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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out
- Thread starter Korladis
- Start date
@Grahams Groove @JBOWLES When do we turn the Stoner/Doom thread into discussion of Phish and Dead shows?
Well, Matt Pike has referred to Sleep as a jam band....
Ahahaha thanks for the laugh!
You're kinda the foremost aluminum neck expert in these parts aren't ya? What pros/cons do you see with em?
I think it was @BurtMacklinFBI that was asking about em and I recalled that you did a few builds using em.
Sure does, helps me a ton. Really helps with song writing for me too.
Might be one of the best posts ever.
Hey does anybody have any experience with Kramer 450B's from '77 ish? Or aluminum necks in general. I had one of these pop up on my local Craigslist for $875 and it got me thinking. Never played an aluminum neck before but my understanding is that the sustain is godlike and the tone is pretty good too.
Currently using a '92 P Bass and was wanting to eventually upgrade to a Rick 4003, but this has me intrigued. Would love to hear thoughts on the differences between the 3.
Currently using a '92 P Bass and was wanting to eventually upgrade to a Rick 4003, but this has me intrigued. Would love to hear thoughts on the differences between the 3.
I own one and was just playing maybe 15 min ago
IMHO the neck is similar to a p bass in width but shallower front to back with flat radius
If it still has the silver pickups you might find yourself wanting to use a boost of some kind because they are low output single coils
Mine weighs ~10 pounds, balances fine on a strap with no neck dive
It’s been a useful tool for me, I see myself keeping it for a long time
Final thing to note, I feel like it has a tone profile similar to a ric, but hard to make it super “dark” because the neck has an interesting high end resonance
Am I?
My timeline:I owned one of those Kramers - it had a single p-bass pickup and I thought it played bad and sounded meh. This was a long time ago when I didn't know as much sh1t as I do now. I remember it had a little too much relief in the neck, at the time I thought the wood strips that they put on the backs of those necks caused the problem. Like the wood warped enough to exert force on the middle aluminum section. I have no fcukin clue if that's even a valid theory or not.
Years later I got a Travis Bean TB 2000 at Gruhn's and that neck probably wouldn't budge even if you drove a tank over it. Those things and the new versions EGC are making are built like mtherfcukers and have really wide freq spectrums, i.e. really massive lows and strong mids and that clangy high end. Long sustain. I still didn't know much more at that point, and ditched it because there was something about it I didn't like that I couldn't but my finger on.....
....until a few years ago when I was in the right place at the right time and got an EGC made TB 500. Sh1tballs killer instrument, but I wasn't liking how it played. I finally figured out that the TB zero radius necks aren't for me.
Not long after that I got one of the EGC bolt on necks that was basically made to the same specs as a MIJ Fender P-bass, same width, etc. plus a conventional neck radius. That neck was the ticket and it resides on the Epi T-bird body...and the Aluminumbird was born!
I've read reports from other EGC owners that have experienced some small fluctuations on their necks with temperature changes, but they only seem to last until the neck self adjusts to the new environment, otherwise nobody is bitchy about warped aluminum necks afaik.
That wuz a long azzzz post
I own one and was just playing maybe 15 min ago
IMHO the neck is similar to a p bass in width but shallower front to back with flat radius
If it still has the silver pickups you might find yourself wanting to use a boost of some kind because they are low output single coils
Mine weighs ~10 pounds, balances fine on a strap with no neck dive
It’s been a useful tool for me, I see myself keeping it for a long time
Final thing to note, I feel like it has a tone profile similar to a ric, but hard to make it super “dark” because the neck has an interesting high end resonance
Awesome man I appreciate the breakdown! Thoughts on tuning that lower than C standard? Got a new project that I've been toying with drop Bb/Bb standard. Maybe it doesn't need to sound super dark if I'm going that low. Do you feel like it can handle thicker strings? I run 130-98-73-55 on my P bass. The whole no truss rod thing has me trippin haha.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] the post I'm looking at. Maybe I'll go check it out, play it a bit. Always hard to translate that to my rig with pedals and all that though haha.
Nothing but a shiney talking piece.
Exactly, aluminum isnt temperature stable, it gets weird as you heat it up. Laminate wood, or carbon fiber is really the most stable option out there.
Materials play very little part, if even discernable, in amplified music, unless you have some sort of piezo pickup at play. Your bass produces "sound" by vibrating a metal string over a coil with a magnet inside. 99.99% of that signal will be dependent on the string, the pickup, the bridge, and maybe the fret touching the string. Any other sympathetic vibrations will be hugely overshadowed by those contributions of those components.
I have no horse in this race, but doesn't dead spots contradict with the statement that sympathetic vibrations have almost no influence on the output?
Oh, poop. The “tone wood” debate comes to the s/d thread. Only fitting it said tone wood should come as metal.
My theory on the prominence of a-loo-minimum necks with your stoner and doom types is that all demographics have trends, more so in the age of social media. Also, aluminum’s atomic number is 13. That said, I think an Al neck may affect the vibration of an instrument more so than say fretboard wood or figured top plys. I’ve played -never owned - a few and they were cool, if neck heavy.
My theory on the prominence of a-loo-minimum necks with your stoner and doom types is that all demographics have trends, more so in the age of social media. Also, aluminum’s atomic number is 13. That said, I think an Al neck may affect the vibration of an instrument more so than say fretboard wood or figured top plys. I’ve played -never owned - a few and they were cool, if neck heavy.
haven't tried it on bass yet but here's a glitchy suboctave fuzz I've whipped up. i'm in love
in keeping with current topics this was played on my jazzmaster tuned to standard
in keeping with current topics this was played on my jazzmaster tuned to standard
Aluminum necks get a big NO from me for two reasons. .
1. Heavy as hell.
2. Tremendous neckdive!
No thanks
1. Heavy as hell.
2. Tremendous neckdive!
No thanks
No way, lernin is back.
No, a dead spot is caused by a bad fret job, not absorption of energy in the neck. It actually supports the science.
cmos chips salvaged from old organs. started as a big muff that used half of a 4069ub hex inverter when i realized the other half could be used to make a schmitt trigger. octave down is a 4013 (originally set it up with a blend between one and two octaves down but the 2 down was too much). since it's a square wave it's super synthy (higher strings above the 12th fret sounded like nintendo music... i wish i knew super Mario theme). muff section is setup with tiny capacitors in the feedback loops (22pf/56pf) and smaller interstage coupling caps (100nf) so tone control is just a simple rat-style lpf. sounds better on bridge pickup than neck which is not what i expected and seemed to like single coils (plenty of lows from the sub section so mids and highs from the muff)
i will draw a proper schematic and post here. my plan is to try to get this into a 1590a because i hate myself
i will draw a proper schematic and post here. my plan is to try to get this into a 1590a because i hate myself
Never knew that. I thought it had more to do with nonsympathetic(ie destructive, out of phase) vibrations of an instrument, more specifically the neck. Mass changes an object's natural frequency. I'm sure a high fret can affect sustain/volume, but I personally wouldn't discount the fact that the whole instrument does vibrate and sympathetic and nonsympathetic vibrations could also impact the sustain or volume of a specific frequency. How much though is beyond me and I doubt much more than negligible.
Ever rested your bass unplugged on a wood table etc., and plucked the string? Some notes will be louder than others and this has to deal with the table.
This is also the only thing to me that makes any tonewood argument remotely plausible. The whole instrument vibrates and undoubtedly affects the sound, but enough to be noticed?
I'm slightly skeptical, personally, pickups and strings are #1, followed by scale length then wood last if you ask me. In a solidbody instrument with playing style the same that is.
Just my opinion. I don't mind the debate that much because it can be informative, but I also don't hold someone's opinion against them. Especially if it doesn't align with mine. I think that's where it gets crazy in other threads...
In other news, more pickups arrived...
