the GK-3b is a non-invasive install. Either that or back on my fretless 6 EB .... if so, I'll get some clips done for you guys.

Would love to hear the Graphtech when you get a chance to record some stuff .....

 

[Tom7]

I'm not sure how the Graphtech works, but I have used the Roland midi system (GK-3b + GR-20) on a fretless 6 EB and the tracking is fairly good. The GR-20 has a bass upgrade (GI-20) available through their downloads that is specifically designed for bass and makes some sort of tracking adjustments.

The word that spooks me in that is "fairly."

It is a little less responsive below the E, so dropping down to D, C, B gets a bit sloppy on quicker passages. Higher registers are quite good, though.

Having a 5 string B1, I've been toying with stringing her EADGC since before she arrived. This would be another reason to do it I guess.

I may install it onto my B1six at some point not too far down the road, especially since the GK-3b is a non-invasive install. Either that or back on my fretless 6 EB .... if so, I'll get some clips done for you guys.

You're a saint, Ed.

Would love to hear the Graphtech when you get a chance to record some stuff .....

Me too. In fact, I'm disappointed their website didn't help us in that respect.

 

[Lee Barker]

Me too. In fact, I'm disappointed their website didn't help us in that respect.[/QUOTE]


Well maybe we could help...

 

[Ed Goode]

The word that spooks me in that is "fairly."

Yup, me too!

What I found during my relatively brief period of using the midi was that you had to change your playing style somewhat to accomodate the tracking "catch-up" in the lower registers. Think of it more as quarter-note and eight-note playing only, 16th's were too much delay after the attack for me.

One thing I found interesting was that the midi responded much better in the 5th fret-12th fret range rather than open strings or the first four steps. Don't have any idea why, that's one of the disadvantages of being a technical knucklehead .... I just play 'em, but don't necessarily understand how it all works ....

 

[Tom7]

Hey guys, I would like to move our club thread over to the main forum.

Please click here for the new club thread, and don't forget to subscribe to it!

As you guys know, probably 90 percent of all bass related discussion takes place in that "main" forum, which means that our threads over here pretty much happen in secret to the rest of talkbass.

Moving our club thread to the main basses forum has the following advantages:

[ ] Every time we post, it pushes the Barker Bass Club to the top of the heap, letting it be noticed by others.

[ ] With the Barker Bass Club so easy for people to stumble upon, we got a lot more "lurkers," people viewing but not posting.

[ ] With more lurkers comes more who post.

[ ] The banner ads are great, but we all know it is a bass manufacturer that is putting those ads in front of us. A CLUB thread rising to the top on the other hand is put there by other bassists, and has a whole different level of credibility amongst bassists in terms of advertising and name recognition.

[ ] Many of us spend most of our time on talkbass involved in the threads we are already subscribed to. Consequently, we can miss new threads, such as when fretster posted his extremely interesting thread about adding piezo pickups to his Barker. By putting all Barker related conversation in one thread that we are all subscribed to, we aren't as likely to miss great posts on the topic of Barker basses.

[ ] By putting all our posts about Barkers in one place, we have one place to look for historical information, making it much easier to find Barker facts and trivia.

[ ] By putting all our Barker posts in one thread, we push that thread to the first page much more often and allow it to be noticed by others much more readily than if we post in several different threads.

[ ] If Barker Bass Club is on the front page more, it will encourage people to check it out and ask questions.

Anyway, you guys get the idea I'm sure. This is a good thing.

By the way, when threads close on talkbass, we lose the ability to quote them.

That means this is an ideal time to "migrate" topics to the new Barker Bass club forum.

Cheers,
Tom