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Michael's gear ??

pfschim

pfschim

Just a Skeleton with a Jazz bass
Supporting Member
Apr 26, 2006
9,351
10,944
SF Bay Area
#1
ok, so this seems like a fairly obvious question, but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere so here goes.

First, I am not planning to become a Manring clone, and really don't have a huge desire to be a solo bassist in Mikes style (ha, not that I could if I wanted to ;)). That said, I have been absolutely fascinated with some of the Manring youtube links I have come across lately .. performances of Enormous Room and Adhan recorded in a very small venue come immediately to mind.

I did a little searching and found the following about Mikes gear:
- uses custom Zon basses (others too, but those seem like signatures for him)
- the Zon basses have multiple de-tuners (?) and tuneable bridges on them
- uses a number of alternate tunings, from basic 4ths to quite unusual
- uses very light gauge strings
- sometimes uses basses with more than 4 strings (5,6,7,8,10,15??)
- uses the ebow quite a bit
- favors the Boss FV-1 multi effects processor (is this out of production ?)

All of this in very intriguing, but I can't seem to find much info on his choice of amplification gear. In some vids I see SWR gear, and a major rack. I assume his sound setup must be stereo. Is it typically just one effect unit at a time, or multiples ?

So, can anyone enlighten me on some of these questions ?

Thanks
 
#2
I've seen him use a few different things (the rack is a complete mystery though). I would be very interested to know more about his current gear as well...


On the tunings he uses... there is not a better resource than Michael himself... [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
#3
The Zon bass you see would be a Hyperbass. And he uses a specific Hyperbass that is especially made for him with a bridge that has a bunch of oddtuning stuff, only two ever made. There are also detuners on each tuning peg.
 
#4
When he is on the road, my impression is that Michael uses what is provided for him locally amplification-wise - likely, he has "minimum requirements" of some sort (speakers, power, etc.)... and I would bet he shows up early enough to acquaint himself sound-checkwise with whatever setup is provided.

Since he travels all over the place, and seems to travel with at least 3 basses (Vinny, Junior and the Hyperbass, all Zons of course), I can't imagine him lugging around the setup he probably uses when gigging around his neck 'o the woods in California.

Best thing would be to email him & ask him - I've done so several times and found his replies to be just as friendly, patient, low-key, and generous information-wise as he himself is in person.

;)
 
#6
manthing.com has some stuff, it's manring's official interweb page, including 14 of his basses, and a wiki search will get some stuff also.

manring was inspired to do the open tuning thing when working with now deceased guitarist michael hedges .

i have seen michael perform live twice: one time solo, another w/ some random world beat band. he had the same three basses with him both times, and they were all zon's: the hyperbass (which is available on the zon site), a vb-4 (small headless fretted bass), and a fretless sonus elite. both times, manring was using a korg pandora. he endorses swr amps and cabs.

in his instructional dvd, manring goes into detail about using the ebow... he usually uses two at a time, one on the lowest string and one on the highest (i avoided saying E and G sting).
 
#7
hey, thanks to all for the replies. Interesting stuff to be sure. Not sure I want to head down this type of bass playing path, but still very interesting, highly creative and astonishingly beautiful in places.
 
#8
Thanks for answering for me, folks. Sorry it takes me so long to get to these replies! Most of the info here is right on -- the gear I can take on the road with me is limited by the ever tightening airline baggage restrictions. I do like to take my three main basses (the Hyperbass, Junior and the little fretted) and some small effects unit, so that's about the limit. I love to run stereo when I can, but that's dependent on what's available.

There have been quite a few Hyperbasses made at this point and I'm jealous because lots of them are better than mine!
 
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#9
Upgraded and shinier, sure. But...good luck on ever giving her up. She's got 20 years of heavy labor in her pores. You couldn't hang her up on the wall without getting misty with guilt every time you passed...:)

Or he. Junior isn't much of a girl's name. Well. One of mine has a male dog's name. It's a brick, though. Defretted Washburn 6 string. Just waiting to find the right catapult.

ANYhoo. Clarification on the bridge. Are they truly unique, or publicly purchasable? I've got a situation where I need to get a new bridge for my '86 jazz special, and would like to have at least an E and G tuner (drop D, extend A) for easy use on my favorite tunings...

Rather than $100 on a bridge, $180 for two hipshots, spending around the same or less for a tuning bridge that'd give me options on A and D strings would be nifty.
 
#10
Michael Manring said:
Thanks for answering for me, folks. Sorry it takes me so long to get to these replies! Most of the info here is right on -- the gear I can take on the road with me is limited by the ever tightening airline baggage restrictions. I do like to take my three main basses (the Hyperbass, Junior and the little fretted) and some small effects unit, so that's about the limit. I love to run stereo when I can, but that's dependent on what's available.

There have been quite a few Hyperbasses made at this point and I'm jealous because lots of them are better than mine!
Click to expand...

Michael, thanks so much for the personal reply here. very cool of you. When you mention "and some small effects unit" is it ok for me to ask which one ? I have been looking at several; Boss 20B and 50B, Line 6, etc., and they all seem to have potential, but some guidance/addl info would be great.

I am traditionally a straight ahead bassist playing Jazz and WorldMusic styles .. about 80% originals. I have listened to a few solo bassists from time to time and walked away impressed by the chops, but overall musically unmoved. I happened on to a few youtube vids of you doing a performance in what appeared to be a very small, intimate setting, and I was just unexpectedly blown away.

As I stated at the top of the thread, I'm not sure that I intend to head in a "solo basist" direction, but, stylistically there is some resonance, and it certainly has become a more intriguing idea to me lately. After all, that's one of the coolest things about music .. you are never really there, only getting there.
 
#11
taphappy said:
Upgraded and shinier, sure. ANYhoo. Clarification on the bridge. Are they truly unique, or publicly purchasable? I've got a situation where I need to get a new bridge for my '86 jazz special, and would like to have at least an E and G tuner (drop D, extend A) for easy use on my favorite tunings...

Rather than $100 on a bridge, $180 for two hipshots, spending around the same or less for a tuning bridge that'd give me options on A and D strings would be nifty.
Click to expand...

I believe the bridges are unique - each is machine shopped for Zon. I may be wrong on this. BUT - I do know that the bridge itself is well over $1,000, more like $1,5000 because it is so unique. It's a hefty hunk of metal, though.

There is some fairly significant routing that needs to be done. I eyeballed my Hyperbass bridge and my Jazz Special, and you'd probably have to route 3/4 of the way through the Jazz to install a Hyperbass bridge. You can't just drop it in as a replacement.

I don't know how you'd fit 2 Hipshots on your jazz special ... they require some room between pegs to work ...

I know that there were a few companies that made a bridge with a D tuner on the E string ... Steinberger maybe?
 
#12
Agh! My wallet has sympathetic pains!

Hm. hrr. hrg. Steinberger does have one, not very pretty...but that's just the D, and the bridge lacks sexy. Guess it was on Hohner basses. Ibanez makes a monorail bridge detuner. That'd be some wacky drilling fun, but I could get four strings out of it.

Found the mono-rail Ibanez on their site, 2BB1MR24K - $110...for one, as I can tell, along with the headache of having a luthier install 'em all on a bass with a standard bridge, owtch.

For my Jazz Special, now...bear with, haven't tried or worked it out more than a pipe dream, and it'd be dog ugly, but. What about flipping the detuner over? So the tuning pegs from stage view with E and G detuners are:

up up up down

I'd have to chop a little bit of the headstock, but it's not like I'm worried about resale value, and already have to route out a little access spot on the body since the fretless neck the shop put on it has truss access on the body side (*COUmoronsGH*).

Possible? Or are there concerns I'm not considering.
 
#13
taphappy said:
For my Jazz Special, now...bear with, haven't tried or worked it out more than a pipe dream, and it'd be dog ugly, but. What about flipping the detuner over? So the tuning pegs from stage view with E and G detuners are:

up up up down

I'd have to chop a little bit of the headstock, but it's not like I'm worried about resale value, and already have to route out a little access spot on the body since the fretless neck the shop put on it has truss access on the body side (*COUmoronsGH*).

Possible? Or are there concerns I'm not considering.
Click to expand...

I am having a hard time picturing this, but it might be feasible. You would have to buy a left-handed Hipshot for the G string and keep it "open" in normal tuning and "closed" for the alternate ...
 
#14
Through hours of slaving before my computer with slide rule and blueprints, I believe I have come up with an accurate visual representation of what I'm thinking of. This would be two standard hipshot (righty) detuners, one on E, one on G.

Course, I could always just get a lefty one and keep all my tuning machines pointing up at the heavens (I had no idea lefty hipshots existed, duh...thanks :), but...where's the panache? The joi de vivre? That situational madness that can only be found in french people and sousaphone players?

I think I'm onto something here. La resistance!
 

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#15
taphappy said:
Through hours of slaving before my computer with slide rule and blueprints, I believe I have come up with an accurate visual representation of what I'm thinking of. This would be two standard hipshot (righty) detuners, one on E, one on G.

Course, I could always just get a lefty one and keep all my tuning machines pointing up at the heavens (I had no idea lefty hipshots existed, duh...thanks :), but...where's the panache? The joi de vivre? That situational madness that can only be found in french people and sousaphone players?

I think I'm onto something here. La resistance!
Click to expand...

You'd have to drill a new hole for the tuning peg to fit through. the upside-down hipshot won't fit next to the other tuning pegs ...
 
#18
Triad said:
Sorry if I "rip-off" your topic...
Anyone here knows the brand/type/gauge of Mr. Manring's strings?
Click to expand...

well, my OP was about Michaels gear really, but it got hijacked into something about mangling a Fender with upside down de-tuners ... or something like that ;)

So, hi-jack away .. although your question is much more in line with my original intent
 

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