Fodera Club Part VIII

[j-raj]

Hi Rich-
naw, good ol' WD is a great lube and protectant (as described in the pic here). with almost zero viscosity so it doesn't gunk up, unlike some other oil-based lubes... it's great for gears, hinges and the like..
i've used it ultra-sparingly on the low-A lever, and it keeps the action nice & even. Prior to that, i was getting a bit of uneven movement which always seemed to knock the tuning a few cents off. With a little lube, problem solved.

((( Disclaimer: i don't work for or do paid advertising for WD-40, nor would i if i were asked to do so. However, i usually do buy a case for stocking stuffers, come holiday season. ))))

Is the nut on your AJ6 brass? I have a Hipshot extender on my low B string to take it to A, but it would always come back to B a few cents off, even when it nailed the A and the initial B it came from. The nut I have on that bass is brass, on a J-bass I have the nut is bone or tusq and it pretty much nails the return note.

If this cures it, I will have to try some WD-40.

Nice !!! Chrome Hardware

oh and the cat also signs the Headstock on request ?

You mean this cat?

 

[nostatic]

oh and the cat also signs the Headstock on request ?


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I was wondering where my cat went at night...

 

[Lennard III.]

You mean this cat?

of course ! hope to meet him (her?) next year

 

[Just Thumpin']

That is Bebe (pronounced bay-bay). He owns and run the shop. We all just take orders from him. He is one tough dude! Talk about a hostile work environment...if he doesn't like something he either bites you or looks right at you, turns and walks to the litter box to express his feelings...

Actually he is a GREAT cat...probably the only cat I know of that is fed a diet of exclusively Boar's Head Honey Roasted Turkey.

J

You mean this cat?

 

[Joelc73]

Is the nut on your AJ6 brass? I have a Hipshot extender on my low B string to take it to A, but it would always come back to B a few cents off, even when it nailed the A and the initial B it came from. The nut I have on that bass is brass, on a J-bass I have the nut is bone or tusq and it pretty much nails the return note.

If this cures it, I will have to try some WD-40.

You mean this cat?

Try using graphite (you could literally rub a pencil in the groove of the nut.) I always did this when I used a D-tuner back in the day. It's an old Billy Sheehan trick -- and it always worked for me.

JC

 

[Angus]

Yep- a dry lubricant like graphite works way better than any liquid-phase one.

 

[bassictraining]

I would like to interrupt your discussion about personal lubricant to talk about wood. Lol wait that doesn't sound right....HA!!!

I am looking for something that sounds similar to the boire rosewood that Warwick used in the older dolphins to be used as a top or a tone block. Would that Brazillian rosewood do the trick?

Thanks for the advice especially since i am not a member here, but I do hope to be very soon.

 

[nostatic]

Forgive the cross post, but what the hay...

ok, first gig report. A very long week at the day job, then 7pm load in, 7:30pm soundcheck (ha!), 8pm downbeat. Soundguy shows up at 5 minutes to 8pm. Right on time! Eventually we get to it. For this gig, which was a somewhat late addition, our regular sax player (who is a monster) couldn't make it so we had a sub who tripled on sax/flute/guitar. I was able to dial in a stage sound that I liked. Unfortunately the sound guy seemed to have some other opinions on what things should sound like. At any rate, these were from an H4n about 5' in front of the stage. And my usual caveat - my slap playing is very much a work in progress as I'm much more comfortable fingerstyle.

As per normal I had a Rob Allen for the more straight ahead, but since the YYS is the new kid on the block I used it for most of the tunes. Like any new instrument, some adjustments were required. Biggest difference actually are the lightweight strings. Easy to over-bend and use too much vibrato. The other challenge is that the bass is just so damn easy to play and fun that it is really easy to fall into the "too many notes" trap. Oh well, as long as the singer is happy, the drummer and I are having fun, and no one goes to jail I'm fine.

Definitely a more aggressive tone than my Fender or the Nordy. That's part of why I got it though. On All Blues I rolled to the bridge pickup and dug in and got exactly what I wanted tone-wise. On God Bless The Child I was on the neck pup and got a good "fat" tone. One thing is that you can push the tone around a fair amount with the onboard eq and a little goes a long way. Use Me is 50/50 pup mix and I'm running DI out of the Streamliner 900 head which has a lot of booty. I actually have the bass down to about 10 o'clock (and am post-eq).

Tonight is a trio hit and is much more open/experimental so I'll get to mess around quite a bit more. Which isn't necessarily a good thing

Next Friday we're back with our regular sax and I actually have a double header with a 3 hour gig with my ensemble, then 30 minutes to get to another venue and do a set with Steely Jam. Never boring...

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obligatory action shots

 

[steubig]

where are you playng tonight? i might be out and about.

 

[Angus]

Repsol Honda shirt? Nice.

 

[nostatic]

Repsol Honda shirt? Nice.

Actually Orange Arrows - a now-defunct F1 team. And the hat matches

Tonight we play at a laid back coffee house in Santa Monica called 212 Pier. Just trio (keys/bass/perc) and we get a little more adventurous with jams and oddities.

 

[Angus]

Oh, haha- they look so similar. I used to work for Toro Rosso as an engineer and am a rabid F1 junkie, so I should've spotted it.

 

[Ivan M]

Played my bass teacher's FODERA today, simply AMAZING.

 

[LM Bass]

Hey NoStatic, to me your sound has a lot of Victor in there- Nice! Nice playing too. Congrats on your new bass.

 

[libanass]

That is Bebe (pronounced bay-bay). He owns and run the shop. We all just take orders from him. He is one tough dude! Talk about a hostile work environment...if he doesn't like something he either bites you or looks right at you, turns and walks to the litter box to express his feelings...

Actually he is a GREAT cat...probably the only cat I know of that is fed a diet of exclusively Boar's Head Honey Roasted Turkey.

J

Man I bet your cat can beat down a bulldog

 

[Tom7]

Forgive the cross post, but what the hay...

ok, first gig report. A very long week at the day job, then 7pm load in, 7:30pm soundcheck (ha!), 8pm downbeat. Soundguy shows up at 5 minutes to 8pm. Right on time! Eventually we get to it. For this gig, which was a somewhat late addition, our regular sax player (who is a monster) couldn't make it so we had a sub who tripled on sax/flute/guitar. I was able to dial in a stage sound that I liked. Unfortunately the sound guy seemed to have some other opinions on what things should sound like. At any rate, these were from an H4n about 5' in front of the stage. And my usual caveat - my slap playing is very much a work in progress as I'm much more comfortable fingerstyle.

As per normal I had a Rob Allen for the more straight ahead, but since the YYS is the new kid on the block I used it for most of the tunes. Like any new instrument, some adjustments were required. Biggest difference actually are the lightweight strings. Easy to over-bend and use too much vibrato. The other challenge is that the bass is just so damn easy to play and fun that it is really easy to fall into the "too many notes" trap. Oh well, as long as the singer is happy, the drummer and I are having fun, and no one goes to jail I'm fine.

Definitely a more aggressive tone than my Fender or the Nordy. That's part of why I got it though. On All Blues I rolled to the bridge pickup and dug in and got exactly what I wanted tone-wise. On God Bless The Child I was on the neck pup and got a good "fat" tone. One thing is that you can push the tone around a fair amount with the onboard eq and a little goes a long way. Use Me is 50/50 pup mix and I'm running DI out of the Streamliner 900 head which has a lot of booty. I actually have the bass down to about 10 o'clock (and am post-eq).

Tonight is a trio hit and is much more open/experimental so I'll get to mess around quite a bit more. Which isn't necessarily a good thing

Next Friday we're back with our regular sax and I actually have a double header with a 3 hour gig with my ensemble, then 30 minutes to get to another venue and do a set with Steely Jam. Never boring...

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obligatory action shots

A very big thank you for this post, especially the clips. They were perfect... picking a clip that favors the bridge pickup, a clip that favors the neck pickup, and a pickup with the blend 50/50 was smart... and giving us a little finger style and a touch of slap also gave us a great flavor of the bass.

Nice playing by the way; I really enjoyed the music.

And I like how that last photo shows your hands as just a blur. Too cool.

 

[Christian Houmann]

here is a pic from my last tour setup......

You have always had great gear Ryan

 

[Joelc73]

Forgive the cross post, but what the hay...

ok, first gig report. A very long week at the day job, then 7pm load in, 7:30pm soundcheck (ha!), 8pm downbeat. Soundguy shows up at 5 minutes to 8pm. Right on time! Eventually we get to it. For this gig, which was a somewhat late addition, our regular sax player (who is a monster) couldn't make it so we had a sub who tripled on sax/flute/guitar. I was able to dial in a stage sound that I liked. Unfortunately the sound guy seemed to have some other opinions on what things should sound like. At any rate, these were from an H4n about 5' in front of the stage. And my usual caveat - my slap playing is very much a work in progress as I'm much more comfortable fingerstyle.

As per normal I had a Rob Allen for the more straight ahead, but since the YYS is the new kid on the block I used it for most of the tunes. Like any new instrument, some adjustments were required. Biggest difference actually are the lightweight strings. Easy to over-bend and use too much vibrato. The other challenge is that the bass is just so damn easy to play and fun that it is really easy to fall into the "too many notes" trap. Oh well, as long as the singer is happy, the drummer and I are having fun, and no one goes to jail I'm fine.

Definitely a more aggressive tone than my Fender or the Nordy. That's part of why I got it though. On All Blues I rolled to the bridge pickup and dug in and got exactly what I wanted tone-wise. On God Bless The Child I was on the neck pup and got a good "fat" tone. One thing is that you can push the tone around a fair amount with the onboard eq and a little goes a long way. Use Me is 50/50 pup mix and I'm running DI out of the Streamliner 900 head which has a lot of booty. I actually have the bass down to about 10 o'clock (and am post-eq).

Tonight is a trio hit and is much more open/experimental so I'll get to mess around quite a bit more. Which isn't necessarily a good thing

Next Friday we're back with our regular sax and I actually have a double header with a 3 hour gig with my ensemble, then 30 minutes to get to another venue and do a set with Steely Jam. Never boring...

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

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obligatory action shots

Great posts and beautiful playing. Enjoy that bass -- it seems to work for you!

 

[nostatic]

Great posts and beautiful playing. Enjoy that bass -- it seems to work for you!

Thanks - helps to have an inspiring instrument in your hands. That is one reason I've stuck with my Rob Allens during the past year or two of churn. They just make me want to play. So far the Fodera is having the same effect.

Gig #2 last night. Our regular Saturday night residence is a very different thing. We play at a laid back coffee house in Santa Monica which is open 24 hours and is a bastion of screen writers (you can't swing a dead fish without hitting one in most any coffee place in LA), hippies and hipsters, both young and aging. We do a trio thing where we stretch out and generally mix in a bunch of 60's/70's pop/rock/tv theme songs that we've never done along with whatever else floats through our heads. This is actually one of the gigs I really was excited to try the YYS as ideally I should be expanding way outside of a traditional bass role, playing chords (sometimes the distorted power version), taking the head/melody, making random noises, etc.

I took the YYS along with a RA and off we went. New on the list were Aquarius, Spinning Wheel, Paint It Black, along with some more traditional jazz stuff and bits and pieces of Kinks, The Police, Cream, etc.

At any rate, I never pulled the RA out of the gig bag, and we didn't take a break, playing a nonstop 2+ hour set (we are supposed to shut down at 10pm as there is an apartment building upstairs). I just couldn't put the YYS down. It takes pedals really well, and playing up the neck is a joy. Plus it can do the straightahead stuff. Just roll onto the neck pup, back off the tone and have fat thoughts

For those who are gluttons, a few tracks, with the caveat that there are some rough spots as this is all spontaneous stuff and some of it I'm reading off some scrawled chart. Nothing is rehearsed, just depending on each other to listen and adjust. Very fun, and thankfully we have an audience that is cool with it.

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[anonymous111813]

Laughing. I'm really happy for you; I know how long you have wanted a Yin Yang.

Good luck with this beauty!