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Thread: Whatcha playing these days?

  1. #1
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Whatcha playing these days?

    Thought I'd start a thread so all the bass players (and I don't mean the frustrated guitarists!) could post pics and or talk about what they're rolling in the deep with.

    Currently I've been rawkin' either my Frankenstein blue P bass or my 73 Ric. I have a hard time choosing between the two, but to make it easier I restrung my P BEAD. At church there are a lot of songs that we play that benefit from having that low B. I've tried in the past to play a 5 string, but without much luck. The necks feel clunky to me and I have a hard time navigating. So I tried this way and it's been working out great for me. Years ago I had read about other bass players doing the BEAD thing, and never thought much of it. I had done the drop D thing, but I reached a point where I needed to go lower than that and figured I wouldn't miss the G. Sure, there's some "work arounds" you have to do to make it work, but that's just something I deal with.

    As for "specs", here's what my P has: Body is from a late 90's Squire P bass that I had completely mauled and mutilated over the years. It's been repainted twice, and now wears a Krylon Baby Blue coat with some light metal flecks in the clear. It was completely rattle canned this go around, and while it looks ok, it in no way will fool someone into thinking it's anything "professional". I'm currently using a Badass II bridge on it, and Schaller straplocks. I cut a custom guard to house an old Gibson Recording bass pickup, and have that wired with the middle tap active, and then that runs through a transformer (from a Shure mic adapter) to step it from low to high impedance and finally through a tone knob with a .047uf cap. The neck is a Warmoth J with block inlays, made of wenge with a rosewood board. Tuners, I think they're Schallers? IDK, they're great though. It basically sounds like a good "growly" P bass that straddles the line between a 60's tone and something newer. Hard to explain, but it's vintage and somewhat "hi-fi" at the same time. I don't care really for active pickups, but this gives me a tighter tone like you'd expect from an active bass but without losing the "vintage" flair and flavor I love so much.

    The Ric? Well, it's basically as it was when it left the factory in 1973, except for the brass nut someone had put on it at some point in its life. Everything else is original. The sound? Well, "piano tone" is the only way to describe it. Think of every awesome Ric tone you've ever heard, and that's what this thing does. It was the last year of them using the "toaster top" neck pickup. If you've only ever played Ric's with the "hi gain" pickups, do yourself a favor and play one with this setup. You really do owe it to yourself to hear and feel the difference. It's a visceral thing, and somewhat subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world to me. It's maple glo, and one day I want to find another one in black. I just LOVE black Ric basses!!! I'll never sell this one as it sounds so damn good, but to be completely honest, I don't care for the color... Dumb, I know, but I just go crazy for black Ric basses.

    The rest of my rig is pretty simple, BBE opto stomp compressor, SansAmp Bassdriver into whatever amp they have on stage. I started using this set up so that I could easily feed a DI signal that sounded close to what my amps sounded like, since none of my tube amps had DI outs. I was tired of being mic'ed with an SM57... I used to rock a couple different tube bass amps, the V4B I had was killer, but I sold all of them and now play thru an Ashdown blah blah blah model. It gets me close to the tube heads, but is way lighter and I never have to retube it. I also used to run into volume issues frequently, I was WAY too loud for inside, and not loud enough at outside shows. Tube bass heads are finicky beasts, way more so than guitar amps. Yes, I miss my Ampeg and Nomad and Sunn amps, but I have a more manageable rig now. Speaker cab is an Ampeg 6X10 or whatever is onstage. With the compressor and bassdriver I can easily mimic the "feel" and grit I used to achieve with my tube amps. Not that I play "dirty", but I always shot for a Dusty Hill type of tone or something like that. Really, any basic or classic rock type tone where there's a little "hair around the edges"... I don't like squeaky clean.

    I'll try to get a couple pix of my gear up here soon.
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

  2. #2
    Forum Member CoyotesGator's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    Mostly play my black P bass.

    Use a few different tube amps (none of them over 100 watts-big ones are gone) and an oversized 4X12 cabinet.

    Almost never use any effects, mostly just a clean boost with the white Bullet.

    What happend?
    Who let the magic smoke out?

  3. #3
    Forum Member FrankJohnson's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    I am using most of the toys but by far -



    the favorites have been my Roadworn Jazz, Home brew jazzenstiein, Yamaha BB2000 and Jaguar. If I had to dial down to one - the Roadworn, but I don't anytime soon so.....











    That said, I just used the Genz Shuttle for an outdoor festival, and had an Avatar Extension cab on it. Truth be told, I could have gotten by without the extension cab, but it was nice. I use the Genz shuttle 1-12 for most of the gigs, over the past 2 years, and sometimes, the Portaflex 500 and an avatar 2-10. I keep them housed at two different locations, so that sometimes decides which I take on a gig. I can get what ever I need from either setup and don't use pedals. well........maybe a tu-2 sometimes.
    Kenny Belmont
    >:^{I)>

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    Forum Member concert410's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    I gig with my 1978 MapleGlo Ric 4001. I only have 1 bass. I am not a frustrated guitarist. I am mainly a guitarist but I am sick of bad bass players so I figured I would learn myself.
    A good, screaming Strat just might be the greatest guitar sound of all..... -Slash

  5. #5
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    Wow, I've been playing my own mapleglo 78 Ric 4001. I can't get over what the vintage reissue pups have done for it. I play my Jazz Bass a lot too, but the Ric has more of an emotional draw for me.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    '77 P Bass off white. Maple fretboard. Hartke Kickback for small gigs. Eden World Traveler head, 2x10' 1x18 cabs for larger gigs. Had to store my Ampeg SVT and 8x10 cab. No where to use it anymore, sad. I've got two custom P Basses I had built, one relic off white with the Blood of Jesus pickguard and a black PJ with tortoise shell pickguard. My favorite right now. The '77 is extremely heavy and the custom built off white is in storage at the moment so it's the custom built black PJ for now. I play through a Hartke Bass Attacker pedal or a Sansamp Bass DI. A custom built edenanalog.com Cold Comp. and on occasion I use my Keeley Boss Bluesdriver for highend overdrive on the KingsX stuff. Thanks for the forum. Nice to post about gear that others appreciate. I have a lot of money in my stuff and like to talk about what others use. Thanks again guys!

  7. #7
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    Very cool! I think it was an article on King's X that turned me onto the BEAD tuning? I know this forum isn't as fast paced as others... But, I appreciate that. I'm burnt out of other people bashing everything! It seems like if you don't play X into Y into Z, then you ain't a "real" player? SMH I don't get that way of thinking.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing buddy! Sounds like you have a good rig, and you're making music. I *think* that's the most important thing?
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

  8. #8
    Forum Member VibroCount's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    I have cut down my collection recently... and still looking to eliminate another bass.

    My main basses are:

    Dakota Red AVRI '62 Jazz Bass. I disliked the look of the mint green pickguard against the deep red of the body, so I quickly had WD Music make a (plastic) anodized black pickguard for it. Added the thumb rest where I prefer it, and put on Dunlop straplocks. TI flatwound strings. This is my number one for rock and roll.

    Solid Mahogany fretless Kala U-Bass. I had one of the very first made with no binding nor serial number, but the pickup was wonky and rather than replace the pup, they replaced the entire ukulele with an early serial numbered and tortoise shell bound one. When I tried the fretted U-Basses, I discovered intonation weirdness which I found unpleasant so I opted for fretless to hit correct intonation everywhere on the neck. I use this with two ukulele groups I work with.

    Alvarez acoustic-electric bass. I was using an early Hohner dreadnaught bass when I play acoustic surf music, but the neck was too thick and the tone way too bright (even with tapewound strings, the treble rolled off, etc.) so I got this Alvarez at a bargain price. When I switched the strings from the original bronze roundwounds to D-Addario flatwounds, I discovered the top of the bass was cracked from where the E string went through the body. They exchanged the bass for a second one, whose preamp was dead. By switching the preamp from the cracked one into the whole one, I got a terrific bass for acoustic gigs when I do not use the U-Bass.

    I have another fretless U-Bass (II series, with laminate sides and back and solid spruce top) that I keep as a spare with the solid mahogany one... changing those rubber strings is impossible during a gig... the string change takes many minutes and then a week of playing to stop stretching.

    I have a reissue (Korean made) 6-string Danelectro Bass (which would now be called a baritone guitar, tuned exactly one octave below a standard guitar) that I use on Lonely Surfer and to get the cool Dano tone (like on La Bamba).

    I still have the Hohner acoustic-electric which I am looking to sell.

    I just sold a Candy Apple Red Fender Cabronita Precision Bass that I switched the pickguard and control cover (on the back) from the bright white to a custom made highly figured birdseye maple pair. It also has a figured maple thumb rest and used to have custom made maple and cocobolo striped knobs (but the buyer preferred the original Tele-looking ones). Amazing bass with a unique tone, but I prefer the skinnier necks of Jazz Basses to the rounder ones of P-Basses.

    I have two bass amps.

    A stack with a 15" and two 10" -- originally an SWR Basic Black where the lack of adequate heat sinks melted the amplifier. So the original EV 15" is still in, the horn tweeter is disconnected and the heavy power transformer has been pulled out. It's now just an 8-ohm super heavy duty speaker cabinet. It was matched with an SWR Goliath II with two 10"s and a horn tweeter, but the 4-ohm load overwhelmed the amp I was using, so the voice coils were switched to 16 ohms to give an 8-ohm load. Because the Basic Black amp is dead, I now use a separate Gallien Kruger 400RB-III amplifier to power the SWR speakers. This is the rock and roll large venue rig.

    For smaller clubs and with the ukulele groups, I use a Genz Benz 3.0-10T amp with an additional GB 10T speaker cabinet. 300 watts into two 10"s and a tweeter in each speaker cabinet. Clean, lightweight, wonderful.
    Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't. -- Pete Seeger

  9. #9
    Forum Member Volumeknob's Avatar
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    Re: Whatcha playing these days?

    SOOOOOOOO Glad you asked...........

    I have had for some time my trusty Epi Thunderbird of Death...... & the Fender Jazz Bass.....however recently I sold off several 6 string critters to fund a WILD rant of purchases starting with
    Dean Edge 4 Neck Through


    I liked it SOOO much ---I took the Tour of the Dean Factory in Tampa Fl. (will post in another thread) and then came across this little Monkey

    Dean ---again neck through-- Demonator 4
    Both with Active EQ and RIPPING FACE MELTING LOWS

    ---Both together cost less than 250 TOTAL WITH HSC buwahahahahahaaaaaaa

    While tooling the ebay one day I threw a low ball bid at this one and WON the damn thing-------so 3 new NECK through bass guitars in 1 month! GADS MAN I GOT DA BASS!
    I give you the lovely Peavey Unity NEck Through AMERICAN MADE 1990 edition

    so sweet so mellow............so boomtastically coolsville daddy-o
    The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
    T. Roosevelt

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