Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out

[Burnsy]

Well looks like I'll be in Dallas area for business Monday, Tuesday nights Apr 6th-7th. What kind of mayhem can be found in DFW on weeknights? Would I be lucky enough to catch any good tours swinging through? I'm looking at you @askrere . I will likely have a rental car so I can get around. Probably staying in Richardson area.

 

[Lazarus.Bird]

My El Oso is on my board but right now it is only being used as a stacked dirt pedal when I play my jazz bass. Still dig it.

 

[ampegfuzz]

Some Guys in here try a bk3 bk7

 

[D.M.N.]

After kinda getting into in a thread about Hendrix's bass players, which as per usual features plenty of people sh*tting all over Noel Redding's playing, I've spent the day listening to a lot of my Hendrix stuff (class got canceled today and I have something like 40 hours of Hendrix material). It's been a while, and I've been listening to maybe more riff based music recently, but holy great goddamn, I'd sort of forgotten how important those first two albums were to when I was learning bass. I think at one point or another I knew how to play everysong on those all the way through. I know Hendrix dictated a lot of the lines, but Redding was the guy that played them, and I think he did a damn fine job of it. He's also probably the first time I saw amps in a picture of a band, listened to a live recording and went "Holy Cow, what are those!?" and thus subsequently began my Sunn hunt.

Anyways, here's a few favs:

 

[bassboysam]

Some Guys in here try a bk3 bk7

I had the B3K, sold it and then bought another a little while ago.

 

[Speedor]

I have B3K, it's a love-hate relationship depending on day.

Also: getting kinda fed up with the band, drummer is again "too busy" to play, now that he has to ride 60 miles to get to practice it has become even worse.
Played with another friend of ours who plays drums for the last two practices and it kinda works out, but I just don't know. Maybe it's the weather being crazy as I've been feeling crappy for the last week or so, I've been entertaining a thought to start a completely new band.

 

[Muddslide]

I have B3K, it's a love-hate relationship depending on day.

Also: getting kinda fed up with the band, drummer is again "too busy" to play, now that he has to ride 60 miles to get to practice it has become even worse.
Played with another friend of ours who plays drums for the last two practices and it kinda works out, but I just don't know. Maybe it's the weather being crazy as I've been feeling crappy for the last week or so, I've been entertaining a thought to start a completely new band.

Drummers have been a pain in my ass for over 30 years.

They either overplay the hell outta everything, or they aren't near as good as they think they are, or they play but their gear is in pawn, or they are a great drummer but already playing in three bands and can't commit or they are just mentally unstable.

I think, in all my years of playing, and all the bands I've been in, I worked well with and got along with TWO really good drummers that didn't come with a host of "issues." And even one of them was somewhat flaky.

 

[Kaa]

Man, my drummer problem is completely different. An old college buddy of mine is a GREAT drummer, can sing and play at the same time, is a really good singer, is very cool, is very stable, job, house, wife, no kids. Pretty everything you could want in a drummer....and lives 2 hours away.

 

[mbelue]

asphalt sheets

Why?
Your bracing will stop vibration and your PolyFil will provide any needed damping.

Don't take this wrong but if your taking any advice from people who have made guitar cabs: Ignore all of it.
Its worthless pseudo-science based on what some rockstar in the dark ages did.
Electric guitar and it's amplification is the most forgiving part of acoustic theory. Anything you've seen in a guitar cab: forget. They can do everything wrong and produce a sound, and with enough gain it sounds fine anyways.

If this cab is for bass guitar and you hope or will perform as good or better than what you have, stick with the science.

Your trying to make a box that produces sound where the human ear is very insensitive, where amplifiers work the hardest and where speakers need certain things to work well. Every compromise made for "pretty" is a risk at performance loss.
Do you want a cabinet better than what you've got?
Or do you just want something you've made?
When you're modeling you're old cabinet, what you probably aren't taking into account is things like: losses due to panel vibration, small leaks here and there and thermal losses that hit you at volume.
All of those things being the cabinet farther away from your ideal model, bit by bit.

Building a solid box, without leaks, damped properly will get you much closer to what you've modeled. Then that 3-4db 5hz lower is actually a lot more like 5-6db across 10hz or more, because you don't have minor losses here and there.

Oh yeah, precision ports are a good choice.

 

[Kaa]

Why?
Your bracing will stop vibration and your PolyFil will provide any needed damping.

Don't take this wrong but if your taking any advice from people who have made guitar cabs: Ignore all of it.
Its worthless pseudo-science based on what some rockstar in the dark ages did.
Electric guitar and it's amplification is the most forgiving part of acoustic theory. Anything you've seen in a guitar cab: forget. They can do everything wrong and produce a sound, and with enough gain it sounds fine anyways.

If this cab is for bass guitar and you hope or will perform as good or better than what you have, stick with the science.

Your trying to make a box that produces sound where the human ear is very insensitive, where amplifiers work the hardest and where speakers need certain things to work well. Every compromise made for "pretty" is a risk at performance loss.
Do you want a cabinet better than what you've got?
Or do you just want something you've made?
When you're modeling you're old cabinet, what you probably aren't taking into account is things like: losses due to panel vibration, small leaks here and there and thermal losses that hit you at volume.
All of those things being the cabinet farther away from your ideal model, bit by bit.

Building a solid box, without leaks, damped properly will get you much closer to what you've modeled. Then that 3-4db 5hz lower is actually a lot more like 5-6db across 10hz or more, because you don't have minor losses here and there.

Oh yeah, precision ports are a good choice.

Bah!! Science?? Witchcraft, I say!!!!

 

[mc_muench]

La Bella Flats and Straytrem bridge are finally here for my Bass VI, and I forgot it at the space...

But Im excited to see how this changes it.

 

[Pelham Bleu]

La Bella Flats and Straytrem bridge are finally here for my Bass VI, and I forgot it at the space...

But Im excited to see how this changes it.

Should be a better clean tone player with the new bridge. Mine was useless clean with that rattly stock bridge.

 

[Satyrnine]

Why?
Your bracing will stop vibration and your PolyFil will provide any needed damping.

Don't take this wrong but if your taking any advice from people who have made guitar cabs: Ignore all of it.
Its worthless pseudo-science based on what some rockstar in the dark ages did.
Electric guitar and it's amplification is the most forgiving part of acoustic theory. Anything you've seen in a guitar cab: forget. They can do everything wrong and produce a sound, and with enough gain it sounds fine anyways.

If this cab is for bass guitar and you hope or will perform as good or better than what you have, stick with the science.

Your trying to make a box that produces sound where the human ear is very insensitive, where amplifiers work the hardest and where speakers need certain things to work well. Every compromise made for "pretty" is a risk at performance loss.
Do you want a cabinet better than what you've got?
Or do you just want something you've made?
When you're modeling you're old cabinet, what you probably aren't taking into account is things like: losses due to panel vibration, small leaks here and there and thermal losses that hit you at volume.
All of those things being the cabinet farther away from your ideal model, bit by bit.

Building a solid box, without leaks, damped properly will get you much closer to what you've modeled. Then that 3-4db 5hz lower is actually a lot more like 5-6db across 10hz or more, because you don't have minor losses here and there.

Oh yeah, precision ports are a good choice.

Not taken wrong at all man! Much appreciated! I'm all ears, just trying get educated by you guys, who have much more experience in the matter, while throwing a little personal flavor in the mix. I know enough to know I don't know much. Good to know the asphalt sheets are unnecessary. I just figured that would help with panel vibration I guess, by adding damping mass. That came from my car audio days. The usual rule of thumb was "cover everything in dynamat".

I plan on going pretty wild with bracing and sealing.

To answer your questions, I definitely want something better than what I have AND something I've made, or at least helped make, since I'll have some help building the cab. Main reason being, is it would be pretty rad to have a fully custom rig. My bass and amp will be custom, so why not a matching custom cab? I definitely understand that I'm taking some risks in some regards, but fortunately if the cab doesn't turn out, the speakers can easily come out and I can build/buy one more traditionally with Baltic ply. A big part of it is how cheap I can get the walnut for, as well as the enthusiasm my buddy has for using walnut instead of ply. He's basically building it for free, but only because he wants to do it in walnut. His background is in fine woodworking, like fancy furniture and jewelry boxes and things like that.

By they way, MCM Electronics has a killer price on Faital's. Cheapest I've seen. $209 as opposed to the ~$260 or more I see everywhere else.

 

[Jolagh]

Some Guys in here try a bk3 bk7

I owned a b7k for a bit always felt like i would have been just as good off with a b3k. I never felt like the eq was worth the extra money. Ymmv. But again im using a vmt deluxe for the di and i actually prefer it to the regular vmt.

 

[Squanch72]

Bah!! Science?? Witchcraft, I say!!!!

I love the guy looking the wrong way!

 

[Turkeypills]

@Satyrnine If you are going for the natural look with your cab, why not use baltic birch ply and just veneer the **** out of it. You'll get the functionality and strength of ply but the look of walnut.

 

[mc_muench]

Should be a better clean tone player with the new bridge. Mine was useless clean with that rattly stock bridge.

Yup thats what im hoping...and those stock strings are metallicy bright and crazy finger noisy. Hoping these flats smooth that out. And still thinking about adding in a boost circuit...

 

[Turkeypills]

Yup that what im hoping...and those stock strings string are metallicy bright and crazy finger noisy. Hoping these flats smooth that out. And still thinking about adding in a boost circuit...

I have previously considered putting a one knob fuzz into a bass. Could be cool. NOM SAYIN!!?

 

[Niff]

ok... So all of yall that picked up the El Oso... Who's still in love?
was it a "pedal of the week", or a "keeper"?

i kinda wish i didn't sell mine, it was the ultimate dirt stacking pedal with that blend - and copped a Mexicola-with-extra-bite sound by itself. i don't need it for Stone the Crows however, and i'm falling in love with RATs for my other bands.

Etch? Kid paint? Regular design?

regular hand painted, i really like the design that his wife does. pretty excited for it - being able to change distortion settings with my feet is exactly what i needed, and if that feedback loop works musically i might get a tiny momentary one built for my other board.

 

[The_Janitor]

So I think I might becoming an amp OD guy. The 2-pro sounds killer with the OD cranked, but it doesn't like a lot of dirt pedals at that setting. So I either keep the OD down and use my dirt pedals, or use the glorious built-in OD and not use my dirt pedals. I probably just have more tweaking to do, but the thought keeps popping in my head.