Yes, I know. Mea culpa, discovered and admitted later in the thread.
Retained as an anti-theft device.
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Rogue Viola (VB100) Bass Club
- Thread starter Flyingfrets
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Retained as an anti-theft device.
Nice bass tone! Your Avatar reference to "catgut" is great but, so would be "kitty litter" for road kill. My wife's cat is hers, not mine
Hey there, check out some of my many past posts for some of my best. Don't rely on "following" for new ones. I'm old, so the best is probably behind me
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That's great! Welcome to the light-weight, inexpensive bass that's super on the low side
.None of the Bass and Amp setups I played ever got exactly to tone I wanted so I set out on a project to get My Tone no matter what anybody else thought. Always was a P-Bass or G&L player, after getting an amp together that was close to what I wanted, I discovered the infamous Fender Bass dead spot around the 5th fret on the G string. I bought a bunch of basses on Ebay, but nothing got me there until I got my first VB100. Not sure where it was made, it's the one in the middle of the photo. Modified the wiring to have a Master Volume and a Pan pot between the pickups. The VB100 with the pickguard is made in Korea. It and the Viola are basically backups, but they are not modified. I have two amps, both modified Traynors. One about 45 Watts (YBA-1), the other 150 Watts (YBA-3). The circuits are basically and AC100 preamp and a Marshall power amp with Presence and Resonance controls. For Speakers I use JBL E-140(s) in combination with EVM-10s or no name 4x10 cabinets. I'm in Tone Heaven !
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Oy. Thought I was done with buying basses, but y’all know how it goes… a project I’m doing includes a number of Beatle covers including I Saw Her Standing There and Something (among others) that famously utilized the hollow Hofner.
I just ordered one of these Rogues. Listened to some vids, along with vids for the Epiphone ViolaBass. This has more of the sound I’m seeking, and it’s less expensive new by far than even used Epis. So it’s a no brainer. Looking forward to getting it!
I just ordered one of these Rogues. Listened to some vids, along with vids for the Epiphone ViolaBass. This has more of the sound I’m seeking, and it’s less expensive new by far than even used Epis. So it’s a no brainer. Looking forward to getting it!
As preliminary preparations, I set up a patch on the Boss GT-1B. It starts with a solid>hollow emulator. I can turn that down once the bass arrives.
Next is overdrive - not for the drive really, but for the tone control. As the Rogue lacks tone knobs, I assigned that knob to the expression pedal.
Next is the Orange compressor. Will need to adjust that when the bass arrives, but for now it works well in testing.
Last is parametric EQ. Again works well now, will need adjusting.
I also have a hint of delay and echo. They are off by default, but you never know when they might come in handy. Been years since I did lots of Beatles bass, so I forget whether those effects were ever used for bass by the band.
It arrived! Trussrod adjustments not needed; bridge location needed slight movement and bridge raised a bit. Relief is perfect. Three strings perfectly intonated at fret 12. One very slightly off, but would never be noticed in a live mix.
First modification, and this is absolutely required: remove the pickguard. It is screwed down onto the wood, which consequently does not breathe/resonate. That mod alone gets me 50% of the way toward the sonic goal*. It sounds good enough as-is with the stock strings that I could forego the flats if I wanted, and I’d be content with the instrument.
But of course I’m going to go for the flats. Having listened to every vid I can find, they will almost certainly be LaBella. As the top is not massive like my old TB-10, I think I don’t need heavy strings to drive it correctly. So the 760FHB2 .095 set is the likely choice.
I did hear a vid where an owner of a violin bass apparently deployed Alnico bar magnets under the pickups. It seemed to open up the sound, to emphasize the wood tone. Has anyone here ever done this? What results did you get?
*I might eventually re-mount the pickguard in a ‘floating’ fashion so it does not touch the top.
EDIT: holy cow! On a hunch based on my upright, I plugged it into my Crate BX100 combo. IT SOUNDS GREAT. Will post about this in the Amp forum later.
First modification, and this is absolutely required: remove the pickguard. It is screwed down onto the wood, which consequently does not breathe/resonate. That mod alone gets me 50% of the way toward the sonic goal*. It sounds good enough as-is with the stock strings that I could forego the flats if I wanted, and I’d be content with the instrument.
But of course I’m going to go for the flats. Having listened to every vid I can find, they will almost certainly be LaBella. As the top is not massive like my old TB-10, I think I don’t need heavy strings to drive it correctly. So the 760FHB2 .095 set is the likely choice.
I did hear a vid where an owner of a violin bass apparently deployed Alnico bar magnets under the pickups. It seemed to open up the sound, to emphasize the wood tone. Has anyone here ever done this? What results did you get?
*I might eventually re-mount the pickguard in a ‘floating’ fashion so it does not touch the top.
EDIT: holy cow! On a hunch based on my upright, I plugged it into my Crate BX100 combo. IT SOUNDS GREAT. Will post about this in the Amp forum later.
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Man, I wish I could edit older posts so I don’t run off a string of ‘em! I get why edit time is limited. Anyway…
I came up with a means to reinstall the pickguard. I have an old grip I cut off a putter over the winter. So… screw thru the pickguard, then thru a tiny chunk of that rubber, then into the wood. Additionally a tiny chunk at the edge of the pickguard furthest from the strings, between it and the wood. The pickguard is now almost entirely free-floating, not directly touching the wood at all and only those tiny points of rubber touching the wood.
As for the GT-1B: the patch I created is obsolete. I’m using the following effects: a) ‘natural’ drive as described earlier for tone control. B) reverb. Not using now because I already have a very subtle reverb for my upright that is in the amp effect chain, but I sorta duplicated that in the GT-1B in case I want to leave that pedal behind. C) compression, just to even things out. Again very subtle.
The solid>hollow emulator is now unneeded and negatively impacts the sound, and the para EQ is totally unneeded. Both are removed.
For any here who remember my fun with the TB-10, you’ll know what I’m going for. I know this won’t “sound like an upright”, but I want to get as much of the wood into the tone as possible. I figure for live playing, that will work just fine. I don’t need to go for that real ‘rubbery’ thing McCartney seemed to like so much, so I’ll mostly use my fingers instead of a pick. The pluck will still be evident, the slightly fuller and woodier sound will work in the live context, and the visual of the bass itself will make up any difference.
I came up with a means to reinstall the pickguard. I have an old grip I cut off a putter over the winter. So… screw thru the pickguard, then thru a tiny chunk of that rubber, then into the wood. Additionally a tiny chunk at the edge of the pickguard furthest from the strings, between it and the wood. The pickguard is now almost entirely free-floating, not directly touching the wood at all and only those tiny points of rubber touching the wood.
As for the GT-1B: the patch I created is obsolete. I’m using the following effects: a) ‘natural’ drive as described earlier for tone control. B) reverb. Not using now because I already have a very subtle reverb for my upright that is in the amp effect chain, but I sorta duplicated that in the GT-1B in case I want to leave that pedal behind. C) compression, just to even things out. Again very subtle.
The solid>hollow emulator is now unneeded and negatively impacts the sound, and the para EQ is totally unneeded. Both are removed.
For any here who remember my fun with the TB-10, you’ll know what I’m going for. I know this won’t “sound like an upright”, but I want to get as much of the wood into the tone as possible. I figure for live playing, that will work just fine. I don’t need to go for that real ‘rubbery’ thing McCartney seemed to like so much, so I’ll mostly use my fingers instead of a pick. The pluck will still be evident, the slightly fuller and woodier sound will work in the live context, and the visual of the bass itself will make up any difference.
The teacup knobs and 760FHB2 LaBella flats are installed. Note the angle of the bridge. The intonation is now correct at fret 12, and all octaves are on target.
Second image shows the gap between pickguard and top. You can see the glimmer of light all the way along the edge by the strings.
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Second image shows the gap between pickguard and top. You can see the glimmer of light all the way along the edge by the strings.
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Missed the edit window again! Oh well. More developments, this time on the effect side.
The Boss GT-1B was not reacting well to this instrument. Adding noise where it shouldn’t. But I wanted a truly useful tone control, and none of what I’d tried previously was providing that.
After much fiddling I’ve found a recipe. FX1 = defretter. Attack at zero, so it’s not trying to ‘de-fret’. Set correctly, that effect adds no noise at all - yet provides a very wide-ranging tone control. So that’s first in the chain.
Second is FX2, which is an Orange compressor. Adds just a bit of sustain while evening out the attack a bit, and adds no noise. Evening out the attack handles the volume differences introduced by the Defretter tone control.
Last is reverb. Again, only to the point that you don’t notice it’s there unless I turn it off.
No preamp, no OD, no other effects. Glad I found a formula that works with the bass and enhances its capabilities.
The Boss GT-1B was not reacting well to this instrument. Adding noise where it shouldn’t. But I wanted a truly useful tone control, and none of what I’d tried previously was providing that.
After much fiddling I’ve found a recipe. FX1 = defretter. Attack at zero, so it’s not trying to ‘de-fret’. Set correctly, that effect adds no noise at all - yet provides a very wide-ranging tone control. So that’s first in the chain.
Second is FX2, which is an Orange compressor. Adds just a bit of sustain while evening out the attack a bit, and adds no noise. Evening out the attack handles the volume differences introduced by the Defretter tone control.
Last is reverb. Again, only to the point that you don’t notice it’s there unless I turn it off.
No preamp, no OD, no other effects. Glad I found a formula that works with the bass and enhances its capabilities.
