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Double Bass Brock Radelet basses
- Thread starter Mike Goodbar
- Start date
@garrett2 I enjoy it so much that I don't have time to post here ;-)
I played some concerts with it already but my recordings (that I promised to post) still suck because of me and not the bass.
The bass still needs a trip to a luthier to address some minor things. But an old friend who came to visit for a few days found a solution for the biggest of those small issues so it's more about optimizing the instrument and I have to up my game before it makes sense to do that. Also, my personal life has been quite busy lately so if I have some time to spend, I enjoy playing instead of trips to the luthier and maybe not having the bass for a few days.
Are you enjoying yours?
I played some concerts with it already but my recordings (that I promised to post) still suck because of me and not the bass.
The bass still needs a trip to a luthier to address some minor things. But an old friend who came to visit for a few days found a solution for the biggest of those small issues so it's more about optimizing the instrument and I have to up my game before it makes sense to do that. Also, my personal life has been quite busy lately so if I have some time to spend, I enjoy playing instead of trips to the luthier and maybe not having the bass for a few days.
Are you enjoying yours?
Yes! Unlike your bass which must be very broken in from years of playing, mine is still very young But the sound is wonderful and the ergodynamics and craftsmanship are all I could ever ask for from a bass.
garrett, keep an eye (ear) on the soundpost, most new instruments will need a longer after 1-2 years. A too short will result in a dull, lifeless sound. There’s a lot of contempory basses out there (like pollmann) with an unfair reputation because people seem ignorant of this. I use an adjustable soundpost, can really recommend it, especially on a new instrument.
can’t stop thinking about converting my bass neck to an adjustable, very reluctant to bridge adjusters. What’s the difference between the Ham, Radelet, Upton solutions? What is the purpose of the upper bolt Upton seems doing without?
I'm not sure. I think Brock's is a refined Ham. I'm not sure about Upton. I do know that they patented their adjustable neck mechanism . And that they made them for their Gary Karr basses which are basically Ham's design. I hope that they modified it and didn't just copyright Jim Ham's ingenious mechanism, or if they did it was with his blessing. The thing works insanely well. So smooth and easy to change string height under tension.
Why the reluctance? I've had adjusters (5 aluminum, 1 Delrin) on the 6 basses I've owned since 1973 with zero problems. I've never had a bass with a solid bridge. I live in a climate with pretty big temp/humidity swings and can't imagine not having them. Those who hear/feel a difference evidently have much more subtle hearing and refined technique than I do.
That said, the adjustable neck systems are interesting, and there are some who say their instruments have benefited from the (supposedly) more solid connection between neck and body.
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The big advantage of the Ham neck is you don’t need to loosen the strings to change the string height. And you don’t need to worry about the two side of the bridge being even. As to sound, I’m not sure whether it makes a difference in terms of wheels or no wheels. But I do think being able to change string height on the fly can let you change your sound subtly with no hassle.
A removable neck's great if you're doing a lot of flying; otherwise, why bother unless it's a standard feature on a bass you're either commissioning or buying?
